Take the Money and Run

 

Two things...I'm testing Word 2007's Blog Post Editor, in hopes that this will relieve my frustration with fricking Blogger. (It didn't...picture uploading sucks beyond belief still.) Second....WE RAISED A HOLY TON OF MONEY FOR LORA!!! WOOOOO HOOOO!! The totals came in at $1,917 and we have a pledge for another $100 to bring us over $2,000. Thanks to Alison for being the best auctioneer ever! Also thanks to those of you who attended, donated yarn, donated money, and brought boatloads of yarn to sell. I can't tell you how much I appreciated this, and Lora really was moved to tears at what we were able to do.

I'm going to try to list everyone off personally, but if I've forgotten someone please don't kill me.  Alison M, Paula M, Patty in Maine, Hilary, Marion C, Caroline C, Sally H-D, Mary Kate R, Sarah A, Linda D, Tracy B, Amy, Brittni H, Laurin, Donna H, Jackie W, Gina H, Lora K, Heather S, Ericka H, Chris H, Mary S, and Mary T.

Purple Haze (or yarn rather)

It's been a weird day today. I fell asleep really early last night, so of course I woke up at 3:30 am. So I used the time to go through the fiber stash for the auction next weekend. I managed to cull out about a garbage bag worth of stuff. Shawn got up about 5:30 or so to leave for Martha's Vinyard. His parents are vacationing there for a couple of days. I couldn't get Monday off, and it was the TKGA show this weekend, so I stayed behind. Which kind of sucks really, because we only get 2 full days and one evening a week together as it is.

The show was low key. I bought very little, which was good. The things I bought with the exception of the Noro (40% off) were somewhat expensive, which was bad. I thought the market wasn't that populated this year. I did it in about two hours. In the crochet part of the show they had this really neat bag made out of soda pull tabs and bottle caps. I had to take a picture because it was just wild.

I bought a necklace with abalone shell and a sterling silver dragon.  I'm not sure what the jewelry booth had to do with knitting, apparently it was just there to make me spend more money.

The skeins of Noro were Silk Garden Lite, which I'm told has been discontinued, which is why they were 40% off, and which really aggravated the crap out of me.  It's a good yarn.  Leave it alone. Stop discontinuing stuff.

I like some of the Yarn Place yarns for lace, and I've picked some up in the past.  Well apparently, I can't pay attention even though I had just gone through the stash for Lora's auction because I bought the exact same color of Graceful that I did two years ago the last time the show was here.  Sigh.  I'm still keeping it though.  Hey, that's my color.

I also bought a lace weight from Miss Babs.  Love her colorways.  I could have easily spent three times what I did just in her booth.  But seriously I was restrained for me.

Then I headed to BJ's to pick a few things up, dropped by Lora's to pick up a Secret Project component, and then came back and have been working steadily on the novel and the blog since. Still hoping to knit some tonight since I don't have to get up so early.

That's finally all the news that's fit to print.

Picnic in the Summertime (Part 2, the Jackson variation)

 On Monday July 5th, I hit the road and went to Maine for the day. There's not much to report, just hanging out at the pond, going to lunch at Captain's Fresh Idea, and did some paddling around on the paddle boat. The traffic on the way home was weirdly good. I'm used to doing a drive on a holiday weekend back that takes 5 hours instead of 3 hours. So it was good. I did get a teensy burn swimming with my nephews, but it was pretty much gone the next day.

On Tuesday, I decided to check out this new to me natural food store, Natural Choice Market on 28 A. I found a couple of products that I hadn't seen anywhere else. I was able to buy a couple of chocolate bars that were made with rice milk, so they weren't so dark that I don't want to eat them (I'm not really a dark chocolate kind of girl), some sour cream (made with tofu), some fake imitation cheddar cheese spread and some imitation American cheese and mozzarella slices. The cheeses were the first that I could find that didn't also have casein protein in it, so I could eat them. The chocolate bars were okay. The best was the one that was like a Nestlé's Crunch. The one that was just plain chocolate was a bit chalky. I've tried the fake American cheese slices as part of a grilled cheese, but it sort of melts into the bread like a sauce would. The cheesiness was okay though. The tofu sour cream actually reminds me more of cream cheese. Not sure why that would be, but it's okay. I still haven't tried the fake cheddar cheese spread or the fake mozzarella slices, but I will report back when I do.

The heat this week still caused me to not want to knit. I'm not that far away from being done with Secret Project II if I would just actually knit. ARGHH!!! In other news, I have been writing quite a bit. I have a journal in my purse at all times and if I go to dinner (say, when it's too hot to cook), I write the novel while I eat. I tend to eat alone a lot during the week as Shawn and I have different schedules. Shawn and I basically only see each other on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. So dinner is a good opportunity to write. I know you're supposed to be in the moment and just concentrate on eating so that you'll be thinner, blah, blah, blah, but I don't think I ever just do one thing at a time.

In any case, the upshot of this is that I now have 119 pages and 34,716 words. Woo hoo!!

Picnic in the Summertime (Part 1, the LaRoche variation)

On the Fourth of July, Shawn and I got up pretty early (well , early for Shawn) to get the materials for a big salad and some other times to bring to his parents' cookout. I had planned to go to Concord Knitting Guild for a bit, but the weather was just so hot even with both ac units cranked that by the time I finished the salad, I was not in the mood to hit both places.

Shawn's Uncle Scott and Aunt Anita and their two kiddos, Erin and Tyler, were up from Pennsylvania to visit, and Shawn's Aunt Debbie and her husband Jay were there. I did some knitting there, but very little as it was so hot. Have I mentioned that I really despise hot weather? That anything humid makes me more grouchy and ill tempered than I already am? If there were a place on the planet that was 70 degrees year round with no humidity, I would move there tomorrow. If you know of a place like that, please let me know. This is really interfering with my reality.

 

The best part about the whole afternoon was that Erin and Tyler had brought a bunch of games with them to play on the Wii, which included Rockband and Beatles Rockband. I managed to get Shawn to sing one song with me, which he says is the only song he will ever sing on this period. Of course, I have been threatening to get the game since, because I think it's funny. And it is hilarious. I think the only ones of the group that I didn't see sing during the afternoon was Jay and Brian, Shawn's dad.

We stayed until about 7:30 or so, and by the time we got home, and I packed up the car to go to Maine, and we showered to get rid of all the dog allergen, that was pretty much it for the night. I don't think I did any knitting that night either. Which is SO not a good trend, given the deadlines in place for the current baby invasion.

Summer Wind

On Saturday of the July 4th Holiday Weekend, Shawn and I decided to go try the Hopkinton Everett Reservoir Trails. We're not sure we were in the right place according to the map, but it is a multi use trail. The trail head where there is parking was filled with dirt bikes and ATVs that seemed to enjoy doing donuts in the parking lot rather than actually going on the trails for some reason. It was like the freaking Sahara.

 

The trails and maps were not clearly marked, so we're not really sure what trail we were on, but it was gravel and it was quite hilly and with the heat we only did almost 4 miles before packing it in.  It was pretty, but I'm we didn't enjoy our fellow humans at this site, so we probably won't go back.

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to beat the heat, doing laundry and making bread for the week.  I did a cinnamon honey wheat for me and a cornmeal molasses bread for Shawn.  It was too hot to even want to knit or do much else.  We really just hung out the rest of the day.

Walk on the Ocean

It's been a little longer than I usually wait to post.  But it was a busy week, and so it goes.  Last Thursday Mary-Kate and I went to the Whites, Sparkling and Rose Wine Tasting at the Concord Cooperative Market. It was free and it was quite the event.  They had 14 tables of wines with 5-7 wines on each table. We only tried a few from each table, but it was really interesting to try some new things. There were things that were awful, and things that reminded me of that Zarex drink stuff when we were kids, anyone else remember that?  The hands down winner of the evening was Valentin Bianchi New Age White, which was a sparkling wine from Argentina and it was really yummy.  I may have to go back and get some because that was just really good. 

On Friday I went out to dinner and worked on the novel a bit, even though the next day was writing group and I had already posted my submission. So I'm ahead of the game for next month...woo hoo!! Yay!!

On Saturday morning Shawn and I went down to Bird Supply of Nashua so that we could get Kiwi some food and new toys.  Because the little brat is so deprived and needs new toys even though she has about 15 she hasn't completely destroyed yet.

Saturday afternoon was the monthly meeting of our writing group, the Misplaced Modifiers and we met at Mary Kate's.  Can I just say "cake"?  Mary Kate shares my dairy woes, and she made this dairy free mousse cake that was just unreal.  It is also gluten free.  It was so, so yummy.  She shared the recipe so here it is:

Mocha Chocolate Mousse Cake

Vegetarian Times, March 2010

9 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 c light coconut milk
1 T instant espresso powder
1 T vanilla extract
5 room temperature eggs
6 T sugar
1/4 c almond flour

Preheat oven to 400F.  Coat 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray. Wrap bottom and sides (outside!) with foil.  Grind chocolate to coarse meal in food processor.  Bring coconut milk to a boil in saucepan. 
Remove from heat and stir in espresso powder.  Pour over chocolate and mix until smooth. Add vanilla, and stir to combine.

Beat eggs and sugar with electric mixer on high until doubled in volume -- about 5 minutes.  Fold eggs, then almond flour, into chocolate mixture.  Pour batter into prepared pan.

Set pan inside roasting pan and fill roasting pan with 1 inch of hot water.  Bake 15-20 minutes, until a dry crust forms on the top but the center is still wobbly. Remove pan from water, and cool on wire rack.  Chill 2 hours or overnight.

It was unreal. Seriously, you'd never know that it was dairy free or gluten free for that matter.  Besides the cake, the meeting I think was very productive, and enjoyable as it always is.  I have some new direction on some revisions, so that's good.   

Sunday, Shawn and I decided to go for a ride at Ordiorne Point State Park. We thought it would be beautiful by the ocean and it was, but the bike path looked a lot bigger on the map, and we're not really comfortable on the road. So we ended up riding on some of the hiking trails which were just a tad overgrown as you'll see. I have a lovely bruise from a tree branch, and Shawn managed to spike one of his tires with a shard of glass.

It was pretty though.  I also got to test drive my new bike basket that I picked up at Goodales on Friday night.  The under the seat pack is nice, but there's only so much crap you can shove back there (i.e., it's tight fit for my camera, the inhaler, my blackberry and my keys.)

  The beach views were really pretty and the air was cool and it would have been nice to bike down the road, but the traffic was very heavy, and I'm just not that lucky.

When we got back from the ride, it was really too late to go to Concord for guild, so I stayed home to do make this week's bread. For me I made a Toasted Oat and Walnut Maple bread, and Shawn requested a Caraway and Onion rye bread, so I made it for him.  The bread maker is working out pretty well, for the milk free thing.  

 

I also finally managed to get organized the Yarn Auction Benefit for my friend Lora who is having some health issues now.  If anyone has yarn they want to donate to the auction to help with Lora's medical bills, please email me.   

Last night I went to knitting with the Manchvegas crowd. This week I've been working on Secret Project II for Chris and Kristie.  I had a little set back with Secret Project II, but I think it's resolved.  Also it was looking like I might run out of yarn, but I was able to pick up more at the Elegant Ewe today--one of the same dye lot and one different dye lot, but it looks close.  Unfortunately, I also managed to spot some more Schoppel-Wolle Lace Ball that I had to have.  So it left the store with me.  Gorgeous isn't it? Sigh...

In further fiber news, the TKGA show coming up, and I'm going to the market on the 10th. (Drumroll please)  Finally...after about 13 years of wanting to go...and being frustrated every year because one of my life events or someone else's has gotten in my way...I am going to Stitches East 2010!!! Woo hoo!!  I'm taking two classes one on Morphing Cables with Fiona Ellis and one on Double Knitting with Candace Eisner Strick. I'm going to get to stay with my friend Heather M, who is one of the nicest people I know, so I'm thrilled about that too!

I've also been working on the novel.  I'm almost out of readjusting the timeline hell. I have 110 pages and 31,903 words, not counting what I wrote in my notebook at dinner tonight. You know, I blew off the novel a bit as a result of baby knitting-palooza and the whole dairy exhaustion thing, but I really want to have this finished by November 2010.  I think a year is reasonable for a novel.  So I have to bang out 69,000 more words or so by then...it could happen.

This is kind of a long post, but that's most of the news, stay tuned for updates as they occur.