Wow, Blogger really knows me today!

So, usually when I click the "next blog" icon in the toolbar, I end up getting websites that aren't in English, or are basically big advertisements for products in which I have no interest, and the like. I have just spent about an hour clicking on the "next blog" icon, and with one exception, every single blog was related to crafting in some way: knitting, crocheting, felting, scrapbooking, quilting, card-making, even one on soapmaking! Found the blogs of several Ravelry folks. I have been online at least 30 minutes longer than I had planned just because I couldn't believe how many crafty blogs were popping up. Mind you, the one exception was really not up my alley at all--it was a "mommy blog" where all the posts were about her kids and filled with photos of her kids. So not me. . .

Black Friday

So, y'all have any big shopping plans for Black Friday? I'm not one for the crowds, so other than a trip to the yarn shop & picking up a couple things at the grocery store, I'm staying home today. Well, I might go to the bookstore, too. I just don't get the whole rushrushrushcrowdcrowdcrowdgimmegimmegimme mentality that seems to go with the Friday after Thanksgiving.

And here's something I can't believe I forgot to mention. Last week Ralph entered his first archery tournament. It was all bare bow (no sights or stabilizers allowed) and had several different categories. He entered for longbow, and took first place for most hits in that category (107 hits out of 108 shots). As far as he could tell, the second-highest number of hits was 99 so you can see he did really well for his first tournament ever. He even knows what he did wrong that made him miss that one shot. His friend PmcA took first for most bulls-eyes (9) using a Mongolian horseman's bow.

My sweater is very close to being finished. I only have one sleeve left to do, having completed the first one last night. I tried it on & it fits better than I expected it to. I should have knit it a little bit longer--maybe another inch or two--although of course if it really bothers me I can take out the bind-off, undo the ribbing, and add a couple inches before reknitting the ribbing. I certainly have enough yarn for that, having grossly overestimated the amount I'd need. I had calculated that I would need 11 skeins of the yarn I had picked, bought 13 just to be on the safe side, and at this point have 6-1/2 skeins with which to knit one sleeve. Perhaps when I go to the yarn shop today I'll see if the clerks have any suggestions as to what to make with the leftovers; it was a sale purchase and cannot be returned so I definitely need to make something with it. Too bad it's hand-wash only; I'd make a doggie blanket out of it if it was machine washable, but I'm not going to hand-wash a blanket that's for sure!

As Christmas approaches, I'm taking a moment to point out the link to your left for Heifer International. Instead of just feeding the hungry, this organization provides livestock (such as cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, bees, and even llamas & water buffalo) & training to families in need all over the world so they can break the cycle of poverty and become self-sufficient. They also organize collectives so when the initial donation has grown to where there is surplus produce, the people have a place to sell it. Then there is the "passing of the gift," where the initial recipient gives the first female offspring to another needy family. There are animal gifts to fit every donor's budget, from $20 for a flock of chicks up to $10,000 for an animal ark. I generally donate chicks or bees as they both fit my budget and provide multiple benefits: chicks can be turned loose in the family garden where they eat insects & sprouting weeds, plus their droppings are free fertilizer. As adults, a hen can produce as many as 200 eggs in a year, providing protein for the family & with a flock of hens, surplus to be sold. As for bees, in addition to providing the obvious honey & beeswax, they pollinate local gardens and orchards which can as much as double the crop yield. Anyway, end of public service announcement :-)

Thanksgiving morning

I have finally remembered to take pictures of the spider I knit back in August. I think it came out pretty well, eh?

Have the Thanksgiving feast all planned out. Assembled a pumpkin pie last night, so dessert is already taken care of. I've got a 14 pound turkey, which is a little larger than I wanted but what was available in the store. Have the oysters for the stuffing although I need to get celery, as well as sour cream for the corn casserole. Instant mashed potatoes (yes, I know!) and some gravy packets in case there aren't enough drippings to make gravy. Mmm, mmm!! Way too much food for just the two of us; I'll have to freeze some of the leftovers to avoid wasting it I think.

Been getting a lot of knitting done. Think I'll do some spinning this weekend, though. I've got some purple merino/silk that I started on the travel wheel a month or so ago and really ought to finish it up. I've also got some yellow merino & orange corriedale that I want to blend together, as I don't care much for them separate. However, the yellow will brighten up the orange and I think the blend will be an improvement.

As usual, not much else going on. Hopefully something exciting will happen for me to blog about :-)

Dull weekend ahead

Nothing exciting planned for this weekend. Need to take Sadie to the vet as she is chewing her skin raw. Need to buy cat litter. Hope to get some knitting done. Need to buy food for Thanksgiving. Ralph doesn't know for sure yet if he is working that day or not, but I can serve dinner at 6:30 as easily as our more traditional 3:00 pm holiday meal.

Traffic SUCKED last night, and not in that good way you can charge extra for. Took me almost 2 hours to get home. I was tired, cranky, and headache-y by the time I arrived. Ralph, sweetheart that he is, had dinner just about ready, hooray! It was much appreciated, even if it was only re-heated leftovers.

And that's it for today's exciting blog entry.

Forgot to mention. . .

When one clicks on the "People" tab in Ravelry, part of the page has a "Random Assortment of Favorites." Yesterday, one of the random projects was mine! I was so excited, I didn't want to close the page. Silly, I know. This is the project that came up: the Bigfoot Shawl.

How I Spent My November Vacation

Well, here it is, the last day of my vacation. As always, the time just zoooooomed past. Thank goodness I've got a 4-day weekend coming up with the Thanksgiving holiday in just a couple weeks, because this just didn't seem like enough time off.

Monday I just mainly kicked around the house: did some knitting, read a bit, played with the dogs, brainsucked. Cooked a pot roast for dinner; it tasted good but was amazingly tough. The potatoes, onions, and carrots were excellent though.

Tuesday I went to the yarn store to get size 3 needles as noted in my last post. Amazingly, I ONLY bought the needles, despite much temptation from gorgeous yarns. One skein in particular was difficult to resist. It was a soft, thickish merino sock yarn in variegated shades of lavender. I actually had it in my hand & ready to buy it, and still managed to make myself put it back on the shelf.



I also went to the bookstore that day. Bought a total of four books: "Ghost a la Mode" by Sue Jafarian; "The Body in the Library" by Agatha Christie; "Six Geese a-Slaying" by Donna Andrews; and the latest Sherman's Lagoon collection by Jim Toomey. I'm already done with all but the Agatha Christie so it looks like another book trek is required. I am failing to see why the esteemed Ms. Christie is so popular; I'm finding her writing style to be almost cartoonish. Unrealistic dialogue, no depth to the characters (not yet, anyway; I'm only a couple chapters in but still. . ) and she's already used that annoying TV trait of the one-sided phone conversation where the speaker repeats what the other person says so you know what's going on. "What's that you say? You found a body? I see. A young woman you've never seen before, you say? Yes, sir." Really annoying.



Ralph's time off began on Wednesday, and we went to see the new "Christmas Carol" starring Jim Carrey. I was pleasantly surprised to see some other familiar names in the opening credits, including Gary Oldman, Carey Elwes and Bob Hoskins. I enjoyed the entire movie with the exception of one section, whereas Ralph was bored out of his skull and went to go read in the truck about 2/3 of the way through. The only part I didn't care for was the segment involving Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be. While I loved how the Spirit itself was portrayed, the storyline at that point took a strange deviation from any other version I've seen & I just didn't care for it, or see the reason for it. After the movie we ate lunch at George's Greek Cafe; not the one in Long Beach, but his new location in Lakewood, which is in the same parking lot as the movie theater we had gone to. Delicious as always :-)



Thursday we didn't do much of anything other than brainsuck & wash the dogs.

The photos on today's posting are from our Friday outing to the Los Angeles Arboretum. That was a lovely visit. Oddly, we didn't see that many peacocks (usually there are dozens) and not a single peahen. Then again, we don't normally go this late in the year. I was highly amused by the name "woollybutt" for a tree. The photo of Ralph is of him standing next to it so you can see how tall it is. Fewer things in bloom this time of year than the last time we visited, which I suppose is only to be expected. Still, we had a nice, relaxed mosey around the park. My favorite section was the Shakespearean herb garden, where they had planted different herbs & had little signs with quotes from Shakespeare that referenced the particular herb the sign was near. I think Ralph liked the roses the best.



Yesterday we had planned to go to archery, only to discover when we got there that class had been canceled due to the Senior Olympics holding their archery competition. There were a few open butts (stop giggling, it's what you call the big hay bales that hold the targets) but Ralph didn't really want to shoot since none of his friends were there. Instead we headed to the Nature Center across the street, where an Acorn Festival was being held. The Festival itself was kinda sad; just a few tables set up with acorn-related information. However, there was a tour of some of the oak trees in the Center and that was really fun & informative. For example, I didn't know that oak trees produce different kinds of leaves, depending on where they grow in the tree: thick leaves at the top, thinner, flatter leaves lower down, serrated edges on some leaves & smooth on the others. Some of the trees were so scrubby they looked like bushes, and one was amazingly tall and spread out.

Saturday night we attended a party at our neighbor's house. Good food, had some good conversations (including one with a fellow knitter, always a pleasure!) but didn't stay as long as I would have liked because it was just too noisy for me. Neighbor A had set up his X-Box to play music, and it was cranked so high that conversation in the living room was virtually impossible. There weren't any chairs in any other part of the house, and outdoors was a little chilly. Also, since most of the people were outside away from the music, there were so many conversations going on that it was hard to concentrate on a single one.

Today will eventually be a day of housework, as we both need clean work clothes for the coming week plus the carpet needs vacuuming AGAIN even though we just did it.

Pumpkin pancakes FAIL

Made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, or attempted to do so anyway. I put too much pumpkin in the batter, so they didn't cook through properly and were very very soggy. Tasted OK though.

Started on a pair of gloves yesterday, and ended up frogging them as the size 4 needles I was using were a tad too big for the yarn. Went to get a set of size 3 needles. I own about elebenty-billion size 3 needles. I can find one. Not one set--just one needle. Might have to go to the yarn store today & get a set or two. I better leave most of my cash & my credit cards at home so I don't buy yarn, too. OK maybe one skein if they have something really awesome.

Today's photo: octopus bellies :-) I really am addicted to that pattern.

My cadaver :-)

$4140.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

Since I'm trying to eat a more healthy diet, I bet I could up the value on this old corpse in a few months. I'll have to take the quiz again in six months, if I remember.

Made another octopus over the weekend (this makes 5) and have four tentacles done on another one. Man I love this pattern! So quick to make, doesn't use up a lot of yarn, and it looks great IMHO. This one is variegated red with a white underside, and the WIP is variegated green with a white underside. Rather Christmassy now that I think about it.

Had a wonderful time at Termite's Twin Peaks marathon yesterday. Stayed about 7 hours, which got us through the pilot & six episodes or thereabouts. I think we all had fried eyeballs by then. Several of us wore clothes appropriate to the show: Termite & her sweetie KH dressed as Leo & Shelly; I wore my fish hat and represented the fish that was in the percolator (as noted in a previous post); and one of the guys dressed as Gordon complete with a hearing aid. OK, it was actually a bluetooth device but we all knew what he was going for.

I even managed to stick to the diet pretty well during the party, having only a very small serving of cherry pie (one MUST have cherry pie at a Peaks party) & half a slice of homemade pumpkin bread to go with my sandwich at lunch. Normally at this sort of event I would have had a big piece of pie, and a whole slice of pumpkin bread, and probably a donut because, well, it IS Peaks after all, and maybe even a scoop of the mac-a-chee (that's macaroni & cheese to those among the Teeming Millions who have never read any of the "Trixie Belden" series).

Busy day planned today. Need to do laundry and buy some groceries, vacuum the living room, and I promised Ralph I'd have dinner ready when he got home. Not positive what I'm going to fix but at the moment I'm thinking of roasting a chicken. We have fresh basil & rosemary growing in the backyard which will be good with poultry, and maybe I'll pick up some sweet potatoes to bake along with it. Also want to work on my sweater a little bit & I still need to organize the stash since I didn't do it on Saturday.

Still waiting for my internal clock to adjust to the time change. Waking up between 3:30 and 4:00 because my brain thinks it's an hour later is getting tiresome (no pun intended).

Today marks the beginning of my vacation. Archery this morning, then who knows? I'm thinking this is a good day for knitting. And maybe organizing my fiber/yarn stash. Yes, definitely a yarny day.

A few short notes

Had my official weigh-in today since I won't be at work Monday: down just over a pound at 166 even. I have not eaten out at all this week, which is really unusual. Cooking dinner has helped, as it means leftovers to take for lunch the next day (I can only eat sammidges for so long before I start craving burgers & burritos).

Making excellent progress on my sweater. I had it set aside for a while because of the arm pain as you may recall, but have taken it up again this week. I've finished the body and am halfway through the first sleeve. My goal is to have it completed by the end of my vacation.

My friend Termite is having a Twin Peaks Marathon on Sunday. Costumes are optional, although there really aren't that many distinct outfits from the show. I think I might wear my fish hat, and go as the fish that was in the percolator. True Peakers will know what that means :-) Ralph has never seen the show; hope he enjoys it although I'm sure he'll bring a novel just in case. I don't think I can watch TV all day, so I'll be bringing a knitting project. Not sure what yet--the sweater is kinda big for hauling around, and there's not enough left on the last fish hat to bother bringing it. Maybe I'll make another octopus, because four just aren't enough. Especially since I'm giving one away.

Well, it's getting late by my standards. Time for bed, I think.

Changes at work

The good news at work is there have still been no lay-offs. The bad news is, two people have chosen to leave the company, including my good buddy JN. Today was his last day, and I didn't even find out about it until late yesterday. His reasons for leaving are sound--can't argue with them at all--but dang I'm gonna miss him. I had TK take a photo of JN & me together today. (Please note--he's sitting on the edge of the desk while I am standing; with me at 5'-3" and him at 6'-5", it was really the only way to get both of us in the photo, LOL!) The other person who is leaving is CK, and again while I can't argue with her reasons I wish she were staying.

Looking forward to next week's vacation. We're not going anywhere other than a few day trips to places such as the arboretum, dog beach, maybe the Japanese garden at the University, plus I'd like to see the new "Christmas Carol" movie that starts on Friday (I'm a sucker for Christmas movies). I also plan on finishing up a few knitting projects, including the last fish hat (can you believe that still isn't done??) and my green sweater. Organizing my yarns & fibers is a possibility as well. And definitely need to wash the Girly Girls if the warm weather holds up; they SHTINK!!! as only a dog can shtink.

Speaking of warm, Ralph fixed the hot water tap in the garage, which means we can finally do laundry in hot water again. He had been avoiding it because he was afraid of doing more damage, but the repair turned out to be so easy that now he wonders why he waited so long.

LS at work has taken down all her Halloween Eeyores, and put up a pair of Thanksgiving ones: a pilgrim & an Indian. I took a photo today but it's kinda blurry so I'll try again tomorrow.

Well, gonna hit Facebook before dinner. Adios!

A few notes

Well, that was a strange Halloween. I mean, I had a good time at Duh's party, and I'm glad we went, but without the haunted house or trick-or-treaters it just doesn't feel like we had Halloween at all. Ralph feels the same & is rarin' to go with next year's haunted house.

We failed to go grocery shopping over the weekend, and so last night I was going through my cookbooks trying to find a recipe that used ingredients we already had in the house. Came across one for "Maryland Fried Chicken with Creamy Gravy" in my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook which Ralph cooked up (the chicken, not the cookbook) when he got home from work today (I was stuck in traffic--gee, thanks KFI for totally NOT mentioning the two accidents on the 91 West in any of your traffic reports). Oh. My. Goodness. It was absolutely wonderful. Really flavorful, nice & juicy. Ralph says it was easy to make. Plus, since the chicken is only browned in a few tablespoons oil then simmered in milk rather than being cooked in 1/2" or more of oil, it's got less fat than your usual fried chicken. To top it off, the recipe makes six servings, which means we've got leftovers for lunch and dinner tomorrow.

Work is having a "Biggest Loser" contest. I signed up for it & had my first official weigh-in today: 167.2 is my starting point. I want to get below 160 by the end of the contest (Feb 1) which means 2.5 pounds a month. That seems achievable, plus is motivation to get me back on the dang exercise bike which I have not ridden in about a month before today. Only rode for 11-1/2 minutes but I guess that's better than zero minutes. Since I have a relatively low goal I doubt I'll win the prize ($50) although I certainly wouldn't be upset if I did :-)