Needles and Spins

Time for the monthly check-in

2011-12-29T14:02:00.001-08:00

Well, the holiday season is almost over. I hope everyone had pleasant days & no family dramas.

I had a good Christmas. Everyone seemed to like what I got them, and dinner was delicious as usual. I received several things on my wishlist including an awesome remote control flying shark. I especially like the pirate flamingo we got from my sister; and the ninja-shaped beeswax candle that we received from our youngest nephews & niece. I suspect that they made it themselves with a little help from their mom. Not as many people as usual at The Boy and The Girl's place, which worked out well since everyone had chairs & it was easier to talk to people without having to shout to be heard over the hubbub. All in all, a very enjoyable day.

As you can tell by the photos, I have finally finished the praying mantis. It's an amazing design, which is not surprising since Hansi Singh is an amazing designer. The eyes were the hardest part, I think. If I make it again, I'll pick up 9 stitches across the face & 6 along the two edges, rather than the 11/5/5 configuration called for in the pattern. I'll also use a lighter green for a more realistic look.

I also finished my tote bag, or as I like to call it my "old lady bag." The colors are wonderfully garish, and it's a lot bigger than I expected it to be. As usually happens, the project came to a stall when I had to sew in the lining & handles. I'm always so excited to get started on a project like this that I forget how very, very much I hate to sew. Perhaps next time I can work out a trade with someone who likes it.

I've been on vacation this week & am enjoying it immensely. Most of it I've spent wasting time on the computer, but I've also done a bit of knitting, some reading, and watching "Mythbusters" on Netflix. I even got some housework done, go figure.

Oh! Almost forgot. Our new neighbors had a housewarming party last month. While we were there, much to my surprise two people from our Faire guild walked in! Imagine that--new neighbors move in, and we end up having friends in common. Small world, eh?

Lastly, I got totally spoiled by my swap partner! Gorgeous sock yarn in fall colors, a pattern book, a Frazz cartoon book, raisin-free trail mix, a crocheted bag shaped like an acorn with a little squirrel charm on it, squirrel stitch markers, a crocheted market bag, needle case with two sets of needles in it, and TONS of dog-poo bags. She wrapped each individual item in its own plastic grocery bag since I'd complained that we can't get those here anymore due to a city ordnance. She really put a lot of time & thought into the package.

Shtuffity shtuff shtuff

2011-11-27T07:51:00.000-08:00

Things have been pretty quiet around here, as you can probably tell by my once-a-month posts. Still, holiday season is upon us & perhaps things will liven up.

I am participating in another swap. The theme was WTF Holidays, and the participants were to select a holiday (real or otherwise) to be the starting point for our swap partner ("swapner") when picking/making items. My swapner's holiday was Bunsen Burner Day. Yeesh! I had a hard time finding anything relating to that; I wanted to include a Bunsen Honeydew, however that is one hard-to-find figure. The ones I did find either didn't look much like him, or cost more than the swap price limit. I ended up knitting a hat & fingerless mitts with a blue flame pattern which I think came out really nice, then added things that matched her likes (black tea, dark chocolate, a little scented candle, cinnamon candies, scone mix, 2 skeins each of blue yarn & purple yarn, some kitchen towels in a Fall theme, a puzzle, and a Hex bug. I think that's everything). My upstream swapner hasn't sent her box out yet, however she's already let me know she'll be shipping on the first so I'm not worried about it. Oh--my holiday is ADHLAS Awareness Day. Those of you familiar with the comic strip "Frazz" will recognize that as Attention Defi--Hey, Look, a Squirrel!!

Ralph & I were going to go to Disneyland with friends on Veteran's Day, however one of the friends was ill and the trip was cancelled. Since we had the day off already, we decided to head to Downtown Disney anyway and wander the shops. We didn't buy anything (other than lunch at the Rainforest Cafe) but had a good time window shopping. I especially liked the creative candy apples they were selling; I love the Jack Skellington in particular.

Halloween was fun this year. The party theme was "We're Still Here," since the party was held the day after the world was supposed to end again. Not too many people dressed according to the theme (not even the hosts) but Ralph & I did. Our portrayal of Thurston & Lovey Howell won us Most Humorous for the third year in a row. I thought Ralph looked particularly good, with his natty jacket and drinking glass which he made himself from a real coconut. However, if the host hadn't disqualified himself from the running, I'm sure he would have won all the prizes with his portrayal of Conan the Librarian.

I'm working on several knitting projects at the moment. I still haven't finished the praying mantis I was working on in July, and I've got a tote bag that has been waiting for its handles to be attached for at least a month now. However, I've turned my focus to Christmas knitting so who knows how long those other projects will be sitting. On the other hand, I know someone who would probably like that mantis; if I finish it up I'll have one gift done...

I finally got a chance to make the treacle pudding using golden syrup instead of molasses. It really does have a much different flavor that way. I didn't have much golden syrup left for pouring on each serving, so we've been eating it with agave syrup instead. Not bad, not bad at all. I think it would taste best by making the pudding with molasses and serving it with agave syrup; a nice strong gingerbread-y flavor to the pudding offset by the light sweetness of the agave will work pretty well IMHO. I'll have to give it a try.

Just some photos

2011-10-16T06:11:00.001-07:00

Ebelskivers! Ralph & I went to Buellton over Labor Day weekend, and of course no trip to Buellton is complete without skipping over to Solvang for these tasty treats. So yummy!

Of course the horse turned its head away just as I was able to get through all the tourists & line up a photo. Ah, well, Ralph looks good at least :-)

Leaflets three, let it be! Saw lots of poison ivy, especially on the path to the river. This particular bit was directly behind our campsite. Luckily none of us--not even the dogs--got into any & we had a rash-free vacation.

Flying Flags has made some changes since our last visit, including adding a dog park! As you can see, Hali enjoyed visiting it. Zoe is in the background visiting with some other dogs. Sadie was with us, too, but was too far off to the side to make it into this particular photo.

Our campsite. Poor old trailer is definitely the worse for wear and I don't know how many more trips we'll be able to take in it.

Prior to our trip, we had family over for Lizard's birthday. Dad, Ralph, and The Boy played several rousing games of crokinole. Here, Ralph uses a magnifying glass to verify if a disputed shot was a ringer or not (verdict: definitely a ringer).

Hot days

2011-08-28T15:45:00.001-07:00

The summer weather is finally upon us. Not nearly so hot as some other parts of the country--only in the mid to high 80s--but definitely a lot warmer than the last couple months have been. Very glad to have A/C, even if it is just an in-window one. The house feels pretty good, especially compared to outside.

Ralph recently bought a pressure cooker, and today we are making our second meal in it (the first being a beef stew that was very tasty). Tonight it's spare ribs in homemade BBQ sauce. It smells wonderful! I think this pressure cooker is going to have a huge and beneficial impact on how we eat during the week, since a proper meal can be cooked up in the same amount of time it would take us to order a pizza or go through a drive-thru. We're both pretty excited about it.

The Alter Ego Swap is just about finished. I was the first person to receive their package, and I was quite pleased with what I received: some origami cranes & an origami bookmark made by my swapner; teas grown local to her area; sock patterns and some scrumptious green/black yarn to go with them; a notebook with a beautiful stained-glass motif cover; and a very nice note in a flight-themed notecard.

My downstream swapner received her package on Friday, and I think she really liked it. She's a Harry Potter fan, so I made a 'super-colossal deluxe chocolate frog' for her, which can be seen in the first photo of today's post. To give you an idea of the size, the pillow on which it is sitting is a little over a foot square. I also put in some chocolate/caramel treats; sock yarn in a blue/grey/white multi; cheese popcorn; stitch markers; buttons; and needle holders. It was fun putting everything together & I'm already looking forward to doing another swap.

Also in today's post are a couple photos from the hike Ralph & I took in the San Gabriel Mountains. The tree is an ironwood, or so we were told by another hiker. All I know for sure is it was very pretty with its red wood and grey-sheen leaves. I wish I'd gotten a better photo. Maybe next time :-)

Yesterday was a very expensive day for us. We took Sadie to the vet as her skin issues were really flaring up again. They've got a new doctor in the practice, and she prescribed new medication in addition to the prednisone, as well as a rather pricey hypo-allergenic dog food. Of course, she hates the new food. Afterwards we went to the Halloween Club & spent a couple hundred dollars on props & costume pieces for the haunted house, including a magnificent animatronic "Demonica" figure for which we have plans muwaaa haa haaaa! You'll have to wait until Halloween to find out what! Oh, almost forgot, we also spent quite a bit at PetSmart getting Frontline & a few other items. Ah, well, it's only money, right?

Just another lazy Sunday

2011-08-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Had a very nice time last night. Ralph & I met up with friends at George's Greek Cafe, and we ordered the family-style dinner (platters brought to the table & everyone serves themselves). The food was really good: pita with hummus and tzatziki followed by Greek salad and saganaki (cheese flambé topped with kalamata olives). Main courses were lamb chops, beef gyro, chicken skewers, rice, and sort of a pasta-thing with ground beef & cinnamon, the name of which escapes me. The meal ended with baklava; I had mint tea with mine which was lovely. And, of course, talk talk talk with our friends the whole meal through :-)

Today is the last day of the OC Fair, and we didn't make it even once. Oh, well, LA County Fair is only a month away :-)

I've joined another swap on Ravelry. It's been fun getting the package together for my swapner, although I don't dare go into details here since my blog is linked to my Rav profile & I don't want to give away any surprises. I do hope she likes the package, though. Mailing deadline is 8/24, so there's still time for me to finish things up. I don't want to mail it too soon, since the last time I mailed early on a swap I found more things that would have been perfect to put in the box.

Catching up

2011-08-07T18:43:00.001-07:00

So, quite a bit of things going on for a change. First up, as you can see from the bottom photo I finished my "Skew" socks which I made with the yarn Lizard gave me for my birthday. I call these my "Tweedle" socks because the colorway of the yarn is "Tweedledum & Tweedledee," and like that famous pair the pattern is simple, and a little off. I learned a new cast-on for this project, which is an added plus.

In good news, the Neighbors From Mariachi Hell have moved out (these were the people that would start their parties at 10:00 PM (yes, you read that right--PM) and not end them until about 4:00 AM. These parties had live, loud mariachi bands. Calls to the police did no good.) Anyway, they have moved out & new neighbors have moved in. Neighbors K & A had a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" dinner party for them last weekend. It was a lot of fun, and I really like both of them (Neighbor G & Neighbor S) a lot. Neighbor S is rather on the quiet side while her partner, Neighbor G, is very outgoing & boisterous. It was a great party & we're all so ecstatic to have them as neighbors (and hopefully friends, too!).

Two weekends ago Ralph & I went on a looooong (for me) hike at Black Star Canyon. The leader set off at what she called "a nice, slow pace" and what I call "a bloody race up the bloody mountainside." I was exhausted by the time we got to the top of the hill, and there were still two miles to go afterwards. Still, there were some interesting things to see including a wingless wasp, prickly cucumber, and a turkey buzzard nest. I did take some pictures, none of which anyone will ever see because my camera memory card was damaged & I lost all of them. Sigh. I can post some of Ralph's when he downloads his, though. The hike was part of an anniversary event (one year since the land was donated to Orange County as a permanent wilderness area) and there were lots of freebies including t-shirts, water bottles, seeds for native California plants (I got California Poppy), free admission to the OC Zoo, pens, and magnets.

Today we went on a much shorter walk along the San Gabriel River. We brought Zoe with us & she had a pretty good time. The water was *very* cold, and felt good on our hot feet. Zoe wasn't so enthusiastic although she did go into it of her own free will. I picked up a new camera card a couple days ago so I was able to download those photos.

The middle photo is a just-opening hibiscus on the plant in our backyard. I'm not sure why it looks like it was taken at night; it wasn't exactly noon but the sun was completely up. I think it came out nicely, though.

Next week we are having dinner with our friends MS & SS as well as PH2 & MH2. We're going to George's Greek Cafe & plan on ordering the "family style" dinner. I'm really looking forward to both good friends & good food.

Fun weekend

2011-07-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

I had a really good weekend. On Saturday, Ralph went to archery while I knit. Afterward we decided to go to the Orange County Fair, but along the way we passed a Boomers and changed our minds: mini golf was calling our name! By means of much cheating, do-overs, and creative scoring we both managed to finish the course only a little bit above par. On the way home we stopped at The Cheesecake Factory for dinner, where we both had a wonderful chicken & biscuits dinner. Ralph had cheesecake--well, not for dessert exactly since he asked the waitress to bring it first & ate most of it before the meal arrived--and I had tiramisu for my afters.

On Sunday, I went & picked up some needles to make these socks: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter09/PATTskew.php (sorry, I can never get Blogger to link properly). I'm using some white/orange/brown self-striping yarn that Lizard gave me for my birthday. Then it was off to meet PH2 & MH2 for a showing of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which I thought was pretty good. I like the book more, and I thought Part 1 was a better adaptation. Then we went to the pub for dinner. I had a corned beef boxty which is sort of an Irish crepe & absolutely adored it. I was able to get in about an hour's worth of knitting before bedtime and finished the toe of the first sock.

So how was YOUR weekend?

So how old IS Hermione, anyway?

2011-07-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

In honor of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, I am going to ramble on about something that has bothered me for a while: How old is Hermione? Here's what we know:

Hermione started at Hogwarts the same year as Harry (source: Sorcerer's Stone; Hermione is sorted by the Sorting Hat, making her a first-year student)
Hermione's birthday is in September (source: Prisoner of Azkaban; Hermione herself states this)
Hermione is older than Harry (sources: Half-Blood Prince; Hermione takes the Apparition exam with Ron, and one had to be 17 on or before the end of April to take it. Harry was still only 16 at that point. Deathly Hallows; Hermione is one of the decoy Harrys, and it is stated that all of the decoys are of age (that is to say, 17 or older) while Harry is still only 16 at that point of the story.)

The only way for all three of these things to be true is if Hermione turned 12 the first September she attended Hogwarts, which would mean either she started school a year late (and with her brains/magic skills, this is unlikely) or you have to already be 11 on your first day of school. But then there's Angelina Johnson. Angelina turns 17 in Goblet of Fire, as do Fred & George. All three are in their 6th year at this point (Fred & George leave the school halfway through their final year in Order of the Phoenix, and Angelina states in the same book that it is her last year as well). However--Angelina's birthday is in October, and the Weasley twins were born in April; both of these facts are stated in Goblet of Fire. So unless Angelina skipped a grade, she was only 10 when she started at Hogwarts, not 11.

Now, Ralph has argued that the re-lived hours via the Time Turner (see Prisoner of Azkaban) is the reason for the increased age, however I disagree for several reasons, not the least of which is she didn't re-live a whole year, only a few hours per school day in order to attend extra classes. Presuming 9 repeated hours per day x 20 days per month x 10 months gives you only 75 days added to your age (9 x 20 = 180, x 10 = 1800 hours, divided by 24 hours = 75). While that might make her older than Harry, it still wouldn't make her old enough to take the Apparition exam when Ron does.

And for those of you who have made it this far, today's photo is of my MIL's pear tree, taken over 4th of July weekend.

Sleeeeepy

2011-07-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

So the cat decided to sneak out the back door last night. Again. He came back at 5:00 am screaming for his breakfast. Dumb cat.

Monday night Ralph & I went to a free concert put on by The Band of the California Battalion. It was all Civil War-era music played on period instruments (two of them genuine, the others replicas). All the musicians were in period costumes as well. The conductor gave a little talk about each song before they played it (for example, troop leaders on both sides banned their musicians from playing Home, Sweet Home because it was too emotional). It was a lot of fun.

Planning on seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 this weekend with our friends MH2 & PH2. This weekend also marks the start of the Orange County Fair, although I don't know if we'll be going this weekend or next. Or the weekend after that. We'll go at some point during the run, I'm sure.

Almost done with the praying mantis. All the parts are knit up (except the eyes) and I'm working on sewing it all together & stuffing it. This project has been a real pain in the patootie and I hope it'll all be worth it once it's done.

Such a crankypants

2011-07-07T05:42:00.000-07:00

Again, I apologize for the lack of posts. I just need to get a more interesting life so I have things to talk about. Things other than complaining, I mean.

Had a not-so-enjoyable 4th of July weekend. Our truck had been overheating when pulling the trailer on hills, so we recently had $4,000 worth of work done on it to fix the problem (including new brakes, new radiator, new thermostat, new hoses. . .) Now, bearing that in mind, take a look at today's photo. That, my friends, is the gash the fan belt cut into the new-but-improperly-installed radiator hose, causing the truck to vastly overheat & leave us pretty much stranded in the Mojave desert. I won't go into too many details, but highlights of the nightmare include having to soak all three dogs twice so they didn't get heat stroke as we sat in the trailer waiting for the engine to cool down (something it really couldn't do in the 100+ degree desert weather); finding a place to drop the trailer for the weekend so we could finish driving to Bishop; discovering that we hadn't packed any food (normally the trailer is well-stocked, and we'd planned on picking things up along the way); and basically the 4-1/2 hour drive to Bishop turned into a 12-1/2 hour ordeal. This also meant that the time we'd intended to spend visiting family was greatly curtailed, as we arrived 8 hours later than planned & had to leave at 2:00 am on Monday instead of 1:00 in the afternoon so we could get the truck & trailer through the desert before it got hot. Grumble, grumble, grumble...

And, of course, there was the usual dealing with Halitosis on the 4th of July itself. Last year wasn't too bad, however this year there were a lot more fireworks (and by the sound of it, they were a lot closer to the house) and she was a nervous wreck. Next year we plan to get some sedatives from the vet well in advance & hopefully she will be more relaxed.

Oh, and the pond was low, so Ralph put the hose in it to top it off--then forgot about it. For four hours. Yeah, a 100% water change is NOT a good thing. Every fish in the pond died. Crap.

On the more cheerful side, we've seen two pretty good movies in the past month: "X-Men First Class" and "Green Lantern." I had a little trouble wrapping my brain around Kevin Bacon being a bad guy in "X-Men" even though he *did* do a very good job at it. "Green Lantern" was a lot better than I expected based on the previews. And, of course, we've got some movies that look good coming out soon, such as the last "Harry Potter," so that's something to look forward to. And the Orange County Fair starts in a couple weeks, that should be fun.

Hope to post again soon, and with something not so whiney.

June, lovely June

2011-06-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Today was a very nice day. We saw "X-Men: First Class" which I enjoyed very much. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a familiar name in the credits: Spiro Razatos, who prior to his current career in movie production used to be an aerobics instructor. No lie. After the movie we took a stroll around a car show, then had lunch at the Irish pub nearby. We both had the Guinness meatloaf with bleu cheese gravy & mashed potatoes, then split a peanut butter Nutella brownie which was quite tasty.

Making good progress on the current pair of socks. I was going to make them anklets, however there's a lot more of the green yarn left after turning the heel than I thought there would be. I prefer my socks to be a little longer so this is definitely a good thing.

There is a new bookstore where the old Borders used to be. Actually, it's an old bookstore in that what they sell appears to be primarily used books. Ralph picked up a couple paperbacks. I didn't see anything that caught my interest on this trip, but who knows what they will have next time. It was a little surprising to see that in addition to books they also sell used videos, DVDs, CDs, cassette tapes, and even LPs. It was rather like being at a large specialty garage sale.

Lastly, I came across this awesome list of assault prevention tips. I think everyone can benefit by following these simple rules.

MD 2011

2011-05-30T14:26:00.000-07:00

Happy Memorial Day! Hope you are all having a fun & safe holiday. We celebrated the weekend by going to a party held by Neighbors K & A yesterday afternoon/evening. They had so many yummy snacks set out that I was too full to eat when the burgers & dogs were done. We brought a Pita & Dip tray from George's: six different Greek dips and a big plate of pita triangles. It seemed quite popular. Someone else brought mini pigs-in-a-blanket, and I swear I could have eaten them all.

Today has been a quiet day; did a little laundry & grocery shopping, and washed all three dogs. Later we're going to grill up some hot dogs, and have that with some salad, baked beans, & chips. Oh, I should make something for dessert. Maybe the brownie mix that Ralph bought for my birthday & never baked. Which reminds me, I still owe him a birthday cake, too.

Our lettuce had two flowers on it yesterday, and they were already closed up when I went to take a picture of them today. I thought perhaps they would open when the sun hit them, but no dice. Luckily there are lots of buds so I'm sure I'll get a shot at some point. They look a lot like dandelion flowers when they are open.

And the answer is. . .

2011-05-28T04:57:00.000-07:00

So , no guesses on the plant? That, O Teeming Millions, is a red oak lettuce. It's getting weirder looking by the day, too.

I somehow managed to leave my glasses at work yesterday, right at the start of a 3-day weekend. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. It is forcing me to go to Lenscrafters today, though, and I do need a new prescription. I've used those frames many, many times as well, and they need to be replaced. Still, getting an eye exam wasn't high on my list of fun things to do on a holiday weekend.

It's quiz time!

2011-05-21T18:34:00.001-07:00

Today's pop quiz is What's That Plant?" Two clues: It's not a weed, and the leaves are edible. Answer will be in my next post.

Zoe is very quiet & subdued today. I suspect she's worn out still from yesterday's adventure. I am so thankful to have her back, and so glad my boss was understanding about me needing to leave early to go look for her. It's such a busy time at work and I know my being gone wasn't the best thing that could have happened.

In knitting news, I finished my hat & wristwarmers set today. There's enough yarn left for a pair of short socks, although I'm leaving the kangaroos off them. Between the hat & the mitts there are twelve repeats of the motif & frankly I don't want to knit it again just now. As long as the colors are the same, the socks should look just fine. And in any case, the 'roos would be hidden by my pants legs so why bother?

Did a little cooking to restock the freezer. I made one small batch of beef over rice (sans rice), and a huuuuuuuuge batch of beef stew with mushrooms. In retrospect I should have made less stew & more beef over rice (sans rice). Oh, well. I'm sure it will get eaten eventually. Still, with 8 cups of stew in the freezer and at least half that amount again in the fridge, it does seem to be a bit much.

Did I say "Pets--fauh!" Well, say it again!

2011-05-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

Arrgh, yet another scare with the pets. I got a call at work around 3:30 letting me know that Zoe had somehow managed to get out of the yard. The neighbors were trying to catch her but no luck. I got the OK to leave work, came home, & spent more than two hours searching. The neighbors said the last time they'd seen her she was crossing the busy street at the end of the block, and because of traffic they couldn't safely follow her. She finally showed up at the front door around 7:00 pm. I'm sooooo glad she found her way home! As far as I can tell, she went OVER the fence into the neighbor's yard, which is not fully enclosed. There's some plywood leaning against the fence and I think she used that as a ramp.

No Faire for me this weekend; just have too much to do, including getting Zoe her rabies shot & renewing her license which is a wee bit past due. I'm trying to get it so her tag & shot are due at the same time as they are currently five weeks apart. I can't renew without the certificate, and the vet doesn't like giving inoculations early so there you go. It's only two weeks early at this point so hopefully he'll do it.

I've also been trying to sign up for a notary class. I get as far as the point where you have to actually register, and the website hangs at that point. I called the customer service line & of course they aren't open on weekends. Grrr! I will try again on Monday.

On a more positive note, I bought a loaf of rosemary bread. It's delicious! I used it to make a turkey sandwich for lunch yesterday, then had some with butter for dinner. It's a bit pricey, though, so it's not something I'll buy often.

Pets--fauh!

2011-05-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

We've had two scares recently with the pets. The first was when we noticed the puffer fish wasn't looking very healthy. His color was bad & he was very thin. We put him in the hospital tank, but even with flake food he couldn't seem to eat. A little research & we learned that a puffer's teeth never stop growing, and sometimes a bit (no pun intended) of home dentistry is needed. Thanks to youtube, we found a video that showed how to do it. Using clove oil to render the fish unconscious, you then use sharp manicure scissors to trim the teeth. His had grown so much that we couldn't pry his mouth open--the teeth had wedged it as far as it would go. It was a tricky business, and not something I care to repeat. He's eating well now & I think a full recovery is in his future.

Now the next one is really, really gross so I'm going to start out by saying the dog is fine. Those of you with a squeamish personality would do best to skip on to the next paragraph. Last chance to skip this. OK. So I heard Hali walking around in the kitchen the other night, and figured she wanted out. I got up, let her out, and noticed two dark patches on the kitchen floor. Being careful not to step on them I walked over to turn on the light, and saw two of the most disgusting and horrifying piles of--well, I couldn't tell at first what it was. (One last chance to skip ahead and read about the mermaid!) The color was like diarrhea, but it smelled like vomit, and it was full of these pinkish leathery strips about an inch wide, that were kind of twisted & curled. I swear I thought it was strips of intestine or something. None of the dogs seemed to be in distress, although Hali looked a little cowed as she always does when we have to clean up any sort of dog-created mess. The mystery was solved the next day when Ralph found a chewed up package of what had been 20 beef-basted rawhide chewsticks. Apparently the dog swallowed them whole and then after a few hours during which they softened & uncurled brought them all back up again. The beef basting is what gave it the poo color. Scary, but a relief in the end. I'm pretty sure it was Hali, as she wasn't interested in breakfast that morning.

Today's photo is of a patron at Faire last weekend. Isn't that a great costume? She really was having a great time smiling, waving, and posing for photos. I saw her a few hours after I took this picture and she was still having a lot of fun from what I could tell. I think this is one of the best mermaid costumes I've ever seen.

I'm almost done with my hat & wristwarmers set that I'm working on. The hat is 100% finished; one wristwarmer just needs two last ends woven in, and the second wristwarmer has about an inch to go plus the thumb. I think I'll have enough yarn leftover to make either a pair of anklets or some gloves, too. The pattern is called fornicating kangaroos. It's much more subtle than the fornicating reindeer pattern I used on Ralph's hat. It'll be interesting to see who (if anyone) notices. Mind you, with summer coming on it may be months before it's cold enough outside for me to wear them, so it'll be a while before I find the answer to that.

Well, that was cool.

2011-05-17T18:49:00.001-07:00

Look what we saw! Yup, it's the Delorean from "Back to the Future." We saw it while driving up Beach Blvd. on the way to dinner on Sunday. Unfortunately all we had with us for photo-taking was a cell phone, I was trying to get a picture from the back seat, the back window is a mess from dried-on dog slobber, and we never were able to get close enough for a really good shot. Still, under the circumstances I think this came out pretty well.

I think I'm done with Faire for the year. There's one more weekend left, however I'm ready for some time at home. Plus as much as I hate doing housework it'll be nice to have a full weekend to really clean the place up. I'm too tired after work & with just one day to get everything done, things aren't as spiffy as I'd like them to be.

It was a nice rainy morning today, the sort of weather where it actually makes sense for me to be a knitter in California. I wore my weird socks, honeycomb wristwarmers, Bloody Stupid Johnson hat, and dark mark illusion scarf. Of course they all had to come off once I was in the office--none of it is exactly "business professional"--but I sure was toasty warm on the way.

Gang aft agly

2011-05-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday did not go according to plan. I did give the guy a spinning lesson. I should not try to teach people to spin, because they Do. Not. Listen. No matter how many times you tell them, "Don't worry about the spindle, worry about your hands" or "The reason it's trying to spin the other way is because you've put too much twist in it; you don't need to spin it again" or "See how it's kinking up? You've put too much twist in it; you don't need to spin it again," "Draw out some more fiber to take up the twist," every speck of their focus is on getting the spindle to spin as much as possible without drawing new fiber out so that the twist actually has somewhere to go. I think next time I'll have them practice drawing out fiber without the spindle first.

Also, the person I was going to teach to knit didn't show up. There was someone else who wanted to learn how to do a purl stitch, and I did teach her, so that was all right.

And then there's the cortol. This is a fairly rare musical instrument with 13 finger holes. I loaned it to someone who returned it yesterday. Somewhere between where it was returned and St. Cuthbert's guild area, it fell out of my basket. Sigh. I know I never played it, but it still sucks to have lost it.

Needless to say I was pretty cranky by lunchtime. Ralph played so much music his lips were swollen, and we both decided to call it a day around 4:15. Despite being tired, we stayed up way too late watching "You've Got Mail" & now I'm up way too early with a day full of chores ahead of us. Oh, well.

I'm not even going to say how long it's been since I posted

2011-05-14T04:35:00.001-07:00

Ok. Confession time. The real reason I haven't posted is because I have no good pictures to add to it. Seriously! That's why you've all been ignored, with no scintillating reading material. Or something like that. Anyway I'm bringing the camera to Faire today so hopefully I'll have some good shots.

Another reason is I was hoping to find a video to link to, but haven't been able to do so. What video, you may ask? Well, a few weeks ago I got to live a dream, and participated in a flash mob at Faire! We all gathered by the main stage, and after the Commedia burst into song. Soooo awesome. I've been told the video is on youtube, however I just can't track it down.

Today is going to be a busy day. I promised one person I'd teach him how to use a drop spindle, and someone else that I'd teach her how to knit. Someone else wants to learn how to do a purl stitch but keeps making excuses to avoid it (Yes, I mean YOU, SD!). Still, if I'm teaching one person maybe she'll come over & finally sit long enough to learn purling. I'm also bringing my wheel, which seems to be a big hit. One person even told me it was the "best gig" the guild has. A blatant exaggeration IMHO, since Helena's does so many things all the time. Heck, Helena's does more gigs with butter than some other guilds do all day! First there's the morning churning, where real butter is made. Then "Cousin Butter" makes a lovely sculpture from it (there's an article here: http://www.examiner.com/renaissance-and-medieval-events-in-los-angeles/st-helena-s-sharon-scott-creates-butter-masterpieces with a link to photos of some of her work). Lastly, the sculpture is placed on a glass-covered cake plate, paraded through the Faire and presented to the Queen. There's also singing, music, dancing, knitting, drop spindling, and juggling going on. They've even turned a puddle into a gig by "fishing" in it.

No Oedipus this year, alas. I think the actor that plays Oedipus might be having some back problems which make it impossible for him to do the show. I can't imagine anyone else doing the part. Disappointing, but no one wants him to do himself permanent injury just so we can do a play. The jokes are a little dated (na-nu, na-nu!) but it's still a wonderful show.

Ohhh, I'm supposed to post things

2011-04-23T19:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, almost two weeks since my last post. I really do suck at this, and not in that good way you can charge extra for.

First, a word about today's image. This is my current profile pic on Ravelry. The dog comes from this post href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html" at Hyperbole and a Half, one of the best and funniest blogs I have ever seen in my life, written and illustrated by Allie Brosh. The crown was part of the April Fools Day fun at Ravelry; I got Ralph to copy the file and save it so I could use the crowned dog as a permanent Ravatar.

Last weekend was my birthday, and a good time was had by all. Spent the actual day at the Renaissance Faire, playing music & giving spinning demos. Ralph bought me a fancy expensive purse for work, and a really cool decorative broom. I'll have to get a photo of it. I bought myself some variegated turquoise roving (Colonial wool) which is just to die for. On Sunday Dad & his girl took us out to eat & I had some lovely chicken parmigiana & tiramisu. It was good to have time to visit with them, too, especially since she headed back up to Canada just a few days after.

Went to Faire again today, too. I played hardly any music at all, but got lots of spinning done. I plied off what I spun last week, then started in on the new roving. It's even prettier spun up. It was definitely a good choice. I'm headed out again tomorrow--Lizard, Duh & Happy will be there too so I'll probably meet up with them at some point--and Ralph is going to stay home.

Work has been bizzzzzzy!! We closed escrow on 18 homes in 7 working days, and it's just going to get crazier as we get closer to fiscal year end. I'm loving it, of course. If you'd told me in high school that I would get excited about escrow, I'd have laughed in your face.

Bronchitis sucks

2011-04-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

Well, so much for posting more often. Part of this is due to illness; Ralph's asthma attack on March 25 ended up being bronchitis which he's still fighting, and I'm on day 8 of my bout with it. He was off work for most of that time; I only took two days although I probably should have taken four. At the risk of TMI, the human body should not be capable of producing that much mucous. And the cough! Sounds like feeding time at the sea lion pen around here lately. We're both feeling quite a bit better today but hey, the day is young. :-)

This has been a good spring for us flower-wise. The wisteria had at least six blooms on it (last year it had one, and the year before that [which was the first year it had ever bloomed at all] it only had one that SOMEbody knocked off the branch before it was even fully opened); our water lilies had a lovely cluster of four flowers which it's never done before (see photo); the amaryllis is opening up; and the rosemary had dozens of little purple flowers on it. The nectarine had hundreds of blossoms, but unfortunately the recent wind & rain knocked most of the burgeoning fruit off it so our anticipated bumper crop is going to be rather small instead. So much for a summer of nectarine cobbler, sigh.

I've been doing quite a bit of knitting lately. I made three little kittens (two of which are in the photo); a scarf nice enough to wear to work; and am well into a beaded bag using the green/yellow yarn I got in the Pie Swap. Oh, and I finished the green shawl, too. I'll have to get some pictures.

Yesterday was opening day for the Renaissance Faire. We'd only intended to stay for a short while--long enough to play music for the dancers--and ended up being there a full 10 hours. We had such a good time. Ralph was all over playing music for anyone and everyone (even joined a stage group playing music for their dancers) & I did a variety of things including playing music, knitting, spinning, and more music. I even managed to dance Heart's Ease. A couple girls came over while I was spinning early in the day, quite interested in the drop spindle, and I let them both try it which they got very excited about. I'll have to see if I can find a couple more spindles to bring next weekend for more hands-on demonstrating, and I want to bring my wheel too. I might even start spinning on a regular basis again once Faire is over.

One thing I really wanted to do was bring hoops & dowels to play that ring-toss game we played at the Dickens Faire, and never did find just the right materials. I really thought that would be a great thing to do as you can have customers play & get involved. So imagine my combined delight and indignation when I saw two participants playing that exact game with a young customer! I really need to get some rings & dowels for next week.

Music-wise, I think the best part of it was late in the day. Ralph & I were playing music along with a guy named R, and then E joined us with her recorder, and then J came over with her mandolin, and before I knew it there were about a dozen people all playing: violins, bodhrans, mandolins, recorders, and of course Ralph with his sackbut as the sole bass line. It was awesome. Sometimes we sounded great and sometimes we sounded awful, and at all times we were having so much fun. I played until my throat was sore.

Alas, today will not be nearly so much fun. There is much housework to be done as neither of us did much during the week; I attempted to do some laundry on Tuesday, and the act of taking one load out of the dryer & putting the next one in made me so out of breath that I had to sit & rest for about half an hour! Stupid bronchitis. Still, it will be good to start the week out with a clean house, and satisfying to have it all done.

And so it goes

2011-03-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

I really have very little to post about; this is mostly just to keep in the habit of posting :-)

I was sitting in my car the other day, & two women walked past, slightly out of sync with each other in their steps. With their high heels on the asphalt, it sounded exactly like a horse walking past. I will never understand why so many women wear clompy shoes like that. I'll stick with my comfy flats, thankyewverramuch.

Poor Ralph has been fighting a bad asthma attack since Friday night. It was so bad that he had to sleep in the trailer; whatever it was that set it off seems to be in the bedroom. We've cleaned, vacuumed, moved items out of the room, changed the sheets & it hasn't helped much. He went to the doctor's for it today & is feeling a little better. We just finished washing the dogs, and Mudgie is back on Allerpet so hopefully this will take care of things.

Hmm. I think that's all I've got for today. Better post next time, I promise :-)

Another exciting post

2011-03-19T04:31:00.000-07:00

Such a busy day at work yesterday! Mr. Boss Man was off, which meant I did all the updates that he normally would have done: updated price sheets for five communities, uploaded some contract documents, verified options on four phases, etc. This was in addition to my own work, of course. It was actually rather enjoyable, and made the day go quickly to have so much to do.

One thing I noticed shortly after starting my new job was that everyone seemed to have a Gumby in his or her office. It turned out that one Christmas, after a meeting in which flexibility had been stressed, Ms. IT bought these for everyone. Last week she picked up a couple more for us new folks. I've got mine balanced on the edge of the bulletin board. It's a small thing that really helped me feel welcome & part of the team.

Started reading a new book last week. It's called The Eyre Affair and so far is pretty interesting. It's a time travel novel; the main character is a woman named Thursday Next. This is the book that I was given in the Pi Day Swap.

I'm also making very good progress on my shawl. I'm down to 45 stitches per row (it was 99 at the longest point) so with any luck I'll be able to finish it this weekend. I won't have a lot of time to work on it, though, at least not today. Maybe tomorrow.

My orange & black yarn arrived! It's gorgeous, and as a little added bonus came with a pretty beaded stitch marker attached to the label. I see lovely new socks in my future.

Some random thoughts

2011-03-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me what people will post on the internet. Don't they realize how absolutely public it really is? For example, the other day a friend on Facebook posted a request for some mason jars. Another friend of hers, whom I do not know, responded that her mother had some, and then posted her mother's phone number. I commented to that person, "Um, Person, you do realize you just gave your mother's phone number to the entire internet, right?" With websites such as STFU Parents and Failbook, you'd think people would know that all it takes is a screen shot. Amazing.

One of today's pictures is of a white rhino at the San Diego Safari Park. She is past breeding age, and so is not part of the park's program to increase the rhino population (they are an endangered species). The tour guide said her horns look odd because she doesn't grind them against objects the way rhinos usually do, so the park rangers have to give her occasional "manicures."

I'm almost 3/4 of the way finished with my shawl. I really like how it is turning out. The only thing I don't care for is the one edge has yarnovers all along it, but the corresponding edge does not. If I make it again, I will use a different increase so the sides match better. Probably a lifted left increase, as I think that would best match the knit two togethers that are along the other edge. (For you non-knitters, yarnovers leave a hole & lifted increases do not.)

Folgers makes these flavored coffees, the best (IMHO) of which is the chocolate silk. Of course the store nearest our house stopped carrying that flavor, although it does carry the others. Last week I decided to see if I could find a store nearby that has it. According to the Folgers website, the closest store is 50 miles away--but the site included a link to the Smuckers Online Catalog (who knew they are the same company?) and I was able to order it there. Unfortunately it only comes in a case (six jars) but it was a reasonable price so I went ahead and ordered some. It arrived on Friday and mmmmmmmmm we have really enjoyed it these last two mornings. I'd almost forgotten how good it is.

I went to the yarn store yesterday. Oddly enough, I didn't buy anything. Oh, I found a few skeins that I really liked, but they were similar to yarns I already have & after months of frugality I just didn't see the need to pay $25-$30 for something that is similar to what I've already got. I *did* buy a skein off of an Etsy site, though; a lovely sock yarn in black & orange. The colorway is called "Monarch Butterfly" and it's really gorgeous. I'll take pics when it arrives.

Two weeks? Why do I even keep a blog?

2011-03-07T04:53:00.001-08:00

I have worked the first week at my new job, and it's everything I could have hoped for. I was surprised by the number of familiar faces; including me, there are seven people from my old company working there. What a pleasant surprise that was! There's plenty of work to keep me busy, which is how I like it. I know I'm going to be very happy here.

Speaking of my old job, though, I hear that they are going to be moving back to Irvine. Ms. Boss Lady says she's going to make the commute. That's insane; she must live at least two hours away from Irvine, and even taking the train that's going to make her work day about 17 hours long. It also means they won't be just downstairs from the escrow company, so now there'll be the added time & expense of overnighting the grant deeds. Which reminds me, I need to sign up for a notary class. . .

I received my Pi Day swap package a little over a week ago. There were so many things in it! A ball of green & yellow fingering weight yarn, candy, Harry Potter fabric, a book, a tote bag with a pie recipe printed on it, a needle case, several small crochet hooks (I'm forever losing mine), orange cat-eye safety eyes, bookmarks, and I'm sure I've left something out here. Oh, I know what it was, a pattern for a triangular shawl. It's knit sideways, increasing for the first half & decreasing for the second to make the triangular shape. If you don't have a lot of yarn, you keep track of how much you've used by weighing it at intervals, then start the decreases when you've used have the yarn. Brilliant! Ms. Zinnia really put a lot of thought into the package. Makes me eager to join another swap!

I also got another little gift in the mail: a skein of handpainted yarn from Goginator! She bought it at Stitches West & thought I might like it. The colorway is perfect for me (and perfectly named for me, as well: the yarn is "Voodoo" in the colorway "Spirits"). Not sure yet what I'm going to make with it, although I'm leaning towards socks at the moment.

I'd been trying to get the family together so we could go to Lobsterfest at Red Lobster. I sent e-mails out with last Saturday lunchtime for the date, and everyone but Dad e-mailed back, "Can't, busy that day." I figured it was cancelled, but on Saturday I got a call from Dad at about 12:45 asking "Where are you guys??" Luckily we hadn't eaten yet so we put the groceries away, picked him up, and headed on out. The food was delicious, and we had a very nice time visiting with Dad.

Ralph bought a new coffee pot. I'm not 100% enamored of it; you need both hands to open the lid, and it brews veeeerrrrrrrrry sllllloooowwwwwwwwwly. On the plus side, it does have a timer which means usually the coffee is ready when I get up. I was up a little early today however I just heard the beep telling me it's ready.

Yes, I'm still here

2011-02-23T13:43:00.001-08:00

OK, all right, so it's been ages since I've posted. Just not a whole lot going on right now that's interesting enough to talk about.

Weird to think that this is my last week of freedom before starting work again. Ralph & I have been enjoying it immensely, and treated ourselves to an overnight trip to the San Diego area as a mini-vacation. We spent yesterday at the Wild Animal Park (which has in fact been renamed as "The San Diego Zoo Safari Park") and had a wonderful time. Being a weekday in the off-season, it was not at all crowded & we got some really good views of the animals. Lots of nests in the aviary, and several babies around including the little antelope amongst today's photos. At the time we took the picture, it was less than 2 hours old. I was particularly glad to see the elephants; they looked much healthier & happier than the one we saw at the LA County Zoo.

Today we went to the San Diego Botanical Gardens (formerly Quail Botanical Gardens) and spent a couple leisurely hours strolling the grounds. Very pleasant & relaxing. We got there shortly after they opened, so even with spending 2-1/2 hours there we were still able to hit the road before the traffic started to get heavy and made good time on the drive home.

All of today's pictures were taken at either the Safari Park or the Arboretum. We don't know the woman with the lorikeets on her; we just thought it made a nice photo & she gave us the OK to take her picture. The shots of us with our arms outstretched is to show our "wingspan" as compared to that of a California Condor. See, I am tiny and petite, smaller than a bird :-) Please ignore the fact that I have major hat hair in the photo.

A super Super Bowl Sunday

2011-02-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

I haven't taken any new pictures lately, so y'all are treated to another view of the socks I posted last time. I still need to get a photo of the most recent pair that I finished.

Had a *very* busy weekend. Ralph had the day off on Friday so we did some puttering about, including a trip to the local nursery. We now have a very small vegetable garden consisting of two cauliflower plants, one each of three different kinds of lettuce, and a basil plant. We've also got a yellow tomato which still needs to be put into the ground. As we were planting the last lettuce, I stepped at the edge of the garden & my foot sank--gopher hole! Augh! We basically gave him a salad bar right outside his door. Ralph has put down some gopher bait & hopefully this will work.

We also got a call from Dad on Friday, and made arrangements to meet for dinner on Saturday. We all got together in the early afternoon (Lizard, The Boy & The Girl were also invited) & as usual yakked for quite a while. Dinner was at Outback Steakhouse where we got fantastic service. Bread was brought on a regular basis & water glasses were refilled without anyone having to ask. We tipped the waiter very well (more than 20%). The food was delicious, too. I had the BBQ Mixed Grill: a small serving of ribs, grilled chicken, three large coconut shrimp, and mashed potatoes. YUM! Then Ralph & I split a Cinnamon Oblivion for dessert.

Sunday morning brought a last-minute invitation to a Puppy Bowl party. It's like a Super Bowl party, only we watched Animal Planet instead. It didn't start until 2:00, which gave us time to whip up some of Ralph's famous homemade guacamole and a fresh steamed chocolate pudding. The hosts also provided a fine array of goodies including bacon-wrapped drumsticks & some fantastic Asiago cheese spread with ranch crackers.

Monday I went shopping for work clothes. I made the wonderful discovery of not one, but two shops in the local mall that carry business attire at reasonable prices. I got a blazer, three skirts, and a couple shirts. Oh, and a coat which I ended up bringing back yesterday for a larger size. It fit OK, but I realized if I had winter clothes on under it rather than the shorts & t-shirt I wore out shopping it would be just a little too snug. The only downside to the trips was the overly aggressive salespeople at the skin care kiosks. I passed several of them, and they are really pushy about trying to get you to sample their products. I generally had to tell them "No, thank you" at least six times before I could get away, and even then they look at you like you're the one being rude.

Yesterday I got assigned my "swapner" for the Pi Day Swap on Ravelry. Of course that meant I spent all afternoon online looking at potential items & placing an order or two (I'm not going to say what I looked at or what I got, since my blog can be accessed through Ravelry & I don't want to spoil the surprise). The swap box is supposed to contain yarn, a hand-crafted item, and some goodies/toys relating in some way to either pi or pie. I've already started on the hand-crafted item & have a few ideas regarding the pi/pie goodies. My swapner has requested no baked goods, which makes it easier as I don't have to try to figure out how to ship a pie to Utah :-)

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

2011-02-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

Well, while the majority of the US is fighting snow & blizzards, we on the West Coast continue to have lovely weather. Ralph & I even did some gardening over the weekend, trimming trees, pulling out some dead plants & replacing them with live ones.

In other news, I got a job! I'll be working as an escrow administrator, and my new boss is none other than Mr. Boss Man himself. It'll be awesome working with him again. The job promises to be very busy & challenging, which I'm quite looking forward to. It starts at the end of the month so I've got some time to let it all sink in.

Today's photo: the socks that I finished a couple weeks ago. These are the ones from the pattern book my SIL bought me for Christmas. They are without a doubt the funkiest socks I ever made, but I love them. I'm thinking of entering them in the County Fair. The flash washed out the color a little bit in the photo but I think you can get a good idea of how they look.

Stuff for today

2011-01-27T13:51:00.000-08:00

Well, as you can see, our nectarine tree is in bloom. Provided we can keep the birds from eating them all we should have a pretty good crop. Nectarine cobbler is definitely in our future :-)

Things are looking up in the job market, I hope. I don't want to go into any details just yet--don't want to jinx things!--but please do send good mojo my way if you are so inclined.

I'm trying a new recipe from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: chicken & ham pie. I bought a whole chicken & cut it into pieces since it was a lot less expensive than buying it pre-cut. I will never do this again. Cutting up a whole chicken is DISGUSTING, especially when you have to cut through bone. Yuck. It's well worth the extra money to not have to do that.

I'm also making another steamed chocolate pudding, which I fear may be a Fail since for some reason, even though it says to cook it for 3 hours, I set the timer for 2-1/2 which is the cook time for the treacle pudding. I didn't realize the error until I tried to turn it out onto a plate after cooling. Mostly cooked pudding remained in the bowl, and a pile of chocolatey goo ended up on the plate. Sigh. I scraped it back into the bowl & am boiling it for another 45 minutes (I'm adding some extra cook time to get it back up to temperature), which I hope will salvage it. I've been craving this all week & it would be a shame if it's not edible.

Last weekend Ralph & I went to a Dickens Festival in Riverside. It was OK, but not as much fun as I'd hoped. We did enjoy watching Jeffrey the Juggler (who was a friend of Ralph's years ago at Ren Faire), and the costumes were lovely. I also liked the musicians. But the dealer area was kind of small, and the play we started to watch was both dull & difficult to hear (the microphones didn't seem to be working, and the cast was relying on them rather than projecting). I think my favorite part was playing some of the children't games. Ralph skunked me at jacks, which I should have anticipated since he is also a juggler. There was also a game there called "Graces" which consists of using two sticks to toss & catch a hoop. I did better at that than I expected. Still, it was a free event and I enjoyed it enough to be interested in going again next year.

While we were there, we also wandered through an antique store & found a bunch of Happy Hollisters books. If I'd had the money I'd have bought several of them, since I know I'm missing quite a few of the titles they had there, such as "Ghost Horse Mystery," "Monster Mystery," and "Swiss Echo Mystery." Ah, well, perhaps when I do have the money they'll still be available. They were pretty well hidden so perhaps I'll be lucky.

I finished the pair of socks I was working on. Since each ball of yarn was enough to knit a full pair, I've got enough left to make another pair. I've already cast them on & am halfway through (just finished turning the heels this afternoon). I'm using a slip-stitch pattern, almost mind-numbingly easy and yet extremely attractive if I do say so myself. I'll have to post pics--which reminds me, I *still* need to post photos of the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat, especially now that I've made two of them.

Wake up, cousin! We're going to the zoo!

2011-01-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

Today Ralph & I spent about 3 hours at the LA County Zoo. For the most part, we had a good time. There were only two downers: the elephant was rocking & looking most unhappy (a little online research tells me that this behavior is only seen in captive elephants and is probably stress-related), and the orangutans looked very sad and bored. The rest of the trip was fun. The meerkats were adorable, of course. Lots of interesting birds--my favorite, I think, was the Andean Condor although we were not positioned well enough to get a picture. Ralph got some pretty good photos of a wallaby, however I shall refrain from posting them since it's really quite obvious that this was a male. Really obvious. I was especially pleased that we got a good view of the tiger. I think this is the first time I've ever seen one, since every other time I've been to a zoological park they've been hiding in the shady grass.

Haven't been doing much knitting. Instead, way too much time has been spent on the computer (oh, look, I'm on it again!), mostly on Ravelry but also playing games. I really need to cut down on that, especially if I ever expect to get those socks finished.

Last night we watched "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time." Sadly, that's two hours of my life that I won't get back. Bad acting, stilted dialogue, way too much reliance on the characters telling you the story rather than the story being played out, and for the love of Bob, WHY does every person in Ancient Persia speak with a contemporary British accent? Thank goodness I had some crossword puzzles on which to work or I'd have been totally bored.

Sleeeeeepy

2011-01-13T13:04:00.001-08:00

While 49 of the 50 United States have snow on the ground, I'm ready to take a nap. Why? Because I lay outside in the sun for about 30 minutes in my shorts, and now I'm all warm & sleepy. Some of my Ravelry friends are talking about 13" of snow, and freezing temperatures, and here I am with this lovely, lovely weather.

I've been doing a lot of cooking, as I'm sure you have all figured out by now. Today's picture is of last night's roast chicken, which I served with onion-garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas. No, it's not burned; those dark patches are the herbs showing through the skin. Dessert was a bit of the Steamed Chocolate Pudding; not the one in the January 8 post, as that was completely devoured by January 10, but the second one that I made on January 11. I polished off the last bit of it this morning. I think I need to cut down on the desserts so I won't be making another one for a while. The chicken leftovers are going to be turned into stew tomorrow.

Kind of a silly thing happened a few minutes ago. I was sitting here in the living room when a car drove past the house. A man in the car was laughing the entire time, so loudly that I could hear his laughter better than I could hear the sound of the car. Got a great Doppler effect. I certainly would like to know what was so funny, though :-)

My new socks are coming along nicely. I've done the leg & heel portion on both of them, and the gusset on one. I was worried that they were going to be too tight, but I tried one on today & now I think they might turn out a little bit too loose. Ah, well, I'm not too worried about it. I wanted to make them because they are unusual, and if they don't fit it isn't the end of the world. I'm thinking of maybe entering them in the County Fair, although every year I think about entering the Fair and have never gotten around to really doing it. But hey, it could happen!

Condensation!

2011-01-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

Our house is wet. The archway separating the dining room from the living room was dripping water onto the floor before we wiped it down. The windows are quite steamed over. The bathroom mirror is fogged. What could possibly have caused this?

Dense and Fudgy Steamed Chocolate Pudding. Yup. The whole house is soggy because I decided to cook. But ya see, I had some issues when I made the Treacle Pudding, because the pot was really too small which made it very difficult to remove the steaming hot bowl, and the only thing I have that's any bigger is my roasting pan. You know, the kind you use to make a turkey. This thing was boiling away on the stove (taking up two burners) for three hours, during which time I had to add a total of six quarts (!!) of additional water as it boiled. That is a lot of moisture to add to a 1,000 sf house.

Ahhh, but it was worth it. It came out a little soggy; I put the lid on the pot & I don't think I was supposed to do that. It tastes very much like a gooey, slightly underbaked brownie. Ralph ate two pieces of it in rapid succession. I'm thinking of having another piece now, but will show a *little* restraint and wait until after dinner. I tell you, this Harry Potter cookbook is the best!!!

I've spent most of the past 2 days knitting and watching Mythbusters on Netflix. I finally took a picture today of the socks in progress. I know they don't look much like socks yet, but they will once I start working on the gussets. I really like how the colors look together.

Harry Potter Cookbook

2011-01-07T07:09:00.001-08:00

As some of you know, Ralph bought me The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook for Christmas. (Actually, I found out yesterday that there are two books with this title; I got the one with the purple cover). I was completely jazzed about it and couldn't wait to try some of the recipes. Now that I've made some--I am even MORE jazzed about it. Entree-wise, my favorite so far is the Breaded Pork Chops, with the Herby Roast Chicken a close second. Ralph likes Molly's Meatballs with Onion Sauce best, and I have to admit those are very good too. A couple days ago I made the Treacle Pudding (see picture) which Ralph & I both love. It was just OK the first day, but after it had "aged" overnight, WOW!! There's just barely enough left for our dessert tonight. I'm hoping to find bittersweet chocolate somewhere so I can make the Steamed Chocolate Pudding this weekend. It's also used in the Dark Chocolate Truffles so you can see it's very important that I find some.

Knitting-wise, I'm ready to pick up the stitches for the gusset in the first sock. I've put that one aside for now & am casting on for the second one. I do prefer to work on both socks at the same time to avoid "second sock syndrome," but that hasn't been feasible with this one because of the bobbins. I didn't want to load up 20 bobbins & then have leftover bits on them when the socks are done. I really need to get a picture of the one in progress, though.

Had one nibble at my resume during the week, but nothing definite at this point. I've got those same mixed-feelings about it all. I like being home. It means real dinners instead of fast-food or whatever can be thrown together; the dogs can stay indoors when it's cold or rainy; I can get the chores & errands done so the weekend is free to do fun things. Ralph likes me to be home for the same reasons. BUT. We just can't *quite* afford for me to not be working. A part-time job would be great, or even a series of temp positions would work out. Oh, well, as the old TV theme says, "we'll just take life as it comes, one day at a time." Hmm, wonder if I could find that on Netflix?

I got rather grossed out at the grocery store the other day. The bagger at the next checkstand over thoroughly wiped his nose on the palm of his hand & then went back to bagging groceries. YUCK! From where I stood it looked like his nose was really runny, too; his mustache looked wet. ICK ICK ICK. I kept a close eye on him to make sure he didn't come over to bag at the checkstand where I was. There was no way I was going to let him touch the lettuce I was buying, even if I had to say, "I'm sorry, but I saw you wipe your nose with your hand, and I don't want snot on my salad." Luckily he stayed put. I probably should have told him to go wash.

The second picture today is from the Christmas parade last month. It shows up a lot better if you click on it to enlarge. Isn't that just the coolest cop car ever?

First post of 2011

2011-01-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

Man, I really need to start taking more pictures. Today's photo is from the Mt. Baldy trip we took last March. I just don't have much recent stuff that isn't already posted.

Sadly, my temp to hire position has fallen through after one month. The company didn't have as much business set up for January as they had anticipated so several of us (including some full-time staff) were let go. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I am glad for the experience, and who knows? Maybe they will get busy again & remember me.

I have made several of the recipes from my Harry Potter cookbook. I really like the Herby Chicken a lot; the skin comes out nice & crisp, and since it's got butter under the skin you don't really need to baste it. The Onion-Garlic Mashed Potatoes that go with it I wasn't so impressed with. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, and the next time I make it I'll use butter & milk instead. I think that will make a big difference. I didn't care much for the Glazed Carrots although Ralph did like them. However, I don't believe that the recipe itself is poor; I think the issue was 1) I used "lite" corn syrup instead of regular since that's all they had in the store; and 2) I didn't cut the carrots thin enough so they were too crunchy for my liking. I will definitely give these another chance. Today I made Molly's Meatballs with Onion Sauce, and these I give two thumbs up! When I was making them I was dubious about the large quantity of onion (a whole one in the meatballs and another in the sauce), however it really is the right amount. Soooo good.

Yesterday was our 12th wedding anniversary. We didn't buy gifts for each other, but we did have a very pleasant weekend together. We saw "Tron: Legacy" on Saturday. When we got out of the theater, Ralph mentioned it was 3:00 o'clock. I said, "3:00 o'clock . . . isn't that when we were supposed to be at J & K's for the potluck?" Ralph said a Bad Word & we headed home to quickly make a corn casserole. We were quite late but no one seemed to mind; we arrived with the casserole just as people were thinking about having seconds of the meal so that was OK. We talked & ate & watched the re-run of the Rose Parade and basically a good time was had by all.

Yesterday Ralph needed to get some rear view mirror adhesive, so we went & picked that up, then sat in the truck listening to the rain, drinking hot chocolate and reading (him)/knitting (me) while we decided where to go for an early dinner/late lunch. We picked a Moroccan place in San Pedro, but alas we got there long before they opened. After driving around a bit we decided to eat at a British pub. Good choice, very good choice. The meal began with marinated mushrooms, and individual Yorkshire puddings with beef & horseradish sauce. Then we both chose steak pies (his with mushrooms, mine with kidney) and we finished it up with a lovely bread pudding which was complementary since it was our anniversary. Naturally I picked out the raisins since those are An Abomination Unto Nuggin.

Right now I am snuggled up under this wonderful electric blanket Ralph bought for me. It's just the right size for one person. He got one for himself, too. They were a bit pricey but I suspect they'll save us a lot of money when compared to running the space heaters all the time.

Winding down the year

2010-12-29T05:04:00.001-08:00

Dear Rain--yes, I know you are good for the grass. And normally I like a little rainy weather. But this is getting ridiculous. You were here in force for the whole week leading up to Christmas, and here you are again. Now, I do appreciate the fact that you went away for the holiday, really I do. It's just that I'd like to have some dry weather for more than just three days. Thank you.

I got a real kick out of the last two entries on hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. I suspect I'll be getting the giggles at every Kenny Loggins song for a long time to come, and the post about moving with the dogs had me laughing 'til I cried. I wish I could write a blog that great, but alas this is what y'all are stuck with. You'll just have to go read hers for the big laughs.

Speaking of laughs, I got a chuckle at work the other day. I was walking down the hall, and a guy came out of a doorway. He politely held the door open for me, then got a rather sheepish look on his face as he realized that my destination, in all likelihood, was not the men's room. Ah, well, I appreciate the manners nonetheless.

Had a very good Christmas. Ralph & I only got each other a few things--mostly books--and spent a nice afternoon & evening with family. I've already tried a couple of the recipes in my new Harry Potter cookbook, and have started a rather complex pair of socks from the pattern book my SIL & BIL gave me. Well, it's not so much complex as time-consuming. It's a pretty easy intarsia--just strips of color--but with 10 bobbins over 81 stitches on size 1 needles, there's a lot of tangling. It took me 35 minutes to do 3 rows this morning. This is going to keep me busy for a long time!

One sad note. I learned on Sunday that my old boss, CD, passed away. He was a fun person & I was sorry to hear the news. I knew he had been ill, but the last time I'd seen him he seemed in good spirits. Such a shame.

We have been invited to two parties for New Year's Eve. I suspect that I'll be going to one & Ralph to the other, even though we accepted the invitation to the party I will be attending first. Funny, we've not been to a NYE party in years, and this year we get two invites.

Not much to say

2010-12-20T19:00:00.001-08:00

Very little to talk about, however it's been weeks since I've posted so I figured I'd better say something.

The temp job is going really well. I'm not 100% up to speed yet, however I've learned a lot and don't have to ask nearly so many questions as I did at first. The computer software is very different from what I'm used to using. There are also a lot of little things to remember, like you can't change certain figures if the loan is being processed by one particular location, but it's OK on the other locations, and certain fees have to be lumped together after printing a copy of the HUD statement. I'm catching on, though!

Nearly broke my toe on Saturday. We've got a 15 pound steel weight we use as a doorstop, and SOMEone left it in the middle of the hallway. Slammed my bare foot into it on the way to the bathroom. Cussing ensued. Hurt like the dickens for a long time, although now it's nearly back to normal. Feels more stiff than it does painful.

Yesterday we had to take all the animals in for their second de-worming shot. We were 3/4 of the way to the vet when I realized we'd forgotten to bring the cat! So, we've got to go back this weekend & get him taken care of. Luckily the vet is open on Boxing Day.

Oh, my, Boxing Day--has it really been almost a year since Hoover died? I guess it has. Poor little kitty. I miss him still.

It's a New Job After All

2010-12-07T19:07:00.001-08:00

I didn't say anything before, because I didn't want to jinx it, but I started a new temp-to-hire position yesterday. Yay! It's as an escrow assistant, and basically it's all the things I liked best about my old job, albeit with a different computer system. The people there are friendly, too. This is a place I could like. Keeping my fingers crossed that this is a long-term (dare I hope for permanent?) position.

One of the things I did today was fix the sweater of the woman who sits in the desk in front of mine. (OK, it's not *my* desk; but it's where I sit while I'm being trained). Yesterday I noticed she had a ripped thread that was causing a stitch to drop, so today I brought some yarn & tools to repair it. While I did want to do something nice for her, the main reason I did it was because the knitter in me was screaming in torment at the sight of that dropped stitch. The yarn didn't match as well as I'd like, but she was very happy with the repair.

Having some headlight troubles on the Prius, darn it. The headlights go out at random; sometimes just one and sometimes both. It was particularly scary on the O-shaped, unlit off-ramp coming home tonight--yikes!! I'll be driving the Saturn until we can bring the Prius in to be fixed.

I was almost late for work today. I left at 6:45, which one would think would be plenty of time to drive 28 miles & arrive by 8:00 am even with traffic. Unfortunately there was an accident on the freeway, and it took me just over an hour to drive the first 16 miles. Unbelievable! Luckily traffic was pretty clear for the next 10, then backed up again. UGH! However, I did make it to work safely & barely on time.

Today's photos are a few of the ornaments on our tree. I'll try to get a good shot of the whole thing; the one I took tonight didn't come out very well.

Mondaaaaaay.

2010-11-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

As you can see, I took a picture of the armadillo that will be my nephew's gift. I think it came out really well. I did make a couple minor changes to the original; mainly, instead of casting off & making the head, body, and tail as separate pieces, I just did an extra round to change the number of stitches to match the next bit & did it all as one piece. I'm quite pleased with how it came out.

I'm also making decent progress on the sloth, or at least I would be if I could find the stupid cream yarn that I *know* I have somewhere. I've got a couple skeins that are sort of cream, however they just don't look right with the body color (the body is done in eyelash, the head in plain yarn). I'm sure it will turn up somewhere. If not, well I think I've got some cream fiber somewhere & I just might end up spinning my own yarn just so I can finish.

Thanksgiving seems to have been an omen of things to come. I went to the market today to pick up a few ingredients. I've got some acorn squash & sweet potatoes, and wanted some meat to go with it. I also wanted to make a Quiche Lorraine for tomorrow's breakfast & needed some Swiss cheese. I couldn't find any meat that was less than $3.99/pound, which I wasn't about to pay, except for some pork shoulder that had more fat than meat visible. No dice. OK, change of plans; I bought some cabbage & I'm cooking that up with some mango chicken sausage we had in the freezer (the sausage is too sweet to pair up with sweet potatoes & acorn squash).

Off to the cheese section to get the Swiss. The *only* Swiss cheese they have is the store brand at $6.49/pound. Seriously. $6.49/pound for freakin' Swiss cheese. I already had cheddar at home, so I did a recipe search when I got home & made a cheddar/bacon quiche instead. I'm getting good at these last minute menus.

Black Friday

2010-11-26T18:23:00.001-08:00

Well, our Thanksgiving did not go according to plan. Ralph came down with a horrendous cold, which meant staying home so he didn't infect everyone at the open house/potluck. This also meant having to come up with an at-home Thanksgiving meal at the last minute. I think I did pretty well, all in all. I had already baked a cranberry pie (thank you, Lizard, for the recipe--we're already down to the last tiny slice!) in anticipation of the potluck, and had all the ingredients for a corn casserole as per my last post. A quick run to the market snagged us a turkey breast, the last jar of chicken gravy (and I only got that because I saw someone set it down amongst the cans of mushroom soup), and the fixings for a green bean casserole. A box of Stove Top isn't quite the same as mom's oyster stuffing recipe, but was definitely better than no stuffing at all. I used the last little bit of cranberries from the pie to make a small dish of cranberry sauce, plus already had some instant mashed potatoes at the house. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself, and we even had leftovers.

In more food news, today I made soup from a leftover roast chicken that Ralph had cooked on Wednesday. This is the first time I've ever made soup from a carcass and actually had it taste good. It helped that there was a lot of meat left on the bones. I seasoned it with black pepper, sage, thyme, and Better Than Bouillon, thickened the juice with cornstarch, then topped it off with Bisquick dumplings. It was so good I had two bowls of it (and four dumplings!). Plus there's something soothing about chicken & dumplings on a cold day like this. (OK, so 66 degrees isn't exactly freezing, however as a California native I get chilled at 70.)

Making slow but steady work on the sloth. I am remembering why I dislike knitting with eyelash yarn. I spend more time making sure the maximum number of eyelashes are on the right side of the fabric than I do actually knitting. Still, it's promising to be absolutely adorable when it's done so I'll just keep at it.

An old photo today, one which I think I may have posted in the past. Halitosis has some arthritis in her hocks, so I knit her these legwarmers ages ago. As you can see from the look on her face, she adores them & is sooo happy to wear them. I think the 10 seconds it took to take the pictures is the longest she's ever worn them.

End of the line

2010-11-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

And so it ends. Today was the last day of my temp job. I plan to enjoy the holiday weekend, then back to the job search on Monday.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Ralph & I will be going to an open house/potluck at the home of our friends JM & KM. They've been restoring their home--a historic Victorian--and I'm excited about seeing the progress. Lizard sent me a recipe for cranberry pie, so I'll be making one of those, and of course also bringing a corn casserole. It wouldn't be a potluck without a corn caserole.

I made a second armadillo. The first one is so cute that I had to make another. The second one is dark grey with a black back (I still need to stitch on the back, but other than that it's finished) which I think is a little more "manly" so that's the one that's going to be gifted. I also started a sloth, which will be another gift. Hope it turns out as cute as the picture in the pattern.

Had to have a plumber in today. Tree roots in the main pipe leading from the house to the street. I checked out the company on the BBB website yesterday, and was impressed with their A+ rating/zero customer complaints. After today, I can see why they are rated so high. The guy got the pipe draining in less than an hour, but stayed for a full three routing it out more thoroughly. The cost for this 3-hour job? $149. Yes, you read that right. I couldn't believe it myself. If we ever need a plumber again, I know who we're going to call.

Lastly, we saw "Deathly Hallows" over the weekend. I loved it! I won't give anything away, though, in case there are some among the Teeming Millions who haven't seen it yet. I did feel that this movie more closely followed the book than any other except possibly "Sorcerer's Stone" and the kids have grown up to be quite amazing actors. And I really, really want to knit a pair of fingerless mitts like the ones Hermione wears!

Pain, family, and armadillo

2010-11-14T14:48:00.000-08:00

Two week since I've posted. It's a wonder I have any followers left!

Poor Ralph threw his back out today. He's been unable to do much of anything other than lie flat on his back; virtually anything else (including taking a deep breath) makes him groan & shout out with pain. Luckily his jury duty got postponed so he doesn't have to worry about that this week. Looks like I might have to take tomorrow off work to bring him to the doctor, though, which kinda sucks since it's my first 40-hour week in over a month.

Last Saturday was Dad's birthday. We went to Lizard's place for a potluck lunch/dinner, and she had a surprise for him: both my brothers flew down from Washington state! Dad was really happy to see them; he hadn't a clue that they were going to be there. Lizard's friend Duh (whom we've known for over 40 years & is certainly considered to be family) was there with her husband Happy, and of course The Boy & The Girl attended too. The food was yummy (two kinds of enchilada, corn casserole, refried beans, chipsnsalsa, banana cupcakes & chocolate cake) and I think everyone had a good time.

Started a new knitting project on Friday, and finished it up today. It's a little armadillo (see photos), which will be a Christmas gift for one of my nephews. I don't think he reads this blog so I'm not spoiling the surprise :-) I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was to knit up. Even the sewing up wasn't too onerous, as everything except the back is worked in the round which eliminates seaming. The pattern included a link to a tutorial on making the eyes, and it's sooooo much easier than the way I usually do them. The yarn I used for the back was too thin, so I held it double which made it too thick & the shell came out a little too large. Still, I think it looks pretty good. He's designed in such a way that you can roll him up, just like a real armadillo. Definitely have to make one of these for myself.

So, with the armadillo and the pony, I've got two gifts taken care of (or should that be "two gifts, care of which has been taken"?) Need to go through the Ravelry patterns & find a suitable toy for the third child. I'm thinking maybe the sloth that I saw the other day. That would be different, and I do try to be different.

Happy Halloween! (Yeah, original title, I know)

2010-10-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

Had a great time at the Halloween Party last night. Ralph won two prizes for his costume: Most Humorous, and Best Costume. For all you Teeming Millions dying to know what we dressed as, it was Frau Blucher (whiiiinnny!) and Igor. The practice brain we made last week was sort of kinda accidentally left out & was sooooo moldy yesterday. Ralph was going to use it anyway, but when he saw the new brain I made for today's haunted house he changed his mind (thank goodness) and took the new one.

Got home about midnight, and there was NOWHERE to park anywhere on our street. Not wanting to walk a block home that late we ended up parking on the lawn. Luckily we did not get a ticket. The neighbors up the block were having a biiiiig party that was still going strong at 4:00 am.

Anyway, here are some photos from the party. First up, Ralph and me in our costumes. The candelabra was a pain to find; we looked for two days & only one person knew what the heck we were talking about when we asked for a candelabra, and that shop only had the large standing floor-style ones. I did a product search on Crate & Barrel which had 419 hits, not one of which was actually a candelabra.

The brain we took to the party. The coloring on this one came out really well, IMHO. We used 2 boxes of peach Jello, 9 oz evaporated milk, and some food coloring (about 5 drops red, 5 drops green, and 7 drops blue) to get this shade.

Our lovely hostess SS as Katherine Hepburn in "The African Queen," and our friend JO in her "ST: TNG" costume. I liked the juxtaposition of past & future in the one shot.

A close-up shot of Ralph's google eyes. They were the hit of the party! One of the kids loved them so much that Ralph gave them to him, which earned Ralph a hug from the child. Better him than me, LOL!

One of the Halloween decorations at the party, a very nice statuette of Jack Skellington.

What the. . . ??

2010-10-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

OK. Would someone PLEASE explain to the nectarine tree that it is not springtime? I mean, seriously, blossoms in October is just a bit much. It hasn't even dropped its leaves for the fall yet, and here it is putting forth blooms. Yup, all three of today's pictures were taken yesterday. What a crazy tree.

As you've probably guessed from the lack of posts, not a whole lot has been happening. Ralph & I have finally decided on our Halloween costumes & spent much of the weekend gathering/purchasing the items we need. Oddly enough, the parts I thought would be the easiest to find ended up being the hardest, and the things we thought would be hard to find were no trouble at all. I'm not saying what we're going to be--you'll have to tune in after Halloween & find out then. I will say that I believe we have a very good chance of winning Best Costume for the second year in a row.

I've had a fairly boring if productive morning. One load of laundry is hung up & another is ready for the dryer. I've got some handwashables soaking in the kitchen. Dishes are done, got my hair cut, put gas in the car, and picked up a few items at the grocery store for tonight's dinner (veggies to put in the chicken & dumplings). Not too bad a start to the day, really. My hair is a little shorter than I like it to be. I'm not too chuffed about that, though. I mean, it's just hair & will grow back pretty quickly.

Ralph & I made a practice brain yesterday for the haunted house. We definitely learned a couple things: for example, when the instructions recommend using watermelon Jello, do not substitute raspberry. The colors are NOT the same. Also, when you wrap the towel around the mold to keep it level, make sure the mold is actually level when you do so or your brain will be lopsided. Still, it looks quite gruesome as-is and if the one for Halloween comes out looking like this one it would be acceptable.

Back in the home improvement sector, it looks like we might have yet another leak. This time it appears to be either the water heater or the pipes leading from it. When I pulled my big roasting pan out of the cabinet that's below the water heater this morning, it had about 2" of water in it. There is also a moldy patch on the "ceiling" of the cabinet. Not good. After all the work Ralph did fixing the bathroom we really don't need another water-related home repair. Or even a non-water-related home repair.

Well, I've got some more housework to attend to. Guess I'd best get to it.

Surrounded by dogs

2010-10-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

So we've had a little bit of thunder to go with our rain this morning. I now have one dog lying partly under the computer table, one dog standing next to me with her head in my lap, the third dog lying on the other side of me, and a cat stalking around, growling & yowling & upsetting the dogs more than the thunder did. I am almost completely surrounded by unhappy canines & I don't think I could squeeze past them to get out of this chair if I tried.

Signed up with another temp agency yesterday. They've got a position or two in mind to set up interviews for me, so we'll see how that goes. I'm liking the part-time work right now, but a full-time paycheck can't be sneezed at.

Speaking of sneezing, I forgot to mention something that I at least found funny. When Ralph & I were at the swap meet a couple weeks ago, a woman there sneezed. She very courteously turned her head away from the crowd and sneezed down towards the ground--directly onto her child's head. Yeah, I know, I've got a warped sense of humor.

The winners have been announced for the scavenger hunt! After seeing everyone else's postings I didn't think I was going to get anything, so imagine my surprise when my cop photo took runner-up for most humorous! Of course, I promised the officer I wouldn't post the photo anywhere except on the scavenger hunt thread so you get a picture of my critter at the vet's office instead. The prize was a free pattern from a designer named Luchita, and I chose a cute little lion handpuppet. I'm thinking of making three in different colors to give to QL, OL, and SL. I think QL is still young enough to enjoy a handpuppet. With my current queue I doubt they'll be done in time for Christmas but there's no reason why I can't send them out sometime in February as a "just because" gift.

Did I mention that Dad had some minor surgery last week? The battery was dead on his pacemaker/defibrillator & the unit had to be replaced. We had a heck of a time finding the place; he was first instructed to go to the cardiac specialty office, and they told him no you need to go to the main hospital on the next block. I dropped him off there & parked. When I came back he said they'd told him to go out & to the right to the outpatient surgery. Nothing there. We went back & asked some cops that were by the ambulance area and apparently Dad was supposed to go *left* out the door. The cops pointed the way & said to go in the second door. Got in there--Dad was quite out of breath at this point--started to sign in, and the nurse said, "I can't find your appointment; is this for cardio?" When we said yes she said, "Oh, you need the next lobby over. Go through those doors & take the elevator to the third floor." (This meant the cops should have told us to go in the first door, not the second.) We do that & the nurse up there asked if we'd gone in the main hospital doors (opposite side of the building) and checked in there first. After giving her looks of shocked dismay, we told her how much of a runaround we'd already been through (and by this time we were 30 minutes late for his appointment). Luckily she took pity on us, had Dad sit in the waiting room, and sent someone to go get all his paperwork from the front. Anyway, long story short (too late!) from that point all went smoothly & he is back home, tired but doing OK.

We've started putting up the haunted house for Halloween. We're not doing anything really big this year; just a single room that the kids will walk past rather than through. We're going with a Halloween kitchen/dining room theme this year & will have things like Jell-o brains, rats, a plateful of octopi (see, I *knew* there was a reason for me to have made so many of those!), and MH2 said she might bring a kitty litter cake (decorative AND edible). No gory dismembered body parts, although we do have some eyeballs that we'll be using. They're more comic than gory, having been part of some spooky straws that Taco Bell gave out in a promotion about 15 years ago.

Well, that's about it for now. Hopefully something interesting will happen soon & I'll have a better post :-)

Tea Party Day

2010-10-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I almost forgot! Today is Mad Hatter Tea Party Day, which actually occurs twice a year. The dates are October 6 & June 10, based on the "In this style 10/6" tag on the Mad Hatter's Hat. I even brought a tea bag & muffin to work so I could have a little "party" for my afternoon snack, then forgot about it until Lizard mentioned the date on her Facebook status. Anywho, here are photos of my "party," a warm fig muffin paired with a cup of decaf tea. I even used my Cheshire Cat thermochromatic mug; the cat "vanishes" when the mug is filled with hot liquid. And yes, I know there are crumbs on the tablecloth. Just deal with it :-)

A little of this, a little of that

2010-10-06T18:50:00.001-07:00

Today's photos are all part of the Photo Scavenger Hunt in which I am participating. The mission: to knit a critter, then on any one day from Oct 3 through Oct 9 you take photos with the critter in a variety of places/situations. One photo can fit more than one category. Each participant posts ten photos to try & get the highest point count. So far I'm the only one to post, which is odd since the timeframe is half over, and have 51 points. Hey, maybe no one else will enter & I'll get all the prizes.

The photos I've posted here are: in a school (I didn't use this one as I have a better shot for that; however I'm amazed at how young the assistant principal is at my old elementary school & had to post this one because of it); next to a statue of the same type of animal in a public place; dining out (with an extra point for a vegetarian meal); and in a yarn store. That one got me extra points because it includes a toy knit by someone else. I couldn't post the best shot here, as I promised the police officer (who was quite embarrassed to be photographed with a stuffed pony) that I would *only* post it on the scavenger hunt thread.

Ralph spent the weekend working on repairing the bathroom floor, and I am very impressed with what a great job he did! I had no idea he was so handy. He says he didn't know it, either. He pulled out all the old flooring, removed the damaged wood, treated the remaining wood for mold, laid down the replacement wood, prepped it, and installed enough of the vinyl tile that he was able to install the new toilet. This last one was just in time--we spent 4 days using the potty in the trailer, which was OK as a temporary measure but it would have sucked having to go out there once last night's rain set in.

Have you ever been watching a TV show, and someone on it does or says something so wrong/stupid that you want to reach into the screen and smack 'em upside the head? I had that happen yesterday when Ralph had "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" playing on Netflix. A character is badly injured, and needs a blood transfusion. John says, "Mom is type O; that's a universal donor." The paramedic--let me repeat that, the PARAMEDIC--says, "No, he's AB. It's very rare, he needs his own blood type." John then says, "Test MY blood." And of course, he also turns out to be the very rare AB. Sigh. One, Type O *is* a universal donor; anyone can receive it. Second, a type O parent can NOT have a type AB offspring. Third, AB is a universal *recipient* and can receive a transfusion of any blood type. Mind you, I'm ignoring Rh factors and positive/negative but still for the writers to not know this basic bit of info on blood types just annoyed the bejeezus out of me.

First post of October

2010-10-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Got really irked at the radio news yesterday. One of the stories was about some "amazing evidence" that Columbus may not have been the first non-native to set foot on North American soil. Apparently a man on the east coast found an ancient Phoenician coin, which has historians "astounded." What a bunch of BS. Historians, paleontologists, and anthropologists have known for decades that Columbus was nowhere near the first non-native to the Americas, having been beaten to the punch by yes the Phoenicians, the Vikings, the Polynesians and others. And for that matter, the "native" Americans themselves migrated here originally. Gah.

Speaking of the radio, one of the local stations did a fun thing the other day. They called it "Alphabet Soup," and each song title began with the last letter of the previous song title. This led to some rather interesting segues, such as going from "Squeeze Box" to "Xanadu," and to the playing of songs not normally heard on a rock station such as "New York, New York," "Candy Man," "Another One Rides the Bus," and "Time Warp." People would text, e-mail, or phone in with their suggestions (the next day the DJ said they had over 3,000 people sending in song titles). I really enjoyed it and hope they do it again someday.

Ralph is tearing out the bathroom floor today. We've got some major water damage going on (the floor actually flexes if you step on certain areas) and are trying to get it taken care of before the wood gives way completely. Unfortunately we've got more leaks than we expected, from around the shower, the sink, AND the toilet. Sigh. Just what we need right now, more expenses.

Dad has to have his pacemaker replaced. Not sure on when the surgery will be; he doesn't have an appointment yet but should be hearing from the doctor soon. Dad says *he's* fine, it's the pacemaker that is having troubles.

Did something kinda silly the other day. I was wandering through a Halloween store, and they had some life-size "psycho killer" type props. I was so convinced that they were going to move when I walked past them, that when they *didn't* move I was startled & jumped a bit. Felt rather foolish, I must say.

Making good progress on the first Dark Mark scarf; I've got about 110 rows left to do which really isn't that much considering I've already done over 560 rows. Hmm, wonder how many stitches that is? 560 + 110 = 670, times 41 stitches per row = 27,470 stitches. Egads. I really should know better than to do the math, it's always a bit overwhelming to look at it that way.

Today's photo is a hibiscus that bloomed in our backyard last week. Still need to find the camera (haven't checked the Saturn yet), especially as I'll need it for the Photo Scavenger Hunt next week.

Dear weather. . .

2010-09-27T15:19:00.001-07:00

Dear Weather. It's fall now. There is no reason for it to be 109 degrees today. Please bring cooler temps and nice breezes. Thank you.

As predicted, within a couple days of buying a new collar for Sadie, I found the old one. It was under the keyboard next to my rocking chair. A couple days after that, her new collar also came off. I found it in the same spot. The problem is, her neck is bigger around than her head, so there's no way to get the collar tight enough to stay on without asphyxiating the poor thing.

Yesterday Ralph & I went to an orchid show. Unfortunately I have no pics of it for you today, as I left the camera in the Saturn & Ralph took the Saturn to work. But I did take some, and I'll post when I can. Some of the flowers were really lovely, too. I especially liked some deep purple ones.

I *was* making good progress on the Dark Mark scarf. I measured it today and it was 46" long, only 4" away from starting the second illusion repeat. As I was measuring it, though, I discovered an entire row of garter stitch that should have been stockinette, which meant frogging a full FIVE INCHES OF SCARF. Sigh. Oh, well, I've got until November to finish the pair; five inches really isn't that big a deal. I suppose. . .

Making meatloaf for dinner tonight, and I've got a pork roast thawing in the fridge for tomorrow. The roast is quite large; I'm thinking of cutting it in half, roasting one piece and doing the other up as pulled pork in the slow cooker. That'll give us a bit of variety.

Today I discovered the joy that is Pandora internet radio. I've already created two stations of Christmas music; one is very jazzy/upbeat and the other is more mellow. I love it! While I enjoy my CDs a lot, one does get tired of hearing the same songs over & over again.

Today's photo is one I took of Mudgie to make sure my new camera card was functioning. He's all squinty because of the flash. Kind of gives him a "You are intruding in my domain; please leave the planet" look.

EDIT: Hee hee--I just posted a couple comments on a friend's blog. In the first comment I used the word "unholy," and the security word I had to type to submit the comment was "prays." The second post the security word was "clord" (which I am assuming should be pronounced "see lord").

A couple knitting photos, and a video

2010-09-21T07:25:00.001-07:00

Just a few pictures & a short video today. These are the three dishcloths I made from the orange & black yarn purchased at the sale a little over a week ago. The first one is just a plain, mitered square. It's a remarkably simple technique in which one does a double decrease at the center of every other row, resulting in the bent stripes you see here.

Next up is a mosaic pattern, another easy technique with rather impressive results (if I do say so myself). It's done by alternating colors every two rows, and you slip stitches in order to pull the color from one row up into the two above it. The pattern is "Pharoah's Check" and is from the book "Sensational Knitted Socks." I did make the floats a speck too tight, however since I'm just using it to wash my face I'm not too worried about it.

Third up, an illusion knit cloth. This is my least favorite of the three cloths; the pattern IMHO was not well-designed & the illusion isn't as sharp as it ought to be. Normally in illusion knitting, the pattern in row 4 is the opposite of row 2, but this one didn't do that & the picture doesn't show up properly. However, with a little squinting you can tell that it's supposed to be a paw print. It was a free pattern, and again it's just going to be used to wash my face, therefore it doesn't need to be perfect.

Lastly, a short video of one of my WIPs, "Morsmordre!" The pattern is the Dark Mark Illusion Scarf. I'm planning on making two--one for me, one for Ralph--and the goal is to have them finished in time for us to wear them when we see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1" in November. The video isn't perfect, but it's good enough to show the illusion.

Four-day weekend

2010-09-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

At least, it's a four-day weekend for me, as will be the next couple of weekends. I've been dropped back to part-time employment only at my temp job, which I actually rather like. It'll give me a couple days to do housework so Ralph & I can do fun things on the weekend, not to mention I'll be available for interviews on Mondays & Tuesdays should any come along. So how am I spending my weekend? Besides being on the computer, I mean. Well, I spent last night baking fig muffins; six dozen, to be exact, most of which went into the freezer. Today I made pulled pork & have some macaroni & cheese baking in the oven to go with it.

Non-food-wise, I went to the craft store today & bought four skeins of yarn which I'm using to make scarves for Ralph & me to wear when we go to see "Deathly Hallows" when it comes out in November. I've started the first one & have great hopes for it. I picked up a new collar & name tag for Sadie, as she somehow managed to lose hers. It's not like she wanders anywhere, so they've got to be either in the house or the backyard, but I'll be darned if I can find them.

Speaking of knitting, the LYS had a big sale last week. I spent an hour there on Saturday & bought two skeins of silk which I'm going to use to make a shawl. (I would have stayed longer, but had to get to Dad's by noon for a visit & lunch out with the fambly.) I went back on Sunday and bought two skeins of cotton which I've already knit up into three washcloths; I've got enough left to make a coaster, I think. I also got some burnt orange Malabrigo sock yarn, and some cotton/acrylic bouclé that will someday be a striped scarf. Pics of the cloths (and of the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat, I promise!) are pending.

Since I don't have knitting or yarn pictures, here are a few more from weekends past. The top photo is a small waterfall on Mt. Baldy, from the hike we took a few weeks ago. Picture #2 is of the headless emu, only with a visible head this time. And a visible butt, yes, I know. Picture #3 is a display from the LA County Fair showing the process for making wine at home. You might also have noticed that I changed the photo in my blog header. That's a Northern Mockingbird; I took that photo in Ontario CA oh, must have been close to two years ago.

OH! Almost forgot. There's been an ice-cream truck coming through the neighborhood lately, and it's got the most eclectic medley of tunes I have ever heard. Many of them are Christmas carols--"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Jingle Bells," and "Joy to the World," to name a few--but there's also "Little Brown Jug," "Happy Birthday," "My Darling Clementine" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Very strange.

A few more pics from the weekend

2010-09-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd post a few more photos from the weekend.

Gaaah! It's the Amazing Headless Emu!!! OK, so obviously the head is just hidden, but I do like this photo. Ralph took it. This was part of the Australian Outback exhibit at the LA County Fair.

A rather whimsical entry in the decorated cakes competition. For once I agree with the judges who awarded this a blue ribbon.

A lovely floral display. Click to view large for the full effect; it really is an amazing work of art.

A full-shot of one of the soft-shell turtles we saw at El Dorado Park.

A great egret at El Dorado Park. This was in the park-proper, not in the nature center area. He caught several little fish while we watched.

Mostly pictures today

2010-09-07T05:18:00.001-07:00

We had a very busy holiday weekend. Saturday was spent at El Dorado Park with MH2 & PH2: a picnic lunch followed by a mile & a quarter walk through the nature center. Sunday we went to the Greek Festival which was mostly food booths but still fun. Yesterday we were at the LA County Fair for four hours. I am sunburned, achy, and happy. Oh, and I also talked to Neighbor K & Neighbor A for a while last night, and discovered K & I attended the same high school in 1980! I was there for five years, she was there for one.

Now on to the photos!

Mudgie was lying on the arm of the chair & Ralph put the arm-cover over him. He stayed that way for quite some while. Silly cat!

Close-up of a soft-shelled turtle at El Dorado Park. Normally we only see sliders, mostly red-ears but a few yellow bellies too. We've only seen a soft-shell at the park once before, so it was a real treat to see three of them on Saturday--including a juvenile.

Can you believe it? This lovely Raggedy Ann doll only took a white (third-place) ribbon at the fair. I swear I don't know what the judges look for.

Another mystery to me. This wonderful quilt didn't get any ribbons at all! There were two very plain quilts in the same display that both got blues. You can see a bit of one of them at the bottom of the photo, right under the little purse that took second place.

Now this is just sad. I bet this was a perfectly amazing cake before it fell over. The entrant must have been so disappointed.

Erm, riiiight.

2010-08-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

So I was bringing in my knitting project yesterday, and my bobbin of white yarn leapt out of the project bag and flung itself at the fan. Before I could catch it, virtually the entire length of yarn had wound itself around the shaft before snapping. Upon closer inspection (see photo, left) it was discovered that little bits of yarn have been winding themselves onto the shaft for some time now. The picture at right is how much was on there. No wonder the fan wasn't running very well.

The talent show last week was a lot of fun. Ralph wasn't too pleased with his singing but I thought he sounded all right. Some of my favorite acts were "Down in the Valley" with two cowpokes and their "mule," and "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" from "Camelot." And, of course, "Weekend in the Country." Afterward about a dozen of us went to Mimi's Cafe for dinner, where I had scrumptious chicken & asparagus crepes served with a cup of chicken noodle soup and some mixed greens with a delicious balsamic vinegar dressing. Much talk & laughter ensued.

I have decided to use two of my Harry Potter squares to make a tote bag. Snape & the Weasley Twins are the closest in size so those are the ones I intend to use. I'll have to find some good fabric for a lining, and I'm torn between making a knitted handle (which may stretch) or buying pre-made handles (which cost money that I'd rather not spend). Since Snape isn't done yet I've still got some time to decide.

Remember I said I baked some fig bread recently? Well, it was totally delicious! Too bad we didn't get much of it, since A Certain Dog Whose Name Begins With "Z" took it upon herself to steal 1-1/2 loaves off the table while we were out! I do have enough figs to bake more, although I need to get more milk & flour first. It's our own fault; we know she steals things and we left the bread too close to the edge of the table. Still, it's very annoying.

OH! And I finished the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat. Photos pending. I absolutely love it.

Chug chug chugging along

2010-08-21T20:25:00.001-07:00

I have found the perfect project for the yarn A.L. gave me. Actually, it's a pattern I've wanted to do for a long time & just hadn't found the right yarn for it. It's called the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat, in honor of the Discworld character of the same name. (Wikipedia has some articles on him so you can look him up if so desired.) It's an awesome hat; after the ribbing, you do some short rows to give it a lopsided look. A cable band is knit sideways above the ribbing, the cables deteriorating into wavy strands over the short rows. (Click on the pic to the right for a better view of the short rows & cables.) I had to learn how to graft rib stitch for this project which is an AWESOME skill to have, and easier than one might think. Short rows in the crown allow the hat to fit properly. The pictures posted today are of the cable band before grafting.

Today I picked the first ripe figs from the tree, or rather the first fruits we humans get to eat. I noticed quite a few that have been munched on by birds and insects (notably ants--the tree was swarming with them!) I gathered 21 of them; 14 are in the fridge now, and the others were used to make some fig bread which is currently baking. I've never made it before, since normally the birds don't leave enough figs to bother, and I hope it's good. It smells good, which I'm taking as a good sign.

I've started following a new blog (new to me, that is). It's called Hopes & Dreams & Happy Things (www.hopes-dreams-happythings.blogspot.com) and the title pretty much describes it. Current postings include a photo of an open-mouthed bullfrog (love his reflection in the pond) and some shots of The Magic Castle in LA (an awesome place; if you ever have the chance to visit you should do so). Scrolling through the old posts certainly made me smile.

Ralph is performing in a church talent show tomorrow. Neither of us are members of this church, but some friends of ours go there & one of them asked Ralph to help out as they were short a tenor for "A Weekend in the Country." I think I may have mentioned this in an earlier post. I'm really looking forward to the performance.

Temp work is still holding on. Friday was supposed to have been my last day and they've asked me to stay another four weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Snake!

2010-08-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

Took a short hike at Ice House Canyon (Mt. Baldy) this morning. Saw several Stellar's jays, a couple woodpeckers, and this rather handsome little snake. Based on a Google search, I believe he is a striped whipsnake. Pretty cool, eh?

Just some random thoughts

2010-08-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

Have you ever done the right thing, and felt like a jerk for doing so? A few days ago, I was knitting in the car at work when a couple young teenage girls came up & asked me if I knew where a certain street was. I said I didn't, but would see if I could find it on the GPS. As I was powering it up, one of them said they were going to Name Of High School. I entered that & discovered they still had 2-1/2 miles to walk. They offered to pay me if I would give them a ride. I looked at them like they'd grown a couple extra heads & replied, "Don't take rides from strangers; I could be a creep for all you know." They were disappointed, but still thanked me for the information & went on their way. Now, I know I'm not a creep. I doubt they were planning on Doing Me Harm. However, a) my car is full of yarn & other things & there really isn't room for passengers; 2) I only had 10 minutes left of my break & would have been late getting back, and most importantly 3) I never give rides to, nor accept rides from, people I don't know--and neither should they. But I still feel like a jerk.

Speaking of knitting, I started a new project today. No, I haven't finished any of my WIPs, why do you ask? Anyway, it's a little tree frog that I'm making in a variegated blue yarn. It's supposed to be done in worsted but I'm using fingering weight so it's going to be really tiny when it's finished. Not sure what I'll do for eyes; it's supposed to have safety eyes but the ones I have are too big for this little thing; the washers that hold them on are wider across than the head.

Did a little cooking today, too. Made a beef roast with a recipe that uses garlic & coffee. Came out OK; a little tough, but maybe I just didn't roast it long enough. Or roasted it too long, I dunno. The gravy is good, though. I also made a lemon meringue pie, and unlike most pies that I make, I prepared the crust from scratch. Not too bad; it was also a little tough, although certainly better than any other crust I've attempted in the past. I may have worked the dough a bit too much.

Not much else going on. Still at the temp job, at least for one more week. There's a chance I'll be there for another week after that, and some slight possibility of it becoming permanent. I'll say no more as I don't want to jinx things.

Today's photos: Zoe & the neighbor's dog, Sammy, playing "Bite My Head," and the chimney of the marvelous Victorian home we saw at Heritage Square Museum last week.

Busy busy weekend

2010-08-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a busy weekend we had! Yesterday Ralph's brother, sister-in-law, and their three kids stopped by for a visit. They had been out from NM on vacation and came by just for the one day. Sis-in-law brought me some yummy grey Corriedale yarn, which I thought was extremely nice of her. We treated the family to lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, and I think they all enjoyed the food. We did lots of talking, of course, and I found a balsa wood airplane in the game cupboard for the boys to play with. Ralph gave the two boys a ride around the block on the back of his motorcycle. I'm vaguely alarmed by how well my helmet fit them. Baby S is still far too young for a ride, but maybe next time.

Today we went to Heritage Square museum, which is a collection of Victorian-era houses. They don't allow photography inside the houses, so I had to be content with taking a few outside. My favorite from the outside was the gingerbread-covered home in the center photo. The original owner/builder was a land speculator, and he used his own house as a model home, which is why it has so much gingerbread and gew gaws. On the inside, my favorite was the octagonal house (I'll post a photo of that another day). The rooms were squared off inside the octagon, which left spaces for storage. It was also very cool inside, almost as if it were air-conditioned.

Of course for geeky me, the highlight of the trip was the gorgeous green spider in the first picture. I took several shots and only one came out. We came back about 45 minutes later & he was still devouring his butterfly, which was definitely starting to look the worse for wear. We were there for a couple hours & thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I do think I might have gotten a bit of a sunburn, though.

Me and my big mouth

2010-08-03T20:46:00.001-07:00

Well, I just had to point out how nice the July weather was, didn't I? Because August has decided it's time to be HOT HOT HOT. Luckily VT at my temporary workplace was kind enough to open the A/C vent for me, since it was way out of my reach. Even he had trouble reaching it while standing on my desk, and he's at least 6' tall.

I also found my other Man From Atlantis book. Weird, eh? Haven't seen it in years, and the day after I mention not knowing where it is I found it on the bookshelf. Don't know how I missed seeing it before.

Did I mention that we got hit with a $377 dollar electric bill last month? This month's bill had a correction on it. Apparently the June bill was supposed to only have been $65. Since we paid the full $377, we now have a credit of over $220 even after this month's bill is applied against it. What a relief! While it would be nice to have the cash in pocket, it's also nice to know that we won't have to pay an electric bill for several months.

July is over

2010-08-01T06:38:00.001-07:00

You know, it was a rather cool & mild July this year. We did have one week that was quite hot, however for the most part the temp has only been in the 70s. This, I like.

Spent most of yesterday knitting. See, I joined a "Mystery Knit-a-Long" on July 1st, which had a deadline of July 31st by which to post a photo of the finished object & be entered into a drawing for some cool prizes. Each week a part of the pattern was posted, so you couldn't actually complete it until the last week of July. I got bored around part 3 (and had figured out what the finished object was just by reading the instructions for part 1), and decided to set it aside for a while. As I put it away, I thought, "I will never remember that I am putting this here." Sadly, I was correct. I have looked everywhere for the thing and cannot find it. Sooo, in order to have an entry for the drawing, I did about 5 hours of solid knitting yesterday. My shoulders ache today, and my hands aren't so happy either. However, I did get it done albeit not very well & the result is today's pic. I made several Artistic Stylizations in it, not the least of which was sewing on the head & legs in such a way that the front of the body is now the left side of the sheep. It's supposed to have a little scarf, but I decided to make a shawl instead to help hide some of the sins.

Got in my week of temp work, and have been asked to stay another three. Woo hoo! I don't think it will turn into anything permanent, but one never knows. I do wish it were closer to home, though. The long drive is frustrating and makes for a long day, and of course the housework is suffering because of it. I've got a lot to do today, including a week's worth of laundry & of course the carpet needs to be vacuumed desperately. Oh, crap, I just remembered the vacuum isn't working; the beater won't turn. I'll have to see if I can fix that, or maybe Ralph will take a look at it before he goes off to his D & D game. Ha! I just asked & he's doing it right now. And Ha! again, he fixed it :-)

We've got a fourth dog again, although it's only temporary. One of our neighbors is on vacation for a couple weeks & we've taken in his little Scottie (as well as going over & feeding his cats). She's really sweet & playful. Unfortunately, she's also poorly trained; jumps up on people, doesn't know "sit," doesn't know "stay," doesn't come when she's called, gets up on the furniture & pesters the cat. Sadie adores her, of course. Funny how the oldest, least-playful dog in the house always loves having visits from excitable little pups.

AAAAAND! Lizard was able to get my book signed at ComicCon, so I am now the proud owner of "Man from Atlantis 2: Death Scouts" signed by Mr. Patrick Duffy himself!! Lizard said he showed the book to his son & said, "Look how young your dad used to be." I'm actually kinda surprised I still even had the book in order to get it signed--I bought it in 1977, after all. I used to have the first one also, no clue where that ended up. She also tried to get one of my "Foxtrot" books signed, however Bill Amend apparently was never at the booth when she went by, and he apparently never told the booth people when he would be back (they told her that in all the years he'd been at Con, he had NEVER told them when he'd be available). She felt that was rather rude not to mention frustrating. So, Mr. Bill Amend, if you are among the Teeming Millions, next year would you please make a schedule of when you'll be available, or at the very least let your entourage know so they can advise your fans? Thanks!

Another WIP completed

2010-07-23T21:03:00.001-07:00

And at long last, the Christmas Robin is finished. I'm not 100% happy with it. I had trouble making a pom pom, so went for a tassel instead, and even that is rather lame-looking. I'll probably replace it at some point. For now, though, it can stay the way it is as I am finally DONE with the silly thing. I mean, it's not a very big project, and I did start it last October, so you think it would have been done ages ago.

I have some temp work next week, huzzah! It's only for five days, but hey I'll take it. Ironically, it's at my old job; BT called & asked if I'd be willing to help out. It's fiscal quarter end, plus PB (formerly Mr. Boss Man) is moving on to another company so I'm sure they're swamped. Not looking forward to the drive, of course, although I am looking forward to seeing the people.

Actually, I saw a lot of the people on Tuesday; I was in Chino dropping off some books for Lizard (she's going to see if she can get them signed at Comic-Con) & as long as I was nearly to Ontario I went & visited with some folks. Had lunch with DW which was nice. However, there were a lot of folks I didn't see that I would have liked to, so this will be good. I do wish that I'd remembered to move the Saturn into the driveway before I left. For some reason I was thinking it was already there, so of course we got a parking ticket (street sweeping). Le sigh.

Made some brownies yesterday, and they were pretty good. Not great; I like them chewier & fudgier than this recipe makes but good enough to make again someday. It was a new recipe for me. I tried it because it used cocoa, which I have, rather than baking chocolate, which I don't have.

Not much else going on. Hope your week was more exciting than mine :-)

No clever title today, I'm afraid

2010-07-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Look! Look! I've made some progress on the pony at last. Unfortunately I need to knit a new ear as I've somehow managed to lose one of them, go figure. I suspect it's hiding with the white pipe cleaners that I need to finish the Death of Rats, and the ground cloves I wanted for the rice pudding I cooked yesterday.

I've been looking into going back to school for occupational classes, since it seems everyone on the job market today does the same type of office work that I do. The first place I checked out seemed perfect until they told me the cost. Oh. My. Gawd. They want $15,000 for an 8-month class. Their "financial aid" consists of paying half up front, and then paying a little over $1,000 a month for seven months to pay off the rest. That is NOT financial aid, that's a payment plan and not even a very good one. If I had $7,500 to plunk down and a spare $1,000 a month I wouldn't be needing financial aid now, would I?

The second place I was going to visit tomorrow, however I checked out their tuition online and discovered it's even worse; they charge by the credit hour (anywhere from $350 to $500 per credit hour, depending on the class) and when I did the math based on the lowest figures it came to over $23,000. I'm going to be cancelling my appointment.

Yesterday, I did some checking into adult schools, and that seems much more reasonable. The fall schedules aren't posted yet so I had to base my calculations on the summer schedule. Summer classes are shorter, but even tripling the cost per class it comes out to a lot less than $15,000. The schedule for fall is supposed to be posted next week so I'll be following up on that.

ComicCon is next week, and oh I wish I were going! This year sounds like it's going to be excellent: Penn & Teller will be there, and so will Danny Elfman, and one of my favorite cartoonists, Bill Amend, will be there on Friday & Saturday. That would be worth dealing with the crowds & parking. Lizard is going along with one of her Ravelry friends, who will be staying at her place for the week.

Ralph was at his aunt's place in Las Vegas for the weekend, and is on his way home now. He expects to be here soon, and we're planning on going to the movies, a real treat right now with money so tight. We want to see "Despicable Me," which I've heard is excellent.

A photo, a word of advice, and a funny link

2010-07-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

PHOTO: Four owlet ornaments; pattern "Owlies," knit with leftover bits of Plymouth Encore. I knit these for an online group I'm in, the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. The "class" was ancient runes; my letter was "O" in case you couldn't guess. I was going to make eight of them (so I'd have an octet of owlet ornaments) however since I have no use whatsoever for them I decided not to use up all my eyes making more.

WORD OF ADVICE: If you are kneeling on the floor to look at books on the bottom shelves at the library, and your knee pops painfully when you start to stand up, *do not* grab the shelf in an attempt to keep your balance. The shelf WILL tilt, and you WILL have every book on it bounce off your head. Not that I would know this from personal experience or anything, but I am glad that they were all paperbacks.

FUNNY LINK: You will never look at sweet potatoes the same way again http://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html

Yes, yes, it's been ages

2010-07-14T20:35:00.001-07:00

Greetings, O Teeming Millions! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. There just doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on right now. I mean, I'm sure you don't want to hear about how I washed the kitchen floor this morning, or the fact that it's bloody hot (gosh, imagine that--hot weather in Southern California in July. Who'da thunk it?).

We did have one odd thing happen recently. We were awakened one morning around 5:00 am by the dogs barking. I heard someone on the porch call out, "Hello?" Long story short, it was the cops. Apparently a petty thief had been caught in our neighborhood, and one of the things in his possession was the Bronco logo off the side of our truck. What a strange thing to steal! And ours wasn't the only one; as the officers were leaving one of them pulled out another logo & said they still had to track down that vehicle. Very odd.

Surprisingly, I have not been doing that much knitting. I have frogged Snape twice so far, and am now on Row 14 out of 111 (or 19 out of 121 if you count the border rows). I'm also planning on frogging my blue socks, as I believe I've mentioned previously, since I'm not happy with how they are coming out. I did get started on seaming the pony, if you can believe that.

Did I mention that Ralph is going to be singing in a church talent show? We're not actually part of the church, however we're friends with some people who are and they asked him to help out as they didn't have a tenor available. They are going to do "A Weekend in the Country" from "A Little Night Music." I'm not sure exactly when the performance is, only that it is sometime next month. We've attended the show for the last three years & it's always been fun. Of course since Ralph is in it this time, I'm looking forward to it even more than usual.

Last Friday I went out with MH2, our friend MB, MB's daughter whose name also begins with M, so I'll call her Young MB, and MB's baby. It was a short outing; we all got pedicures except the baby, and Young MB also got a manicure. My toenails are now the color of a Louie Blue Raspberry Otter Pop. PH2 felt that MH2 needed a girl's day out after all the stress of her father's illness & passing, and he paid for everything. This was my very first pedicure. It was rather nice although I'm not sure I'll ever get another one. I'm just not that frou-frou I guess.

Today's photo was taken at the Bolsa Chica Wildlife Preserve. Have you ever seen such a fuzzy caterpillar?

'Twas the day after the fourth

2010-07-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Making good progress on the Death of Rats. I just need to weave in the ends on the robe, crochet the tail, and make the scythe. Hope I can find the silver paint for the scythe blade. The photo is from before the sleeves were put on the robe; updated photo pending.

Had a great time at Neighbors K & A's BBQ potluck yesterday. Lots of good conversation, and yummy food which I ate like I'd never been fed. I thought the "goldfish pond" cupcakes someone brought were really cute. Got home before the worst of the poppy-bangies started up. You would think, seeing as how fireworks are illegal in this town, that poppy-bangies wouldn't be an issue, but some folks would rather break the law than bother driving to one of the free professional, public fireworks displays. We had to give Hali a tranquilizer & put her in the closet to keep her relatively calm. And no, it's not mean to put her in the closet. She likes to sleep there--it's her "safe place"--and we kept the door open just enough for her to push it the rest of the way when she was ready to come out, which she did around 3:30 this morning.

Just got back from PH2 & MH2's place. MH2's father passed away yesterday morning after a fight with cancer, and they were feeling the need for a little company. I helped take some stuff down to Goodwill & sort through some other items. A few more friends dropped by right around the time that I needed to head back home so that worked out well. I felt better knowing I wasn't leaving them without any company.

'Twas the night before the fourth

2010-07-03T17:41:00.001-07:00

Today we made a wonderful discovery. There is an Oroweat Outlet only 30 minutes away from home. We got four loaves of Baker's Best Winter Wheat (Ralph's favorite), a 24-count package of Sandwich Thins, an eight-count box of Entenmann's chocolate donuts, and a 6-count package of Thomas's English Muffins for only $9.96. The donuts & English muffins were free because we spent $10 (or close enough to it that they gave us the freebies). Even taking into account the extra gas driving there, it still saved us a lot of money. The Winter Wheat bread is $4.29 a loaf at the store, and here it was only $1.99 a loaf. The money we saved on one loaf is pretty much enough to pay for the extra gas since my car gets such good mileage.

I've got several knitting projects on the needles. Snape is barely started, and of course I haven't touched the pony (that sounds kinky!) in weeks. So of course I had to cast on a couple new items. One is the Death of Rats pattern (here's a pic of what it is supposed to look like when it's done):
I don't like how the fabric robe came out on mine, so I'm experimenting to come up with a knitted one instead. Working on the hood now & I think I've just about got it figured out. I still need to crochet the tail, and make the scythe too.

I'm also participating in a Mystery Knit Along on Ravelry. The sponsor is posting 1/4 of the pattern each week for the month of July. I've already finished the first part. I have a pretty good idea of what it's going to be based on the materials list and the pattern so far, but I'm not going to say in case one of the Teeming Millions happens to be participating as well.

Found another tasty pattern on Allrecipes.com, this one a Cabbage Roll Casserole. Basically you take all the ingredients for cabbage rolls, stir them all together and cook. The originally recipe called for baking it for 90 minutes, however I followed the advice of one of the reviewers & threw everything in a big pot and simmered it on the stove top for about 20 minutes, then topped each serving with a dollop of sour cream. It was really good, and so simple! The original recipe made 12 servings, so I cut it in half & we've got plenty left for two more meals, maybe even three if we make the servings a bit small and serve it with some buttered bread to fill in the cracks. Goodness knows we have enough bread now :-)

Today's picture is of Ralph & Sadie at the dog park last week.

And in other news

2010-06-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

Very little news today. I spoke to N & found out that the job I applied for last week has been filled. However, the company is thinking of hiring another person or two, and they are keeping me on the back burner (so to speak) for if and/or when that day arrives. In the meantime N is still "marketing" me (her word) and of course I'm still hitting the job websites & sending out resumes.

As you can see, I have not only finished the Weasley Twins, but actually got around to taking a picture of it. I'm really flummoxed, though. With the exception of Hermione, every single square has been knit on size 5 needles (I did her on 7s). With the exception of the Weasley Twins which has one Vanna's Choice yarn, every single square has been done exclusively with Plymouth Encore Worsted. So *why* are no two squares close enough in size that I can sew them together to make a pillow cover? Yes, I know I said I was going to knit backings for them. I even started a backing for Hermione. However, it is such dull work to knit row after row of stockinette without even a color change that I don't know when I'll get around to doing it; especially since I have so many more interesting projects calling my name.

Yesterday I baked an absolutely scrumptious citrus cake. The recipe can be found here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Glazed-Lemon-Bundt-Cake/Detail.aspx I didn't have any lemon extract so I used orange instead as that is what I had on hand. A lot of the glaze drips off the cake when you pour it on, so I moved it over a fresh sheet of waxed paper & poured the excess back over the cake; moved it onto the original waxed paper & poured the excess from the second sheet back over the cake; lather, rinse, repeat until virtually all of the glaze was used up. It made a nice, crunchy sugar coating over it. I just might have to have another slice for lunch. Um, I mean after lunch. Yeah, that's it, after lunch. . .

As the 4th of July gets closer, we've been hearing the pop of firecrackers more & more often. Poor Hali is a bundle of nerves; she hates popping sounds. One went off today and she came over to me for comfort, shaking so badly that I could literally hear her teeth chattering. We plan on visiting friends on the 4th, getting home before dark of course, but if they're being set off now I can only imagine what the actual holiday will be like. We intend to keep all the dogs in the house with the doors firmly shut & locked, running the fans & HEPA filter to act as white noise. That should help keep them from hearing the pops, and I'd rather clean up an accident in the house than put them outside and risk them managing to escape the yard in their attempts to get away from the bangs.

Did I mention that I finally got a library card? I've been getting a lot of reading done; six books in ten days, plus I started another one today. Mind you, they are very light reading--"cozy" mysteries rather than anything in depth. Very relaxing. Plus I can use the card at any & all of the libraries in the City, of which there are about ten or so. That should keep me in books for a while, even at the rate at which I am going through them.

Feeling good today

2010-06-23T14:56:00.001-07:00

Goodness, it's been over a week since I've posted. Funny how now that I have lots of time to post, I hardly ever do it. If I'm not careful, I'll turn into Lizard.

Last Wednesday's job interview was rescheduled for today; I got back from it about 30 minutes ago. I feel really good about it. The job sounds very diverse, exciting, and challenging--in other words, right up my alley. I feel the interview went well. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Last Saturday i attended a World Wide Knit in Public Day event. I don't really like referring to it as a "Day" since this year it lasted from June 12 through June 20; it should really be "World Wide Knit in Public Week and a Day." I was originally going to attend one in El Dorado Park (sponsored by the same group that did the one I attended last year) but decided to give another group a chance. I didn't get a lot of knitting done--too busy yakking with everyone! It would have helped if I'd brought a different project, too. I'm working on a pair of lace socks which took more focus than I would have liked for a group event like this. However, the only other projects I have going right now are a small bird that's in the needs-to-be-stitched-together stage, the pony which is at the same point, and a new Harry Potter intarsia square (Snape this time; I finished the Weasley Twins but need to get a photo still). Stitching up is no fun, and intarsia takes even more focus than the lace socks.

Yesterday I took up an invitation from MC from Archery, meeting up with her & one of her friends whom I shall call Knitter C. Of course I brought the same sock project that requires focus on the pattern, so not much got done on them. It was a lot of fun chatting though, and MC bought me lunch which I felt was very kind of her. If I don't get a job soon, we'll probably meet up again some weekday. Knitter C would fit right in with our group of friends, being a gamer of both the role-playing and board varieties, a sci-fi fan, and book lover. She & I have read a lot of the same books, and she's got an old Rose is Rose collection that I would love to get my mitts on :-)

Today's photo is of a California sea hare, a type of gastropod found in shallow waters. We took this a couple weeks ago when we went to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands Preserve. Normally we don't see many sea hares, however on this particular visit there were dozens of them. I don't know if it was due to the time of day or time of year. We also saw lots of lizards, a few rabbits, and a nest with a trio of juvenile herons in it.

Working on the Weasleys

2010-06-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

Wow! I'm making some good progress on the Fred & George square. On Friday, I was just at the top of Fred's chin (just where the light grey changes to dark; I'm assuming Fred is the one on the left), and look how far I am now. I just finished row 74 out of 111 (not including the border rows). Please ignore the cat barf on Fred's shoulder; it had already dried by the time I discovered it, and I can't wash the piece until it's off the needles. Luckily the yarn is machine washable.

We did our first big grocery shopping trip since I got laid off. We spent more than I had planned, however I can only think of one thing that we probably should not have bought. Plus, since we went to Costco, many of the items will last us a very long time, such as the ground beef (six 1-pound tubes for $15.99) and the huge bag of frozen blueberries. Combined with the other mini-shopping trips, we're averaging about $106/week on groceries. This is still less than what we were spending before, plus we're not eating out and that's a big savings right there.

Ironically, I think we are eating better now than we were before. Since I don't have to prep my lunch 7 hours in advance, I'll often just whip up a bananananananana smoothie in the early afternoon. Dessert is more likely to be a fruit cobbler (I made a fresh one today using some of the frozen blueberries) instead of cookies or chocolates. Normally a kielbasa will last us maybe two meals; this time, I cut it up in little pieces and mixed it with rice. We got two dinners out of it, plus I mixed some with scrambled eggs to make four breakfast burritos, and we've still got enough left for another pair of burritos. Tonight's dinner is chicken baked in the oven with potatoes, carrots, onion, and garlic, seasoned with fresh rosemary (we have a rosemary plant in the backyard), garlic salt, and pepper. I added some bullion to the pot so the meat doesn't dry out. That's got to be healthier than eating in a restaurant as we normally would do on a weekend, plus there's enough chicken for at least two meals (more if I mix the leftovers with rice).

Lastly for today, I've got a real job interview lined up on Wednesday. It's a three month temp-to-hire position. I really hope I get it; even three months work will be helpful, plus if it becomes permanent that means the end of job hunting. I'm not counting on it, of course, but it's exciting to think about it. Especially since it's just a bit over five miles from home (for those new among the Teeming Millions, my old job was not quite fifty-seven miles away. Yes, that's one-way, not round-trip). However, I think it would be overly optimistic to expect to get a job this quickly. That won't stop me from trying, though!

Middle of the week already???

2010-06-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

Wednesday already. It's been hard keeping track of the day since I lost my job (has it really been only two weeks? Has it really been two weeks already??) so yesterday I pulled out the day-to-day calendar I used to have on my desk. It's just a little thing, however I think it's important to keep on a work-type schedule so it's not such a shock when I do go back to work. It's a lot easier to do that if I know what day it is, LOL! I still get up between 5:00 & 5:30, still pack a lunch for Ralph, and still make a point to be showered & dressed by 6:30.

Today I baked some dog snacks. (Yeah, it's pretty sad when baking dog treats is the highlight of the morning.) I mashed up some leftover cooked potatoes and carrots, added some chicken that I knew we weren't going to eat, mixed it all together with flour, an egg, a bit of oil, and the last couple swallows of milk that I didn't finish at breakfast; then I rolled the dough up in little balls, smashed 'em flat, and baked them at 400 for about 20 minutes. The dogs love them and it's a money-saver, too; cheaper than buying dog treats, plus the leftovers didn't go to waste.

In other news, the person for whom I voted for City Council yesterday actually won. I think this makes the third time in my life as a Responsible Citizen that the person for whom I voted made it into office. I'm either doing something right or something wrong, I can't decide which. According to a news article I read, about 25% of voters registered in my town showed up at the polls. I realize it wasn't a Major Election, but that still seems like a poor turnout to me.

Oh, almost forgot! The flower in my last post is. . . a carrot! I'd never seen one in bloom before. I wonder if it will have seeds that I can plant next year?

Speaking of plants, I think we've gotten the last nectarines off the tree. There are still a few on there, however they are pretty much evenly divided between so ripe that they are rotting on the branch; hard as rocks; and perfectly ripe but full of fruit flies, ants, and/or bird bites. Still, we've used up 12 cups of sliced nectarines to make cobblers, plus have 6 cups in the freezer. That's much better than last year, where we got maybe four nectarines before the birds cleaned the tree.

We don't really have a garden this year. We planted one tomato plant which has small green tomatoes & some blossoms on it; one zucchini which is just starting to flower; and a basil plant. If nothing else, we'll have some nice pasta sauce come summertime.

I actually knit a few rows on my Fred & George intarsia square. I really need to get that finished. The fact that the cat barfed on it does NOT increase my motivation to work on it. Dumb cat. I also finished all the pieces for the pony & just need to sew it up & stuff it. I couldn't get the leg to not gap (see previous post) so I am using duplicate stitch to close up the holes.

Well, nothing else really going on today. Hopefully the weekend will be interesting enough to write about :-)

Boring Sunday

2010-06-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

What a dull day this has been. The book I'm reading is not very interesting; good enough to read while eating lunch, not good enough to read for hours at a stretch. Spent waaaaay too much time playing computer games. Did a little job searching; not much new stuff posted on a weekend but I did find one that seemed worth sending out the ol' resume.

Also getting frustrated with my knitting. I'm making a pony, and just need to knit the hind legs before starting the seaming, sewing & stuffing. Halfway through the leg, there's a section where you do a "knit front and back" increase across the four center stitches for about 10 rows. No matter what I do, I end up with gaps (see photo; you need to click on it to enlarge in order to really see the gaps). I haven't had this problem with this type of increase before, and I've even tried using alternative increases. Still gapping. I think the problem might be the fact that there are no plain rows in between, so the multiple tensions on the stitches are pulling things askew. I've set it aside while I consider alterations to the pattern.

Right now I'm sitting at the computer with my back to the front door. The wood door is open & the security screen is shut, so there's light from the doorway shining on the wall in front of me. A few minutes ago, a couple shadows crossed the light as some people walked up to the door. I have no idea who they were, as the dogs started barking and the shadows vanished before I could even turn around. Really fierce, almost vicious barking, too--not at all like their usual "Mailman is coming to kill us all!" or "How dare you walk that dog in MY neighborhood!!??!!" barks. Anyway, I'm not expecting visitors & they wouldn't bark like that at anyone they know, so good girl Hali! Good girl Zoe!

Baked some cookies today. I *knew* that 10 minutes per batch was too long, but foolishly followed the recipe. Only burned the first batch, baking all the others for only 7 minutes. Even the burned ones are pretty good.

Here's a little quiz for you. Take a look at the photo on the left. That's a flower blooming on one of our backyard plants. Can you identify it? Answer will be in the next blog post :-)

Went to a family potluck at Lizard's yesterday. The Girl was there, but The Boy had to work. Dad & his girlfriend were there of course, and Duh with her new husband Happy. We brought nectarine cobbler & vanilla ice cream. There was also chicken, shrimp cocktail, chips, stuffed mushrooms, cole slaw, potato salad, and mashed potatoes with gravy. Oh, and green beans but I didn't have any of those. Lots of talk & lots of laughing. I think everyone had a good time.

I could get used to this

2010-06-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

You know, if it weren't for that pesky mortgage payment, I could soooo get used to being at home. I've been able to cook real dinners, the laundry is under control, I was able to slice & freeze an additional 8 cups of nectarines (normally the birds eat them before we have a chance to pick the fruit off the tree), the house is relatively tidy, there's a fresh loaf of banana bread cooling on the dining room table, and I was even able to reorganize the linen cupboard which was badly needed. Even lunch tastes better, because I eat the sandwich as soon as it's made instead of after it sat in my lunch bag for seven hours.

I've gotten some knitting done, too. I finished the octopus juggling balls for Ralph (today's pic), and have cast on for a rather cartoon-ish looking pony. I even did a few rows on Fred & George, which has been on the UFO pile for some time now.

In job search news, I've signed up with a couple temp agencies & sent out a few resumes. I also signed on with a couple online job search websites. Tomorrow I interview with one of the temp agencies and hopefully with a prospective temp-to-hire employer after that. This last bit isn't confirmed yet, so keep your fingers crossed for me. Yesterday I took my assessments at the first temp agency. Did better than I expected at PowerPoint (76% correct, and I've never used that program before) and typing (80 WPM!!) and not as well as I expected at Word & Excel. I was great with the functions I used at work all the time, however I had no idea there were so many functions I'd never used before. Still, I scored pretty highly on everything and I'm sure that can only be for the good.

Going to a family potluck on Saturday afternoon. I plan on bringing nectarine cobbler. Wonder if we should pick up some vanilla so-called iced cream to go with it? It's good on its own, but even better with so-called iced cream. Hmmmm.

Bits & pieces for 5/30/10

2010-05-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

The last couple days have been pretty nice. Yesterday we went to the archery range. There were no classes because of the holiday weekend; we did get there early though so no trouble finding an available butt. Afterward we were going to attend the craft fair at the nature center. Well, we should watch the news more often I guess; apparently a murderer stashed some body parts there and the whole area was closed for the police investigation. No lie. On the drive home we had a call from our friends PH2 & MH2, and we ended up meeting with them to go see Shrek 3 (a bit of a splurge for us since we don't really need to be spending money right now) and afterward we had a nice BBQ at the house. PH2 cooked up a gorgeous London broil, I had a fresh nectarine cobbler prepped for dessert, and for the side dish I heated up some of Trader Joe's amazing fire roasted vegetables with balsamic vinegar. A good time was had by all.

Shrek 3 was better than I expected it to be; sequels, IMHO, rarely live up to the first movie & this one just didn't catch my eye. Plus, the basic storyline has been done many times before. I am pleased to report that this movie is worth going to see. I was also pleased by the behavior of the children in the theater. While I object highly to little kids at PG-13 or higher rated movies, I expect them to be present at a family film such as this, and I expect some of them to be boisterous. They *are* kids after all. However, only one child made any noise (other than appropriate laughter, etc. as the film warranted) and even that wasn't bad. He was obviously frightened by one scene & cried, and the mother was able to soothe him pretty quickly. If I had been able to pinpoint where they were sitting, I'd have both thanked & congratulated her after the show.

We're supposed to be going to a potluck today. I made a double-size nectarine cobbler to take (that's today's photo); hope people like it. Well, I'm not too worried about that actually. The one I made for just Ralph & me is nearly gone, and the fresh one I made yesterday for dinner with our friends was pretty much devoured as well. And if they don't like it, I'll freeze the leftovers for us to enjoy when summer is over and the tree is no longer producing fruit. Right now the ground is covered with dropped nectarines, I've picked enough to have 10 cups of sliced fruit [all but 2 cups have been made into cobbler; the balance is in the freezer], and there is so much fruit still on the tree that I don't see how we can use it all. I'll have to just freeze them as they ripen so they don't go to waste.

I also made a batch of fresh lemonade today. I love having a lemon tree in the yard :-)

Some good, some not so much

2010-05-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

What a day. Yesterday I called to make an appointment with the plumber; the scheduler said the repairman would be at the house between 8:30 and 10:30. I said that wouldn't work as I had an appointment at 9:30, so she changed it to noon. Sure enough, the plumber showed up at 8:20. Luckily it didn't take long to make the repair and I made it to my 9:30 appointment at the temp agency with no trouble.

Well, I wouldn't say no trouble. The business center where they are located has about a dozen identical buildings. I found the right one, went inside, and according to the directory the temp agency entrance was located on the outside of the building facing the airport. I went all the way through the building and out the back, only to discover the building is at an angle; this means that there are two sides to the building that could be said to face the airport. Hmmm. Decided to go left. This was, of course, the wrong way. Went back around the building and finally found the entrance. Afterward when I left, I discovered that the entrance was just around the corner from where I had gone in originally. Sigh.

The interview at the agency went well. I got some very good tips on spiffing up my resume & presenting myself to potential employers, and my account manager already has a job in mind for me to interview for. I worked on my resume quite a bit when I got home. The account manager, whom I shall call D, sent me some online assessment tests. Ugh. The program appears to be entirely incompatible with our computer, so I have to go back on Tuesday & take the assessments there.

I also submitted a resume via Monster. Later I felt I hadn't really done enough job-search-wise today, so tried to log back on. Couldn't do it. It wouldn't accept my password, wouldn't reset my password when I submitted the request, just not working right at all. Grrr.

On the plus side, the gas guy came this afternoon and we have hot water & a functioning stove again! I made a nectarine cobbler in celebration & have a potato/sausage casserole baking for dinner.

sigh

2010-05-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

Well, as if all the stuff with the furnace & the flooding weren't craptastic enough, as of 3:30 this afternoon I have joined the ranks of the unemployed. Yup, they have eliminated my position at the company and I, along with quite a few others, have been laid off. Good thing we haven't signed any contracts to get the furnace work done. Tomorrow I sign up for unemployment, update my resume, and start the job search. In the meantime, we're just going to have the gas pipe leading to the furnace capped off so we can have the gas turned back on. Hopefully that won't cost a whole lot.

Sadly, this all kinda overshadows the fact that I got flirted with at Carl's Jr. yesterday. Ah, well.

Waste of a perfectly good day

2010-05-24T17:57:00.001-07:00

As the Teeming Millions know, we had a gas leak. We called the gas company to come out on Saturday, and they confirmed we not only had a leak, but it was a big one & coming from the floor furnace. Saturday afternoon (evening really, it was nearly 5:00) I called a plumber. The guy answering the phone took all the info & said someone would be out Monday morning between 9:00 & 11:00.

I e-mailed my boss to let him know I'd be late & why. At 11:30 this morning, no one had shown up so I called the plumber. No record of my call, no record of the appointment. Grrrr! The guy said he'd call me back, which he did in a few minutes saying there was a plumber in the area who was just finishing up a job & would be here "shortly." Two hours later I call again to find out when this guy is going to show up. I'm told "Not more than 15 minutes." 25 minutes later he finally arrived.

So, he takes a look at the furnace, has his assistant go under the house to take pictures, and long story short the furnace is toast AND the waterline to the icemaker is spraying like a fountain. I shut the water off to that of course, and now we need to decide if we're going to get a new floor furnace, or spring for central heating. I didn't get pricing on the latter so we'll have to look into that. Ralph is willing to wait another week if necessary so we can research. It's awkward not being able to cook, or wash dishes, or run the clothes dryer (luckily we can still do cold-water washes & hang the laundry on the clothesline), not to mention showering in the trailer, but it'll be worth it knowing that we did our research & made an informed decision.

I did get some knitting done at least. I decided to go ahead & make the octopus juggling balls; started them last week & as of this evening now have one completely done & one partially done. I need to knit 10 more tentacles & knit them together into body pieces, one more head/mantle piece, then graft everything together. So, not quite halfway there I would say.

Pizza for dinner tonight. Man, I'll be glad when I can cook again. OK, technically I *could* cook on the trailer stove, but it's really not set up for anything fancy. The oven doesn't heat evenly (the top is burned before the bottom is cooked) & the stove area is small; hard to prep the food beforehand.

Had some excitement this morning, though. I was sitting in my green chair when suddenly the cat came tearing full-speed across the room. It took me a second to realize he was chasing a bird! I hustled to get all the pets locked up (not an easy task as they all were far more interested in pouncing on the bird than in going into the hallway) & then tried to catch the poor sparrow. I probably could have caught it a lot faster if I had remembered to close the bedroom door; then it couldn't have kept hiding under the bed. Eventually it flew back into the dining room & landed on the window shade. I was able to catch it in the large fish net we use on the aquarium and took it outside. When I opened the net the bird lay so limp and still I thought it had died from all the adrenaline, but then whoosh! It flew away so fast it made me jump. Whew!

And it's Friday again

2010-05-21T05:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night Ralph, Mom'L & I went to George's for dinner. We even remembered to tell the hostess the special "What Would George Say?" phrase, which gives you a free dip appetizer (Wednesdays only). We'd already decided on the kalamata olive spread & pita bread when the waitress asked us how we'd like our lamb cooked. Turns out we were one of the first four parties to give the special phrase, which for that night only upgraded our free appetizer to the lamb chops. Yum!

After dinner, Mom'L said she thought we might have a gas leak as she could smell gas near the front door. Ralph & I thought we could maybe smell it, too, so to be on the safe side Ralph shut off the gas. This morning I got the shocking reminder that our hot water heater runs on gas. Fastest shower I've ever taken. I'm glad my hair is so short since that means I can wash it lickety-split & not have to spend a lot of time rinsing out the shampoo.

I finally finished Ralph's birthday socks. I probably should have done one more pattern repeat but frankly I am sick of looking at the things. Now I need to find a project to bring to work. I'm still only halfway through Fred & George (today's pic), however I want something that requires less focus since I'm still working with MH on her knitting. (She's picked out the pattern for her scarf & is ready to swatch for it.) Perhaps I'll use leftover sock yarns to make a trio of octopi for Ralph to use as juggling balls.

First project :-)

2010-05-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

Look! MH finished her first project. Isn't it adorable? I think it turned out really well. Hard to believe she's only been knitting for a fortnight. Just darling.

Had a cool moment on the way home from work today. I was driving down the freeway through some foothills near Diamond Bar, and just happened to glance out the side window. There on the hillside were a doe & two fawns leaping through the dry grasses. I've seen deer in California before, but never down this far. Totally a SQUEEE! moment.

I think Ralph had a good birthday yesterday. He liked his presents (two books from his Amazon wishlist, & a DVD of "Avatar"), and couldn't wait until dinner for his birthday cake (banana cake [from scratch] with chocolate icing & pecans) so we cut into it after breakfast. He decided he didn't want to go to the arboretum after all. We ended up getting some new fish & plants as he really wanted to update the aquarium, and I worked on his birthday socks. With any luck I'll have those done by the end of the week. I've reached the point where no matter how much I knit, they don't seem to get any longer.

I also asked him several times what he wanted for dinner, and he kept saying, "I thought I already had my birthday dinner" (referring to Sunday's meal of pork chop & potato casserole--another new recipe for me and it came out fabulous IMHO). Finally he decided on steak, mushrooms & asparagus, and as he is the better chef when it comes to steak he ended up cooking his own birthday dinner. I did at least prep the asparagus & chopped up some garlic to go with the mushrooms.

Been trying to find a day when assorted family members can get together for dinner. Not working out so well. Weeknights are out since I get home from work so late (and go to bed so early). The Boy and The Girl are busy Memorial Weekend, and the weekend after that. I'm busy on the 12th & Lizard is busy on the 13th. No feedback at all from Dad. Dad's Girl will only be out from the middle of next week until approximately Father's Day (that's June 20 for those among the Teeming Millions who may live somewhere other than the US) so I'm hoping we can all get together before she leaves.

Thoughts on May 15

2010-05-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

OK, so I still don't have a picture of my new Faire outfit. I'll get one eventually, and one of Ralph's new outfit too. Yes, he bought himself a set of peasants, too. It's nice to have a choice of outfits & extremely nice to have something that doesn't weigh a ton.

MH's knitting is coming along really well. I've got her working on her first "real" project, one of those bunnies made by folding & sewing a knitted square. She promised it would be done when I get back to work on Tuesday. Although, I did remember last night that I didn't show her how to whipstitch. Oh, well, she's a smart lady & I'm sure she can figure out simple sewing like that. Which reminds me, normally we knit at one of the round tables in the break room, and MR made a comment about our "knitting circle." Later I told him he had it wrong--we were the "Knits of the Round Table."

Monday is Ralph's birthday. I've got to find time to wrap his prezzinks, and figure out a nice birthday dinner for him. I'm taking the day off from work (as is he) so it doesn't have to be something that cooks in 45 minutes or less as I normally aim for on a work night. I also need to find time to finish knitting his birthday socks. I've turned the heel on one & am working on the other. I *might* get them done on time, if I can tear myself away from computer & books.

Speaking of books, I'm reading a pretty good one right now. It's called "Street Gang." It's the history of Sesame Street, and includes a lot of background on the people behind it. It's amazing how long it took for the show to go from first thoughts to actually being on the air, and how many people & shows influenced it (both on what to do and what not to do). I mean, it's Sesame Street, what could be more obvious? But there was resistance and struggles--for example, when they finally went on the air, Mississippi banned the show on the grounds that people weren't ready to see black children & white children playing together. Really interesting. It's also an appropriate read, since tomorrow will be the 20th anniversary of Jim Henson's death.

And speaking of tomorrow, it's also the 12th anniversary of Ralph's & my first date. Amazing that we've been together this long, and we still aren't sick of each other, LOL.

Well, Ralph wants to take Hali for a walk, so I guess I'd better get off the computer & get ready to go with them.

Ironman

2010-05-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to see the 7:40 showing of Clash of the Titans. The ticket seller said the next available show was at 9:00 for 3-D. We said we didn't want 3-D, and she said, "Oh. Then the next show is at 10:30." Ralph started to walk away, but I asked "What happened to the 7:40 show?" The clerk hemmed & hawed, then eventually called the manager over. Turned out they had canceled the 7:40 showing. To make up for it, she comped us into the movie of our choice, so we picked Ironman 2, which we also wanted to see.

Ironman was pretty good. I liked the original better, which I find is often the case with sequels (notable exception: Empire Strikes Back is the best of the "Star Wars" trilogy IMHO). It was a little frustrating that at a key, exciting point right before the climax of the movie the emergency lights came on & the building was evacuated. I was surprised by how calm & orderly everyone was, although there was a bit of grumbling. Turned out to be a false alarm and they let everyone back into the theater after about 5 minutes. Unfortunately, they apparently kept the projectors running so we missed a pretty important bit. We were able to figure out what happened; still, it would have been nice to have seen it. On the other hand, we saw it for free so I ought not to complain.

Tomorrow we perform for "Oedipus Rex" at the Renaissance Faire. I do hope one or two other musicians show up.

Lastly, today's photo is one the DB sent me of Zoey (the dog formerly known as Frumple). She's all sleepy because she's just come home from being spayed. Such a sweet little girl.

Oh! Not lastly, because I forgot to mention how well MH is coming along with her knitting. She was off work on Tuesday, and not available at lunch on Wednesday, and our "classes" keep getting interrupted by other people, so after maybe a grand total of 2 hours actual lessons she can cast on, knit, purl, and bind off. Her "homework" for the weekend is to knit a stockinette square, then when it's done I'll show her how to fold, sew, and stuff it to turn it into a little bunny.

A good weekend

2010-05-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

OK, this is an old picture & I think I've probably used it before, however I don't have anything new so y'all will have to deal with it :-)

Had a really nice weekend. Saturday I went & bought some needles & yarn for MH at work, who wants to learn how to knit. More on that later. I also got two books at Borders and spent a lovely afternoon reading "Corpse on the Cob," the latest in the Ophelia Grey series. Ralph went out for a guys night watching boxing & drinking beer in the evening which left me to brainsuck, read, knit, and eat spaghetti to my heart's content.

Sunday was the rehearsal for Oedipus Rex, a musical/comedy version of the classic Greek tragedy, being performed by some friends of ours at the Renaissance Faire. This meant of course spending a good part of the day at Faire, and for the first time in I can't remember when I actually enjoyed myself. Bought a new Faire outfit consisting of what's called an "Irish", which is a sort of short bodice with an open-fronted skirt attached, and a yellow underskirt. The Irish is grey. I'll get pictures of it next weekend. The reasoning for the new outfit is twofold: one, my middle-class outfit, while beautiful, is hot and very heavy (about five pounds, if our scale is accurate), and two, the group with which we are gatelisted is St. Helena's, which is the guild of peasants & my middle-class outfit wasn't really appropriate.

Getting there early meant in addition to shopping time we were able to take in a show, a rather good magician that we've seen before but always enjoy. He even had a new trick to his act which was a pleasant surprise. While watching, we had yummy meat pies & split a large scone covered with fresh strawberries & whipped cream from one of our favorite food vendors. Later we also had some incredible bruschetta from the Italian vendor, with garlic, red onion, tomatoes, feta cheese, fresh basil, vinegar, and parsley all piled high on what was basically Texas toast. Sooooo good.

The rehearsal itself was great fun, too. Ralph & I play music for the show, Ralph doing the bass line on his sackbut & I play a harmony line on my recorder. Much to our surprise, we are the ONLY musicians for the show; guess no one else was available. It worked out pretty well since the actors sing the melody line.

As mentioned earlier, MH at work wants to learn to knit. Yesterday I gave her her first few lessons during breaks & lunch. She's a quick learner; I only had to show her the moves to cast on twice before she could do them on her own, and by the end of her second row (20 stitches across) no longer needed coaching. She said she was going to work on it today while waiting for her doctor's appointment. Only her second day and already knitting in public!

Nothing of note today, other than the pizza I made for dinner, or rather home-assembled for dinner. Boboli bread topped with the sauce that comes with it, grated mozzarella & Parmesan, and lots of pepperoni. Took about the same amount of time as waiting for delivery pizza, and unlike delivery was piping hot when we sat down to eat it.

Food, glorious foooood

2010-04-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

I have spent most of the weekend cooking. Yesterday I baked a lemon meringue pie, which turned out fabulous; made a baked cauliflower casserole; then took those to my dad's house where I finished off the meal by cooking the last of the salmon fillets. I left most of the leftovers with Dad so he could have them for dinner tonight. I brought home a little bit of the cauliflower and he got the rest. There wasn't a lot of fish although he did get the entire half of a lemon pie so that makes up for it.

Today I baked a half-recipe of baklava (didn't have enough phyllo for a whole batch, and the market was out) & put half of it in the freezer; a batch of putanessca sauce which I divided into two containers & froze that, too; a zucchini casserole; and I've got chicken breasts with potatoes, garlic, carrots, onions, celery, and green onions with a little broth added in the oven now. I plan on serving half the chicken for dinner tonight, and using the other half tomorrow to make a BBQ chicken pizza. Oh, fie, I just realized I didn't put any salt or pepper in with the chicken. Oh, well, we can put it on after it's cooked.

Haven't done a lot of knitting lately. I have several WIPs on the needles & just don't feel much like working on any of them. And, of course, that always makes me want to cast on a new project. Sigh. Just need to buckle down & finish what I've started. Maybe one more game of Bubble Town first. . .

A few things

2010-04-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

Not a lot to talk about today. Last Thursday I stopped at a fast food place near my work. They were having a free fries promotion the following day, and I joked w/the clerk about them celebrating my birthday. Well, I went to the same place yesterday, and the clerk remembered about it being my birthday & gave me the employee discount on my meal. I told her she didn't have to do that but she insisted. Awfully nice, I thought.

On the way out, I saw a school bus, with students on it, that had been pulled over by a cop. I have no idea why it was pulled over, and all I could think was that a) the kids would be talking about it all day and b) that bus driver could be in a lot of trouble. I can't think of any reason for it to have been pulled over that does not bode poorly for the driver.

Lost dogs seem to be going around. KR at work sent out an e-mail; a friend of hers found a dog & is trying to find a home for it. I was a little surprised that she included me on it since I just spent nearly a month trying to find a home for Frumple/Zoey. Hope they find a place for the little guy.

Had one of the salespeople yesterday ask if I was going to be in this morning, then added "You can notarize some things for me." I told her no, I couldn't, my notary commission has expired, and at the same time was thinking, "Oh, CAN I?" I mean, she didn't ask, just informed me that I could do this. I don't think she meant to be rude, even though it really came off that way. Which reminds me, I need to either renew my commission or turn in my journal. I already destroyed the stamp.

Better picture of little Zoey

2010-04-21T05:35:00.001-07:00

OK, that downloaded properly this time :-)

Just a quick pic

2010-04-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

DB sent me a picture of Frumple sleeping on their bed. Or I should say Zoey, since that is what they have named her. I think it's pretty weird, them picking that name when we have a dog named Zoe too (although the spelling is different). And no, they didn't know we had a dog named Zoe. As you can see, she is already comfortable in her new home ;-)

Edited to add: Darn, the picture came out so small you can't really see her. I'll have to try for a better download. . .

Hooray!

2010-04-17T18:10:00.001-07:00

Frumple has a new home! One of our sales agents, DB, has been looking for a new dog. We drove to her work in Palm Springs (a mere 110 miles away) so she could meet Frumple, then we all went to her house so the dog could meet her dog. All went quite well, so DB is going to keep her for a trial basis, and if it does not work out she will be responsible for finding a good home. I think it will work, though, even though DB's dog is much smaller than Frumpy. They got along nicely, and Frumple was very gentle with the little dog. Well worth the drive, and a weight off my mind knowing she's in a good place.

fie.

2010-04-14T19:49:00.001-07:00

Bugger it. The people who said they wanted the dog didn't call. I have one last possibility, and if that doesn't work she will have to go to the pound after all.

Catching up

2010-04-14T04:34:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, an update on the dog. One of my co-workers, MH, has a neighbor that recently lost a dog (hit by a car) & MH was going to see if she wanted Frumple. We had intended to take her to the animal shelter (Frumple, not MH) on Saturday but held off waiting to hear back. On Monday I find out that the neighbor had been away all weekend. In conversation it came out that this person has had THREE animals hit by cars, and that the longest she had any of them before the accident was four months. With that track record, I told MH, "No. Don't even ask her." I e-mailed Ralph to let him know & at that point we each secretly decided we were going to keep her.

Then came Monday night. In play, our other three dogs got her cornered--much as I imagine they did to poor Hoover last December--and Ralph had to go rescue her. We agreed that we could not keep her if she was going to be in danger from the other dogs & made plans to bring her to the shelter on Thursday morning, the shelter being closed on Tuesday & us having no way to get time off on Wednesday. Then lo and behold, we got a call from a woman who had called previously expressing interest, and she is coming by tonight to pick up Frumple!! I am so glad she's going to a real home (with kids even) rather than the shelter. It's a big weight lifted off me, let me tell you.

Got an e-mail from our friend MS last night. His group is doing two performances of his wonderful play, "Oedipus Rex," a 20-minute, musical comedy version of the great Greek tragedy, on Mother's Day. He wants Ralph & me to be part of the band again. I have to make sure that Ralph doesn't have other plans, and make sure I get my Faire clothes back from Lizard right away after Duh's wedding. Oh, and practice so that I don't suck. Hmmm, I think I have a copy of the music; maybe I'll bring it to work today & play at lunch.

Went to dinner at my FAVORITE restaurant in the whole world, George's Greek Deli, on Sunday night with Ralph, The Boy, and The Girl. I ate way too much: split a halumi appetizer with Ralph; a bowl of tomato soup so thick that when you take a spoonful out, it leave a little valley; half a combo-appetizer plate (kalamari, spanakopitas, dolmethes, and dolthes); and half a dessert that I can never remember the name of but looks like shredded wheat topped with chocolate sauce. YUM! Plus of course there were the leftovers for Monday breakfast. I did discover one scary thing, though; when The Boy signed his credit card slip, I noticed that except for being half the length, his signature is virtually identical to mine. Weird!

I also learned how much Harry Potter has been absorbed into our culture. I'm reading two books right now. In "Sweater Quest," the author makes a reference to Voldemort. In "Monster," one of the characters accuses another of thinking she's a muggle (the other character laughs and says that "Only muggles use the word muggle"). "Sweater Quest" is just OK, however I'm really enjoying "Monster."

Oh! There's a new "Daily Grind" in downtown Long Beach, in a retail space that has been many different places. Oddly enough, it is almost directly across the street from a long-established "Starbucks." When we went by after dinner on Sunday, I noticed that the DG was very busy & the SB almost deserted. Should be interesting to watch the coffee-battle progress. Not this weekend, though; it's the Long Beach Grand Prix & downtown will be jam-packed.

Might go to the Pet Expo this weekend; haven't decided for sure. We had planned on it, then when it looked like we'd have to take Frumple to the pound I lost the heart to go, and now that she's going to a home instead it sounds like fun again. We'll see.

Just a few photos today

2010-04-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

Some of the goldfish in our pond. the black/silver one & the really yellow-y gold one are the only actual koi that we have; all the others are just feeder fish that grew up.

Halitosis, the queen of our castle.

One of my current WIPs, ruffled wristwarmers to go with my new hat. I used stitch dictionaries to find both the ruffle & the eyelet pattern, converted them to be knit in the round, and added a bit of ribbing at the top. I will be posting instructions on my Ravelry project page.

Frumplestiltskin stretching with her paws on my let. She's not supposed to do that of course, but it made a cute picture. Obviously we have not yet found either her owner or a new home.

Our amaryllis is in bloom! An extreme close-up of one of the blossoms.

Bound to happen sooner or later

2010-04-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

The unthinkable has happened. Yes, I actually made a recipe from the Gilligan's Island cookbook that was not good. I know, I know, hard to believe, but the "Giant Gilligan Burger" was icky. I think the basic premise is good--a big burger-shaped meatloaf with a cream cheese filling--however it is not well-executed. If I make it again, I'll leave out the mustard & horseradish, replace it with ketchup and a little milk (to thin the cream cheese), and top it with some sort of sauce so it doesn't dry out so much in the baking. Oh, and reduce the salt in the meat also.

Last night's dinner (pasta topped with Ginger's Sweet Red Pepper Sauce) was OK. The "sauce" is not the least bit sauce-like. It's a good start, but next time I will either add a can of diced tomatoes so it has more liquid, or mix it in with a jar of sauce, or add zucchini & yellow squash and serve it as a side dish.

Still trying to find a home for the stray dog, whom we have NOT given the name "Frumplestiltskin." We just call her that, or Frumple, sometimes. But we haven't named her because we Are. Not. Keeping. Her.

Fish!

2010-04-06T04:52:00.001-07:00

Another new recipe last night, this time for Simple Salmon. It really was an easy recipe, and surprisingly good since normally I don't like salmon. I am trying to be open-minded about cooking, though, and thought I'd give it a try. Mind you, when I put "2 salmon fillets" on the shopping list, I didn't expect Ralph to come home with a 3-pound side of salmon. Thank goodness for the internet, where I learned how to turn that hunk-o-fish into proper fillets.

Started a pair of wristwarmers last night to go with the new hat. I found a "bell" edging which I used to make a ruffle at the bottom to go along with the pleats on the hat, then I'm going to use a diamond brocade chart for the main part. I really wanted something lacier but haven't found anything quite right in my stitch dictionaries. Oh, wait, I just remembered one I haven't looked through yet.

Just a couple pictures of my new hat

2010-04-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

I love my new hat, but when I look at these pictures all I can think is, "OMFSM, I do look like Lizard!" Except the nose. She's got a cute li'l nose and mine looks like it belongs on Bob Hope.

Oh, now THAT'S cooking!

2010-04-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

OK, so technically it's baking which as I've said before I'm pretty good at. Today I learned how to make baklava. It's amazingly easy, and very tasty when it's still warm from the oven. I was going to cook Chicken Dijon Gilliana for dinner tonight, but Ralph bought some shrimp & scallops which he's going to grill up. I'm still in charge of the side dish, though, and I'm thinking Mayflower Cauliflower Casserole, which is basically cauliflower baked in a Swiss cheese sauce. Should be simple enough.

I am almost done with my hat! The only thing left to do is to sew the hatband onto it. I know it will only take a couple minutes to do, however I don't care for sewing & after sewing the hatband, then the bow, then the bow onto the hatband, well I'm sewn out for the evening. It took a lot less yarn than I anticipated; I thought I'd use 3 skeins (~450 yards) and I ended up using only half that amount. So that means I still have 3-1/2 skeins left to make some matching accessories. I'm thinking some lacy wristwarmers might be just the ticket.

Still have an extra dog

2010-04-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

It's Day 9 of Trying To Find the Dog's Owner. We went to Animal Control today & had her scanned for a microchip; no dice. It was a longshot at best--I can't imagine that someone who doesn't put a tag on a dog would go to the bother of having the chip put in--but we had to at least try. We entered her photo & info in the Lost & Found book while we were there.

Had a couple nibbles at least. We had a call from a woman who said she'd found the dog earlier & had been taking care of her. The dog had gotten away from her but she said she'd like to have her back. In the hour it took me to get home & call to make arrangements, her fiance had talked her out of it. Grrrr! Ralph talked to some kids who said the dog was theirs, and then backpedaled quickly on it. He told them to have their mom call, which she did. It's not their dog, however she might be interested in taking her as they are looking to get a dog. This was still early on when we thought there was a real chance of finding the owner, so Ralph told her to call back next weekend. Now, of course, we're wishing we'd given her the dog right off. I sure hope she calls again.

Bathed all four of the critters today. The bathroom is SOAKED and there isn't a drop of hot water left for Ralph & me to take our showers. The extra dog had so many fleas that I got Hali & Sadie completely bathed & Zoe halfway done before Ralph had finished washing that little pup. We Frontlined them, too, which should help.

Ordered pizza for dinner tonight. I feel too grubby to cook and in any case about the only thing we have ready to cook is fish. I don't feel like having fish for dinner. And that's about it for today I'm afraid.

No no no no no no no

2010-03-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ralph confessed today that he wants to keep the dog, even though we both know that we absolutely cannot. Gah! With any luck, we'll either get a call from the owners, and if not I've got a co-worker who thinks his daughter might take her. Third option is another co-worker knows of a no-kill shelter that she's willing to take her to.

Totally changing the subject, we've got a local election coming up. There are three candidates, all of whom have first names beginning with J. One also has a last name that begins with J. What really amuses me, though, is one of the candidates is named Jack and one is named Jill. It gets better, though--Jill's last name is Hill. You can't make this stuff up, folks :-)

Good Eats

2010-03-28T09:10:00.001-07:00

Lately I have been overcome with the desire to learn how to cook. Oh, I can make a few things such as Welsh Rarebit & Shake-n-Bake pork chops, and I can bake pretty well, but when it comes down to actual cooking I pretty much suck. So I've gone through my cookbooks & bought a couple cooking magazines only to discover that either a) all the recipes use 500 zillion ingredients, b) they use tiny amounts of really expensive seasonings, or c) they sound/taste nasty (NOTE: "dinner on a budget" recipes that call for cheap ingredients will not taste good). I only found ONE recipe that tasted good & had reasonable, easily-obtained ingredients.

Only one, that is, until yesterday, when out of desperation I pulled out a cookbook that Lizard bought me years ago because she thought it was funny: "Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook" by Dawn Wells et. al. Thumbing through it, I found several recipes that looked good and did not have an intimidating ingredient list. I went shopping for a few ingredients, and last night made "Skipper's Simple Chicken" which really is more of a home-assembled meal rather than home-cooked. It only has 5 ingredients: chicken, a little oil in which to brown the meat, two kinds of canned soup, and cooked rice. It was sooooooooo good. I served it with peas to round out the meal. Then this morning I made the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Casserole," a very breakfasty concoction with bacon, hard-boiled eggs, noodles, cheese, and a milk-based sauce. I was a bit leery of this one since I'm not a fan of hard-boiled eggs unless they are smushed into egg salad sammidges, but I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was. Tonight I think I'll make "Ginger's Sweet Red Pepper Sauce" (oh, rats, I forgot to buy onions) and serve it on some angel hair pasta.

Today I realized I never got a picture of Hali wearing the legwarmers I made for her (she's got arthritic knees) so I forced them on her this morning (she reeeaaally does not like wearing them) & got a couple shots. Please ignore the fact that the carpet hasn't been vacuumed yet; with four dogs and a cat in the house it's hard to keep up with all the fur.

Whaddya mean, vacation's almost over?

2010-03-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

Still haven't found the owner of the stray dog. She is so sweet; I hate to think that we might have to take her to the pound. Unfortunately with three dogs in the household already, we just can't take in another one no matter how small and cute and fluffy.

Finally made it to the Madrona Marsh today. Turns out they are having an Environment Fair in the parking lot of the nature center, so we spent most of our time there. It was rather hot & more people than normal in the preserve which meant not as many birds to see. Not a single frog, either. I did get a rather nice shot of a captive owl, though, if I do say so myself.

Need to do some grocery shopping today, especially if we intend to have dinner tonight. I plan on making Pasta alla Puttanesca (which translates roughly as "whore's pasta"), which is an almost-but-not-quite vegetarian dish made with tomatoes, garlic, Greek olives, and anchovies (thus the not-quite-vegetarian). Actually, if you leave out the anchovies I do believe it would be a vegan meal, not just vegetarian.

Not much else going on. I've completed about 40-some-odd rows on the HP square, and cast on for a new hat. The hat seems so simple after all the intarsia pieces; just stockinette in the round for the most part. It will have a turned, pleated brim & a ribbon hatband with bow when finished though.

Change in plans for the day

2010-03-25T10:18:00.001-07:00

Well, looks like we'll be spending at least part of the day trying to find this little girl's owners. She just showed up in our yard this morning, bold as brass. Very friendly pup, and after a few minutes of deep suspicion is getting along well with the other dogs. Even the cat isn't too alarmed by her presence, and she's made no attempt to chase him. Hardly even seems to notice him, really. She's got a collar but no tags so that makes things a little tougher. We've printed some fliers & will have her on a leash with us when we put them up.

Good start to the vacation

2010-03-24T14:16:00.001-07:00

It has been a very relaxing past few days. Saturday we just lay about the house like slugs. Sunday we puttered around the house, went to the bookstore & pet shop, and lay about the house like slugs. Monday we got the trailer hitched up, did a bit of housework, and headed on out to Mount Baldy for a short camping trip. Once there we met The Boy, The Girl, and Lizard for dinner at Mt. Baldy Lodge.

The weather was beautiful, if a bit chilly at night. The place where we stayed was practically deserted; I think we saw three people the entire time we were there. This is a *very* dog-friendly campground; you're actually allowed to have the dogs off-leash as long as they are well-behaved. The girls loved being able to run around & climb on the rocks. We spent our time wandering around with the dogs, reading, knitting (for me), playing computer games (for Ralph) and laying about like slugs.

Today, of course, we're back home. Mudgie was *very* glad to see us, alternating between cuddling & scolding us for having dared to go away. Had a shower for the first time since Monday (power issues with the trailer prevented us from turning on the water heater, which is the main reason we didn't stay longer) which felt wonderful!!!! Our basic plans for the day are reading, knitting (for me), computer games (for Ralph) and laying about like slugs. (Are you seeing a trend in our vacation plans yet?)

Tomorrow we will probably head out to the Madrona Marsh. Also thinking of going to the Pirates Dinner Show either tomorrow night or Friday, which is like Medieval Times only with pirates instead of knights.

The purple flower is the one & only blossom on our wisteria, taken on Monday right before we left. It's mostly open now and is starting to have a lovely scent.

I admit it. I caved.

2010-03-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

I was NOT going to start any new HP squares until I finished the backs for the ones I've already done. Of course I caved, and started Fred & George last night. It's not at a point where they are even vaguely recognizable yet (I'm on row 15 out of 111) but here's what it looked like right before I cast on. Since I'm on vacation this week I should be able to get a lot done. I've also got a new hat pattern to try out when this one gets too mind-boggling & needs to rest, so to speak.

I've got a loaf of lemon bread baking in the oven. Mmmmmm--starting to smell really good in here!

Graph Jam

2010-03-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

I totally want to post this in the kitchen at work:

see more Funny Graphs

Needles and Spins

Time for the monthly check-in

Shtuffity shtuff shtuff

Just some photos

Hot days

Just another lazy Sunday

Catching up

Fun weekend

So how old IS Hermione, anyway?

Sleeeeepy

Such a crankypants

June, lovely June

MD 2011

And the answer is. . .

It's quiz time!

Did I say "Pets--fauh!" Well, say it again!

Pets--fauh!

Well, that was cool.

Gang aft agly

I'm not even going to say how long it's been since I posted

Ohhh, I'm supposed to *post* things

Bronchitis sucks

And so it goes

Another exciting post

Some random thoughts

Two weeks? Why do I even keep a blog?

Yes, I'm still here

A super Super Bowl Sunday

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Stuff for today

Wake up, cousin! We're going to the zoo!

Sleeeeeepy

Condensation!

Harry Potter Cookbook

First post of 2011

Winding down the year

Not much to say

It's a New Job After All

Mondaaaaaay.

Black Friday

End of the line

Pain, family, and armadillo

Happy Halloween! (Yeah, original title, I know)

What the. . . ??

Surrounded by dogs

Tea Party Day

A little of this, a little of that

First post of October

Dear weather. . .

A couple knitting photos, and a video

Four-day weekend

A few more pics from the weekend

Mostly pictures today

Erm, riiiight.

Chug chug chugging along

Snake!

Just some random thoughts

Busy busy weekend

Me and my big mouth

July is over

Another WIP completed

No clever title today, I'm afraid

A photo, a word of advice, and a funny link

Yes, yes, it's been ages

'Twas the day after the fourth

'Twas the night before the fourth

And in other news

Feeling good today

Working on the Weasleys

Middle of the week already???

Boring Sunday

I could get used to this

Bits & pieces for 5/30/10

Some good, some not so much

sigh

Waste of a perfectly good day

And it's Friday again

First project :-)

Thoughts on May 15

Ironman

Ohhh, I'm supposed to post things