Urges

A series of questions:
How do you know when you've overdosed on Halloween candy?
When I CRAVE salad, stewed chicken, and mashed potatoes.

How do you know when you've let the yardwork go too much?
When I flush rabbits out of the shrubbery while mowing the lawn.

How do you know when you've not been out of the house in too long?
A two-parter: when I talk the ears off of anyone I interact with, and/or when I've forgotten how the gearshift, seat adjustment, and radio works. Maybe I should say slightly forgotten. My Mom will understand, thankfully, and maybe Goopa.

How do you know when you've knitted in stockinette or garter too much?
When it takes me an hour to knit 300 stitches of lace. I'll knit a few stiches, lose track of what I was doing, then count. Continue, lose track, and count again.

How do you know when you've let your personal care standards drop?
Many many things. Gray roots, Abe Vigota eyebrows, and forgetting how to put on makeup.

Now, on to the urges. Sadly and boringly (should be a word!), no sex or violence urges, just mitten and sock urges. After seeing the Jaywalker socks that a lot of people have done or are doing, I'm so wanting in on that action. They're gorgeous. Heaven knows, I've got the sock yarn. With no sock classes in the next year, I can knit up the designated class yarn at will. Some of the students have been wanting those classes so I'm hoping to teach a few this time next year.

I have some Homespun and Polar that I'd love to make into mittens. I have a class coming up in November, so I'm really wanting to whip out a pair of small and cuffed mittens to show off. Can you tell one of my mottos is "No yarn is a bad yarn"? All yarns serve a purpose, even if it's only as stuffing in a pillow.




The two colors look really good together, and I might have some progress by the end of the day. Tonight is a beginning knitting class for me to teach, so the evening is taken up already. To keep my family from overloading on 99 cent tv dinners and frozen pizza, I may make my Quick and impressive beef stew. For the curious, this is how it's done:

Beef Stew in a hurry.
2 tbsp Olive oil
1 package (1.5lbs) flank steak or whatever is 1 inch thick and on sale,frozen
1 onion, chopped
random vegetables
4-6 cups beef stock or water
1/2 cup Red cooking wine
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp basil
2 tbsp parsley flakes

Cut up steak into cubes, slicing off the fat.
Heat olive oil over medium and brown steak.
When steak is slightly browned, add chopped onions and cook until onions are transparent.
Add preferred vegetables, fresh, canned, or frozen.
If fresh, make sure the pieces are somewhat uniform.
If canned, don't drain before adding.
If frozen, just toss in there.
Add 1/2 red cooking wine or omit if necessary.
Fill cooking pan up to 3/4 with beef broth or water.
If using only water, more salt may be needed.
If using fresh potatoes, do not add salt until potatoes are cooked through.
Add basil, parsley, thyme.

The longer this cooks, the better, but at minimum, it needs to simmer for 15-30 minutes, depending on the vegetables added.

For a more exotic flavor, add a 15 oz can of tomatoes, chopped, whole, or sauced, before adding the broth. Then add 1 tsp of cumin.

I'll have to plug this into my Diet Power software to get the nutrional information, but overall, it's pretty good for you.


For some odd reason, I'm hungry....