Wednesday, February 28, 2007

No pictures for this week!

I would do the picture thing, except, I've been a bit busy. We're having new floors put in the laundry room, dining room, kitchen, and small bathroom. You won't realize how much you have on the floor until you need to remove it all. Not just that, but the dishwasher, dryer, washing machine, fridge, freezer, and stove, will be out of service for a couple of days, maybe less.

With all the running around the house, I've not run around the neighborhood. Not yet, anyway. It'll be so nice today, 60F, that I have to do something.

In typing this, I've realized there's really no place to put the appliances. Uh oh. The yarn and paint supplies for the living room will need a new home. Bleh. It'll be great when it's done, right? ;)

Friday, February 23, 2007

Action, excitement, and adventure!

And maybe a picture or two.

Claudie likes his new bed.














But, I don't, so I've started a new one.














I'm using minihanks I'd dyed a while back. I miss dying yarn!














Valentine's day flowers, still going strong. Much like my guy. ;D










Here's a guest photo from Chelle. She's great.


Today, we're going to a highschool basketball game to see a cousin of mine play. It's his mom that's my true cousin, and Hubs and I are looking forward to going. Fry is going to my sister's house and then on to Branson for the weekend. Indoor water park and all that, poor thing.

Tomorrow, I have a class to teach, Mittens for Teens, and it's part two. I must go shopping for this class today or tomorrow. Sad, don't you think? Then the evening is free for a date night or just goofing off. I want to see the new Reno 911 movie, but it's just released. Even if it were at the dollar movies, it'd be crowded. I like going when few people are around to hear me laugh my butt off. Far less embarrassing that way.

Sunday, knit group! Then to get the Fry after her trip.

I don't like tomato soup, but I do love this:

Put two tablespoons of olive oil in a small-medium saucepan.
Turn on to medium heat while thinly slicing half of one onion and a garlic clove.
While these are cooking, slice up three almost too ripe tomatoes.
Put tomatoes, a teaspoon of thyme, and a teaspoon of allspice, in the pan and cook until tomatoes are just becoming tender.
When boiling, stir in two cups of beef stock.
While the soup is cooled, you can either put contents into a blender or use a hand mixer to puree the soup. Heat to just below simmering, top with croutons and enjoy!

It took me longer to eat it than make it, plus, it's a good apetiser or lunch. Yum!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

No More Buffets, Ever!

When a girl has nightmares about her clothes not fitting, it's a sign from the subconscious. Hubs love the Hometown Buffet. Variety, price, and coconut creme pie. For him, it can't get any better. I only take a teensy bit of everything I don't fix at home, but even that adds up. Plus, we went to a George Washington wreath ceremony today and the walking around wasn't as easy as it should be. Yikes!

So tomorrow, since it's going to be a blistering hot 50F degrees, is to strap on a pedometer and find out how long the longest route around our neigborhood is. Some of it is a pretty good incline. The first goal is to zip around without passing out. Second goal is to jog some of it, third, all of it. The fourth is to do a little more than slow jog all of it.

Exciting stuff, huh? Just wait, Tuesday is even better. Housecleaning!

Friday, February 16, 2007

VD and you.

I can 'hear' my Mom, "Oh my God, what is she going to type, now?"

No no no, not the venereal type, but Valentine's Day! Remember when STDs were VDs, though? I think it shows how old you are, like asking if you've heard so-n-so's latest album.

So anyway, VD started out great. Flowers by the bed, a sweet card from my dearest hubby. I wanted to 'retaliate' with a raspberry angel food cake, but hadn't counted on the new oven. Yeah. Ooo at the first and ohhhh at the last. It was a lump of sweetness. Good goo, but goo nonetheless. I will master this, though. Time was, a girl could make an angel food cake from scratch and it turn out perfectly, a cakey masterpiece. It's obvious that the girl has not been making enough of these in recent years, despite the size of her expanding waistline.

What did I do instead? Did I fix some gourmet goodness for my beloved? Nope. Completely demoralized by the lump of undercooked cake, we went with Schwan's foods. Turn on oven, leave in oven for 20-30 minutes, eat. Works for me.

After teaching class this evening, Colors in Knitting, I stopped by the drugstore for Icelandic water and found (cue the drum roll) VD stuff half price! Yay! I bought a heart of Dove chocolates, some sexy dice, and some conversation cards. Those are the best. Fry, Hubs, and I answered questions like, "What was the most embarrassing or funny thing to happen to you or a friend?" Mine was, a bird pooped in my eye, no small feat considering I wore glasses then. Hubs was the time during he audited people while an IRS agent. Obviously, one couple who were divorced but having to be together for the audit said some choice words. When Hubs came back from lunch to finish up the audit, their canary would say, "Goddamn IRS agent!" He laughed it off. No one likes an IRS agent, not even if he is pretty darn cute. Fry never did reply to the question, now that I think about it. She was too busy recovering from snarfing the Icelandic water after my bird poop story.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Snow day!

Here is Fry on her snowboard. The snow is too soft for her to really go, despite her scooting attempts.















Finally! Decent pictures of the current work in progress. These show off the colors much better.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Running around

That's me! I've been either busy or crowded out from the computer. Fry and Hubs had a three day weekend, both playing hooky today. Good for them, bad for my whirlwind Monday cleanup. It's tough to change the sheets when you can't pry a guy out of bed.

Went to knit group on Saturday, put in the double vanity in the master bath on Sunday (looks great!!), did some laundry. Today was dishes, library, music store (Fry dropped her viola bow AND the rosen), Home Depot (shelf paper and um, toilet seat. I know, gripping, huh?), Michael's (for more freeform yarn and clogs yarn), Linen N' Things for a coffee maker (was inspired after driving by Folders on the way to the music store). Tonight was dinner, a viola concert, knitting, and now blogging. If the sun ever comes out again, I'll take pictures of the current Not a Poncho work. I brought it to knit group and now Chelle's on the bandwagon. It'll be great to see how hers comes out, she chose the same colors I did. I sort of had enough yarn for it already, but heard Michaels' had novelty yarn on clearance. I'm glad I went, I found some lovely ribbon yarn to spice the NAP up a bit.

I had no idea coffeemakers were so expensive these days! Both Hubs and I each have our own that we don't use, since they're primative. We bought them before we met in '93. They work fine, but aren't programmable, which is what I wanted and what I got. We'll see how well it works tomorrow morning.


Yes, exciting things around here. Fry received a package from her Gran on Friday, causing much glee. She'll send a thank you email or do a sweet phone call soon.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

All my drama is on television.

After reading about the diaper-wearing, homicidal astronaut, isn't having a low drama life a nice thing? Amazing. Who among us hasn't done something more than stupid for love? Isn't it nice to NOT have our own bizarre and dumb love tricks splayed across the country's media outlets? Poor gal, and that's such an awful mug shot, too. Even worse than Nick Nolte's and that's bad.

So, what have I been doing lately? Not much. End of month headaches hit me a bit, once those were done, I've been wiped out. Mostly. I managed to struggle through and knit on the Not a Poncho project. That, and the never-ending Polarspun blanket. The earthtone freeform project started during the knitting retreat has been calling to me, too.

Here are some bad pictures of the NAP project so far. I'll have to take some pics of this in natural light. The white isn't so bright in real life, and I think the colors are a lot better than the photos show. Thank goodness, huh? It's also wider at the top than I can show, due to the length of the circular needles. Tends to bunch it up a bit.


Friday, February 02, 2007

Whew! Friday at long last.

Silent Poetry Day!

The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee by Mildred Plew Meigs

Ho, for the Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee!
He was as wicked as wicked could be,
But oh, he was perfectly gorgeous to see!
The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee.


Please click the above to see the rest of it, copyright and intellectual property being what it is. I had a tough time deciding between this and The Raggedy Man.

For official Friday Fun, here's six 'weird' things about me. Weird is very relative, although I do wonder if the cloth I was cut from wasn't a bit wonky.

1. I am easily amused. Not so weird unless I'm reading greeting cards in the grocery store and laughing my butt off. To all the people passing by with 'eww' looks on their faces, I say, "Yeah, and I'm a cheap date."

2. I love salad dressing on my pizza. Not drowned in it, just 'au jus'. At Pizza Hut, I have to slither to the salad bar for dressing, then slink back to my seat. I can have salad at home, I'm there for the dressing.

3. As I get older, I like older guys. Great news for my husband, don't you think? All the older guy signs he's developing, I like. Greying at the temples, laugh lines around the eyes, all that shows character. The youngsters are still cute, but a bit plastic.

4. I feel like I've said this before, but it's still true. Easy things to do are tough for me, difficult things are easy. African violets, yes, ferns, no. Angel food cake, yes, fried chicken, no. Knitting lace, yes, sewing a straight line, no.

5. I love The Sims 2 and every expansion pack. I've also said this before, I think. It's everything about them, the home design, the genetics, careers, small businesses, pets. Next up are seasons with snow, thunderstorms, falling leaves, and sunburns. What's not to love?

6. I love to cook, knit, and keep the house clean (OK, so I try at the last one without success). To me, this is totally weird and not what I ever expected. I'd planned on being a high powered scientist, single, successful, with a flying car and robot maid. Instead, my lab experiments are called 'dinner' (and they LOVE it which is weird thing number seven), I have a 'business partner' who I adore, and my family loves me (equals successful). Considering cell phones, that flying car thing is a very bad idea, and we do have the Roomba nowadays. It's safe to say that my life is even better than I had planned. :)

Tomorrow is going to be fun, Fry has a Strings School to go to for most of the day. I don't feel comfortable leaving her there, although I'm sure parents will do that. I'll have to bring things to work on, like bills, knitting, and library books that need reading and returning. If anyone is going to the sit and knit thing this Sunday, I'll probably go.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Playing Requests

If you'll read yesterday's comments, Jen wants me to try socks with a purl on the outside sole. After consulting with Fry, who wants every pair of sock I ever made, she chose Cascade Fixation's 9342 (over 9454! I know!) and the pattern stitch from January 25th in the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year calendar. Totally unrelated, my baby sister who must hate me because I never get an email from her (cue the violins) has legwarmers from color 9989 on the list.

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Edited to add: It's not seen in the below photos because I'm a very lazy person. That browser window is already closed and I'm eager to post this and run amok.

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Oh wow! They're talking about beets on the Today show! They were considered an aphrodisiac in Roman times. THAT explains a lot. Just kidding! I can see why that theory didn't hold up to the present times.

Want a quick and dirty recipe for great guacamole? Very simple:

Take 1 avocado.
.5 cup of chunky salsa, the 'good' stuff doesn't have as much water as the store brand.
1 teaspoon of garlic.

Mush together with a fork and stir until well blended. Small chunks of avocado is ok, it shows off the freshness of the guac. Use as tortilla chip dip or as fajita filling.

If you wanted to go au natural on the salsa, dice 1 medium tomato and .5 medium onion. Stir in a teaspoon of cilantro, a tablespoon of vinegar, mix, and let sit for 30 minutes or more, in the fridge if more. Depending on your salt habit, this may need a quarter teaspoon of salt, or salt to taste.

I love cooking. Mainly because I love eating, ha!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race