Dinosaurs!!!!

And you thought dinosaurs were extinct. Silly!

Also, yarn!

Weekend Wishes...

So, I almost got what I wanted to do this weekend done this weekend. Almost. I did garden, some. I watered everything and weeded in the vegetable area. Which area, so far, doesn't have much in the way of vegetables. I'm pretty sure that I have four asparagus pea seedlings that have come up, so that's good, but no tomatoes have volunteered which I find highly disappointing.

I did not take any pictures of anything. Including the lovely ripple baby blanket that I finally finished weaving in the ends. I did accomplish that, so go me! The coordinating hat is almost done, as well. I had so much trouble trying to figure out how to make a ripple brim, that I gave that up and am just giving it a "single crochet in back loops only" ripple brim. It's super cute, even if I do say so myself. Pictures will be taken and posted this week. Hopefully, before I send it off to its intended recipient.

I also meant to play with my Ravelry account this weekend. That went the way of the pictures of stuff. Nowhere!

I have two excuses (well, three, if you count lazy, which I do when I have enough energy): I had a hair appointment yesterday (which I had forgotten about) and I had rehearsal today. My hair appointment did lead, indirectly, to the purchase of yarn for the wedding afghan that is due by the end of July, so that's a good thing. I like Lion Brand Homespun. Which may make me a yarn philistine, but so be it. I prefer to think of it as being democratic. I like the super high end stuff, but in the right colors and with the right pattern, Homespun is a marvelous product. :-)

Here's an old picture to keep all none of you quiet...


Glory believes in getting her close-up

Beta, Max...

I've decided that I need to be slightly more focused in order to post more regularly. In this vein, I think I'm going to start posting a story that I'm in the process of writing. I'll try to start tomorrow. I would have started today, except that I forgot to bring the notebook that has the thing in it. Of course, I have to find the notebook first. This will be interspersed with stories about knitting and crocheting. At least, that is my goal. We'll see if I manage. As any of my friends can attest, I am an unreliable correspondent. I mean well, but I'm easily distracted by bright, shiny objects.

My current knitting consists mainly of presents (oh shocker, since it is December). The only thing that isn't a present is
this. In Metropolis. It's turning out a lovely, soft, tweedy thing. I'm sure there a people who don't approve of Lion Brand Homespun, but I love it, it's soft and fuzzy and gets even more so with washing. Just don't make fringe with it. It frays like crazy. It's frazy. ;-) This will be the first project made for myself. I have a stack of other sweater patterns that I want to make for myself, but I have to mix them with things for other people or I will feel selfish and guilty. Hats, socks and mittens lurk at the edge of my conscious whispering "make us, make us, we will keep someone warm, warm, warm." How do you resist that? By making something for a baby.

I wonder why the keyboard shortcuts don't work for me. Probably the whole Safari/Mac conundrum. *pout* It's probably good for me to learn how to do fancy things without shortcuts. Next thing you know, I'll be messing with the template and adding pictures and animations and stuff. Wheeeeee!!!!!

Word for the Day: cacophony [kəˈkäfənē] noun ( pl. -nies) a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds
ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from French cacophonie, from Greek kakophōnia,
from kakophōnos ‘ill-sounding,’ from kakos ‘bad’ + phōnē ‘sound.’

Cat Tails...

Oh boy! A new post less than a month after the previous post. What is this world coming to? It's coming to me making brioche dough at 10:30 at night. Right now the mixer is incorporating the butter into the dough. It's almost there, then I get to let the dough rise for an hour, turn it out and fold it over a few times and then stick it in the fridge overnight. This bread better be delicious... Of course, it's flour, yeast, eggs, sugar, salt, water and butter, how far wrong can it go? Oh. Don't answer that. You pessimist.

I just tasted the dough. If I were the sort of person to add "gasm" to the end of a word to indicate, you know, pleasure, that would have been a doughgasm. Since I'm not, it still was. ;-)

Sometimes, I think my cats are part lemur. It would explain so much. The tails. The long legs. The jumping. Other times, I'm pretty sure that they are all cat. After all, their mother is feral and where would she meet up with a lemur on the Central Coast of California? These are the questions that keep me awake at night. Or that might be my boyfriend. 0:-)

I should probably go get ready for bed so that all I will have to do when the hour is up is take care of the dough and then go straight to bed. I'll finish this post first. It's rambling nature should indicate my state of mind quite clearly...

I'm working on the most darling little sweater and blanket set for a friend of mine (for her baby to wear). I only hope that I finish the sweater while the baby is still small enough to fit into it. They change from newborns to babies in no time at all. The pattern is an adorable vintage pattern I bought off of ebay (looking at vintage knit and crochet patterns is my newest obsession. I have managed to restrain myself to only buying two items. And one of the patterns was for a specific and definite person, which is always a good start. Yay me!). I'm not sure if babies were smaller then (and I'm not even sure when then was because the person I bought it from updated it and I bought a copy of her update) or if my gauge is wrong or if it will all turn out all right. My gauge is fine because I checked before I started and the yarn and hook I chose match the gauge the pattern says it should be. It's tiny. Itsy bitsy. Hopefully it won't be too small. Of course, if it is, Mom could just save it and the child could use it for a doll when she gets old enough to play with dolls. So, it'll work out one way or another, and the blanket will work for the actual baby, of that, I'm certain. I think that it will be more of a carriage cover size than an wrap around the baby size. Which is a nice size to have anyway. Especially one as cute as this one. The sweater set (sweater, bonnet, booties and mittens) will be in pink and white. The blanket in sage green and white. I'm all excited. It's already adorable, and I'm only about half way through the sweater.

That is taking up most of my knitting and crocheting time. I'm most of the way done with my Lion Suede seed stitch scarves for my friends Christmast presents. I have the fringe on one to do, and about half of the third to do. I still have all the hats to knit, but those shouldn't take too long. Especially since I'm probably not going to knit them in the round. That might be a hasty statement that I will later recant, but as of now, I'm planning to do them in rows and then sew the seam. It's all a big knitting adventure.

Okay. Off to put the dogs in the front room and ready myself for bed. That should take me neatly through the rest of the hour that the dough wants to rise before being deflated and then put in the fridge overnight.

Talk on ya later,

Harley

P.S.

The small afghan that replaced the Diamond Knit Shawl is coming along nicely and quickly. So much less stress than the shawl. Yay!

Some things just aren't meant to be...

I've given up on the Diamond Knit Shawl. It is beyond my knitting skills at the moment and was causing me great frustration. I went wrong somewhere, but couldn't figure out how to fix it or compensate for it. I kept coming up one stitch short or one stitch over in the pattern. It's ripped out now and I'm trying on a couple crocheted afghans (throws rather, the pieces will be too small to be considered afghans) for size. I may have to go buy more yarn (oh! horrors!) if I don't like the way the two colors of Homespun that I have crochet together. I'll figure that one out in the morning light. I may scream if I don't get this figured out in the next several days. The person I'm making the project for won't need it by the time I finish at this rate. Grrr! Argh!

The only reason I'm still up at this hour (aside from having just come home from my parents' house, where I had yummy beef stew for dinner and watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart [well, sort of watched, I was crocheting part of the time and missed bits] and House. I don't get to watch either show much because I don't have cable. Well, I suppose I could watch House, but then I would have to putz with the antenna cable, and I'm not a good cable putzer with-er [yay! a made up word! or two!]), is (to get back to the original point of this sentence) that I want oatmeal for breakfast, and I won't have the 45 minutes it takes to cook the oats in the morning. So I'm doing it now so I can just reheat it for breakfast. Sometimes I'm clever. Other times it doesn't work out so well.

I'm planting a vegetable garden this year. I'm very excited by the prospect. This is the first year I've had a garden to plant. I love fresh vegetables. I have already planted two tomato plants (not for me, I don't like tomatoes, but for my mother and my boyfriend love them, so they get two kinds), and several zucchini plants (three Rond de Italia which are little round green squashes and a regular green zucchini). I brought home a cucumber plant, a yellow crookneck squash plant and three kinds of peppers (two poblano types and a sweet pepper). I also brought home some thyme, basil, two oreganos and a mint. There's a rhubarb plant waiting for a spot and some potatoes that I'm going to put in fifteen gallon pots. I want to find a place to plant some horseradish too. I'll be swimming in produce if all goes well.

I planted a yellow kniphofia this evening (after work, before feeding horses). It is a variety called Malibu Yellow. It's tucked in under a palm tree next to a bottlebrush with bright red flowers. The clear yellow and bright red should spark off each other really nicely (actually, they do already, but it will be even better as time goes on). Plus, hummingbirds really love both plants. I can only hope that it will not become the hummingbird death trap, since I have two cats that love to hunt, and are very good at it. The cats will look on it as their own personal drive up window in reverse. They just wait there and the hummingbirds come to to them. Having said it, it won't happen. Right? Right.

Things I want to do with my life: write a book, get married, have children, write another book, get in shape, promote world peace, write another book, play Wonder Woman in the movie, take ballroom dance classes, write another book. Not much really.

Off to stick the oatmeal in the fridge and then head for bed before I fall asleep with my face in the keyboard (which wouldn't be comfortable, but might create some interesting letter combinations, although, likely not Hamlet).

Talk on ya later.

Harley

No eggs today...

I was going to bake tonight. I hadn't quite gotten down to the nitty gritty of exactly what (brownies were high on the list, but then again, so were chocolate chip cookies). Then I realized that I don't have any eggs. This makes baking very difficult, most recipes for desserts have egg in them. I could, no doubt, find something that doesn't, but that would take to long and I just wanted something quick and easy. I have to remember to get eggs tomorrow (it's possible that I should put a note on my forehead so that I'll actually remember this need at a convenient time, I probably won't go with the note). I'll have to ask Mom to bring some up to the stables when she comes to feed her horses. Mmm, homegrown eggs. A backyard flock is a good thing to have (actually, what's best is to know someone with a backyard flock). If I didn't have to worry about coyotes and raccoons wreaking havoc with chickens, I would probably have a couple of my own. Goodness knows I have enough snails and earwigs and sowbugs for them to eat that they would be some happy chickens. Until of course the coyotes or raccoons got them. That would be an ugly scene. Oh, and foxes probably too. And if there aren't foxes now they would hear about the chickens and show up just to prove a point.

I've decided that I don't like doing laundry. I don't mind the sorting really (right now I have a red load working). It's the whole having to find something to do that keeps me in the vicinity so I don't forget to move the wash to the dryer and then take the wash out of the dryer and fold it. I resent that part. I think I liked it better when the laundry got done by magic. Especially when I am in rehearsal for a show and spend a total of about 10 hours a day at home, and most of those are spent sleeping. Which is about to be the situation once again.

I had a mystery extra stitch on my last row of my diamond knit shawl. Which is very frustrating because I've been very careful with this one. I think I've fudged it though and it should be fine from now on. If it isn't I might have to commit a grievous act and unravel the whole thing (again!) and do something else entirely. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I want this pattern to work, it's so pretty and soft and perfect for the intended recipient. Once again, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

My man isn't coming home tonight. :'-( He's working late and has to get up early, so he's crashing at a friend's place. I guess it's time to pull out the flannel pajamas and socks. I might not get to cuddle, but at least I'll be warm. And I can sleep in the middle of the bed. Which almost makes up for sleeping alone. Almost.

Time to put the laundry in the dryer! One step closer to clean clothes (well, they are clean now, just wet). Done. Complete with unscented dryer sheet (I like the softness and lack of static, not crazy about perfumes in my clothing care products, my detergent is unscented too).

I made me a good dinner tonight. Yummers. All it needed to achieve perfection was a piece of crusty bread on the side. Oh well, very little in this world achieves perfection. My new secret for delicious poached chicken is to put a piece or two of lemon (half a small lemon, a quarter of a larger lemon) in the poaching water. And salt it well (then, I like salt, if you dont, don't put as much salt, but a little bit helps the flavors combine and perkes them up at the same time). So, I did this, then when the chicken was cooked (in this case a boneless, skinless breast tenderloin), take it out and let it cool so you can shred it then use it however you like. Tonight, I added a little water to the poaching liquid, removed the lemon wedges, brought it up to a boil and dropped some fusili noodles into it. When those were partially cooked, I put the chicken back in, then added mixed vegetables (corn, artichoke hearts, green beans, yellow wax beans and baby carrots, all frozen) and cooked until the noodles were tender and the vegetables heated through. Then I added some spinach and kalamata olives and stirred until the spinach was wilted. I put it all in a bowl topped it with sauteed onions and garlic (from the other night, I made extra when I made it for my salad) and some parmesan cheese. It was delightful, and could easily have been made a vegetarian meal by adding mushrooms and not using the chicken, but I needed the protein, and didn't have any mushrooms on hand (which is a travesty, but I need to go grocery shopping and haven't in the past several days). Then I finished off the Breyers Dulce de Leche ice cream. Which would have been problematic except that there wasn't much ice cream left. And I enjoyed every bite of it. :-D

I think I'm going to go do a row or two of shawl and then call it a night. I should probably just finish my purl row and call it a night because I'm just as likely as not to make another mistake, and I really don't want to do that. I keep telling myself it's good for me to push my knitting boundaries, but another part of me wishes I had stayed safely within my known abilities. Oh well, I am determined to get it done (mostly right) now. I won't let it defeat me. I can be more stubborn than three skeins of yarn. I can. Really.

Talk on ya later,

Harley

Thoughts on deer and other pests...

I got up early this morning to water my garden and was faced with a tragedy of minor proportions. I have this little bitty avocado tree that was finally starting to grow past its difficult past (too long in a pot, not enough water, snails, pretty much anything that could kill an avocado was tried before my former roommate got it into the ground). Anyway, it had a lot of lovely new growth and several sprays of flowers (I wasn't expecting any fruit this year, but it was good to see it flowering), and was just generally looking healthy and vigorous. Until the deer came by and ate all but about two of the new leaves (they left the old leaves, which is good, because it means the baby might be able to create enough energy to grow some new leaves). They also stripped my rose (which had two open flowers and several half open flowers). Luckily for the rose it is wide enough and thorny enough that they only got the front of it, but it will definitely recover. It is big and well established. They tasted one tomato (the Black Prince, not the Sweet Million) and the squash (Ronde de Italia). I'm going to put some deer repellent around and hope that it works. If I rotate the two liquid types that I have and put the pellets under the rose, things should work out.

I wouldn't mind the deer so much, except that they don't nibble, they chomp. It's like with gophers, if they wouldn't kill everything they encounter, I would willingly share. Especially if they ate the weeds and not my roses and vegetables. :-)

Really, that's about all I can think of to say. It might have something to do with the fact that I've been working non-stop for the past three weeks. At least I got this afternoon off, and some of tomorrow. I have some bookkeeping to do (people are constantly wanting to be paid, it's a crazy world), but I have an early chiropractor's appointment and then a hair appointment in the early afternoon. I love getting my hair done. I love everything about it. I may have to tighten my budget, but I that is one indulgence that is almost a necessity (only almost, but it's close, since sometimes I need an excuse to sit and do nothing for a couple hours, of course, other times, I don't, I just sit and do nothing even shen there are things I should be doing).

Yarn projects in progress: Homespun Shawl (finally, after starting it about 15 times); 1 Incredible scarf (that's the yarn, not a comment on its quality); 1 Lion Suede scarf; Drunkard's Path afghan
Yarn projects in the planning stage: 1 Lion Suede scarf; 1 multi yarn scarf (there is one more texture I want to find, but haven't so far); 3 Lion Suede hats; 1 afghan

Right. Time to go release the dogs from durance vile and feed some horses so I can eat a salad and go off to game night.

Harley

Dances with words

The question on my mind tonight is who makes a sewing kit but doesn't put any needles in it? The answer whoever put together the Dollar $tore sewing kit I got from a niece for Christmas. I guess you can't expect too much from a $1 sewing kit. However, I would have been happier if they had left out the miniature scissors (which I haven't tried, but probably won't cut much) and put in a needle. It's a good thing I didn't have an emergency needle need.

Considering dessert (although why I'm considering dessert when I haven't had dinner yet is a question for another time). I have a bunch of lovely Eureka lemons that I need to use up -- I might use one for my dinner... Instead of balsamic vinegar, I'll use lemon juice to dress my salad, which will be made of spinach, tuna, carrots, sauteed onions and garlic and not much else... Sometimes my brilliance in the kitchen astounds me (this isn't one of those times) -- but I'm craving chocolate (as usual, and who doesn't). I wonder if I can find a recipe that uses both chocolate and lemons (epicurious here I come...). Well, not tonight, I guess. I'll just have to settle (!) for dulce de leche ice cream with chocolate chips. It's a sacrifice, but one that I'm willing to make.

Dinner, by the way, turned out delightfully. Crunchy, chewy onions and garlic make any savory dish better (well, almost, I can think of a few that wouldn't be improved, but salads don't number in those ranks).

I was going to go yarn shopping this evening, but Mom and I were run off our feet at the store today (why do going out of business sales improve sales to the point where you might be tempted to stay in business if it weren't for the fact that your landlord had sold the property to a development group?), which means that I would not have been able to make a yarn decision to save my life. It's a good thing yarn decisions are rarely life or death. I do, however, need to get to work on the project for which I need to buy yarn. It is times like these that my determination to not buy yarn that I do not have a project for comes back to bite me. Because if I had a good yarn stash, and not just odds and ends, I could start without having to shop. Then again, I have three or four projects I could be working on right now, but am not. Okay, fine. Drunkard's Path afghan it is. I hate sewing squares together. I keep telling myself I will never again do a project that has squares that will later need to be assembled. It isn't nice to lie to oneself.

This is a partial list of things I need to make my kitchen complete:

cake pans (of various sizes, including springform and tube)
a good can opener (I have an old wonky one that works, but I don't need the workout everytime I want to open a can)
a waffle iron (mmm, waffles)
a griddle (pancakes, hamburgers, fried egges, bacon...need I say more?)
cast iron skillet(s) (umm, duh!)
wooden spoons (because I like using them)
a ladle (because I like soup)
roasting pan (roast chicken, roast beef, roast poatoes)
roasting rack (should I ever roast a turkey, I'll want one of these)
a slow cooker (I have one, but I want one where the pot comes out of the heating part, and I especially want the one I can use on the stove top or in the oven)

I can see that I need to get married in the near future. If only for the kitchen gadgets. ;-)

Word for the day: Picayune
Book(s) I'm reading: Rhiana by Michele Hauf
Yarn projects in progress: Sweater for Madeleine, Scarf for Kendall, Blanket for Mel and Miller, Valentine Filet Crochet for LUNA gift exchange. Oh hey! I could start working on Christmas presents. I have the yarn and the projects. Whee!
Phrase for the day: Holy Mackerel
Plant of the day: Snapdragon

Talk on ya later

Harley