Little Bit Of Everything

It's been a long day. Sophie didn't sleep for more than half an hour at a time for some reason.


She's tired, but just doesn't want to let it go. I'm finally sitting down by myself at the computer only because Joe is giving me a break for a little while.



There have been lots of little things rattling around in my brain waiting for me to talk about them, so let's see how many I can remember before Joe gets tired of holding the baby...

Food
First, let's talk about dinner. I'm really trying to document the recipes I've been using over on my sadly-formatted food allergy page I'm starting, and I'm several days behind. We had Beef Stroganoff the other night and I tried a crock-pot version of the recipe. Yuck. Joe and I agreed that pretty much everything I make in the crock pot tastes the same. I think it's the slow-cooked onions - they just taste kind of funky - maybe kind of metallically sweet instead of the nice caramelized sweet you get when you saute them in the pan. We had bratwurst one night, and some yummy turkey burgers tonight. I'm afraid I can't remember the rest. Hopefully I'll get a couple more recipes up over there after I finish writing this.

Diet
Along the lines of food and eating, I got on the scale a couple days ago and the needle has finally moved in the downward direction once more. I was stuck at 25 pounds to lose for what seemed like forever, and now I'm down to just 22 or 23 pounds to go! Small progress, but better than nothing and I got the same reading today, so it wasn't some crazy fluke. Yay, me! I'm still dreading the sight of my own body in a swimsuit, but I already bought season passes to the community water park for me and the girls, so it's going to happen and on a regular basis once the weather warms up.

Garden
Over the weekend, I tried to get my garden planted. Yesterday, I went out and started turning over the ground in the shabby little garden area until I started hearing the buzzing of bees as my shovel sunk in the ground. I stopped, realizing that the nasty little clan of yellow jackets that afflicted our yard last fall must have wintered under all the mulch. I did some internet research and figured out that a bunch of soapy water would probably kill them. It seems to have done the trick. In the mean time, though, our very old next door neighbor lady came over and told Joe that the previous owners of our house had stored old cars in that very spot before they made it a vegetable garden. Old cars that leaked nasty chemicals. Apparently, the previous owners had never managed to get anything to grow there. ARgh! I'll be making some calls to the University Extension office this week to see what's to be done. I'm guessing we'll need to replace the soil there just to be on the safe side. It's looking like maybe I won't plant this year after all.

Mullets

I keep waiting for Sophie's hair to thin out, and it still very well could happen. But boy, it's getting longer and she's got a nice little mullet starting in back.

Knitting
I have another little finished object to report. Okay, almost finished. These little mittens knit up fast for Julie, and they still need to be felted the next time I run an appropriate load of wash. I think I'll have a load of towels tomorrow and hopefully I can find my lingerie bag to zip them in. Julie saw me working on them and I finally got to say "Yes, I'm knitting mittens for you." She was happy.



Now I just have to figure out what to do with the leftover rainbow yarn. Maybe a hat for me, maybe let it sit with my growing collection of Cascade 220. Working with this stuff has made me want to try dyeing some self-striping yarn for socks. Like I don't have enough projects in the pipeline. But maybe I could dye some sock yarn and make tights for Julie for her birthday? How cool would THAT be?

Here's a look at the current contents of my knitting basket:


Starting at the upper-left and going clockwise we have:

• A semi-secret project in pink and green that I just started today - for the knitters in the know, it's one of Ann Norling's most famous designs if that rings any bells but SSH! don't tell.


• Next we have a pair of socks in bright stripes that I'm supposedly knitting along with my sock class. I've got one halfway through the heel and the other just past the toe. I'm trying to save them for public knitting because they're completely, totally mindless and there is really no deadline for them.


• It's hard to see in the picture, but I did a little swatch of that Nashua Wooly Stripes yarn that snuck out of the stash. It is very nice, soft yarn and I love it. I don't know if I'll actually get to working up a sweater any time soon, but it is fun to dream about. I want to come up with something a bit more interesting than just a plain stockinette cardigan, which would look great as a finished product, but might get a bit boring to work.


• Next, we have a ball of something called Fantasi by Marks and Kattens. This has also wormed its way out of the stash and ordered me to swatch it out. I have enough balls of this (from Julie Rhodes' stash) to make a small child's sweater. I could whip one up for Julie for fall and fulfill my self-imposed minimum quota of a sweater per child per year. It knits at 2.8 sts/inch, so it wouldn't take very long. It's very nubbly yarn and not a whole lot of fun to knit with, but it makes nice cute fabric. We'll see. I keep thinking I want to make a cabled sweater for Julie to sort of match the one I knit for Sophie, and that should really take a higher priority so that I can get a photograph of them both wearing their sweaters together. awww.


• We've got the most expensive pair of socks I've ever knit - now that the heels are done, one of them lives by the computer for me to grab when I'm reading blogs. Finally, the Dublin Bay socks. One is done, the second is just past the top cuff. It's going back in the diaper bag for on-the-go knitting.

Okay, don't freak out when you see this, you hand knitters. It should be obvious by now that I am devoted to hand knitting and I love my craft, my trade, my art. But it's fun to experiment and it's a wide, wide world out there.



This thing climbed out from under the bed and set itself up. It's a very nice Singer Studio 700 that I got on e-bay a couple of years ago for a song. I've used it a couple of times right after I got it, but it's been so long that I really need to reacquaint myself with it before we can get down to any sort of business. I do have a specific project in mind - one that is totally fun and experimental and just for my own gratification. One that I'll talk about if and when I ever have time to pursue it. In the mean time, Julie has been strictly warned that she is not to touch it, nay, not to even go near it. There are sharp hooks and the thing is very heavy and if she were to pull on it, the whole thing could come crashing down on her and inflict some nasty bruises. The rule is that if I see her touch it, she is immediately out of the office, and the office is locked when I'm not in here. So far she seems to get it.

I think that's it! Now I'm off to type up a Beef Stroganoff recipe and maybe play with my knitting machine.

Oops, no, I almost forgot. Here is your daily dose of cute kids: