Waiting for snow?!? and a short story

Posted on April 30, 2013 by cpeezers

We are preparing for another snowstorm. Really. May 1st. They are predicting around 6 inches. It should melt pretty fast as it was 80 degrees yesterday. Crazy weather, but it’s always interesting!

I have a short story I want to record into my blog. But first – I’m actually working on Blurb.com to turn my blog into a book. I like the idea of having a hard copy to keep just in case something ever happened to my blog. So far I am working on 2012 and it’s going to be at least 135 pages alone. Blurb is awesome for this. It imports the blog – pictures and all. They call it “slurping” which I think is kinda hilarious. I still have to go through it page by page though and do some formatting. I am thoroughly enjoying it because I get to read back over my blog. I read about things that I had already almost forgotten about.

So anyway, a couple of weeks ago we flew to Seattle. We got to the Denver airport and started going through the security process. That’s really an experience these days. I haven’t flown much in the last several years. In March, I actually flew for the first time since Davey was born. There’s lots of putting shoes and other things into totes. So they put my suitcase through the x-ray thing. As it passed through, I heard one of the security people say “Bag Check”. It did not even occur to me though that they would be referring to my bag, but over came a lady to check the bag out. Sure enough they were referring to my bag. She said that she was going to have to inspect it. I said sure, and I told her that the only things in the bag were my clothes and hairdryer.

She told me that once she started going through my bag I should not touch or even approach it. Then she went through it all very thoroughly. She had a piece of cloth that she used to wipe around the inside – looking for explosives I guess?

I thought she was done, but then she unzipped the outer compartment on the front of the suitcase. From this compartment she pulled out not one, not two, but three pocketknives. I felt like my jaw hit the floor when I observed this. I was just a little embarrassed. Three knives? Why would I have three knives?

Apparently David had stowed the knives there when we moved at some point. I hadn’t used that bag in a long time.

They confiscated a pocketknife from David the last time he was at the airport. We are now down four knives.

The guard was very nice about the whole thing. I kept apologizing.

That’s my story. I guess I won’t forget it, but I wanted to get it down in my blog anyway!

How about a picture to end with? Davey is graduating from preschool in two weeks. Today they sent the kids home with their graduation caps which they are supposed to decorate. I’m not sure how to decorate a boy’s hat; I’m going to be looking to pinterest for guidance!

Arm Warmers, Socks and Pre-k

Posted on April 29, 2013 by cpeezers

I’ve had a chance to do more knitting lately. yay for that. I just finished up my first arm warmers and another pair of socks. I’ve been working quite abit on the Regrowth shawl, but it’s not evening time tv knitting. I’ve learned this the hard way. Twice now. So in order to avoid tinking back entire rows, I am not allowing the shawl in front of the tv.

The arm warmers are from a Berroco pattern called Radius. Very simple pattern, but it was fun. I used Cascade Heritage sock yarn (I’m almost positive). I got David to take a couple of pictures for me.

The pattern is plain stockinette with the ribbed cuffs. There is no additional thumb work required. I like the way the thumb (or lack thereof) looks though.

I also just finished the first sock in the basic “How I make my sock” pattern that I always use from Susan Anderson.

This is Tofutsie yarn that I bought back in Arkadelphia. I don’t know why I hadn’t used it before. It’s great yarn. It’s made out of a blend of superwash wool, soy silk (made from soybeans), cotton and chitin (chitin is made from shrimp and crab shells!). The yarn has a silk feel to it and knits up so pretty.

These are going to be end of the year gifts for Davey’s preschool teachers. I can’t say enough how happy I’ve been with his “first school experience”. He has been going to preschool at our rec center. I just by chance learned of its existence from another mom on his soccer team. On registration day, I had to arrive early, wait in line, and cross my fingers that I was in time.

Fortunately, we got in. He has two awesome teachers. The lead teacher is about my age, and she has just been the greatest with them. He is in a class with eleven other kids, and they are this little unit who all play together and get along really well. They are nice kids, but I give lots of credit to the teachers too for teaching them how to work so well together. Pre-k just meets two days a week, but he’s learned so much and he absolutely loves to go to school. That’s what makes me the happiest I think – that he has had such a positive early experience with school and is ready for more!

Pavlovas!

Posted on April 28, 2013 by cpeezers

So I just finished an excellent book called The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe. I really like to read books about people writing about books they love. I learn about new books, and I often gain new perspectives on books that I have also read. This book was more than that though. It was also about the relationship the author had with his mother, and it’s also a tribute to his mother. They began this book club after she was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, but throughout the book I also learned about her life. She’s very inspiring. She worked in refugee camps in several places around the world. A very important cause to her was also establishing a library in Afghanistan (she successfully did this).

So anyway, I really enjoyed it, and I was curious to learn more about the author. He’d been a book editor and in the book he describes how he left that work to start a website called cookstr.com. It’s a fun site with lots of great recipes. So all that to explain how I discovered that the national dessert of Australia and New Zealand is the Pavlova. I’d never heard of this dessert before. I read about it, learned that it was very low fat, and so decided to try it out.

cookstr had a recipe for individual pavlovas. It’s kinda like strawberry shortcake, but the base is not cake, instead it is a baked meringue. You shape the meringue into disks and then bake it. My disks do not look nearly as tall and nice as the ones pictured on the website. This may be a combination of my altitude challenge here in Colorado, and perhaps I am also somewhat meringue challenged, as I’ve not made it many times.

However, I think I succeeded in capturing what the bases were supposed to taste like. The base is just eggwhites, sugar, vanilla, cornstarch and a pinch of salt.

Here’s the finished pavlova.

Once you bake the meringues, you just layer whipped cream and berries on top. Very easy.

David took one bite of the meringue base and his first comment was “Strange”. Not exactly what you want to hear. But it is unlike anything I’ve ever made. It is kinda chewy and sort of reminds me of a more solid cotton candy. It is very sweet and I wouldn’t want to eat it by itself, but I thought it was really good combined with the whipped cream and berries. I didn’t actually use whipped cream this time. I used Cool Whip. David loves cool whip and we were trying to keep the dessert low fat and low calorie. Next time though I’d love to try it with real whipped cream.

Despite David’s initial “Strange” reaction, I think the dessert grew on him. He was ready to have another one today.

Davey wanted to try one too (without the fruit).

He looks a little unsure here.

He wasn’t too thrilled. I wish he’d tried it with the fruit as well!

So in summary this was a great book that led me to a good website where I found and tried what I think is a pretty fun dessert!

Dungeness Spit

Posted on April 27, 2013 by cpeezers

Last week we made a trip to the Pacific Northwest. David and I had lived there for nine months back in 1997, but we’d never ventured out onto the Olympic Peninsula while we were there. We decided we’d take Davey on the ferry to Bainbridge Island and then go out to a place I’d read about called the Dungeness Spit.

This was Davey’s first ferry ride and he loved it. We drove up into the ferry, and then we were able to hang out on the sun decks as well as inside. It was really chilly out, but Davey enjoyed looking out at the Puget Sound.

We walked to the front of the ferry where it was really really windy!

Once we got to Bainbridge Island we had to drive for a little over an hour onto the Peninsula and then up to Dungeness Spit. (This is near Sequim – which I learned is not pronounced “SEE Quim”, but instead “Squim”.)

The Dungeness Spit is a long stretch “spit” of land that extends 5.5 miles. It’s the longest natural spit in the United States. It’s like a long finger of land. Here’s a picture I took that gives a little bit of an idea. It extends on around the edge for another several miles.

You can hike to the end of the spit where there is a lighthouse you can tour. Families can actually volunteer to work at the lighthouse for short periods of time. One of these days, I hope we can return and hike to the very end.

We parked and walked along a bluff on our way down to the spit.

We had some incredible views.

We were looking out from the bluff pictured above in order to see this:

Eventually we wound into the forest and began the walk down to the Spit. The forest is just incredible. So green and lush.

The Spit was covered with huge pieces of driftwood and the beach was pretty rocky. I was listening to a forest ranger though who recommended beginning a hike at low tide. She said at this time there is hard-packed sandy beach which would definitely make for much easier hiking!

Davey really enjoyed playing in the driftwood.

We played and looked around for a little while, but it was very windy and chilly on the unprotected beach, so we soon made our way back up.

Davey requested assistance going up the hill.

I enjoyed taking pictures of the light coming in through the trees and bushes.

I can’t recommend this trip highly enough. We had a little bit of trouble figuring out where the entrance to the Dungeness Spit trail was. I don’t know if we missed a sign maybe, but we just kept winding around toward the shore and eventually found it without much trouble.

Davey also enjoyed the ferry ride back. He was pretty tired at this point and so was getting fairly wound up.

I have to recommend any ferry ride in and out of Seattle as well. The Puget Sound is so beautiful and we loved seeing the Seattle skyline as well.

Koko Puff

Posted on April 26, 2013 by cpeezers

We lost our Koko Puff last Friday. I’ve wanted to write about her, but I have had trouble figuring out just what to say.

She was born around 2-14-96 (that’s the date we determined based on the vet’s estimate of her age). We thought Valentine’s Day sounded nice. When we adopted her, she was a 4 month old ball of fluff. I’ve got to find those pictures. She joined our family in the pre-digital era, and so I have actual pictures somewhere.

Here she is at 17.

Koko was such an interesting dog. I think it’s because she really did not believe she was a dog. When David brought her home, I picked her up; I was ready for lots of puppy kisses. Koko was not a kisser. She kept turning her head. I remember finding this so odd, but that was Koko. She liked pats though, and she’d paw you if you stopped before she was ready for you to.

Koko was pretty much in charge around here. I used to joke (but it really wasn’t a joke) that the hierarchy went: Koko, David, me and then Timber. Timber and I were kind of tied at the bottom.

Koko was the most stubborn dog in the history of dogs. If you put her behind a gate or a door, she’d make it her mission to try to escape – even if this meant totally destroying the door trim or the top of the inside of her crate. She was stubborn until the day she died, and I’m pretty sure that it was that stubborn streak that kept her alive so long.

She was also very very loyal. She finally stopped barking and protecting us in the last few years, but prior to that she kept a close watch on us.

In her lifetime, Koko broke her leg, and she also had a couple of bouts with an inner ear problem which caused her to spin around and around in circles. We thought that would be the end of her, but she recovered again. For the last few years, she’s suffered from arthritis and I’m pretty sure some doggy dementia.

She’s at peace now. Davey has been sad about her going, but he explained some things to me. He said, “Mommy, you know heart and heaven sound kinda the same.” I said that yes I guess so! They both start with “h-e-a”. He then said, “I think heaven is in our hearts because when someone dies, their spirit stays in our hearts.” I liked that.

He also told me that “God is happy that Koko is in heaven.” and then, “Mama, he might be a little mad at us for keeping her for so long.”

We will miss the puff.

Snowy Thursday and Regrowth Beginning

Posted on April 18, 2013 by cpeezers

The sun is out again. I think the past few days was the longest stretch of cloudy skies that I’ve experienced since we’ve moved here. We got a lot of snow! Monday afternoon it started falling until I think we had about a foot of snow. We had to venture out to the airport on Monday night to pick up Mom. We took it slow and it went fine, but there was a lot of snow out there.

Tuesday and yesterday we played outside some. Buster loves it.

Davey had a great time with his Oma too.

I am also getting started on the Regrowth shawl. The yarn is DK weight so I had to play with the needle size. I started with a size 6, but then decided that I needed to bump it up to a size 7. So I restarted. I hadn’t gotten far. I have finished the set up chart and am approaching the end of the second “Stars” chart. This is the top section close to the neck and is a little more solid then the rest of the shawl will be. Lace is hard to photograph in progress since it is all squinched together and not blocked, but here’s the progress so far. This color is really pretty, and the yarn is great to knit with.

Baby Bunny Blanket Buddy and Double Knitting!

Posted on April 17, 2013 by cpeezers

Last week I finished knitting a cute little bunny blanket buddy for my niece Lila. It’s a free pattern from Lion Brand, and it was fun but pretty quick and easy. Except. I knitted the head and realized that I was supposed to then stuff the head. But how was this going to happen when it looked like this?

As I was knitting the head (and this is another sample I whipped up because I didn’t think to take pictures when I was knitting Lila’s bunny), I thought well this is a neat stitch. I was purling one and slipping one, and I repeated this across the row. I’d never done anything quite like this before. It was making for a really nice soft squishy piece of fabric.

So I got to the top of the head, and the instructions said to stuff the head. How in the world was I going to stuff a flat piece of knitted fabric that looked like this on the needle?

I had no clue. So I went to ravelry and looked at some of the pattern notes. I saw that someone mentioned the word “double knitting”, and I then realized that this was what I was doing. I’d wanted to try this technique out for quite awhile. It makes a double thickness of fabric, or when you take the stitches off the needle you can do this:

The slipped stitches fall to one side and the purled come to the other. People who have actually done double knitting before will find this pretty obvious, but I was quite happy with my accidental discovery of double knitting! I think there should have been a big note of it at the top of the pattern as well. “In this pattern you will use a double knitting technique!” But then I would have missed out on the surprise! So then I was able to do this:

So that I could send it to my sweet niece who did this:

Snow? Snow! and a Fancy Tiger knitting class

Posted on April 15, 2013 by cpeezers

It’s Monday afternoon, and we are watching the snow just pour down. (pour? plummet? I don’t know what the word is exactly, but it is really snowing.) Again, this is hard for a former Okie/Texan/Tennessean/Arkansan to get used to. Snow in mid April. My mom is coming tonight and she will get to enjoy a couple more days of snow with us. We will have fun going out to play in it.

Yesterday, I was so happy to be able to go to a knitting class at Fancy Tiger (greatest crafting store ever (after Knit Unto Others of course!)). It was led by Stephen West and Ragga Eiriksdottir. I’ve followed Stephen’s work for awhile, and he does some cool stuff. I was surprised to learn how young he is! He is from Oklahoma and I asked him what year he’d graduated from high school. 2007! I admire all that he’s accomplished in just a few years since graduating from high school! I was not familiar with Ragga’s work, but I really enjoyed learning from her as well. This is not the greatest picture in the world. I just had my phone with me and I was trying to be quick about it.

I have another lousy picture to share because I was fascinated by this sweater that Stephen had designed and knitted.

The sweater is made out of linen, but see the white stripes? They are made from linen (I think linen and not cotton) dipped in latex! We all had to touch the sweater to see what this felt like. Linen is not the softest although I think it softens over time. The white stripes were actually fairly soft and not that latexy feeling. I thought this was really neat. I think he’d gotten the yarn in Belgium.

So we played with shapes.

We tried some different techniques where we played with different edgings and increases and decreases. One of my favorite things that I learned was when we knit several rows and ended the row (on the right side) by slipping 3 stitches with the yarn held in the front. This created an “applied?” i-cord along the side of the swatch. I think the upper right of this picture shows that although this is the wrong side. It’s smoother on the other side. I loved this look.

Ragga taught us something she called the “Insanely Stretchy Cast On” It involved using a helper needle. It was something like the long tail cast on with the helper needle added in. There was seriously a “twirl” at the end to bring the needles back up and it also added a twist on the yarn for the cast on stitches. I am not sure I can remember how to do it now, but when I was done, I removed the helper needle and so then had these elongated cast on stitches. Very neat.

We played with short rows and just swatched around. It’s not very often that I do this – just play with different stitches and short rows, and it was really fun. I have several of Stephen’s projects now that I really want to make. It was through playing around that he has created some really interestingly constructed shawls. I want to make “Rockefeller“, “Geysir Stretch” and “Bolting“. For starters.

So I guess it’s easy to see that I am pretty excited about the class. It was a great opportunity to get creative and to think about knitting in different ways.

Ok – I’m thinking this snowy day calls for potato soup. Davey is going to help me make some banana bread too.

Happy Monday!

Regrowth Begins

Posted on April 12, 2013 by cpeezers

I’m starting a new project with this yarn:

It is a beautiful sport weight bamboo/wool blend from Knit Picks. It’s called Galileo, and the color is Nebula. I’m going to make a shawl with it.

So back in October 2011, a friend of mine from Tennessee sent me a picture of a shawl. She’d seen it on etsy, and she just wanted to show it to me since she knows I am a knitter. We started talking and I told her that I’d be happy to make her a shawl sometime. We chatted about it for a bit, and I told her that really, it was something I’d like to plan to do in the next year.

So in January 2013 (yes over a year later), I remembered that I had said that I’d love to knit that shawl for her. I’d not totally forgotten about it; I’d actually kept an email reminder in my inbox saying “knit shawl for Debbie”. (email reminders to myself are the only way I remember to do anything.)

So in January, we started chatting about picking out a pattern and choosing the yarn. I sent her several possibilities of patterns I’d found on ravelry. She chose a shawl pattern called Regrowth. Here’s a pretty good picture of what it will look like.

Next we had to decide on a yarn. We messaged back and forth for several days trying to choose on a yarn. She initially wanted to stay away from wool, but then she decided that some wool would be ok – and this yarn is so soft. No scratchiness whatsoever.

Choosing the yarn was great fun, but it was the hard part! I think she ordered and sent back 3 yarn orders because when she saw the yarn in person, the color didn’t look like she thought it would from the picture online. It was worth the effort, because this yarn is so pretty and seems like it will be very nice to knit with.

It is a large shawl with lots of charts. I like charts though. It also has some Estonian stitches in it though. Yikes! I think I can figure them out though. There is something called a 2-9 star where you turn two stitches into 9. That may be crazy. I’ll figure it out though.

So I plan to blog about my progress on this. I can’t wait to get started.

Buster’s First Bath and a handshake

Posted on April 6, 2013 by cpeezers

Yesterday Davey and I took Buster for his first bath. David and I had many years of giving the dogs baths in the backyard or in the tub. It always involved a lot of bending and pain to our backs. So when I learned about the “Self-Service Dog Wash”, I was ready to give it a try!

Davey and I went to check it out. It was great. The tub was elevated. They provided shampoo, conditioner, towels, aprons (for Davey and me – but we didn’t really think we needed them. Well until Buster started shaking the water off, and then we were wishing we had them on), and blow dryer (that was a disaster. I turned it on for 5 seconds, and poor Buster did not like it one bit. We quickly turned it off and went for the towel dry).

Davey was a great help.

After we got Buster sprayed down, Davey helped scrubbed the shampoo in. Buster tolerated all of this really well.

I think he kinda liked the warm spray although I’m not sure what kind of look he is giving Davey here.

He finally had had just about enough I think. To make matters worse, Davey had momentarily deserted him so he could play with another dog. This didn’t make Buster too happy. He looks rather forlorn here.

What a clean dog though. Self-service dog wash – awesome way to go.

____

And then today Davey had soccer. Davey really enjoys his soccer games. He always hustles and tries, but he is as happy when a teammate scores as when he does. Today I noticed Davey stopping to talk to a little boy from the other team. It was right after Davey’s team had made a goal. Davey and the little boy paused in the middle of the field, Davey talked to him for a second, and then I saw him shake the little boy’s hand.

When Davey came back over to us, I asked him why he had shook the little boy’s hand. Davey said, “well he was sad that our team just made a goal, so I told him “good game” and shook his hand.”

Sweet boy. I had to write that story down.

Cpeezers

Family, School and Yarn

Monthly Archives: April 2013