NWNest

Someone's Having a Birthday

2010-04-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

And it's the daughter!

Audrey is a very special daughter. I've always admired her confidence and her social conscience. She's also bright and pretty---but I'm biased: I'm her mom.

Part of her fourteenth year was brilliant, and part was really difficult. We're all wishing her a happy and HEALTHY year of being fifteen.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUDREY!

Ravelry St. Patrick's Day Swap

2010-03-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

My package went out today! It was very exciting. I am a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE procrastinator. I have family Christmas gifts in various places in the house from the last 3 years. Yet I LOVE a well packed box. This is a nice one.

Now I'm looking forward to getting the one someone made for me---guilt-free, because MINE IS IN THE MAIL!

Cake

2010-03-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

These are my latest gumpaste flowers. They are what Wilton calls a "Fantasy Flower," the heart cutter is used to make petals, which are ruffled with the ball tool and laid out in cupcake wrappers in sets of four petals. I colored them to look like anemonies or poppies. They went on my "finale cake" for my last class in the Wilton Fondant and Gumpaste series on Sunday.

In a way this cake kind of sums up the last couple of days for me. Anemonies mean fragile. John's Grandma fell and broke her hip last Thursday. She passed away Monday after surgery. She was 101. It took an awful lot of years to make her fragile, and even time didn't dim her mind. She was a strong character, and a family favorite. Poppies mean consolation. The family could use a little of that. We're going to miss her. This was the final cake. And now Grandma is gone. It's going to take a while to get used to that.

Post Valentine's Day

2010-02-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

Audrey and I are taking the Wilton Fondant and Gum Paste class at our local Michael's. Really it is probably too easy. I think it should probably be taken between the first and second classes, and I've had the first three. I wanted to incorporate all the elements for the first class cake into something I could be proud to photograph and add to my portfolio. So I bought the gum paste flowers kit, and spent my TV time last week teaching myself to make flowers. By the end of the week I was getting pretty good results. During the opening ceremony of the Olympics, I sat down at the coffee table with Audrey and we made all the flowers for her cake.

Here is mine:

And a close-up of the flowers:

And Audrey's cake:

And her close-up:

I think she did a really good job. She made it as a Valentine's day present for the boyfriend.

Something I didn't get pictures of yet was the orchid shrub John got me for Valentine's Day, which is entirely worthy of it's own blog picture. They are truly impressive.

Karmic Smackdown

2010-01-14T15:39:00.001-08:00

I don't know if it was just me or the whole family, but we had a run of bad happenings yesterday, all discovered in the same hour in the middle of the day. Audrey missed the shuttle bus from her Metals class at Mark Morris H.S. to her Ceramics class at RA Long H.S., so she walked home (which is between the two) in the rain. The mail came as we were walking out the door to take her back to school, and I received a $287 ticket from a red light camera in Portland (we were there a couple of weeks ago and I was lost and looking at street signs and didn't even see the red light.) As Audrey and I were pulling out of the neighborhood, we noticed some a**hole had vandalized James' Jetta and smashed in the two front, side windows ($200 apiece to have fixed.)

Knowledge Bowl had their third meet last night, and for the third time this season the Varsity team placed second behind Mark Morris, and the JV team placed not last. That part of the day went surprisingly well, except for the part where John had to drive the Jetta with clear vinyl shower curtain duct taped where the windows should have been (actually, one of the Seniors decided to drive himself, and three other players bailed and went with him.)

Today marks one week on the Medifast diet for me. In case you aren't familiar with it, for 5 small "meals" a day I have my choice of bars (edible,) and other dehydrated food which is reconstituted with water, including pudding (somewhat edible,) soup (just barely edible with lots of added salt,) shakes (gritty and unpleasant,) or oatmeal (really, truly, unpleasantly inedible, but I don't like the texture of cooked oatmeal.) Then one meal a day I may have "Lean + Green," meaning a serving of lean protein and some kind of leaves. That meal is great, and I look forward to it all day. Unpleasant though it may be, I have lost 5 pounds in the first week. I ran into an aquaintance last weekend I hadn't seen in a while, and after being on the diet since September, she has lost 47 lbs. Sigh. I told John I would do it for 4 months. . .yuck.

I am working on knitting my first sweater. I started small----kids' size 7 or 8, for the latest Afghans for Afghans campaign. I'm using a kit from KnitPicks, and it was all going just fine until I got the first sleeve done according to the directions and went "Hmmmm....that's awfully short." The problem with just adding more rows is that the silly thing is striped, and to keep it in pattern where it joins the body I would have to commit to two more stripes, which might be too long, plus I bound off 10 stitches where it attatches to the body.

I am also in the Ravelry St. Patrick's Day swap. I'm stalking my partner on-line (hard, since she didn't list a Flickr account or a blog) and trying to put together a good surprise box for her. I had ordered a good selection of green yarn ahead of time only to find out she prefers her fibers to be machine washable (darn, I have to keep the alpaca.) I went by the bead store today and picked up a couple Celtic charms and some really nice Malachite. I just need to settle down and get stuff done.

Actually, I should probably get off-line and get some other stuff done.

December

2009-12-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

My presents aren't wrapped. My Christmas tree has been out on the porch for two weeks. But I made this:

I'm kind of proud of it. In a moment of not-thinking-clearly I signed up for the third part of the Wilton cake decorating classes at Michaels in December. I wasn't thinking that the tiered wedding cake would be due the Tuesday before Christmas. But it was, and I made it.

The family requested a cake that could be eaten, not one that was covered in fondant or "CriscoCream" frosting (Crisco, powdered sugar, and clear artificial vanilla, yum,) so that's why it's chocolate.

NOVEMBER

2009-11-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

If my blog were a Tamagochi Pet it would have died already from neglect. After a good start, I fell off the wagon and it just seems hard to get back in the habit of posting, even though I really enjoy blogging.

First of all a crafting update so I can post a picture to make it look interesting:

After sending off a pair of mittens and a baby blanket to Afghans for Afghans for their current campaign, I joined a Ravelry group which is making hats for premature babies at Mary Bridge Hospital in Seattle. Making them takes hardly any time at all, I can churn out 3 every two days just in TV time without really trying. I should probably knit for my own family---but let's face it, no one in my household has a head so small that I can make a hat in a couple hours with less than 50 yards of yarn. (Thank goodness for that actually----that would be a seriously pin-headed deformity.)

Family updates:

The family (minus Audrey who stayed home sick) went to Seattle last Sunday to see KISS in concert. Fun, actually. They may be old, they may not be the best or cleverest band, but they put on a good show. There were flames in 4 different colors, fireworks, rising platforms, a spinning drum stage, and plenty of kitchy stage stunts. I even recognized a few songs.

I am knitting and coaching the Knowledge Bowl team at the kids' high school. Knowledge Bowl was cut from the school budget, and in order for RAL to have a team, I volunteered to coach it. Instead of using a school bus we are car-pooling the team to meets (meaning John and I drive them in our vehicles.) It's fun hanging out with the smart kids essentially playing really hard trivial pursuit. The varsity team even took 2nd place at their first meet, only one point behind the rival high school from Longview.

John is working and practicing with his band for gigs at the family practice dept.'s Christmas party, and a private party at a yacht club in January. He wants to buy a banjo, preferrably an electric banjo.

James had a jazz band concert in the new theatre at the community college on Tuesday. His bass playing was quite good, and it was the most pleasant school concert I have ever been to. He has his driver's license, and is actually driving the '95 Jetta we got for him back and forth to school. I discovered that insuring a teenage boy is every single bit as economically painful as everyone tells you it's going to be--our payment doubled. He took his SAT's earlier this month, he has great grades, he's doing his Senior Project a year early, he's one of the two best players on the Knowledge Bowl team, and he plays a lot of World of Warcraft.

Audrey has been struggling with being sick. I think she's up to 20% absenteeism for the school year now, but it's all been legitimate. It's hard to keep up when she is taking Ceramics and Welding which are a series of projects that have to be completed in a certain amount of time, and all honors/advanced classes for the rest of her schedule. She's trying very hard, and doing admirably well. She also has a steady boyfriend (and having a teenage daughter with a boyfriend, like insuring the teenage son, is every bit as bad as people tell you it will be---as much as I denied it up until now.) She's president of her freshman class and is working on organizing a clothing drive to benefit the kids at her former middle school, and is alternate on the Knowledge Bowl team (and I'm glad to have her. . . she's the only girl, and gives some much needed relief to the clouds of testosterone that hang over our practices.)

Thanksgiving will be had at home with just the four of us, which I rather like. We will then observe Black Friday as the official start of the holiday season (not the day after Halloween like some people.)

And we still have two naughty dogs (though there haven't been any misadventures since the pocupine incident of October 15,) and Bob and Norman.

Summer of Boats

2009-07-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

We recently used our kayak for the first time. I'd gotten it a couple of years ago after I kayaked on the Deschutes rafting trip with Donna and the Colburns.

You know how some memories are nearly perfect? For me, this is one of them. It was a cool evening after a too-hot day. The light was beautiful. The family was all together and everyone was having a good time.

(It's dark, but you can see the span of the wooden bridge to the Japanese Garden in this picture.) We probably don't use the lake as often as we should. We drive by it every time we leave the house. To get there on foot we have to walk up three houses and cross two streets. It's easy to take it for granted.

We did another kind of boating on the lake over 4th of July weekend. The newspaper and one of the papermills hosted a Cardboard Regatta. John and James spent a few weeks building a boat entirely out of cardboard with the guys from the Jolly family. It was pretty dang cool, and a lot of fun. Audrey joined them in the rowing:

They finished first in their heat, edging out the boat manned by the Longview Police Department, and made it to the semi-finals. There are already plans for next year's boat.

(See the blankets in the picture? People were already claiming their real estate for the fireworks display. Yeah. We can walk to the fireworks display. I think I may have already mentioned that we take our location for granted. The concert series at the lake is underway: seven weeks of Thursday night outdoor concerts at the lake. Tomorrow night is The Beatniks--we may have to go to that one.)

Isn't It the Truth

2009-05-26T00:02:00.000-07:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Except for me it would be two people heads:

"Can I just have one more cup of tea to remember you by?"

"You never got me breakfast!"

Swapping

2009-03-07T22:14:00.000-08:00

I finished my knitting for Sweet Goodness "The Winning Hand" and got the package in the mail on Friday:

I hope Stacey likes everything as much as I like everything she sent me (I have yet to take pictures, but will do that soon.)

John's Dad is visiting us. So far it's been a subdued trip as Audrey has been sick most of the time and James has been recovering. Yesterday we made it to the Portland Roadster Show after the kids got out of school. Today we went out to Tillamook to the Tillamook Forestry Center, the Tillamook Cheese Factory, and the Tillamook Air Museum. It was a long day and Audrey wilted after the Forestry Center. I got a little bit of knitting on the Afghans for Afghans baby blanket done--I have about 4 inches left.

Now I just have to get my St. Patrick's Day knitting done (pesky cables that don't make good car knitting) and my package in the mail Monday.

Knittin' Mittens

2009-02-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

I'm about 75% finished with this pair for the Spring Afghans for Afghans campaign. I should really be working on other things. . .like my St. Patrick's Day project, or those Christmas presents. But they NEED the mittens, and mittens are EASY and make for excellent "chill-axing" knitting at night. (Cabling still requires too much of my brain to be good end-of-the-day tv-watching knitting.) This is Elizabeth Durand's "Basic Pattern for Children's Mittens" from the A4A website, in the 8-10 year old size.

This pair is knit with an unknown orchid and carnation pink wool from that $1/skein yard sale I hit last summer. To make the hand warmer and fuzzier (and prettier) I added a strand of laceweight mohair to the hand ("Mohair Royal" from Lana Gatto, also from the yard sale, also $1, despite the original $11 price tag.) I have two big "cakes" of the wool, about Cascade 220 size--so probably about 220 yds each (oh my, I'm having an epiphany---could the 220 in Cascade 220 be the YARDAGE??) I also have several more skeins of the mohair (which I am loving) in the baby pink, a dark chocolate brown, and a screaming red. Held double with the wool, the mohair makes these WARM.

In the background you will see SNOW. It SNOWED last night. Not fun snow. Not snow that closed schools. Just really wet, slushy snow that froze overnight, making an obnoxious crust on the windshield and roads this morning. I'm tired of scraping. I'm tired of sliding. Winter can be OVER now. Seriously.

When I woke Audrey up this morning I told her it had snowed overnight "so dress accordingly." "Dress accordingly" apparently meant "go ahead and wear the mini dress and short sleeved sweater you laid out last night." She's ready for winter to be over, too.

In Praise of Smaller SD Cards

2009-02-24T10:02:00.000-08:00

I know the trend is toward larger and larger SD cards. I think the last one that came into our house was a whopping 4GB, but I miss the old ones. I miss the ones that ran out of memory before the camera was old technology and ready to be replaced. When I plug the card into the computer to download the pictures, it takes 3 years for the images to load. I have pictures on my SD card from when the dogs were puppies, from three Christmases ago, from summer vacations two different years. It takes a l-o-n-g time for these to all show up on screen so I can tell the computer I want to save the last 4 to Flickr so I can blog. I'm a 256MB kind of girl, or maybe I just really need a new computer.

Audrey was out of school all last week. James hasn't missed school, but he's not 100%. I've been trying to motor through with a sore throat and intermittent fever and chills, and I think John has had the sore throat on and off. Knock-on-wood we at least didn't get the flu-like virus that is going around.

Over the weekend Audrey and I got out some of the beads. Audrey wanted a couple of new necklaces, and I wanted to make a few things to put in with my St. Patrick's Day swap package.

Here is one of Audrey's necklaces:

(She's wearing the other one to school today, so it wasn't available for photographing.)

Here's some stitch markers and a charm for scissors:

And a bracelet that I'm really rather pleased with:

I'm half-way through the green cabled mitts:

I'm also trying to make the house hospitable for John's Dad's visit, which starts next week. Audrey's friend "Latonka" told me I was Super Mom, and housework was my Kryptonite. I don't know about being Super Mom (this may be sheer flattery because she was in the middle of a homemade cup cake,) but housework is definitely my Kryptonite.

John has been working on the remodeling of the hall bathroom. I really should take a picture of his beautiful job with the copper tubing for the shower before he puts the concrete wall board over it. I'm seriously glad plumbing is man-work. Seriously.

James had the regional Knowledge Bowl tournament yesterday. They came in 4th place, and I'm thinking this means they won't be progressing to state. He definitely had a good time with it, and is going to miss having practice twice a week. His band is supposed to start practicing at our house next month. Scary.

Audrey has decided she's through with middle school romance. She's in the process of letting the last boy know she's not interested, and I'm feeling very sorry for him, because he waited for her answer over a week while she was out sick, and he seemed nice. She's also doing all that make-up work for the week of school she missed, which is less than fun.

Socks!!!

2009-02-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

I made my first socks!!

The pattern is Amber Wards' "Ribbed Far-Away Baby Socks," and I made them for the Afghans for Afghans spring campaign. The yarn is a wool/bamboo blend

I tried a couple of other patterns, but this one looked more satisfactorily sock-y to me. I've read that turning your first heel is a magic moment. I don't know that I felt the magic--but there's been a lot of first sock dancing going on.

Audrey has been in bed since President's Day with a very bad cold. At least 3 of her friends have been out of school, too.

Val-Grams

2009-02-13T13:56:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Today (Friday) was my very last stint of selling candy-grams at the middle school. Words cannot express what a big "YAY!!!" this is for me.

I didn't take a picture of this year's edition (Necco conversation hearts, a Hershey Kiss, a Dum-Dum, a heart sticker, and a fancy Valentine pencil all wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbons,) so I'm recycling last year's picture, but I brightened it up with Picnic (the photo editing software at Flickr, which I think I love.)

We made over 600 and sold every one.

The parts of Audrey's hair that were green are now pink for Valentine's Day. I will have to get a picture of her. After a couple of hours bleaching the tips and applying the color, I tried to talk her into a pink T-shirt to match, and she said "no thank-you, I don't like pink." (?????) "But you just dyed your hair pink!" says I. "That's different," says Audrey, "hair is temporary, but a T-shirt lasts forever." (??????)

Audrey is at the Valentine's dance until four o'clock this afternoon. Then I am supposed to take all her and all her "single" friends (those who did not go to the dance with a boy) to El Charito's for drinks. Virgin pina coladas and strawberry margaritas. I may even have one myself. After all, I'm celebrating. ("I don't have to do Val-grams, I don't have to do Boo-grams, I don't have to be PTO president next year, Tra la la la la la" sung roughly to the tune of "We are looking for Blue's Clues.")

And as an aside to those of you who know Audrey. . . she found out there's a boy at school who has liked her for a couple of months (a big deal in middle-school-time,) and his last name is Drake, and his friends call him "Ducky" (For those of you who don't know Audrey, this is funny, because Audrey has amassed a huge rubber duck collection over the last 6 years.)

Matter of Perspective.

2009-02-10T15:51:00.000-08:00

My feet are cold. My bed is warm, and if I didn't have things to do and a feeling of guilt, I might huddle under the covers for the next six weeks like this:

more animals
(Only UNDER the covers, and probably with both dogs and a cat or two.)

Winter is a limited time-engagement.
We've missed the flooding that happened in our area.
We aren't on fire in Australia.
I've got stuff to do, but I can throw some cupcakes in the oven and put on some coffee first.
And there's new TV tonight for me to knit during.

Fetching

2009-02-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

Okay, for the Muggles:

Knitty.com is a wildly popular quarterly knitting webzine with loads of great free patterns.
Ravelry.com is a social networking site for knitters and crocheters.

Every once in a while a pattern comes along that takes the fancy of the knitting community and people go nuts about it. Cheryl Niamath's fingerless glove pattern "Fetching" published on Knitty is one of these. As of this morning there are 10,308 projects for "Fetching" listed on Ravelry. When you consider that not everyone who reads Knitty is on Ravelry, and a lot of Ravelers (me included) don't get all their projects listed on Ravelry, well, that's an awful lot of "Fetching" fingerless gloves.

I started my Fetchings as a Christmas gift for one of my favorite people. Her favorite color is red. I used yarn from the LYS that promised fabulousness, a super-soft superwash wool from Italy (the tag is lost and oblivion is deserved.) I had to learn how to do a cabled cast-on. I didn't resent it at the time. I made three repeats of beautiful little cables. Then I hit the thumb and it all went to hell.

"Fetching" doesn't have a thumb gusset. You make sort of a button-hole by knitting with a piece of scrap yarn instead of your main yarn and then you come back and rip out the scrap yarn and pick up the live stitches and use them to make the thumb. Huh. I like the thumb gusset better.

And the knuckles. Sigh. The knuckles. Only one row of cables, and a funky picot cast off that flares away from the knuckles. I suppose if one had a fabulous manicure this might be a flattering and really cool feature. To me it's just kind of. . .well, cool. It lets a bit of a breeze in. And I just have a suspicion that if you stick your hands in your coat pocket, that they will want to roll back.

I finished the first glove in good time (despite the fact that the yarn is splitty, yuck,)I dragged my feet starting the second glove ("Oh man, you mean I have to do a cabled cast-on again?") got up to where the thumb is supposed to go and stopped.

I might have known anything named "Fetching" was going to give me trouble. I've been trying for over two years to get the dogs to fetch.

Oh well, the yarn is a pretty color, and it is soft, and I'm getting heartily sick of plugging away on my baby blanket. Maybe it's time to wrap them up and reclaim that set of DPN's.

Talent Show

2009-01-30T16:36:00.000-08:00

This is not a crafting post. This is just about me, and my day, and since I didn't take any pictures of my day (because I feel weird about putting pictures of other people's children on the blog,) I'm just going to throw this one up:

(I like this picture. It's not flattering, but it's not awful, and this is how I usually see myself when I look in the mirror. Plus it's with Audrey, and she's highly ornamental.)

I keep getting myself in trouble. I'm serving my third term as PTO president at the middle school (because no one else wants to do it and I didn't say no---well, actually I did say no, but no one else wanted to do it and there were things that needed to get done, so the no didn't stick.) PTO president is really not a good role for me. I'm basically shy, have some social anxiety issues, am organizationally impaired, can't stand conflict and I'm phone-phobic. Despite this, I spend a lot of time thinking about what could be done to improve the middle school experience and include the kids more in school activities, and over the summer Audrey and I cooked up the idea of having a "Spirit Club."

Our Spirit Club (the "'Stang Society"/school mascot is a mustang,) does not shake pompoms at sporting events. We are more of a girl scout troupe who does arts and crafts projects and brainstorms about how to improve school morale. Every Wednesday, under my direction, we meet at school, have a snack and do something like make posters for an upcoming school event or decorate lockers for the current sports teams. It's a small group, but not without its personalities. Most of the girls are nice, some of them are a little loud, and only one of them has bitten people. And tweaked other girls' noses. And pulled their hair. And stomped on their feet. And spat on them. But that is a whole different story, I was just trying to get to today. In 'Stang Society we democratically decided that our project for the year was going to be a talent show. I liked the talent show idea, it's fun, and gives kids who may not shine academically or in sports a chance to shine, it also makes an event that parents will come to. We had a talent show at our elementary school every year and I always enjoyed them---but I wasn't the adult in charge then.

Today we had talent show auditions. I was terribly anxious that we would have a huge unruly crowd, and almost hoping that no one would come so I could call it off, but we had a nice manageably sized group. However, no one wanted to go first. Finally we got the most prepared looking person, a baton twirler to go, and she was adorable. Seriously adorable. She dropped the baton a few times, but she was still great.

Next we had a couple of girls who sang quietly but well, one of them while blushing furiously and trying so hard not to make eye contact that her eyes were rolled back in her head like she was able to read the lyrics off the inside of her skull.

Then we had a big group of girls, one of them who sang well, one of them who sang passably (which is better than I can do, so I consider passably an accomplishment,) and two who were not only nowhere near the microphones, but one of them stood with her back to the audience. Then the same group of girls danced, and the one who sang well also danced remarkably well, until she heard someone say she danced like a slut and stormed off-stage. Ironically the name caller was up next, and while she was technically a good dancer, she moved in a far more provocative manner than the girl she insulted. As she left the stage I told her she was good, "But, uhm, for the talent show you can't touch yourself."

Then there was several minutes of these same kids playing with other tracks on their Cd's and sort of singing/dancing and sort of goofing until I broke things up.

There were a group of boys who break danced in an entertaining way, though their leader had to serve a half hour of detention before their act could go on, and one of the boys lost his pants.

Then there were several minutes of the same kids playing with other tracks on their mp3 players and sort of dancing until I broke things up. And since basketball practice was now over we acquired a big group of players and managers who were only a little bit noisy, but terrified the last reluctant performers, so I had to tell them to move on.

Things finished up with a shy guy who did card tricks (which worked a third of the time,) a girl with Down's Syndrome who did a very sweet and passable acapella version of "Tomorrow" from Annie, and two girls who sang Taylor Swift songs together who deliberately went last and had so much fun with the microphones they didn't want to go home.

All in all it went well. If I can get them to polish things up, keep their pants on and not offend anyone, it could be a very good show. But it was a harrowing experience, and we still have the actual show at the end of next month. Why do I get myself into these things??? (The son says it's because I'm silly and looking very hard for excuses not to clean house.)

On the Needles

2009-01-29T16:01:00.000-08:00

I would like to call this "How Sherry Got Her (Blog) Groove Back," but I can't guarantee I'm really back in the groove. I was doing pretty well at the crafting and blogging, and then I fell off the wagon, and frankly, many of my latest posts have been a) pathetic and b) using pictures stolen off the kids cameras. In an attempt to be able to get my pictures loaded onto project pages on Ravelry I upgraded my Flickr account back to Pro, and was able to see comments people had left on some older pictures I had taken. They were NICE comments, on my knitting and photos and fabric collection. I was favorited. I was asked to post a picture in a group. You know what? I LIKE that kind of stuff.

I also joined a swap on Ravelry. It's a St. Patrick's Day swap. I love swaps. I haven't done a swap in ages. I love putting a good package together, and I love the surprise of getting a package from someone I don't know yet. Some of my swap partners have gone on to become very good blog buddies. I LIKE that kind of stuff too.

So even though I'm still need 3 second gloves and half an afghan from my belated Christmas knitting (this is okay, really, Hamills don't mind celebrating Christmas in February, or July, or even next year,) I'm working on other things. This is St. Patrick's Day Swap Plan B. Plan A involves plain knit mitts, with applied crocheted shamrocks and embroidery, which will be an experiment. Plan B will be sent off if Plan A doesn't work out. If Plan A is successful, I am totally keeping Plan B. I haven't kept a pair of mitts yet, and I could really use them when I'm on the computer and the house is chilly.

The yarn is Elann's Superwash Bamboo, a superwash wool and bamboo lightweight worsted, which I am loving. It is soft and springy and not splitty. I'm loving the "Cedar Green" color, and bamboo has a unique sheen that I like. This is Smariek Knits' Four Rib Braid Fingerless Mitts pattern ( http//smariek.blogspot.com .) Marie writes a very follow-able pattern. Even so, I've ripped it back to nothing from this point once already, because I CANNOT correct mistakes in cabling. I can't. One forward instead of back and it's all over. Sigh. For this reason it is not TV knitting, and I can't do it in short bursts like when I'm waiting to pick up the kids from school. For that, I have this:

This is based on Chrissy O'Malley's "Simple Reversible Baasketweave Blanket" ( http//yellowhousedesigns.blogspot.com ) and is destined to be sent to Afghanistan as part of the latest Afghans4Afghans campaign. I'm having a love/hate relationship with the yarn. Moda Dea (Coats & Clark) discontinued "Cartwheel" and it went on clearance at Joanne's. Cartwheel is lovely stuff, 100% wool, soft, not itchy, not splitty. Some of the colorways are gorgeous. I used "Raspberries" and "Misty" in my last A4A submission. This is "Coral Reef" and was the last remaining color available in the greatest quantity (possibly for good reasons.) Individually none of the colors are offensive, together they don't rock my world. Despite the fact that I'm not loving the colors, several people, including the husband and my dentist have assured me it is "not bad," and it will be warm and soft (and will block nice and flat once I'm done.)

Time to go be productive. . . .

New Year, Cautiously Optimistic

2009-01-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted. We had some weird weather during that period of time: weeks of snow, a warm spell, snow melt and inches of rain causing flooding (not personally, thank goodness,) then back to bitterly cold. I spent at least part of the time like this:

Though frankly, I think Norman would rather not share the cozy goodness of large, heavy, satin-lined fun fur goodness that we call Nanook of the North with me:

Christmas was low-key and spent with the family. Thanks to procrastination and heavy snow we didn't cut our own tree this year :( we had a small artificial one in the attic that had to suffice. Not the same, but really, my only complaint.

Despite the fact that I laid in a supply of "midget food" (frozen mini-quiches, tiny egg rolls, little pizza bagels and the like,) and sparkling cider, Audrey ditched us on New Year's Eve to be with friends. John and James and I played an everlasting game of Risk that went well past midnight, turning on Dick Clark barely in time to see the dropped ball stop. Still, toasts were made and funny hats were worn.

Before school started Audrey dyed the tips of her hair green (it was meant to be turquoise, but is more of an Easter Egg green:)

The big news with Audrey is she has her first official boyfriend (not the bearded guy in the picture, that's just John, who's not real keen on the whole Audrey having a boyfriend idea.)

James is a bass-playing Knowledge Bowl god. He divides his predawn hours between chamber orchestra and jazz band, practices with a high school garage band on the weekends, continues to grow taller than anyone else in the house, and in general is getting old.

Old I tell you, old.

I have to take pictures of projects in progress, because I have them. I had a whole lot of FINISHED items last fall, but now I have four different second gloves on the needles (if you've heard of Second Sock Syndrome, you know what I'm talking about.) I started a scarf. (A scarf!) I still haven't finished the afghan that was to be a Christmas present (luckily we spread Christmas out over the year in the Hamill family,) and I started not one, but TWO blankets for the new Afghans for Afghans campaign. I am bummed because I STILL can't get my pictures to load onto Ravelry---that click-and-drag from my Flickr pages is not working for me.

Tuesday was Inauguration Day. For the record, I DID think I would see an African American President in my lifetime. I really expected to get more of a lift out of watching the ceremonies than I did. Sure, I had a few chills, and maybe a moist eye once or twice, but I'm still feeling daunted by current conditions. So I'm still calling it cautiously optimistic.

Gingerbread in Progress

2008-12-15T13:44:00.001-08:00

No roof yet, but the walls are up, the windows are in, and there is snow on the ground:

The pictures are not so great (the edge of the fruit bowl is in this one,) but at least you can see we are working on it.

The windows are made out of caramelized sugar. I'm using royal icing made with pasteurized egg whites from a carton.

John thinks the roof needs slate tiles, so I bought a box of Wilton fondant (since no one will be eating it.) I'm hoping once the roof is on he changes his mind.

James is pretty pleased with the progress, but the fun was in the designing and not in the baking and construction for him. He did help hold up flying buttresses for a while. Flying buttresses are a pain (in the butt-ress.)

Tonight we get to go listen to live Christmas music at the high school. The chamber orchestra is accompanying the choir, and the son will be playing his cello.

We totally got gypped out of a snow day today. The precipitation missed us by about 30 miles. Cars had to have chains going through Portland last night, and they are mostly shut down, but we got nuthin'. A couple of pretty little flurries, and no accumulation whatsoever. We did get the cold, though. I had to stop on the way to school this morning to scrape the ice made by our breath on the INSIDE of the car windows.

I'm Glad I'm Not Thirteen

2008-12-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

I have a daughter.

She's beautiful and intelligent and funny and talented and creative and compassionate.

She's also a thirteen year old girl, which means there is sometimes drama.

Here is Audrey at Zoolights at the Oregon Zoo with "Latonka." Even though it was "Latonka's" family who took the girls, I'm crazy-pleased with this picture, because both the girls are wearing fingerless gloves of my own knitting.

Here's Audrey with another friend. We'll call her "Boris."

I took none of these pictures. All but one are Audrey's digital self-portraits, and she did the alteration on the first two herself.

Why We Had KFC for Dinner Last Night:

2008-12-09T13:22:00.001-08:00

Yesterday at 3:00 I started doing this:

That is 1/4, or 2 pounds, of the structural gingerbread dough, straight out of the refrigerator and having the resistance of an old Tootsie Roll. I rolled, I cut, I baked, I referred with the designer of the cathedral and did it all some more. When I picked John up from work at 7:00 I was tired, sore, stank of gingerbread and had no plans for dinner (also I wasn't done with the rolling and cutting and baking.) We picked up a chicken dinner and after wolfing down my share, I went back to the rolling and cutting and baking.

Five and a half hours after I started, out of eight pounds of gingerbread dough, this is what was left:

(The last couple of pieces were rolled pretty thin, and got a little. . .brown. . .in the oven, but I wasn't about to make more dough and start over. Seriously, they will work just fine. Do you hear me, they will be FINE.)

Today I have sore palms, sore forearms, some lingering dirty dishes (my aluminum baking sheets can't go in the dishwasher and it is a testament of my love for them that I keep and use them anyway,) and this:

TWENTY TWO pieces of gingerbread cathedral awaiting construction (the standard gingerbread house has SIX.) What shall we use for construction adhesive? I've used royal icing in the past and the drying time is maddening. I've used caramelized sugar in the past, but with our humidity it softens and weeps after a while. James suggested hot glue, but I have tried this before (in desperation because of the maddeningly slow drying time of royal icing) and it doesn't want to stick to slightly greasy cookie pieces. I suggested Liquid Nails and John gave me the hairy eyeball and said some nonsense about keeping it edible. Probably we will go with royal icing, that's what Bobby Flay used in the Food Network show that inspired this baking odyssey in the first place. (Impressionable teenagers maybe should not be allowed to watch extreme baking shows.)

Working Hard

2008-12-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

ACK! The holiday season snuck up on me again this year! I heard women talking about how it was a late Thanksgiving that is giving us fewer days before Christmas. Since I don't do Christmas until after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I'm using this as my excuse.

I've been knitting and knitting and crocheting and knitting. Hopefully everyone will have a little something in time for mailing and gift opening. I don't want to post too many spoilers here, since some of the family stop by to read the blog occasionally. Every household on my gift list is getting one of these:

What is it and what is it for? I'm not telling, but the knitting book it came from displayed one on a dog, and the Gardners are the only one's I'm sure will use it.

The afghan I'm making is about 40 inches in diameter, and I think the pattern said to make it 54 inches, so I've got a ways to go on it. I'm making mitts like a mitt making demon (sometimes a surly mitt making demon,) and I've discovered I like the first mitt way better than the second. I have to tell you, while maybe I'm not wishing there were more one-handed people on my gift list, I am tempted to give one glove with instructions to just keep the other (naked) hand in a coat pocket.

James got first place at his last Knowledge Bowl competition as captain of the Junior Varsity Team.

Audrey is getting ready for Winter Ball. She has her dress already and is working on the dance committee. She is a pretty happy camper these days: her English teacher told her he is giving her an "A" for the rest of the school year (today is the midpoint of the second quarter,) and she is to do independent study as he feels she is working above grade level. This is making her doubly happy because James was never offered independent study, and she feels like she has FINALLY achieved something he didn't do first.

We went to John's office party on Friday: potluck at the Moose Lodge with a keg (seriously--would I make that up?) The "providers" in the office (the doctors, physicians assistants and nurse practitioners) give the party as a gift to the support staff, meaning the providers all have to pitch in $100 and then the office managers hire a DJ and make a big Costco trip and buy door prizes. I prefer a good White Elephant gift exchange myself, but to each their own.

James drew and made templates for a gingerbread cathedral. There are eight pounds of gingerbread dough in the refrigerator awaiting the construction. More on that later.

Sunday

2008-11-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

About 5:00 AM I woke up with my part of my body hanging out of bed and one of the dogs pushing up against me. Pushing back didn't get me more space on the bed, and I was fairly awake, so I grabbed my book and headed out to the couch. Before I had myself settled I had both dogs on the couch with me, and one of the cats followed. I'm doomed to be crowded by animals. I read for a while, and about the time I was ready to put the book down and take a nap, John called to me and said it was time for him to get ready for work. So I got up and ironed, made tea, toasted and buttered his English muffin. After driving him to work I stopped by Fred Meyer and bought the paper, a 2 lb.brick of Tillamook cheddar and coffee. Typical Sunday, though I like it better when John is at home.

When Audrey got up she started talking about projects, projects like cutting out and sewing a red corduroy jumper she's been wanting to make. That sounded like work, so I suggested we make the sugar cookies I had mixed and chilled the dough for last week. So here's the finished product:

It was fun. I'm less of a control freak than I used to be, 'though it's still hard for me not to take over the project myself and make every single turkey as perfect and as alike as the rest of the turkeys as possible. But then I would have missed out on the paisley turkey, and the autumn leaf turkey, and that would have been too bad.

James got up, announced he had a sore throat and to get him when lunch is ready. Then he went back to his lair to play WOW (World of Warcraft.) He's a level 31 orc and just got his steed. I forget what it is. I want to say it's a giant turkey---but I'm pretty sure that's wrong.

Our giant turkey (16 lbs.) is thawing in the 'fridge. We are having a "just-us" family Thanksgiving/John's B-day and I'm planning it to be low-key and nice. All I have left to do is buy vegetables, cook, and do the dishes. John said we can put the birthday candles on the pumpkin pie if anyone insists on candles. That's silly, of course we will insist on candles.

First Mittens!

2008-11-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

Very boring picture, but we're in the middle of a multi-day rain, so I had to photograph them inside with the flash.

These are my very first mittens! They are headed off to San Francisco as part of the latest Afghans for Afghans campaign. I was able to use the pink Moda Dea Cartwheel yarn I had left over from my afghan. This is a good thing as I had two full skeins of the hot pink remaining, and it's not a color that works in our house, or for me or Audrey.

James is home sick today. I was tempted to wake him up earlier. He's going through a growth spurt and puts on inches every time he goes to sleep, it seems. He's now bypassed his dad's 5'10".

John and I are going to take a drive later to look at the rivers in the area (the Cowlitz in particular.) We are on the edge of what the weather maps indicate as a flood zone from this storm system. So far what this has meant to us is a couple inches of water up to the center line of the streets in places where the storm drains are clogged with leaves. We are pretty safe from flooding, but areas within about 20 miles of us were under quite a bit of water last year.

Cozy Needs a Sweater

2008-11-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

If you sit or lie down at our house, you are likely to get dogged:

If it is chilly in the house (like it is now and will be until next June,) your likelihood of having a dog in your lap (or draped across your shoulders)increases quite a bit. Here's why:

See that belly? That dog has a lack of hair on her belly, and only a thin, silky layer of hair on top. That leaves her chilly, which makes her overtly cuddly in cold weather. I posted on Ravelry (I am having serious fun on Ravelry) in the "For the Love of Pitties" group asking if anyone had made their pit bull a sweater. Bingo! Yes, those very clever Ravelry-ers had.

(Bob does not need a sweater, Bob is well furred.)

Now the only thing is to find the time. We are now at the beginning of our indoor season here, and I need to do some serious cleaning and decluttering of the house. "Necessities Only November" does not include take-away and drive-through food, so I'm cooking and washing more dishes than I am accustomed to (though it's a good thing, really.) I am trying to do a handcrafted Christmas like never before, partly due to financial pressures, and partly because my knitting skills have finally advanced past garter stitch scarves. My time at home is pretty busy.

I finished this very practical object yesterday:

It is half of a pair of Clara Parkes' "Maine Morning Mitts," and I am over-the-moon proud of it and have already cast on for its mate. I've been really wanting to make mitts for over a year now, and my knitting skills have finally gotten to the point where I can make them. I want mitts. James wants mitts. Audrey wants mitts. John will wear mitts if I give him a pair. They will keep our hands and wrists warm while still allowing us to type, pet dogs, open doorknobs, play the cello and all those other things we do. The first pair is for Audrey, who has Raynaud's Phenomenon, which cuts down on blood flow to her fingers when they are exposed to cold (part of the whole auto-immune problem of hers.) She picked out the cream colored Paton's Classic Wool. I am revelling in the power of knitting today---every time Audrey has given me a hard time I say "Do you want the second mitt?" and I automatically get what I want. It's magic. If only the same thing would work for controlling the dog's behavior:"Do you want that sweater?"

More Knitting

2008-10-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

I bribed James with a peanut butter sandwich to get him to model the hat I made to give as a gift to someone else. He didn't put down Heinlein's Starship Troopers, but he did get up, go outside and wear the hat. (Did you know Starship Troopers is on the reading list of all the U.S. military academies?)

This is the Ribbed Cap from One Skein Wonders, though it took a skein and a half of Lion Organic Cotton in the naturally occurring "bark" color. I'm having mixed feelings about the yarn. It was very, very splitty--possibly number two on the "Most Splitty Yarns I Have Ever Used" list. However it makes up for that by being very soft and full of organic goodness. A Ravelry-er who made a baby sweater with it said she hated the yarn because it didn't wash well and lost its shape. That makes me anxious, because no-one wants to give a self-destructing gift, and I bought more of this yarn with the intention of making other gifts. (I bought some of it during a "buy 2 get 1 free" sale--original price $6.99, then got more on clearance at about $3/skein.) The investment in yarn isn't insignificant, and if I spend the time to make a sweater out of it and looks like a dishrag after a couple of washings, I'll be very upset.

Audrey was wearing a store-bought knit headband, and saying she liked it very much and it kept her head warm, so I should make her some more. Here is my first one:

The yarn was one of the single skeins I got for $1 at the yarn yard sale. It is Rio De La Plata kettle-dyed handspun from Uruguay in "Gold Fusion." The original price was $13. The yarn behaved very well while I was knitting it, but it is the kind of itchy, itchy wool that gives wool a bad reputation. Audrey said it was very warm and only mildly annoying on the backs of her ears. One of her friends admired it and would like me to make her one, which I am happy to do with the other half-skein (though it's farther down my queue, because of the Christmas knitting.) I'm loving the way the color glows even in our gray late afternoon light. I didn't use a pattern, I just cast on 15 stitches, used a border of 4 garter stitches on both sides and stockinette in the middle, and made it the same length as the purchased band (about 20 inches.)

I should have taken some pictures of the trees around us yesterday or the day before. The colors have peaked, and there's more bare branches than there were at the beginning of the week. It's dark when I take Audrey to school at 7:40 (it's dark most of the year when I take James at 6:40,) the days are definitely getting shorter, and the rain is supposed to set in soon.

Yarn Diet.

2008-10-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

A new (today) picture of Norman:

If this was a LOLCat I would caption it "Yarn Diet not going so well akchually."

Norman is doing really well. When I first posted on the blog after we adopted him,I called him robust, and I think that's a pretty good descriptive word for him. He plays hard. The dogs (and everyone else) have accepted him as part of the pack. He purrs like a champion. We think we'll keep him (though we aren't so sure about the claws--we are against declawing in theory, but in practice--we're all getting poked full of holes.)

Now about that yarn diet. . . . We are supposed to be having a "Necessities Only November." Yarn is not a necessity. Not really. The three skeins of fingerling-weight hand-dyed superwash-wool/alpaca/nylon under Norman in the picture don't count, as they were ordered before the concept of "Necessities Only November (and the rest of October)" came to be. But I fell off the wagon today for a $1.76 skein of acrylic (ACRYLIC!) Audrey and James would say it goes to show what a problem I have when it comes to yarn. We won't talk about the two clearance-priced skeins of Noro Silk Garden on their way here, it was clearance priced, and I had just been seduced by Brooklyn Tweed's "Turn a Square" hat. This is a seriously good looking hat ( http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/turn-a-square ) and named after a White Stripes song. It has been all White Stripes all the time around here lately (seriously, "Seven Nation Army" plays in my head.) James NEEDS this hat, and I didn't have a single self-striping yarn in the stash (if you don't count dishcloth cotton, or sock yarn.)

Do not feel sorry for me about the yarn diet. I recently organized the stash and I am well prepared to knit/crochet through this time next year (and the year after, and possibly the next year, too) if I just plan my projects around what I already own. A couple of months ago we went to a yard sale given by a woman who had closed her yarn shop and was trying to get all her remaining inventory out of her garage. We made it there in the last 10 minutes of the sale and she gestured at the bins and stacks and piles of yarn and said "$1 skein." My family was waiting in the car and she was sporting a heinous sunburn from being out in her driveway all day, so I didn't have the luxury of leisurely picking and choosing. I said "wool" and she threw things out of bins and stacks and piles at me and I took home 152 skeins of good quality yarn, some with their $10=$15 price tags still on. I have those 152 skeins in addition to everything else that has followed me home from yarn stores and caught my eye online. So I'm set, all I have to do is figure out what to do with the grab-bag variety of colors and styles. Ravelry has been an awesome tool for this, I just type in the type of yarn and see what other people have made with it. Many of the patterns are free on-line or already in my library. It's pretty cool.

Currently I am trying to make Christmas presents. I finished a hat just last night for that purpose, and have something else on the needles already. It's good to have a crafting purpose. I suffered a bit of a let-down after I finished the Afghans for Afghans afghan. I coped with it by making tiny hats.

I was supposed to go the Mason Dixon Knitting book signing at Powell's a couple weeks ago to turn over my tiny hats to get sent off to England to top off smoothie bottles as part of an ingenious fundraiser to help English oldsters. But I missed the signing, which was in Portland on a work/school night. So I will tweak my sizing (some of mine are on the smallish side,) make some more (making tiny hats is addictive,) and send them off for next year's Big Knit. Innocent Smoothies collects the little hats, and in the month of November they put them on their product at Sainsbury grocery stores. For each hatted bottle sold they donate 50P (about $1) to the Age Concern, a charity for seniors which among other things, helps to pay winter heating bills.

Time to go make dinner, and do dishes, and clean off the table. I have a Halloween costume to make. More about that later.

All pictures in today's post courtesy of Audrey. Don't forget to visit Audrey's blog at www.lifeofevildaisy.blogspot.com

Current Favorite Loldog

2008-10-26T16:15:00.001-07:00

see more puppies

Afghans For Afghans

2008-10-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

Finished! And due today (so lets hope that deadline had some wiggle-room built in to it.)

I started this in August during the Olympics. I had no illusion of finishing it by the closing ceremony (okay, maybe I did for a little while,) but it did take longer than I expected. It is the biggest project I've ever made and it is done, done, done.

The varigated yarn is Moda Dea "Cartwheel" I found at Joanne's for $1.49/skein. The other two shades of solid gray are Paton's Classic Wool. Afghans for Afghans requires wool content in their donations because it is warm, and warm when wet. This is for the youth drive, for kids 7 through 14 who are separated from their parents and at a refugee camp.

Here is the afghan at Lake Sacajawea:

I'm very pleased. The yarn is soft, the pink is vibrant against the grays. I hope the girl who gets it likes it as much as I do.

Sunrise, Sunset

2008-09-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

The hardest part of having pets is losing them. Its easy to give your heart to an animal, and they take part of you with them when they leave. Last week we lost Smokey.

I adopted Smokey one afternoon when I was having a hard day. We had moved to Lonview from Phoenix a month or two previosly, and were petless. While the kids were at school I was alone in the house, and it was cold, too quiet and lonely. That particular day I was driving home from a less-than pleasant recruiting lunch to an empty house, and I passed the cat adoption branch of the Humane Society and I stopped. After our last cat died at age 17 of diabetes, thought I knew what I wanted: a cat with presence, a talker (it was a classic case of "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.) As soon as I walked into Paws to Adopt Smokey talked. I can't remember looking at any other cat. He paced up and down his cage meowing and purring outrageously. I asked to get him out. He rubbed and purred and kneaded, and even nipped me. At age 5 he had already lived in two homes, and had spent the last 4 months at the Humane Society. I took him home. (I was in trouble with my husband for a few seconds bringing an animal home without talking about it first, but he came around.)

Smokey had all the presence a person could ask for. Never a lap cat, he would sit on the arm of your chair and purr. He had a purr that could be heard across the room. A coupld of times first-time visiters to our house would hear him and ask "Is that the cat?" not believing he could purr that loud. If he wanted attention and a person was being stupid about it, he would give them a sharp nip on the elbow, which also worked if he was being petted but was ready to be left alone.

There are lots of stories I could tell: the way he liked to curl up in small places,the midnight run to the emergency vet,the bath I gave him that required I take antibiotics afterward, but the important thing is that he became part of the family, and we gave him his "forever home."

Losing a loved one is hard, even when the loved one is a third-hand cat. We will miss our World Champion Purrer with the prissy paws.

We have been a balanced family for a long time: two adults, two kids, two cats, two dogs. With Smokey gone, we had an opening for a cat. And with a somewhat obsessive/compulsive teenager in the house, who had been told he could pick out the next cat, the balance needed to be restored as soon as possible.

It is hard to photograph a kitten in motion. I don't know how calendar photographers do it.

Meet the new addition to the family. A favorable mix of Siamese and tabby cat, his SPCA name was Prince Charming, which was hardly fitting for a robust kitty who will be primarily owned by a fifteen year-old boy. He came close to being Tiberius, very close. We were all willing to go along with that, even though I think cats can have quite enough attitude without being named after Roman emporers. We had watched City Slickers recently though, and so he is Norman. A cat named after a cow.

It is hard to be melancholy in a house with a kitten. And a new chapter begins.

Weight Loss 2

2008-07-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

First, the view from the condo we stayed at in Waikiki (June 23-July 1.)

Our friend Missy, who moved to Maui, has given us her timeshare weeks twice now. Her generosity amazes me, I'm still not sure we're worthy.

On the diet and excercise front, the dogs got walked. I logged 35 minutes with the Wii Fit (though is was easy stuff because my knees hurt from doing 3 sets of rowing squats yesterday,) and I ate moderately: Excuse the following giant space. I can't figure out how to edit My-Calorie-Counter's html to get rid of it. Try to imagine that I drew an amusing doodle in there.

			Free Diet Diary my-calorie-counter.com
			Cal	Fat	Sat	Chl	Sod	Crb	Fib	Sug	Pro
Breakfast
1	cup	Milk, reduced fat, fluid, 2% milkfat, protein fortified, with added vitamin A	138	5	3	20	145	14	0	13	10
1	24 biscuits 59g	Kellogg's® - Mini-Wheats Frosted Bite Size - breakfast cereal	200	1	0	0	5	48	6	12	6
			338	6	3	20	150	62	6	25	16
Lunch
1	1 Tbsp 15g	Hellmann's® - Light Mayonnaise	50	5	1	5	120	1	0	0	0
2	Serving - 25 G	WONDER - BREAD - WHITE 16 OZ LOAF	120	2	0	0	260	24	1	4	4
2	serving	OSCAR MAYER, Ham (water added, boiled)	131	5	2	59	1698	2	0	0	21
			301	12	3	64	2078	27	1	4	25
Dinner
0.15	cup, chopped	Onions, raw	10	0	0	0	1	2	0	1	0
0.25	medium (2-1/4" to 2-1/4" dia.)	Potatoes, boiled, cooked without skin, flesh, with salt	36	0	0	0	101	8	1	0	1
1	serving ( 3 oz )	Beef, ground, 95% lean meat / 5% fat, crumbles, cooked, pan-browned	164	6	3	76	72	0	0	0	25
1	Serving - 50 G	MISSION - TORTILLAS FLOUR - RESTAURANT STYLE SOFT TACO & BURRITO SIZE 10 CT 17.5 OZ PACK	140	3	1	0	450	24	1	2	4
1	tbsp	Sauce, LA VICTORIA, Green Salsa Jalapena	5	0	0	0	90	1	0	0	0
0.1	1 medium pepper 148g	Dole® - Bell Pepper (any color) - fresh produce	3	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
			358	9	4	76	714	36	2	3	30
Snack
2	stalk, medium (7-1/2" - 8" long)	Celery, raw	13	0	0	0	64	2	1	1	1
1	Serving - 35 G	ORVILLE REDENBACHER'S - MICROWAVE POPCORN - SMART POP BUTTER 94% FAT FREE MINI BAGS 1.2 OZ 4 PK BOX	110	2	0	0	320	24	4	0	3
0.5	serving 29 Crackers	CheezIt Reduced Fat	65	2	1	0	180	10	1	0	2
1	cup, balls	Watermelon, raw	46	0	0	0	2	12	1	10	1
1	1 bottle 12 fl oz 354 mL	Campbell's® - V8 (12 oz bottle) - 100% vegetable juice	70	0	0	0	900	15	3	11	3
			304	4	1	0	1466	63	10	22	10
Water Tracker

Totals Target Balance			1301 2000 65 699	31 65 48 34	11 20 55 9	160 300 53 140	4408 2400 184 2008	188 300 63 112	19 25 76 6	54 50 108 4	81 50 162 31

			Cal	Fat	Sat	Chl	Sod	Crb	Fib	Sug	Pro
Activity

Totals			0

Apparently my sodium is out of control.

Weight Loss 1

2008-07-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

Being married to a doctor has more drawbacks than benefits most of the time. Like now. It's 11:26 on a Saturday night and John is at work. Fortunately he's not on call every weekend. One of the more consistent drawbacks is the way he's been hounding me about my weight for the last couple of years. I haven't been very receptive to his tough love approach. Frankly, I've eaten Hostess Snowballs just to spite him.

I've had other clues that I need to lose weight: clothes not fitting, clothes not looking good, the panty hose I wore to a Christmas party rolling first under my belly fat and then under my butt (repeatedly,) my belly getting in the way of tying my shoes, my kids slapping my belly because it makes cool noises, my new doctor telling me I really needed to lose weight, unflattering pictures (and reflections) that I hardly recognize as being me, like this recent one:

With the angle, I call this my "Amazon Woman" photo.

I've been meaning to do something about it. Really. I haven't always had a weight problem. In fact it only started after I had Audrey, but I've consistently gained about 5 lbs a year since she was born in 1995. Let's see, 5 times 13, it just isn't pretty.

Here I am from behind, walking with Audrey, John is up ahead with the hat and backpack:

This is at the entrance to Diamond Head Crater, a bunch of us had just gotten off TheBus and were walking into the state park.

One of the worst things about being overweight (other than the constant nagging from the husband with the good genes and the near perfect BMI) is being physically limited. Out of breath. Heart racing. That sort of thing. On our trip to Oahu at the end of last month I was really and truly hating life when we climbed up Diamond Head. Seriously. Complete strangers were asking if I was okay. The view from the top was nice, but I'm still not sure if it was worth it:

Being on vacation was a good start to exercising more. We walked and swam a lot. I took my thyroid and antidepressants regularly, had some high-quality family time, and more than usual sunshine and exercise. I feel well enough and motivated enough to reverse that weight gain.

I've walked the dogs most days since we've been back. We bought a Wii Fit and I've weighed in every day, even when I haven't done exercises with it. I've mostly eliminated full-calorie soda. I'm trying to eat better. John has been nagging me about my calorie intake, which I haven't been keeping track of. So today I tracked down a free food journal at www.my-calorie-counter.com Humbug. I entered everything I ate today. Rice-a-Roni is soooooo not calorie-worthy.

			Free http://www.my-calorie-counter.com/">Calorie Chart my-calorie-counter.com
			Cal	Fat	Sat	Chl	Sod	Crb	Fib	Sug	Pro
Breakfast
1	cup	Milk, reduced fat, fluid, 2% milkfat, protein fortified, with added vitamin A	138	5	3	20	145	14	0	13	10
1	24 biscuits 59g	Kellogg's® - Mini-Wheats Frosted Bite Size - breakfast cereal	200	1	0	0	5	48	6	12	6
			338	6	3	20	150	62	6	25	16
Lunch
1	1 sandwich	Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich	230	8	2	0	295	36	5	14	8
			230	8	2	0	295	36	5	14	8
Dinner
1	Serving - 36 G	BULL'S EYE - BBQ SAUCE - ORIGINAL 18 OZ PLASTIC BOTTLE	60	0	0	0	330	13	0	12	0
1	cup, balls	Watermelon, raw	46	0	0	0	2	12	1	10	1
1	cup, chopped or diced	Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted	231	5	1	119	104	0	0	0	43
1	1 cup (prepared) 1/2 box	Golden Grain Company® - Rice-A-Roni, Chicken & Garlic flavored - rice mix	260	8	2	0	830	42	1	2	5
			597	13	3	119	1266	67	2	24	49
Snack
1	Serving - 35 G	ORVILLE REDENBACHER'S - MICROWAVE POPCORN - SMART POP BUTTER 94% FAT FREE MINI BAGS 1.2 OZ 4 PK BOX	110	2	0	0	320	24	4	0	3
1	1 bottle 12 fl oz 354 mL	Campbell's® - V8 (12 oz bottle) - 100% vegetable juice	70	0	0	0	900	15	3	11	3
1	cup, with pits, yields	Cherries, sweet, raw	74	0	0	0	0	19	2	15	1
			254	2	0	0	1220	58	9	26	7
Water Tracker

Totals Target Balance			1419 2000 71 581	29 65 45 36	8 20 40 12	139 300 46 161	2931 2400 122 531	223 300 74 77	22 25 88 3	89 50 178 39	80 50 160 30

			Cal	Fat	Sat	Chl	Sod	Crb	Fib	Sug	Pro
Activity

Totals			0

It's a start.

12:18 AM and still no husband.

Goldenrod

2008-06-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

I needed to get back into making some finished projects, so I went back to one of my favorites: dishcloths. Normally I make dishcloths to give away, but these are for my kitchen. The kitchen that we tried to paint purple, but after 6 different shades abandoned for something my husband calls "Harvest Gold," the paint company calls "Arizona Tan" (appropriate considering my origins,) and I call "Goldenrod" (surely I'm not the only one who misses goldenrod from the Crayola box----seriously, what color do little girls color Cinderella's hair now? "Mac and Cheese?") Anyway, here is the attempted dishcloth glamour shot:

These are both crocheted. The cool thing about dishcloths is that you can try out new stitches without taking on a huge commitment like an afghan. I'm really liking the top one.

I'm picking the kids up at the airport today. They are coming home a couple days early from visiting their Grandma Pat in New Mexico. I missed them and will be glad to have them home, but worry about the family dynamics that make it so that my daughter and her grandmother can't get along for a week. James was only there one full day, and after being uncomfortably caught in the middle and trying to keep the peace, he was ready to come home, too.

The kids will be home to help with the preparations for the two week trip to Hawaii. This is going to be an adventure, Oahu and Maui on the strictest of budgets for maximum vacation fun. More on that later.

It's JUNE.

2008-06-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

I'm shivering in my PolarFleece, but I'm not complaining (much.) We had 95 degrees one weekend last month, and I really do prefer the 52 that is happening right now, but it does feel more like March (when the picture of Audrey in the hat--no, I didn't make it-- was taken) than June.

Audrey has a Mini Relay for Life today in the cold and rain, to benefit the American Cancer Society. The seventh grade at their school started raising money for the Cancer Society last year, when one of their former classmates and his father were diagnosed with cancer within a few weeks of each other. I have mixed feelings about this---the Cancer Society has a pretty high administrative/fundraising overhead (40%) and I'd rather they raised money that would be used locally. But there's no doubt that the kids work really hard at it, last year they raised over $7,000, and this year they are hoping for $5,500. All the first period classes come up with their own fundraisers: a car wash, a video game tournament, etc.. Audrey's class painted and sold cedar birdhouses, I would run out and photograph hers now, but it's raining and the light is abysmal. As an entire grade they do a carnival (which happened last week in sun and a comfortable 72 degrees,) and the relay.

Audrey will be walking in the relay. She's not using a cane this week, but she's still too delicate to run. She jumped rope in PE earlier this week and came home with swelling in one of her feet. The school wants to know what we are DOING for her to FIX the problem. They want her to not be absent, and to be able to do PE like the other kids. The whole "she has an auto-immune condition that would be diagnosed as Lupus if it were a little worse, but since it's not we don't want to start her on a life-long course of steroids with all the side effects they bring, so we are trying to watch her diet and not stress her" just doesn't fit into their definition of special needs. John wrote her an excuse for PE one day when she was hurting and called it "non-specific tenonitis," and someone at school asked me if she was going to have surgery to fix it. For all it's flaws, we've had the kids in public school with good results so far, and I'd like to continue that way. Why is it so hard to say "She's going to be absent more than other kids, she's not going to be able to be held to the same standards in PE," doesn't that happen to other people, too?

School gets out for summer vacation next week. We're looking forward to it, brief as it will be.

Belated Memorial Day Post

2008-06-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day weekend we went to Spokane, where John was signed up to participate in a bicycle race. Spokane is a very long way from here, 8 hours or so. We couldn't leave until after 10:00 Friday night, when John got off call. The race started at noon Saturday. John and the kids slept in the car, I drove. Even after a 45 minute nap at a rest stop, I just couldn't drive the last hour, so John had to do it. We got to the race site a little before 6:00 AM, set up the tent and napped for an hour and a half.

The race was a 24 hour mountain bike "Round and Round" on a 15 mile course near the Spokane River, with some pretty mean hills. John was on a two(officially)/3(unofficially) man team. John did two laps (his team-mate, George, did EIGHT, the unofficial team-mate, Stan, did three.) His first lap was at 3:00 in the afternoon, and the second one at 1:00 AM. Here he is after his first lap:

I was not there after the second lap. I was in bed, in a motel, with a cushy bed and real running water. I did get up and drive him back to the race after he had a shower and a nap, so I don't feel entirely guilty.

John and his team were not in medal contention. But they had fun. . . I think.

Spokane is a long drive. A really long drive.

Dipping a Toe

2008-06-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to come back to the blog. After all, it's been almost a year. Things have happened. Projects have been started. . . .Maybe that's it. There hasn't been a lot of finishing going on. Or maybe it's the hypothyroid thing. Anyway, I am going to try to regain my blogging mojo, to get my groove back. Take some pictures, make some entries, re-enter the blog-o-sphere as something other than a lurker.

Speaking of lurking: one of the current things making the rounds is a favorite things mosaic. I thought this would be easy. HAH! Anything that requires me to learn to use a new tool, like the Mosaic Maker, is not going to be easy for me. But I did it. And I'm pretty darn pleased (and more appreciative of everyone else's mosaics which I assumed were an easy alternative to a blog post.)

The rules of the game were to go to Flickr and select a photo from the first page of the search for your answers to the following questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr user name. (I used my blog name.)

Here's what I came up with:

1. Sherry. Not what I would have chosen. My mother actually wanted it paired with my middle name: Sherry Ann. I've always felt like more of a Margaret (Maggie to my very closest friends,) even before I married a man whose grandmother is named Margaret (but never Maggie to the best of my knowledge.)

2. Strawberry crepes with strawberries and whipped cream. Not that I would want to eat it every day.

3. Tornillo beans from a mesquite tree/bush. I went to Tornillo High School in Tornillo, Texas, where I was in a graduating class of 25. Tornillo means screw.

4. Tomato red. True red.

5. Christopher Walkin. The man cleans (compulsively.) He's clever. When someone asked him about running for president he said he would be a good president because his talent is looking at other people and knowing what their talent is; he said he could surround himself with people who knew what they were doing. I liked that.

6. Coca Cola. Sigh. I'm a Coke addict. Trying (again) to switch over to the diet stuff for the sake of my midsection.

7. As I was going to St. Ives. . ." Cornwall. I loved Cornwall when my husband and I went there in 1991? 1992? with his Granddad Reed. I'd lived most of my life in the desert, Cornwall was terribly exotic. I want to go back.

8. Coconut lemon cake with cream cheese frosting. A local restaurant makes it. My friend Missy and her mom Linda do a spot-on version.

9. Solvent. I want to be solvent when I grow up. And I LOVE this photo, because LOOK! I not only get to be solvent, but also CLEANER and THINNER My husband would be so pleased. I gotta get me some of this.

10. Books. Book stores. Powell's City of Books in Portland, OR. Not including people and animals, books are my biggest love.

11. Foggy. Most of the time. And it doesn't help that I'm a little had of hearing, and easily distracted.

12. Northwest Nest. AZ Hamills brought up nothing. Northwest Nest brought up this gorgeous osprey's nest, which I love, because ospreys are everywhere here. My favorite one has a nest on a light pole at the Castle Rock fairground's race track. It was unpreterbed by a VERY noisy go-cart race we went to, and made a couple of trips back and forth with fish and rodents for it's chicks. That's poise, or maybe single-mindedness.

That's all for now.

Coming Out of the Mothballs

2008-02-15T17:53:00.001-08:00

The blog has been in storage, and I feel like I have, too.

But I've missed blogging, and I'm coming back. Soon. Very soon.

Obstacles

2007-08-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

I would say I'm working like a dog on this cushion recovering project, but the dogs aren't working terribly hard. Or maybe they are, they seem to be working overtime trying to be the center of attention.

This isn't a piece of fabric left on the floor that I came back to find a dog on, this is the piece of fabric that was in my hands that I was working on.

Today I took the minivan to the dealership to see what the "check engine" light was doing on, before we start this 5,000 mile odyssey, pulling almost a ton of trailer. Turns out the catalytic converter isn't quite up to snuff. They got it within "manufacturers guidelines" by cleaning some other things, but they recommend a new one. They were nice enough to refer me to a local shop they trust. Toyota dealership price for a new catalytic converter: $1,400. "Aftermarket" catalytic converter from local independent shop: $420 (and that's installed.) Guess which one I'm buying after we get home from this trip?

John spent a lot of time today checking electrical systems and doing things like that. In fact I hear him banging away now, and it's 10:42 at night. I think I'd better go tell him to call it a night. The neighbors might want some peace and quiet.

Plugging Along

2007-07-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm not even half-way through recovering the seats. But here's a sample:

Before:

After:

My only regret is that denim was out of the budget. Other than that, I'm pleased at how it's turning out. Tortured by the amount I still have left to do, and tormented by a plague of dogs and cats who SIT (and lie down) in the middle of 58" wide fabric I'm trying to spread out to measure and cut, but pleased with the results (so far.)

Travel Trailer in Progress

2007-07-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason I haven't been out to buy a new memory card for the camera (or much of anything else) is that my van has been hooked up to the trailer since we picked it up on Saturday. Parking is only allowed on one side of the street, so it's across the street (that's the house with the three legged dog.)

Sunday we gave the outside a good scrubbing, and repainted the stripes with spray paint. The stripes don't appear to be original, but someone else added them at some time in the trailer's history, and they needed touching up. We also did all the grates and vent covers. I tape, John paints, he has a much better hand with a spray can than I do.

The kids and I stripped some late '80's or early '90's baby blue floral striped Contact paper off the kitchen walls to reveal the original wall paper (now seen only on the backs of the cupboards:)

The new wall paper is a slighty boring, but easy to live with beige with navy stars:

We took the molding off to put the wall paper up, and it's missing the range hood and a light fixture.

The two biggest windows have the new curtains on them already, and I'm almost done with the rest of them. But it's easy to see why new seat covers are the next thing on the "To Do" list:

To the right of the dinette is a piece of plywood for the last owner's TV. It will go at some point. Above the dinette is a bunk that pulls down.
Here's Audrey's beloved Pooh faucet and the not-so beloved herb print Contact Paper wall covering in the bathroom:

There is a small shower (with a new white shower curtain) and a commode in the bathroom, and it's not the type where you sit on the commode to shower, which is appreciated. Audrey is still pushing to do the bathroom up all Pooh.

For an initial investment of $500 for the trailer bought off Craigs List, I think it's got a fair amount of potential. It's CLEAN, has good bones, and the last owner did some of the mechanical stuff like new tail lights and new plumbing. The trailer we had looked at before this belonged to an unshaven chain-smoking guy wearing camoflage who used it as his hunting trailer. It had a lot more yuck-factor. And speaking of yuck-factor, I need to get off the computer and on the sewing machine. I have work to do:

Guest Blogger

2007-07-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

Audrey wrote a great e-mail to one of her friends about the travel trailer. Since a couple of the relatives are regular blog readers (if not commenters,) I'm lifting it and using it as blog fodder.

"My family got a travel trailer for our big three week car trip that we are going on very soon. I think in a little more than a week. Something like a week and a half maybe. Anyway we are fixing up our cute little trailer. The outside was pretty dirty so my parents cleaned it. Then we went and redid the stripes on the paint job. After that we got rid of the ugly and dirty purple chenille pillows that I hated not to mention the stapled, (not sewed), towel curtains. I think the towel curtains were the worst because they didn't let any light in and were just awful. (Dark green terry cloth is NOT ideal window treatment.) Also the seats need some work. They have that horrid, heavy, tweed, striped green and yellow, circa 1975 seat covers. So my mom and I are going to sew some nice white muslin curtains with navy blue binding. The binding is to match the seat covers we are going to be sewing, (probably forever, we have 18 YARDS of fabric!), they are going to made of this gorgeous navy blue damask material. It is absolutely fabulous and like I said before GORGEOUS!

The trailer is pretty small but it's just about the perfect size for my family. The couch folds out into a double bed for my parents. The table drops down and the seat cushions from the little table nook cover the table to make a bed for me. James gets to sleep in the bunk/loft that folds down above my bed. Suddenly there is only enough room on the floor for the dogs and a way into the bathroom.

I love that bathroom. Well not the bathroom, just the Winnie The Pooh faucet that the trailer came with! I thought that we should redo the bathroom completely Winnie The Pooh but let's just say my parents weren't completely sold on the idea. I personally think it would be perfect. I mean, SERIOUSLY, a POOH themed bathroom! How perfect is THAT?!? I absolutely love the idea. Plus then we could put eore and piglet and roo and all the other characters up on the walls. Still my parents refuse. But I'll get them. I'll get my portable pooh bathroom. Much better than Barbie's Malibu dream house if you ask me.

So far this trailer has been work but I think it's coming along nicely. The outside is looking pretty good. And when the inside comes completely together it will be very pretty. The little kitchen area had ugly flower wall paper that my mom and I took down. It was so disgusting because it was oily from people cooking. The stove and oven are super cute though. Our little magic chef oven is so super mini cute. But taking down wall paper and putting up navy blue star wall paper was no easy task. I'm going to take lots of pictures of our cute little trailer for my summer scrapbook. "

I've started turning the 5 yards of bleached muslin into 10 yards of curtains. After thinking about it, I realized that we are also going to need light-blocking curtains to protect the interior, since the vast majority of the time it's just going to be parked in a storage yard across town. I don't want to talk about a second set of 10 yards of curtains (stapled towels, maybe?) I'm also currently ignoring that roll of 18 yards of navy blue upholstry fabric I'm supposed to make seat covers out of.

Best Wishes for a Speedy Recovery

2007-07-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

The neighbors' dog was hit by a pick-up truck last week. Ella Mae is a year old Humane Society dog who looks like a black lab/whippit mix. Her primary owner is the neighbors' 15 year-old daughter, who was right there with her mom when it happened. They were getting the dog out of the car when she saw a cat across the street (probably one of mine) and ran after it. That kind of stuff happens. I keep my dogs on-leash getting out of the car, and we still have the occasional mishap.

Today is Ella's first day home after having one of her legs amputated. She came to the door herself when I brought over her "get well" gift. Despite being pretty dopey, she was wagging her tail so hard she just about knocked herself off her feet.

In other news, we bought a 1975 Fleetwood Prowler 16' Travel Trailer over the weekend. Pictures to follow. My memory card, which has over a year's worth of pictures on it, is finally full.

We spent all day yesterday washing the moss and grime off the outside and starting on the inside. It seems like the perfect trailer for us. The previous owner was a home remodeling contractor, and his wife didn't sew. So despite new plumbing and some other nifty structural/mechanical things, the seat-covers are original 1975 green stripes and the curtains were towels folded over the rods and stapled, so the price was right. I'm already in possession of 5 yards of white muslin for curtains and 18 yards of upholstry fabric. Whine . Is it too late to pretend that I don't sew??

Finishing Something I Started

2007-07-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

I'd gotten out of the habit of having busy hands while I am watching TV. Actually, I was watching considerably less TV, but replacing it with time-wasting computer games. If I make something while I'm watching TV it's not 100% time wasted, but several hours of word or puzzle games produce nothing (other than perhaps a little brain exercise I could get elsewhere.)

I started this potholder in preparation for a cupcake-themed swap. Then when I was assigned my partner she didn't want anything remotely domestic. So the potholder was put away with the binding half-pinned, and I ordered a stuffed bunny holding a cupcake from an eBay seller in Australia. This pink and brown potholder does nothing for my pine, gold and white kitchen-in-progress, but just on its own, I'm quite pleased with it:

It's all hand done, and I even made a batch of cupcakes to coordinate with it (though James did ask me why they were pink.)

In other news, Audrey is coming home late tonight from her trip to Maui. John is also vigorously planning our upcoming family vacation. I seriously doubted the fun of a 2 1/2 week family road trip the first time we did it two years ago, and it ended up being great---one of the best vacations ever. This year he wants to add the two dogs and a 30 year old travel trailer, and I have my doubts. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I really, truly, sincerely hope I'm wrong.

Sewing

2007-07-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

The last thing I sewed was a costume. The thing before that was a costume. The thing before that, and the thing before that and the thing before that, all costumes.

There is nothing more boring to sew than curtains, but that's what I broke my long run of costumes with. The play/guest room needed new curtains; the ones that were up there came with the house and were pretty ratty. They were especially ratty after Audrey discovered the joy of commercial chain stitch and ripped the bottom lace edge off, leaving me wondering why the curtains were worse than I remembered and suddenly too short. I realized what had happened when I found the ripped off bits stuffed in the back of the armoire while I was cleaning---no loss though, they were due to be replaced.

James has been my partner on the back room project. He's considerably more conservative than I might be, and he said "white curtains." I looked all over town for a cheap, coarse white sheet. Sleepers everywhere will be glad to know that thread counts have soared in the last several years, and the coarse percale sheet is an endangered species. Not needing something upwards of 200 threads per inch, or modal, or bamboo, or organic for this project, just a plain coarse sheet, I was not so lucky. James said "why don't you go to the fabric store." That's where I found clearanced linen, and bought all that was left of the white, for a whopping $3.16. There was nothing left over, but curtains were made.

Since I had the sewing machine out and all loaded with white thread, I got out some of the flannel Audrey and I had picked out to make receiving blankets for Katy's baby. We picked out coordinating prints for 3 or 4 of these, and here's the first one finished, with a matching burp pad. Ducks on the outside, polka dots on the lining:

James approved of the blankets, though he doesn't like that marble tile.

Deceptive

2007-07-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

See how peaceful and good this dog looks? HA! I walked about 10 miles today (about 4 miles more than planned,) part of it getting dragged painfully through the underbrush by this dog. This dog here, who's sleeping so angelically and looks like she wouldn't even think of yanking the leash out my hands and taking off into the woods after who-knows-what, getting tangled around a tree, and after being rescued, dragging me out through dense brush that included wild roses and blackberry vines. Ouch!

Part of that whole misadventure is that I dropped my cell phone, the one I've had for two weeks that I'm planning to have for the next two years. So I had to take the dogs home, enlist the help of the son (who was only sleeping and therefore glad to come to my aid,) and get another cell phone so I could call the one I had lost in the woods. Fortunately, except for the round trip to the logging roads (20 miles or so), the extra walk, and the fact that it made me late meeting my husband for lunch, that part was really easy. I hadn't dropped it while I was crashing through the bushes, I dropped it tying my shoe or something right out in the middle of the path.

I haven't been blogging every day while Audrey has been gone. I've been working on a project. With that stretch of hot weather we had, and the only air conditioning in the house being the small window unit John put up last weekend in the weird little room at the back of the house, I was spending a fair amount of time back there. The room is about 10' x 14' and is off both the kids' bedrooms. We called it the playroom, but really it was more of a closet. We put a futon mattress (and later a futon) back there and called it a guest room, but it was still more of a closet. Well, it's looking a lot less like a closet these days, with the fresh paint, and the brand new sticks from Pier 1 (the irony of someone who walks the dogs in the woods every day buying a bunch of sticks from China at Pier 1 is not lost on me.)

Yeah, it's looking a little monochromatic. I was too tired after this morning's adventure to get the blue denim sheets out of the basement and put them in the basket of guest bedding for the picture. And there's not only sticks and potpourri in there, there's also satellite TV, the fore-mentioned air conditioning, and FLOOR.

Puppies Grow Into Dogs

2007-07-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

The dogs turned one this week. They are officially "dogs" and not "puppies."

To commemorate the occasion, I give you James' feet age 13 and Callie age 3 months or so (we didn't get them until they were 8 weeks old:)

And James' feet age 14 and Callie age 1 year:

According to James, I am writing entirely too much about the dogs and I need to make something.

Walking the Dogs

2007-07-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

My neighbor Donna (West, to the South) says I shouldn't walk the dogs on the logging roads. She wasn't too happy when I told her I was walking the dogs up there by myself to begin with, and doubly so after yesterday. She says I have my children to think of, and what would become of them if their mother were to be killed by a bear?

My friend Missy, in Maui, the one Audrey is visiting, says maybe I should find someplace less rural to walk the dogs.

I asked myself if I wanted to go back to the logging roads KNOWING there is a bear up there. The answer is that I enjoy walking the dogs there, and I am in the habit of walking the dogs there, and until I find someplace better to walk the dogs, it works for me----but maybe I'll go later in the day, when it's too warm to go running around in a bear skin coat.

It was 74 degrees when we left town at 11:30. The dogs seemed to think it was plenty warm by the end of our walk.

I walked up the road that we call the one to the "viewpoint," which is near the top of a hill. About half-way up the freeway noise fades into the background, kind of like running water, and the birds are the loudest thing around us. The view off over the freeway looks a like this:

I intentionally put the cell phone tower in the picture, because it's an important part of my walk. I start walking level with the tower (which is enormous but the depth and scale of the picture aren't the best,) and about 1/2 a mile on the other side of it. Because of the tower I have perfect cell phone reception, better than I do within the concrete walls of our house. That's commercial forest on the hills in the background, and the bald spots are where they've harvested the trees but haven't replanted yet. All the green in the foreground of the picture is also trees, some older ones poking up above the younger ones.

We rarely, rarely see another person. It's scenic. There are extravagant amounts of wildflowers. The daisies are finishing up, since it's been so warm and dry, and I'll miss them.

Of course, one of the main reasons I like to walk up there is that we can go for miles and miles, which the dogs need.

Wildlife

2007-07-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

I realized later I had a camera on me. Much later. Even if I had remembered at the time, I wouldn't have stopped to take a picture.

I took the dogs out for a hike on the logging roads this morning. It's been so hot that other than a hectic little walk near the lake late last night they haven't been out in a couple of days. Since they were kind of antsy I took them north on a short piece of road that isn't particularly scenic, and is noisy because it's next to the freeway, but has the advantage of being somewhere I've never seen wildlife (like deer, elk, coyotes or porcupines.) Well, we came around a curve, and there was something big and brown in the middle of the road. Cozy saw it too. Callie was sniffing off behind us, and oblivious. I distinctly remember what went through my head:

"Oh no, what's that? That's a bear."

And I turned around and walked (briskly) back the other way, and didn't look back (Cozy did.)

We continued our walk in another direction, doing an hour and half, which is about 6 miles by my estimates. And didn't see the bear again.

Note: I've been Google-ing and Wiki-ing and the only brown bear native to this part of the country is the grizzly bear. I ran into a grizzly bear when I was out walking the dogs.

Five Friday Things

2007-07-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

I told Audrey I would try to post every day while she was gone. I'm getting a migraine, though. . .I can tell. . .it just has that feel to it, so I'm going to try to post quickly, take an Imitrex and go lie down. So I give you: Five Things About My Friday:

1) I took the cats to the vet today, for flea medication and vaccinations. They wouldn't do Smokey's regular vaccinations because they want him to have a proper exam, so it's back to the vet on Monday for him (I'm sure he'll be thrilled.)

2) I went to the grocery store. There was a guy there trying to pick up women. I was observing him with mild amusement. We left about the same time, and even though he was 3 parking places from the cart-return, he left his cart in an empty parking place (two parking spaces from the cart-return.) And THAT would be one of the reasons the man is still single.

3) The neighbors (the Wests, to the South) are having a yard sale, doing brisk business, and my dogs have been quite good, considering. That man they barked at had a very loud voice.

4) My husband is going to a youth soccer coaching seminar tonight, all day tomorrow, and all day Sunday. I am rather jealous of losing the weekend with him.

5) After I see if the migraine will pass, I am going drag a couple of area rugs out to the drive way to try to hose them down. If it's going to insist on being hot and dry, I may as well see if I can put it to good use. At times like this I wish I owned a clothesline.

INTENSE Heatwave Bakes Western U.S.

2007-07-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

AOL updated their headline on the heat. Just thought I should reflect that.

I got the chicken grilled with no mishaps, and really no adventure:

I dragged the little roaster oven out of the basement, and it's plugged in outside the kitchen door with potatoes baking in foil with butter and sea salt. I don't use the roaster oven very often, but when I do I'm glad to have it. James and I are headed out to Fred Meyer for salad stuff.

The raspberries are still coming, the blackberries are going to be abundant, and I'm even going to have a precious few of these:

I promised Audrey more frequent blogging so she could know what we are up to while she's away. Right now we're up to about 88 degrees in the house. We don't have that thin Southern blood anymore. It's WARM in here.

Heat Wave Bakes Western States

2007-07-05T15:59:00.001-07:00

Yep. Heat wave. My family in Arizona are having about 116 degrees, I think. More actually, because I happen to know that the official temperature is taken in the middle of a grassy field at the airport, and the city and suburbs are mostly black-top and concrete and are hotter. Ewwww. Yuck. Can I even complain about almost 90??? I have no air conditioning in the house, surely I can whine a little bit. Just a little bit. John's Dad's family in Texas got more than a year's worth of rain last month. What's a little ol' heat wave compared to that? (Insert very small whine here.)

Audrey is in Maui, and was suffering from a little homesickness last night (and got stung by a bee out on the lanai while blowing bubbles with the boys.) Hopefully she's having a good day today.

Okay, so I have this cute little stucco Tudor cottage, which really likes to stay the temperature it is. It takes several hours for it to heat up to the outside temperature early in the day, but then it holds the heat for hours after it cools off again at night. That means I'm not cooking dinner in the house. So I'm off to clean the charcoal grill. The new one that I DON'T LIKE, the one that DUMPED the steaks in the coals the last (and only) time I used it. More about adventures in grilling later, I'm sure.

Come On Over!

2007-07-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

I need some help eating that tart, I'll put some coffee on, or maybe some iced tea. It's not meant for long-term storage and I'm having trouble giving it away to my kids, who prefer chemical-laden, cellophane wrapped things.

Can you believe Scooter Libby's sentence was COMMUTED?

We are packing up the daughter-child for a babysitting stint on Maui. She's going over to stay with our friend Missy and her husband Buzz (a few hundred yards from the Big Beach state park!) and hopefully be a credit to her parents and the Red Cross babysitting certification program by being the best mother's helper ever.

Raspberries in Season

2007-07-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's been busy here. I think there's a lot of that being busy stuff going around though, there seems to be a lot of sporadic posting and blog-breaks happening. We had an extra kid to entertain for a few days before sending him to join his family in Utah, which was kind of fun. John and I spent most of this weekend doing a much needed clean-up in the back yard. We pulled the grass out of the flower beds, raked up a lot of bark chips, retrieved all the things the dogs had taken out the dog door to play with, and trimmed back a lot of plants that were escaping their accepted boundaries (though I still don't approve of John pulling up half the "Seattle" dahlia clump just because he thought it was being unruly.)

I also found myself in possession of these, from our very own (thornless) bushes:

I had a goodly amount of raspberries, and I had been reading these:

That's Julie Powell's Julie and Julia (yes, I'm one of the last people to read this, but I also haven't seen "Titanic" yet,) and a combined edition of Christopher Kimball's The Cook's Bible and The Dessert Bible. So at 1:30 this morning Audrey and I finished placing the berries on this:

Audrey was an enthusiastic helper. We just saw "Ratatouille" and she's wildly interested in cooking and baking---this week.

I probably could have found my own copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I'd recently rediscovered the Kimball, and it was both convenient and comprehensive. (Christopher Kimball, founder and editor of Cook's Illustrated, is the sort of person I would fear being married to, him seeming to be a very methodical "Type A" personality, and me so much of a "Type B" that I'm actually more of a "C" or maybe a "G.") I used his Master Recipe for Food Processor Tart Pastry, which worked very well--no complaints, even when I used all butter because I was out of Crisco after that cake making bout a few weeks ago. I followed the directions for Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream, and ran into a couple of minor problems. One was that the recommended recipe for pastry cream uses egg yolks and flour, later I was reading the "Puddings" section of the book, and he says vanilla pudding made with egg yolks and flour has a "texture like congealed gravy," and the flavor is "too eggy." WELL, if I'd read that first I would have just followed the vanilla pudding recipe, because my pastry cream looked like beige congealed gravy and was strongly "eggy." Phooey. Fortunately a good remedy for congealed gravy pastry cream is to cover it with beautiful ripe raspberries. I also had a hard time glazing the berries with the melted apricot jam. . .the slightest touch with the pastry brush sent those raspberries rolling right out of formation. I ended up just dabbing the tops, and I think the little gobs of apricot jelly are just a teensy bit unattractive. But, oh well, together it's all highly edible, and I would say worthy of the homegrown fruit.

In other news, we broke down and got a high speed internet connection, no more dial-up for us. So it's all YouTube all the time around here now. I'm posting from the lap top because since the installation of the broadband competition for the primary computer has been fierce. The satellite TV is supposed to be installed tomorrow, ending a more than six-year break from pay-TV (and over a year of that was network TV-free as well.) Part of me is sad, and part of me is thinking "Whoo Hoo! HGTV! Food Network! Discovery Channel! BBC!" and I would love to say no more watching Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars through the snow, but they won't be back next year. : ( But I've managed to live in a world without new episodes of Buffy, I imagine I'll adjust to this loss too, in time.

Whole Lot of Caking Going On

2007-06-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

My friend Janae and her kids are living out of suitcases at various friends' houses, waiting for the school year to be over so they can join her husband/their dad in Utah. She volunteered to make a graduation cake for the son of one of the friends she is enjoying the hospitality of, before she remembered all her cake decorating paraphernalia is already in Utah. I have cake decorating paraphernalia to spare, so she came over Friday night and made it at my house:

(The picture is small because it's just a trifle blurry.)

Since the cake decorating stuff was all out, and Audrey loves to dabble in the frosting arts (or maybe it's just Audrey loves to dabble in frosting,) she wanted to make cake, too. So she did, and quite nicely, too, I think:

Following a field trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Audrey and her friends split up a package of plastic dinosaurs from the museum gift shop,which they now have named, given personalities, and take everywhere they go. They have even started a web page dedicated to them at http://www.freewebs.com/dinoclubhouse to post pictures of their dinosaur exploits (though there isn't much there yet.) So following a brief Hello Kitty phase, she is currently dino-obsessed. Since it's a little early for James' birthday, and James is more of an armadillo or dragon kind of guy, Aurey decided the dinosaur cake could honor Father's Day, complete with one (relighting) candle for every year of John's fatherhood.

After the completion of the cake, Audrey and I went shopping for a bit, and when we returned John met us at the door with bad news. There had been a dog related cake incident, and the cake now looked like this:

Sigh. The dogs were already in the proverbial doghouse for a prolonged deer-chasing incident earlier in the day. Fortunately Audrey had a sackful of new clothes, lip gloss and hair thingies to soothe her wounded spirit.

Cake Post Script (Later in Day of Posting)

Oh dear.

John and I were dutifully going to try to find a little bit of un-dogged cake to taste, to make Audrey feel better. We put it in the oven to keep it safe from the dogs, AND. . . you guessed it:

I turned the oven on to preheat.

Taking a Break

2007-06-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

I took a non-blogging computer break yesterday and my cat Bob crawled up in my lap and went to sleep. The dogs were asleep at my feet, Bob was in my lap, and life was very cozy and quiet for while.

Friday I spent a lot of the day making popcorn at school for a cancer research fundraising carnival the 7th grade held. Later that night the whole family went to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (The Yarn Harlot) at a book talk/signing at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, actually, the whole family went, and everyone but James stayed to hear her speak (no accounting for taste in some people's children.) John regularly reads her blog, and Audrey just finished her first two books.

Sunday while walking the dogs up on a logging road, a COYOTE crossed our path and the dogs pulled their leashes right out of my hands and took off after it. Stupid, stupid #&*#@!!!! dogs. When the coyote couldn't outrun the dogs after about a quarter mile, he made straight for the most densely wooded area he could find and the dogs went right in after him. A few minutes later the coyote came loping leisurely out of the woods and went on his merry way. The dogs didn't come. I called. I whistled. I cajoled. I threatened. The dogs didn't come. Of course they didn't come, they had their leashed wrapped around trees and were stuck and needing to be rescued. Stupid #&*#@!!!! dogs! Forcing my way through blackberry brambles is not my idea of fun. They were relieved to see me, but as soon as I got them loose they both wanted to know which way the coyote had gone. Stupid dogs.

My dishwasher broke, going out in a floor-flooding blaze of glory. You know that saying about "I wouldn't wish fill in the blank on my worst enemy?"" I've decided that having their dishwasher quit is EXACTLY the sort of thing that is appropiate to wish on your worst enemy. It causes no karma-crippling lasting harm, but it's damn inconvenient.

Dogs and Daisies

2007-06-05T11:10:00.001-07:00

It is very hard to be Sherry-Nature-Photographer with two eleven month old pit bull/boxers in tow. ("In tow," implies I'm towing them. . . . which I'm working on, but right now I definitely spend more time being the tow-ee rather than the tow-er.) When I'm taking pictures, first there is the problem of manuevering two dogs on leashes and the camera when I only have two hands. Then there is the problem of standing still while holding onto two distractable dogs (we're also working on that.) And there is also the problem of the dogs wanting to figure out what it is that I find so interesting and getting in the picture, like so:

And so:

Despite all of that, and a disagreement over whether or not they were going to take off into the woods after some very fascinating and urgent smell (possibly deer,) we had a good walk up on one of the logging roads this morning, and I did take a couple of pictures:

Thankfully the weather is back to normal, upper 50's in the morning, 60's maybe 70 in the afternoon.

I Think I'm Melting

2007-06-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

On one of the warmest, stickiest, most humid days of the year so far, the masochistic homemaker does which of the following:

A) Starts the day by making homemade Caramel Pecan Rolls, and leaves the oven on while they rise
B) Takes the dogs on a 2-3 mile walk (partly uphill) in the middle of the day
C) Goes grocery shopping and comes home with a buggyload of fruit and veggies that require nearly two hours of washing and cutting before putting away
D) Makes Pot Roast for dinner, contributing to the heat and humidity with a pot simmering on the stove all afternoon (including during the two hours of fruit and veg prep)
E) All of the above

If you answered "E," you would be absolutely right. My excuse is that my brains were already parboiled from having no air conditioning during the current "heatwave" (and in SW Washington, a week of almost 90 degrees qualifies as a heatwave,) and I was out in the sun yesterday for about 6 hours of soccer and end-of-season soccer party related goodness. Read that: END OF SEASON. We are sports-free until August. YIPPEE. I'm too hot and tired to do the official End-of-Season Dance, though.

I Just Don't Want To (Whine)

2007-06-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

The ceiling tiles are in. They are even grouted. Now I have to finish painting the kitchen, and to do that I have to remove the wallpaper paste from one last wall. Sigh. (I just started reading a series of mystery stories. . .I'm not typically a mystery story reader. . .and I'm in book 4 of 11, and caterer/heroine was stood up at her own wedding when the groom was abducted, and he's still missing. Reading would be so much more fun than scrubbing off wallpaper paste and doing paint prep-work.)

Unfortunately all that prepping and painting has to be done so we can put up some of this:

Although the fancy "egg and dart" one on the bottom is lovely, it competes with the ceiling tiles, and we're going with the simpler (and easier to clean) one on the top. Power tools will be involved.

"Dog-proofing Your Yard"

2007-05-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

"Dog-proofing Your Yard" was a topic on one of the Portland morning news shows this morning. My husband wanted me to watch, but I already had a date to go walking with my friend Janae (who I only have 20 days to socialize with before she moves to Utah.) Our dogs have been VERY BAD for the part of our back yard where the grass should be:
(Yes, that's YARN in the picture)

However, dogs are VERY GOOD for flowers. I don't think I lost a single tulip bulb to squirrels this year. There won't be any deer eating my vegetation with Cozy and Callie around (I saw a doe a block from the house once, so it's not entirely impossible.) Neighbors are not helping themselves to my roses (Mo Jackson had a good story about that on her blog.) And my flowerpots are safe from crazy ladies planning to open their own garden centers with purloined pots and yard art (true story, I lost several of my best containers a couple of years ago to just such a lady, there was a story about her in our newspaper a few weeks after they went missing--I was indignant about that, let me tell you.)

So we have plans to level the yard and re-establish the lawn (which the dogs didn't dig up to begin with, but that's a long story involving a sewer line, a nine-foot deep trench, a giant hole-fort dug by neighborhood boys, a cornfield, an above-ground pool and a lot of bark chips.) And in the meantime, I'm enjoying my flowers:

Deadline

2007-05-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

Today is the deadline for the Mother's Day project at Afghans for Afghans, and I've still got another foot to go on my baby blanket. Sigh. For anyone not familiar with Afghans for Afghans, it's an organization which collects handmade blankets, hats, sweaters, etc. to send to Afghanistan to warm people against the bitter cold. Warmth is the main goal, and densely worked wool in colors that won't show soiling are preferred. I didn't make this deadline, but I'm not allowing myself to start another project until it's finished, and they will most certainly be able to use it in the future.

I really don't know WHAT got into me when I picked the colors. I at least have an excuse for the chevrons---all that single crochet is thick and heavy. But the hot pink and turquoise? I can only blame a limited selection of the affordable Paton's Classic Wool at Michaels, and a desire for bright, youthful colors---though in retrospect, a heather gray with a blue stripe would have been preferrable,maybe. It's been slow going, I can only get 3 or 4 rows done in an hour, and I'm really regretting that hot pink, but did I mention that it's WARM?

Kitchen Ceiling

2007-05-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

When we moved into our house in 2001, the kitchen had a circa 1970's suspended ceiling. You know----the ceiling is dotted with flourescent light fixtures, then covered by a metal grid which suspends sheets of frosted plastic. It must have been pretty cool when it was new, with the whole room full of light radiating from the entire ceiling. But it ate up almost a foot of the height of the room, was yellowed and dated, and gave the room an unpleasant cave-like atmosphere. John's been working this project little by little for a while, and suddenly this weekend I realized I was rapidly losing my chance to take a "before" picture.

The big gray patch used to be a hole going into the ceiling. There are cracks in the old plaster-over-lath ceiling, screw holes and pencil marks from the suspended ceiling, and cracked and chipped paint. The ceiling was going to be a royal pain to return to any sort of paintable surface, so we decided to put up ceiling tiles. Here they are in their ungrouted and unpainted glory:

Only two more rows to go. My husband is immensely clever (and he does good work, too.)

Beginning to Breathe Again

2007-05-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

I am starting to recover from my Teacher Appreciation Week duties. Here's a picture of the centerpieces I did in the
"Staff Dining Room" (Teacher's Lounge.)

I bought clay pots, cut a 2"x2"x4" piece of florists foam for the center, planted 3 Dusty Millers around the edges, and finished them off with big silk daisies. Three tables, total expenditure of $27, and I can re-use the pots and silk daisies and plant the Dusty Millers in with my irises.

Now that the teachers are all appreciated, and my PTO duties have returned to running the popcorn machine and manning the concession stand every Friday, I can return my attention to my family, my house, my dogs and other projects. The family is doing well. Both the kids will be going to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry next month for being finalists in the Battle of the Books, in which they had to read 10 assigned books and compete against other teams to answer "knowledge bowl" style questions about them. Audrey was chosen to be the mistress of ceremonies for the "Mustang Idol" talent competition that is taking place every day during the school lunch periods over the next few weeks as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. John is getting over the cold that all of the rest of us have all had and gotten over (the kids each missing 3 days of school,) so far he's handled it very well, none of that sick MAN whiny-ness that women complain about, and he hasn't missed a day of work or a soccer practice over it. I'm listening to an audiobook version of Tamar Geller's The Loved Dog in the car. I love my dogs, and for being 10 months old I think their manners are coming along nicely. Unfortunately the neighbors are apparently "all talking about them," and "everyone hates them," at least that's what I was told when they got out (again) on Tuesday. Aaaargh. I don't want to be "THAT neighbor," the one with "THOSE dogs." So I get to work harder on improving their manners faster (and John reinforced the fence, AGAIN.)

And I'm working frantically on this, even though I don't think I will make that May 25 deadline:

It's growing. It's showing progress. I'm working on it dilligently, but it may not make it specifically to the opening of the new clinic in the Wardak province, to be given to one of their new mothers as part of the Afghans for Afghans Mothers' Day Project.

End in Sight

2007-05-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

I dropped over 26 dozen cookies off at school today. I had declared it "Cookie Day" for Teacher Appreciation Week. No pictures--partly because I'm lousy about remembering to take pictures, and partly because I was pushing my deadline for the 10:55 first lunch so closely that the last batch was still warm and I parked illegally in a drop-off zone with my hazard lights on while I ran them in. Double batches of Peanut Butter Round-ups, Vanishing Oatmeal, and Chocolate Chip (with and with-out nuts,) and a pan of brownies, and a single batch of Toll House Cookies made with white chocolate chips and dried cranberries (I'm calling that experiment a success.)

Now I just need to provide lunch tomorrow and I'll be done with Teacher Appreciation Week for another year, and glad of it, too. I do sincerely appreciate my children's teachers, without whom I would have to homeschool, which wouldn't be entirely terrible, but we would be getting on eachother's nerves more often, and they would never learn math.

I had to share a passage from the book I have been reading in 11-12 minute spurts between putting cookies in and out of the oven. It's from "Shakespeare's Landlord" by Charlaine Harris, it's early in the book so I can't give you a lot of background, but the protagonist cleans houses, and is over at one of her client's apartments, helping her do a big Spring Clean:

"For three hours, we worked in the small apartment, cleaning things that had never been dirty and straightening things that had never been messy. Alvah likes her life streamlined---she would live well on a boat, I've always thought. Everything superfluous was thrown away ruthlessly; everything else was arranged logically and compactly. I admire this, having tendencies that way myself, though I'm not as extreme as Alvah. For one thing, I reflected as I wiped the cabinets in the bathroom, Alvah has such limited interests that cleaning is one of her few outlets for self-expression. Alvah does a little embroidery of an uninspired kind, but she doesn't read or sew and is not particularly interested in cooking or television. So she cleans. . . .Alvah is a warning to me."

I'm no Alvah. I wish I could regard cleaning as an outlet for self-expression. I would say I need to embrace my inner-Alvah-----but I just don't think she's in there.

Maying

2007-05-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

I'm having trouble coming up with a title for this post. It may be the White Russian, but mostly I think it's that I'm overextended. It's Teacher Appreciation WEEK here, and I am our designated PTO Teacher Appreciator. Today I did a chocolate fountain for the two lunch periods in the the Staff Dining Room (aka Teachers' Lounge.) For the record, even though it goes against all your insticts, yes, you really do need to add all that vegetable oil it says to in the directions that came in the chocolate fountain to get it to flow properly (yuck.) That was the one and only hitch in the maiden voyage of the chocolate fountain. I provided strawberries, marshmallows, pretzels, Sara Lee pound cake, Rice Krispie Treats, graham crackers, bananas, Oreos, and those new Keebler cheesecake sandwich cookies. It went over very well, and my next participation in the observation of appreciating teachers isn't until Thursday, when I'm supposed to produce a bunch of homemade cookies, followed by a luncheon on Friday.

James is running track and he came in NOT-LAST in hurdles today (WHOO HOO!!) Let's not talk about the 800 meters. Audrey is playing soccer and back in school after a bout with general viral crud she generously shared with me. Meaning that I'm doing all that teacher appreciating under the influence of cold medicine (never White Russians during the day.)

My only current project is this:

It's a baby blanket for Afghans for Afghans that I am crocheting furiously in hopes of getting it off before the current May 25 deadline. It's wool. It's not light colored. Its the last thing I ever make in colors I don't like. That hot pink and turquoise is just not floating my boat and it's making it a little bit of a chore.

Spring

2007-04-23T16:33:00.000-07:00

We are getting some much-wanted SUN.

James and Audrey are mid-way through the dreaded WASL, Washington's standardized test. Today my friend Janae and I delivered "WASL Water" and snacks for the last days of testing. I'm glad I wasn't stuck inside today.

Hiking With Dogs

2007-04-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

FACT: I have 9-month old muscle-dogs with more energy than manners.
FACT: I just turned 38 and I am overweight and out-of-shape.
FACT: I am the primary dog-exerciser. Actually, I'm the primary dog-caretaker (though my husband insists they are HIS dogs,) and it's equivalent (I think) to having naughty toddler twins in the house.
FACT: If my dogs don't get enough exercise they use their energy for evil purposes, like eating furniture and plotting to escape every time a door opens.
FACT: There is no way I am going to be the marathon-runner my dogs wish I could be, and there is no way they can get the kind of exercise they like on the end of a leash that I'm holding.
FACT: While our dogs love our family, tolerate our cats and guinea pigs, and are (mostly) trustworthy at home, they really aren't too sure about other people and animals and can react to them in un-social ways.
FACT: We are working to make them good canine citizens, but they are still only (big) puppies, and don't have a lot of common sense, or restraint of impulses.

So I'm TRYING to get into better shape, and I'm TRYING to get the dogs enough exercise and the best solution I've found so far is at a rest stop on the freeway about a 15 minute drive from home (2 miles north of Castle Rock on I-5.) I discovered it one day when the kids and I wanted to go to Olympia and we couldn't trust the dogs to STAY PUT at home while we were gone. We stopped to give the dogs a walking/potty break, and discovered that the rest stop backed up to commercial woodlots, and logging roads, and there is a spot where there is a break in the fence and you can get back to the logging roads. Logging roads are awesome, and the timber/pulp companies are tolerant of hikers (and hunters in season) as long as there isn't a high fire danger and they haven't suffered some sort of outrageous vandalism. While not without the potential for disaster, it's the closest thing to ideal that I've found so far:

It's beautiful. There are MILES of gravel roads. It's not actively being logged, so it's deserted except for the very occasional person like me who's discovered it's there. I can leave my car parked in the relative safety of a very busy rest stop. There's actually a cell phone tower up there, and in case of an emergency, I can get PERFECT cell phone reception on what is usually a deserted trail in the mountains. And as long as we don't run into other hikers, or (worse) other hikers with dogs, or a porcupine, or elk, it all goes very smoothly. I can let the dogs off leash, they run around like mad but (mostly) stay in sight, they venture into the woods for short periods of time but (usually) come when I call. The time we met the porcupine I was able to call them off before they got muzzles full of quills. And I don't (really) think they could catch an elk, especially not a herd of nineteen of them (like on Monday,) or even the two I saw today.

So it's not without occasional heart-stopping excitement. And it's full of new experiences. Cozy had never rolled in or eaten elk poop before (Yuck! She got a very thorough bath when we got home.) I'd never seen a porcupine in the wild before. I have never "shooed" elk before. (As in Oh crap! There's elk! Oh crap! The dogs are chasing after the elk!" "COZY! CALLIE! COME! COZY! CALLIE! COME HERE! Oh heck! They hear me but they aren't coming. "SHOO ELK! SHOO ELK!" While waving arms like a crazy person and chasing the dogs and continuing to call "COZY! CALLIE! COME HERE! SHOO ELK!")

This is the spot where I usually turn around and go back to the car, there's a clearing all the way down the mountain where a gas line runs (why,I don't know, but the signs say "Danger! Gas Line" and I'll take their word for it.) It kind of gives a cross-section of the woodlots, and you can see how much fun the dogs have going full-speed off-leash. Being out in the woods gives me a chance to work on getting the dogs to come when I call (a VERY important thing,) I took liver treats today and it went much more smoothly. They are also walking much better on-leash, I haven't been pulled off my feet in days! I wish that the highway noise weren't so invasive, but other than that, it's a really enjoyable walk:

Spring Soccer

2007-04-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

For the last 4 years we have coached soccer, for one or the other of our children's teams, two seasons each year: Spring and Fall. James is running track this year instead of playing soccer, so it's Audrey's team this season. It has been kind of nice this time around, because another dad has stepped up to be Assistant Coach, and I can step back from that position and just be Soccer Mom---I can even knit or read during practice---which is real luxury!

John was running practice on Wednesday, demonstrating how he wanted the ball to be kicked, and he sent the ball into the crowd of players. Audrey blocked it with her hand, and it bent her wrist way back with an audible "POP!" It's been x-rayed, it's not broken but we have a Wounded Child:

Here she is, on her way to her games on Saturday (a double-header!) with the wrist Ace-wrapped, padded with a pink chenille knee-sock (formerly part of an Energizer Bunny Halloween costume,) and Ace-wrapped again. John feels bad for hurting her, but if he was going to maim a child at soccer practice, I'm glad it was ours instead of someone else's.

Here's John in the pre-game huddle at our first game. Audrey is number 3 with the white socks. There are a lot of similarly-sized girls with dark-blonde/light brown pony tails on our team, so that pink sock on her arm helped identify her for us this time.

It would have been nice if I'd actually gotten the ball in this picture, but I wanted to include a game shot. Saturday we lost our first game 4-1, and tied our second one 2-2. It was too cool and too windy to be comfortable, but it was still an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Easter Sunday

2007-04-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

I hadn't stuffed Easter baskets before the kids got up. Bad Mom. Furthermore, I discovered that the Easter baskets themselves, the wicker ones with the handpainted bunnies the kids have used every single Easter of their candy-eating lives, were NOT in the basement where I thought they were, but in the attic, where I can't get them myself (having been banned from the attic after falling out of the stairless attic opening.) I'm having sort of holiday burn-out, having made elaborate holiday celebrations for the kids over the years and now having an attack of "aren't you too old for this (because I'm certainly tired of doing it.)" Anyway, it was Easter Sunday and I had one of the kids awake (Audrey slept in,) a big bag of candy, and no Easter baskets. So I grabbed a couple of new black photo boxes I had hanging around and we had EASTER boxes. I don't think it will catch on, but it got me off the hook for this year:

There's also kind of a convoluted story about the weather forecast over Easter weekend. It wasn't supposed to rain until Sunday afternoon (as in the weathermen on all networks agreed that you needed to have your egg hunts early in the day because it was going to rain almost precisely after lunch.) That's what the forecast had said, and leading up to Easter weekend we had had some of the most amazing sunny warm weather imaginable. We almost hit 80 degrees on Good Friday and someone told me were having "Arizona Weather," I refrained from snorting and bursting out into impolite laughter, but only barely (anything under 90 isn't "Arizona Weather"----what was he thinking?) Anyway, Audrey and I had planned an elaborate family picnic up to Rainbow Falls State Park with the dogs for Easter Saturday, and it RAINED. Not piddley little "Northwest Sunshine"-type rain where you just carry on with your business, but real duck-drowning RAIN. Then on Easter, when we were supposed to have rain, it was nice, so we threw the family, the dogs and the picnic supplies in the car and took off. As we approached our destination, it starts to RAIN. Then it even HAILS a bit. We get there, and it STOPS, just like that. No sun-break, but a lovely, overcast, non-rainy afternoon with a pleasant temperature. We got out of the car, leashed-up the dogs and took off for a hike, and everything was going really well, until we got a ways up the trail and ran into:

Trees. Trees that were not standing up like trees are supposed to, but trees that were uprooted and lying across the trail in great numbers. I don't know what sort of weather disaster they had since we had been up there last summer, but it was something. It was amazing. The trail just disapppeared and there was nothing but an obstacle course of downed trees. We would climb over a bunch and find a piece of trail and run into more trees. It was work getting through there! Fun, too, in a gee-isn't-this-kind-of-unusual sort of way, but work! Please note that we entered the trail in the state park in the usual fashion and hadn't come across any "trail closed" or "proceed with caution" signs or anything to indicate it was going to be more than a typical easy 1.2 mile walk.

But it was nice. It was good exercise, the woods were beautiful, it had stopped raining, the dogs had a ball crashing through the underbrush, and we had a nice picnic lunch over by the campground and went home (it started raining as soon as we got in the car.) I share with you:

Trillium. A common wild flower this time of year, and in my opinion, as lovely as any Easter Lily, and more appropriate, too, with it's three petals and groups of three leaves in a God-the-Father/God-the-Son/and God-the-Holy-Ghost sort of Holy Trinity way. There are definitely worse ways to spend Easter afternoon.

Spring Break

2007-04-16T11:57:00.000-07:00

I like that title: "Spring Break." Not only did the kids have their Spring Break from school the week before Easter, but I ended up taking an unscheduled blog-break this Spring. Not quite a month, but almost. My apologies to family and blog-friends who may have come to check on me a couple of times, only to have the same old stuff come up. As you know, it happens.

John didn't have any time off during the kids' Spring Break, so things were pretty low key, we stayed home other than a few day trips. The kids and I went up to Olympia one day (with the dogs in the car!) Audrey and I had a really nice hike with the dogs one afternoon while James went back to Olympia with his friend Collin's family to go to the Olympic Flight Museum. I took James and Collin to the beach at Ft. Stephens (that's the one with the wreck of the Peter Iredale) while Audrey took a 7 hour Red Cross babysitting course.

It wasn't a good day for pictures, being kind of dark and damp, but there isn't such a thing as a bad day at the beach. Except for the horses. (Big) SIGH. I had the dogs W-A-Y down the beach from the rest of the people who were there climbing on the ship wreck and digging in the sand and flying kites and doing all their own beach stuff, and I let the dogs off-leash. They live to be off-leash, they really do, and they were having a great time running around and splashing in the surf, UNTIL. . . UNTIL the STUPID HORSESS came trotting out of the mist. Unfortunately the dogs and I saw them at the exact same instant, and the dogs gave chase the moment they saw them. This was a traumatic thing, and I'm sure I have many new gray hairs from it since the STUPID DOGS took off after the horses, which happened to be part of some fancy pay-to-ride-horses-with-guides-dressed-like-Lewis-and-Clark-while-going-to Lewis-and-Clark-sites group. Sigh I haven't Googled what business is running these Lewis and Clark horse tours, but let me tell you, they have a bunch of lovely, tame, Well Behaved horses, because this was the dogs' first horse experience and they were absolute terrors. Callie was content to bark her head off from a distance, but Cozy got right up into the group, barking and snarling and trying to grab the prominent ligament above the horses back knees, just like she was a trained Roman battle-dog who attacks horses on a daily basis. Oh my goodness, it was terrible. But eventually I was able to call them off and the horses continued on their way. There was no actually physical contact. The horses were marvellous, fidgeting but not actually unseating any tourists. No harm, no foul, right? And no more dogs off leash at the beach until they actually PASS an obedience course. (Sigh. They failed to get their certificate in Puppy Kindergarten.) It was a close call.

Lighter

2007-03-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

I just took 145 pounds of usable clothing to Goodwill (and I probably threw out another 10-15 lbs.) Yippee!! I'm still not done purging, but it's a very, very good start.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2007-03-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

I'm the official Irish member of the family, being at least a full quarter Irish and being born Sherry Ann Brannen. But the St. Patrick's Day spirit is running more strongly in my kids this year. The picture of above is James in his St. Patty's Day finery, complete with welding goggles (yes, welding goggles, he's mighty proud of those welding goggles, not that he welds, he just has the goggles.) I'm in the middle of a huge excavation of my bedroom, pulling out years' worth of outgrown or otherwise unappreciated clothing from a family of four that have been cluttering up the joint. It's been a daunting task, but one that is long overdue, and my husband is out of town going to a medical conference, so I dug in. Being preoccupied with this I didn't do my duty as family leprechaun this year.

About 10 years ago James had a preschool teacher who celebrated St. Pat's by having a mischievous (but unseen) leprechaun visit the classroom. The leprechaun would pull pranks like dying the milk for snack and the water in the toilet green, put green paint in all the paint pots, move things into unusual places. I thought it was a marvellous idea, and the leprechaun started visiting our house. I snuck around in the wee sma's and put green food coloring in the toilet (and the tank, too, so it would flush green,) I put bags of green M&Ms in the kids shoes (when they had cute little-kid feet, not when they had stinky big-kid feet,) I put bricks or rolls of toilet paper in their backpacks, I replaced their white shoelaces with funky ones with clover on them, and once I filled the mail slot with peanuts, so when it was opened they flooded into the living room. It was all fun, and the kids looked forward to "Leprechaun Day" so much that I caught all kinds of grief last year when we were out of town for the big day. Sigh.

Unfortunately, with a pre-teen daughter it really doesn't take much for me to catch a whole lot of grief, and this year I'm in big trouble. I didn't do anything. I mean, there were no rooms filled with green balloons, no shamrocks drawn on yards of the toilet paper-----none of it. Audrey got up at 3:00 AM and put green crepe paper streamers around the house, and did a few things like wrapping the computer monitor in aluminum foil and writing "Happy St. Patrick's Day!" on it in green Sharpie. She painted her nails green, and sprayed her hair to match (discovering later that it rubbed off on her sheets and pillows---but I wasn't up at 3:00 AM to tell her this.) I got up to the streamers and messages and thought "Hmmm. How nice that Audrey is carrying on the tradition." Then Audrey got up and said "Where is all YOUR leprechaun stuff?? Apparently once a mother starts a tradition, she's not allowed to mess with it, or heaven-forbid, do away with it, EVER. So let that be a lesson to me.

2007-03-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

Did I mention I spent 10 days with a quilter, doing fabric-y things? Crafty things are contagious, and I am definitely susceptible to infection. However, since I am a great starter, a great accumulator and maybe not so great a project-finisher, I am starting small. Think potholder size. There is a cupcake themed swap over at Swap-Bot, and I picked up a fantastic cupcake print fat-quarter at Bayside Quilting. Hmmm. Now where did I put that yard of Insulbright?

Spring is Springing!

2007-03-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

Primroses are the first sign of Spring around here. The ones I put out in the pot-rings on my back fence have had time to get established.

These little tete a tete daffodils come right after the crocuses. I love them, they are so little and perfect and early, and I really need to remember to plant a whole lot more.

It isn't until the forsythia bursts out in bloom that I know Spring is really here. We actually turned off the heat yesterday!

March is Slipping Away. . .

2007-03-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

. . . like the tide.

John's dad and step-mom were up visiting us for the last week and a half. They are my favorite set of parents in the family, and it was terrific having them up. They live in Texas Hill Country, and it was a definite change of scenery for them. This picture is from our trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon. Unfortunately low tide wasn't at a convenient time for us, so we weren't able to see much of the tide pools, but it was still worthwhile, definitely worthwhile.

Time gets away from me even when I'm in my most efficient and productive mode (which isn't very,) and while we've had guests we've tried to live in "vacation-time" as much as possible. So here it is, with one third of March gone, and no blog entries. Wow.

March is National Craft Month. I don't know who declares these things, but it is. Connie and Audrey and I started the month appropriately with a trip to the big Sewing and Stitchery Expo at the Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup. We didn't attend any workshops, but there was a mind-boggling array of booths to look at. And as usual, there is no shortage of crafting in the family.

Connie is a quilter (current president of her quilt guild!) and she brought a paper pieced "Grandmother's Flower Garden" project to work on. We also hit a few quilt and fabric stores while she was here, including the 1.25 acres of material at Fabric Depot in Portland and the highly rated Bridgeport Quilting in Olympia, although Connie gave good marks to our local Longview Sewing and Vacuum.

James got out his chain maile to show to the grandparents. He's making a coif out of 3/8" polished aluminum rings from a kit puchased on eBay.

I not been crafting as much as usual, because there has been an extraordinary amount of housecleaning and laundry going on around here, but I did take my knitting to the Portland Roadster Show:

This is some of that hand-dyed alpaca/merino from England I got in January, but I'm having some size issues with the hat, and am still trying to figure out if ripping it back and decreasing earlier is enough, or if I need to frog the whole thing. Audrey wasn't modelling it so much as she was using it to block out some light for a nap on the steps of the Convention Center (Grandpa Jim, who visits us every year during this event, looks at the hot rods much more thoroughly than the rest of us. ) After leaving here at 3:30 this morning to catch their 6:15 flight out of Portland, I'm sure that they are both ready for a nap, too.

OH, HELP!

2007-02-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

I'M BEING HELD CAPTIVE IN MY OWN HOME AND FORCED TO DO HOUSEWORK!

Okay, actually I'm only getting much-wanted house guests, and having to do some much-needed housework, but it really is NO FUN. So don't send in the police, they would just take one look at the house and issue me one of those house-arrest ankle bracelets until I pass some sort of inspection.

My cousin Donna came to visit last week, and helped me a lot. The weather was uncooperative, and our one major trip out of town resulted in absolutely nothing. It was funny, we drove an hour and a half to go to a nursery for blueberry bushes, and after getting lost and adding another half hour to the trip---THE ROAD WAS CLOSED AND WE COULDN'T EVEN GET THERE. So we headed off to another nursery we passed on the way which had a big sign that said "Blueberry Bushes," only to have them close the gate and put out the "Closed" sign just as we pulled into the driveway at 3:20 in the afternoon. Seriously, who closes at 3:20 in the afternoon? It was such a misadventure it was funny--but I still don't have the blueberry bushes.

I had a black eye for a week from falling down the stairs, but the bruises are all fading and other than a big lump on my shin all the physical effects are gone. I don't recommend falling down stairs. And if you have to fall down stairs, do it someplace where there is cushy carpet at the bottom, not a hard concrete basement floor.

Back to work.

More Trouble Than Its Worth

2007-02-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

I tried to upload a photo. This was greatly complicated by the fact that both my kids now have Flickr accounts and I din't realize I was sending photos to my son's account while the computer was logged into my daughter's account. Then Flickr wanted me to verify everything to access MY account, and I've been so spoiled by it just automatically taking me there, I didn't remember my password. Then I went to Blogger, and since I hadn't already "upgraded" to new and improved Blogger, it made me do it now, before I could access anything. Humbug.

I spent the last week or so wrapped up in Valentine Grams for the middle school. The Valentine Grams are basically valentines the students can buy and send to their friends, which are then delivered right before the kids go home. We did this for three days, but there were multiple days of assembling the "grams" themselves, because they were fiddly.

Last year I bought 1500 Valentine pencils on post-holiday clearance. My thought was to keep it very simple, maybe have cardstock hearts, each with a pencil taped to it, and let the students use markers and stamps to personalize them, and sell them for a quarter. That's not the way it worked out, because it was decided that wasn't appealing enough---we had to have CANDY. So, they ended up being a 3" by 4" plastic bag filled with three kinds of candy and a sticker, attached to the pencil with three different colors of curling ribbon, which the students then addressed with their choice of 6 different designs of full-color labels. We did them assembly-line style, but we still could only average about 30 finished grams per person per hour. We sold over 800 of them (in a school with 450 students) for 5o cents apiece, and we were still stuffing and curling until 20 minutes before the last bell on Valentine's Day, as the DJ for the Valentine Dance set up around us. I guess the good new is that we more than paid for the DJ by selling the valentines, and the kids really seemed to have a good time with them.

There was no crafting at my house while this was going on because my hands were tired from tying 2-4 knots per "gram." Yesterday was my first non-PTO volunteering day in over a week and a half (because last week I was there every day running the Scholastic Book Fair.) I was looking forward to getting housework done in preparation for the 3 weeks of houseguests coming up, and maybe picking up some knitting when I unwound before bed. HAH! I managed to fall down the basement steps and land on my head on a concrete floor, wrenching my back, bruising my knees, and spraining (fortunately mildly) both my right wrist and ankle. Sigh.

It's Monday and All's Well

2007-02-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

Busy.

Scholastic Book Fair all last week. (I was chairperson.)

Frenetic Saturday starting with the kids' orchestra competition in Rochester, WA (an hour north,) and ending in Eugene, OR (two hours south,) where John's band played at a medical group function.

Valentine Grams this week at school. There is no rest for the wicked, or for the PTO.

Naughty dogs. SERIOUSLY naughty dogs.

Company coming.

Yup. Busy.

Caldonia!

2007-02-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

I have not been doing much crafting. Acutally the two trips to the vet left my hands bruised from two STRONG dogs pulling on their leashes, and I haven't been in much of a handiwork mood.

I picked up the dogs on Friday and they were supposed to stay mellow and dopey. They had just had their spaying surgery and were not supposed to do ANY jumping---not even up on the furniture (though this almost caused me to have a most unseemly outburst of laughter right in at the front counter of the vets' office.) Well, Callie-Dog said "Hah! We'll see about that!" And her first afternoon post-op she jumped the 6 foot tall back fence for the first time. Audrey was walking down the alley on her way to a friend's house, and if one of her people was on the other side of the fence, that's where she wanted to be, too.Sigh. Here's a favorite picture of mine of Callie from the archives. She's so much bigger now.

Callie is the athlete of the two (though they are both lean and muscular,) and Cozy is the brains (we suspect she's plotting to take over the world.)

My charming neighbor has asked me to keep them in on Wednesday afternoon, as she has someone coming to look at their house to buy it, and she doesn't want them scared off by the dogs. Sigh. Number one, it's not going to help her that we had to go and tack up a two-foot extention on our back fence which I don't think the potential buyer could miss. . ."So why do the next door neighbors need an 8 foot fence?" (John has told a couple of people that we are getting a cut on our property tax to house low risk overflow prisoners from the county jail.) Number two, they are only 7 months old (just big puppies,) though they have lots of energy (backed by all that muscle,) and their manners aren't very good (although they've had 6 weeks of obedience classes and will sit like a dream, providing you are holding a dog biscuit.)

I have scary, 50-lb lap-dogs and an 8 foot back fence.

February 1

2007-02-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

It's a brand new month. January wasn't that great, but I think January has kind of a bad reputation for being kind of a BLAH month. New month, new possibilities, and February comes with it's own color scheme:

This is what cupcakes typically look like at our house. We like our vanilla buttercream in it's natural state. I was looking closely at this thrifted luncheon cloth for the first time as I was ironing it. It is done in two different colors of red thread, and when I bought it I wondered what the story was. Lazy embroiderer? Poor planning? Poor embroiderer? The Great Depression? War-time rationing? As I was ironing I discovered this:

It's signed! It was made by "S.P." in 1943 (war-time!) And a new mystery, in the opposite corner it says AJW and son? 5 am? I wonder what it was that SP was commemorating.

And speaking of commemorating, February is also Black History Month. I happen to believe in the importance of Black History Month. When I got to college I was shocked by how much was glossed over in the history books I had in high school. And if Hispanic Americans and Native Americans and European Americans, and Asian Americans want to lobby for their own history months, that's fine with me, too. I will totally support that. But for now I'm just recommending "47" by Walter Mosely on CD for Black History Month this year. Not in print, it has to be the audio version. The late, great Ozzie Davis narrates, and one of the reviewers on Amazon calls it one of his best works. It's a great book, not a comfortable book, but a great one.

Audrey is home sick today and when she saw me getting out the "47" discs she said "OH! That's a good one! Except I don't like the part where they. . . ." It's like that.

I think it's going to be a good month. It's already showing signs of promise:

It's awfully quiet at our house. The Puppy Girls are off getting spayed. I've already heard from the vet, and they both came through the surgery just fine. They got weighed for the first time in a while and they are officially 48 (Cozy) and 52 (Callie) pounds. A HUNDRED POUNDS. That's a lot of dog!

Knitting, What Knitting?

2007-01-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

I got a kit for making these little origami stars a while back. I couldn't figure out how to make them. My excuse is that the bulk of the instructions were in Korean. Somehow the kit migrated out to the computer desk recently (most things in our household do seem to make it out to the computer desk at some point--it's like a pilgrimage, I think,) and it was taunting me in that millions-of-Asian-schoolchildren-can-make-me-but-you-can't sort of way. So I Googled. I folded. I pinched. And VOILE, STARS!

Theoretically if you make a wish while you fold them, when you get a thousand of them your wish comes true.

I'm not aspiring to a thousand. But the somewhat mindless repetition is meditative (Wax on, wax off.) I've got more paper on the way.

Shopping

2007-01-28T19:14:00.000-08:00

We went to Portland yesterday. It was a fun trip. A very fun trip. Audrey has been going through another Hello Kitty phase. This current one I'm pretty sure was brought on by peer influence, because Audrey did Hello Kitty pretty thoroughly when she was in Kindergarten/1st Grade and really hasn't wanted anything to do with it ever since. I didn't want to go to a mall, so I tried to find somewhere else that ~~pushes~~ sells Sanrio merchandise. I located an Asian market in Beaverton that sounded like a fun destination, and it exceeded any expectations we could have had. It had a bookstore. I am a bookstore junkie, but I would think that a bookstore where hardly anything is written in a language I can read and understand would be a pretty safe place. Nope. It was crammed with Japanese stationery products and CRAFT BOOKS. It was cuteness of an almost unbearable level. I'm afraid Audrey and I did a rush job on the rest of the Uwajimaya(and we actually bought nothing from their fairly extensive offering of Hello Kitty stuff,) because we got hung up in the Kinokuniya Bookstore. But the whole place was impressive. One thing I loved about the market was the fish counter, not just gawking at the tanks of dancing Dungeoness crabs, or the piles of sizeable octopus tentacles, but the smell, or lack of it. It was clean, it was fresh, and it didn't smell. We bought a couple of combo meals of chow mein, fried rice and various stir fries at the deli and ate in the car before moving on to do more shopping. I think we'll definitely go back.

We did some other more typical shopping: Portland Music, Target, Home Depot, that sort of thing. We went to Powell's City of Books, which is always big fun. But Audrey and I also ran into Sur La Table, which has a fairly new location in the Pearl District. We were seeking Valentine's baking goodies, and we found them:

We also picked up the current catalog, which listed OVER FIFTY Sur La Table stores, including three back in my old stomping grounds in Arizona. That's just WRONG. Not that I don't wish prosperity to awesome kitchen stores everywhere, but I remember when there was ONE Sur La Table, and you had to go to Seattle and climb a steep hill up from Pike Place Market to get there. I don't want Sur La Table to be common, like Crate & Barrel, where it's just a mark of another pretentious shopping district. Sigh. I would also like to preserve regional uniqueness---I think we're losing that. But I'll save that rant for another day, because I've got frosting to make:

Potholder Swap Received

2007-01-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

I received my potholders from Kathleen/Kiki a couple of weeks ago for a Potholder Swap from Swap-bot that we participated in. She knit these with a charted pattern and they are beautiful. This apple one is perfect for any Washingtonian (though I'm not planning on sharing with the other 5,894,120 people in the state.)

But I have to say, my favorite is this one. Kathleen wasn't sure if it was a moose or a reindeer. It doesn't really matter, because we like both at our house, though I'm leaning toward moose. What do you think?

Thanks Kathleen! I love them!

Doublecheck Your Duffles

2007-01-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

Yes, doublecheck your duffles, or you may drive 2 hours to go skiing only to find out you've left the duffles with the helmets, goggles and boots at home. That's what happened to us last weekend. It was not good. I wouldn't recommend it. After not skiing on Saturday, we drove back up on Sunday. We got an earlier start, the snow was still good, the weather held, and it was actually less crowded than it would have been on Saturday. And the good thing is, on Sunday I remembered to bring the camera, because I wanted a picture of this:

FROZEN WATERFALL

Warming Up

2007-01-25T08:16:00.000-08:00

We finally started thawing out last weekend. In the first two weeks of school after Winter Break, my kids had ONE full day of school. ONE. The snow fort finally gave it's last gasp yesterday afternoon. We've had a couple of afternoons in the 50's and in a fit of I'm-Ready-For-Spring-After-All-Those-Snow-Days-Fever I succumbed to primroses for the planters on the back fence:

I'm ready for some sun. It's easier to give in to wallowing in self-pity when it's dark and cold, and I can wallow with the best of them.

My friend Missy has just been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. My friend Janae is moving to Utah and has a big "For Sale" sign in her yard which is making the impending move ominously real. My husband and I are in an "I love you, BUT. . ." cycle. I think most couples go through that periodically: "I love you, BUT (fill in the blank) is making me crazy." I haven't been feeling healthy. Some idiot-child at the middle school left an obscene note on my vehicle while I was in a meeting on Tuesday.

I do have some swap packages that are out in the mail, though. Without giving it all away, here's a peek:

That's for a cat toy swap.

And for the Potholder Swap:

I'm going to lay off the swaps for a while. I've also decided to cut back on my school volunteer responsibilies. That's kind of a big one, seeing how I'm one third of the PTO. I need time to do spring cleaning, and to work on some projects around the house. I need to put in some time for family and friends. I need to see if losing some weight will make me feel better, the way my doctor-husband keeps telling me it will. (Sometimes having a doctor-husband, particularly a skinny doctor-husband, is a pain in the butt.) I need to get those primroses planted. I need to spend more time walking the dogs. The dogs are fetch-impaired. We need to work on that.

Baby, It's COLD

2007-01-15T17:20:00.000-08:00

Outside:

Inside:

The snow fort is still standing,and in the heat of the day it's a whopping 34 degrees F. I'm not accustomed to scraping ice INSIDE the car in the morning, but we've done it a couple times this week. I'm also not used to wearing a parka in the house, but I'm doing it now. I bought Coldwater Creek's "Cozy Faux Fur Parka" on clearance a year ago. I thought it would be good for the hospital Christmas party, where I've felt silly checking my Polar Fleece at the door. When I got it I decided I wasn't a fur, even a faux fur, sort of girl, I didn't feel like I had the personal style to carry it off. This weekend I found myself without a coat that didn't either smell like dog, have obvious muddy dog footprints on it, or both, and the faux fur came out of the closet. And guess what?? It's W-A-R-M! Guess who's wearing the fake fur now, with no make-up and her fuzzy slippers? It's also been to the Sports Authority, Barnes and Noble, to McMenamin's for a burger and a beer, and on a quick Michael's run this afternoon.

I did not buy yarn at Michael's. I have been buying yarn on eBay. I have been buying yarn on eBay from a natural dye studio (actually, that's their name, The Natural Dye Studio) in Suffolk, England. It's beautiful, yummy hand-dyed, in regrettably small lots in alpaca/silk, and alpaca/merino, and merino, and pedigreed Blue Faced Leicester wool. See:

This is where I run into problems....Part of the reason I got the big bunch of beautiful yarn dyed in a natural and organic way was to give about half of it to my art-student-earth-child sister-in-law who expressed an interest in learning to knit at Christmas. Now I'm holding all this fiber-crack in my hands, and, well. . .I don't necessarily want to share.

Snow Day #2

2007-01-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

No school today. A bunch of the neighborhood boys ended up at our house building this awesome snow fort:

My son is the long-haired one standing up front. I made spiced cider first thing this morning, and hot chocolate and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for five at lunch. I also came out to admire it several times, took pictures, and didn't find it necessary to break up any of the snowball or sword fights that took place. I'm a cool mom. Here's the front:

That's James, Colin, AuBrey (as opposed to AuDrey, my daughter,) and Anton and his brother Julien. They had a good time, with a lot more physical activity than would have been included in a regular school day.

Speaking of physical activity, I'm in the process of haggling with the daughter over the worth of her shoveling the driveway "for hours" By my estimation hours is about 75 minutes, or $5 in our current kid/chore pay-scale. Audrey seems to think it was more like three(!?) hours, and hard, physical labor worth far more than that. She also thinks I should PAY her for bringing out her laundry. This is the daughter who has no clothes when it's time to get ready for school, or when I ask those nagging questions like "Do you have any light-colored clothes to put in the load I'm doing." But when she thinks she's getting paid for it she comes out with 7 loads. That's 7 BIG loads--I've got one of those front-loading washers. Hmmm. I've negotiated the laundry down to fifty cents, but she's holding out for $8 on the driveway. We haven't settled yet.

Snow

2007-01-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Snow every once in a while is nice. It's pretty. It's quiet. But I like the kind that stays a day or two and then goes away. Luckily that's the kind we get most in Southwest Washington. We are supposed to have sub-freezing temperatures the rest of the week, though, so I think I'll be staying in. I've got plenty to keep me busy. I just found out were getting COMPANY at the beginning of March. John's Dad has been coming up every year for the Portland Roadster Show and a good visit, but this year he's able to tear his wife Connie away from work, and she's coming,too. Connie is one of our favorite people, and she hasn't been up to see us before. She's coming not just to see us, but to go to the Sewing and Stitchery Expo going on in Puyallup, Washington the same weekend as the roadster show. There was clapping and jumping up and down when we told the kids. Yippee!! (But there's so much to do!)

Resolution #2 We Have No Enemies

2007-01-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

Work on keeping the house tidier, cleaner and more organized.

This is one corner of my (small) dining room. It's just a sample. Yes, that's an exercise ball at eye-level,and the wreath I hang on the door in September,among other things. I've never been tidy, unfortunately. In elementary school I had the desk that spilled into the aisle. In high school I actually broke my locker door off it's hinges because of the amount of stuff I was trying to keep crammed in there. I can walk over something left in the middle of the floor for weeks and not really have it register that it's there. Add to this that the main floor of our house (not counting the semi-finished basement) is about 1,200 sq. feet, and we are a family of four packrats, hobbyists and chronic project-starters, and well, things can be a little jumbled.

Vicki at Turkeyfeathers had a quote in her blog post today from the great Phyllis Diller that cracked me up: "If your house is really a mess and a stranger comes to the door, greet them with, 'who could have done this? We have no enemies.'" My goal is to be able to open the door to anyone, without having to make excuses. That's my goal--that and not having my husband grumble at me because he stubbed his toe on something or started an avalanche.

There is a story that circulates at the hospital--before "our time" (which is the last 5 years)there was an oncologist who was called home from an overnight ski trip by the local police, who insisted that their house had been broken into and ransacked. "Are you sure?" the oncologist apparently asked,"it was pretty messy when we left it." But the police insisted that their neighbors had reported an open door, the place had been trashed, and that a crime had definitely taken place. So the family packed up and came home early. And their house hadn't been ransacked. It was just like they left it. That hasn't happened at our house. Yet. But preventive measures must be taken. (Sigh. I'd much rather take a nap, or blog, or read a book, or knit, or crochet, or emboider, or paint, or take a drive, or go shopping, or pot something,or play with the kids or the puppies. . . )

Resolution #1

2007-01-03T17:03:00.000-08:00

Finish what I start.At least most of what I start.

This is my primary project right now. It's the Irish Hiking Scarf from Hello Yarn in Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk. I have just finished skein number 2 out of 5, and I'm still loving the cables and loving the yarn, even though I can't believe I'm knitting another flippin' scarf. (I also just finished something for a swap, which I won't show you until I give the recipient a chance to see it first.)

Finishing projects will be easier with this Christmas present from my husband, who believes in having the right tool for the job:

He also gave me these rosewood beauties:

I do not understand entirely what happens to colors in digital photos sometimes. All three pictures were taken against the same piece of vintage silk screened Harwood Steiger fabric from eBay, and it's most definitely blue, not beige.

I have already started the New Year with plumbing situation, the kind requiring an $80/10 minute plumber's visit, and several days of basement clean-up. I am preferring to think of it as being good to have over with this early in the year, rather than taking it as a prediction of how the year is going to go. Knock on wood.

Dollhouse Sweets and Petite Treats

2007-01-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

These dainty goodies are from Grace's Etsy shop. Grace is the phenomenally talented daughter of the phenomenally talented (and also very nice) Vicki of Turkey Feathers and Pattern Bee.

My own daughter happens to be a donut junkie and when I saw the tiny charms that were part of Grace's last Etsy inventory update, I knew Audrey needed one, or maybe two. We just opened these yesterday as part of the gifts-we-forgot-scavenger-hunt. There was much squealing and ooohing and aaahing over these, (for heaven's sake, just look at the packaging!) Audrey promptly found a chain, she's wearing the pink sparkly one when she goes back to school tomorrow. They are the perfect accessory for the girl who sings "She is Drawn to the Doughnuts" at the grocery store.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T12:39:00.000-08:00

A good time was had by all. Maybe not a great time, but a good time. The family was excited that we were staying home. The kids prefer our own traditions to going to someone else's party. We stock up on party food: egg rolls, potstickers, tacquitos, Bagel Bites, summer sausage, multiple kinds of cheese (but absolutely including the kind that squirts out of a can,) crackers, a fruit tray, a veg tray, smoked salmon and sparkling apple cider--lots of sprarkling apple cider. We have confetti poppers and Christmas crackers (the kind with the hat and the joke and the prize.) This year we were also planning to give out the gifts that didn't make it to Texas with us (as in remembering there were things in the drawer above the dryer, and in our armoire, and in the linen closet after we were already in transit.) We didn't quite get to everything, as we stopped by to see our friend Missy and her family before they went back to Mauii, and naturally what was intended to be a 45 minute "So good to see you, have a safe trip home," became a 3 hour visit. It happens this way. So there will be much food and some gifts today. It's just a matter of being flexible.

I gave up on New Year's Resolutions years ago. But there are a couple of things I could tweak this year that would seriously improve the quality of life around here. Nothing earth-shattering. But for now, it's time to make the strawberry waffles I promised the kids we would start the New Year with.

Weird MeMe

2006-12-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

Deborah tagged me for a MeMe over at her fabulous blog. I'm supposed to come up with six weird facts. Weird isn't a problem. Weird AND interesting is more of a challenge. With Deborah having snuck into the Jackson 5's hotel and ending up in Michael's room, the bar is set pretty high. But here goes:

I can crack eggs one handed, not only one-handed, but FAST. I would love to say it comes from my professional cooking days, but it doesn't. My step-dad envisioned a retirement as a hobby-farmer and we had 100 chickens and an awful lot of barn cats when I was in high school. One of my chores was to scramble a few dozen eggs for the cats every afternoon when I came home from school, and I got pretty good at it. Later, when I did work in a restaurant, I was the only one-handed egg-cracker in the whole kitchen.

I once rode the world's tallest Ferris Wheel with all of Kiss. They were playing at the Arizona State Fair sometime in the 70's when I was a kid. They were in full costume and make-up. I had NO IDEA who they were at the time. I stared. Gene Simmons stuck his tongue out at me. Terrifying at the time, but it's the stuff memories are made of.

I was sewn into my wedding dress. No zipper. Heck, 17 years later it STILL doesn't have a zipper. I made it myself, and it wasn't quite done on the big day. John's step-mom Connie was not only a home seamstress of some experience, but had also been a dental assistant extraordinaire (She got to work on Bill Murray during the filming of Stripes)and she just whip-stitched me up the back and off I went. John cut me out with a seam-ripper sometime between the reception and the post-reception reception. (Note to any not-yet-marrieds---skip the post-reception reception if you don't want to spend your wedding night driving home drunk people.)

So far so good, but now I'm really having to thing about this. . .I don't suppose the story about my son getting bitten by a zebra counts because it wasn't me. Hmmmm. . . .

I've ridden a camel and an elephant and been licked by a giraffe.

My mother (who was a single mom at the time) had to give away a pedigreed Golden Retriever puppy because I was terrified of it when I was four. I never really wanted a dog until a couple of years ago when I ceased having baby-lust (the urge to have another baby) and started having puppy-lust. That has gotten me into all kinds of trouble.

Now I'm wishing that I had saved that Kiss story for the end, because all I can think of is that I don't like bananas or avocados because I think the texture is weird. Lame, but true.

The last part of this MeMe is I'm supposed to tag another 6 people. So if you need some blog-fodder, this is a fun one.

I Missed My Puppies!

2006-12-28T21:24:00.000-08:00

I worried about them constantly, and unnecessarily, apparently. The kennel said they did really well while we were gone, but they seem to be glad to be home.

The rest of us are glad to be home, too, with the possible exception of John, who went back to work today. It was a good family-ful trip. Other than Uncle Dave (dare I say wired Uncle Dave?) and Connie's son Richard and his family, all the kids, grandkids and great grandkids made it to Texas for Christmas. We haven't seen the Kentucky Hamills in seven years, and lets just say the kids had grown a little. It was great to see everyone, but mostly we were there to see Grandma:

Besides burying her in gift on Christmas morning, we had some very good visiting time. She was born in 1908, and there doesn't seem to be too much of her life she can't remember. It was good to revisit the stories we had heard before, and to hear some ones that were new to us. She can remember her grandfather telling her about the Civil War battle at Harper's Ferry. She pointed out a lot of family members who died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. She's a neat lady and we love her dearly.

In Texas

2006-12-20T22:14:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Texas safely, after two absolutely problem-free flights on Southwest. John did have some trouble at PDX, he didn't realize his license had expired on his birthday 3 weeks ago, and airport security treated the invalid license as "NO ID." Funny, though. It took him a third of the time to go through extra security as it did the rest of us to stand in line for the regular TSA routine.

It's great to see the Texas family. Grandma Hamill is a looking a little frail this year. At 98 I suppose it was bound to happen sometime. Connie (John's step-mom) is working too hard. She's currently the only social worker at a 117 bed hospital, and is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She hasn't been around much. John's Dad is enjoying retirement. He just finished a months-long project of putting bamboo flooring in his music (audiophile music, not musician-type music) room. It looks really great.

Audrey and I made tags for the 15 stockings we'll have up Christmas morning here at the Texas Hamill's. We've done some baking. I have yet to get batteries in the camera, and I left the camera cable at home, drat it all. John and James have made a new air cannon and have been launching marshmallows impressive distances. They are going to try birdseed tomorrow.

I have started Hello Yarn's "Irish Hiking Scarf" in alpaca/silk. I haven't gotten much done, though. Airport security didn't bat an eye over the bamboo needles or the metal stitch holder I took on board the plane, but I didn't have the pattern with me. So I read a trashy novel instead.

Leaving on a Jet Plane. . . .

2006-12-17T07:36:00.000-08:00

I'm in the final hours of getting ready for the family trip to Texas for Christmas. Usually we visit the Texas family during August, for John's grandmother's birthday, but last August our friend Missy had booked her timeshare in Maui for us during that time. The fact is that Grandma Hamill is 98 years old, and still sharp and fun to be with, and we want to spend time with her while we can. So off we go for the holidays.

I still have some laundry to do. I still have to buy dog food and take the puppies to the kennel. I still have to clean guinea pig cages and give a key to the neighbor. I have never prepared for a military campaign, but I have always imagined that packing a family of four for a trip has to be pretty similar.

I asked John if he thought airport security would have a problem with me taking my little metal cable needle on the airplane. He said no, they would let me put it in the suitcase and take it on the airplane. I said no, I wanted to take it ON the airplane. He said I told you they would let you have it in your suitcase ON the airplane. Smartass. (Better a smartass than a dumbass, right?) I gave him a look and said yes, but I wasn't going to be knitting in the baggage compartment with the suitcase. I didn't buy the plastic Clover cable needle because I had metal Boyle ones, now the yarn shops are closed and Michaels only has the metal ones. Bother. I'm pretty sure I can handle it on a dpn (double pointed needle--and a bamboo one, not an aluminum one that could be potentially dangerous,) but still. . .BOTHER.

John had to work today, and I'm picking him up at the hospital on the way out of town. For those of you who know us, and John in particular, please send positive thoughts that when I told him WE HAVE TO LEAVE BY NOON, it stuck, because this time it really means noon and not 1:30. When I drove him to work early this morning it was dark, and there had been a hard frost. I came home and searched for a digital camera, finally having to wake James up to find it in his room. It is my new camera, but I did say he could use it. I drove back out, eager to take some good shots of the frosted trees and Christmas lights. I got downtown, parked the car, focused on my first tinsel lamppost angel and took an okay, but not great shot. I got closer, refocused the zoom. . . and got the "replace battery" message and the whole thing shut down. BOTHER. KIDS! Anyway, here's my picture of one of many of the plastic and tinsel lamppost angels, which I think look perfectly small town and vintage in our circa 1920-1930 downtown:

(She's blowing a big trumpet.)

Oh, and as for the big wind storm, we didn't suffer any damage. It blew all the gates in the back yard open, but nothing more than that. The power never went out. . .but I was prepared. Although I have to tell you. . .DON'T PUT A FIRE IN THE FIREPLACE IN PREPARATION FOR A WINDSTORM (even if the power is supposed to go out.) Gusts of wind blew right down the chimney and filled the whole house with smoke and sprinkled ash over everything within about 10 feet of the fireplace.

Prepared.

2006-12-14T17:20:00.000-08:00

How do you prepare for a possible black-out? We've got a high wind warning in effect tonight, with 70 mile per hour winds and downed trees and powerlines likely. I made six trips from the woodpile to the back porch with firewood. There's a fire in the fireplace, there's beans and chili in Thermoses and hotdogs to roast over the fire if necessary. I'm filling the jumbo thermal coffee pumper with hot water for tea and hot chocolate. I went out and stocked up on flashlights and batteries. There are board games at the ready. I suppose I should get the ironing for tomorrow morning done now, just in case.

The bad thing about the storm is I opted to call Knitdivas and tell Jenny that I wouldn't make it to my cable class tonight. It was the last class, too. I wanted to show off this swatch of an "oxo" cable I made from a chart (my first knitting chart!):

It loses some definition with the flash photo, and I used some yucky cotton yarn I got for $1 a ball because it was just a swatch. But look, I can cable!

Suddenly I Got Stupid. . .

2006-12-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

At least that what the cat thinks. The day before yesterday I was perfectly capable of opening the door and letting him outside, and now nothing. No matter how many times he asks, how loud he yells, or how carefully he enunciates, he's not getting outside. Not only that, but it's catching, and no-one else is opening the door for him, either. It's hard to explain to a cat that one festering neck wound and a $430 vet bill will keep him inside for a couple of weeks. But that's the way it works. It's even worse than that, actually. He was going to get to stay home while we are in Texas for Christmas, and now he has to board at the vet so he can get his drainage tube out and have his antibiotic every day. Bummer.

Our own CSI experts determined that the estimated time of death of the 'possum was considerably before the cat came home wounded, and the 'possum was not the perpetrater of the neck wound. Though it's still quite possible that Bob dragged the 'possum home to share from somewhere else. He's that kind of cat. One week I was gifted with mice at all three doors to the house. He's very generous that way.

I knit today at the dentist's office. My Meunsch "Touch Me" rayon/wool chenille was much admired. I'm going back on Friday for some air abrasions and sealant, that will give me some more knitting time. Mostly I enjoy going to the dentist because it's guilt-free sitting time. Right now John and I are trying to sort out who spends the money that got socked away in the medical flexible spending account that has to be used by the end of the year. John wanted lasik eye surgery, but he is having trouble getting in to have it done before the end of the month. That could mean I get to spend it. Normally I don't object at all to spending money. But this means I would get my wisdom teeth out, which I've been avoiding for the last 5 years, because I'm a big chicken. A really big chicken.

Speaking of chicken, I have dinner to fix. Which isn't chicken, but sloppy joes.

I Don't Do Dead 'Possums

2006-12-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

John's band has another gig tonight. We loaded up the drum riser in his band van this afternoon, and he drove off to the Cowlitz County Expo Center where he's playing after a $100 a plate fundraiser for the Women's Health Pavilion. After he left James discovered the van had been hiding a 'possum. A dead 'possum (possibly preferrable to a live 'possum.) Yuck.

Bob, our self-proclaimed alpha-cat, came home with a chunk bitten out of his neck a couple of days ago. Since then he's been a bit less bold and hearty than usual, sticking around the house, looking like the cat-eating-monkeys are waiting around every corner for him. I'm wondering if he tangled with the 'possum. Stranger things have happened. I'm just thankful that he hasn't been using the pet door since we got the puppies. Not that long ago he dragged a dead blue jay into the house in the dead of night and left it in Audrey's room. That was shock enough. I'm waiting for John to come home. I've decided disposing of dead wildlife is man-work. I will also refrain from photographing the dead 'possum.

Instead, here's a picture of my scarf from my cable class...

The natural light has been pretty awful, and things lose definition with a flash, but the alternative is to not post pictures until. . .??. . .March?? June?? I'm beginning to appreciate why so many Northwesterners take their Hawaiian vacations in the winter.

Checking in...

2006-12-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in ages. How does that happen?? Part of the problem is that it's gray and cold and rainy and hard to take pictures to accompany posts. Part of it is being busy.

I have cookies in the oven. They aren't Christmas cookies. They are oatmeal. Not even oatmeal raisin, just oatmeal. Audrey doesn't like raisins or nuts in her cookies. I will then make a sheet of ones that have raisins in them, and make the rest with nuts. Then everyone is happy, right?

The whole missing Kim family ordeal was very emotional for me. It was a local story and there was near constant coverage it seemed. I was just finishing watching Martha Stewart when they found James Kim. They reported him as being found alive and I went through that incredible lightness of being and was doing the happy/thankful dance around the livingroom when they said they made a mistake. . . sometimes I hate the media.

My puppies are in disgrace. They have figured out how to escape the fenced back yard. This is a problem. Currently they are only allowed outside for escorted potty breaks. They aren't any happier about this than we are.

I am taking a knitting class in St. Helens (Oregon) on how to make cables. This is very exciting and going very well. I tried to make cables by following pictures in knitting books, and it never seemed right--turns I WAS doing it right, it just didn't seem like it. I'll have to show pictures, it's very cool.

My best friend in Longview is moving to Utah. Utah is very lucky to be getting her. Her husband currently is commuting 55 miles each way to work, and in Utah he will live 5 miles from work. This alone is a good reason for the move. But I'll miss them.

We are going to Texas for Christmas to visit John's dad and his wife, and John's grandmother, who is our last surviving family member of that generation. They are some of our very favorite family and it will be good to see them--but it sort of wrecks havoc with the whole Christmas celebration at our house. No tree. Humbug. Unfortunately another family member with whom I do not see eye-to-eye will also be in Texas for Christmas. Sigh. I think I'll take my knitting, it's easy enough to seem totally engrossed in knitting. And wine, I think I'll take wine. Or maybe vodka.

John's office Christmas party was last week. John's band played. They were quite good, but LOUD. Much dancing was done by inebriated office girls. They are calling it a success. I got about a foot done on a really delicious scarf made out of Muensch Touch Me--then discovered and irrepairable mistake in the second inch and had to rip back, way back, so far back that it wasn't that much of a loss to take out the whole thing to change to smaller needles. Sometimes it just works that way.

The hospital Christmas party is tonight. In 4 minutes actually. I should probably get out of jeans and wooly slippers. Usually one blog entry breeds another, and I'll get back into the swing of things.