Last Minute Gifts

 I know I've said this before, but I'm big on the whole Christmas thing.  It sorta freaks me out.  All those expectations and wants.  Hub and I don't do presents anymore.  Just birthdays, that are both in december.  This year I'm striving to make all my gift, sans a few.  They aren't going to be big things.  Back when I was unemployed and living in OK, I was able to make PJ's for my mom and a mess of great gifts for the folks at my old lab.  Last year was just a wash, but this year its small gifts.  Small, tasty gifts.

Washington Riesling Wine Jelly
2 bottles Washington Riesling 
3 cups raw sugar
1.5 packages no sugar needed pectin 
Heat up the wine until boiling, add the pectin and slowly stir in the sugar.  Cook until the sugar dissolves, it generally takes a while with the raw sugar.  Keep stirring. Add to cleaned jars and process for 5 minutes, if you want to can it.  Keep it in the fridge otherwise, but it won't last long.

Serve with crackers, sharp, blue or stinky cheeses.  Fruit and a dry salami also go great.  Or just eat with a spoon. 

"and I couldn't stop it"

That's a favorite Stewie Griffin quote, and exactly how I feel about this year.  ITS THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING!!! When did that freakin happen, huh huh!?!?!

I guess I should work harder on my current projects so I can get to making the ones in my closet.  Sure. 

Veterans Day

Donald

The Unknown, but never forgotten

These are all photographs from out trip to DC this summer.

ABCD...EFG..H.I...JK..LMNOP

To tell the truth I still sing the alphabet song in my head every time.  Its the only way I know it.  Every time I file, and every time the tubes get laid out for my daily PCR'er. 

 

While flitting about the interwebs wasting time I spotted this on the freshly redesigned Oohleela.


A. age :: 29, until December

B. bed size :: queen

C. chore you hate :: parakeet cage cleaning, he bites sometimes

D. dogs :: My parents have two, Dot and Madam.  Maddie passed away last year.  When she was good she was my dad's when she was bad, she was mine. 

E. essential start to your day :: Crossfit

F. favorite color :: GREEN, currently its more teal.

G. gold or silver :: silver

H. height :: short

I. instruments you play :: I can press play

J. job title :: Micro-fricking-biologist  (I take far to much pride in my title, by it was actually what I got a degree in, so I'm super proud of myself)

K. kids :: Yey, no

L. live :: Tacoma, WA

M. maiden name :: McCann

N. nicknames :: I'll respond to almost anything, except "shorty" (I'll beat you senseless, and don't think I won't.  I've got lots of short girl grummies)

O. overnight hospital stays :: Twice, nothing serious

P. pet peeve :: stupid

Q. quote :: "entropy is still promoting chaos"

R. righty or lefty :: righty, but I do a lot of things with my left hand.

S. siblings :: See "D"

T. time you wake up :: ASS CRACK-O-DAWN

U. university attended :: University of Idaho (BS MICRO) Austin Peay State University (BS MT)

V. vegetables you dislike: eggplant, and raw tomatoes

W. what makes you run late :: People who can't merge

X. x-rays you’ve had :: mid section, ankle, teeth

Y. yummy food ::Braised short ribs

Z. zoo animal favorite :: THE WHOLE THING!!!! I love love love the zoo.  We go to the zoo in every city we visit.  I wanted to be a zoologist for a long time, but I find that I like helping the animals stay healthy and safe better (I work for a vet. diagnostic lab)

I do still Knit

But you don't get to see it much.  Or at least the finished products.  So thing about getting from camera to computer is a chore and then on to the blog.  I'm trying to make it work on that but I'm just running on auto until I have more time.  Hub's job is a super time suck and I'm trying to workout twice a day, which leaves about 0 time to knit or post.  A while back I finished this project......



Project: Willow Cowl
Yarn: Hazel Knits, sock
Colorway: Hometown Team (?)



I ment to wear this to ALLLLLL those chilly M's games
 that I would go to this year.  I went to one,
 before I finished it. 
 So sad we went to like 20 last year. 





Hidding from how bad the M's have been



More shawls

It seems that's all I knit right now, but since I really given up on socks I need to do something with all the sock yarn. I'm unable to cram a socked foot into any of my shoes so I find that knitting them is just a waste of time. Plus I suffer from serious second sock- ittis and never make the match. Oh well.

BACON

Hub is the bacon man in our family, he handles the making of the bacon. Except he might just have less than zero time, in fact I'm certain he's borrowing it. So we had promised a few people some bacon and so I dug around in the seemingly bottomless chest freezer to find some uncured pork bellies. Mmmmmm pork bellies. Without further ado....

BACON!!!!!!

All rubbed down

Hiding behind the soda, in the fridge

I call this pre-bacon

Instructions

Fall Planting

While it's not fall yet in Tacoma it is time to start thinking about it. I wanted to some cool weather plants started to give them ahead start. We need all the help we can get around these parts. Also I had this pesky box from my CSA laying around that I did want to just break down.

How to turn a box into a greenhouse for planting seeds:

Gather the parts. Box, plastic bag, seeds and egg cartons. I cut the flaps off mine.

Fill up your cartons with dirt and moisten it so the seeds have a nice place to start out.

Press the little seeds into the soft dirt and arrange the egg cartons in the box.

Cover up with your garbage bag. Now place in a sunny spot. Water when needed. If you use a waxed box you can add a little water straight into the box. Just sit back and wait for little plants.

Stash Break Down

Its time to tackle the stash. Yes, that place that yarn hides. Where bits of fiber lurk and wait. Its there behind the door of my studio closet, stressing me out. IT HAS TO GO!!! All of it, well most of it. For starters all the yarn needs to be assigned a project, projects and yarn are going into bags. Extra yarn that is project-less or that I just don't ever what to see again will be sold, traded or gifted. The only yarn I will purchase from now until when ever all that stash goes away is sweater amounts. You heard me right, I only have 2 sweaters waiting in the wings. Also I have never purchased a "sweater amount" without a project. This sounds really strange, but its true. My "stash" is mainly bits of sock yarn (I don't wear socks) lace, and some random heavier weights. I'm posting this because I want you to keep me on task. I'll update soon, like after I wade through the crap. Check back.

O CHIN

For some reason we like to say O-chin, rather than ocean. It makes us giggle. Granted it was like back in April, but it was great.

The Beach at Roads End

Hover Dog

SUN

Our Lovely Rental

Where are you?

Please disregard this blog post if you did recently move from Lawton, OK with a tight knit group of sweet kiddos a mess of spinning wheels and I think was it three looms. You know who you are. You blog is gone and I don't seem to have your email. How did that happen? Any whooooo, shoot me an email.

Best Mayo Ever

For christmas I got this great book, full of super easy and uber d'lish recipes. Fantastic pictures and good tips and tricks. Part of my crossfit world includes being as paleo as possible, which falls into my personal goal of eating squeaky clean. Homemade everything makes me happy, no or minimal chemicals limitly processed and yummy. So you know what's amazingly easy to make on your own and is CRAZY good. MAYO!!!!!!!! Get yourself a stick blender an egg, a touch of mustard and a cup of grapeseed oil (my favorite neutral oil) and whirrrrrr together for creamy delightful finger licking burger smearing, french fry dipping, ketchup mixing mayo. Trust me you might not "like" mayo but this will change your mind.
Ps this was also the best batch I've ever made.

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Ladies

These are 4 of the 5 chickens
who call an out building home. They're a cross between buff orpies and rhode islands. We're just waiting for them to lay some tasty tasty eggs

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Weekend of spring

The northwest isn't known for its warm sunny days. Really! It rains most of the time in the spring, fall and winter and about every 3rd day in the summer. So when we sun starved NWners can string together a few pre-summer days with the falling water from the sky we kinda freak out. I mean freak out. Short, socks, tank tops (in 65 cool weather!?!?!?!!) sunglasses, and tons and tons of blinding white ass skin. Its a sight. So what did we do with the third sun filled that we had, BASEBALL GAME!!! Granted the M's are painfully bad this year but a game is still a game.

Delightful Time

... Was had by all. Has requested I drove, since I have the most gas friendly car. The sun shone and the wind that seems to plague the coast lessened. Before we knew it we had arrived. It was like a Yarn Heaven. Delightfully squishy yarn heaven. Granted Church Mouse doesn't carry huge amounts of anything, or a massive amount of yarn. Its the well chosen brands, like Shelter and Rowan. Good stables also, like season acceptable colors of Cascade 220 and my yarn stand by Ultra Alpaca.


However the real reason that Church Mouse is the yarn capital of Washington, patterns. Well organized, and deep. Their selection is fantastic. Not only can you get almost every Fiber Trends pattern ever printed, they publish a staggering number of skillful, beautiful, and simple patterns. All so wearable and in such nice yarns you don't feel so bad about buying a fair of number of them. Also if you're interested Jarrod Flood is a NW native and still feels much love for Church Mouse, thus selling all his patterns and yarn there.

I picked a yarn orange red to make a KAL with some of the knit group.


After we finish the Hat, we'll make one of their great patterns.

To top the day off we had a great meal and then a trip to the fabric store, where I got 2.5 yard of this fabric 50% off!! I plan an easy wrap skirt for it, from S.E.W.

Field Trip

Today the girls and I are going to Church Mouse yarn! It should prove to be a blast. DB Cooper (thats my red velvet mini cooper) will be our escort for the ride. I jump at the chance to show off what that seeming so small car do. Four adult ladies and their yarn treasures, no match for DB's German know-how. (Yes, while the factory that every mini cooper has ever been produced in is in England, and the car is still "English". BMW purchased the company from Rover Group in the late 90's. I have the smallest cheapest BMW you can get, and it rocks).
Please check out Church Mouse on the web, and if you're a NW'ner go up and have a visit.

Catching Up

Lots of my projects are finished with little fan fair. Seldom do they get photographed or posted to Ravelry. So I got a movin' and got my projects page up to date!. Monday is my Sunday which means I get a whole un-bothered day to play with my yarn!

These are the socks that are keeping my busy at work. The Yarn contains "seafood". It seem quite a few folks buy it and then discover that the intended recipient of said socks are highly allergic to said seafood. I have inherited 3 balls of the stuff.

A few weeks back I attended a cousins baby shower with very short notice but was able to whip this little number up. It was all stash yarn too! Once I get my etsy shop up and running I plan on selling some of these cuties.

In my former state a lovely little (no so little anymore) LYS opened too bad I moved about 5 months latter. They carry a great, I mean great selection of yarn. Since I'm not a huge sock wearer I turned a lovely ball of Mountain Colors into this great beret. It wears well and knits fantastically.

What can I say about the Chevron Scarf. I bought the yarn years ago, started it years ago and pushed to finish it. The only saving grace about this thing was the constant color changes. The two socks yarns, all the colors, it was really fun.

While the knit was great and the scarf so wearable, the yarn over takes the pattern a little too much. However I do wear it often, and love it. I might make another.

Plans for my future crafting include some sewing from my Christmas gift (I kinda ordered it for myself and wrapped it) Stitch by Stitch. Almost all of my sewing knowledge is self instructed and I love these types of books, I can build on the things I learn from each project. Stay tuned.

Sometimes...

I've been having trouble finding the time to blog, and I've been giving it lots of thought. I don't plan on going away, but I do plan on limiting what I post. I'm still here and even if I have huge breaks in my blogging, know I still care. I am on Twitter (shortrow) and facebook. Also I'm keep my flickr feed up to date.

Short Notice

When I went to Georgia for my multiple chicken workshops last year, I spent some quality time online scoping out restaurants, grocery stores and shopping. Before I even hit the ground everything was in order. The time Hub and I drove cross country (before google) I sat in the sun with a calculator, pen and paper tracking miles driven and small cities with a roadmap. Planing is somehow programed into my DNA. In my little knitting world its the same. I want notice and lots of it. Say if you have a good nine month lead on me, please let me know. Sigh, this brings me to my cousin, and how she's about to have a baby. Really I'd like more time to properly knit for this little one.


Also I'd like as much time as possible to work on this. My lace scarf.

Goals

This year I have some goals but I don't want to push to hard. Things I'd love to do and thing I will do. First the things I'd love to do, include making a stay page and actually selling something. I want to blog once a week (I can do it on my dang phone its not hard). I also want to fill my house with homemade goodies. Now for the things that must happen in 2011. Weigh at or less then my drivers license (when I moved back they just changed my name on file, everything remained the same). A pullup will happen and a whole real pushup workout.
All in all I think those are some good plans.
The hat you ask? I made it for the christmas lunchon auction. Its the Starcrossed pattern. Spool quick and easy.

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