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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Have your self a merry.....

little Christmas!

Merry Christmas from us in the Warren House.

B.Y.O.C

The whole of last week was spent in Athens, GA. A fantastic college town that has too many people and too much sprawl. This was my second trip to the Georgia Poultry Institute. Yep a week of chickens. Luckily this wasn't a Bring Your Own Chicken week, they are provided for you. Mine was not a local but a grubby little layer from a producer. It made me miss my work chickens, who like their in-house chickens are big for layers (all the good grub they can eat) and just a mass of soft white feathers. Trust me all birds are the same about their feathers, from parakeets to dirty little chickens, they want to PREEEEEEEEEN.
Of course the week before my outing, which is work but I'm not doing any work, we had a seriously early, seriously annoying snow.

I mean it was Beautiful but it was a major pain. Though I live atop a large hill and drive a small small car, I was the only one to get to work that day. Which lead to a little grumpy from me when I discovered an incubator full of unlabeled samples and undone work. I did not come to work until noon the next day. This lead us right into Thanksgiving, and then my weekend of work and Georgia. I feel like November has been a strange strange trip. Did I fail to mention the downed power pole, oh I did. The week before the snow storm we had a wind storm. It toppled the main power pole for our 50 year old building, and thrust us into the mid 18th century. We ran on generator power for a week while the powers that be refused to pay. Really, how long do you have to pee in the dark before you just give up and go home. The answer is, one week, because not only did we have snow and ice the next week we also had a full septic tank and couldn't use the "system". Tell that to the preggo girl at work. But enough.....

Today was dedicated to doing fun stuff. A Harry Potter movie marathon sucked my whole day yesterday. After hitting the grocery for apples, pears and these lovelies, I set about making butters! Maple apple-pear butter for gifts and spiced persimmon butter for me. I added limited water to the persimmon and allowed them to brown a little in the pan, then added some water and blended using the stick blender. I believe that I might try to roast some apples and pears to make butter next time. While the giant canning pot came to a boil I pulled the xmas decorations from the whole in under the house, and braved the second highest rung on the ladder for lights. Which look fantastic (no they really look like someone in their yoga pants and slippers put them up, because they did).

Mom and I went to get a little dinner on Saturday night, while dad was out hunting and Hub was relaxing on the sofa watching the Apple Cup. This was sitting there just waiting to be photographed. For non-NW'ners this is a dancing clam costume, check it out

Keep Clam

Fall Crafts

Where have all the Fall Crafts gone. I understand that x-mas is just around the corner, but really?!?! I have a huge confession to make. Ready for it, Christmas and I are not friends. I'd skip it and go straight into New Years if I could. I love Halloween, and rather enjoy the relaxed (and food filled) atmosphere of Thanksgiving. No gifts no expectations. The thing about Fall crafts is that are good for Halloween and Thanksgiving so why don't we have more of them. Grrrrrrr. So I'm call all Fall crafts!!! Lets compile a great big list of great, fun, cute, good through fall crafts. Send me your links, ideas and what not. I'll get them all together and in September of 2011 I'll post a month of crafts!!!

Chicken Salad on the Freeway

I know, I keep dropping off the planet, sorry. Still on the Whole 30, I still want pancakes (not that I ever eat them) and a glass of cold cold milk. I haven't lost any weight, but do feel great. The thing about the whole 30 is going out to eat is nearly imposable because you have no clue what they stick in their food, and since we in America must put sugar in everything its hard to avoid. Its even harder to avoid things like potato, wheat and dairy when all you want is that steaming bowl of Ivars clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Yes you heard that right. On a super chilly, slightly windy night I found myself in the stands of Husky Stadium (we have season tickets to see college football at a school I did not attend and work for their rival). All I wanted was a hot chocolate and a chowder but not I got a cup of black bad coffee and a fleece blanket instead. The game dragged on and on, tied at 21-21 and then OVER TIME. Feeling in my fingers has long since gone away and the use of my legs questionable. BUT FINALLY, the Huskies blocked the drive and we could go home. As fate normally has it, break lights appear on the horizon as we traveled back to Tacoma. A huge frickin' wreak. *sigh* just stop the car and wait. Always prepared, and since dinner was a Larabar, I extract two forks and a tub of chicken salad from under the seat. So we moved at .000002 miles an hour at 12 am, eating chicken salad on I-5. Next game is the 18th of November, by then I'll be done with this diet experiment. I won't bring huge amounts of wheat or potatoes into my diet but for one chilly night I'll indulge by taste buds and tummy in one of the greatest NorthWestern traditions of Ivars Clam Chowder (served from a small air stream trailer called the "chowder wagon").

A Year ago

This was taken a year ago. Before I began Crossfit, and before I moved back. That shrug is no more. I've frogged it and its going to become a more wearable item. I hope to share some photos with you and then take some after shots. Pictures like this and others. We'll see, I'm not so good with the timer on the camera.
Our lab was audited yesterday, which was a little stressful. But its over now and we can stop looking over our shoulder all the time. When the auditors arrived, they wanted to know who had been at the lab in Kentucky, which was me. The fact that checked up on me and the old life was a little strange.
Day two has been going smoothly. Hub is having some trouble with snacks. He loves crispy salty things, but no CHIPS. I think so far I've felt less change then him. Normally snacks are small and healthy so it seems that I've gotta leg up on him. Friday we have to attend an event so lets see what going out to dinner is like.

Whole 30

Day One, today Hub and I started the Whole 30. Which is like food boot camp. And for two crazed foodies, its not going to be an easy month. The idea behind the Whole 30 is that by not eating certain foods (grains, dairy and sugar) you can help reset the way your body handles food and you learn to use it more effectively. Hub is looking for more power at Crossfit. However I'm looking for my relationship with food to change and hopefully be able to excert more self control when it come to weaknesses. Like BREAD!! I also have a serious sweet tooth that I hope to bring under control. I do also hope the my flagging engery levels will stablize and that my strange allergies might clear. The nagging stuffy nose and dry skin.

So for 30 days I will put aside the yummy homemade loaves of bread and greek yogurt with honey and give this thing a try. I'll take my vitamins don't worry.

Breakfast: eggs
Lunch: Sloppy Joe insides with spinach leaves
Dinner: Skirt Steak with veggies

Its like crack for plants

They don't say that on the bag but it should. Tagro might be poo dirt but its the best dang poo dirt ever. The tomatoes I planted went crazy, and so too have the winter veg garden.

From Drop Box

I also saw this little guy while going to target. I was not driving.

From Drop Box

Mmmmmm

I made these a while ago.......




I also worked on my studio. Too bad it gets really warm up here.

I'm a sucker for contests

I rarely win, but I love to enter and dream a little about the prizes and how super great it would be to have them. I think I purchased about a dozen chocolate bars in hopes of winning a dark brown Mini Cooper stuffed to the gills with treats. Thought I never won one of these rare chocolat-ly colored autos, I found myself many years latter on the good end of a used car deal for one that looked much like a red velvet cake. However it wasn't full of cake :( . One of my fav blogs and shops is Sew-Mama-Sew, I've given things away for their big give-away day. I've commented on most of their give-aways and purchased some great, I mean great fabrics. Today they asked us to answer one easy question in hopes of winning a serger. The question "how would your life be better with a serger" And here it is the long awaited answer.
I don't have time to sew like I want to any more.
When I lived in OK and was unemployed I had nothing to inspire me, nothing to drive me to create. I tried. I wanted to. I did, a little. It was like my need to was there but the crafty pants were just not there. Fastforward to now. Moving back to a place I love, full of beauty and living in a great area FULL of art, I want to craft again. I finger fabrics and yarn, look longingly at patterns and then poooooof! No time. Now I have a job, a job I love, doing the other thing I LOVE. Microbiology. But between my Crossfit addiction, and keeping my house at a level of clean that only kinda makes me happy, my craft time as almost dried up. Now if I had a serger, and after I had learned how to use said serger, with all its bells and what nots, I could spend less time getting grumpy with my sewing and more time actually making stuff. Plus being on the short, stocky and busty side being able to make or at least fix my clothes would make me feel a lot better.
So there is my answer!
Thank you for your time.

Things I've learned

Since I started Crossfit about 6 months ago I've learned some rather important things about health and fitness. Most importantly, when you are running from zombies NO ONE, I mean no one cares what you look like in a bikini. What I mean by this is, that just because your skinny ass can wear a flap of fabric and get away with it, does not mean in any way shape or form are you actually "in shape". Your brain is going to be dinner sweet cheeks. However my thighs and I are getting away.
While I have spent the last six months trying to reverse 28 years of near and complete inactivity, it still needs some work. After a handful of real pushup I kinda hit the floor. A real pullup still eludes me. I run about as fast as a old dog and half way through my workouts I gotta stop and push my glasses back up my nose or just take them off all together. Though I have lost an 1.5 from my waist, and deadlift and back squat my body weight. 12 inch box jumps still make my shins fear for their lives and anything requiring me to go upside down, is NOT fun. My progress is slow, very slow, but I'm there. I will never get a green box around my name for anything, but just the fact that my name is on the white board every morning at 5:30 is enough for me.
Though just for once I'd like to get my freakin' picture on the blog. Come on!

Up To No Good

Okay so a little good. However just three days after I took these pictures we had a 39 degree night and they died! Every last tomato turned brown and crispy and died by the end of the week. Not to be stopped I bought new tomatoes, and stuck garbage bags over them up the weather improved. It hasn't. It might have been about 56 here today. If anyone likes fried green tomatoes let me know and I'll send you some, since I seriously doubt they'll ever turn green.
Work has been a blast! Actually its been nice since we're all there and I've been able to actually catch up on things from my closet/office.
Projects, projects, project. I have a super secret one I've been working on, then the same old same old, the chevron scarf, the red scarf, and a pair of socks. So to combat these knitting ughs I've worked some actually time in to my schedule for projects. For an hour each day after I jog, after I come home I have to work on something. Since mondays are my sundays I would normally stay in and project it up. Now ever I been messing around with things like car repair and visiting the big city of seattle for fresh crab. Thats a long store and a whole other post. After spending all morning trying to decide if I should trade the beloved DB cooper in for a non-broken mini cooper I learned that the thought of leaving my DB behind on the lot was tooooooo heart breaking and am taking him for a second opinion next week. They say my transmission is shot! I don't believe them. Any whoooo, the napkins that have been in progress for what seems an month are all but washed. A touch dull but very nice and useful. Next project to get started on is a Folklore Bag from 101 one yard wonders. Plus I can't wait to start ordering fabric from Spoonflower!
Other than that we're still alive and kicking here in North End.

What Passes For Spring

Around these parts things move at their own speed. In some respects we're busy-busy, sometimes we're down right explosive (its been 30 years since the Mt. St. Helens explosion) but then on the other hand summer doesn't get around to showing up until July 5th.
Other than a week or two of 70-ish degree weather that seemed to pop up out of now where in Feb and a couple of days in March, Spring works in mysterious ways here. Our local garden center (Garden Sphere, which also carries worms and chickens) recommends that tomatoes go in the ground this week, and sooooooo tomatoes went in the ground. Except that the ground is still full of weeds and some plants that need to be moved. To get around this problem and to remember the water the little guys I went for container gardening.

Tacoma also has a special recycling program for its waste water, its called TAGRO. Its just what you think it is. Yes, waste water turned into dirt. Its clean! It also causes plants to go CRAZY! I got 4 bags. Since our house is pushing 90 years old, so is the dirt, and it shows. Over the next year I plan to begin our compost bin and get the flower beds back into shape.

(by the way these are plastic and are super easy to move around, you can find them at Home Depot)

With two red cherry's, an orange and a yellow, plus a purple I hope to have a great turn out. Granted I don't like raw tomatoes I do like them grilled, cooked, squished and any other way but right off the vine. But I do like lots of herbs! So they went into the ground last week, in their own special bed by the kitchen.


ps. On my way to Crossfit this morning, as I turned from McCarver on to Tacoma I saw a deer. A deer, just walking down the side walk as if on her way to get a cup of coffee at Tulley's. However she freaked a ran back up into the neighborhood. Even though Tacoma is a major city, its hills and cliffs where not all graded like our big sis Seattle and we have quite a few large undeveloped green areas which have become home to near by wildlife. This makes me glad I have a fence.

Projects

While unpacking all of my worldly goods for the umteenth time I was reminded of how much yarn I had, how much yarn I had and didn't use, and how much yarn I had and really wasn't thrilled with. The excitement of belonging to those sock clubs, the mystery of what's next normally gives way to like three balls of yarn that you're never going to touch. Combined those odd balls of wacky sock yarn with a half dozen of washcloth cotton, mix liberally with leftover project bits and you'll have my stash. The time has come to part with my one offs and what nots. I'm not a stasher by nature I'm just too bloody cheap to buy whole sweaters worth of yarn without a pattern, but sock yarn doesn't count. Until you stop knitting socks and your socks that rocks mates with some selfstripping wool and you get waaaaay more yarn than you could every know. After this weeks knit night, I'll post whats left of the sale yarn.
Another thing I should cover is the project list on the left. Its outdated and needs to be addressed. Since I've been at a total lost as to what to blog we'll get to those. As for right now, on the needles, I have Laura Cho's Shoulder warmer that is almost complete. I also a rust colored cabled scarf which is just over half way done, the chevron scarf from last minute knitted gifts, and a pair of socks. Wednesday knit group has got we knitting socks again.