it's been a year

Wow! How quickly the time has gone by. Lots has happened in the last year:

We moved 2,000 miles away;
I finished school;
D started high school;
We went through a hurricane (that was pretty exciting);
We downsized.

All good things (okay, maybe not the hurricane) that have all turned out to be good things. Downsizing turned out even better than we expected. Smaller house (although not *small* by any means), smaller yard, more convenient lifestyle, no snow all adds up to more time to do things like ride bikes, hang out with friends, and slows down the pace of our lives just a little bit. It's all good.

boo-yoney

Watching a friends kids again today. It's fun to have them in the house, even funnier to try to figure out what they are saying.

Miss P wanted a snack. The conversation went something like this:

P: I'm hungry
Me: Do you want some graham crackers?
P: I don't like graham crackers
Me: What about some popcorn (which her sister and D were eating)?
P: I don't like popcorn
Me: I have apples
P: I don't like apples
Me: Well then I guess I don't have anything you like
P: You have no food?
Me: I have lots of food but you don't want to eat what I have
P: How do you know what I want?
Me: Okay, what do you want
P: I really like boo-yoni
{took a minute for my brain to process this and realize that she meant bologna}
Me: I don't have any boo-yoni. But I have cheese, would you like some cheese?
P: I don't like cheese.
Me: I guess we're back where we started.
P: What about cream cheese?
Me: We have that.
P: Okay, I'll take cream cheese
Me: On bread?
P: Yes, on bread
P: I don't like butter
Me: This isn't butter, it's cream cheese, see, it's white
P: We buy white butter
Me: Okay, but this isn't butter, it's cream cheese
P: Okay, just checking
Me: Want some grapes to go with this?
P: Yes please

And apparently Miss P does not eat crusts so Tobi was the lucky recipient of crusts with the smallest smear of cream cheese on them. He didn't get any grapes though.

links i like

Here's another list of things found on the internet that sparked my interest, hopefully you'll find something that appeals to you too.

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003007.php - a brief exerpt from a book about hats. Pretty fascination stuff. I may have to take out the book, Fashion and It's Social Agendas. Although I already have a lot to read this one looks quite fascinating.

I like to make stuff. She lives in Wales, I like the way she writes and she's very creative. I don't really need another crafty person on my blogroll who is so much more talented than I am and I know I will never be that creative. But I like her stuff and want to read more so on the list she goes.

wfmw - yarn stash

It happens to be Wednesday and I happen to have a tip so I thought I'd jump in the fray here. Don't forget to check out Rocks In My Dryer for more great tips.

I recently reorganized my yarn stash. My biggest problem is that I have a lot of yarn and sometimes forget what I want to do with it or forget where I put it. While I still have boxes in the closet I have also decided to reorganize by taking projects and their pattern and putting them into bags and hanging those bags on hangers in the closet. This way when I am looking for a new project or want to work on a project I started and stopped I can go through the bags. Makes the closet neater, keeps the projects neatly organized and definitely works for me.

update 2nd week of march

Been busy but here's a quick goings on...

Spring MUST be here, or at least around the corner. Spooky, my little donkey friend, is now out happily munching away on the new grass in his yard.

Sold Girl Scout cookies this past weekend. In the cold. In the rain. There we were, huddled under the overhang of the hardware store, with the precious cookies at the back to make sure they didn't get wet. But we did well, sold quite a few and many people donated cookies for the girls to take to the Veterans Hospital next month.

S is coming home this weekend. Can't wait to see her, I miss her so much. It's only for a week so we'll have to make the most of the time.

Aside from that it's study study study...something I must get back to.

notes

Just taking a break from studying...this unit I have not one but two papers due in two weeks. But my eyes are going blurry from reading and reasearch (and I can't find my glasses) so I'll stop and blog a bit.

Musing...why is it that I now need glasses to read but not on the computer? Seriously. When I read a book or magazine my eyes start to go all sploodgie and I have a hard time focusing on the page after about one minute. Something I'm not used to but I'm having to remember where my glasses are. It's kind of funny really.

Knitting...well...crocheting. I've put the shhhhh shawl aside for a bit because I have been obsessed with crocheting blankets. One is for S and the other is for someone else. Don't know why, they're just scrap blankets but I am motivated to get them done. Then it's on to flowers for our charity project, an aran square for a Stitch Sisters project, placemats for our charity project (we're making placemats for Meals on Wheels), and ----see next item

Adding to the list: Whoo boy! Somehow I just can't seem to help myself. I keep adding new projects all the time. I thought I had gotten back on top of my list but it's growing again. When visiting my Mom I saw some gorgeous beaded wristlets that someone had made. I made some notes. I just happened to see some cute, soft yarn and the right size beads. So it's sitting waiting for me. When I joined Ravelry I found the Firefly fan groups and dang-it now I need to go make me a Jayne Hat . D wants one but I think I have enough yarn to make two...when I get to it. Of course the big news is that the original will be up for auction in September. Lots of people want to get their hands on it so they can correctly chart it.

Snow, snow and more snow. Last week....8 inches of snow. This past weekend? 6 inches of snow. If I hadn't seen robins with my own two peepers I might not believe that spring is really coming. Thank goodness for the woodburning stove but seriously I could use some springtime right about now.

Movies: Watched Waitress Dont' bother. I didn't really like it, am not sure why I finished watching it. There were a couple of nice bits but overall it was about people having affairs and guy bashing. Not really my thing. Saw Aquamarine with D. Sweet movie, especially if you are teenager. Not really up my alley but it was nice to spend the time with her and she liked it so that's good.

Books: Not reading anything other than school books at the moment but hoping to get back into some regular reading as soon as I am done with my two papers (see top of page). But if you have any good suggestions send them my way.

movie night

Yesterday Steve and I had an opportunity to watch Amazing Grace. If you haven't seen this movie you should watch it. I thought it was very well done, very moving and altogether wonderful.

Even Steve liked it and he usually is not a big fan of the period piece movie. Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, that sort of movie...I love them and could watch them again and again. I love the costumes, the settings, and usually they are so well acted. Amazing Grace was no exception and even more touching for the fact that it is based on a true story and that William Wilberforce was a real person who did accomplish a great thing, the abolition of slavery in England.

Definitely worth watching.

tuesday night knitting

It's snowing like a banshee here. So we decided to cancel Stitch Sisters. Funny thing is that I must have spent over an hour on the phone talking to everyone as we were all sad that we couldn't get together. One sister suggested that we need a "snow night" for when this happens. We may have to do just that.

One sister lives just over the hill. I decided to chance it and went to her house for a cup of tea and knitting. It was great to spend time with her. I brought some cookies I had made and we had a cup of tea to go with our knitting, it was great.

I've been looking for another cookie recipe to teach at my next baking class. I've successfully developed a scone recipe, have a great biscotti recipe and wanted to make a cookie as well. So I made two different kinds of rye cookies (one Russian, one Swedish). Neither one came out great although the Swedish cookies were better than the Russian ones. Mostly because the Russian ones tasted like toffee to me. If I'm eating a cookie I want a cookie not a candy.

I'm going to change both recipes further (working with fresh ground flour is always a bit difficult). The Russian cookies I will cut back on the butter and see if that helps. The Swedish cookies I'm going to make thicker (they were too thin and crisp) and add cardamom. I think they may wind up being the winner for the class but both cookies will go through at least one more round before I decide.

The hardest part is that it's really not healthy having all of these cookies around. Luckily the folks at the library, post office, yoga class, etc don't mind being my taste testers. This also gives me the opportunity to ask them what they do or don't like about the cookies.

Funny enough my friend tonight liked the Russian rye cookies better because she said they were sweeter and they were great to suck on (they were button-size) while drinking hot tea.

At the end of the evening I managed to make it down their hill and up mine to be safe and sound back at home. I'm thinking there must be lots of spoons under pillows tonight and seriously question whether or not there will be school.

howling

The weather has been very strange today.

First it's grey, overcast, snowing and the wind is so heavy the snow is blowing sideways.

Then the sun comes out.

Then it goes away.

And snows some more.

Now the wind is blowing so fiercely again that it is literally screaming its way through the windows.

And it's cold.

So glad we have a woodburning stove. Sitting curled up on the sofa with the dog, the cat and a blanket I am crocheting, occasionally looking up at the flames or drinking my tea. It's good stuff.

needle card

Oh my goodness. I am spending waaaaay too much time on Ravelry. Thank goodness my paper and test for session three of my class is done and I have nothing to hand in right now.

I just discovered that I can enter all of the needles that I own, sizes, lengths, types, crochet hooks and PRINT IT OUT!!! I mean HOW COOL IS THAT??? This way I'll have a little card that will let me know all of the needles that I own. Of course since I inherited all of my grandmother's knitting needles (BTW Mom this was before you started knitting, do you want any?) that's going to be a cool thing to be able to keep track of. Her needles are mostly really small sizes but still to know where they came from is neat.

I do find that I am preferring circulars more and more but that's okay, I'll have a needle chart. Love it.

snow again

Just as I am getting to the part of the year where I am thoroughly sick and tired of the cold, I'm wishing mightily for spring and wondering why I live here it snows. And once again the scenery is covered in a delicate white drape of snow and everything looks pretty instead of muddy and wet and brown and miserable. Somehow when there's fresh snow on the ground it doesn't matter how cold it is it looks better. But spring had better hurry because I really am in need of some open-window therapy.

leftovers

It's getting harder and harder to cook. Between picky kids, rotating numbers of people at the table and varying diets I have a fridge packed ab-so-lutely full of leftovers. I think it was Tracy Ullman who said, "My mother served leftovers for 20 years...the original meal was never found." I can see how that would happen.

love the sub

Today's yoga class was thaught by a substitute. She was very sweet and we had a nice relaxing class. She did a lot of small joint work, fingers, wrists, toes and ankles which I liked. We also did eyeball yoga. Yes folks, there is such a thing as eyeball yoga and it actually feels pretty good.

An extra benefit to the class today...she was a new teacher...she didn't have a good sense of timing or pacing...we got an extra half hour of practice. What's not to love about that?