Foodie notes from the South

I'm back from my trip to South Carolina and Georgia. We visited family and friends and had a great time.

Alas, our budget is tight and we only ate out a few times but let me share my two great discoveries:

Kudzu Bakery's Key Lime Pie-It's not gelatinous. It has a great chocolate and perhaps nut crust. It had little shavings of lime peel. It was heaven. It didn't have whipped cream or merangue and it didn't need them. I heard their peach pie is also wonderful.

The River Room's Shrimp and Grits-South Carolina on a plate. Yummy grits (how much cream and butter need to be added to grits to make them yummy?), yummy sausage and shrimp mixture smothering the grits. So many miles to jog to work this off! But worth every step.

Crab Status

I cleaned my son's hermit crab tank today. I kept waiting for all six crabs to come out of their hidey holes but it never happened. I felt the need to do a status check anyway to make sure they were still alive.

All six are alive and well. All have new pointy toenails which indicates they have all molted successfully. And all now live in a newly cleaned tank.

Lace knitting

In my opinion, and I know several people would agree, the ultimate test of your knitting skills is the wedding ring shawl. An ethereal knitted concoction made of the finest yarn and the smallest needles that can pass through a wedding ring when completed. The are examples of such work that use over 22 Miles of yarn.

To me, this is a dare. Do I have the skill to produce such a product? Yes. Do I have the attention span? Provided I find the right pattern, maybe. Do I have the ability to complete this endeavor? That is the dare. I lack stick-to-it-iveness.

But I have found a couple patterns that appeal (Meg Swanson's A Gathering of Lace). They are not true Unst lace but one has the fine gossamer quality I want, while the other has the pattern changes I need to keep me interested. I already have plenty of laceweight yarn. I have many, many small needles.

My LYS is having a big sale today and I expect I will own a book or two after my visit.

But in order for it to be a true challenge, I need a goal. Let's say by the end of 2007 I will have one lace shawl to call my own.

Vogue Knitting Fall 2007

I got my VK. I got it a week ago but I am still in leaf through mode.

Sixty patterns. Gorgeous yarns, Decadent garments...sigh...

I love my VK.

The Dale of Norway Cardigan

I started this sweater five years ago. It's a Vogue Knitting pattern and Dale of Norway Heilo. It's not finished yet, but it's so close. if I had started it this year, it would have been done now. I have learned so much in the last five years.

This thing was knit as six different pieces that had to be sewn together. Yes those are raglan sleeves. Yes that is stranded knitting. Why didn't the directions have me knit in the round, add the sleeves, add the hood and steek the whole thing? That would have saved me the hundreds of little ends that I have been weaving in the past few weeks. I still have to finish the front edges, attach a zipper, block it, and do some embroidery. But it's so close.

And yes, when it's done I will wear it.

What I'm Knitting-July

A Lace Experiment
A Sock in BearFoot yarn
A sock in Trekking bamboo yarn
A sock in Top of the Lamb
The Denim cardigan
A lacy stole for someone who demands a little black in everything
The Summer gameday shell in Cotton Fleece

And my Dale of Norway Cardigan is in the finishing process. I would have done this thing differently were I to knit it now. But that is a whole 'nother blog.

A Really Great Day

Today, my Dad, my kids and I went up to the airshow in Cheyenne. My dad was USAF and currently has a pilot's license and airshows are definately his thing. He could sit for hours watching aircraft and has no idea how to interact with kids.

My children are four and 21 months, they have the attention span of granola and one is super clingy and the other would rather be anywhere than your arms or lap.

Recipe for chaos? Probably.

It was a great day! We watched the airshow and then schlepped to another parking area to wait for a shuttle and take us to the plane show. So many opportunites for breakdowns and tantrums.

They were angels. No really, I couldn't believe it. 4yo was excited and chatting away and 1yo was amazed by the huge planes and wanted to sit in all of them.

Opa bought us all ice cream at Little America (which has jumped up to the exhorbitant cost of $0.50!) and we came home and put the kids to bed where they are currently taking a blissful nap.

And the best part of all? My Vogue Knitting was in the mailbox.

Hey...Priorities.

The 'Burbs and the Bees

Two weeks ago, my 4yo informed me that there was a bee nest in the back yard. He proudly pulled me out to the back gate and showed me his discovery. Sure enough, there was indeed a wasp's nest in our fence, right by the gate. DH was out of town and I told 4yo that daddy would spray it when he came home.

And I forgot.

When DH got home three days later, he was immediately informed by 4yo about the bee nest.

And we forgot.

Last weekend we were in Home Depot and happened to be in the grill aisle, which also happens to be the bug spary aisle. "Daddy! Are you going to get spray to kill the bees?" Of course we are.

And we forgot to use it.

This morning, 4yo found the bug spray and informed me he was going to spray the bees. I told him Daddy would do it, but he could watch.

After lunch, he got stung.

I can't even say this was a well intentioned mistake. Our 4yo did everything he could to get us moving and he got stung. I'm thankful he's not allergic.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out at midnight July 21st. I had the book read by noon.

I discovered Harry Potter in the Houston airport five years ago, on my way to Cancun. The Sourcerer's Stone was the best part of that trip.

I have read all seven books, repeatedly, and I have disected nearly every line and phrase. On the rare occasion that I met someone as obsessed as I (Carrie) we would debate Potter predictions for hours.

And now it's over.

Thank you, Ms Rowling, for writing such a wonderful series. When my boys are old enough, I hope to rediscover the magic with them.

Ho hum

My washing machine has been broken for over a month.

My husband is away on a business trip.

My achiles tendons are acting up and it hurts to walk.

I lost my credit card yesterday.





Life is just peachy.

Brown Sheep

I can't beleive I forgot to blog my fieldtrip!

My DH took last Thursday off to be with the boys while my mom and I and several other ladies from my LYS drove to Nebraska and toured the Brown Sheep Wool Mill. It was so much fun.

We got to see yarn made from roving to spinning to plying to dying. Fascinating in itself but the second to last stop was the pile of roving seconds (spinners know what I'm talking about) at $5.00/lb and then the store, which sells all it's seconds by the pound. We're talking three sweaters and two pairs of socks worth of yarn and a pound and a half of roving for less than $60.00.

Who knew you could find heaven in Nebraska? Only a 2.5 hour drive away.

The Spark

So my energy is up, my weight is down a little, my waistline is down 2 inches.

SparkPeople seems to be working.

Again, if you're looking to do an online program I highly recommed you try this one. It's free--which was the most important criteria for me--and I'm still enjoying it.

What I like most is the gradualness of it. Phase one was simply logging what you eat and logging exercise. You are given guidelines but it's more just an introduction to the site. I'm in phase 2 and each week I'm given a specific goal to work on: last week was portion sizes, this week is focusing on getting enough complex carbs. Next week is exercise.

My motivation is the points. I don't win anything, I just like them.

Softball

I was never an athlete in high school. I loved the coordination stuff-cheerleading, dance, colorguard, etc. But I am not an athletic sort of girl.

Until my husband (fiance at the time) needed someone to catch his practice pitches. I was being the dutiful gopher when I spyed a bat. Jokingly I picked it up and jokingly he pitched--being fully aware of my non-athletic ability.

*Crack*

Another pitch

*Crack*

Hmmm. Coed teams seem to always be short women, but they have far too many men. A man who brings a spare woman will likely get more play time.

And a softball player was born.

Anyway, we played a game tonight and the next team up was short a woman, so I volunteered and got a double workout.

*Crack*

It feels good to be needed.

And the needles

I've started some socks.
I've been weaving in a million little ends from my Dale of Norway sweater I started five years ago.
I finished the first sleeve of my denim cardigan.
I've spun a bunch of fiber.

That about sums up June.

Socks

I made a decision to enhance my sock skills.

Whenever I tour a new Yarn Store, I buy a ball of sock yarn.

It's perfect. The project is small. There is only one ball to buy. And it's a great souvinier.

I'm already working on a pair that I got in Estes Park a couple weekends ago and I have another ball waiting for me that I got in Denver.

Now I need to start wearing socks.

Maybe I'll just develop a socks as art theme in some desolate part of my house.

SparkPeople

Have you heard of Sparkpeople?

It is very similar to other online diet tools I know of, but it is free.

Seems this guy made a mint selling his business to ebay and decided he wanted to help people lose weight as a service.

It seems to be a great site.

Anyway, I joined obviously, and part of the membership includes a blog, which I simply use to refer people to here.

So welcome all you SparkPeople.

Ugh...a weather rant

I don't know if I'm homesick for Washington, or if I'm just a pessimist, but I have come to a conclusion that worries me.

I do not like Colorado's climate.

Washington is rainy 8-9 months of the year. The rain is more like a heavy mist and has this amazing ability to suck all color, or at least the memory thereof, out of everything (which I'm sure is why Starbucks was started in Seattle). The standard Winter low is 40 degrees and any Summer temp over 80 is newsworthy. It is surprisingly not a humid climate, though it certainly isn't the dessert clime of the Southwest.

I loved it. I am not a sun-worshiper. I don't enjoy being hot. I wear sunscreen religiously. I hate sweating without physical exertion. I feel like I'm melting when the temp is over 79.

I know I am in the minority. I know the vast majority of Americans would think "you think 80 is hot!!!"

Yes I do.

The Anticipation

My new computer comes today.

Yea!

The printer arrived about a week ago. It's this tiny little thing. I wanted a laserjet because I don't print very often and in this climate the inkjet cartidges dry out too quickly. At first I was thrilled to have my new printer until I realized I needed to have a CDRom drive to install it. The printing will have to wait for tonight, after I spend the usual hour-plus setting up and registering all the other new computer stuff.

Oooh. I can't wait!

June is Busting Out All Over!

I cannot believe it's already June. Yikes.

It's Saturday morning and I've snuck away from breakast with the kids and cartoons. I'm hoping to find a larger chunk of time this weekend because:

I finally got a camera! Which means I need to upload some photos of my projects.

Also on the new list: I have a new computer on the way. I broke down and started assembling a beefy little monster notebook from Dell. Then realized I could get even beefier and about $500.00 cheaper if I went back to a desktop. So, my stellar little desktop is arriving sometime next week. With the strongest processor I could get and a better hardrive and extra memory. And it's all mine! I'll be able to upload CD's and Software, watch YouTube, order iTunes, burn things. And it still has XP.

Sigh, I am very excited.

The Party

I'm planning a birthday party.

My ThYO will soon be my FYO and we will be having a party.

There is a rule of thumb-Only invite as many kids as there are years. In our case four. I love this rule. It keeps the party simple and easy.

However, each child has two parents (with the exception of the twins) and there are siblings. And now we live close to family.

Don't get me wrong, there are huge benefits living close to family, like thay can be here for occasions like this.

But my guest list has 24 people on it, including ourselves.

What have I gotten myself into?