Skip to main content

Tidbits

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We've had a busy weekend and I didn't get any good green pictures so this will have to do:  sweet potato vine and coleus from last year's summer pots.  Lots of lovely greens!



Thank you all for commenting on your favorite books; lots of great recommendations.  I picked the next book for the book club, Possession by A.S. Byatt.  I've read it before but it's been a long time.  Once, I was discussing books with one of BFJ's best friends and he was listening so intently to me about this book, I couldn't believe it.  Finally he said, "So... no one gets possessed?"  Ha! no wonder; it's not that kind of possession, its about (fictitious) writers.  Anyway, I look forward to exploring all the books that are your favorites.  And I would just like to say that I would have responded to your comments directly but most of the comments did not have return emails.  Although Shawn, I neglected to reply to you.  I'm sorry!  I will!!

The weather here is crazy.  Today and tomorrow we're looking at 70° weather but last weekend and this weekend, snow!  Crazy, but Colorado.  I'm looking forward to baseball season although I'm disappointed that we lost Torrealba; he was one of my favorite Rockies the last few seasons.  Not only a good player, but a great attitude; he was recently traded to the Padres.  I'm actually working on a baseball-related knitting project but I don't have pictures.  More on that later.  

Over the weekend, BFJ told me to go down to the hardware store and buy a double-jack.  (That's miner talk for sledgehammer.)    So I did, and he spent Saturday busting up some cement for me.  We've had a little sidewalk in the middle of our yard that harkins back to the days of incinerators and trash burning, but is now completely unnecessary.  We are going to be seeding the areas of the yard that were previously cement and garden, and will be ripping up some of the other grass to put in a new garden in a sunnier spot!  I trust I'll have many pictures to post over the summer.  

Last night, I went to Marly's house and joined her for a podcast with Chrissy Gardiner.  It was lots of fun, and I actually wanted to talk to Chrissy; I have her book, Toe Up! and it is great.  If you would like to check out this or any of Marly's other podcasts you can find them on her website; top left sidebar.  And while you are there, you can check out Marly's two new hat patterns, with pictures taken by yours truly and modeled by Sisterpants.  I'm surrounded by beautiful and talented women.  Okay, here's a picture for you: 


Pattern:  Ratatouille by Marly Bird, Yarn: Cascade 220, Model: Christy


For today, I will be:
~ making cupcakes to take to Zoom's class.  And then I am going to be
~ talking about "things I learned in school that I use in real life."  Several of the things I thought of actually fall more into the Hobby category, rather than the Job category,  i.e. quilting and knitting math, blog writing, gardening biology.  I finally arrived on the fact that grocery shopping is one of my primary jobs, and I do add up my purchases in my head as I go through the store!  So math it is.
~ finishing some book bags that were going to be 2008 Christmas gifts and will now be 2010 St. Patrick's Day gifts for my kids.  Oh, I was thinking on writing up a little tutorial on that.  Anyone interested? 
~ making "Irish stew" which is not exactly the real deal because I'm using steak instead of lamb.
~ if I have time, I'll be writing up a knitting pattern. 

Well, I'm off to bake cupcakes.  I hope you all have the luck o' the Irish today!

Comments

  1. Beautiful pictures! It's not that you're surrounded by talented women -- I think talented women flock together, so they've rallied around YOU! Sounds like you have a fun and busy day -- have a cupcake for me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think hobbies are real life! i would love the book bag tutorial. I am sewing the binding on a quilt now 5 years in the making - just about 2 more hours to go!!!
    Don't foprget shopping in the math talk: how much will this be if it 20% off. I don't know how my daughter missed this important concept.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You've reminded me we need to clean up the garden area so that we can plant our better - and bigger veggie garden this year. So cool that you have such talented women nearby - so much fun to get together! You and your sister make a great model/photographer team - does your sister knit? Your stew and cupcakes sound yummy - have a wonderful St Patrick's day!

    ReplyDelete
  4. We had one of those incinerators at our last house, it was still full of burned trash.
    I downloaded possession yesterday- I hope to start it soon.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Im looking forward to when my boys start school and I can volunteer and bring baked goods! I remember tho when I used to volunteer at northglenn ambulance we would do classroom interviews and tours on the ambulance. The kids were more interested if we got to see people naked and blood and gore. Kids I tell ya! lol

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love reading your comments! Please be sure to LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS (if it isn't included in your profile) so that I may respond to you. Thank you!

Popular posts from this blog

reasons I knit

I haven't posted a lot of knitting on here in the last few years.  Not much to say about it but I still knit.   I knit because I love to create. I knit because I love sweaters. I knit because I grew up with a mom who is artistic beyond the acknowledgement she receives, and it's in my blood to do something creative. I knit because I love the good things God grows, like sheep and wool and muskox and cotton. I knit because I love colors. I knit because my boys wear what I knit. I knit because I like the rhythm. I knit because it has a beginning and an end, and they are achievable.  I knit because when my hands are busy, my mouth slows down, and it gives my brain a chance to make better decisions. I knit because I'm really, really good at it, and it's one of the few things that others acknowledge, and we all need that. I knit because I love to knit. I'm working on a colorful shawl in alpaca. 

modular knitting

On the plus side, modular knitting gives one interesting options for colorwork and color blocking.  Sometimes the dye process can give the yarn its own commentary, like this changing of scales. However, there are often many more ends to weave in.  This one is not too bad, but there's at least four ends on every row - 14 rows.  Still, interesting to try something new! Details on my Ravelry page , if you are interested!!  Have you tried modular knitting?  Thumbs up or down??

getting through winter

As classes of all sorts get scheduled, rescheduled and postponed due to weather, and with the short days with less light, I often find January and February to be a forced pause.  Years like this convince me that I should get good at reading rain gauges and keeping track of the temperature.  It seems like we've had an usual amount of snow.  That should be good for our snow pack and seasonal runoff to fill creeks, lakes, basins, but we'll see what the spring brings.  In the meantime, I have been trying to tick off indoor chores and projects, and working on garden things.   We have started a handful of seedlings:  basil, foxgloves, verbascum, lavender, rosemary, onions and something new to us, naranjilla .  We have varying levels of success.  The naranjilla did take a long time to germinate; I think we used 11 seeds, and we currently have five seedlings, some a couple weeks older than others!  We're still 12-14 weeks out from planting and I really had my hands full last year -