Friday, December 14, 2007

There should be a test

I mean, how else would I have known - before 9:00 in the evening while waiting for my children to finish supper a short hour after their bed time - that I would totally suck at this parenting thing? 9:00?? Who does that? And bacon and eggs, no less. I mean, it's not like I've been waiting for some fete de cuisine to emerge from my oven...

What does it mean that the children in question are asking if they can have a snack before bed... WHILE THEY'RE CHEWING THEIR FOOD!!!!

So, here's a question: If I actually give them tea, can I call this disaster of parental feeding "High Tea", even if I don't serve it in our fictional nursery? How did I get to this place of cavalier feeding and desperately trying to affect English-isms to throw people off the scent? Did I temporarily lose my ability to tell time? Was I DOing something?

In times like these, I have the nagging (screaming) feeling that I need a very rigid schedule. You know, so we don't eat supper in the middle of the night, for instance, and everybody has clean underwear. But then I wander off in the middle of making the schedule...

I'm sure there should be a test.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A little bit mental, not so much rock-n-roll

Is it, perhaps, the imminent kickoff of the frenetic holiday season that is wearing on me today? Maybe it's the weather, though at a sunny 63 degrees F, that seems unlikely.

There are the usual UFOs. I now have three necked sweaters (that's three sweaters that have necks, not a throng of sweaters with three necks each... that would indicate a very large error in pattern reading) and one with most of a sleeve. My green beret is still where I left it, whimpering in its bag. I have a sock that's gone rogue on me; I cannot conceive of how the foot part got so large, when the leg part is normal to skinny. That will have to either be ripped out or Quinn will have to develop more toes and a large hump on the one side.

I have my crap together for Thanksgiving. I have been assigned the blessing (ordination has its drawbacks, like people assign you the blessing at Thanksgiving and you have to come up with something to say... thank you Elizabeth Strong and the UUA for providing inspiration) and delivery of "something delicious". I tried to pass the children off as delicious blessings, but the mother-in-law is a crafty one and saw right through that. So, instead, I will be bestowing Outrageous Brownies (thank you Ina Garten) and some apple crisp for the delicious part. Since I have my crap together - and items that are easy to whip out this evening and park in the fridge - we're meeting a friend at the park for some play and to deliver candy corn - which is evidently scarce this time of year - and some eucalyptus salve for her hacking preschooler.

The only thing left, then, is that Thanksgiving, upon us in less than 24 hours, marks the beginning of collective psychosis, in which people line up outside retailers at midnight or 4 a.m. to start their lunatic shopping. And I'm not sure why I'm feeling tense about this. It won't be me out there. I will be rising early to pick up my food co-op order, not to enter retail hell. There will be coffee. I will come away with 15 lbs of rolled oats.

All will be right with the world.

And, in case anyone needs a reminder in this area, make a cup of tea, take up your wooly work, turn up your volume and click here.

A delicious and blessed Thanksgiving holiday to all.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Did I drop dead?

Nope. I know there are a number of people who would be surprised to hear this, since I've been in some sort of cyber-hibernation but, as it turns out, I am alive and knittin'! And, of course, geekin'.

There are several reasons for my absence. One is that my laptop died. Actually, it died twice. I have named it Lazarus. Evidently, it didn't take... or there's one resurrection per customer. Hard to say. I'm not a scholar, you know.

The other major issue is that we ripped out the kitchen. I felt very poetic because we tore down the object of my oppression on Bastille Day. That's July 14th. I would now post "before and after" pictures, but I'm waiting for "after" to occur. Oh, and also, the "before" pictures are locked in the stubbornly unresponsive Lazarus. Meanwhile, we have a "functional" kitchen and I've almost moved entirely back in, which is creating some chaos on my newly expanded counter space, since there are some unfinished areas of cabinet where I can't so much put in the "stuff".

There are other WIPs... I have a trio of cabled sweaters for the wees that are only waiting for necks and sleeves. I think they would be moving faster if I worked on them. Actually, that's the plan: I'm going to put them (the children, not the sweaters) to bed early tonight and work on necks. Then, I'll concentrate on the sleeves over the rest of the week.

My green beret with the cabled band has been heard sniffling in a bag of other wooly goodies. I think it's lonely. Haven't studies shown that wool fails to thrive when deprived of human contact? I'll work on that after the sleeves. Or maybe before. You know, just to quiet the moaning.

There have been socks. And pictures of socks. See above for the explanation regarding the absence of pictures. I would take new ones but, as socks are wont to do, many have disappeared. I'm assuming they simply migrated north in the warm weather and will reappear now that it has cooled off.

Do not speak to me of delusions.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Groin Stain

Just in case the inevitable family pictures sporting gray-black hag teeth were not enough reason to not have black icing on a cake, I will now offer the following:
1. Parents of diapered chilren have to spend a greater than desired time trying to decide whether their children ATE something or have an upper GI bleed.
2. Groin stain. That's not a typo. My "g" key is a little wonky, but the "r" works just fine. Holden has a gray stripe on his groin that looks like somebody took a Sharpie to him. I'm hoping in soaks off in the tub.

So let's recap:
1. Black hag teeth.
2. Scary blackish poop
3. Groin stain.

Maybe just a dark chocolate would do?

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Who'd a thought it?







What Kind of Knitter Are You?




You appear to be a Knitting Purist. You are an accomplished knitter producing beautiful pieces with a classic feel. You sometimes lament losing half of your local yarn shop to garish novelty yarns. Perhaps you consider fun fur scarves the bane of knitting society and prefer to steer new knitters towards the wool and cotton blends. Some might call you a bit of an elitist but you know that you've been doing this craft long enough to respect the history behind it and honor it with beautiful piece that can last a lifetime.
http://marniemaclean.com
Take this quiz!








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A purist. Really? Snort. The real joke here is that I won't even knit with cotton. And I've been called an "elitist" before. As long as nobody's trying to explain to me how my knitting is furthering the conservative Christian agenda - as my homeschooling is, evidently - we'll all be ok.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

A Whack of Socks

I pity the person with the second sock syndrome... maybe it's envy, it's really hard to say. In any case, with four little-boy feet and two little-big-girl feet, socks do not come by the pair at my house. They come by what the Harlot refers to as a "whack". I'm not Canadian, but - for our purposes, at least - socks come four to a whack. Of course, if you do have a problem with finishing a pair, you may want to consider knitting 'em by the whack, then. You can finish when you're half done and still have a sock for each of your feet.


Madam's slipper socks. These have actually been done for a while, but they were snatched, worn and funked before I could photograph them, so the picture had to wait until after I washed them. Generic short-row heel pattern, in Bartlett 2-ply (heavy worsted/aran) and some unknown cream color wool.



Crocs socks for little boys who are obsessive about their crocs. Again, generic flap-heel (which I like better) recipe, in sport-ish weight BFL/mohair handspun from Spinning Flock Farm. Lovely and soft. I will totally be stalking their booth at the Sheep & Wool festival in a couple of months. (Yes, those socks ARE all the same size. Really. It's just the stacking that makes them seem off.)

Monday, February 19, 2007

Yarn porn

My friend, Beth, posted yarn porn on her blog the other day. For any non-knitters, "yarn porn" is the pictorial of your pillaging acquisition after a trip to the yarn store. This may be a term actually coined by Beth.

Of course, like any good porn viewed with no outlet at one's disposal, the yarn porn kept me up last night. Then, frustrated, I drifted off to dream of sock yarn. Handpainted sock yarn. Beautiful, flowing sock yarn, running through my fingers as I slipped a pointy, silver pin behind each perfect little stitch and... huh? where was I? Oh, right. Excuse me.

Anyway, today, we went to look at a lovely 110 year old upright piano, which we will be buying so the little children can take lessons and make wonderful music. The little children stayed with Auntie while we looked and we took the opportunity to sneak to stop by Inez's Stitchery, which, if you're ever in the Silver Spring area, you should really visit, as they are a proper yarn store, with lots of wool and inspirational, handwritten signs like "BLOCKING means WETTING". Heehee.

There was a lovely selection of sock yarn, though I managed to make all purchases in the Brown Sheep family... hmmm.


Left, top to bottom: Wildfoote in Rock N' Roll (2), Bluegrass, and Ragtime.
Right, Nature Spun in Amethyst, Pagan Pink and Red Fox.
(Note the nifty little pointy sock pins. They say 4-ought on them, but they're bigger than that. I'll have to gauge, but I'm guessing 0 or 1)


Please note that, while Beth's porn is of the highest quality, a classic in its own time, mine is more of the campy, homemade variety. Do not despair for me, however; the hubby is currently working "stashtime" (that's overtime that he knows is going to be converted) for the Sheep & Wool Festival, only three months away! Come mother's day weekend, I'll be like a repressed divorcee turned loose at Hedonism!

I can't wait to finish my other socks, which I'm knitting by the "whack" as the Harlot would say (there are 4 socks in a pair for the boys) in lovely handspun 70 wool/30 mohair sportweight. More on those when they're officially FOs and I can have my way with the new stuff.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Finished objects...

I've finished some objects this week. Let us be clear that said objects have been languishing in my knitting bag (one of the many, actually) and really only needed minimal finishing. The boys' woolies are getting a little long in the tooth and short in the waist, so it seemed like time to add some legs and weave in my ends on these.

LTK longies, knit knee length, with the curly-purly waist in 100purewool "winter joy".

LTK Longies, knit knee length, in HPY thick and thin (discontinued), unknown colorway name.

Friday, February 16, 2007

My American accent... who knew?

So, I'm orginally from Maine. This should come as no shock to people who know me, only because I've told them. Otherwise, I pronounce Rs, even in combination with a preceeding vowel, never say "a'yuh" and, generally speaking have no accent. Really. I know people think they don't have an accent, but I really, really don't. So isn't it interesting that this ridiculous quiz pegged me. (Well, except they apparently don't know there's anything north of Rhode Island, except Boston, a whole accent unto itself.) Am I missing something?
What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Northeast
 

Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.

Philadelphia
 
The Midland
 
The Inland North
 
Boston
 
The South
 
The West
 
North Central
 
What American accent do you have?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

The Green Hat-Along

So, one of the local knitting geeks posted to a local knitting group about the Green Hat Knit Along and, being the huge geek that I am, I simply couldn't resist. I haven't "officially" joined, mainly because I'm too lazy to create an account. Also, I had to finish Natalie's stuff and Bailey's slipper socks before I could start a new project - especially one for me! - in good conscience. Also, I couldn't find a pattern. I have this absolutely yummy hand painted merino and can't find a pattern to knit a hat. Issues. Really, my issue isn't a dearth of patterns - there are certainly a bazillion hat patterns on the 'net - but a strong dislike for hats. And it's not really that I don't like hats, rather, I have long hair that is worn up almost all the time and the donning of a hat results in my looking like I have a rodent stow-away on the back of my head. Add to that the fact that my hair is almost always put up with sitcks and the look gets even more interesting. Only a beret would do, then. I looked at beret patterns. Hundreds of beret and tam patterns, patterns for "pithy" hats... and then I began to understand that, in order to do justice to this lovely wool, I would simply have to design my own. I've decided to do a cabled band, topped with a bit of seed stitch, then your standard beret increase.
I probably, in retrospect, should have used a provisional cast-on and grafted the band into a round, but I had already frogged a bunch of cable prototypes and temporarily lost my mind, so this puppy will have a seamed edge to the band.

I do enjoy how the slipped edge stitches mirror the cables. Couldn't have worked out better if I'd planned it that way. Well, I did plan to slip the stitches to give a nice area for picking up for the rest of the hat, but I had no idea they'd behave so nicely. The seed stitch flanked cable is nice and firm, to combat the tendency of merino to want to stretch with use. I think of everything. Except, of course, that provisional cast on.
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Sunday, February 11, 2007

Bailey's party!

Grandma and Pop-pop did some festive foraging in Chinatown and in the goodies packed away from their trip to China, and Auntie - in the regular Auntie style - decked the halls with lanterns, dragons and fans and set up a Chinese eatery for the kids.



Bailey is most thankful for the party.



The boys are only there for the hats, really.



Wait! Was that the lo mein that was just delivered? Nope, just another picture of the marzipan on top of the cake!



I also finally got Natalie's birthday gifts to her. I felt terrible at Christmas - already three weeks past her birthday - that the gloves weren't done and I totally couldn't find the hat... of course, being late meant that I had time to knit her the calorimetry from this winter's Knitty issue. She almost always wears her hair up and when I saw that, I knew it would be perfect. Now her ears will be nice and toasty! AND I found her hat, so if she decides to wear her hair down, she's still warm and fuzzy. She was very excited about the flip mittens, too.

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And then I made a cake...

Bailey's 6th birthday theme was Chinese New Year. It was totally her idea, we were thinking a tea party would be nice, but what do we know, really? The party was lots of fun, of course. Auntie is unequalled at planning and executing these things. She was a little at a loss because the food was ordered, so she had nothing to cook in those last few hours. I took on the cake project and needed something to work with our theme. What says "Chinese New Year birthday party" better than a big ol' container of lo mein? So I made a half-sheet of butter cake, cut it into thirds and filled it with some yummy chocolate pastry cream, applied some rolled fondant and stuffed in my marzipan lo mein...



and painted a blue willow-esque scene. (that dog is a pig... it IS, after all, the year of the pig)

Then, I added some calligraphy that says "Happy Birthday Bailey" in Madarin characters.





I was quite tickled that the guy delivering our feast saw the cake, from the calligraphy side and asked who Bailey was... then wished her a happy birthday! Birthday pictures are next. Hang on!

Saturday, January 13, 2007

The Habit-ual Offender

What is it with habits? They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit (as in a thing that sticks) and we all know it takes years to break a bad one, evidenced by the prevalence of nose picking in traffic, if nothing else... so, when I've spent months honing good, productive habits, and easy routines that let me get everything done, I want to know why it takes approximately ONE day to flush the whole thing down the toilet and I can never seem to get back into the groove. I don't understand and I demand an answer! I've gone from actually hunting for laundry to do as part of my routine, to cowering as I sneak past the towering, festering pile in my bedroom. I know I did all of the vacation laundry when we came back... and then that was it, apparently. Other things to do? Holidays? The Husband being home? (not that he wears more laundry when he's home, just that we tend to find other things to do when he's around for an extended period and I don't have a "catch-up" day, like I do when we plan things for his regular off days.) Hard to say but, whatever the cause, I have now resorted to the "idiot's scavenger hunt", with notes taped in various places, starting with the coffee pot, directing me to the next task in my morning.

School has taken a nosedive, too. We're just seemingly doing this random learning thing. I wouldn't debase unschooling by calling it that. This is definitely non-schooling. Again, is it the holiday weirdness, looming other crap that I need to address? Who knows. I've decided to take a new approach. Every day, we will cover the quick and dirty basics - spelling, handwriting, math practice - and then have a day dedicated to each subject. Monday will be history/geography, Tuesday, science, Wednesday, math (as in more in depth math than the morning practice), Thursday, language arts. Friday is co-op day, so we don't do lessons, other than Bailey telling us about hte content of her classes. Each day, we'll focus our reading on the subject at hand, do projects / experiments, watch any shows I can Tivo, and play games that fit with the subject. Hopefully, that will get us back into the groove. Part of our (my) problem seems to come from the added labor of setting up / cleaning up when we move from subject to subject during a day and the need to plan various lessons over the course of a week. It just seems easier - to me, anyway, having not done it yet - if I can spend an hour in the evening, planning a single subject and related acticities/reading for the next day. We shall see, shant we?

So, onto new recipes...


Chicken Char Siu and Chinese Barbecued Pork Tenderloin, both from Cooking Light, were on plates and in tummies this week. Both were reviewed very highly by the under-10 set, particularly served with rice and green beans sauteed in toasted sesame oil. The chicken is a nice, tasty, moist satay and the pork is juicy, with a complex tasting crust, thanks to the layers of flavor that include Chinese Five Spice powder and hoisin sauce. Both would be delicious on a salad with Cardini's Asian Sesame dressing, if you can find it in your neck of the woods. The Husband - my personal shopper - has bought out the stock at Graul's in Annapolis, yet again. It's the only place we can find it. I wonder if they think he's deranged.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

A New Year, a new goal

So, in the spirit of the new year, we had to come up with new goals, right? I mean, it seems sort of pathetic to begin 2007 with the same goals we had in 2006. It just screams failure, does it not? Of course, we also can't abandon these oldies-but-goodies in their entirety... so our new plan is a bit on the, um, "broad" side.

I've always hated the New Year resolution; either you shoot too low and end up done by March, or you shoot for the moon and end up horribly defeated by, well, March. This year, we have instead created a mission statement. The gist of this is that our goal is to live a more peaceful, healthful life and that we will make efforts in the areas of physical health (eating better, moving more), mental health (cutting out stress), financial health (making a point of frugality and saving) and household health (decluttering, organization, repairs/improvements we've put off for years) and that we will be conscious that each decision we make will positively affect one or more of these areas.

So, of course, the first order of business is to get back to eating like people. For whatever reason, the end of the year, from, say, the beginning of November on adds tonnage to us like we've had reverse-lipo at the hands of a mad scientist. I don't understand how jeans I bought when the boys were one can no longer be pulled further than my knees. I have bulges and jutting flesh where none has ever existed. My other in law refers to this state as "fluffy". At this point, I'm about as fluffy as Angela Davis' afro in a cyclone. Not good. Anyway, we both lost a substantial amount of weight when Bailey was small, just by restricting calories a bit, recording our goals, nutrition and activities on FitDay.com (free online is good, PC version is better). It was excellent. We planned three meals and three snacks per day, with our target calories in mind. Most dinners were from Cooking Light magazine, as were many breakfasts and some lunches. After the first two weeks, I had trouble meeting my calorie intake goals and would often have to have a weirdly heavy evening snack to have eaten a reasonable number of calories. 45 pounds later, I felt great, fit into my clothes again and had lots of energy. It was not a "diet" I had to stick to, just a manner of being a little more cognizant of what I was putting into my mouth.

Now, we're back on the "program". Today, I had oatmeal, a steak sandwich on a Trader Joe's "everything" bagel (complete with onions and real mayo), a cranberry scone with my afternoon tea and a fabulous dinner, using new (to me) recipes. I thought I'd share some reviews, in case anyone else is looking for good food that won't stick to their asses like gum on hot asphalt.

Arborio Rice, Parmesan and Green Pea Pancakes from Cooking Light was fabulous. We loved it, the kids loved it. It made exactly as much as it said and was easy to prepare, if it did take a bit of time (most of it waiting, so I could, theoretically been doing something else... like knitting). The one thing about this recipe you should know is that non-stick is NOT optional in the browning phase. These things will adhere to anything they can before they brown. Trust me. I have three pans to clean.

Black Bean Soup from Cook's Illustrated: The Best Light Recipes was OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD. Black bean is one of my all time favorites and I'm usually sadly disappointed by any form of light recipe. I decided to use this (and a couple of other, selected recipes) as a barometer to see if I need to own this book. If the others are this good, it will have to be mine. Absolutely everything you would look for in a tasty, satisfying black bean soup is in this bowl. I used the chipotle in adobo variation, because I like the added heat and smokiness.

Last night, we had Southwestern Lasagna, from Cooking Light. I have to admit, when I was out shopping for the ingredients, I was a litte put off by the recipe. To be fair, it may have been a prejudice due to the trauma of shopping with three kids, pushing a stroller, and dragging a cart while grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon (inadvisable) with every rude, stupid person in the universe. Whatever it was, it was completely out of line with the finished product. The lasagna was yummy. Again, high marks from all age groups. I think it's reminiscent of Amy's Enchilada Bowls, which is a favorite from when I used to take my lunch to work.

I'll keep posting the reviews, for those who are interested. My test kitchen is open!

Knitting? Yes, I'm finishing up a pair of Magical Mittens for my brother-in-law's girlfriend. I'll post a picture of them, and their companion hat, when I finish.

Cheers!