I think it must be Tuesday

... but the lovely thing about vacation is that it doesn't really matter all that much. I have this wild idea that January is a quiet month, school-wise, so I'm going to knit mittens for NaKniMitMo and participate in the Red Sox Traveling Scarf event.

And I'm mulling over another project for a friend, but the implications are so sad that I can't really wrap my mind around it. Given my upbringing, I can't call what I want to make a prayer shawl, really, but I want it to express what I think those items are designed to convey in terms of friendship and caring and what my Quaker friends call "holding you in the light". One of my friends is having a bone marrow transplant tomorrow, and she's so far away that I haven't and won't be able to visit. So I've been a bit of a frenzy of wanting to fix it, not wanting to bug her husband for news, and not really knowing what to do. I'm not sure why it took me so long to think of knitting. I'm a little slow sometimes. She does live in a very hot place but hospitals can be chilly and I suspect she'll be seeing a lot of those for some time to come. I don't think it ought to be so complex that it takes a long time to knit, but I want it to be beautiful.

Taking a Deep Breath

Above, photos, most taken by D#1, from a gift of a trip --

and below, the contents of an amazing package from Carolynn -- look at that amazing Peace Fleece, and the stitch markers she made!



I might be back. How are you all doing? Hope everyone's had a great start to the holiday season.

Whew

Two more classes, one holiday assembly, a department lunch and a tutoring session to go. One stack of final papers. Bags to pack and a flight to catch. Snowstorm to avoid ...

Which is all to say that I have managed to stagger my way to winter break. This semester has been eventful in many ways, and mind-bogglingly busy; I have knit furiously to keep sane and for the most part it has worked. Some long-back-burnered projects have worked their way to the front of the line (D#2's sweater, finishing the River Rapids socks, the skull scarf, and a PIF or two) and I am looking forward to having a little time to enjoy them.

Here's some of my holiday reading list:

George Bowering Baseball Love
Henning Mankell, The Pyramid
Arnaldur Indridason Jar City
Michael Kodas, High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed
Robert Muchamore, The Dealer
Mason-Dixon Knitting 2.0, Ann Shayne and Kay Gardiner

Note to Self

The weekend before winter break really isn't the moment to take this kind of quiz.

Which creature of the night are you? Your Result: Incubus/Succubus It's all about feeding, isn't it? You pay them back from their energy, though. You give them something (your drama) that will keep them distracted from life, which you consider a terrible joke.
Werewolf
Sorceror
Vampire
Cthulu Spawn
Demon
Ghost
Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

It's what I get for visiting Rabbitch's blog, I guess,

Another Day, Another Swim Meet

Today the girls and I went to see some of my students and advisees swim in a meet against a local girls' school. My own swimmer was quite pleased to see that some of her times stack up pretty well against high school kids, even though neither program is particularly high-powered. And my superstar student lapped everyone (a couple of the girls twice) in the 500 free.

It was 60 degrees out and rainy today. Monday, it was bitterly cold. My spouse saw gasoline for $1.57 a gallon. What on earth is going on?

Two more questions.

1. For you spinners out there, can I knit with what I spun on my drop spindle or does it need to be plied first or have something else done to it?

2. Read the recipe for Nanaimo Bars below, and then tell me --do you think I can substitute dried cranberries for the coconut? Note that I can't use the almonds at all (nut allergies galore around here).

(recipe courtesy of one of my colleagues, via the parent of a Canadian advisee)

For the Bottom Layer, use:

1/2 cup of unsalted butter, 1/4 cup of sugar, 5 tablespoons of cocoa, 1 beaten egg, 1 and 3/4 cups of graham wafer crumbs, 1/2 cup of finely chopped almonds and 1 cup of coconut.

Melt the butter, with sugar and cocoa, in the top of a double boiler. Add the egg, and stir to cook and thicken. Remove this mixture from the heat, and stir in the crumbs, coconut and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan.

For the Second Layer, use:

1/2 cup of unsalted butter, 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons of cream, 2 tablespoons of vanilla custard powder, and 2 cups of icing sugar.

Cream the butter, cream, custard powder and icing sugar together, beating until light. Spread the results over the bottom layer.

For the Third Layer, use:

4 one oz squares of semisweet chocolate, and two tablespoons of unsalted butter.

Melt the chocolate and butter over low heat, and then cool. When the mixture has cooled, but is still liquid, pour it over the second layer, and chill the pan in the refrigerator.

More Photos from Sunday

So there you have it.

Photos from Sunday

This is the second of the Falling Waters scarves--it's for my friend Millie. Knitterly Things Vesper sock yarn, in the colorway Muddy Waters ...

Millie lent us this fab table skirt for the raffle table. Below, some views of our table. Sorry about the weird gymnasium light effects.

As Promised

And now it is Sunday. Eleven days until break. I am bone tired.

We had a little snow this morning and then it turned quite cold, but I don't know that the weather entirely explains the paltry numbers who came through the doors of the craft fair this afternoon. Don't get me wrong, we didn't have a terrible time -- but it was disappointing to those of us who'd reserved tables and to my friend who had put a lot of time and effort into organizing and advertising the event. The constituency with the best turnout was far and away swim team parents. The school where the fair was held has over 600 students, and only about a tenth of those families turned out. The principal of the school didn't come and the PTO heads (this fair was in part to benefit the PTO) came late, spent under $30 total, and never spoke to the organizers.

What else -- I sold a couple of pairs of fingerless gloves and a scarf, but not much else. I was asked a number of times for non-wool items, which surprised me -- I wonder if that was just this audience or whether it is a trend to which I should attend if I ever do another one of these. Now, though, I can focus on finishing some of my own projects, and possibly even tackling the sweater D#2 chose at Ladybug Knitting (pattern and yarn) when we were on the Cape this summer.

I have some pictures of our table and will post them tomorrow. Right now I am on duty, far from my camera cable.

Tomorrow evening --D#1's class play. Tuesday evening: residential staff meeting. Wednesday: can't even remember what. Thursday: final meeting of my evening class (which means that their final papers are coming in ...). Friday: on duty til Sunday midnight.

The perfect song comes to mind:

I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No,no,no.


Thanks guys, as always -- that's just right.

ETA: D#2 spent most of the afternoon in the dorm with one of my advisees, and then stuck around to have takeout dinner and go to Sunday chapel (I knew the gospel choir was on tonight and thought she'd like it). So after the group (a real mix of the 4 grades plus a couple of faculty) sang some rockin' spirituals and we'd headed back out into the cold I asked her if she'd enjoyed herself. "Oh yes," she said, "the music was nice, but Mommy the women's outfits and their SHOES ..." Attagirl.

Oops, it's December

Sorry about that. It's been a little busy around here.

Our Thanksgiving was very nice --food and company -- and now there are vats of turkey broth in the freezer to remind us. Even the cats behaved; Dobby and Sirius tolerated a lot of attention, and Fleur gracefully absented herself from the mayhem. The only untoward incident was the dishwasher vomiting water all over the floor Thursday night, but even that thoughtful appliance waited to have its issues 'til it was on the third load of the evening so the clean up wasn't so bad.

Lots of knitting -- craft-fair-related (baby hats) and secret knitting on the skull scarf. I wish I could see the design developing, as I'm nervous about the pattern. It's one of those scenarios where the directions don't make sense and you knit along slavishly following them anyway and hoping it'll all work out okay. I have noticed that this does tend to happen to me with a certain kind of pattern chart, and if I knew more educational theory I might be able to discern something useful about myself as a learner. The best I've been able to do is force myself to remember that in most instances, when I do exactly what the pattern says, no matter whether it makes sense to me or not, it ususally works out. We won't discuss the exceptions.

As far as the fair knitting is concerned, I think I *have* achieved a good balance of knitting up stash yarn and buying some colors that ought to go well at this time of year (Cascade 220 in "Christmas Red" from Stitch House, forsooth). One of my fellow swim parents bought some fingerless gloves practically off my needles the other day, so I hope that's a good sign.

Twelve school days until winter break. Two more meetings of my evening class. Craft fair Sunday.

I'll be back --but it might not be 'til Sunday night.

Weekend Coming ...

I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving break --but there's a lot happening between now and then. This weekend D#1 has a 3 day meet, plus I'm one of the drivers for the big dorm outing to the 10:30 p.m. showing of "Twilight" tomorrow. Then I'm in the dorm from 9-12 both Sat & Sun mornings before going back to the pool. Friends are having a housewarming party Saturday night. And I'm on duty again Sunday night. Whew.

I'm still knitting like crazy for the craft fair. It feels almost wrong to put those things up on my Ravelry project page -- I don't know if I can quite explain that one. Currently obsessing me, and NOT for the craft fair, is the skull-face scarf from Knitty. I bought my first Noro Silk Garden ever, just for this. The only thing is, I can't wrap my mind around the idea of waiting til December 8th to cast on.

Speedy Sunday synopsis

This has been a surprisingly relaxed weekend, despite the sneaker stress (more on that in a minute). We did have 2 swim practices and an end-of-season soccer party, but no Hebrew (tutor out of town) and no swim meets (next week). All four of went to do some errands together on Saturday (we made 3 separate visits to the Apple store to admire a) the iPod Touch b) the new MacBooks c) the bright pink nanos and d) the iPhone).

The major impetus for the trip was to visit the Greater Boston Running Company, one of the few local retail venues that carries Brooks Ariel sneakers in size tiny. Why, we did indeed discover this at the end of the summer when D#1 had developed thigh splints from a combination of custom orthotics and completely broken down sneakers. Some of you know that we did a lot of research and it was a terribly hot day when we went all the way to Hingham, and she tried on many sizes of the 2 orthopedist-approved varieties and we bought a lovely pair of these sneakers. No, her feet haven't grown --we were still looking for size tiny on Saturday. And we were doing this because somehow, 'twixt night and morning LAST weekend, those lovely sneakers (containing the custom orthotics, not covered by insurance) disappeared.

One of my readers will now realize with glee that the karma train has come full circle and to her I say that yes, I did indeed lose one brand new Ked on the #77 bus because I did not zip my back pack, but that Ked did NOT contain a custom orthotic and I'll bet anything that its retail price was approximately 18% of the retail price of the sneakers that my child lost. (I still remember how angry you were, though, Mom, and I'm sorry, all over again.) In a triumph of parenting, I did not kill D#1. And I am making an effort not to throw it up to her every 45 seconds. But this is a big pain, and very expensive (in money, yes, but time, as well). And, by the way, the fabulous podiatrist has office hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 8:30-3. Convenient.

Nonetheless, we had a fun excursion on Saturday. And today has been lovely as well. Three of us watched "Ratatouille" and laughed a lot, and there was lots of knitting time. Now I'm on duty, and in 20 minutes we'll all go to chapel and hear an organ recital (anyone out there ever read Cheaper by the Dozen? Not that kind of organ recital).

O Canada

I've always been partial to Canada. Yep, the whole country. Sounds silly, does it? Well, so be it. I used to root for the Canadiens when Ken Dryden was their goalie. I loved going to Montreal with my family when we made our field trips to Jarry Park to see my dad's favorite baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals, play the now defunct Montreal Expos. A good portion of my dissertation focuses on Canadian women writers. I have dear friends in several Canadian provinces. And as if that weren't already an embarrassment of riches, today I got a prize package all the way from British Columbia, full of the most wonderful stuff. Above, you can see the lovely washcloth and soap sack, containing cranberry sage soap. You can see 2 skeins of French blue pima cotton. You can see knitting needles (wood, which I love), and delightful glass bead stitch markers (one is already in use), and postcards of Vancouver Island, and a lovely card from (blogless) Raveler Cluxewe -- a fellow member of clan Fraser in the Outlander swap. This was a prize package, mind you, not the official swap package. Isn't that just great? A nice bunch, these Outlander fans. Now I definitely think I'll make it to Thanksgiving from here (the countdown is on--we're out for break 2 weeks from yesterday at 3:00 p.m. One of my colleagues has already opined that the school year is over.) If I didn't already think that most things Canadian are the bees' knees, I would now. Thank you, Cluxewe! You are amazing.

In other news, tonight I took my advisees out to dinner. They're nice girls and we had fun, but I have to say that I'm annoyed by texting at the dinner table, no matter how cool one's phone may be. Now I'm home, and I am done working until tomorrow.

It's Monday

Hurray! My Outlander swap package arrived the other day. Just look at all the goodies! Above, Rumpelstiltskin Happy Feet yarn ...

Celtic theme stitch markers

three gorgeous patterns, and a lovely shawl pin -- not pictured, a bag of catnip (guess who has that?), homemade shortbread (in the foil-covered box at the top of the picture, contents now consumed) and herbal tea ...

and my bag -- just LOOK at this bag

Isn't it gorgeous? I was truly fortunate in my amazing swap partner, was I not? I hope the package she received was half as good as the one she sent me.

I never saw as many leaves in my life as are currently occupying our little cul de sac. Truly treacherous for the bicycle riders among us. I did try to take a picture today but there was no way my little Powershot was up to a scene of this vastness.

Today I got an e-mail from the 2009 Tour de France organizers asking me to take a survey. I thought, what the heck, it's that or grade papers, and clicked the link. They began by asking what I think of the route, which has just been released, my impressions of the efficacy of the drug testing regime (hm), and whether I'm likely to buy a Skoda because the company sponsors the Tour. I haven't seen many of these on the Southeast Expressway...

Knitting up a storm for the craft fair and to finish off the package for my swappee ....

Pumpkin Squares

These are yummy. Making them was just what I needed this afternoon.

4 eggs
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 c pumpkin puree (1 can is fine if you haven't got a huge jack o'lantern on your doorstep)
1 cup vegetable oil

Beat until fluffy. Add:

2 c flour
1 tsp salt
some grated nutmeg
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon

Bake on an ungreased jelly roll pan at 350 about 30 minutes.

When cool, frost with:

6 oz cream cheese
1 c butter
1.5 tsp vanilla
3.5 - 4 cups 10X sugar

Saturday thoughts

It's a good thing Halloween only happens once a year. The girls love this holiday and why not? From my perspective, too much candy I shouldn't eat comes into the house, we are always in danger of having a peanut item slip by, with all its attendant allergens, and my younger daughter already needs to be extra vigilant about her teeth given pre-natal nutritional deficiences. All right, now that the spoilsport issues are on the table, let me report that my younger daughter and her friend declared this "the best Halloween ever". Last night each of them got to do what she wanted: the older one went to a friend's party in her neighborhood and then trick-or-treating, while the younger one went with friends to a party in our neighborhood and then trick or treating in a group, without her own parents. The younger one was arrayed in beautiful pink ballerina garb, complete with tiara. The older one went as Goth Girl, with handcuff earrings, a studded choker, and dressed in black down to her toenails. At 10 p.m., then, when R collected the younger one from the dorm, where she was hanging out with me awaiting his return, we had potential double melt-down from costume excitement and sugar overload in the works. Double meltdown factor multiplied by 2 very strong personalities. Let's just say that I, in my craven fashion, was glad the task of getting them to bed was in R's hands and not mine.

One of our local LYSes is having a big 25th anniversary sale this weekend. Since D#1 had no school yesterday, we sneaked down there in the middle of the day when I had a break in my classes. She bought some Louisa Harding ribbon yarn in pinks and purples which she declares she'll use for a scarf for her sister, we bought 2 different skeins of ONLine Linie Spot, which I think is also destined for scarves, I found a great yarn for the Outlander swap (I had despaired of finding this item in my partner's colors but there it was), and I was forced to buy a skein of Knit One Crochet Too sock yarn in the most amazing bird of paradise colorway. I have no idea what the colorway is called, but it practically sang to me. D#1 says I am not allowed to make it into anything other than socks for myself. Somehow we also ended up with a skein of Malabrigo worsted in gorgeous dark greens. It just leapt into our basket while I wasn't looking. Yum.

Today is another gorgeous autumn day -- we had frost earlier in the week but have now had 2 consecutive days in the 5os. My garden is kaput, but still, it's nice that we haven't vaulted right into unremitting November-ness despite the calendar. D#1's soccer team won this morning, which is a nice reward for the hysteria we had getting her off to the game (the athlete in question having left her cleats & shinguards --required for town soccer events-- at school). I left D#2 busily working on her "Star of the Week" poster (she has been so anxious to be chosen, and knew exactly what she wanted to include several weeks ago. I'm trying not to obsess over the fact that her current career goal is "waitres girl" since 4 months ago she wanted to teach swim classes and I fully expect the reality to involve high fashion).

I'm thinking about the election (who isn't) and Jocelyn's thoughtful analysis of the real issues at stake. I'm wondering about the ways tv influences voters in all constituencies (my spouse used to opine that "West Wing" viewers were the crux of the problem in 2000, as we were all living in a fantasy world with Jed Bartlet as president and failed to take the real election seriously enough that there would have been no doubt about the results). One of my most scholarly students did a presentation in class last Thursday designed to give some of the younger students a drive-by look at the history of woman suffrage in this country, because as you might expect they don't know ANYTHING, and she did a wonderful job. Her starting hook, though, was a scene from the movie "Mary Poppins." You know the one, I'm sure: Mrs. Banks comes home all fired up from a rally at which one of her co-activists chained herself to the Prime Minister's carriage and there's a rousing musical number complete with Mrs. Banks showing her bloomers. "This is how I first learned about woman suffrage," she said. You don't know it? Here you go:



Never mind that the real message here is that Mrs. Banks would be better served to pay attention to her own family. Happy Saturday. Rabbit rabbit.

Visuals

Long overdue, here are a couple of shots of the traveling shawl in Spain:

This is the Tuscany shawl from Amy Singer's No Sheep For You; I used Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Tuscany colorway, which is a nice confluence, I think! I now wonder if I should have made it bigger, but I think the wearer is enjoying it in this size. There are other photos of the shawl across the big pond, but faces of my loved ones are visible in those shots and we're a family increasingly wary of posting face shots on blogs ...

Last night when we came out of the pool, the windows and doors of the athletic center were covered with condensation. Some of the kids were drawing on it, and one of them (an budding engineer, given his interest in knitting design) found a way to use the lights from the soccer field to project the condensation drawings onto the white walls beside the doorway. Voila:

Also, voila, here is a sequence of fish tank photos (unfortunately in reverse order because Blogger won't do what I want, also unfortunately a little blurred because we were trying not to have the lid of the fish tank open too long and I rushed the shots) showing you the snail eggs. I'm just boggled by this event and can't wait to see what the next couple of weeks bring.



Here is a somewhat fuzzy shot of my first neckwarmer (in the Unique Sheep Singularity in Silk)

This is slightly better:

This is the Tudora neckwarmer in Cascade 200 Hunter Green, pictured with the Malabrigo neckwarmer in the indigo colorway ...

Below, D#2's sparkly scarf (Adriafils stars, on 15s):

My Druid mittens. The color is less orangey than this photo would have you believe -- it's Dream in Color Smooshy, in Ruby River.

Not pictured, but also OTN, 2 lace scarves, one in Malabrigo laceweight and the other in Knitterly Things Vesper sock yarn, in the Muddy Waters colorway.

When are you grading your papers, you ask in the face of all this knitting? What papers? My hands are busy.

Learning to Think

Where did the past week go?

I taught, I knit, I graded, I ran around a lot, I went to a lot of meetings. I went to the doctor twice, trying to kick an upper respiratory tract infection. I did laundry and made soup and roasted beets. I took my children to the movies (High School Musical 3). I went to a swim meet.

I thought about papers I've written and papers I'd like to write, and a book review I have to do soon. I thought about my booklist for the spring. I thought a lot about teaching strategies.

"When we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." My daughter's sixth grade homeroom teacher began a letter to parents with this passage from Wendell Berry, and went on to talk about the work the class has been doing on habits of mind. The kids have been introduced to three categories of habits of mind (self-monitoring, self-managing and self-modifying), all with the goal of becoming a "self-directed, self-reflective learner". My child assessed herself pretty honestly in the early stages of this process, and we have already seen her modify her behavior in response to this work. As I shuffle my own piles of paper, trying to deny my wish to work on the Sunday crossword and pick up my knitting project, it occurs to me that I could possibly benefit from some of this assessment as well.

It's true that some part of my mind is baffled a good deal of the time (how wrong am I getting my parenting? how can I find a way to spend some time with my spouse NOT devoted to the logistics of our daily lives? am I really meant to be pursuing the career path I've chosen? why can't I find more time to knit/sleep/read/cook/swim ?). Somehow I don't think that's the kind of baffled Berry had in mind.

There's a lot more to it, but I am impressed by this strategy and by one sixth grader's response.

I've knit 2 neckwarmers/cowls, heavily improvising the design based on a stitch count of 99, on 7s, and using a couple of different eleven stitch repeats. One is in The Unique Sheep's Singularity in Silk, in the Amani colorway, and one in Malabrigo worsted, in the indigo colorway. Photos to come.

Also, I have some slightly fuzzy photos of one of the coolest things ever, and I'll post these in the next day or so, when I'm at home (the cable for downloading such things from the camera is there, you see). One of our snails laid eggs!!

I hardly noticed Parents' Weekend

The girls and I went to Wet Paint Nail Spa today. We love this establishment.

Fruits of a seasonal activity: yesterday D#2 went apple-picking with friends. She had a blast. There are still a few orchards open, although it is getting pretty close to the end of the season. Maybe we'll get a batch of applesauce out of these guys.

Today I made chicken soup and bacon/Gruyere/green tomato quiche. I had good intentions about tackling the pickling but when I went ot our local Stop & Shop they had a full end cap of different kinds of lids for Mason jars, and NO JARS.

Below, another marker of the season (that's the Harvard Lampoon building):

These two shots (above and below this line) are the green tomato chocolate cake from last week.

These 2 shots are of my birthday cake, made by R and adorned by the candelabra birthday candle sent me by my New York relatives. Those white circles are non-pareils. They occasioned a great deal of discussion ("what are they?" "what does THAT mean?" "What are those little white things on them?" "Do I have to eat it?").

Yum.

So we're all pretty excited about tonight, and R and I have changed our plans in deference to this momentous achievement (out to dinner instead of to "Body of Lies," figuring that the former would get us home earlier than the latter). If TBS loses the feed from Tampa again there will be hell to pay.

On a bigger scale, win or lose tonight, the fact that the Sox got to Game 7 says a lot about their heart and determination. This is why I love baseball -- you have to play the games to find out what will happen. All my Sox knitter pals are casting on good juju socks tonight and I do have some good red and white sock yarn that was sent to me by a fabulous swap partner. Maybe casting on for good luck socks is the push I need to put the Druid mittens on a circular (and frog back to get rid of the miscrossed cable I spotted while awaiting my turn at Wet Paint this afternoon). I carry them around so much that the dpns fall out, and my nifty dpn transport case is in use (on a pair of socks suffering from -- no, not second sock syndrome but "final 2/3 sock syndrome").

Yesterday, driving down to Attleboro to collect my swimmer from a "Catch the Spirit" clinic, I imagined walking down to the water with Marit to admire the new sea house before returning to her house for tea and an explanation of baseball. I remember thinking, I wonder if W.P. Kinsella's short story "The Thrill of the Grass" is available in Norwegian? That's a lovely example of [baseball] prose ....

Then, on the drive home, when D#1 announced that she was done talking and turned on her booklight, I imagined going to the Left Coast for a long walk with Jocelyn. She has a lot on her mind and I'm a good listener.

I love the connections afforded us by this Internet/blogging world.

Nobody has sung (or, it ain't over)

Wow.

Nineteen

Nineteen years ago R and I stood on a rock in Damariscotta, Maine, and signed on for this amazing rollercoaster ride we've been on ever since. We stayed here (several owners ago, as best I can determine). Computer Genius Brother and Sewing Genius SIL were there too, having dropped all at a moment's notice when we discovered we needed actual witnesses to make the thing legal. They brought champagne, and cups. And as CGB just pointed out this evening, they also contributed "fancy" to the occasion, as my sister-in-law had on fuzzy pink socks (as you can imagine, our youngest is dismayed that we didn't have bluebirds and attendants and white dresses and tuxedos. "You got married on a ROCK?" she keeps asking, in tones of horror).

Druid Mittens

So I made a bad call and took the Druid mittens to faculty meeting tonight. I should have taken the boring but beautifully pink and sparkly scarf I'm making for D#2. During the first bombshell announcement I lost my place in the first chart and had to frog back 20+ rows. I hate when that happens. But then I pulled myself together and made a lot of progress. I'm trying to decide whether to color code the chart so I don't need my old lady reading glasses (I can no longer do the New York Times Sunday crossword without said glasses, sad to say). I like this pattern a lot, and the Dream in Color is showing the stitch definition beautifully. I wonder if I'll have the attention span to make more than one pair.

Kitchen update: I plan to buy some jars and try green tomato pickle -- I did try the green tomato cake recipe that came as an online extra with The Boston Globe magazine a couple of weeks ago; it was a huge hit with my family, none of whom knew it contained tomato. Interestingly, you also add beer -- which must help the batter counteract the weight of the tomato puree -- I used Avery IPA which I would NOT do if I make the cake again. Something with a less distinct and hoppy taste is probably better for baking (although the IPA is delicious for drinking). I suspect, in fact, that Guinness would have been better. Speaking of newspaper recipes, the other night R made the mac and cheese pancakes from the aforesaid New York Times. They were extremely yummy.

When we had family over on Monday I made whole wheat bread and banana bread, and squash/apple soup, and I'm glad I did, as I'm feeling crummy now (some sort of tree pollen allergies AND a cold) I have no interest in setting foot in the kitchen. Given that our 19th wedding anniversary is tomorrow, that doesn't bode well for a festive dinner...

And yes, I did notice that my beloved Red Sox are being massacred at Fenway. I don't really want to talk about it.

Some Silver Lining (picture heavy)

Adding text seems a little superfluous, but I want to credit the fall photos properly (taken by D#1). I am glad to be reminded that, while the overall picture is grim, daily life has many positives and it's time to focus on them. So I'll try to do that, and attend to the fundamental tasks of that routine, and try not to get agitated about the crashing markets, grim economy, and other frustrations attendant upon being part of a community.

I do love fall, and these photos do show some of the New England foliage thing at its most scenic.



I'm enjoying using up scraps of sock yarn on these little ornament-y things. Dobby thinks they're cat toys, and Raeford thinks they're good for puppies, but I'm inclined to think they might have a less rough-and-tumble use. The fall mittens are still OTN, but require a pretty intesne focus on the various charts. Photos of them next time.


Oh, yes, last night in Tampa Bay --that was pretty good.

courtesy of bostonherald.com
courtesy of boston.com

one of the new snails

and some more pretty leaves

Also, I made applesauce. Of course it did not come out as beautifully pink as my mother's applesauce always does. She won't share her trick.

I think I'll go to a football game for a little while. After that my list looks like this: come home & write some comments, open my e-mail even though it's a long weekend and I'm resolved not to stress out, knit something, and get ready for Game 2 ...