I Rule at Groceries

This is not a knitting post, sorry to say.

I just have to crow a bit. The other day, Anne and I sat down and made dinner menus. We did two and a half weeks' worth of (reasonably) nutritious, interesting meal-planning. Then we made a shopping list. Last night we went on the Major Food-Buying Excursion, and even with a few impulse buys and a six-dollar drain snake, our total was under $100.00.

A hundred bucks for two and a half weeks of meals for two adults. To be fair, we had previously gotten quite a bit of meat at Aldi, so there wasn't much meat on our list last night--but still! I feel pretty awesome about our shopping trip, and I'm really excited not to have to think about what to cook for a while.

And Mom, thanks for the menu idea!

I'm Not Dead Yet

We're just going to ignore the fact that I haven't posted in 3 months, m'kay?

I have no pictures to share today, but here's an Ann Update.

• I am working on getting over the swine flu. So far, I've gotten rid of the fever and the body aches, but the cough, sniffles, and fatigue are still hanging around. I'm taking this opportunity to eat ice cream with impunity--I'm sick! I need ice cream!
• During my convalescence, I knit an entire skein of yarn into most of a scarf. Of course, the scarf didn't end up as long as wanted it to be, and I was knitting from stash. I had purchased that particular skein of Patons Classic Wool literally months before I started knitting, and I had only gotten one. I went to the Michael's where I had gotten the yarn, and of all the yarn bins in the store, only one was empty--obviously, it was where the yarn I needed should have been. So after work yesterday I puttered over to the other Michael's in town to look for my yarn, but I wasn't very hopeful. As luck would have it, they had exactly two skeins of my yarn! One had a ballband and the other didn't, so just for kicks, I checked the dyelot on the one with a band. It was the same as my months-old, other-store yarn. Score!
• Quarantine is boring.
• I had a plumbing emergency before I got sick that resulted in lots of Drano-infused water overflowing onto my kitchen floor. I currently have two rooms in my house blocked off so the cats don't get in there and get sick (which will end when I rent a carpet cleaner and get the nasty chemicals out of the carpet). The cats aren't thrilled to have their running-around space basically cut in half. Must rent a Rug Doctor.
• I had something compelling to say when I started this entry, and I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.
  

Update: Part Two

Anne made me a birthday cake! It was her first cake, and she made a layer cake. I think she did a fabulous job. Very festive, and extremely tasty. Thanks, Anne! (Also, that's a lot of candles. I'm old.)


Next up we have the Tiny Sweater of Enormous Cuteness, otherwise known as a Baby Surprise Jacket. Extremely interesting construction, and fairly cryptic instructions. I wrote the pattern out row by row, because I need to have things to cross out in order to really keep my place. (I don't trust row counters.) It needs to be washed and blocked, and then it can be sent off to its future wearer's soon-to-be mom. It's cotton, so it should be a good weight for a late-summer baby--not too sweltering. Anne guessed that it's probably about a two-month size.


Of course, you don't get a good idea of its real size in that picture. So what's a knitter to do, when she has neither a baby nor an appropriately sized stuffed animal to model the Tiny Sweater of Enormous Cuteness?

Torture a cat, of course! The sweater is officially Pippin-sized. It fit him very comfortably.

He didn't seem upset by the sweater, just a little perplexed--but I still didn't leave it on him for too long. (This is what comes of me being really tired when I finish a baby sweater and happening to have a shaved cat nearby. It was irresistible.) I can't stop laughing at these pictures, but Bakers, I promise not to start clothing your cat on a regular basis.

Only when I need a small model for knitwear.

Update: Part One

Ta-da! All three cats in one place. Yes, Pippin is running away, but he's still mostly there.

I made a pretty red dress. It's ridiculously simple--basically just a big tube with sleeves and a neckline. So I added a belt. Ooh, look at me, I'm a fashion designer!


And my garden is going so well that I harvested and ate 9 beans in one day!

My cauliflower and cabbage are starting to show signs of life. The broccoli is still mostly just hanging out, but I'm hopeful that I might get just a little broccoli.

In the next post: Birthday cake, baby sweater, and more cats! Stay tuned!

Naked Pippin

Isn't this the most adorable thing you've ever seen?

Surprises

I just dropped Pippin off to get a physical, a rabies shot, a bath, and a shave, and holy crap--all that stuff is expensive! It will cost me between $200 and $250 to ransom the cat. Aaron, Samara, how would you feel about me leaving him there to wash dishes until it's paid off?

The other surprise came when I took a look at my garden last night. I have some baby green beans! And one baby snow pea! It's very exciting.

In other news, last night I cast on a Baby Surprise Jacket for Kelly's forthcoming baby. I'd take a picture, but right now it's about 4 rows, which isn't very exciting.

Exhaustion

This is just a quick update to tell everyone that I survived the Pride Festival!

It went so well--I'm ridiculously proud of everyone who was involved with putting it on. Committee members and volunteers were already at the venue getting things ready when I arrived at 7 am; the vendors and exhibitors all got set up with no problems; the entertainment was well-received; the crowd was high-energy but not rowdy; the weather was gorgeous. It was an all-around wonderful day.

I only got sunburned on my upper arms, and I made it to bed around 11 pm. I slept until noon. I don't think I moved at all during the night. The reckoning with the alcohol vendors went smoothly. I was in bed again by 10pm yesterday, and I could probably have slept until noon again today!

I am extremely tired and extremely happy.

Picture-heavy post!

I keep hoping that some Saturday, I'll get up, have some coffee, and enjoy a leisurely morning of blogging and petting kitties and maybe watching cartoons. Then I remember that I'm chairing the committee that's planning a huge party for this coming Saturday. Maybe after that...

Anyway, here's what I've been up to. I've been doing some gardening. Below, we have a watermelon that I planted next to the back porch, just for the hell of it. So far I haven't managed to kill it--yay!

Next is a shot of the whole garden, early in the morning.

In the garden there are tomatoes. Some of them are red! Anne says they're very tasty. (You can also see the cherry tomato plant behind this one--it's starting to make fruit, too.)

And here's one that's about the size of a small plum. It will grow up to be a big tomato!

My snow pea seeds sprouted, and now they're in a huge tangle. So far, they've made exactly one flower. I gave them a stick to climb, so maybe they'll make more flowers, and Anne and I won't have to split one single snow pea!

Anne's sarrano peppers are growing like gangbusters...

...but they're not doing quite as well as the cayennes. These are two of the nine plants. (Leeks are in the background.)


The purple beans are making purple flowers! (The green beans are also making green flowers, but the purple ones are more photogenic.)


And some corn has sprouted!

The cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower don't look too different from when I planted them. I'm thinking about going in and burying them deeper (or just piling some dirt up around the stems) to encourage them to make new roots and expand. You can see that the caterpillars thought the plant in front was very tasty. Behind the cauliflower on the left, you can see our teeny tiny spinach. It's trying!

The herbs are doing well, too.

And the blackberry bushes are growing. The one on the left is pretty bushy, but the one on the right is growing outward with one long branch, for the most part--you can see it actually exiting the frame.


I haven't been knitting as much as I did before Pride planning really heated up, but I did finally manage to finish my Sock Roulette sock!


There on the left is all of the yarn I had left. It's only a few yards. I was sweating toward the end! This sock needs to be blocked, so it looks a little odd. Even so, I think it'll still be slightly smaller than its mate--but given the amount of yarn I finished with, it's probably good I wasn't too hung up on having an exact match. Both socks fit, and they look pretty, and that's what matters.

I have a minor obsession with crocheting potholders, though. I've made 4, and I'm working on #5. The pattern I'm using is very cool, and produces a nice two-layer potholder. (Bonus: it came from the website of a fiber arts studio in Rudolph, WI!)


Finally, at long last, here are cats.


Pippin is getting shaved on Wednesday. I felt like I was keeping him pretty well brushed, but then all of a sudden he got all matted. Poor guy!

George is adorable, as always.

And Eve has decided that my bed is actually HER bed. I have the scratches on my hand to prove it--she doesn't like it when I get too close to her, even if I'm sleeping. This might call for some reassertion of dominance...

Update: Artist's Rendering

Bloggity

Things I like:
1.) Kitties. Anne and I had fun yesterday putting glow-stick necklaces on them.

Pippin was perplexed by his.

Eve tried to scrape hers off.

And by the time we got the camera out, George was hiding under the bed, so this is as close as I got to a glowing George picture.

2.) Gardens. Anne and I got all ambitious and constructed three raised garden beds, hauled 1200 pounds of topsoil and manure, filled the beds, and planted like crazy! Here's the long view from the back.



In the center and ever toward the right side we planted cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower. In the empty spaces around that back corner are two kinds of green beans and late season sweet corn. The empty spot on the back left will hopefully be snow peas one day.


On the other side, we have three tomato plants and a whole mess of hot peppers. The only variety of pepper I remember is cayenne; there are two others there, too. The grassy stuff in the middle is leeks. We planted onion seeds next to them, and at the front of the bed we planted spinach.


In the small beds, we planted blackberry bushes and herbs.


In our herb garden (back to front) are 3 basil plants, cilantro, thyme, rosemary, and sage. I planted some spearmint in the front planter, and I'll be planting a watermelon plant along the back porch, just for the hell of it.

Yay for gardens!

Things I don't like:
1.) The neighbors' trees dropping big limbs into my backyard.
2.) The fact that my lawnmower has been stolen. Last weekend I used my weed whacker on the whole lawn. This week I shall use a borrowed old-fashioned reel lawnmower. I might buy it if the owner is amenable, or I might order one from Amazon. I definitely want a reel mower rather than a gas mower.
3.) My dentist's office. They neglected to mention to me (over the course of more than one appointment) that I was carrying a balance, and they called this week wanting a whole lot of money.
4.) Clogged pipes, crawlspaces, pipe snakes, and inky black sludge. Aaron, you were right about there not being lots of bugs--but you were wrong about there not being spiderwebs. I want to know who's been dumping used motor oil down my pipes; I emerged from under the house half-covered by nasty, slimy, inky black sludge. The sludge didn't really seem to be the problem with the plumbing--there were several big gobs of hair that I pulled out--but it can't really be helping things, either.

That's all for now, folks. I'll try to post some knitting content soon!

Yarny

(Caturday post one back.)

First, I'm sad to report that one of the Chicken Dishes bit the dust.

Good thing I've still got eleventy-billion saucers left!

Next, I've been having motivation issues lately. I just haven't wanted to knit. This situation was not helped when I finally held up my second Sock Roulette sock next to the first one, and finally admitted that the gauge issues weren't going to block out. In the picture below, I am four rounds from starting the heel flap. Ha!

Frogged. I'm constantly amazed by the difference in products from two knitters when they're using the same needles, the same yarn, and the same pattern. That doesn't mean I'm any happier about reknitting half of a sock, but it is pretty interesting.

So, faced with the fact that I currently find knitting slow and frustrating, I turned my attentions over to my neglected Hexaghan. Crochet is nice and fast, and I like being able to finish several motifs in a short period of time. It makes me feel accomplished.

Here are 7 more hexagons, all crocheted and edged, with their ends woven in. This puts me at about the halfway point. Hooray!

While I was sitting and crocheting on these, I started thinking about the masses of yarn in my stash. And after I laid out my hexagons on the floor, I got an idea--a person could make a shawl out of these. And I just happen to have a full bag of DK wool/silk blend yarn that isn't enough for a sweater for me, but that would make a lovely shawl.

Ta-da! 9 hexagons, crocheted at a looser gauge, eager to become a warm, pretty shawl. (Sorry, I got all artsy when arranging the picture, so it's hard to make out individual hexagons. They're there, trust me.)

And then today, I got to thinking about my sock yarn stash. There's quite a bit in there that I don't imagine I'll ever make socks out of, and quite a few partial balls, too. (In my defense, I planned to make it into socks when I bought it, but it has since been eclipsed by other yarn.) So what's an avid crocheter with a shiny new hexagon obsession to do?

Start a sock yarn hexagon afghan, of course! I'm looking forward to having a light weight afghan with wild and crazy colors. I think I'll even use the leftover little bits that aren't enough to make hexagons to sew it together.

Ah. I feel better already!

Caturday!

Pippin says, "Rub my belly!"

George monitors my internet usage.

And Eve sits in her favorite spot. I added Tim the Dinosaur, just to prove that this is a different photo than last week.

Belated (Again) Caturday, Dress

First, the cats!


Here's a Pippin closeup.


George on the sofa, looking sleepy.


And Eve in her new favorite chair.

This is the finished dress. The belt is hanging around the neck rather than wrapped around the waist, because I couldn't be bothered with styling this morning. All of the pieces are put together, the buttonholes are done, and the buttons are in place.

Why am I not over the moon? Because I am an idiot. When I was choosing the size to make I was looking at the finished garment dimensions rather than the sizing guide, so despite the button band I added, it is a bit too tight. It buttons but it isn't quite the glorious thing I was envisioning. I'm slowly working on cutting out the next dress, and I think that one will fit better. But the green dress falls a little more under "learning experience" than "garment," and that makes me somewhat grumpy.