I Love the Central Coast

Russ and I like adventures a lot, but we're also creatures of habit. This Saturday's activities centered on one of our old familiar routines. I couldn't sleep very well on Friday night, so Russ let me sleep in until nine o'clock, which meant we didn't leave home until nearly ten, we really could have just eaten lunch when we arrived at one of our favorite little towns, Arroyo Grande. We almost always have to stop for coffee at  Cafe Andreinini's, so we postponed lunch by sitting in the sun there before heading for the Arroyo Grande Farmer's Market, which opens at noon.

Then, we headed over to The Village Butcher Shoppe. Everything we've tried from them has been delicious, but we went there to buy Kai their buffalo hot dogs. They're incredible. Oh, and why we were at it, we bought some raspberry apple sausage, some French breakfast sausage, and some tri tip.

I've been going to the Central Coast since I was a baby, but we've never stopped at a park along Highway 101 called Dinosaur Caves Park, just outside of Pismo Beach. We did yesterday, and weren't disappointed. We walked through the neighborhood a little bit too, trying to imagine how nice it would be to live in one of the little million dollar bungalows along the way. We don't even bother considering what it would be like to live in the small mansions nearby.

We ended our day in San Luis. It was nearly 75 degrees, and we almost got tired of telling each other what a beautiful day it was. Russ offered to wait for me if I wanted to visit the Nordic Mart, but I have more yarn then I know what to do with, so I let him off the hook. We celebrated my frugality by having another cup of coffee at the Bello Mundo Cafe, which was well worth the $10 we paid for two pour overs and a pice of lemon rosemary cake.

Did I knit? Of course, I did, but not anything worth sharing just yet. 

Comfort Knitting

I didn't think I even wanted to blog about this at all, but I teach at Taft High School, which was in the news on Thursday because of an on-campus shooting. I tried writing about it yesterday but couldn't, and I don't want to say that much today either, other than to say that I'm working through it. I've had a lot of emotions in the last couple of days, mostly sadness for the kids in the classroom where the shooting took place, who have had their sense of security destroyed forever, relief that the boy who was shot is expected to recover, comfort that I live among many wonderful, brave, compassionate people, and just a general feeling of vulnerability and disbelief.

I came home late Thursday afternoon to a nice, clean living room and a very strong cup of coffee that Kai, who I didn't even know knew how to make coffee, had made for me. Russ said that he (Kai) had been planning to take it down to me if I didn't come home soon. I'm not sure how he had planned to get through all of the cop cars, media, and general chaos, but it was very nice of him. Since then, I've done the things that I usually do to make myself happy: knitting another pair of baby socks, using up leftovers in my stash, and going for a two-hour run with Russ in the foothills on Saturday, which wasn't actually that fun since it was near freezing and muddy and windy..and uphill. In fact, I had to have a little cry because Russ got ahead of me and I got to a fork in the road and didn't know which way he had gone. He came back for me before I got too stressed, but that was when I knew that I wasn't as OK as I had thought I was. Tomorrow, I'll return to work, and eventually things will get back to some kind of normalcy, but for now, life seems a little upside down.

Several years ago, Lornas Laces carried some yarn called "peppermint mocha." I loved the name, and I faithfully was reading a blog by a woman who also loved the name and the yarn. I had to buy some. Once I got the yarn though, I didn't really like the color combinations. I know I bought two skeins of it, and I seem to remember even knitting one sock with it, that I abandoned....because I just didn't like the color combinations. I'm on a quest this year to use up at least some of my sizable stash, and so my unloved peppermint mocha is now a cute, little pair of baby socks. I haven't decided for sure who they're going to. I'm thinking about giving them to our neighbors' new baby, but I think I need to include a little cap too, and I'm not sure I have enough yarn.

Extending Christmas

I took down our Christmas tree today. I have a fear of letting my reluctance to let go of Christmas get out of hand, something to do with me have a memory of our Christmas tree during childhood being up until February. (I'm not sure if this is an actual memory or just a childish remembrance of our tree being up long past my friends') Anyway, I'm pretty adamant about the tree being taken down by January 6, but I love to leave remnants of Christmas up around the house, our nativity scene, for example and a few other special decorations that can be considered "Epiphany-ish." As I was taking down ornaments today, I chuckled a couple times about how many knitting related ornaments I have. If there is even a semblance of "knitting" being a part of an ornament's theme, I'll buy it, which accounts for me having these two ornaments that I dutifully put away today.

I had company as I took down the tree today, but not of the human kind. Kitty (aka Josephine) sat curled up in my yarn basket. I'm not that excited about the fact that she enjoys my yarn basket because sometimes I will use a skein out of it and discover, to my dismay, that she has sharpened her claws on it. I'll be knitting along, and I'll keep coming to broken strands. It usually doesn't last for long, but it's pretty annoying.

Nameless Cowl

I was looking and looking for the pattern that I used for this cowl that I finished last week, and then I remembered that I didn't use one. I used some leftover yarn that Randi gave me several years ago. I have to admit that I didn't remember that she had done that until I went back and checked an old blog post.

The mitts that I originally knit with this yarn were very simple, but cute. I got the pattern from a blog called The Giving flower, but sad to say, it doesn't seem that there's been much activity there in like five years, and the link to the mitts doesn't appear to work.

Creek City Cowl

So, I'm pretty sure I need to get cowls out of my system because they're just about as useless as mittens to anyone in my family. I made this Creek City Cowl for Kai today, and I knew as soon as I tried it on that it would be too scratchy for him, besides the fact that it just doesn't get that cold here. It was 32 degrees this morning, but it's supposed to be in the 60s tomorrow. I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, which is a nice basic yarn, but it isn't meant to be right next to your skin. My pictures doesn't show a true representation of the color, which was a nice, dark cranberry, so Kai liked the color. I told Kai that it made me very sad that he didn't like it, and he wasn't even phases. He said, "No, it doesn't. You liked knitting it." He was right about that. I'm just happy to be getting my knitting mojo back.

Off To a Good Start!

The nice thing about not being a New Year's Eve partier is that New Year's Day is a nice, long, quiet day. I had one of my few nights that I couldn't sleep well, and ended up getting up at four o'clock. I worked on my latest cowl and read some blogs, and then after a little nap, I went for a seven-mile run. I'm so enjoying this vacation and having my main responsibilities be to exercise and knit, and occasionally cook.

I made kale pesto tonight. Russ loved it. Kai, not so much. I looked up a couple of recipes, but I basically just substituted kale for pesto in a basic pesto recipe. I sauteed some red onion and red bell pepper with some langoustine,  and added that to my pesto, and we had a pretty nice supper.