School's Out! School's Out! Teachers Let the Monkeys Out!

Yay! I'm free I'm free! I....Oh! Oh! I do have a few things to take care of. We're having our pastor over for dinner tonight. I suppose I should think about getting everything ready for that. We're also leaving for Yosemite for the weekend tomorrow morning. I guess I'm not quite ready to relax just yet.

I love pink. Half of the clothes in my closet are pink. I ordered some pink Rowan yarn from Woodland Woolworks to use to knit Gayle Bunn's Surplice Lace Top from The North American Designer Collection No. 4.


I thought I was careful about what type of yarn I ordered, but, typcially of me, I wasn't that careful. The beautiful Rowan yarn I ordered is way too thick, so I'm knitting Deborah Newton's Eyelet Cropped Cardigan. I was feeling like doing something a little more complicated, but oh well. It will still be pink.

Down to the Wire

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

OK, I have to admit that I cheated, kind of. My first score was an A- The only word I wasn't positively positive about was peruse, so I went back and changed my answer. I initially chose "to read quickly" as the answer, but their answer was "to read carefully." Huh. I just asked Russ, and he said "To kind of look it over." Paige also thought it was "like scanning something." I think we're right.

I have done very little knitting during my "blog" absence. I have also done less writing than I had planned. Two weeks ago I bragged that I thought I could be done by last Sunday afternoon with my thesis. That was my downfall. I've gotten a lot of gardening done though! I think I'm ready to finish for real this week, and I'm really not embarrassed that I've procrastinated. Writing isn't just something that you decide to do, and then everything falls into place. I can sit in front of the computer and produce nothing or I can recognize that I'm stuck and plant some flowers. I'll go with the flowers.

Here's a picture of Josie Kitty sitting on a pile of laundry. I don't fold laundry when I'm having writer's block either. Anyway, school is out in two days, so I'm starting to get happier and happier. I am teaching an inservice to a bunch of fellow teachers on webpage design and then three weeks of summer school, but I'm still feeling the stress fall away. My summer school class is an html class and only has six kids in it. It really shouldn't even fly, but people with the power seem to like me. Besides, they know that I'll work on our school's webpage with those kids, so it's a deal for them too.

I did knit one more bunny in the last couple of weeks. Russ has a "prize" box in his classroom for kids who read at home and bring back cards from their parents, and he used my other bunnies as prizes.He said the girls loved them. His school is in a really poor neighborhood, so I like that they got something special like a handknit rabbit. I'll try not to think about the fact that they'll probably be left out in a sandbox somewhere. At least they won't get rained on this time of year!

Eight Random Things

Laura tagged me for my first meme ever. I wasn't even going to check my blog today because I have fifty million things to take care of, but oh well, this is much more fun.

First, the rules:

Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Here you go:

1. I swam six miles in twelve hours as part of a relay to raise money when I was in high school.
2. I have completed four half-marathons but haven't run more than five miles at a time for at least three years.
3. Immediately after my daughter was born, I thought to myself, "I could do this again," but three years later when my son was being born, I screamed to my husband, "I'm never doing this EVER again!".....and I haven't.
4. My older brother once won a case before the Supreme Court, and I'm really proud of him.
5. I love pickled herring, but only at Christmas time.
6. I teach at the high school I graduated from
7. I'm crazy about my kids....and usually am crazy about my husband.
8. I used to be able to speak Danish fluently but I've never been to Denmark.

Consider yourselves tagged, girls:
Janice, Wool Winder, Julie, Tracy, Cheryl, Marit,
Happy Yarns, Kitty Cafe.

Some More Bunnies

I have fifty pages of my Master's thesis now complete, which is good; I was never even called for an interview for the college job that I was so rushing to finish my thesis to qualify for, which is....not that bad. I'm glad that I had a reason to push myself to finish, and I'll have other opportunities to teach at a community college. My friend, who works at the college where I applied, thinks that I was probably screened before anyone who would have beem impressed even saw my stuff. The job description said you must have a Master's in English. Some secretary who doesn't even know me may have seen that I didn't have the Master's yet or that my degree will be in Humanities and didn't understand that Humanities includes English, and pulled me before the official screening. Or maybe I just sucked. I don't have a terrible job now, so I'm not that disappointed. I would have liked working nearly a month less and fewer hours though!!



I have not been growing as a knitter lately. Bunnies are so easy to knit, and I love seeing how they turn out. I knit a little white one and gave him a purple jacket, and I'm finishing a blue jacket for my latest one. I'm going to give him to my neice for Christmas with a Peter Rabbit book since he has a blue jacket like Peter wore.

Why do I have a picture of a tree on my knitting blog? No reason other than I'm so proud of this tree. It is a peach tree that has produced a real crop of peaches maybe twice during the ten years we've lived in our house. I gave the tree an ultimatum this fall. I told it (really) if it wasn't interested in producing peaches, it would be cut down. My husband, who usually carefully prunes it each year according to our fruit tree book instructions ignored it this winter in preparation for its new job as firewood. And you guessed it, it has loads of peaches on it. I'm not counting our peaches before they're...ripe because we do have these annoying Japanese beetles that sometimes get in our other fruit trees, but I am quite amazed.

Notorious Pasta Salad

It was 90 degrees today, which isn't so bad. I'm just worried about what's coming around the corner. My daughter had a swim meet today and we had a barbeque afterwards with all of the "swim" families. It was just a nice, casual evening. I enjoyed it all the more because our school's superintendent had a "party" at his house which I definitely did not want to go to, and the barbeque gave me the perfect out.

In my last entry, I mentioned how food can be so evocative. I brought a pasta salad to the barbeque that is very evocative to Russ and me. I brought what we call Bud and Bev Pasta Salad. I've had this recipe for over fifteen years and got it from...you guessed it...Bud and Bev. They were my cousin's in-laws, and they served this pasta at a barbeque at their beautiful house out in the country. We had a great time swimming and socializing with my favorite cousins. Russ and I thought Bud and Bev seemed really nice, and so did all of my extended family...for a while. Unfortunately, their son ended up being a jerk... er...a psychopath.. or maybe a sociopath. Anyway, to make a long story short, He really was a terrible person, and my poor cousin went through hell for several years because of him. He really was a head-case. Now Bud and Bev seemed to think that their son, who had nearly died from head injuries received in a drunk driving accident when he was in high school, could do no wrong. I'm all for parental devotion, but there weren't two sides to this story. My cousin worked all day as a teacher, took care of their two young children, and tried to be supportive of him as he tried to go to school (seizures and other results of the earlier injuries hindered this); while he had a trail of women "visiting" their house while she was gone all day, among other things. I don't like Bud and Bev anymore, even though I didn't really know them to begin with. My cousin is happily married to a nice guy and her ex and Bud and Bev don't even live in the state, BUT we still call this pasta salad "Bud and Bev Pasta." Kind of a silly story to tell. I just think it's kind of funny. I gave the recipe to a friend tonight and told her the story. She says she's going to call it "Bud and Bev Pasta" too.

Bud and Bev Pasta

Toss together while pasta is warm:
1 pkg. cooked corkscrew pasta
1/4 cup Italian dressing (I use Berenstein's Cheesey Fantastico)
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp dill weed
1/4 garlic powder
dash of oregano and pepper

Toss with pasta just before serving:
1 cup Feta cheese
4 tomatoes
1 green bell pepper (I often add red bell pepper too)
4 radishes
2 green onions

I don't have a picture of my finished salad, but here's what my bowl looked like at the end of the evening.

Enough Narcissism

OK, that was awfully fun getting the sweet comments about my past "cute-itude," but I suppose I should move on to the present. I stayed home from work yesterday, ostensibly to work on my thesis. I still had to go down to school to write out my lesson plans, but I was home by 8:00. I thought, "Mmmmm, I think I'll clean the living room and kitchen until 9:00 and then I'll settle down to work." Then I thought that I should go out and do a little watering...fill the bird feeder...watch MSNBC speculate on whether Rosie was fired or had quit....check to see if that nurse who has been on trial on Court TV since Easter Break for killing her husband was still sitting there looking guilty... You get the picture. I just never could get myself together enough to get to writing. Finally, I decided to finish my second lacey sock that I had never really intended to finish because I don't even like the yarn, except for the color. That's just how desperate I was. I finished that around 2:00 when I had to go pick Kai up from school, so there went my day off.

I did actually get to writing later in the afternoon though, and I'm proud to say that I now have 42 pretty well edited pages discussing the multiple uses of food in literature completed. At first, I was thinking that food was mostly in books to show ethnic traditions and to solidify one's ethnic identity. But there are tons of other reasons for it. One of the functions of food in literature is to evoke memories of the past. It's gotten me started on thinking about foods that evoke memories for me. Off the top of my head, snickerdoobles and canned chicken noodle soup make me think of being at my grandma's house. I have a pasta salad recipe from my mom that she used to make for different occasions when I was in high school, and I always think about swim meet barbeques and stuff like that when I prepare it; and spaghetti with garlic bread makes me remember having big get-togethers at my parents' house with my dad presiding over the stove. I think that it would be fun to hear about what memories other people have about food, even to collect some of those recipes and include little stories to go along with them, BUT first I must finish my paper...must finish....no matter how sick of it I am....must...

Surprises

I was looking at my iPhoto Library and noticed that the pictures from a CD my dad had given me last year were missing, so I decided to download them again. In my eternal desire to procrastinate on working on my Master's Thesis, (I spent most of yesterday on it.) I started browsing through them and realized something that I'd never noticed before. I had quite a few handknit sweaters when I was little. I know who made them--my aunt Marion. She was more of an artist than a knitter, but she really got me started with knitting and took me to my first yarn shop when I was in college. I've never considered myself to be that attractive, not ugly or even plain, just not that great. BUT I have to say, I was pretty darn cute when I was little, and I think I look so cozy in those little sweater. I know that I have the pattern for the little cream and red stocking cap. I might even have the sweater pattern too, I'll bet, since I have most of my aunt's pattern books. They're from the forties and fifties, and I wish that I'd taken better care of them. Oh well!


I have a friend at work who is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. They are having a "hat exchange" for her next week which I think is nice although I don't get the "exchange" part of it. I just want to give her a hat. I had some cashmere that I bought from Elan last year. It was really inexpensive, so I just bought it with no consideration for what I would turn it into. I think it makes a really pretty cap. I used the pattern from Headhuggers It was easy although I had to restart it at least three times because I didn't count right when knitting the lacey part. I'm nothing if not tenacious!

One More Bunny

I don't have bunnies out of my system yet. My daugher asked me why I was knitting toys when I didn't have any KIDS! What?? I have not found my family members to be suitably impressed with my bunnies, and I seem to need more praise than they think that I should. Luckily I have my "blogging" friends to pat me on the back. Thanks everyone!

I have been reading Friday Night Knitting Club for the last week. It's kind of good, not a lot of depth to it; but it's keeping me interested. I've read several other "knitting" novels, and they're usually pretty simplistic. Sometimes that's just what I need though.

Happy Easter!

I don't know exactly what I did with this week. We spent several days in Cambria and stayed at the San Simeon Pines Resort, which is basically a nice hotel with a swimming pool, shuffle board, and mini-golf course. We had a really nice time. It's right on the beach. Russ, Paige, and I ran along the boardwalk for a couple of miles one morning, and then Russ and the kids "played" golf. I didn't get in much knitting, but I did work my way out of the "knitting doldrums." I actaully got half-way through my second "lacey" sock which I will probably never wear but that looks so nice on my sockblockers.






As I've said before, I'm kind of obsessed with the little rabbits that Julie at Little Cotton Rabbits knits. I finally found a bunny pattern that reminds me of Julie's little rabbits. I bought it from Fuzzy Mitten's Etsy Shop. It's so cute and easy to knit, but still looks like some talent was involved in putting it together. I ordered it late one night, and she had emailed me the pattern by the next morning! I finished him in the car today on the way to Fresno to spend Easter with family, and I made Paige model him while she was reading her book, then I had to take some more pictures of him because he is just so totally cute.

Procrastinator Extraordinaire!

I sat down an hour ago to work on my paper, but I started wandering a tiny bit through some blogs that I hadn't visited for a while. I found this meme and couldn't resist it. You bold the books you've read and italicize the ones you plan to read someday. I always like this kind of thing, especially when I don't feel like doing something like working.

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24.The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible (about half of it)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
.50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54.Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marqez)73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James

Same Cat, Different Box

It's been over two weeks since I posted last, and I don' have much to say about knitting. As seems to happen to me..and many others, I'm sure, I got sick in the middle of a very stressful couple of weeks. It was the end of the quarter at school; I was applying for a job at the college; I had a bunch of "skin of my teeth" deadlines to make for my Master's thesis if I wanted to have everything complete by August and the beginning of the college job....if I get it...or take it; and oh let's see,... my daughter let me know that she has not overcome the eating disorder that she had in 7th just as her usually not that perceptive father had been telling me he has suspected recently...She and I have discussed the pros and cons of her "perfectionism" a lot, (of course, I'm proud of the straight "A"s, athletic accomplishments, etc, but....) I'm not sure how helpful her doctor will be, but I'm taking her in to talk to her a least. She came by the binging part honestly since I've done that for most of my life, but I've simply settled for being twenty pounds overweight even though I run four miles a day. Yep, I think that's about it. I think I'll go crazy if her "easy" brother develops any problems. He asked me today what "Happy-go-Lucky" means, and I said, "It's you!"

Now, back to knitting. I had such a bad cold a week and a half ago that I didn't even feel like knitting. I only took one day off work, but I WAS sick. I laid on the couch most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday last week, just sleeping, blowing my nose, wiping my eyes...sleeping... AND watching four hours straight of Deadliest Catch. I thought at first that I only watched it because I was too sick to find the remote, but I watched it last night again, and I really like it. I can't really explain why. I don't think it's because I want to be on a crab boat. Maybe it's in the same category as me liking moutain climbing books even though I hate heights and would never mountain climb.

So, now let me really discuss knitting. I knit a sock last month and started its mate. Half-way through, I discovered that I was using a different color pink! I have way too much pink, obviously. Now, I've lost the drive to finish, even though the shades are obviously very close. I've started this and that since then, but am pretty much uninspired. I almost went to the
LYStoday, But how can I justify that when my house in full of this?

Cat in a Box

Josie Kitty likes to sleep on our dining room table. I know that many people consider that disgusting, but I am just kind of resigned to it since I know she gets up there when we're gone and she's basically an indoor cat. I have a solution of sorts though. If I leave a box on the table, no matter what size it is, she will sleep in it; so that's what I do. Oh! And if you come over for dinner, don't worry I'll change the tablecloth!

Superfluous Sockblockers

I finally got blogger to upload my pictures from yesterday; I think that there was something wrong with my pictures actually because everything worked fine after I re-imported them. I've also added a pic of my sockblockers that I received in the mail today. I've been wanting a pair of sockblockers, not because I see any real need for them but because I like the way they look. I ordered them off of ebay, and I'm not overly happy with them I have to admit. I thought they'd be of a little higher quality. They're supposed to be made out of oak, but they're only oak laminate and part of the laminate is chipped off on the top of one of them. The heart cut-out is a little rinky-dink too. On the other hand, I'm not so unhappy that I would consider sending them back or consider even naming the person who sells them. I had just hoped for a little more, I guess.

I got such a nice email from Julie at Little Cotton Rabbits
yesterday. I'm pretty much in love with her knit stuffed rabbits. They're incredibly cute!! Her "store" is only open like once a month and then everything disappears as soon as it opens. This month I kept checking and checking trying to get myself one of those cute little rabbits, but I missed the change. I emailed her and asked if she ever planned on publishing a pattern book and she said possibly in the future. Don't go to her site unless you want to start obsessing about stuffed rabbits!

Here's a pic of our Mexican Shrimp Cocktail from Tuesday night. Mmmmm, that sounds good to have for supper again.

Wool Socks and 90 Degree Heat

Blogger won't upload my images, so here's a boring post. Actually, I'm not sure that it is 90 degrees outside, but it feels like it, plus I've been miserably hot at school much of the day. Our head of mintenance won't turn on the air conditioning yet because it "might get cold again." Are you crazy??? It won't be cold until next November!! It may get tolerable again, but it WILL NOT GET COLD! So I must find a project that doesn't "clash" with warm weather. Of course, I have every intention of finishing my second sock, but after that, I'm thinking cotton yarn.

I was going to start writing down some of my favorite recipes periodically, but I haven't followed through with that idea. Lat weekend, Paige made Mexican Shrimp Cocktail for us. It's one of my favorite items at a local Mexican restaurant, but it also costs over $10 for a bowl. We decided that we could make it ourselves far cheaper. Paige has further refined the recipe since our first attempt, and I think that she's pretty much perfected it.

Mexican Shrimp Cocktail

Ingredients:

2 pounds cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 large cloves grlic, crushed
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup cucumber, chopped
1 tsp. jalapeno, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups Clamato juice
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
several drops hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup prepared horseradish
1 ripe avocado - peeled, pitted and chopped

In a large bowl, stir together garlic, red onion, cilantro, jalapeno, and cucumber. Mix in tomato and Clamato juice, ketchup, lime juice, hot pepper sauce, and horseradish. Season with salt. Gently stir in avocado and shrimp. Cover, and refrigerate several hours. Serve in one large bowl or ladle into individual bowls.

This and That

Where does the time go? I've been busy, and haven't done much exciting knitting lately, except for starting these mock cable socks. I'm not too excited about them. I'm spoiled after using merino wool for my last few projects. I'm using some sock yarn that I've had forever. It feels kind of scratchy.

I've been kind of distracted because I'm considering applying for an English job at our local community college, but I have to have my master's degree finished by August to consider teaching for them even if they do offer me the position. There are quite a few reasons that I'm not sure it''s the right choice for me right now. The first thing on the negative side is that it's a substantial pay cut, as in $15,000. My friend who teaches there now assures me that I'll quickly catch up though. I also enjoy all of the web page work that I'm doing at the high school now, and I wouldn't have much to do with computers there. Finally, I like being at the high school when Paige is there, and Kai will be there in a little over a year too. I can't quite imagine teaching high school when I'm fifty though, and this may be my chance to jump ship, but I'm not sure that the new ship is the one I want to sail on until I retire. We'll see, I guess.

Spring is here! It's been in the 60s and 70s this week, but it was really cold for Paige's first swim meet. Both of her coaches were my students not that long ago...it seems. John is a UCLA grad, and he must be getting close to thirty, but Ashley is only a year or two out of college. She was Paige and Ki's swim coach when they were little, so it's like they've come full circle. Don't they look cold? It was freezing. There was snow on the mountains near us for that meet, and the wind was blowing pretty good. Luckily there was a Starbucks nearby for Russ and me to warm up in for a while.



I was taking pictures of my flowers when our neighbor came over with her new puppy. It's one of those King Charles Cavalier Spaniels. Sooooooo cute! Why doesn't everyone plant daffodils? I only planted the bulbs in February. I had forgotten about them in a box in the garage, and I discovered that they were already sprouting. I think they're so cheerful looking.



Kai doesn't want to swim this year. He'd rather be a football star, but since I've interfered with that up to now, he's going out for track. He ran five miles at his first day of track practice, and didn't seem to mind. So, as you can see, we've had a lot going on.

Mac Hat Attack

My friend jake sent me an email saying thanks for the hat with this picture attached. What a guy! I'm sure that all of his friends in IT are jealous...except the PC experts. What dweebs!!

What's Wrong with This Picture?

There are several things wrong with this picture: number one, there is a cat lounging on our dining room table; number two, the table still has a Christmas table cloth on it; and number three, the cat (otherwise known as Josie Kitty) is reclining on a stocking cap that I just finished knitting!

There is a story behind this hat. I saw it over on Wool Windings, and I knew I had to knit it. I've already mentioned this incident before, but I'll repeat it with some detail. A few months ago I was using my laptop to give a presenttion to my students using an expensive projector. In my concern that I not let anything happen to the precious projector, I managed to knock my laptop on the floor, and ended up with the dreaded "question mark" on the screen. Jake, one of my friends in IT painstakingly took the laptop apart so he could retrieve all of my information on the hard drive before the laptop was sent off to the "hopital." This meant a lot to me, especially considering I had my college evening class grades on it, and I hadn't backed them up in over two weeks. So here's my rendition of the Mac hat for Jake, my savior in IT. I hope he likes it. I hadn't tried duplicate stich before and had several false starts, but Kristen Nicholas's tutorial really helped me.My duplicate stitch could still use a little work, but I'm proud of my first try.

Tale of a Gourmet Weekend!



You can always tell that I have a lot to do around the house when I decide to be longwinded. I do have a non-knitting related experience to share though. I took a cooking school class at the The New School of Cooking in Culver City this weekend. Now that I think about it, it is kind of knitting related because I knit the cap on the drive down there. I went with three co-workers, and we had a great time. Our session was on "souffles." After we listened to the teacher's lecture and watched her demonstration, we paired off and drew straws to prepare different souffles. My partner and I prepared a gingerbread souffle, and it was pretty good, but my favoite souffle was the cauliflower souffle over baby greens. I made it tonight, and it turned out very satisfactory, even Kai ate one.I'm not saying he raved about it, but he ate it.I couldn't bare to tell him that it had cauliflower in it!

Individual Cauliflower Souffles Over Baby Greens
Serves 6

Souffle:
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
t tbsp. grated parmesan (We used the really good stuff!)
1 head cauliflower, quartered and cored
3 tbsp. flour
1 cup hot milk (our teacher said it could be cold too)
4 egg yolks
3/4 cup Guryere cheese, grated
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. minced parsley
5 egg whites

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter six 5 ounce ramekins and sprinkle the inside with parmesan. Arrange in a baking pan.

Mince cauliflower, enough to yield about 1 cup. Set aside.

In a medium saucepn over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoon butter, whisk in the flour to make a blonde roux. Whisk in the hot milk to make a bechamel. Whisk in the yolks, one at a time, until flully incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the minced cauliflower and parsley. Cook 2 minutes more. Stir in the guryere cheese and seasoning. Transfer mixture to a large mixing bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low speed until frothy, about 2 minutes. Increase speed to medium, and beat 1 minute more. when the egg white are foamy, increase speed to high, and beat just until they hold soft peaks. Do not overbeat. Lightly fold a third of the whites into the cheese mixture to lighten it. Fold in the remaining whites, until just combined.

Fill each ramekin with 1/2 cup of the souffle mixture. Smooth the tops. Bake until the tops are golden brown and the mixture is set, about 20 to 25 minutes.

While souffles are cooking toss baby greens with a god quality vinegar and oil dressing and divide on salad plates. Remove the souffles from the oven. Use a kitchen towel to hold the ramekins, and invert the souffles onto your hand, then bottom side down onto the plates with the salads.

Small Victory

So I had this idea that I could knit a beautiful set of gloves for my friend Jill who lost her dad in December, but I just couldn't get it right. Nothing turned out like I wanted. I'd knit for a while and decide they were too big, too long, too scrathcy, etc. Finally I tried using some Aurora 8 yarn. I initially didn't have much luck with it either. The pattern I used was for finer yarn, so the palm was way too big. Eventually, I decided that I wouldn't use a pattern. I don't really feel confident enough to knit real gloves without a pattern though, so I did fingerless mitts. They're kind of a knock-off of the fetching fingerless gloves from Knitty, but I'm proud of them, even if they were really EASY. Here's my first original pattern. Yay!

Materials:
Wool: a little more than 50 g. Aurora 8 Karabella extra fine merino wool
Needles: size 3 double pointed

Left (right) gloves:
Cast on 40 stitches and join.

Rounds 1 and 2: K2, P2 rib.

Round 3: Left Twist (knit the second stitch from the FRONT, then knit the first stitch and slip both off the right needle together), purl two

Repeat these three roows 6 times, Knit two more rounds of k2, P2 ribbing.

Work 6 rows in st. st.

Thumb gusset:

Round 1: K22, M1, K2, M1, K16 (42 sts)
Round 2 (and all alt rounds): K
Round 3: K22, M1, K4, M1, K18 (44 sts)
5th Round: K22, M1, K6, M1, K20 (47 sts)
Continue like this, increasing 2 sts every other round until 54 sts. Knit 1 round.

Next Round: K38, slip first 22 and last 18 sts onto st holders.
You should now have 14 sts on your needles. Divide stitches onto 3 needles, cast on 2 sts and join. K 8 rounds.
Cast off and break wool.

Palm:

Pick up and knit 2 stitches from the bottom sides of the thumb, then divide stitches on the stitch holders onto three needles and knit nine rounds.

End with the six rows of the same ribbing used for the cuff. Bind off stitches.