October Means Orange

I'm not a huge "orange" fan, but, of course, during October it seems like orange is de rigeur. I've usually knit some little felted pumpkins near Halloweeen-time, but this year all I had was a little bit of orange yarn, maybe enough to knit one pumpkin. So, I decided to knit a little knitted bowl instead. I don't remember what brand it was, but it was not very thick, maybe sport weight at the most, but it felted well. I ended up having enough for two bowls, and I think they look looks cute, holding my seed packets that are waiting to be opened, so I can start my winter garden.

I had my latest bunny packed to take on my trip up to my mom's, but I wanted to pack light, so I left him home and brought another pair of fingerless gloves to work on since they took less space. It didn't take much time for me to finish him up. Now, I just need to send him up to Melissa, so she can give him to her nephew. Very happy with him!

I took a little side-trip on m way home from seeing my mom to visit Paige. She biked over to the train station to meet me. Davis is a big bicycling town, and for now, Paige's only mode of transportation is her bike, which Russ "made" for her. He wanted it to be dependable and comfortable, but not too tempting to bicycle thieves, since there are a lot of bicycle thefts, along with all of those bikes. She loves it!

 She was very happy to see her mama, I'm sure, especially since we stopped by a local Asian grocery store, so she could load up on some of her favorite treats. I laughed when I saw her refrigerator because it was a mini version of ours, full of Trader Joe's spicy red pepper hummus, parmesan cheese, baby carrots, and spring mix lettuce. U.C. Davis has a good meal program, but Paige think it's cheaper to just feed herself.

I had to post these pictures because I thought they were so funny. U.C. Davis is about fifteen minutes from Sacramento and an hour from San Francisco. It's an agricultural school, so there are some wide open spaces nearby, but still it's urban....and Paige's apartments have a turkey problem. They're loud and wander through the walkways. Funny!

Home Again!

I took the train up to see my mom for a few days this week, and had a good visit. She's in a rehabilitation hospital for at least another week, but the nurses and doctors seem optimistic about her "recovery." My mom has been in poor health for years, so "recovery" is a relative term.. We have to just be grateful for small victories. She still enjoys life a lot of the time although she could do without the pain and inconvenience of having to always use a walker. I've posted part of the reason for her heart attack above...my spinning wheel. My dad was out in his shop working on it, and my mom thought she's just kneel down and pick up an earring she saw on the floor by her bed. She got lodged in the space between their bed and a wall and was stuck there for an hour. My dad checks on her constantly, except this one time, of course. That's kind of a sad legacy for my beautiful spinning wheel to take on, but my mom doesn't hold any ill will toward it, and I don't either!

Making It

Besides a very nice husband and two comparatively easy-to-raise kids, I've had two constants in my adult life: knitting and running. I don't exactly like running, but I like being finished each day with running, and I like how it makes me feel. Knitting is different because I like the actual knitting process. It's both fun and entertaining for me as I do it, and sometimes I'm even happy with my finished products. I was kind of sad for the nearly six months this year that I didn't really feel like knitting. I'd try to start projects over and over, and I just couldn't get into it. This past month I've been enthusiastic about knitting again, something that I've been especially grateful for this past week.

My mom had a heart attack a week ago. She's nearly eighty and has had innumerable health issues for basically the last thirty years. She has also been one of the most health conscious people I've ever known, so that makes her poor health suck all the more. Anyway, I've been worried about her this week. Even though she is doing amazingly well, I know that she has to be discouraged, and, well, she's eighty; there's no cure for that. We live about twelve hours away, and I couldn't just take off work to be with her right away. I've been distracted about how she's doing all week, and running and knitting have helped me from being too distressed. I'm going to go spend a couple of days with her and my dad later this week, which means a twelve hour train ride.  Once again, knitting (on the train) and running (once I get there) will come in handy. I won't mind the trip because I'll have lots of time to knit, andI love running in Northern California, where they live, because it's so cool up there.

 My main project this week has been to finish Paige's friend Melissa's bunny. I had a problem that I hadn't anticipated, but which I've had numerous time. I started running short on yarn! I was smart enough to make him have "pants," so that didn't take too much of the brown yarn, which I was running out of.

 This is a pic of his second "hand." That little, tiny blob is all I had left. I had to cheat, and make part of his arm blue, which won't matter once I get his sweater done.

Made it! Now, all I have to do is knit up a little sweater for him. I'm going to knit him an aran sweater out of some cream yarn I found in my stash, and I have enough blue left  to knit him a little cap.

I tried so hard when my daughter was young to get her interested in knitting, or sewing, or stitching, or anything remotely related to domesticity. She didn't bite. She does know how to knit, and she's even knit a couple of nice hats and half of a scarf, but she's never been that interested. Her best friend, Melissa however, show a little bit of interest, at least for a while. Melissa decided last year that she wanted to knit her new nephew a little blanket. I, of course, jumped at the chance to help choose the yarn at a LYS. We found some beautiful Venezia merino silk that was on sale, and Melissa spent close to $50 on what we hoped was enough for her to knit a blanket. After a year, the blanket hadn't materialized, and one day Melissa showed up in my classroom, hoping that I'd finished her project for her. I was happy to give it a shot but soon discovered that we hadn't bought nearly enough yarn. My solution was to unravel what Melissa had knit and start over, knitting a little pillow cover. Melissa is away at U.C. Davis with Paige, so I figure she'll enjoy a little decoration for her apartment, and I'm hoping that I have enough yarn to knit a little bunny for nephew. It's going to be a close call. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Completion

It's kind of sad that I'm so proud to finally finish a project, but I am. Now, I need to wait three months for it to be cool enough to feel like wearing this.

Making Progress

We took Paige up to U.C. Davis this weekend, which gave me lots of time to knit, on the drive home, at least. Russ drove a U-Haul truck, and I drove our Honda Pilot on the way up..all six hours. Paige could have driven part of the way for me, but I don't think she got much sleep the time before, so I thought I'd let her rest. Russ didn't feel comfortable driving over 60 mph, so it ended up being one long trip! I got to knit the whole way home today though, and I didn't even feel too sad. Of all of the schools that Paige could have gone to, this is the one I had hoped she'd decide on. It's huge...at least to me, 36,000 students, compared to the 800 students at the little now-defunct Lutheran College Russ and I attended in Nebraska, but U.C. Davis still doesn't feel impersonal somehow. I've always loved the town of Davis with its tree-lined streets and old homes. It's not slick or overly-citified, but there are tons of nice restaurants and activities. Paige seems excited about it all too. She's majoring in Biological Nutrition, which sounds impressive to me, whatever that means.

 Davis had a farmer's market before they become so ubiquitous, and I love how organic farming is so popular in that area. After a day of hectically getting Paige settled, buying $100 worth of "necessities" at Rite Aid, $50 worth of plants at The Redwood Barn Nursery because her Mama thought she needed some live stuff outside her apartment door, over $100 worth of stuff at World Market, like a rug to cover the blue 1980s carpet in her room, and nearly $100 at Trader Joe's, Russ and I were beat! Paige, who has two good friends going to Davis too, headed off to eat with them, and we found...The Farmer's Kitchen Cafe.

 So, the atmosphere is pretty much non-existent, but the food was wonderful. We shared a plate of heirloom tomatoes with aioli sauce, and then I had the best chicken noodle soup I've ever eaten. It had homemade noodles, lots of vegetables, avocado and lemon in it. Russ had tamales, which he said were wonderful too.

 We thought about ending the evening with a little stop at Let Them Eat Cake for a cupcake, but considering we've spent even more money than we probably realize, and that won't be letting up anytime soon, since tuition at U.C. Davis keeps climbing, we opted to go back to our hotel, which was the only unpleasant part of our stay. We'd only planned to stay one night, but Paige, uncharacteristically, wanted us to stay another day, and all of the hotels in Davis were taken by the parents of the 36,000 kids who were moving in this weekend, so we stayed at a hotel outside of town, which was.....well clean, but really cheap, as in cinderblock walls and no shampoo in the shower cheap.

We thought Paige would probably want to sleep in this morning, but she was game for breakfast, so we went to The Delta of Venus for breakfast. Paige just had oatmeal, but I had the  "Adam's Special," a huge plate of scrambled eggs with pesto and sundried tomatoes and jack cheese, and chilles. Did I mention that I'd like to lose some weight this fall? This wasn't the weekend to concentrate on that.

Arwen Scarf

The alpaca yarn that my friend bought for me in Montana is called "Lupine Gardens," which is the perfect name for yarn with such nice subtle tones of purple and green. I should quit trying to take pictures at night so that maybe I can actually show the colors of the objects I'm trying to share. This pic doesn't do it justice.

This yarn is so wonderfully soft. Did I say something about knitting a beret last week? I don't know what I was thinking. I don't wear berets.  I do, however, wear scarves. I found the perfect scarf pattern to show off  in my beautiful yarn, and that will be perfect for the 175 yards of yarn in the skein. It's the the Arwen Keyhole Scarf. I'm funny about my knitting preferences. I don't want a project that's too easy, or I get bored; plus, I'm usually not too proud of doing things that require no skill. On the other hand, I like having a project that I can take in the care and not need to have a pattern along. This is the perfect fit for me.

I love Saturday mornings. Russ and I usually get some good exercise in, and then we have a hearty breakfast, something we never have time for during the week. I usually fix something we call "cauliflower salsa." That may not sound that good to everyone, but we love it.  I finely chop up about two cups of cauliflower, some red onion, about a quarter cup red bell pepper, and a jalapeno or two. I cook the veggies in olive oil with a little ghee, until the cauliflower is a little browned, then I turn off the heat and add about a quarter cup cilantro. I used to put the "salsa" on scrambled eggs and top it off with a little cheddar cheese, but lately, we've been having it on brown rice. Today, we had it with both scrambled eggs and brown rice. We always top it off with Rock-It Sauce, which is wonderful. It was delicious! Not exactly diet food, but delicious.

Real Knitting

My running partner and I have been running together for over fifteen years. We're about the same age, we're both teachers, and we share a lot of political views, which is nice since we can rant to each other for an hour most morning without offending each other. Other than that, we're pretty different. She doesn't have kids, travels a lot with her husband, and isn't into crafting of any kind or gardening, BUT she is appreciative of those of us who are. Last year, she and her husband went skiing in Montana, and she brought me back some yarn from Creations Yarn Shop and Fiber Station in Ennis Montana. The varigated yarn is alpaca, and the purple is partly cashmere. What a nice friend! Both skeins have been sitting in my yarn basket,. In my attempt to find a little direction in my knitting, I thought I'd finally figure out something to do with them. I decided upon a beret. I'm knitting the meret from Wooly Wormhead.  I've just barely gotten started, but I'm feeling excited about it already. Now, if only the temps would go down, so I can actually imagine wearing wool.

Beach Saturday

  We lived close enough to the Central Coast beaches that a Saturday at the beach isn't much of an undertaking. In fact, there are several teachers at the high school and college who commute from beach communities everyday. We used to go with the kids quite often, but when they were in high school, weekends were usually full of soccer matches, swim meets, or volleyball games.With two kids now in college, we'v discovered that we like each other's company quite a bit still and have started making weekend trips to the beach a regular thing again.

 Living in a desert during September isn't very conducive to running, which is something we both enjoy, so we really like to start our day with a run in the nice, cool, sometimes foggy weather. This is a picture of the beginning of the Johnson Ranch trail near San Luis Obispo. It's three and a half miles, with some pretty good hills. We ran it twice on Saturday, with a minimum amount of walking. Russ finished about ten minutes ahead of me, so you know who did the most walking.

We usually spend our afternoons on the beach at Pismo, but we really like Morro Bay better. It's another half an hour to get there though. We got an early start on Saturday, so we decided that Morro Bay it was.  What a perfect day! I had kind of pictured knitting on the beach, but I opted for a nap instead.

Gotta Branch Out

 So...I'm still having trouble getting going with anything substantial on the "knitting front." It's  just so difficult to envision needing anything warm when it's still extremely hot outside. I still am enjoying mindless knitting though. I've been knitting tiny mittens again.

 I have a plan for them that I may not follow through with. My daughter, Paige, is leaving in a couple of weeks to attend U.C. Davis in Northern California.  She's excited to finally be leaving home after spending two years at our local community college. She'll be rooming with three other girls in off-campus housing, and, although they didn't know either other until a meeting on a Davis Facebook forum for transfer students, they've been planning "apartment" decorating all summer...on student budgets, of course. I have this idea that I'll send them little "holiday" decorations throughout the year. I'm picturing making a little mitten and hat bunting for them to put up around Christmas time. I've noticed a "pink" trend in a lot of their little projects, a pink gate with their names on it, for example, for a little gate they have in their back walkway.

I'm not sure how I'll feel on the day we drop Paige off five hours away from home, but right now, I feel happy for her...and us. It can't have been easy to have your mother be a teacher in a small town. I knew way too much about some of her questionable choices in high school and college. I think we're all ready to have her start her big adventure. I do think she'll miss us a little though. The other night she came home, and as she walked in, she said, "I love our house." I'm thinking she mainly meant the full fridge, but I liked that she seemed to already start appreciating how nice we tried to make it for her and her brother, whether they noticed it or not.

End of Summer

We always end our summer with a week up in Northern California, visiting my parents who live in Fortuna. We've been doing this since before our children were born, so we've had time to develop many rituals that the kids are especially demanding that we observe each year, despite the fact that they are eighteen and twenty years old. Some year we take along our "old beagle" Rowdy who pines for us at the dog-sitters otherwise. Rowdy considers this trip the highlight of his entire year. 

. One of our long-time rituals has been to have lunch at Hurricane Kate's in Eureka. This year we parked a block away, walked up to our favorite restaurant, ...and it was closed--closed, as in you could look inside and see that the kitchen had been demoed. Kai, especially, took it hard. He's not a fan of the rest of our adventurous tastes, and Hurricane Kates made all of us happy with bacon cheeseburgers with sweet potato fries for him, and things like Lime Rock Shrimp Salad Sandwich or Falafel sandwiches for the rest of us. Oh, and the French-press coffee! I say this with a smile now, but I have to admit that I felt a little catch in my throat as I got out my phone to try to find somewhere else to eat. We have a lot of happy memories from that restaurant!

We were kind of hungry by the time that we discovered the tragedy of Hurricane Kate's closing, so we didn't want to mess around. We decided to drive across the bay to Woodley Island, where there's a restaurant called Cafe Marina. It was good in a generic "by the ocean" kind of way. Paige and I had a couple of oyster shooters, which was kind of fun, partly because it grossed Kai out and partly because they were really good.

We managed to complete all of other rituals during our week visit though, eating at No Brand Burger Stand in Ferndale. which has added chalk to their table decor, so the kids didn't have to miss the crayons on butcher paper from Hurricane Kate's.

My family eats pretty healthily most of the time. We eat a lot of seafood and vegetarian main dishes, and tons of vegetables. I'm not exactly anal about it; it's just easier to clean the stove if you haven't cooked a bunch of greasy food on it. I truly can't remember the last time I cooked a hamburger, but I do love a good hamburger, and one of the things we never, ever miss is the Cajun-bacon-cheeseburger at No Brand Burger Stand. Guy Fieri is from Ferndale, not that I like Guy Fieri that much, but he loves No Brand Burger Stand. I'm getting hungry just thinking about one right now. Oh well, there's next year to look forward to.

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been that excited about knitting lately, just kind of distracted by other things, but I was already starting to work on my fun projects by the time we headed up North. My dad had a surprise for me when got there that has gotten my even more excited about knitting again. First of all, he had a huge bundle of fleece from a friend of his who raises Romeny sheep, and he had started a spinning wheel for me. Actually, I knew that he had started a spinning wheel from phone conversations, but I hadn't realized how intricate of a wheel he was creating. He sent me some pictures of his progress this week. Yep, I better start looking into how to spin.

Let's Try This Again

I still remember my first major knitting project; it was a yellow, Tahki cotton yarn textured sweater for my older brother which I knit when I was probably a senior in high school. My brother was attending Notre Dame then and drove a red, MG Midget. He had spent the summer life-guarding, and he looked awesome with his bleached blond hair and dark tan. I was kind of proud to knit him a sweater worthy of his good looks as he headed back to Notre Dame at the end of the summer. That was thirty years ago, and I've loved knitting and have knit almost continuously every since. But, for some reason, I just haven't felt like knitting for the last six months, and, tangentially, I haven't felt like blogging either, which has something to do with not having anything to say, knitting-wise, at least. I tried to get excited about different projects, but I'd get started, even nearly finished at times, and end up unraveling whatever work I'd completed. I just couldn't get into it.

 I used to like reading about mountain climbing. One of the things a lot of the authors would mention was the importance of "getting a good purchase" on each ledge, as they continued up a climb. I've equated that idea numerous time with other facets of life, particularly weight loss. I've tried climbing that "weight loss" cliff numerous times, and I've "slipped" numerous times.  I've never ever given up though, which is probably why my weight hasn't ever gotten completely out of my control. I felt like I just needed to get a "good purchase" on my weight loss goal, and I'd be successful eventually. So, I've been trying that same philosophy with knitting, starting project after project until I finally got a good "purchase." My recent knitting successes aren't very practical for someone who lives in Central California, but I'm finally into knitting again. I've been knitting mitts with leftover yarn. I haven't decided what to do with them, considering that they're pretty much superfluous for me. It doesn't matter though. I'm enjoying knitting again, and I've used up a little of my yarn supply too, which is an ongoing goal, and maybe I can get back into blogging again too. At the very least, I'm going to start enjoying reading my blogging buddies' blogs without feeling guilty that I hadn't produced anything!

Happy New Year!

I have no exciting adventures to report after a very relaxing two weeks of vacation. Our school didn't get out until the 23rd, which I complained was very unfamily-friendly, but actually, it was kind of nice since we had time after Christmas and New Year's to enjoy ourselves. We had planned on going skiing in Yosemite earlier this week, but there was no snow, so we didn't go anywhere other than to see go see War Horse on Christmas Day; run and bicycle on the Kern River Parkway Biketrail, work in my garden (sorry to rub it in Midwesterners and Easterners); bake numerous batches of cookies, watch the entire, awesome, first season of Downton Abbey and, of course...knit. 

I started this little sweater over a month ago with all of the  Louet Gems yarn left over from the little headband I knit for my friend's baby toddler earlier this fall. Typical of me, I started about five different patterns before I settled on the pattern I wanted to follow through with, a pattern from Garnstudio. I'm happy with the product, but I have to admit that I'm ready for a new challenge with a little thicker yarn.

I couldn't resist knitting a little bunny to go along with it, using my extra, extra yarn. I still use Barbara Prime's well-dressed bunny pattern for the body and limbs, but I use Little Cotton Rabbit's egg cozy pattern for the head.

Ribbed Socks

No tasty pictures of our Thanksgiving feast, even though it was pretty delicious and no awesome pictures of Russ and my recent trips to Hearst Castle or Arroyo Grande or Morro Bay, even though they were wonderful. Just a picture of some socks that I knit as part of my little knitting group's KAL. My friends are all very competent knitters, but none of them had knit socks before, so we decided that ribbed socks would be the perfect way for them to start out. We took a little trip about a month ago to buy our yarn at Classy Knits in downtown Bakersfield.  Her sock yarn selection was a little small, which is understandable, considering that it has only recently starting get even a little chilly here in Central California. We all found something we liked though, pace ped varigate sock yarn from The Alpaca Yarn Company.  It's beautiful yarn and has a separate little surprise in each hank--solid colored yarn for the heels and toes. It's not cheap, like $24 a skein, but foot comfort is important, after all.

Uninspired and uninspiring

So, it's come to this. Posting pictures of my fireplace, on which I've admittedly displayed a few knit items, but they're items I knit  several years ago. I'd like to pretend that I painted the eggs myself, but they're just an exorbitant purchase from Sturbridge Yankee Workshop. I was just afraid that if I didn't post soon, I'd forget my blog password! This is the time of year that I wish I would be less greedy and just have one job, instead of three! It's not like I don't have free time, but teaching two extra college classes does limit my "sit around and knit" time. Russ and I did mange to take a little trip to San Luis Obispo this Saturday. I dutifully brought along 30 four-page essays to grade, and there they sat in the back seat the entire day. Oh, the guilt!

I did finish this Birds and the Bees headband for a friend's baby a couple of weeks ago. I've called it (not to my friend) the $40 headband since it used four skeins of louet gem fingering yarn which is $10 a skein. I justified it by assuring myself that I would also knit a little striped sweater with the leftover yarn. I just can't find the right pattern though. The colors are really cute on the headband, but ultimately they're not colors that I think about going together in a sweater. So, the search continues. I'm thinking of buying a skein of pink to offset the "non-baby" brown and dark green yarn. What's another $10 anyway?

This and That

I once told a friend that I'd call myself a "neat freak" except that I'm so insecure about my abilities in that area that I'd be afraid that people would think that was strange to call myself "neat" when my house in never that clean. There are several reasons for this fact, but the number one reason is that we have three animals who have the run of the house at all times. Our beagles may have short hair, but they shed constantly, which is why I sweep and mop our floors at least once a day, usually twice. Kitty contributes even more to my cleanliness angst since she likes to sleep on the couches and (horrors!) the kitchen table. I've given up on table cloths since she'll just walk across them and take a little nap, leaving black hair everywhere. But, today I decided that I'd get out her kitty bed to encourage her to stay away from the couches, at least. Yes, she's still on the table, but I feel better about her, at least, being in her little bed....and she is so cute and cozy in there.

Oh, and I didn't crop my last picture very close so that I could show off my little pumpkin salt and pepper shakers from Sturbridge Yankee Workshop that  I recently purchased.

 What wrong with the above picture? 

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the The Maricopa Quilt Company with a quilting friend of mine and bought a fabric pack, thinking that maybe I'd follow through with a little quilting project. I don't know much about quilting, but I do know the alternating bold fabrics with lighter fabrics rule. Somehow, I got my right band of fabric reversed so that I had lights with lights, so even though it's so much easier to unravel a knitting mistake, I ripped out my misplaced band and fixed it. Success! My seams all match. It's amazing what one can do if she is willing to rip and sew, rip and sew, rip and sew...I mean baste.

Now what do I do? I'm planning on hand quilting it, which I have no idea how to do. No worries. I have the internet. This isn't really even big enough to be a baby blanket, but I wanted to start really small. I'm thinking that I'll use it as a table topper once I'm finished.