Mid-April Project Progress.......

First off, Happy Six Month Anniversary to my Husband. These were my anniversary flowers.  :)

 

 What is this? This is the pattern for the Season 1 Star Trek TNG Deanna Troi uniform.  Do you know what that means? it means that it's about a month from BayCon and I really really need to get my trek costume together! My thrifting has gone very well for my 7th Dr. (female version), so this is the biggest project I have right now. It's a big sewing project for me since I don't really have any skill in sewing. I'm hoping I can go to a fabric store next weekend with someone who knows how to pick the right fabric for a project.  I'll let you know how it goes, of course.

And do you remember about the mis-matched sasquatch socks? When I went to purchase the yarn to match those socks....I fell down and ended up with way too much sock yarn. You can see the two balls I actually needed in the bottom right corner of the picture. Whoops.







But look at this! A finished project! With all that new sock yarn coming in, I had to start making some room. This is my 2nd pair of finished socks from stitches yarn - that's THIS YEAR'S stitches yarn! This is what happens when you buy yarn that you're excited about. I'll probably only make it half way through my 15 skiens of stitches sock yarn, but at least that's farther than most people get right off. And besides, with that much sock yarn, I can definitely get a jump on my making my Christmas socks. I owe my stepdad a couple pairs from last year when I made his too small.




And here we have last week's progress on my next pair of stitches socks next to my management textbook. I took this pic before I got back from my business trip. I didn't get too far on the socks as I had to read some of this book. So far, I can't tell if it's going to be a useful book for me or not - but but it is interesting. If only I'd been managing for less than 90 days...... Although check out those lovely colors in my stitches yarn! I hope you think it's nice as I have 5 balls of it, which translates to 5 or 6 pairs of socks.

 I have a couple of more projects in progress. A couple of these are shown in this post. These are premie socks for the hospital.

And this is my 2nd daybreak. Although the colors turned out a little strange........

Canning Day!

Two weeks ago my friend Rae and I had a canning day! Not familiar with Canning? It should probably be called Jarring.....it's a method of preserving food (in my case, cooked food in a jar). We made a lot of things, since we only worked for about 3 hours once we got started.  We're planning another canning day this Sunday (fingers crossed).


So, I figured, why not walk you through some canning points while using pictures to illustrate?

First off, you need a lot of stuff to can. What I've shown to the side are some of the ingredients we used.


For this past experiment in preserving, we had strawberries (which we didn't use), cans (jars), lids, honey, blueberries, lemons, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, oranges, limes, jalepenos, pectin.....you get the picture.  What this all adds up to is a lot of shopping (or fruit picking if you're lucky) and some good time spent organizing and planning.







You also end up spending a lot of time in food prep. What I'm showing here are some pictures of the work. Those green things? Those are jalepenos. I learned a few things while working with fresh jalepenos - one of those things is that even if you wash your hands a few times, you still shouldn't touch your eyes or your face. You will still be in horrible pain hours later - and yes, it gets worse if you wash your face......

 And yes, canning involves a need for acid. Although you end up using a lot of sweets and fruit, you also end up using really sour fruits, like lemons, for more citric acid. Here are just a few of the ones that we used to make some lemon-blueberry marmalade. And you know what? I didn't think that lemon-blueberry would taste very good, but it's delicious! I wish I hadn't canned it into such large jars, since I would rather have had a multitude of little jars that I could give away and open at different times. Now I have 1 big jar (the person who canned with me has the other) and I'm hesistating on opening it becuase I don't want to have to use up the whole damn thing!

 And this to the right is what heaven looks like while it's still cooking. What's heaven? Heaven is whole orange slices which are boiled into submission in an ooze of honey and melted granulated sugar -  with a spice bag of cinnamon sticks, cloves, and allspice. This is a super simple recipe out of one of my two canning books. It's simply called "orange slices in honey" and that's exactly what it is. Before this, I didn't think that you could eat whole orange slices -  but you totally can. Lots of people were leery, but they found out that if you put a little of this on a piece of bread with a nice soft cheese - goat being our favorite, it's heaven.



But enough in-proceess pics, here are the finished products for you to ogle.

2 Hugemongous jars of blueberry lemon marmalade
6 jars of jalepeno jam 


AND

4 and 1/2 jars of orange slices in honey.

My haul was half of the canning we did that day, plus the half jar of oranges.


One thing I love about canning (besides how much fun it is to share) is how beautiful it looks!

April Post with some Mark India Pics

It's April! I figured I had been neglecting my usual tally, so I'm going to have to try to catch up on my stats. Sadly, I haven't been keeping great track, but here's where I am so far as I can tell:

• January: Pair of socks for me
• Feb: Sweater for me
• March: Socks for the Lorien (with new stitches yarn!), 2 mismatched Sasquatch socks
• April so far: Socks for me (with new stitches yarn)
• Selfish ratio: 3/5%

And now, some pics of the fabled mis-matched socks and India from the end of March. Finished sock and in-progress shawl pics coming shortly....along with canning pics.

The story of the mis-matched socks:

Once upon a time a quite experienced knitter went to a yarn store and picked up two matching balls of yarn. The knitter was thinking about her friend, the recipient of the Sasquatch socks. She knew he needed more socks and this was her idea of what to do on her long flights. Yay. However, halfway through the leg of the sock, the Knitter realized that the socks were turning out differently. Can you see the difference in the picture of me on the plane below?

Here's my coworkers and I at a nice barbeque place. That's barbeque on the table there in front of us.

And here I am with the mis-matched sasquatch socks at the Dubai Airport. They grew! But I didn't finish them until later that week.

Working for the Weekend?

Hey Peeps,

So, I'm sitting here with my Husbean, Smartest Monkey.  We're watching Stargate SG1 (the entire series, a couple episodes per a night), and he's working. This is the part I don't like about being a silicon valley corporate automaton. Either I'm working all nights and weekends for months on end, or he is. To his credit, this is really good work-ethic. If I were him, knowing I'd be going in for surgery tomorrow, I'd probably be saying "screw it" to the most recent drop-everything-now project and taking a break for some me-time. Or, as the recent muppet movie called it, a Me Party. (Don't get me started on what that made me think of).

But we're hard workers, so he's tirelessly coding on some project while the hours count down to bedtime and he gets ready to have his sinuses drilled into. mmmmm How's that for a mental picture?


But it's not all bad. We spent a lot of time being social this weekend, which was lovely. First we had a number of friends over on Friday night for a potluck - the theme of which was the letter G. This meant things like Garlic, Guiness, Gouda, Goat Cheese, etc. were had. On Saturday we headed over to a friend's place to watch Evil Dead 2 and 3 and then the newest Muppet Movie. Then, today, we had a lovely brew day at our friend's place where I got to wrangle some friend's children and introduce them to my spinning wheel.

None of this would have been possible a few months ago when I was spending all weekend every weekend head-down working.  While I feel incredibly lucky to have a job right now, seeing what a number of my friends are going through in the job-market with this crappy economy, I do feel a little sad that having a job has come to generally mean working around the clock. Sometimes I wish there was more of a compromise.  Right now I'm in a lucky "slow" time where I can take most of my weekend for myself. I also almost don't feel guilty for it. Almost.


Because I studied politics in school, and business, I wonder where this is heading the US as a country.  Are we going to end up working ourselves as hard as possible until burn-out and replacement by new staff who are dying to have any job because the alternative is poverty and unemployment? Are all the labor wins that unions fought for over the years going to be eroded by rhetoric and manipulation? Sometimes I worry about the world that the next generation is going to inhabit. Sometimes I wonder if retirement will exist by the time I'm old enough for it - or if there will be an "old enough" for retirement over time.

But, for now, I'll do the laundry and prepare dinner, kiss my husbean while he codes, and log in to work, myself, to prepare for Monday morning by working Sunday night.

Catch-up Post - January, Finishuary, and early March

 So, here I am, and it's almost 3 months into the year, and no significant blogging. How sad is that? I really need to work on leading that life of luxury I planned on as a child. This whole working-for-a-living thing isn't so good for getting shit done.  

Ah well, it was a nice thought.

I'm finally getting back into a more regular podcasting schedule. With the wedding and everything else that was going on last year, I fell out of my usual routine. It's nice to be getting back to it. However -  I do have a little bit of a bone to pick with those people who told me how amazing garageband is. You see, I bought a Macbook Air (the smaller size) for Christmas. It was my hope that moving to a more media-friendly machine would up my game and make my podcast a smidge better. 

Instead - I was faced with a highly counter-intuitive program which is still plaguing me at least 5 podcasts later. I managed to cut out the evil echo that my listeners were being terrorized with. And I even managed to figure out how to add music. In the last recording session, I figured out how to control track volume for the music. But editing overall in garageband is still a mystery to me. I'm not pround of this, but I was so frustrated with the program last episode that I googled "garageband sucks" just to vent some anger. And you know what? MULTIPLE SITES popped up, which not only made me feel vindicated, but also reassured me that I'm not a total moron. I may still be a bit of a troglodyte when it comes to all things tech, but at least I figured out how to do the very basics that will allow me to publish a decent podcast. 

What else? Oh yes, I'm leaving for India in a few days. This time I only have to go for a week, which will almost be fun. Almost. No business trip where you work +12 hours a day is actually fun, but it does beat being stuck there for 3 weeks like I was before my wedding. Given that, I can't really complain. Well, I can complain about being stuck on planes for more or less a full day - and being stuck in economy class at that - but that's relatively small. Besides, it gives me a chance to knit more socks! I already have the yarn and needles for a new pair of sasquatch socks. Thankfully, a 24 hour trip each way won't be quite enough for me to knit a full pair of those. Remember when I went to India last time and knit myself an entire pair of socks just on the flight there? These will have more knitting time needed than that.

Of course, I know this begs the question - what if my needles get taken away? Well, last time I managed to keep them on all my flights. The time before I did have them taken away on my trip from Dubai to US (God, that was a nightmare without knitting). This time, I'm back on the 1st Airline, so there is a risk. However, I'm taking wooden circulars and I've packed some great leftovers from two sweaters I made last year to make a new Daybreak into my checked luggage so I'll have something to do in the evenings once I hit India.

What else can I say? I'm planning as best I can. I just wish there was some other craft I could take.

But enough about that, where am I with my knitting?

As far as I can remember, I have completed:

• 1 pair of socks in January for me (purple, blue, and white colorway)
• 1 Sweater in February for me.
• 2 pairs of socks in March for a friend of a friend
• 1 Pair of socks in March for Lorien (not featured)

Total this year:
5 completed projects
Selfish ratio: 2/5
Mending: 2 pairs of socks for me, 1 pair of sasquatch socks

 

 Arianne sweater - front (no collar)

Arianne sweater back (no collar)

Ariann sweater inside button band

 Ariann sweater, button!

Into the breach!

Well, today it finally started raining. Living in mid/northern California is a little confusing at times. For example, it's been dry, but cloudy off and on since October. It's also been very brightly sunny and hot enough for tanktops. Last time I checked, it's Winter. While I know it doesn't generally snow where I live, I would like the weather to take some notice. Of course, that's easy for me to say, isn't it? 2 hours north of me it's been pouring. And, well, I think last winter there were record rains where I was. But this year? This feels like a really mild summer.....for months.

Still, it could be worse.

Bear in mind, your fearless heroine is typing this from inside a work cafeteria. I had blithely determined that a break in the weather meant that I and my umbrella should high-tail it to a cafe at work which has Pho (noodles and meat or veggies in hot broth). So, I did - and I took a detour to get some extra walking in as well since I missed my workout in order to sleep in this morning, something I hope will help me convince my body that I don't really have this cold that has been threatening me. About half-way through my detour - at literally the farthest point from any buildings, it decided to pour. Classic. In fact, so classic that I had my umbrella prepared. However, that simple umbrella did not stop me from being soaked from the knees down - with spots on my back and chest, on my face, and in my hair.


Needles to say, even though I've finished my lunch (I smartly worked while slurping my soup), I'm in no rush to go back outside any time soon........... but I didn't bring a charger, and that means that my working from this cafe must needs come to an end. Shivering in my soaked jeans, this seems incredibly cruel of fate. What was so compelling about the Pho that I started off on this foolhardy adventure anyway? I can only imagine that it has to do with the fact that my usual dinner Pho-buddy, J, has been busy with things like having a baby and I just wanted a little taste of our old treat. In the scheme of things, getting your legs soaked when you've got a cold and forgot your jacket on a windy and rainy day just to have a little nostalgia isn't really that bad of a tradeoff.

But I'm totally going to make myself a latte when I get back to my building and desk. Just sayin'

The Husbean and the Pea

So, it's February, about time for my usual flurry of posts before I go dark for the rest of the year.

Today's post is about my Husbean (Husband). Some of you might recall that I got married in October last year, so he will henceforth be called the Husbean. I like adding the word bean after people's names, so this seemed like a natural evolution.


Ahem, anyway, there was a story here somewhere, oh yeah:

The Husbean and the Pea.

- This is what I was muttering in irritation against my pillow as I dug back under the blankets around 4am this morning, prior to a wide-eyed insomnia which lasted about a half hour. How did he warrant such a title? Well, are you familiar with the story The Princess and the Pea? In this children's story, a Princess proves she's truly a princess by her finiky sleeping habits. She can literally feel a pea placed underneath the bottom mattress of 40 she's sleeping on (Note, I think the actual number of mattresses isn't pertinent. The point is there are TOO MANY for her to know there was a pea beneath them). She proves that not only is she a pain in the ass, but that she's a ROYAL pain in the ass.

Last night, or I guess it would more accurately be this morning, I awoke because my husband had awoken and was galumphing about. Once awake, and after asking what he was doing and receiving his sleep yet intelligible answer, I could barely hear in the distance a recurring beep. Apparently it was the alarm system telling us that one of our smoke detectors had quick. The alarm in question was squeaking a louder, yet less often manner - and was impossible to locate as it was being over-come by the alarm system beeping. I mused sleepily: WHY DOES THIS ONLY HAPPEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE $&*#ING NIGHT? It was approximately 5 minutes later that the Husbean's cell phone rang. It was the alarm company wanting to let us know that one of our fire alarms was out and were we ok.

It was at about this point that I decided to get up and figure out where the damn thing was. The alarm company did call a second time, by the way. And we did eventually find the "hallway" smoke alarm it was trying to warn us about---in my fiber room.


But why is this called the Husbean and the Pea? I sleep closer to the alarm (if only by a few feet), I sleep with nothing in the way, no ear plugs, white noise, etc. I slept through the alarm and the alarm about the alarm. My husbean - who sleeps with earplugs and sometimes cotton in his ears (yes, literally), who also has a CPAP mask strapped to his face and a machine next to his head woke up the second it started going off. Much like the Princess and that fateful pea....he sensed the disturbance in the force and was awake.

So why can't he wake up when his alarm goes off at 6:30?