7 Quick Takes (Vol 132)

Another crazy week in the books. Another rambling Quick Takes on the way. You know the routine. When you are finished reading my ramblings remember to click on the pic above to be whisked, at the speed of the rapidly rising gold prices (I have been listening to too much Glen Beck) over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else has been doing.

And now for the rambling.

1.
Let’s start with a Max the Wonder Dog update shall we.

I am afraid to say that we have finally turned the corner on the infection from h***. I have to say that he is better BUT….

He had to make another trip to the vet this week to see Dr. Jeremy. Max started on the gold plated (not literally but it just seems like it) pills last week and one would have thought that we would see immediate improvement.

One would be wrong.

So back Max went for Dr. J. to take another look. We have now added a combo steroid/antihistamine to the day and that seems to have made the difference.

We will see.

2.
It was canning central here at Chez Knit this week.

- 6 containers of tomato sauce (4 cups per container). I don’t have a pressure canner so those went in the freezer.
- Another batch of Tomato Peach salsa which equaled 5 pints.
- 4 pints of pickled beets.
- 3 pints of Lord Grey’s Peach Preserves using the recipe supplied by The Mom Chef. I am not sure how these are going to be in the long run cuz they just didn’t want to get at all thick. I had to boil for A. LONG. TIME.
- 2 pints of Peach Raspberry jam. I made freezer peach jam and peach/raspberry jam last year that was a pretty dismal failure. They didn’t gel correctly and when you defrosted them they were runny. So I defrosted all of them that were left, combined them in a pot and boiled the heck out of them. And then canned them. I had some on my toast this morning and it was GOOD.
- a big batch of homemade bread crumbs and a batch of homemade croutons. Those aren’t strictly canning but I just figured I would throw that in.

Funny, when I wrote this out I didn’t even realize that I wrote them all in descending order of # of pints produced.

3.
We have my favorite painting back. That makes it sound like we have a bunch of paintings which we don’t. We have a couple, Archie just happens to be my favorite.

This is Archibald Rogers in his pre-restoration state. Did I not mention that he has been gone from the house for a number of weeks? And my mantle piece has been empty. Devoid of painting.

Did I never tell you the story of Archie and how he came to us?

Tune in next week and I will tell you the WHOLE story with pictures.

I am doing my happy dance because he is back where he belongs.

4.
The last month or so has not been so good as far as bike riding is concerned.

Not good at all.

I really don’t love going out on my own, I can but I don’t love it. And HHBL has been VERY busy this past month with work and with prepping for the class he is teaching at one of the local universities.

But finally last Saturday we were able to get out on the bike for a morning ride. Of course, Saturday it was VERY warm by 8a and the humidity was hovering at about 75%. And for the first time ever…

I had a small biking crisis. We were about 3/4 of the way through the ride, past the biggest hills and coming up on the last short, small but steep hill. My nemesis really as I always have trouble with it when I really shouldn’t. And I hit a brick wall. HHBL was ahead of me and looked back to see me off the bike and bent over. What he couldn’t see was that I was retching and having difficulty breathing.

Not. Fun.

I had to stand there for a few minutes and just concentrate on not panicking. It was unnerving not to be able to breath. But after 5 minutes or so I was able to get back on the bike and go the last couple of miles (we did 15.2 that morning).

I learned a valuable lesson. I MUST make myself go out on the bike even without HHBL so that my conditioning doesn’t leave me. AND I really hate riding in very hot and humid weather.

5.
On Sunday our day will be filled with church and hopefully baseball (playoffs start Saturday, to play Sunday they must win on Saturday). As with most others here in the USA we will be remembering “where we were” on that day 10 years ago. Cartoon Girl and I had just returned from our daily swim, she was homeschooling that year, and I had placed a call to The Favored Cousin to say Happy Birthday. She told me to shut up, not unusual for her, and to turn on the TV. We worried all day about Pilot Man but he wasn’t flying that day. We also worried about bro-in-law, That Norwegian Guy, who was prepping to go to a meeting at the WTC where he had worked for many years. And little did we know that our friend, George Sleigh, was in the very heart of the storm.

The talk that George gave a few weeks ago, recounting what happened on that day, is worth watching. I have been unable to actually embed the video but if you go to the link below you can watch the video or listen to the audio it is worth the hour of your time.

George Sleigh 9/11 talk

6.
I continue to be obsessed with Pinterest.

Obsessed.

It is like my ultimate bulletin board, which is what it is meant to be I guess. And if I manage to make all the the foods I have “pinned” I am going to weigh a ton.

And there is no way that I will ever have enough time to make all the things that I would like to.

And why are so many people so much more creative than I am?

Sigh.

Now back to pinning endlessly.

7.
Do not try this at home. Or on the road for that matter.

But oh how I would like to just once.