Now Kathy and Jon Can Fill Them Up.

Oh those family traditions.

I mentioned early in the year that I was furiously working on some of the “Family” Christmas stockings. The ones where there is no actual written pattern because the pattern has long been lost. Grandma Amsler knew the pattern. But by the time I thought about asking her about it the pattern was lost and Grandma was no longer able to tell me what she did. Sigh.

But I have persevered. I have raised my fist to the sky and declared…

I will not be bested by wool and the fear of no pattern. I can knit socks! I can do these!

And as of yesterday afternoon……

The stockings are done.

And I don’t think that I have any more to do this year. Please assure me that I don’t.

They all have a short row heel.

I am pleased over all with them. But Kathy, I have to say that Levi’s turned out a bit different. I just couldn’t figure out why.

Puzzled until my puzzler was sore.

And then I was shown the light. And I dope slapped myself a bit.

I was using my KnitPicks Options needles, those are ones where I can switch the tips around for different sizes. And when I went to disassemble the needles to put them away…..

I found that I had been using a 7….and a 5. I have no idea how that happened and why I didn’t catch it but I didn’t.

Knit in haste and repent (or rip out) at leisure.

It looks fine and we will just tell Levi in the future that I made his EXTRA special.

Cuz I am NOT ripping it out and redoing it.

Apple Wastes My Time On Occasion

This NaBloPoMo thing might just be the death of me and we are only a week into it.

I never blog on Sunday. My brain likes to take the day off. And yet here I am.

I am in the process of updating my ipod touch. Aren’t you thrilled to know that? I always quake when I push the button to do an update. I am always worried that something will go wrong and the ipod will smoke and give up the ghost. Or Apple will wipe out all info on the ipod. And Apple likes to drop new apps onto my ipod that I don’t need and can’t seem to get rid of.

It went fairly well, except……

It decided that I had 350 unread emails that should be downloaded in 25 email batches. All emails that I have seen and dealt with. I have a feeling that they were hanging around in the trash bin and I just forgot to give them the ultimate delete. But until I re-download them and then delete them again they are just going to be there taunting me.

This is a supreme waste of my time.

I have knitting to do.

See you tomorrow.

One Of Us Is Goin’ Down!

The Enemy

It is this time of year when I raise my fist and curse the fact that we decided to “build the house in the forest Mommy!”

Forest=trees=leaves=oh my aching back in the Fall.

My trusty Fall companion.

I would never live through the months of October and November without my trusty leaf blower “Mr. Windy”. Thank you to whoever it is that engineered the thing that is a leaf blower.

Local Producer of Annoying Repetitive Noise

Leaf blower! I love the leaf blower! I must bark at the leaf blower! BarkBarkBarkBark!

It is the leaves or me.

And I have a banquet to go to this evening so that tells you who is going to win this war!!

7 Quick Takes (Vol 140)

Yipee it is Friday!!! And that means blather. You know what to do. Click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the diminishing hygiene of the Occupy Wallstreet Protesters, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else is doing.

Now on to the blather.

1.
Because I am a neat freak and like to have everything “Just So” I have spent WAAAAAAAAY too much time this week fiddling with my itunes.

I blame Shoe Queen.

Because of her influence I have to have artwork attached to all albums, stray songs, audiobooks. That meant that I had to go through everything and make sure. And if not then I had to go out and find the artwork and import it.

And then I decided to fiddle with genres and how I had all my music tagged.

And then there were all the audiobooks on CD that I borrowed from the library this week and spent time loading into itunes. I get more work done if I can have an audiobook going in my ears.

And once the CDs are in itunes then I have to put artwork to them, even though I am going to delete them after listening, and make sure that they are tagged as an audiobook and that they play as one continuous album

Help me.

2.
This week was “Fall cleaning the windows” week.

Not my favorite task.

Did I mention that I have 40+ windows in my house?

I will admit that there are some of them that do not get cleaned every year. I sometimes just ignore the upstairs ones and perhaps the ones in the basement. But all the windows on the first floor must be washed twice a year. As well as washing the sliding glass door and the windows on either side of it and the French door and the windows on either side of that.

I try to do this on a day that isn’t too cold, and isn’t raining and isn’t snowing. And yes there have been years when the snow has been flying as I have been washing windows.

To quote Gollum, “Not very nice at all”

Tuesday was the day this year and it was a reasonable temp and the sun was out.

But I still didn’t enjoy it.

3.
The Eggs and Bacon scarf mentioned yesterday.

Oh. My. Gosh.

It is stinkin’ cute. I managed to get one of the eggs done yesterday as well as a couple more pieces of the bacon. I am so going to have to make this for myself. Even though I am making it with acrylic yarn, which I don’t love, I am still making it.

Twinkie Chan is a genius. Her website is way too busy but she is a genius.

4.
Because I am an idiot and I don’t seem to have enough to do I have decided to participate in NaBloPoMo.

What is NaBloPoMo you are asking yourself…….

National Blog Posting Month.

What that means is that I am going to attempt to post every day in the month of November.

Every. Day.

Even Saturdays and Sundays which I usually take off.

You might just get a picture or something stupid but it will happen every day. And I may occasionally use one of the daily NaBloPoMo prompts to help me along. Because….

You know….

I don’t have ANYTHING else to do around here but blog right?

5.
Hopefully HHBL and I can get the rest of the leaves blown into the woods tomorrow. We have had a relatively dry week here at Chez Knit and the leaves are good for blowing.

And there are still a lot of leaves to blow.

Thank you to whoever invented the leaf blower. We have several varieties of that little instrument. I use the electric version and HHBL has a gas powered. In fact we actually have “his and hers” electric leaf blowers. My Black and Decker as been with me for many years. We are great friends and I use him for many things. I have been known to blow a light coating of snow off the front walk with the leaf blower.

I am so my father.

6.
The NaBloPoMo writing prompt of the day is:

When you are writing, do you prefer to use a pen or a computer?

I use both. I have to say that when I started journaling about 12 years ago I always wrote with a pen. In fact for a number of years I used a fountain pen. I love that thing.

And then I taught myself to type. And so I typed out my journal entry every day, printed it off and stuck it in my journal. Clunky? You bet. But I type faster than I write and I have a lot of words some days.

But now I am back to writing with a pen. I seem to be more consistent that way. But if there is a day when I have to use a lot of words then I just use the computer.

Weren’t you just dying to know this.

7.
Today is my monthly Prayer Breakfast with my buddies Sue, Susie, Lynelle, Gail, Michelle, Kelly, Ann and Lou. Once a month at Bob Evans.

It isn’t like we don’t see each other any other time because we do. We have been good friends for many years. Sue’s daughter is TMO’s best friend. They have been BFFs since the first time they saw each other across a crowded 1st grade room. And if they were best friends then Sue and I had to be as well. We didn’t want to disappoint our daughters so we are.

All of us, plus husbands, meet for a monthly fellowship/bible study. We have been doing this for….15 years. At one time we all attended the same church and many of us had kids in the same schools. We had many points of “commonality” and we all ended up in the same “Flocks” group at church. There were a few years when we didn’t meet but we missed it so we started back up.

Once a month the girls all meet a Bob Evans for breakfast and to share prayer requests, answers to prayer and breakfast. We sit at the same table. We have the same waitress, Roseanne. Many of us order the same things. We could all be old retired men!

About Roseanne. The first year or so that we started meeting we just didn’t know what to make of her. How should I put this? She can be a bit gruff perhaps. And slightly standoffish and abrasive. But that is only until you prove yourself. It took us almost a year of monthly meetings for her to warm up to us. What clinched the deal was that we gave her presents at Christmas time. And we ask her how she is. And how her mother is.

I can honestly tell you, if Roseanne wasn’t there then we would find another place to meet. We absolutely cannot do without her and her ever changing red hair.

It Has Been a LOOOOOOOOOONG Time

It has been a loooooooooooong time….

since I did any crocheting.

A really long time. Like Jr. Hi long time.

I am a knitter. I like needles and not hooks.

I do not have anything against crocheting. My friend Jen makes some absolutely amazing things with a crochet hook.

And I might still be knitting away and not using a crochet hook except for Daughter Ahren.

This is Daughter Ahren, one of the Posse, one of Cartoon Girl’s good friends.

I love her.

And a time ago she sent me a message, with a picture attached, asking if I could help her make this little object.

Eggs and Bacon!!

I am sorry but this is just the most fabulously kitschy scarf. It is so Ahren. If you knew her you would agree. But all I had was a picture and a broken link to a blog.

Thank goodness for Ravelry. Seriously. Because without Ravelry, that place for ALL things knitting and crocheting, I would never have figured out…..

1. Where to find the pattern. In a book called Twinkie Chan’s Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodies

2. I was going to have to brush up on my crochet technique.

Finally the book arrived from the library. When I requested the book I figured that I would just do this one pattern and not bother with the others. However……

I am not sure that I am going to be able to resist making a “Cupcake Scarf” or the “Green Salad Scarf”.

But I digress.

I had a BUNCH of work to do today. I had photo sessions that needed to be scheduled. I had cleaning to do. There are leaves that need to be taken care of. There is stuff to organize.

So what have I been doing instead of all of those things? I have been trying to remember how to crochet. THANK GOODNESS FOR YOUTUBE!!!!! If not for YouTube I might have just chucked the yarn and the dadgum hook and went for an early glass of wine.

And once I start something like this I just can’t stop until I had mastered it.

Not that I am competitive or anything.

Crochet should not be this difficult. I think I yelled that at least once as I ripped back and chained on again…..and again……and again…..and again.

But I think I have finally found my crochet rhythm. At first I wrote “hooking rhythm” but then thought better of it. I will post a picture when the whole thing is done. I have to complete one before I can teach Ahren how to do this.

Wish me luck.

It’s So Sad

Sometimes I find it so sad when something that you remember from your childhood is all of a sudden irrevocably gone.

I feel that way today.

I should tell you that the parental units have lived in the same house for 40 years now. They are fine. The house is fine. But the farm house two doors down is not.

As of 1:15a this morning it is a total loss.

The Farm House predated any other house on the street by many years. Heck, it predated the street itself. Built in 1899 it was designed by Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt. It’s original driveway was bordered by mature trees and afforded a view of the clubhouse for The Chicago Golf Club. I remember my Grandmother Amsler telling me about a wedding that she had been a part of when she was in college in the early 1930’s. She said that is was a lovely place and there were no other houses around.

I used to babysit for a family who lived in The Farmhouse. Their kids were terrors. The first time I baby sat for them the son made a valiant effort to eat a AA battery. More than once.

I quit babysitting after I was done with that job. There had to be a better way to make money.

The house was painted brown when I was growing up. The front staircase was a beautiful curving one that ran up through the turret. The kitchen was large. The basement was scary. It had a wonderful second staircase that was accessed from the back of the house. I have a total and complete fascination with back staircases. I don’t think I will ever have a house that has one but I can always hope. My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Kenneth had one in their house in Washington D.C.

It was fabulous.

The house had gone through a number of renovations in recent years and had just been sold. The new owners were in the process of remodeling and were not living in the house at the time. That is a blessing.

But my heart is so sad today to see something that I loved so much be gone.

I hope that they can rebuild. But even if they do it will never be the same.

Do Not Mess With The Recipe

We all have them. Recipes handed down from mother to daughter. From grandmother to grandson. From grandmother to granddaughter.

They live on tattered 3x5 cards in our recipe files. In fact, we know them so well that we no longer need to pull the card out. We can make the recipe in our sleep.

That is how I feel about the oil pie crust recipe that has been in my family for many a year. I have no idea where it originally came from. Mimi might know. All I know is that Grandma Pringle used it. Mimi uses it. I use it.

It never fails.

Never.

Unless………

Let me tell you the tale of Deb and the Pie Crust. Or, how I lost my religion making a stupid pie.

Lets go way back. Way, way back. OK, this last Saturday morning if you really have to know. HHBL and I were going to have dinner with some old friends.

Hi Linda and Bob!! We had a GREAT time on Saturday.

Now back to our story.

I was in charge of dessert. I had already talked to Bob and ascertained that French Silk Pie would not be turned away. You never know, some people don’t like chocolate. I KNOW!! How can that be??? So I checked and got the OK. I could have made the pie with a graham cracker crust but I don’t really like it that way. I like it with a traditional pie crust. It is already so sweet that a graham cracker crust just seems like over kill.

And I was already trying to kill all of us with a stick and a half of butter and 4 raw eggs in the pie. Yes raw eggs. Deal with it.

That morning I had already found that I was out of unsweetened chocolate so I had to run out to Wally Mart. I came home, assembled all of the items that I would need to make the pie crust….

And realized that I wasn’t going to have enough milk to make the pie crust AND have milk for breakfast on Sunday. And the pie crust recipe only uses 1/4 cup of milk so that tells you how little milk we had.

Darn it! I don’t have time to run back out to Wally Mart. What to do. What to do. So I rooted around in the frig and came up with heavy cream. I always have some of that around here. We are a family that believes that the words “Low fat, No fat” are baaaaaaaaaad.

Heck, I bet I can use the heavy cream instead of the milk in the pie crust. It won’t make any difference.

Famous last words.

I roll out the crust in the same manner that I always do. Mimi and I roll the crust out between pieces of plastic wrap. Works like a charm. And makes it very easy to detach the crust from the wrap and then move over to the pie plate. The crust looks good. Rolls out as usual. Except when I go to move it over to the pie plate the round rips right in half.

What the HECK!

There is an old thought that says if the pie is for you to eat the crust will roll out perfectly. But if the pie is for company then you will have trouble. Whoever said this must have been looking over my shoulder.

Grrrrrrrrrr. So I gather everything back up and re-roll. And when I go to move it to the pie plate………it rips apart again. And not only down the middle but it just sort of falls apart into pieces. Lots of pieces.

OH FOR THE LOVE OF PETER, PAUL and MARY!

At this time the dog very quietly went into his house as he felt it was safer to be there.

I was very frightened Alpha Male. You were yelling. I don’t like yelling.

I again gather everything up. Mutter wild imprecations at the atmosphere. And I re-roll for the third time. Even when I was learning to make pie crust this has never happened. Never.

Do you want to guess what happened when I rolled the crust out for the third time.

Well first I said my favorite curse phrase. I cannot write it here as this is a family blog. HHBL came and gently inquired what was wrong and if he could help.

I replied in the negative as I was

Violently pitching the crust into the garbage. Can you see all the little pieces of dough. There was no way that I could piece the crust together without it looking like something from Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.

And then I stood there for a time and raised my fist in defiance and said,

As God is my witness, I will not be bested by pie dough!!!

What had I done wrong? Why wasn’t this working? And then it hit me. When I had used the heavy cream I had made the pie crust too “short”. There was too much fat in the cream as opposed to the 1% milk that I usually use. Could it possibly be that simple?

Yes, it could. I bit the bullet and used a portion of the very small amount of milk that we had in the frig to make a new batch of pie crust.

And it rolled out perfectly. And the pie was delicious.

The moral of the story my friends.

If it has always worked…..Don’t mess with the recipe.