My House Smells Like Fennel

Because I had a coupon for $10 off on seafood with a $40 purchase, I brought home not one but two packages of fish on Saturday. Yesterday, after church and choir practice [more on that later], I came home and made “Pan-Roasted Halibut with Braised Red Onion” from Williams-Sonoma Cooking for Yourself. Except that I didn’t have halibut; I had flounder. And I didn’t have a red onion; I had a fat sassy shallot. And I also didn’t have any fresh thyme, and my dried thyme was nowhere to be found, so I used fennel seeds and my new mortar and pestle. I did have the cast iron skillet that Brother Sushi helped me pick out a couple of years ago, and I did have lemon juice and unsalted butter. And I did follow the suggestion to substitute fettuccine for the new potatoes.

I only ate half of the fish. Today I will take the leftovers to work, along with the last dab of leftover mashed potatoes, and certain people in the office will say, “Ewww, it smells like fish in here.” And I will eat my healthy lunch and cheerfully ignore them. Next time I will try the recipe as written, but I was quite pleased with how my substitutions turned out.

The natatorium, which is owned by a municipal government, will be closed for MLK Day. And I will not have to go get the mail at the Post Office today, so I’m not sure where my exercise will be coming from. I doubt that eight more toe increases on the Stripedy Sock’s mate, though certainly exciting to this knitter [or any other], will get my heart rate anywhere near the aerobic zone! Once I get the increases in and a couple of straight rounds worked so that I can place a marker, I think I will set the sock aside until next Sunday. I have really been missing LittleBit’s Firestarter while in the throes of finishitis, and I think it would be pure pleasure to work with fatter yarn and fatter needles for awhile.

Choir practice. I love to sing. I’m one of those people you see in other cars on your drive to work, singing along with the radio at 65mph. And we have a gifted choir director in our ward. He manages to be both passionate about music and kind to his singers. I have rarely sung in our choir since moving into this ward almost five years ago. Why?

(1) Exhaustion; until recently all I wanted to do after church was to go home and sleep. The CPAP has made a huge difference in my energy level, and I am thankful.
(2) Bronchial issues; I am occasionally asthmatic and cannot use a rescue inhaler because it makes my asthma worse and wreaks havoc on my joints. I never know from one day to the next [in allergy season, at least] if I am going to wake up a soprano, or a tenor. I am still not entirely un-crouped from the bug I picked up in November; it comes and goes like Boy George’s Karma Chameleon.
(3) LittleBit likes to come home immediately after church, refuel, and head over to her father’s and sister’s to visit. Now, of course, she also has to factor work into most of her Sundays, but I am enjoying the blessings of letting her get her driver’s license.
(4) Her father is also a singer, and when he was still attending our ward, he was usually in the choir. I can pick his voice out of the congregation when we are all sitting in our pews; it is all the more so when we are two out of twelve or twenty up in the choir loft. For better or worse, I still hear that man’s voice in my bones.

But yesterday I was feeling well-rested, and breathing easily, and LittleBit was at her final meeting of youth conference, and her father was presumably attending his new church, and I just wanted to sing. So I did. I took one look at the sheet music and knew that those top notes might as well be on Mars, so I moved myself on down the line to sing with the altos, though I have to fake a couple of their bottom notes. [I am a mezzo with limited range. Basically, the B below Middle C, up to about E-flat. Twelve notes. Nobody writes music for my voice. :( ] And I got to sing with the second sopranos for a few measures. I have three more weeks to learn this music, so I didn’t need to bring it home. And next week we start work on the music for Easter!

I think between the water aerobics and the singing, I’ll have my pipes cleaned out in no time at all. I really need to find the sheet music for my recorder and tootle around with it for a few minutes a day. [Playing trumpet did wonders for LittleBit’s ability to manage her asthma.]

I’m off to read my scriptures and root around for sheet music, though I think it’s far too early to subject the neighbors to the squeaks and squawks of a born-again recorder player. And then I’ll head over to the YMCA; I just called, and they are open. Woohoo!

“You’re my favorite mommy!”

Always a nice thing to hear from your kid. The occasion? My telling her that I’d picked up more of the vanilla-almond granola when I went shopping yesterday. She has always been my “please” and “thank you” kid. Yes, I know that we’re not supposed to say “you always” or “you never”, but I stand on the statement. Gratitude is one of her spiritual gifts, for which I am not only immediately but eternally thankful.

She is a very happy camper this weekend. HerBoy did something above-and-beyond at camp and was awarded the privilege of having a family member or other loved one come out for a visit. Since they’re both smart enough not to ask if I would let her go, he was able to get a weekend pass and come here. He’s staying with HerSushi, who rode with her to the airport to pick him up on Friday [because it’s the little airport in BigD, and some of the neighborhoods between here and there, are iffy].

We had our youth conference this weekend. The service project was a 5K to benefit one of the local members, who was paralyzed in an accident about a year ago. HerBoy ran with her and also went to the dinner, fireside and dance last night. He’s met the bishop, the stake president, and most of her youth leaders. And one of our friends got a picture of him looking at LittleBit with the same expression that 1BDH had on his face for Firstborn at Secondborn’s wedding. Can’t wait to see it. If I can get permission from both photographers, will post it here eventually.

They held a special sacrament meeting for the youth this afternoon, so LittleBit and HerBoy headed back out to his mom’s in Fort Worth for a quick visit before church. I missed seeing her lovely face in our ward today, and I recognize that it was probably more comfortable for him to attend with people his own age than with all of her supplementary moms, dads, aunts and uncles. I will be interested to get the bishop’s impression.

On to other topics: I think that if you drop my new pedometer on its head, it bleeds footsteps. I managed to bounce it off my waistband twice on Friday. I also coughed a lot. And I’m reasonably sure that I didn’t walk three times as many steps on Friday as I did on Thursday, but I ended the workday with 1500+ steps. Weird.

I read a fascinating article over the weekend, by a surgeon who is also a sculptor. He has an interesting perspective on plastic surgery and what goes into the development of a skilled and successful plastic surgeon. A couple of the pictures are icky, but maybe you all have stronger stomachs than I do. If all else fails, put your hand over the picture and repeat loudly, “La la la, I can’t see you!” Let me know how that works.

And now I present to you, a finished object.



I don’t know why the image skews when I rotate it 90°. But what I wanted most to show you was how well the finished stocking goes with the skirt. And by that objective, this picture is a success.

Yes, the second sock is already on the needles. That’s it you see about mid-shin in the picture above. Here’s a close-up.



Didn’t want to lose my momentum.

Look What Punkin Gave Me!

What a neat surprise to find in my inbox when I got home from the play last night!



Per her instructions, I am to choose 10 other bloggers for this award**, so in alphabetical order:
1. Celtic Memory Yarns
2. Daisy Cottage
3. Dances with Wool
4. Fiberjoy
5. Knitspot
6. Punkin
7. So, the thing is ...
8. The Life and Times of Florence Knitingale
9. Twisted Knitster.
10. Vortex of Chaos

Like Punkin said, there are several more that I would like to put on that list. First and foremost, my daughters’ blogs and the one of my best friend’s daughter. And Tola’s, of course. But they are all very private people, and some of their blogs are private.

**("Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.")

I also chose not to list The Harlot, MDK, Wendy, or Grumperina [I just started reading her blog a month or two ago, and doesn’t she make a lovely bride?]

So what’s on the agenda today? Did my monthly drive-by-fooding of the missionary elders. Tanked the car. Got my nails done. Came home and made pumpkin cheesecake. Cooked the last of the butter-yellow potatoes in a bit of chicken stock with a fat pinch of dried rosemary and then mashed them within an inch of their lives, stirring in two spoonsful of horseradish and the last of that yummy sharp cheese that went into both batches of bread cheese pudding, and a splash of milk. Et voila! Two small storage containers to take to lunch next week, and a respectable serving for lunch today.

I’m about to head over to FW to make a kamikaze shopping raid on Central Market. And have learned by sad experience not to go there hungry. Otherwise I buy more food than we, or in this case I, can eat in a week, and then good stuff goes bad and I get cranky with myself.

There is a dance tonight. I need to call Brother Sushi and find out (A) if there is going to be pre-dance dining with that group of nice folks and (B) if there is room in his truck to tag along. And maybe, just maybe, I will finish the first Stripedy Sock before crashing tonight. Two more rounds until I put in the eyelets, and then I think five or six rounds after that and perhaps the picot bind-off I used in Fetching. I am resisting the temptation to go to the ribbon shop and get the ribbons to weave through the eyelets, because one of them would just sit in the closet and get dusty while I knit sock #2, and the other would get creased and crumpled from being tied in a bow. And who knows how long it will take to knit up this second one? I would hate for an orphaned ribbon to get lost in the move, come June...

Edith Wharton wrote something cheerful?

This quotation was the thought-for-the-day on my planner yesterday, “They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods.” Lovely! It’s from Ethan Frome, perhaps the most singularly depressing novel I have ever read.

Which brings to mind a couple of other quotes. Mom was fond of quoting Thumper’s mother to me. And I have been known to repeat it to my girls, but probably not as often as I should, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say [anything] at all.” And something my Dad said, “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly becomes any of us to talk about the rest of us”). See this related link; [Dad quoted the variant.]

So, Ms. Edith, I take at least some of it back.

Things I realized yesterday morning [with a wind chill of 15ºF] that I will need if I start riding the train:
1. A real coat
2. A raincoat
3. Multiple small folding umbrellas
4. Wellies, preferably in the most obnoxious color I can find.
5. Sneakers, for other days

Note: BH&G online has two interactive programs [membership is free]:
1. Plan a Garden
2. Arrange a Room; I played in this one for a good chunk of the evening, last night.

Work was a little screwy and weird yesterday. I tumped a cup of apple juice [chilled to perfection, no less] over fax confirmations that were neatly lined up on my desk. Unfortunately, *before* I had scanned them. At which point I was ready to shut down the switchboard and lock up my desk and head to the Natatorium for a wee bit of stress relief. Also unfortunately, it was an hour and a half until quitting time.

It was so nice to go to the pool after work and let all remaining frazzledness splash away in the water. Some of the moves are getting easier. And the wristband on my watch was infinitesimally looser when I woke up yesterday morning.

Today is payday, always a good thing. And I will pick up that second gi-normous towel that I need, and maybe a terrycloth robe for when I first climb out of the pool. I’ll check the catalogue where I found my wonderful faux-fur-trimmed robe that I bought last winter, and I’ll also look locally, when I get the towel. The robe is nowhere near as important as another towel.

There will be no swimming on Monday, as the pool will be closed for MLK Day. But I think I will go tomorrow at 9:00am, before I get my nails done. I’m going to have to get them done every two weeks, religiously, instead of the 3 or 4 or 5 I do now. They grow slowly, unlike my hair, but I damaged the moons on both thumbs when I was a girl, smooshing them in the business end of old-fashioned wooden screen doors. [No, not on the same day.]

And so each thumbnail has a slight longitudinal furrow, which is no problem until it’s time for a fill, at which point the natural nail sometimes wants to curl away from the acrylic overlay. Nail Dude dremels away my natural nail on the underside of the tips, every time he does my nails, but sometimes time and/or money gets away from me. I should have gotten this done last weekend, but I was too busy having fun measuring rooms at the rental unit, having lunch with my friend, and sorting out how to get from one neighborhood that I know, to another.

OK, we’re officially off the topic of nail maintenance and on to something slightly less boring: pedometers. I have a freebie through Corporate by way of one of the insurance agents in Dallas who is a hunting buddy of the former managing attorney. [Are you paying attention? There will be a test.] Please don’t tell my agent I was cheating on him!

And yesterday I walked something like 539 steps while at work. This is approximate, because every time the pedometer rocks, it ticks off one step. I would hate to think what a good case of the hiccups would do for the day’s tally! I’m not sure whether to be pleased that I got in so many steps while being tethered to my desk, or sad because there are so few opportunities to move around during the day.

Still, I am doing *something*. And there is another dance tomorrow night; I will probably go, if only for the exercise. Because we all know that most of the guys who are even remotely interested in dating, are chasing what another friend calls “the fertile ones”. [Thumper’s mom, Lynn, think about Thumper’s mom.]

Time to report on my knitting. There was some, but again, not enough progress to be worth photographing. The ribbing is now 3.25 inches long. It’s ribbing. And I have entered one of those Black Holes of Knitting, where you knit and knit and knit, and at the end of the day you have maybe half an inch more than when you started.

But at least it’s not an exquisitely fashioned leaf in laceweight silk yarn. Oye!

"Charcoal is good for the teeth."

At least, that’s what Mom used to say. Behold last night’s noble experiment: vanilla almond granola. First mistake: setting the oven for 375°F instead of 300°F. Next mistake: Reading blogs instead of following my nose. Result? Utter culinary chagrin.



This picture is not only blurry, but underexposed. The lightest color on my pan was the darkest color that you see here. I wish there were a way to import smell into Blogger. Although you should probably feel thankful that I can’t. Good news is, my kitchen vent fan worked wonderfully; I didn’t set off the smoke alarm, and yes, I have a fresh battery in there. And the whole mess was small enough to fit back into the oatmeal container, the better to schlepp it out to the dumpster.

That’s three cups of old-fashioned oats, plus a cup of six-grain cereal, plus over a cup of sliced almonds *and* four whole teaspoons of vanilla that I have to throw out. Not to mention half a stick of butter.

This is what I get for browsing half a dozen recipes and then winging it. Yes, I will try this again. And next time I will pay more attention to what I’m doing.

What was so fascinating, that I cremated the granola? My friend and I are playing on various paint company websites and emailing color ideas for the outside of the rental unit to each other. And just about the time I was seriously getting into it, my computer decided it was tired, so *I* should go to bed. Now I know how my kids felt when I used that logic on them!

And all that knitting that I thought I was going to do last night? Well, apparently virtual paint chips fall neatly into the category of Oh Look, Shiny! Still, there was some progress yesterday; I have about three inches of ribbing done now. I probably should try the stocking on to see if I want to add one more inch, or two.

[fumble fumble mutter grunt]

Two inches it is. I am just cresting the curviest part of my calf, with about 3.5 inches to go if I wanted to knit all the way to the crease at the back of my knee. Which I do not. When I was a little girl and wore knee socks, I hated having anything touch me there. Not my knee socks. Not the hem of my skirt. I wonder if my nerves are wired funny there?

I just realized that I have handed the perfect straight line to Firstborn. Which makes it a good time to log off and head out for some knitting á là recumbent bike. But first, a mini-rant:

So, we turned in the paperwork in October to make the transition from my receiving the Social Security check on LittleBit’s behalf, to her receiving it on her own behalf while she completes high school. [He can quit. He can get fired. He can’t stop being 65+.] Said paperwork including information on her bank account for direct deposit.

And it should have hit her account last Wednesday.

And it didn’t.

And because she is now a legal adult, Social Security can’t talk to me about why her money is not in her account.

I sent her a text message: “You will have to deal with SS directly. 7a to 7p Mon-Fri. [toll-free number] Not set up for direct deposit. Oye. Check mailbox”. And when I hit “send”, I felt one more responsibility slide off my shoulders.

She’ll handle it. And she’ll handle it well.

Welcome to Grownupville, baby girl!

Confession:

I listened to “Suavemente” three times before leaving for work yesterday morning. Even did a little merengue down the hall when I went to grab my shoes and my knitting. *Love* to move to that song. I tried to get a translation of the lyrics for you and quickly decided that it’s probably a good thing that I don’t speak Spanish. But maybe I should have been suspicious at the pairing of the few lyrics I could understand [“kiss me, gently”] with such a lively beat. I watched a second video, with a different singer, when I got home last night, and I think maybe the racy lyrics go with *that* version. Bleah! Bleah!bleah!bleah! I needed to go rinse my eyes out with something.

Sigh.

It’s like “Lady Marmalade”, which had a resurgence in popularity because of Moulin Rouge. I get a little cranky when they play it at our dances because yes, it is great to dance to, but I have enough French to know that she is not inviting us to play badminton with her.

Or “Who Let the Dogs Out”, which my girls assure me has nothing to do with dogs. I guess I am blowing my street cred here.

I read an interesting article yesterday. And this one. Hubbies: if you’re nearing retirement age, don’t shoot your wife in the foot financially. [Or wives, if you are the primary breadwinner.]

Firstborn has dibsed the quilt rack and the boudoir bench. Maybe I can persuade her to take them off my hands this weekend? 1BDH is going to bring home one of those blade thingies from his office so we can finally scrape the beauty consultant sticker off Lorelai’s rear window. It’s one of those things that I don’t think about until something on my face itches or I do something thoughtless while driving. I don’t want people to think, I’ll never buy X because that one lady with the sticker on her car braked suddenly.

I love my water aerobics class, and I am so thankful that my toes have healed up so I can go. The teacher took all the medical information that I gave her and wrote out a customized program and measured me all over like she was going to slipcover me. They measure every six weeks. I am already starting to feel greater range of motion in my shoulders and traps. And my back is beginning to loosen up.

Maybe another half inch of knitting yesterday; not enough to justify dragging out the camera. I think there will be much more progress when I go to bed tonight: no aerobics until tomorrow night, and this will be the only evening this week that I am home.

[And I want to shoehorn gardening and redecorating and someday a boyfriend into this schedule? Am I nuts?]

Don’t answer.

"Suavemente"

Just in case you’re feeling as groggy as I was right after lunch yesterday. This Elvis has not left the building. This is one of my favorite songs to dance to.

Something that percolated into my brainpan during church on Sunday was the understanding that I will need to get rid of a few things if I move into the new place. [Now Firstborn, don’t you fall off your chair, honey!] I will want to keep the fainting couch, and this might be an excellent time to get it recovered: have it picked up *here* by the fantabulous upholsterer who has recovered several projects for one of my more frugal attorneys and have the finished product delivered *there*.

I had a quiet but unmistakable impression that the kitchen table, one of those generic farmhouse tables with massive white-painted legs and a butcher-block top, and which I still really like, is needed elsewhere. My first thought was to put it in my studio and use it when I cut things out, but I think I would rather have a tall, folding crafts table like Secondborn’s, because it will take up less space when not in use. And if there’s someone who needs this table right now, then they should have it. [It would also give me more room to repack-and-stack all the things that I’ve unpacked since we moved here in September.]

And I think that my quilt rack, an ornate metal one which I bought at Bombay ten years ago with its matching boudoir bench, would be happier elsewhere. Both have boxes and stuff piled up on them at the moment, and when the quilt rack lived at the foot of my bed in the old apartment, it rapidly became the drop-off spot for clothing that I was too tired to hang up at the end of the day.

If I lived alone and had only the items that I truly needed, I wonder if I could keep a reasonably tidy house? It’s certainly an idea worth pursuing. [Of course, “need” is a somewhat flexible concept, particularly when there is a Williams-Sonoma less than five miles away from the new place. I wonder if there is a mom-and-pop kitchen store in Fort Worth like the one I’m getting to know my way around here?]

Firstborn asked a very thoughtful question Sunday night while I was catching up my laundry and helping her with the mashed potatoes [I will miss hanging out at her house every three weeks or so to do laundry, but on the other hand it will be nice to have my own stackables in the kitchen and to be able to do laundry at 2:00am if so inclined]. Is LittleBit truly ready and eager to move out, or am I pushing her out of the nest before she’s ready to fly?

I told her that LittleBit has several options lined up for after she graduates, and that she is anticipating them eagerly. She is determined to prove that she can make it on her own before she ties the knot. [No, this is not the announcement of an engagement.] She has wanted a job since she was in fifth grade. She likes earning her own money and shopping for bargains. She’s certainly no worse a cook than I was when I married First Hubby! She has way more life skills than I did at her age, and an old head on her young shoulders. I think she’ll do just fine.

One of my girlfriends at church came up to me before sacrament meeting and said, “You can’t go. I read your blog post before I came to church, and you can’t move out of the ward.”

Which is when I told her that when I saw the chapel that would be my new church home if I were to move, I had that same sense of peaceful recognition that I did when I saw the one in Fredericksburg in 1991. It may not be that I am supposed to move into my friend’s rental property. [Though I hope that it is.] But if I were a betting woman, I would just about bet the rent that I am supposed to be in that ward, at least for a space of time.

And that is when her face visibly un-tensed, because she knows that feeling, too.

I have been a seat-of-the-pants woman for most of my adult life. That is what brought me to Texas 29 years ago. While the part of me that loves math and Bach and lists would like to have it all spelled out before I take one step out into the unknown, experience has shown me that the best living is right there on the cusp of faith and obscurity.

I have kept things as stable and ordinary as possible for my girls, these ten years that I have been a single mother. I stayed in the same ward as long as I could, moving into this one to put us into what was initially a better neighborhood, and LittleBit into a better pocket of the school system. I never moved more than three miles away from their father, to make visitation easy for him. [And for those of you who are newcomers to the blog, you will be amused/appalled when I tell you that he and I are once again in the same apartment complex, and that LittleBit and I live downstairs and one over from his previous apartment here. He and Fourthborn are now a couple of buildings away.]

In five months, LittleBit will be done with the local ISD. Don’t stick that fork in me just yet, but I am almost done! Yes, I know that once you’re a mom, you’re never really done, but my relationships with my adult daughters tend to be a whole lot simpler and more civil than when I was trying to pilot them through the shoals of adolescence. We are, mostly, respectful of and comfortable with one another. And my relationship with LittleBit is certainly moving in that direction.

Which means that I have just about worked myself out of a job. And will probably have another forty years of adventures still left in me. Hence the cooking-for-one cookbooks and the search for a nest that like Baby Bear’s bed, is just right. And much pondering while I drive to and from work about what God would like me to do with this increasing supply of free time.

Another half-inch added to the Stripedy Sock yesterday.

"I've got Patrick"

Click on this link. Scroll down to where you see the woman in the butterfly dress. Read the caption.

*Now* I get that reference in The Devil Wears Prada. Early on, Andi is told ~ and I will spell phonetically what I hear, even though I had three years of French in high school ~ “Call de Marshall Yay.” Andi is totally at a loss, so Emily reluctantly rescues her and announces to Miranda, “I’ve got Patrick.”

And now I know what she said, and whom she meant. Or, alternatively.

That “plink!” you heard was one more pebble of ignorance being chipped away.

[I found CreativeFlairChic through a link on May December Home. It’s one of a handful of home decorating blogs that I read on a regular basis.]

There is progress on the Stripedy Sock, though not enough to merit a photo. I have about two inches of ribbing done; I think there will be four or five when I am finished. And I am toying with the idea of a row of eyelets just under the bind-off, so that I can thread some French silk ribbon through and tweak the fit.

And now if you will all excuse me, I have a rendezvous with Mr. Recumbent Bike.

I am such a good Do-Bee!

Does anybody else remember “Romper Room”? At the end of the show, Miss Mary would ask the Magic Mirror who had been good a good Do-Bee that day, and then she would read the names of children whose parents had written in. [I remember that Mom did that once, for me. It’s official; I must have been a good kid when somebody was looking, if only once.]

So why do I think I am a good Do-Bee now? Well, I’ve already started working on my 2007 federal tax return. Logged in, merged last year’s information, and logged off. One goal for the weekend is to complete both Schedule C’s; shouldn’t be hard since I’ve sold off most of my inventory. And then I’ll just have to wait for my W-2 and interest information.

Why the rush? Well, this is the way that I used to do it: have everything assembled so that when the W-2 came in the mail, I could do my return in about an hour and get my money within the week. The timing of last year’s return was an affront to my sense of How Things Are Supposed to Be.

I’ll put the refund, if there is one, into savings toward my move. And next month we have three paydays, so there will be significant disposable income on the 29th because the only deductions will be for taxes. I’ll allow myself one small splurge and throw the rest into savings. And I found out Friday morning that my yearly bonus will arrive in my paycheck on 25 April. Woohoo! That will go into savings, too.

That way I can rent a truck for the move, and have the good brethren in this ward load it up and be done, and the good brethren in the new ward can meet the truck and empty it and be done. And I can buy a stackable washer and dryer at the scratch-and-dent and have it delivered to the new place. And a new vacuum.

That’s assuming there *is* a move, come June.

[I also need to remember to refigure my W-4 once LittleBit graduates and flies the coop. I don’t want any nasty surprises come April 15, 2009. I also don’t want a huge refund; I used to love it when that happened, but now I’d rather have the money for day-to-day expenses, or add it to my 401K contributions.

Speaking of which, I got the yearly report on my 401K and the company retirement benefit and used the online calculator to figure out where I’d be financially if I work another 20 years and contribute the same modest amount per month into my 401K. It sounds like a very nice, comfortable place to be until I remind myself that 25 years ago I was making $8 an hour temping occasionally and just amazed that a kid from the Gem State could be earning so much money.

That was back when hamburger was a dollar a pound, and now I pay $4.28 for the ultra-lean. I have a sneaking suspicion that the cost of living is not going to fall any time soon. But if this move goes through, I will have a significant savings on my rent, and if I ride the train to work, I will cut my auto expenses by more than half. I drive 250 miles a week, just to get to work and back.

I could do like my best friend at work does, and drive my car to work a couple of times a month [oh, say, payday] and park in the lot across the street; that way I could not-coincidentally go to the yarn shop in Dallas before heading home to Fort Worth.

Jerry, would your condo association have conniptions if you had a container garden on your patio? Do you get enough light to do that? I think there are dwarf varieties of berry bushes that should do well in your climate. We used to have a copy of Square Foot Gardening, and the one concept that has remained is that you can get more carrots from a properly-prepared square foot of garden than you can in an X-foot-long running row. I don’t remember if X = 20 or 50, but it was startling enough to stick in my head for 20+ years. Just a thought.

I finally, *finally* reached the end of the ball last night, about half a round shy of what I think is going to be my final increase on the calf. I tried it on, and the calf fits perfectly. But now the toe is a little long. I will probably go back and frog it slightly and do a three-needle bind-off. Or maybe try the on-the-needles faux-Kitchener I read about on Knitting Daily. Though I really don’t mind Kitchener stitch. Next time I won’t start with 8 stitches; I’ll go with 10 or 12. I really like the fit on the heel. It combines the best features of a top-down heel flap with the controlled fit of a toe-up.

If I want sock #2 to match as perfectly as possible, I’l have to do the skinny cast-on again and then frog it back, but at least this time I will know and can do it while the sock is still basically a shallow cup instead of the Holland Tunnel.

No pictures today of the Stripedy Sock, as it doesn’t look all that different from its last profile shot. But probably in a few days when I am done with the ribbing. I think I will use EZ’s sewn cast-off and stop an inch or two shy of my knee. That way if all this new vigorous activity has its desired effect, and I have to reblock the stocking to fit a narrower calf, it will not suddenly become a thigh-high.

“A Hazy Shade of Winter”

When I was working out, this song came over the speakers. Not the original version by Simon and Garfunkel, but a cover that featured female voices while retaining the killer guitar line and a good measure of the intensity.

I only knew The Bangles from a couple of quick references in the first season of Gilmore Girls, back before I got fed up with them. [The Gilmores, not The Bangles.] Hey, be gentle with me! Please remember that I spent much of my 20-year marriage mired musically with the B’s Brothers: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

When we moved to the Hill Country ~ in Texas, when we say “the Hill Country”, we mean our hills; we don’t ever stop to consider that you might have them, too ~ and I couldn’t pick up the classical station in Austin, I switched allegiance to the oldies rock station out of San Antonio and never really looked back. But there is a gap in my musical education that you could drive a herd of longhorns through, beginning in September 1977 and ending, more or less, in the fall of 1993 when the girls started school here in North Texas. With four and then five girls in a compact car, I cranked oldies to keep them relatively civil to one another en route.

KVIL brought me somewhat up to date. The morning DJ, Ron Chapman [since retired], loved Celine Dion and Richard Marx and Jim Brickman. His show is where I first heard Paul Simon’s “Obvious Child”. I alternated between KVIL and KLUV, which is the kinder/gentler oldies station here. So I’ve missed out on Stevie Ray Vaughan [but I bet I can catch up], and I have Mom to thank for my love of Eric Clapton.

Setting the topic of music aside for the moment, I am pleased to report that there is only a golf-ball-sized amount of yarn left on my first skein of Ditto, for the Stripedy Socks. I went with my friend and possibly future landlady to the most-LYS and happily enabled her to get laceweight yarn and a pattern for a shawl for her daughter. Spent a lovely half hour or so, fondling the yarn and getting high on wool fumes but kept my promise not to come home with new yarn for the stash.

I know, I know, most uncharacteristic of me.

Today I learned just how small “740 square feet” is. Small enough that when I walked into this apartment after my excursion, I had an almost overwhelming urge to take up yodeling. [And here I’d been feeling a wee bit cramped after moving from the larger, unsafe apartment to this smaller but much safer one.] Big enough for me and my stuff, but not so big that any of the kids could quit their jobs and come live with me.

You remember my rambling on about the upside-down tomatoes? There is *one* upright for a clothesline in the back yard, its empty arms just waiting for a couple of five-gallon cans full of potting soil and nightshades. There is room for a real garden once I know what I’m doing. I’m thinking berry bushes, and whiskey barrels full of things that would take over an in-ground garden if given the chance.

There’s no garage, but where it stood, there’s enough space for a storage shed if I wanted to get one. [I would naturally run that by the owner first.] There is real tile on the kitchen counter, which she would like to keep, and which I really, really like, so that’s no problem. There’s a security system.

The windows are large and rather lovely, and there’s plenty of natural light. The carpeting is every bit as ugly as she said, and so we have the option of refinishing the hardwood floors or putting in carpet; I’m leaning toward the latter.

The outside needs repainting, and we’ve discussed a couple of colorways. I would have carte blanche with the interior colors. *And* I love to paint.

There’s a Super-Target a couple of miles away, a Central Market roughly a mile away, and a Tom Thumb about halfway between the new place and Secondborn’s. So, lots of options for grocery shopping, and I’m not far from two major bookstores and have spotted several used-book stores. My friend treated me to lunch today at a lively Mexican restaurant, and there’s an art supply shop coming soon in the same shopping center. I would be half a mile from one excellent LYS and less than five miles from another. There is a needlepoint shop not far from the first LYS. And all those museums.

She is taking out every bit of sheetrock and replacing it. Which will take some time, and which makes me feel a little less nervous about the timing. The previous renter did not properly balance the window unit in his bedroom, so water leaked down into the sheetrock, and some of the framing will probably have to be replaced or shored up. She’s replacing the water heater, and the wall heater in the living room, and installing ceiling fans in every room but the bathroom. Those nice sleek ones that hug the ceiling.

I can see my boudoir set up in the east bedroom, and my studio set up in the west. I would put most of the existing bookcases into my studio and see about getting an Ikea system for the long wall in the living room, where the previous renter had his entertainment system.

And I located a park-and-ride for the commuter train on my way out of town.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled knitting.

WIP, Actually Progressing!

Just so you know that I’m not imagining upward progress on the calf increases, here’s a cheesecake shot of the Stripedy Sock.



And a profile of the heel, which is Wendy’s Toe-Up Heel Gusset. And fits wonderfully.



And the calf increases, which I am doing every third round.



I tried it on again this morning, and it fits like it was made for me. [Which is the whole point of knitting socks for oneself, right?]

Last night’s workout went very well. I couldn’t believe how much more flexible my wrists were as I drove home. And I feel great this morning, not stiff at all.

So I’m heading over to the Y for a tryst with the recumbent bicycle. It’s a jeans day at work, my lunch is packed, I knitted while the tub filled, and life is good.

Tomorrow I get the oil changed on Lorelai and then head over to my friend’s rental property to check out the living space. Remind me to take my tape measure and a pad of graph paper so I can sketch the rooms if I like it as much as I think I will. I spent a little time yesterday at the virtual paint store, thinking about color combinations, but that’s not particularly useful when I don’t know how the rooms are shaped or how much light there is.

LittleBit is wiped out. Rehearsals every night this week, plus work on Wednesday, and she has an eight-hour rehearsal tomorrow. It’s a good thing that HerBoy is back at camp for more training. And it’s a good thing that the play is only a month away.

I, on the other hand, am feeling like a 45-year-old again.

Thoughtful Thursday

1. I *need* an additional bath sheet. My swimsuit dries out nicely overnight, but my towel does not. It would be nice to have a second swimsuit as well, but I don’t strictly *need* one, so I’m going to wait until this one is worn out or I need a smaller size.

2. I think that lunch should probably be my big meal of the day. Not so big that it drives my nose down into my keyboard in the afternoons, but big enough, and diverse enough, that I have what I need to keep going until quitting time, without resorting to Cherry Coke or a Hershey’s Special Dark.

3. People really are pretty darn nice. Most of them, anyway. Just in case you were wondering.

4. I like cooking, when I don’t have to rush and when I have good ingredients to work with. Being friends with Brother Sushi has done wonders for my palate, my imagination, and my confidence in the kitchen. He is an *amazing* cook who has dined in five-star restaurants. And likes my cooking. [Proving once more that the age of miracles has not passed!] If I’m stumped about what goes with what, I pick up my cell phone and call him. Once I had a recipe that required orange liqueur. Hello? Mormon girl cooking here! He thought that if I used a couple of tbsp of undiluted orange juice concentrate and threw it into a hot pan, it would give about the same effect. He was right. Close enough for my purposes, anyway.

[Wonder if it would work equally well with undiluted white grape juice concentrate or red grape juice concentrate, thus avoiding the issue of cooking wine entirely? Maybe I should just find a nice single man who owns a winery and convert him to the church, and then I’d have acres and acres of Cabernet juice to cook with! Not to mention, to quaff with my pasta.]

The children’s father used to say that we needed to convert all our neighbors but one, and have that neighbor keep the wine etc. at his house, and then we could just go over and borrow a cup of whatever when we needed it for a recipe.

5. Have I mentioned that my planner pages are being discontinued? They are lovely, brown, and wordy: restful to the eyes and stimulating to the mind. And, when 30 June rolls around, to be no more. But there is joy in Mudville, because Non Sequitur is the new featured design!

My friend Linda, who like me has raised a sizable family in a small space, turned me on to Non Sequitur about seven years ago. Fourthborn loves “Danae”; I didn’t care for her [an estrogen-powered Bart Simpson, if you will] until Lucy the miniature Clydesdale came into her life. Lucy humanized her for me, but then I’ve always been crazy for horses.

And Kate, the “normal” sister, now has Petey the dog to talk to her. I love how in Non Sequitur, Joe the dad can talk to both the animals [unlike the parents in Calvin and Hobbes], though he’s still as clueless with Brenda the clam shack owner as most of the guys who show up to the local singles activities.

6. Did I remember to tell you that the best part of Friday night was having dinner with old friends and new ones? It was great to see DJ the DJ, and the music was way-better-than-OK, but the dance *per se* was “meh”. There were 15 of us at the restaurant before the dance, including two guys I hadn’t met who seem refreshingly normal. And I won a free appetizer for next time, for answering a trivia question correctly.

The question? We were given a number of categories and settled on “religion”. [The manager at the restaurant probably didn’t know he had over a dozen Mormons sitting at his table.] So when he asked, “What religion was President Nixon?” my hand flew up into the air as if it were spring-loaded. I then had to explain to the others how I knew such an obscure-to-them fact.

I told them that my mind is a depository of all sorts of obscure and generally useless information. And that when he was president, I was attending the local Friends church, so several of my friends were Friends, or Quakers. So, for me, it was part of my personal history.

And next month I get to eat for free.

7. I would like to fire up a dinner group again. Two years ago I had a small dinner each month, for the first several months of the year. And it was so much fun for me. But where we’re currently living, I’m not interested in emptying the rest of the boxes, so one way or another it’s going to have to wait until LittleBit graduates. Then I will know if I am staying here, and can just spread out into her room, or if I am moving to my friend’s rental property.

Normally I would be driving myself nuts with the not-knowing, but at least for the moment, I’m fine with it.

8. I spent a little time with a recent issue of “Texas Monthly”, which had an article on a local woman who has a herd of dairy goats and a small commercial cheese operation. Central Market carries her cheeses. I plan to buy one next weekend. If you like chêvre, here’s a link:

9. If last year was The Year of the Leg, and/or The Year of the Foot, then I think I have just discovered *this* year’s health challenge: people who wear too much cologne. Here I was thinking that I’d finally gotten my lungs happy after nearly two months of respiratory rattling, when in comes a plaintiff who had marinated herself in [a really very nice] cologne, and I could feel my pipes seizing up. Ironic, now that I’m making an extra effort to eat well and move more. Will this stop me? No, but it might slow me down a little.

10. On the other hand, I’ve slept well the last two nights, and when I woke up yesterday morning, there was only the slightest ache in my shoulders and upper back from my workout the night before. And I woke up today with happier lungs. I’m going to the Y in about an hour, and I’m going back to the Natatorium for more water aerobics tonight. The bag is packed and waiting by the front door. I didn’t actually make it to the Y as planned, yesterday or the day before. Tuesday I felt all spazzy and over-scheduled, and it just made more sense to stay home, make myself a good breakfast and a good lunch, and try to slow down a little.

11. The great experiment with the crock-pot and the chicken didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. It tastes OK[ish], but the rice sort of blew up into coconut-flavored sludge. I divided it out into four portions and then ate half of one for lunch yesterday and will kill the rest of it at lunch today. But I am not looking forward to eating what’s left of it. I am torn between trudging my way through it bite by bite as penance, and separating the chicken from the sludge and only eating the chicken. You guys have no idea how deeply ingrained is my aversion to wasting food. I lost 21 pounds in three weeks back when the children’s father was in school and we were eating oatmeal twice a day to stay alive. I try to be frugal and responsible with my food dollars. [I have some serious issues going on here, people!]

So, does anybody have any suggestions what I can do with about three-fourths of a gallon of coconut sludge? I have three medium sized containers staring me in the face each time I open the fridge, and I don’t want it to go bad. Grape leaves and a melon scoop, for redneck dolmades? Wonton wrappers and an apple corer for tiny East Asian burritos? [Baked, but not fried, in keeping with my wanting to live to be 100?] Maybe if I stirred in some pineapple chutney to loosen things up?

12. I scheduled this year’s well-woman and mammogram and am waiting for a referral for my colonoscopy. It’s been three years since my first one. When I went last time, I was new in the ward, and one of the women in the Relief Society presidency drove me there and back. She will get diamonds in her crown, as they say, but she’s always looked at me a little funny ever since. I have no idea what I might have said in the car on the way home. [Apparently I cuss like a sailor when I’m sedated. Ask LittleBit, who was there in my room when I went under for my gallbladder back in 2001.] Now I have a couple of friends I can ask, so I’m comfortable on that score. But I am *so* not looking forward to drinking that gallon of gack to clean out my pipes before they scope me.

13. Middlest blogged some bad news. I am still processing it, and it is her news, so for now that is all you will get from me. But if you wanted to put her on your list of people you pray for, that would be a good thing, and I think that she would not mind. [And if she does, I have no doubt that she will tell me.] Maybe this will put an end to some of the sniping that goes on among some of my girls. Time to forget your differences and put the wagons in a circle, ladies!

I am going to pet the yarn for awhile and go work out.

Ms. Snarky Delivers!

Delayed gratification. It’s the difference between a two-year-old and a grownup. [Well, that and the ability to reach up and turn the doorknob.]



This was my desk at work, with a stack of mail waiting to be opened, and the box from Snarky Designs with my November Sockdown prize yarn. See how good I was being? Don’t you just love my first attempts at airbrushing?



And this is the yarn itself.



Would you like a closeup?



How good is this yarn? Well, if I had a firstborn male child, I’d cut airholes in the box and send him back to her with a note saying, “More yarn, please!” The wool fumes kept me happily awake all afternoon.

I've been everywhere, man!

Cue the music!

Or, alternatively, this one.

I saw this on Wanda’s blog. Naturally, I had to play, too! Though I have to confess, I’ve been to way more of the places on Brian Burns’s Texas version than on Johnny Cash’s recording.



And one province in Canada.



Caveat: I think I've been to Delaware and Maryland. About ten years ago, I was getting my AAS in interpreting for the deaf, and we took a field trip to Washington, DC, at spring break. I would have to sit down with a map of the area and remember all the historical sites that we visited. It was one of those “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium” trips.

The highlight for me was a sprint through the Smithsonian with one of my fellow students. That year there was a room of kimono, displayed cuff to cuff so that the seasons moved almost imperceptibly from one to the next to illustrate the turning of a year. I remember that the artist was something like 80 years old and that each kimono took over a year to complete. There were dozens of them, each more beautiful than the last. [And obviously, he had a studio, with people to help with the gruntwork.] Somewhere in all this chaos, I have a postcard of one of the red ones. When Linda and I hit that gallery, we came to a dead stop and nearly wept with joy.

How can it be Tuesday already?

I turned off the heat last night, and I think I need to turn the AC back on. I am distinctly warm, and I don’t think that it’s going to get any cooler between now and when I leave for work. [Holy cow, it was 75°F in here! Now wonder I was feeling sticky!]

I went to the Natatorium as planned last night, and since I was able to roll out of bed this morning without the assistance of a crane and a winch, I’m going back for seconds after work tonight and before heading over to Knit Night.

I’ve mentioned how warm and welcoming the ladies at Knit Night are. First impressions of this new bunch are pretty much the same. I don’t think there’s anybody really young in that class, “young” being defined as the roughly the age of my daughters. It seems to be mostly boomers like me and a few geezers and geezettes. Most of whom seemed to have far greater mobility than I do at present. Quite a few of them said hi, either before the class or afterward, and were very encouraging.

And I like the teachers.

So I will be a little later than usual to Knit Night, and redolent of chlorine. I’m trying to figure out how dinner works, if I get home at 7:30 three nights a week. Last night I just made a pimiento-cheese sandwich and washed it down with a mug of fruit juice. This morning I woke up ravenous but wanted to write more than I wanted to eat.

I’ve had a small glass of milk and my first-ever mug of Mexican hot chocolate. [There will be more of same, some other day, even if it does involve standing at the stove and whisking for ten minutes or more.] And I know that I need to send down a big shot of protein, but I also want to leave for the Y in about 15 minutes. And there are two chicken breasts that really need to get cooked today and a pan that didn’t come clean in the dishwasher and had to be soaked, so I’m thinking that the crock-pot is the next best plan. I wonder if I can adapt that great recipe I found in RealSimple?

Would the real mommy please show up and take charge?

I know that in a few weeks I will have adjusted to “the new normal” and have figured out how to balance the need for greater range of motion with the need to eat, and knit, and read, and ponder. But at the moment I feel much as BittyBit did when she was stuck sitting upright because she couldn’t hook that second knee under her and crawl.

It followed me home. Can I eat it?

On having my way with an $8 piece of fish [mahi mahi, to be specific]:



I didn’t know quite what to do with it, so I went to Epicurious and did a search. Nothing really appealed to me, so I did what I learned to do with halibut, back when it was cheap food in the early 1970s, but before I learned to use herbs and spices:



A milk bath, á là Cleopatra. Put the fish in a pan, cover it halfway with milk, and top that off with enough water to submerge the fillet. But before I did that, I sprinkled it with red pepper flakes, tossed in a cinnamon stick, and threw in more of my beloved Herbes de Provence. Bake at 350°F for about half an hour.

You really need that extra time to bring the liquid up to speed for poaching the fish. And the milky bath keeps it from drying out and tends to minimize the fishiness. [Although when LittleBit came home from visiting her dad and Fourthborn, she said “Eww!", right on cue.]

The result? Perfectly poached, impeccably seasoned fish; the last bite had a hint of anise from the Herbes de Provence, and every so often you crack open a bit of red pepper for a culinary high-note. You might have noticed that I use little or no salt in my recipes. My body is happier when I don’t. And Brother Sushi rarely has to reach for the salt shaker when he dines with us, so I must be doing something right.

The Stripedy Sock got a bit of a workout yesterday, maybe a dozen rows added overall. Other than that, not much knitting content but rather more reading than usual.

Tola commented yesterday: “don’t you love how we're studying BOM *and* Church History the same two years we are doing Joseph Smith? i rather like to think that was planned!”

You bet your sweet bippy it was planned! One of the benefits of the [Curriculum] Correlation Committee is how everything fits together so neatly. I think it is great to be able to attend church in my home ward one week and in a different ward halfway across the country when I'm on vacation the next, and to be within a week or two of where I would be in the lesson material at home [allowing for stake conferences, ward conferences, and the like, which sometimes throw a monkey wrench into the scheduling].

I also like that the brethren in each ward get the same lesson in their priesthood class that we get in Relief Society [only they don't have a tablecloth and an inspiring centerpiece to go with theirs, LOL.] The purpose? So that husbands and wives can discuss what they learned in class and benefit from one another’s insight and perspective when deciding how to implement the principles at home.

I wonder how often that happens in real life?

Happy Monday, everybody! My lunch, gym bag, knitting bag, and red tote are packed, and I am heading to the Y before work for another gentle ride on the recumbent bike. Tonight I will go to the Natatorium after work and try their water aerobics class. And then, if I still have enough strength to pick up my needles, there will be knitting until I cannot keep my eyes open One. Moment. Longer.

On Having Adventures

So, I got the address of the place I *might* be moving to in June, and we drove by there. It’s in a neighborhood that is modest and unassuming, much like the one in the town where I lived until I was eight. And even though it is one of the few homes on the street that is un-spiffed, as it were, it still looks like it could easily be home to me.

And it’s less than half a mile from a really good yarn store. Can we say Saturday morning walks? [LittleBit said “yes, we can.” She was waiting semi-patiently for the bread cheese puddings to come out of the oven so she could eat hers, scald her tongue, and go buy a USMC t-shirt at the mall. I started the draft of this post last night while dinner was cooking.]

Remind me not to wax rhapsodic about “the adventures of the day ahead” until I have actually experienced them and know whether I should rejoice, or duck and cover. For adventure we did have, and while it turned out well, there were a couple of “oh bleep!” moments that involved grabbing the sissy bar and wondering if the truck was going to hit us, or if we were going to hit the truck. Thankfully, neither. I don’t know if that idiot has any idea what a close call he had, but I suspect there are a bunch of angels up in heaven who are still blowing on their fingers to cool them off.

It all began with a parking brake that we forgot to undo. LittleBit and I both managed to miss that small detail. And she drove maybe a couple of miles, never more than 40mph, past what may be my new meetinghouse in a few months, when she noticed that the brakes were suddenly not responding as usual. Just as somebody who ought to be pushing a wheelbarrow came out of a side street and nearly hit us. She kept her head and took swift and effective evasive action, and we found the nearest stop-and-rob with a mostly vacant parking lot so we could offer up a prayer of thanks, and I could take the wheel for awhile. It wasn’t until we mooshed to a stop that I noticed the handle was still up on the brake.

I called 1BDH, who works in Fort Worth and is typically at work at that time on a Saturday afternoon. He was just leaving the office, and he picked up a few extra tools in case he had to replace something major. He met us there maybe half an hour later [he is such a good son!], checked out the brakes and the brake fluid and the seals in the back. We blued the steel on the drums, but there appears to be no permanent damage. 1BDH told me to keep an eye on the brake fluid level for the next little while.

I drove us to Central Market for fresh stuff that the local market doesn’t carry, another piece of fish for today’s dinner, and my free-chicken-breasts-with-a-$40-purchase. Also the hummus that my local market no longer carries, a couple of great cheeses, a bit of French vanilla almond granola that I’ve already portioned out into snack bags for breakfasts on the go.

LittleBit put the food in the car and returned our cart [and three others] while I walked over to the bookstore and picked up that issue of Texas Gardener that I’d been wanting. By the time I walked out of the bookstore, she had backed the car and was coming to meet me. She drove us home, and the brakes were responding almost normally by the time we got here.

Whew!

I made the bread cheese pudding a little differently last night, and it was the best yet. Here’s how:

Toss an unopened can of cherry pie filling into the freezing compartment of your fridge, if you didn’t have the foresight to put it in the fridge to chill earlier. I buy the “lite” variety because it’s not cloyingly sweet, but I make sure that I get the kind without artificial sweeteners.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter individual ramekins [for us “individual” would be about 5” in diameter; we likes our BCP, yes we does] and lay down slices of baguette, tearing some into pieces to fill in the gaps. Grate your favorite sharpish cheese onto a slice of baking parchment and sprinkle a light layer on top of the bread. The more flavorful the cheese, the less of it you will need. Three total layers of bread and cheese came just to that lip or edge on the inside of the ramekin.

For two ramekins this size, beat three large eggs with about a cup of milk, a nice sprinkling of sweet Hungarian paprika, and half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of Herbes de Provence. Divide evenly and carefully between the two ramekins, place them on a cookie sheet for support, and bake for half an hour or so until the pudding puffs up and is golden.

Take the cookie sheet and its miraculous contents out of the oven, and the cherry pie filling out of the freezing compartment or fridge. Give thanks, and dig in. Traditionally I have made this with the heels of all the loaves that come into the house, saved in bread bags in the freezer until we accumulate enough to fill a baking dish and the majority of them being Mrs. Baird’s potato bread, which is hard to find these days. We liked it because it maintains a modicum of structural integrity while swimming in savory custard. The sweetness of the cherry pie filling plays nicely off the flavors and textures of the pudding.

But we had been meaning to have fondue for dinner, all week, so I needed to use up those baguette slices. [I can buy a bag of them for $1.49 at Central Market. Sublime!] They weren’t as stale as if I’d left them out on the counter, but they were past their prime. And the cheese I bought was “Classic Beemster, aged 18 months”.

We also bought a sliver of Brie, and black cherry confit and water crackers to go with it. And I bought a small amount of six-grain cereal to cook and try. I bought another blood orange, and a big old navel orange to keep it company, and *pitted* kalamata olives, this time around.

Our little adventure sucked up almost all of my cooking energy. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go out and see “Enchanted” or curl up on the couch and read some more, and knit.

We have just enough of last week’s baguette slices for French toast this morning. But another good thing to do with them is to toast them lightly in a pan, then spread them with a bit of Nutella, dollop a tablespoon of ricotta cheese on top, and drizzle that with dulce de leche. I got that recipe from Cooking for Mr. Latte. Three of them on a plate make a sensible and surprising dessert, one of those “how could that possibly be good?” recipes

I’ll be meeting my friend who owns the rental house in the next few weeks for a walk-through. But I don’t know whether we will be able to make this happen in terms of timing. I think she will need to have somebody in there before my lease is up. And I am not yet at the point where I can afford to have a pied-à-terre for weekend life and a primary residence in this school district. Would that I could. It would be so great to get my studio all arranged, and the parts of the dining room and kitchen and pantry that I don’t currently need, all set up, before we had to call in the good guys with the weak minds and the strong backs to do the heavy lifting. [Just kidding, guys!]

So what did I end up doing last night? Met my best friend at the movies and saw “Juno”. I mostly liked it. There were a couple of parts that made me squirmy, and the language was appalling, especially when she was in labor. But the young actress who played Juno did a great job, and I love Allison Janney. Nobody can play a tightly-wound mom or step-mom the way she can. I liked the guy who played Juno’s dad, too. Reminded me of some of Dad’s friends. I won’t say any more about it, because LittleBit and Fourthborn have plans to see it together. Oh, except that Jennifer Garner has that “Linda Gray trembling lip” thing down cold. She really did have a thankless role. But Allison Janney [who is the same age as my best friend, and my niece] ruled. She hit so many of the buttons I’ve hit as a mom, over almost 30 years.

I think what I liked best about “Juno” was that while in theory it’s a teen movie, it’s also about the parents and how this affects them. They’re not just cardboard props taking up space. Very well-written, except for the language, and unfortunately I’ve heard similar stuff from more than one of my own girls, over the years.

OK, enough rambling for one post. We have a new schedule at church today, which means that we get the 11:00 - 2:00 slot. I’m going to sit down with the Sunday School study guide and the Relief Society manual and read the lessons. We have a four-year rotation in Sunday School: just finished the New Testament last month, will study the Doctrine and Covenants and some church history next year, and the Old Testament the year after that. But this year is my favorite of the four; we are studying the Book of Mormon, which is what brought me to Christ in 1975. I love how it supports what the rest of my Christian brothers and sisters get from the Bible, clarifies some difficult passages, and teaches true principles in modern language while losing none of the poetry of the King James Version of the Bible.

Have a blessed and peaceful Sabbath.

What's on my plate today?

Metaphorically, and otherwise? It’s Saturday morning. I am eating the last bowl of potato leek soup for breakfast ~ because I can ~ and planning the day’s adventures.

There will be cooking; I am sure of it but not sure what. Nigella has a phyllo-wrapped pie that intrigues me: garbanzos, rice and something else, baked in a springform pan. I have two leeks that need to be used up, and a dozen or so stalks of green onions that are wilting in the fridge. Which has arrived at a stage of critical mass that is like to make me crazy. Everything in there is still fit to eat, but for how much longer? I think a second lazy-susan is called for; the one I have, which used to keep my mug collection under control at the old apartment, now has vinegars on the top round and miscellaneous small unopened containers on the bottom, and lives in the pantry.

I get nervous when there’s no food in the fridge; understandably so. And I get even more so when I can’t tell what’s there and in what condition. For me, the Eleventh Commandment is along the lines of “Thou shalt not waste food.” I’ve ranted on that topic before. I like to productively use up every scrap of food that enters our door, though I’m long past the point where I feel it has to be done in one sitting.

And I need to set up a system that segregates my leftovers and cooking experiments from LittleBit’s take-home bits and bobs and from the “to share” assortment. It doesn’t help that she is allowed/encouraged/enabled to bring home giant bags of fresh tortilla chips from work. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were still six or seven of us here at home, and they’d be gone in an hour, but when they’re taking up half a shelf in the fridge, or half a counter, I get twitchy. I regretfully threw out almost an entire bag yesterday.

Can you bear one last meditation upon food before I get to the stuff you came here for? The pineapple chutney was *amazing*. It starts out sweet and unassuming, and by the time you eat the last couple of spoonfuls at the end of the meal, there is a lovely warm glow in your mouth from the curry powder, but it never gets bitey or overwhelming.

OK, OK, on to fuzzier topics. This is the swatch for Eleanora, finished at work yesterday but not bound off or washed, because I’m going to carefully frog it and wrap it about the cake and knit the actual sock from the center while this yarn relaxes.



The bottom section is on 2.0mm’s, for a gauge of 17 sts and 24 rows to two inches. The middle section is on 1.75mm’s, for a gauge of 19 sts and 27.5 rows to two inches. And the top section is on 2.25mm’s, for a gauge of 17.5 sts and 20 rows to two inches. My Sisters of the Wool thought that the middle section was gorgeous but fiddly. They looked ~ to a woman ~ worried when I said that someday I’d like to tackle a me-sized sweater in that weight yarn at that gauge. Something that had enough going on that it was obviously not machine-made, and would keep me busy for months and months and months.

Not sure if I will actually cast on for Eleanora today. I haven’t compared my gauges to what the pattern specifies, but I think the gauge on the middle section is about what I need for the cuff as specified in the pattern. And I haven’t decided how to tweak the pattern, so I don’t know how many stitches to cast on. Maybe that will all come together in my head while I’m puttering in the kitchen. And really, if the gauges match at the beginning like I think they will, I’ll either need to pick up a second circ or invest in some 00 DP’s.

I put another half-inch or so onto the Stripedy Sock at the dance last night. I need to try it on to see if the calf increases are progressing at the right speed.



I think I will probably finish knitting up this first ball of yarn sometime this week; it’s getting very light and airy and wobbly-looking. At which point I will need to put it on a lifeline so I can bring the second sock to the same point. [Unless I spring for the second circ today and can whip through the fold-over cuff for the first Eleanora.] And then Jeri’s scale will come in handy to divide that third ball of Ditto neatly in halves, and I will have to somehow tag the mini-balls so that I don’t inadvertently reverse the striping sequence.

[Speaking of striping sequences, didn’t you just love the Harlot’s socks that she posted yesterday?] And I want to finish the heel decreases on LittleBit’s Firestarters today, so I can start galloping toward the finish line and get that second sock underway.

I think you can pretty much take it as a given that there will be no casting on of the Spring Shawl Surprise today.

Cooking and Eating, Eating and Cooking

All the way home from work I was fantasizing about a carrot salad. [Hey, you have your fantasies, and I’ll have mine.] Mom made the best carrot-and-raisin salad I’ve ever tasted, and even though my sister gave me a copy of Mom’s recipe I haven’t been able to duplicate it. So I brainstormed on the drive home: carrots, yes, still need to use up more of those matchstick carrots that I bought for the so-so yellow split pea soup, and then I guess raisins, but I only have golden ones, what about dried cranberries? and then two or three green onions chopped up, but what for the salad dressing? OK, balsamic vinegar it is, just a splash, and a tiny amount of olive oil. All this to marinate in a small bowl while the leeks wilt in a bit of butter and I peel the potatoes for soup. Just enough leftover chicken broth in the fridge to cover the vegetation in the pot, and a good fat pinch of dried rosemary that is one month older than BittyBit and needs to be used up. And the salad eaten while the potatoes tenderize, then the extra vinaigrette tipped out into the sink and a last hurrah with the cornstarch and some milk, and the soup goes into the same bowl because it all gets mixed up inside, anyway. Seconds on the soup, and the rest of it set aside to cool while I split a banana lengthwise to broil it like the recipe in my new Williams-Sonoma Cooking for Yourself, and some butter and apricot jam melting nicely together in the microwave while we try not to cremate the banana, then a quick drizzle of apricot syrup and back under the broiler it goes. No vanilla ice cream like the recipe specifies, because I’d already had my caloric indulgence for the day [a gi-normous double chocolate muffin after I got to work, though let the record show that I virtuously bypassed the free cheesecake at work], so a few good-sized spoonfuls of 1% cottage cheese, though I wished it were ricotta, for a high-protein and reasonably sane dessert. Followed, a couple hours later, by another small helping of soup.

Holy moly, I think I’m channeling Molly Bloom.

I was afraid that sometime along dark-thirty my gizzards would figure out that we consumed more onionesque goodness in one night than we usually eat in a month, and there would be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, not to mention my own personal rendition of the “1812 Overture”, complete with cannon-fire and the Nabbersnackle Choir.

I must have been OK, because I don’t remember waking up. And there were no firemen pounding on the door. And since I survived that, there is one last serving of soup that would do very nicely for dinner tonight, except that I have another dance tonight. And I am taking the last of the so-so soup for lunch. I nuked one very small potato last night and diced it up. I hope it’s an improvement. I don’t think it would be very smart to have split pea soup for lunch and potato leek soup for dinner. Not if I don’t want to be jet-propelled.

I did use a different bowl to eat my dessert. And I also stopped mid-brainstorm at the Natatorium on my way home, to pick up a current schedule. I haven’t been in months. First my feet hurt too much because I needed to have the toenails taken care of, and then there was the whole post-surgical ook, but now I think it’s safe for me to take my toes into a public pool, and safe for the other swimmers if I do. I know where my swimsuit is. LittleBit helped me find the bag to carry it; now I just need to locate my spare towel before leaving for work on Monday morning, as I plan to try water aerobics on the way home that night. My membership year is up in March, and I should know by then if I’ll be staying in town after LittleBit graduates, or moving to Foat Wuth Ah Luv Yew.

And now that LittleBit is on the road to seminary this morning, I am heading over to the Y for a gentle workout. I’m trying to remember if the downtown Fort Worth YMCA has an indoor pool. I haven’t been there since I was pregnant with LittleBit and her dad was taking the massage therapy class. I’ve slept since then [but as we all know, not much]. It would save me a nice bundle per year and per month if I could get my chlorinated exercise and my non-chlorinated exercise in the same facility.

No, this is not a bunch of resolutions you are seeing in print. This is the natural result of a great night of dancing on Monday and the wish to enjoy future dances even more. I miss being able to hit the floor with the first song at a dance and not sit down all night. Though it would cut into my knitting-at-the-dances-because-there-is-nobody-I-want-to-dance-with time.

Oh darn!

Congratulations! You may have won!

Actually, I did win! Prize #6 in the November Sockdown at Ravelry. A skein of handpainted sock yarn by Snarky Design. I got to choose the color, so I went with Rosie the Riveter.

See, I told you this was going to be a good year! I found my blank checks in time to pay the rent, I have been smacked upside the head by the Nigella Lawson Fairy [just took a bite of the pineapple chutney after letting it season a bit in the fridge; oh my, I do believe that I have made peace with curry powder after all these years], and I slept nearly eight hours on Monday night. [Tan, it is in How to be a Domestic Goddess, way in the back of the book.]

The one small fly in my ointment is an email from the choir boosters, their latest bit of extortion, which includes the following: “Each student involved in the muscial [sic] is expected to sell ten ads (commercial and/or personal). Please be aware of this and be ready to submit your ads immediately upon the students returning to school.” That would be *today*.

Do I want to put in an ad for my knitting blog? Probably not, since I have ranted occasionally about the mixed blessing of having a child in choir at that school. Maybe the Faith Whittlesey quote about how Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels?

[Mumble mumble growl snarl.]

I am back from a dark-thirty run to the grocery store, where I scored a dozen pint canning jars and a package of coffee filters. What is a good LDS girl like me doing with coffee filters? Nothing, at the moment, but eventually this. Thank you, Shiela!

I also saw a pressure canner at the store, but I will need to do a little more research before buying one. I looked for a copy of Texas Gardener, but they didn’t have one, so I’ll stop at the bookstore on my way home tonight. There’s an article on growing tomatoes. I also read an interesting article at their website, on jujube trees. Here’s more. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a jujube tree. I thought jujubes were a kind of junk food, and I see that they are. [Scroll down to the paragraph under Technique for Consumption. It’s a hoot!] I wonder if Central Market carries jujube fruit? Any tree that’s virtually impossible to kill is my kind of tree. Sort of like a Creeping Charlie, but edible, or at least allegedly edible.

I also picked up a loaf of pumpernickel this morning and some deli ham that’s relatively low-sodium. I will be dining exquisitely on a ham sandwich today, with a side order of my new chutney. What I wish I had found was one of those skinny loaves of party pumpernickel; I have visions of little squares with a bit of cream cheese and a slice of the ham, and then a dollop of chutney on top. Wouldn’t that be fun? But it would take too long to assemble the bits for a lunch at the office. It would seriously cut into my knitting time, and that would never do.

I now have a song stuck in my head, a musical joke from when I was married to the children’s father. He would sing to the tune of the old song Pretty Baby, “Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you. Party pooper. Party pooper.” I used to sing it to the girls when I was changing their diapers. It made one of the less agreeable aspects of motherhood mildly entertaining for both of us.

And now you’ll have it stuck in your heads all day.

You’re welcome.

Major Grey, eat your heart out!

We had a fresh pineapple in the fridge, a gag gift to LittleBit at Christmas from one of her friends at school, a tangible reminder of the punch-line to a joke they all think is hilarious, and I do not. Ordinarily, I prefer my pineapple to be canned and thoroughly dead. I can’t eat more than a few pieces of fresh pineapple without my tongue and palate beginning to ache from the enzymes.

As LittleBit is even more intermittently domestic than I, and the pineapple was taking up valuable real estate, and the likelihood of her doing anything useful with it before it rotted away to expensive compost was somewhat less than my winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I asked her if I could try a recipe for pineapple chutney in my new Nigella cookbook. She told me to go for it.

I had about half of the ingredients, the most crucial of which being an unwanted-by-me pineapple, and I improvised the rest. In place of turmeric, I substituted curry powder, which is mostly turmeric [just like Wesley in The Princess Bride was mostly dead, and a good thing too: how would I go about rifling a pineapple’s pockets for loose change?]. In place of three whole cloves, I tossed in half a teaspoon of ground cloves that may have been hanging about for half a decade or so, and a teaspoon of ginger instead of the star anise. I did have the cinnamon stick, the cider vinegar, and the demerara sugar. And a Pink Lady apple instead of a cooking apple. It nearly drove me mad as it simmered into mooshiness.

I do think that the next time I make this, for there most certainly will be a next time, I will chunk it all into the crock-pot and let it simmer away for a day or two. Can you imagine a nice piece of ham that had bubbled all day in such good company?

I also made an Italian salad, which I based on the recipe that Anne so kindly sent to me; it was different from anything I’d eaten before. And I like it. I used a blood orange instead of the garden-variety oranges I grew up with. Next time I think I’ll use one of each, just for greater contrast in color between the oranges and the kalamata olives. Two small green onions, sliced, and a dusting of freshly ground pepper before drizzling it with extra-virgin olive oil and tossing gently. I left out the anchovies. The olives were just salty enough; anchovies would have been de trop.

You will note the new header here on the blog. I snapped some photos for Secondborn, and she played with them and various virtual scrapbooking elements she has collected that are kosher for use in a blog header. There may be a bit of tweaking on down the road, but I am immensely pleased with her design and thankful that she is so willing to share her talents with me.

I found my blank checks. Actually, I didn’t find the ones I was looking for, but I found the ones that I couldn’t find before, which necessitated ordering the ones I was looking for. I have enough to last me until I move into again. [Or, if I also find the others, three times as many as I will need.] Now I just need to find my return address labels, so I can do a DIY address change on each check as I use it. That’s certainly good enough for paying the rent and the few bills that I still pay by check.

I think this calls for some celebratory baking!

Oh, and BTW, Pantone can kiss my grits. Blue Iris may be the up-and-comer in the world of color, but red still rules chez nous.

Seventy-three Years Ago Today~

Two of the finest people I have ever known, were married at the home of her parents. The fashion of marrying from home seems to have passed, but it was quite common in the 1930’s. And modern prophets have stated that if one is unable to be sealed to one’s beloved in the temple, the next most sacred place for a marriage to begin is in a parental home.

Dad passed away in 1990; Mom followed in 1997. They left my sister and me a legacy of hard work, unspoken faith, and personal integrity. Truly, the salt of the earth.

I think this year ahead of us is going to be a wonderful adventure. My sister and her hubby will observe their golden wedding anniversary this summer. Fifty years! [I will have to be a very old woman in order to achieve that in my own life, though if Brother Right waltzes up the day after LittleBit graduates, we might have a fair shot at 40 years.]

As I’ve said, I don’t make resolutions, but I do set goals. I want a garden this year, a very small one, something along the order of two tomato plants in planters [with casters in case I move], a small patch of shallots, and a few pots of herbs. At the end of the year I want to see bottles of homemade tomato sauce or diced tomatoes or tomato paste glowing on a shelf in my pantry, one for every ten days or so. Maybe a jar a week?

One of the women in my office is a prolific gardener. She will be a fabulous resource. And I’ll pick up a copy of “Texas Gardener” next time I’m at the bookstore. Next month I’ll get the tomato cages and put them on my patio, along with bags of potting soil. And I’ll need to figure out a way to prevent Charlie, the vagrant cat that keeps trying to get into our apartment, from using my garden as a litterbox.

My yearly bonus should come along just in time for me to pick up a pressure canner. And, I’m hoping, a spinning wheel, but maybe that is better saved until next year.

Here’s a return-and-report on the most recent cooking adventures: the yellow split pea soup which I made on Saturday, is so-so. I think it would be better with a potato diced up into it. As I have another portion chilling in the fridge, I’ll have an opportunity to test that theory in the near future.

The second steelhead fillet, which I nuked with a bit of lemon juice in some baking parchment, crumbled into a storage container, and covered with my first successful risotto, made a charming and unconventional breakfast this morning. I’m sure that when LittleBit wakes up and comes out here, she will say that this place stinks of fish.

The recipe called for basmati, but I had some Arborio in my food storage. I simmered it in the leftover clam juice [bought for the pomegranate vinaigrette that went with the sea bass last week] and a cup of white cooking wine, and then water to make up the rest of the liquid. I have another cup and a half of risotto in the fridge, and I don’t know if I can make myself wait another day or two to polish it off. That one was a definite winner!

On Friday we celebrated the end of driver’s education with a trip to the kolache man. LittleBit snagged a pint of whole milk to wash down her cinnamon roll and then forgot it when I dropped her off near the house on my way to the office. I didn’t notice until I got in the car that night. It was quite chilly all day, so the milk was still cold if not particularly appetizing. I used most of it to bake a batch of cornmeal muffins and will bury it in more baking sometime today. I fancy a pan of gingerbread.

Second food-storage goal for 2008: a year’s supply of rice in various forms. I need long-grain for the occasional bowl of fried rice, Arborio for more of this yummy risotto, basmati or Texmati for everyday eating. [Have you ever sniffed a freshly-opened container of basmati rice? Heaven!] I like rice, but LittleBit’s not overly fond of it, so I foresee that rice consumption will increase once the nest empties.

As for the dance last night? I had so much fun! I would say that the Fun Quotient was right up there where it was two or three years ago, before the spate of Unfortunate Brethren, not to mention various broken or dysfunctional body parts. The music was *excellent*, though the guy who’s been doing the DJ’ing in recent months kept hovering about and offering suggestions. I taught three sisters the one line-dance that I know, and I danced about twice as much as I did last time, and I left after my customary East Coast Swing with Brother Yummy, taking my Ray Charles CD for the drive home.

Since I left around 11:30, I drove back in time to catch two sets of fireworks: one [I think] at the racetrack and another at the ballpark. What a great start for a new year!

I’m still swatching the red yarn for Eleanora, so I’ve missed the deadline for the December sock of the month at Sock Knitters Anonymous on Ravelry. But I met another knitter at the dance last night and gave her the URLs for Ravelry and my blog. And when I pulled the needle out of my 000 envelope, I found that it was my missing 0. So, one mystery solved and another to puzzle out. I scrunched the Stripedy sock down onto the cable of my 00 needle and am knitting the swatch back and forth on the ends. About 20 more rows to go before I put in a purl bump and switch to the 000 needle, assuming I can find it.

I was having some difficulty accessing the PDF’s for the Spring Shawl Surprice [sic] KAL, but suddenly I can open and save them. Weird. I’m not casting on yet, because I don’t think that I have quite enough of the KnitPicks alpaca laceweight. As I remarked to Tinks, for me it's less important to be knitting along in lockstep with my sisters of the wool, than it is to be knitting, period. I'm off to finish swatching Eleanora, and to make some progress on the socks that are already on the needles.

I also really, really need to find my check blanks, because the rent is due today.

Happy Knitting Year, everybody!