It's not a sock...

Dishcloths
But it's something.

KelInCal has made about eleventy-million round dishrags in the past week or so. I was inspired. Go read her dishrag posts if you want to make some of your own--and then thank her for the wealth of fancy dishrags you'll have. Seriously.

This was just what the doctor ordered. My wrists are feeling better, but my mood is... meh. My dryer broke down this weekend, resulting in some nice piles of mildew-scented laundry, The Beloved was determined to try my patience as if it was the new favorite activity for all the cool kids in town, and...and...and.

But I have a nice, round, purple dishcloth to use tonight when I clean up the dinner dishes! Wahoo!

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

family
First, I'd like to thank everyone for the positive vibes sent my way. It really does help--I need the kick in the backside to remember that it really isn't all me in a bubble of misery and that there is a great big world out there. So, thank you.

Still no knitting pictures. Between rest and arnica, my wrists are feeling better and I'm doing a little knitting. But I discovered a hole in the gusset decreases of the sock. After swearing at it and putting it back in the bag for three days, I'm dismayed to discover it hasn't fixed itself and I'll have to rip back about ten rows to fix whatever I did--and believe you me, I have no idea what I did. Oh well.

The sock has not been fixed because now that my wrists are better, I feel as though someone has beaten me soundly with the tired stick. I'm blaming the change in weather (it has been positively autumnal for the past week up here in NH) and a change in schedule (I'm back at the college 20 hours/week. Yippee!!). Last night I was in bed at 9:30 and I still feel exhausted. Enough already!

I have learned my lesson--hubris is to be punished by the knitting gods. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Other updates: Resident Sibling goes up to Portland tonight for her Army physical tomorrow morning. She'll also take the DLAB while she's up there. Fingers are crossed that she does well and that she ships out soon for fun at Basic. [Note: This is not meant to sound hostile. Joining the Army is a BIG DEAL and, particularly since members of our Armed Forces are dying to preserve the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is certainly not a decision to be taken lightly. However, Resident Sibling desperately needs to make a decision regarding her life and career goals and go with it. If this is her choice, I support it whole-heartedly and encourage her to get a move on before she changes her mind. Again. Besides, I really want my house back.]

Plans are in the works for next week's birthday gala events. I think I'm making lasagna for the family gathering on Sunday. So, Saturday will be consumed with construction of two casseroles so that all I need to do is reheat after church before the fam shows up. Monday is a little bit harder because I think I'm going to have to shop in the morning and then surreptitiously marinate lamb for souvlaki and start a caponata while my little cherub sleeps. If I buy everything in advance, he's sure to know something is up. Hmmm. Last week, these were daunting prospects, but for whatever reason, I'm no longer terrified by the thought of entertaining. I'm actually quite excited. Perhaps it's because my house is nearly in order.

Now, my house will never be perfect. I leave that for people like my mother. But my house is now about 2 hours away from not being an utter embarrassment should anyone stop by unexpectedly. Yay! It hasn't looked this good since Easter. Which does a lot for my mental and emotional sense of well-being. Now, if only I could get The Beloved to help with some of the housework.... but perhaps that and an about face for my mood are too much to ask for in a week.

Why there is nothing to report

misc.
KelInCal hit the nail on her head with her comment regarding my previous post. Yes, I love The King. But, yes, I was also trying to distract you all from my utter lack of productivity.

Here's what's been going on (unfortunately, it's not knitting) ...

Resident Sibling is still with us. She has been unemployed for most of the summer. It's gotten really old, really fast. Her story? She's trying to join the Army, but needed to lose weight so they would take her. So she goes to the gym twice a day with her recruiter. And doesn't do anything else except eat my food and watch The Beloved's TV set and play Sudoku. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? And, in fact, like something I would enjoy doing--only someone needs to pay the bills to keep us in this lap of luxury. So I've been working extra hours at my church library job, plugging away at the cataloging, unprocessing, and reprocessing the collection. It's slow going, but I'm beginning to see progress.

Unfortunately, all this work is beginning to take its toll in more than one way. First, I have a lot of negative feelings regarding this job. When the organization originally hired me in 2004, I was a full-time, salaried employee with things like health care and a retirement account. Last summer (2006), the organization lost half of its funding and I lost my job. Granted, it was my choice to leave when I did instead of hanging out waiting for the funds to literally dry up, but it still would not have been my first choice.

I agreed to go back and finish cataloging the collection so that it was accessible via the world wide web. After all, my replacement job at the college is only half-time. So, last year, I worked 20 hours/week at the college and 12 hours/week at the church library. It was OK, aside from my bitterness and resentfulness. This summer I did not have the college job as I'm only employed during the school year. So I upped my hours at the church to 20 hours/week. The volunteers who are supposed to have been helping appear to have vanished during the summer. So, while I've gotten a lot done, I could have done more had others followed through. More bitterness. More resentfulness. Then, two weeks ago, give or take--crisis sets in:

Tendinitis.

I've had bouts of mild to severe tendinitis in my right wrist since college. Then, it would manifest during finals week when my life consisted of writing 20 hours a day on computer or in blue book. By the time I was finished with exams, I was unable to hold a pencil. It's not that bad right now, but it bothers me enough to make knitting a questionable activity. At first, the pain wasn't so bad--but I noticed goofiness in my tension. Which resulted in frogging half of the second Angel's Rest sock. There was some cursing involved, but not too much. After that, I thought I'd take a little break to see if extra rest would help. Nope. Between cataloging and removing labels and packing tape from books, my right wrist didn't get any better and I began to notice pain in my left wrist. Oh, joy. So knitting and spinning have been out of the question due to pain and/or lack of control.

This does not make for a happy Saisquoi. Neither, truth be told, does my unemployed Resident Sibling. So I've been an absolute joy to be around, as you might imagine.

In the midst of all this misery, though, I've discovered something that desperately needed doing ...

Housework.

Doing a little bit every day, my house is almost presentable. Which is good, because in a moment of absolute fucking insanity I decided to host the Labor Day Weekend Family Sunday dinner. It's the Sunday before The Beloved's 40th birthday, and I thought it would be the easiest way to ensure a family birthday party. I did the final count yesterday and if everyone shows up, there will be 25 people in my house. Jesus Christ.

And because one party isn't enough, I'm planning a surprise party for the following day. That will be for our friends. Dude--it seemed practical at the time because there was no way I could fit all of our family and friends into our tiny little house. Actually, though, I'm planning a very low-key get-together for Monday. Particularly since I'm not telling The Beloved about it at all. My plan is just to have people show up. Surprise! I'm a little concerned that he'll want to kill me, but hell--you only turn 40 once. And he bet me I wouldn't throw him a party. Hah. See--he wanted one. Otherwise he never would have baited me like that. Of course, since I am a Virgo, I may be up till three in the morning the night before with an impromptu ice sculpture....

On a happier note: I'm back at the college as of last week. So, I may cut my hours back at the church. I was also very cautious last week regarding the amount of time spent at the computer or doing things that may cause stress to my wrists, with the happy result of being able to finally turn the heel on the Angel's Rest sock last night. Today I'll hopefully be able to pick up the gusset stitches after dinner and get some work done on the foot. Particularly since this month's Yarn Pirate Booty Club shipment arrived yesterday. Pictures in a couple of days--if I finish the current sock, that is...

Adventures in sportsmanship

family
On Saturday, I went fishing with my Dad, my cousin, and her young son. Now, normally, I'm not a great outdoorsy person. I've been camping and hiking and fishing and I like it all fine, but I'm very fair and me and the sun tend not to go too well together. So, outdoorsy experiences often end for me with a painful sunburn. Which could be partially alleviated were I to remember to apply sunscreen liberally and often, but please--how much do you really think of that whilst baiting hooks?

Anyway, my cousin's son is about four. I think. It's hard to remember, particularly because he keeps giving himself birthday parties. We have newly christened him "Backwoods" due to his prowess in the great outdoors. The four of us drove from the Seacoast up to Lake Winnepesauke. Dad navigated to Long Island, which is an area up on the north end of the lake where he would take my sister and I fishing when we were small. You drop your line off of a bridge and hope for the best. Unfortunately, the lake has become much more crowded in the many years since I was Backwoods' age, and it's harder to fish from the bridge due to all the boat traffic. Fortunately, it was a nice day and everyone was in a good mood (boaters and fishermen alike).

Naturally, Backwoods caught the first fish:

Backwoods & Bass


And the second.

Backwoods w/baby fish


(We decided to let nature live with the second one. It was teeny. The first one, though, was eatin' size, so that came home with us.)

My luck was not so good. But I was outside with Dad, my cousin and Backwoods, so it was all good. We were fishing with worms (Backwoods brought some of his own from his garden, and we picked up some absolutely ginormous night crawlers) and with hellgrammites. I baited hooks and helped Backwoods cast out. Eventually, I got one.

Saisquoi & Bass


I think it might have been the same fish we let live earlier. We chose to follow the same path this time around. So back it went into the lake.

Backwoods was getting a little tired, so we packed it in and drove back towards home. We were hungry, so we stopped at the Happy Pig for barbecue.

Happy Pig


The Happy Pig is actually called the Yankee Smokehouse. We knew we were in for some good times when the waitress brought these around:

Wetnap


The food was excellent. Some of the best barbecue I've had up in New England. You don't get any pictures of it because I was too busy eating. Here--let me distract you with a picture of Backwoods and his coloring:

Backwoods w/Artwork


Once we finished lunch, we got back on the road towards home. We had passed a "secret fishing place" on the way up that Dad had always wanted to try. So we stopped. It was a hatchery with a pay-to-fish pond on site. Sometimes, paying to fish is prohibitively expensive. Dad and I fly fish at a place about 20 minutes away from us where the guy charges $25 per day to fish, not including the cost of anything you catch to keep. (We don't keep anything). This place, on the other hand, was $3.50/fish. The guy out by the pond would supply the rod, the bait, and a bucket for the fish--if you could catch any.

Secret Fishing Hole w/Trout


Turns out that wasn't a problem.

Hook Removal


$3.50/fish for 12-inch rainbow trout is not a bad deal. In fact, we paid less for the fish we brought home than we would have paid for the same amount of fish at the grocery store. Plus, we got to rip worms in half and reel them in and pull out hooks and stuff. I think Dad's going to take Backwoods back next Sunday to catch family dinner. It's totally worth the trip--which we now bill at "10 minutes of hot and heavy fishing."

We looked at the baby fish on the way out (sorry--they're hard to see in the photo).

Baby Trout


And then we headed for home.

Fishing is hard work.

Backwoods Out

My Mojo's Back, Baby!

Knitting
My sock knitting mojo, anyway. Look what I finished last night!

Angel's Rest w/Yarn

Angel's Rest: Stand-up

Angel's Rest: Toes

Behold: Angel's Rest, one of the Peak Experience Socks from Fiber Trends. The colorway is called "Rum Runner" and is exclusive to members of the Yarn Pirate Booty Club.

Unlike the Jaywalkers which took about two weeks each, this baby took about a week from cast on to cast off. There's only one little "oops" in it, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. I'm guessing you won't be able to find it, either. I'm very proud of myself for leaving it in--normally I would have ripped back to fix it, but I'm trying to lighten up a little.

I really like the scalloped cuff instead of the traditional ribbing:

Angel's Rest: Cuff

Girly? Perhaps. But I still dig it.

I'm also really happy with how the toe and heel came out.

Angel's Rest: Toe

Angel's Rest: Heel Close-up

I'll cast on for the second sock after I finish posting. The Beloved has been in beastly pain for the past week or so with an abscessed tooth. Today he gets to go for a root canal and I'm going to wait patiently for him like the good and devoted wife I am. Hopefully, I'll get a fair amount cranked out on sock #2 during my wait.

While I'm really happy with how this sock came out, and I'm excited to knit the second one, I'm wondering if my next Booty Club Shipment shouldn't be a plain ol' vanilla sock. The colors are so beautiful and a plain sock may show them off better than any stitch pattern could.

I say this now...but who knows what will happen when the skein is actually in my hot little hands?

So, yes. My sock knitting mojo is back. But it seems to have returned at the expense of my spinning mojo. I am not having any luck finishing off the batt I've been working with. I keep doing stupid things, or the yarn breaks (probably because of something stupid I've done), and I get frustrated and swear. So, not much has gotten done. It's been beastly hot and humid over the past several days, so I'm going to use that as my excuse. I simply don't function well when it's hot, and apparently my wool doesn't function well, either.

In other news, the peaches are coming along nicely as are the blackberries. That means I'm going to have to decide what to do with all that fruit right quickly. Any ideas?

Sights of Summer

cooking
My Grandfather fancied himself a gardener. I, however, have not inherited these proclivities. Digging in the dirt is fun--don't get me wrong--but the resultant sunburn and thousands of insect bites really are not to my liking. I'm trying to (sort of) maintain what we inherited--meaning, mostly, that I'm trying to keep the fruit trees and bushes alive. We've lost the battle with some of the peach trees, and they will be coming down in the near future so as to keep us warm during the winter. But some of the others are actually faring quite well. Look at what I saw yesterday during my shower! (Yes--we have a window in the shower. The Beloved hates it. Fortunately, we have a big backyard and you really can't see in unless the window is wide open.)

That, my friends, is a fine looking peach. While I knew we had peach trees, I was under the impression that they weren't bearing fruit. Well, until the end of last summer when The Beloved was griping that they had all fallen off the trees and were mouldering on the ground making it near impossible for him to mow the lawn. This summer I'm hoping to be better prepared and to get some of them picked. I'm not sure of the quality--we don't spray with anything, so I don't know if they're wormy or infested with other vermin. But I'm hoping to pick some just the same and cut them up (so as to see the state of the fruit) and perhaps make some preserves or at least a homemade peach cobbler.

I have a cobbler recipe that I like, but have a feeling that The Beloved may appreciate some diversity. If anyone has any recipes featuring peaches or recipes with which I can use peaches (eg: cobblers, coffee cakes, pies, etc), send them down! You can e-mail them to me, or post them in the comments section. And, to make this fun, perhaps I'll include prizes :)

Yes. I think prizes will be good. I'll have The Beloved taste test the creations and his favorite will get either a jar of preserves or a skein of my handspun--winner may choose.

And if this goes well, you all may be pressed into duty again in a few more weeks when the blackberries ripen. While we'll have a fair amount of peaches (I think we have three or four still-living trees), we'll have an unholy amount of blackberries. The bushes span about half of our backyard. They are thirty paces, end to end. And the berries, they are a-growing.


When I was a little girl, my grandparents used to let me pick berries for my grandmother's amazing blackberry jam, cobbler, pie, etc. And as many berries ended up in my tummy as in the bucket. Which would, of course, lead to my being dreadfully sick--but never resulted in changes to my picking habits. They are really that good.

Late last summer I went out and picked berries most afternoons once they began to ripen. You'll be pleased to know that my picking habits still have not changed. But I began to run short of recipes, and while I can freeze the blackberries, they are oh-so-much better when fresh. So, put your thinking caps on for berry season... I know I'll be doing the same.


You should know that I ate this ripe one immediately after taking the picture. It's quality control. I had to make sure they were going to be as good as last summer. They're coming along nicely.

As is my new sock. Click here if you'd like to take a peek. Here's another shot. I'll start posting, maybe, next week. Or when I complete one. It's that surprise thing again. I'm generally horrible about giving things away, and so I'm trying really, really hard to be good.

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