Purling Oaks

Happy Birthday, Dan

Hooo-wheee! January is going out with a chill. My Jeep's thermometer read 3 degrees Farenheit this morning. That car does not enjoy spending cold nights in hotel parking lots, but she started right away just making a small funny sound for a minute or two so I would know the situation better change soon. Yes, I have a relationship with my Jeep. What's wrong with that? She keeps me going places and I really enjoy driving her.

I saw we have a "Special Weather Statement" for the Arctic Blast that is supposed to move in Friday through next Wednesday in southern Wisconsin. The weather wizards say we may get the coldest temperatures in a decade in the next week or so. This should lead to weather-inspired knitting, if all goes well. No knitting photos tonight though I've made some progress on Sonnet. Hotel rooms are not full of good photo-taking lighting, especially at night. Maybe a good photo will be available by Friday......

Meanwhile......Happy Birthday, Dan (aka DH)! We are both pretty practical about our birthday celebrations since we both travel for work. We will have a really nice dinner at home on Friday. Here's another rappelling photo from last May's trip to Southern California, except the guy on the ropes is Dan.
Happy Birthday, Dan!

Monday's missing scarves

Well, I just corrected my grammar in the last post ---well, as much as I can tell now. Such a sensitive topic, eh?! My only defense is that I did a lot of driving Sunday and everything Vicki and I talked about kept whirling around in my brain cells distracting them from guiding me in generally acceptable writing skills. I'm ready to be one with my pillow pretty darn soon so there's no guarantee of a perfectly written post tonight, either!

We had a bit more snow in southern Wisconsin today. The snow increased as I drove east to Brookfield and it eventually persuaded traffic to give it more respect by slowing down...whew. Definitely sloppy snow which requires boots and cold enough for me to realize I haven't made a warm wool scarf for myself! *GASP* How in the heck did that happen??? I may have to go to Target to buy a placeholder so my face doesn't freeze off before I get it knit. Yes, I have some other scarves but they are lost somewhere in the house and would not surface this morning for all my searching. Luckily, I have no outside walking or standing to endure this week.

Stay warm!!

Lentils, beer mug socks, and Vicki!

Gosh, it seems like the weekend came and went in a flash! Saturday was laundry, chores, and soup making. I made lentil soup with just a little smoked ham for taste and NO carrots, since my dad will be one of the end consumers. (He says he won't eat carrots anymore. It's a mystery to me but..oh well, no carrots.) I think the final product tasted great and lentils are such an easy soup ingredient.

Today, I drove up to visit with my folks and to bring them the lentil soup and some black turtle bean soup. My mom is taking up sock knitting again after a break of a few decades. She was looking through her box of knitting supplies and found this old pattern she once made for her brother in college in the early '50s.
Beer Mug Socks with Mohair Foam

After visiting with Mom and Dad, I drove over to Appleton and met Vicki at a nice local coffee shop!! Now, how cool is that?!! She brought her Williamsro sweater for my viewing. It's nice in a photo but it is great in person. The cabling and other stitches are really interesting and the Cash Iroha washes up much softer than I would have anticipated compared to the "raw" yarn in the skein. Now I want to make that sweater more than ever! Thanks, Vicki!! I really enjoyed meeting Vicki, she's easy to talk with and we covered quite a range of topics in our two hours or so at the coffee shop. Yes, I was nervous for fear I would be tongue-tied or say stupid stuff. I think I got through without embarrassing myself. Well, at least that I noticed. *grin*

Support Your Local Pig

On my way home from the way west side of Madison, I stopped to buy groceries. Did I stop at the Copps Food store? No. Did I go to Woodmans? No. No, I traveled until I was almost home and went to the PIG! That's Piggly Wiggly to those of you without knowledge of this grocery store chain. Our Pig is a smaller but reasonably stocked store. When we lived in Madison, we were ten minutes (by car) from at least one large grocery store and 15 minutes from a really big grocery (Woodmans) store. We cook a lot..me 40%, DH 60% (or more) and we like to eat "traditional" (i.e. meat & pototoes) as well as "nontraditional" food like Indian, Spanish, and Thai to name a few. It isn't a big deal for a large store to carry a wide variety of food stuffs. We didn't think much of running over to a grocery for enchilada sauce. Well, our Pig doesn't carry enchilada sauce or a bunch of other stuff. However, they do carry the essentials of everyday living and eating and cleaning. And, they are only five miles from our house rather than the 25 miles we have to travel to hit the Woodmans. It was really an adjustment for me to make when we moved to the country. I used to go to buy food every day or so, to some degree. NOW, that means a minimum of 45 minutes to 2 hours of traveling and shopping! So, we do our best to buy what we can from the Pig. There was another larger grocery just 10 miles away in Portage but it was closed recently due to the impact of the Super Walmart. So, I urge you to support your local Pig (and the folks that work there) as much as you can.

Wallpaper

kmkat asked bloggers to post their wallpaper. Her's is an adorable little Packer kitty! This photo was taken in September 2003 when DH and I vacationed in Yellowstone National Park. We hiked into Grebe Lake and while DH did some fantasy trout fishing, I was knitting, relaxing, and taking photos. (You know, I finally finished those socks in 2006.....*grin*. Fodder for another post.) It was a wonderful vacation and this wallpaper is a relaxing reminder of it on a daily basis.

I'm doing more driving than usual this week--actually commuting to work, for a change--and it is making me a bit tired. Too bad it ends this week before I get used to it.

Happy Birthday, Hunter!

I'm continuing the birthday theme started over at Vicki's blog. Today is the birthday of my number two nephew....number two in a chronological order way only. I love them all. I have four of them and one niece--I'm so lucky to be an auntie. This guy is a stealthy charmer who is good at catching me by surprise as well as beating my best score regularly in RocketMania on my PDA. He's a high school freshman this year. Here's a photo from this past May. He's rappelling down a rock face in Southern California. I was taking photos--'yer not gettin' me on them there ropes! Happy Birthday, Hunter!!

Red Scarf FO

Snow-wise, we probably have about 7 inches of new snow as we were over-achievers and shot past the forecaster's 3 to 5 inch prediction. Now this is Winter!

I finished a red scarf this afternoon for the Red Scarf Project 2007 project. I printed out the nifty corset for the scarf and it is ready to head out in the mail tomorrow.

I did laundry, finished and wrapped the scarf, nursed a plugged ear, watched the Saints-Bear game (too bad for the Saints), and enjoyed the snowy day. Blue enjoyed the day, too. This guy really knows how to relax.

More snow, sock darning

Sock surfing brought me to Claudia's blog where she had an interesting post about repairing her husband's socks. The comments to the post were almost as interesting as her post because there was discussion of darning eggs and methods of darning. I have never mended or darned a sock but I certainly hope I'll be knitting more socks and, with that, will be repairing socks. I hope Claudia posts about sock darning! Does anyone have a good visual reference for how to darn a sock?

We woke up to snow this morning! I took these photos a little after noon and it is still snowing. As you can sort of see, we used the grill last night! BTW, the salad of romaine with grilled chicken was great. I also made herbed breadsticks by brushing refrigerator case breadsticks with a mixture of olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary, onion powder, and oregano then sprinkling with garlic salt before baking. YUM. Here is a photo of the backyard and my favorite oak tree.
It is such a peaceful-looking tree.

Home again, home again

My Jeep and I rolled into the garage about 10:30 PM last night, both glad to be home. The Jeep because the airport parking garage is cold and full of strangers and me because, well, home is where my heart, my honey, and my pillow are. Dallas and other parts of Texas and the country really had a bummer of a weather week. We had ice and snow in Dallas, Texas. Here are a few photos of the snow from inside out meeting building.
Our main office was closed but since most of us were at the hotel a block away, we continued with our meeting anyway. Unlike Wisconsin (usually), snow is a rare event and the muncipalities don't have the equipment to deal with it. There was also ice with this event, which really made travel dangerous. Fortunately, the temperature warmed up enough so there was only rain on Friday and my travel home was uneventful.

I started the Koigu socks on the flight down to Dallas and the socks are now named the Sunrise socks for their color and what I saw when I started them. I should have taken a photo of the sunrise through the aircraft window but a girl can only think so fast at 7 AM. My brainpower was concentrating on casting on and joining. Joining is my least favorite thing to do with a sock. Ugh. Tiny needles, skinny yarn, very awkward. Blech. How do you join a round? I just exchange the places of the first and last cast-on stitches.

I was able to make some progress on the socks waiting for my flight in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.
Not the most flattering photo but I'm posting it to support MSF as Lucia will donate a dollar for every blogger/knitter that posts a photo of themselves knitting in full view of muggles. I also knit a bit on the flight home but did more conversing with the guy in the seat next to me. He, awkwardly, recognized what I was doing and commented on it. Nicely. Here is the last photo from the airport of the sock.
This yarn is really nice to knit with and I am really enjoying watching it change colors as the fabric of the sock appears. Small pleasures but definitely a pleasure.

It was cold but sunny today so I was able to run errands in Madison. I stopped at Lakeside Fibers for yarn for fingerless mitts for my dad. I found some Renaissance from Classic Elite Yarns in a mottled medium gray. Gosh, the coffee shop was really busy and there were knitters in abundance. But..................the grocery list was burning a hole in my pocket so off I went to Woodman's and then to PetSmart for more cat food. I'm back home again and DH and I will soon have grilled chicken breasts on a romaine salad with tomatoes, broccoli spouts, and whatever else looks good. I wish everyone a nice comfortable evening with their loved ones.

Traveling socks

The snow came in earnest last night and continued to fall today. I put in 2 miles on the treadmill AND I finally finished the review to a reasonable level of self-promotion. *grin* No lightning strikes in my vicinity so it can't be too bad. I enjoyed watching the birds on the feeders today. Chickdees, cardinals, snowbird, and finches all enjoyed the buffet.

I've selected Koigu's KPPPM for the next pair of socks and I'm going to use Janis's Koigu Sock Pattern. The yarn is a happy colorway. I would have used STR if I had any in stash but not yet...I will though since I joined the STR 2007 Sock Club. I do plan, however, to do some significant knitting of socks in public this week since I'll be flying to Dallas and back to Madison. Airport-waiting is an excellent opportunity for knitting in public. Now all I will have to do is to convince a nearby person to take my picture evidencing the deed(s).

Time for me to finish this up and try to get some sleep. Three in the A-goodness-M comes rather soon when you normally get anther two or three more hours of zzzzzz's.