Purling Oaks

Comfort, both retail and food

I almost forgot to tell you about some retail therapy I enjoyed last week. I found Off the Beaten Path referenced somewhere on the web and I said, "Hey, I can drive there!" and so I did. Vicki, did you know about this shop? This new to me yarn shop is in Monona, Wisconsin, which is essentially part of Madison's south east side. The people working there are ultra-nice and knowledgeable. Here is what I brought home as evidence of my therapy. The Smart Yarn is destined to be wrist warmers for my nephew, Hunter. (Despite the fact he lives in the Los Angeles area, he would like a pair to match the pair I made for his grandfather.) I could hardly resist the Tofutsies yarn and the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn. The South West Trading Company Phoenix is probably going to be this top from ChicKnits.

Tonight I made a yummy pasta dish, orecchiette with spicy sausage, from Everyday Italian by Giada de Laurentiis. I substituted spicy turkey sausage for the Italian sausage and broccoli for the broccoli rabe called for in the recipe.
I've made this recipe several times. Once with broccoli rabe, which I find to be quite bitter but DH really likes, and also with different shapes of pasta. Orecchiete or "little ears" pasta isn't easy to find but I encountered some in Brookfield last week at V. Richards and they came home with me. It is an easy dish to make and quite tasty.
We always have leftovers that I think are excellent for a cold lunch. Yum!

Sonnet progress photos

Here is a pretty decent photo of Sonnet as of about 8 AM this morning. I added several more rows this morning on our drive back to Chez Purling Oaks, so I'm now officially working on the left front. HURRAY! DH and I drove up yesterday morning and visited with my mom. We met for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Oshkosh then went with her to meet with some folks about a memorial for my dad. We stopped at Fleet Farm for some seed starting soil and a few other items then went up to the Farm. DH cut some limbs that were getting a bit too friendly with the machine shed and mom and I picked up branches, held the ladder, and hoped DH wouldn't slide off the metal roof of the shed! (No casualties.)

Some family friends met us at the Farm and we all went to the Century Elm Supper Club for fish fry dinners, a Wisconsin tradition for Fridays. I had fried smelt with a side of potato pancakes. How traditional for March is that? It was a nice evening.

Besides trying to add more rows to Sonnet, today is scheduled for finishing this blog entry, laundry, a trip into Madison for some chicken or turkey sausage for tonight's dinner, as well as, a trip to one of my favorite clothing stores with a coupon for 25% off that expires after today.

My sleep is becoming more settled and I'm having fewer disturbing dreams. I haven't dreamed of stealing anyone's dog in several days now. *grin* I had not really been aware of the physical effects that grief can have on the body. I knew but I didn't really understand how it can hit you. It can really throw you a few things out of the blue. Thank goodness for family, friends, co-workers, and blogging dog-owners that are understanding and supportive.

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I lost track of where I saw this, some news article compilation--perhaps from www.jsonline.com. This is for Norma:

What do you call a line of rabbits hopping backwards?

A receding hare line!

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Making tracks:

Gazpacho!!!

Bless you! No, I actually meant the chilled soup. I'm on the road this week and I ate at a new-to-me deli, The Rochester Deli, for lunch today. I was told they are famous for their corned beef or pastrami but when I saw the soup of the day was gazpacho.....I had to have the soup! So, I paired it with a nice cheese sandwich and vinaigrette cole slaw and was in heaven. I remembered that I was low on blog material after my first few bites, so sorry, you get to see what it looked liked five minutes into my meal.
The gazpacho was excellent and was an inspired selection by the deli since it was unseasonably warm today. My Jeep's thermometer said it was 80 degrees F on the way to the hotel. I'll definitely try the corned beef sandwich later this week.

I'm on the road with DH, which is my very good fortune. We are having baked Italian-style breaded boneless chichen breasts, a salad of Boston lettuce with a zesty french dressing by Brianna's and some garlic french bread. All obtained from the nice store across the road and prepared in our little kitchenette. Life is good. *grin*

I'm almost to the left front of Sonnet but no pictures for the blog yet. Soon, I promise, soon.

Herb survey

We had a marvelous day yesterday. The fog burned off and although it was a bit hazy, the temperature was in the low 70s! Now, how great is that?!

I did some garden clean up to enjoy the nice weather. I trimmed the mums, removed the dead parsley stems and found blanched parsley under it all! Parsley is a biennial and will grow this year but will go to seed fairly early in the summer. The garlic chives are now showing themselves, looking a bit red, which I find interesting. All three kinds of thyme (common, lime, and lemon) show signs of life as does the sage. The rosemary didn't survive, but I didn't expect it to live through a Wisconsin winter.

I also pruned the roses, which is an act of faith for me. I did my best to read up on how to do it and this is my second year doing it. I believe there are two bush/hedge roses and several hybid teas. The bush roses are a lovely ruffle-ey soft pink in mid-June with some reblooming throughout the summer depending on my ability to keep up with bugs or blight or whatever the heck else attacks the plants. I enjoy the flowers but I am finding they are pretty high maintenance lovelies. I saw some scale when I did my pruning. Drats. Now where did I store my spray bottles?

A few crocus (crocii, crocuses?) have bloomed on the south side of the house. Some large ones under the lilac bushes and some whites just in the yard.

Today's color is GREEN!

It was a lovely Spring day at Chez Purling Oaks today! The sun was out, it was a bit breezy and I think the tempurature got into the low 60s! Last night's thunderstorms and today's sun have melted a great deal of snow. The only snow hanging on is either in large piles or along the edge of the woods, which is shaded. I found a number of green signs of Spring this afternoon. Here are some daffodils that escaped last Fall's shovel.


Daylilies that didn't escape the shovel and are now showing their greeness to my delight. I did some economical landscaping last October by dividing an overgrown patch of daylilies and, artfully, (I hope) placing them about the yard. The daffodils were supposed to all be relocated to another flower bed but we obviously have some stragglers. We were also gifted with some ferns but those are still dormant (crossing fingers).

The chives are getting off to a very good start.

This will be their second year in the herb garden. Chive's flowers are a favorite of mine and I would love to develop a garden with multitudes of chive plants just to have them all flowering at once. There are also garlic chives in my herb garden but they aren't awake yet.

I also found some crocus that are in the herb bed.
The leaves grew last year but I never saw any flowers. I wonder if they will flower this year? Am I planting them too deeply? Anyone know?

I had the windows open for a few hours this afternoon for a little air exchange. I'm sure our house isn't airtight by any means but new fresh Spring air is very welcome in large quantities.

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I had a dream last night, which is a good thing. However, I dreamed I plagiarized an entire Chappysmom post, pictures and all! Horrors of horrors! I even said that Chappy was my dog! Nightmare! Not about Chappy, of course, but about the stealing. Argh! Perhaps the dream was an offshoot of yesterday's blog discussions at Cara's blog and Steph's blog. The topic of why do we blog is very interesting to me and a number of comments brought up reasons I had not previously considered. I posed the question to Vicki when I was considering a blog of my own and she definitely gave me something to ponder.

I'm still thinking about why I blog. I blog to be part of the knitting blog community, which I see as a very positive community. I blog to improve my creative writing. I review, analyze, and produce reports at work but they are all of a technical nature and certainly contain no whimsy. I blog to record my creative knitting or other crafty endeavors. I blog so my friends can drop in and find out what I've been up to without relying on my lousy correspondence. I blog so I might make more friends and be a friend to others. I blog to ease my heart when it hurts and to share my joys with anyone willing to read. I blog to remember.

Spring Surprise

The first day of Spring is starting out rather damp and dreary. All the same, I'm quite glad it is here. I got a surprise this morning when I looked out at the bird feeders and saw what you see in the photos. I realize this sounds unbelieveable but that is the first squirrel I've seen at our feeders! We have a large woods behind the house and I suppose I thought that kept the squirrels busy. Not this morning! They just discovered there is a McFeeder in the neighborhood! There were actually two but one ran off when he saw me through the window.
Both White Dot (pictured) and his sister, Fuzzle, saw the squirrels, causing them much feline agitation.

fancy salts & merlot to the rescue

I slept reasonably well last night. But.....I've noticed today that my stomach has that "nervous feeling"....which means I've got to work on relaxing a bit more. The bedding has been washed and is drying right now. I'm planning to draw a nice hot bath with some fancy Dead Sea Bath Salts and sip a glass of merlot until the heat sinks into my bones. Sounds good just typing it. Probably won't hurt, anyway. *grin* And in the morning, I'll jump, err, walk on the treadmill and expend that nervous feeling before it gets started.

Tuesday morning view

This was the view looking north this morning. I see one of the gates is open. The snow will probably disappear this week.

Pillows, anyone?

I knit more on Sonnet this weekend and I'm almost finished with the back. Film at Eleven. (just kidding) I'll get an in-progress photo posted soon.

I'm doing okay. Sleep is becoming less troubled but since I stayed up until 2 AM this morning reading a Nora Roberts novel, I doubt my body had any choice but to sleep. *grin* I know my brain is having to process all sorts of emotions and other stuff so I'm just trying to go with the flow. DH said he was bone-tired yesterday evening and he was wondering how I was since I "did three times more than he" did. I don't recall doing all that much work. I just tried to stay busy. I just hope that when and/or if I hit the proverbial wall, there are some nice, fluffy pillows nearby.

Tomorrow is the start of my return to regular life. I've got a project waiting for me at work that won't be too much of a brain work-out but will keep me busy. All good and it has a deadline coming up soon, which is even better. Plus, I'm teleworking so I don't have to drive anywhere.

elusive sleep for some

I made it though the visitation and I hope I said all the things I should say. My brother conducted the service and did an absolutely outstanding job talking about our dad. Dad was buried with a 21-gun salute in a cemetery down the road from their farm that was started/opened (?) over 100 years ago. We had a pretty darn good wake last night for Dad. It was actually kind of healing, at least for me. Besides being what Dad would have wanted, it reminded me of how many people loved Dad and love me and my family. It was a good combination of stories, laughter, and some tears. I definitely drank my share of Guinness.

DH and I took today to run back to Madison for a day so we could run errands and I could decompress a bit. I was able to knit a few inches on Sonnet during the drive home. I haven't knitted since after I sat with my folks in the hospital one week ago today. I haven't been sleeping very soundly since that day. I'm hoping for better sleep tonight. If not, I'm sure sleep will improve over time...especially if I keep up with the knitting. We're heading north again tomorrow.