Pumpkin Sunrise

This weekend contained: -Frodo finding a snake eating a toad.  Hubbie took thousands of photos of the event (without Frodo of course, the snake was angry to have a dog sniffing him during his meal).  I thought it was a little too graphic and violent to watch :) -tropical storm Lee flooding our town. Many have lost power and water.  Many have first floor flooding. -thankfulness that we live on a hill and have a private water well (and electricity!) -unexpected friends over for dinner Friday night.  Our friends were lucky just to lose water supply.  They came over for dinner and showers and washing dishes.  It was nice to be helping someone. -homemade pizzas with red peppers and mushrooms-YUM! -chats with both kids who are happy where they go to school. -A little road trip to through the countryside.  Peaceful and relaxing. -reading and knitting. How was your weekend? Joining Amanda at The Habit of Being

Linking with Amanda at Soulemama

Are you super impressed with how neat and tidy the above notebook looks?  Look at those pristine tallies of each row knitted.  I believe it is a work of art of a very organized knitter.  Would you believe that the above notebook is NOT mine.  It belonged to my mother and I inherited it along with many of her knitting supplies over ten years ago.  I was always envious of her copious notes and really I tried to be just like her.  However, I am the kind of knitter who does a tally tick then wonders "did I just mark that row?"  "I think I did"  and then I would doubt it, or my cable rows were off or some other minor catastrophe occurred because I cannot keep track of tally marks.  I know you are shocked!  I cannot tell you how many hours I would sit there counting rows or just stare at my knitting trying to figure out where I was on the pattern.  I also believe there were tears involved because I can become quite emotional and impatient (who me?).  Some goo

My knitting has been quite eventful!  I decided to start another Christmas present.  This one is for my favorite aunt in the whole wide world.  She admired my shawl that I knit for my sister which I blogged about here .  So the yarn is the same but I wanted to knit a different pattern.  I chose the Live Oak Shawlette  from the fall issue of Knitscene .  I am hoping I can make it a little bit bigger.   On my other knitting news I completely ripped out my tea leaves cardigan  and restarted it.  My decision came about quickly and yesterday I blogged about that.... it was sort of sad but necessary.  I am finished with the gathers at the top and hopefully I will be more pleased with the fit the second time around.  At dinner yesterday my husband said "maybe you should knit it right the first time".......yes!!  I should!! My reading has been all about Anne of Ingleside.  This book is by far the one with the most tribulations in Anne's life.  She has an aunt living

My beautiful mustard seed cardigan has been to the frog pond this morning!!  I had some reservations on the fit especially in the yoke area.  But it took having most of the body knitted for me to make a firm decision to rip it all out.  I knew that I would not be happy with how roomy it was.  I also was cutting it close on my yarn supply. First of all, my gauge which was perfect in the beginning became a little too relaxed.  Second of all, I am in between a 36 inch and 40 inch size.  So initially I thought the 40 inch would work.  But the yoke is so wide that now I am thinking the 36 inch would be better and I could always block it out to gain an inch.   Today I will cast on (again) one size smaller (36 inch) and down a needle size as well.  A whole month of knitting was ripped out in less than 45 minutes!  Amazing! For some reason, I am never sad about ripping out.  It is a fact of life in the knitting process. I did sleep on my decision.  Going to bed knowing that I

So yesterday I decided to make a mushroom quiche .  Keep in mind that every time my husband walked by I had to hear a clip of "Sweet Lorraine" by Uriah Heep......only he was singing "Quiche Lorraine"....such simple pleasures.  I looked about the internet and the audio clips were just too darn long so I am not linking.  I heard the song clip enough from him. For the quiche recipe I added asparagus and green pepper.  I omitted the onion.  I also used canola oil instead of butter to saute the vegetables. Anyways,  I needed some pastry dough.  I have to admit that I am that kind of a person that buys my pie crust premade and prewrapped in the refrigerator aisle by the eggs.  Would you believe that I did not have any in the house and I kept forgetting to buy it?  I know....I am slacking off around here. So I decided to make it from scratch from a recipe that I have used for the past 23 years.  I know you are supposed to use shortening or butter but I dis

Our weekend was fantastic but a little different, it was hard to find a rhythm without the kids.  We do like our new quiet life overall.  It's just.....different!  We spent Saturday morning chatting with the kids and just relaxing about.  I knitted some and read some.  My husband played guitar. In the afternoon, we decided to drive to Barnes and Nobles and browse about the store.  After that, we dropped in the grocery store and stocked up on some items that are unavailable in our town.  "What could you possibly not be able to get in your town?" You may ask.....well red lentils, of course!  My husband can make a fantastic daal that goes with his curry and the regular lentils do not taste as good.   That evening we made a great stir fry with mushrooms, asparagus and some turkey.  Yum!  Once the dishes were done, we watched Dodgeball .  It was pretty bad, but we were laughing through it so was it really that awful? Today we attended Mass, which was weird wit