11.25.08
Posted in daily life stuff, knitting at 6:10 pm by Shari
Life’s pretty boring…. not really accomplishing much. Can’t really think of much of anything I’ve accomplished since the last blog post. I’ve knitted a little on my sweater, got past the gusset decreases on the socks and made a Calorimetry headband (Love it!).
Littlest bro had an AP story released about him today. Among other places, it was in the Concord Monitor. He said there’s also a thing on NPR on Thursday. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to hear it, but I guess I should be able to hear it online after the fact.
Our biggest news is that we just bought a “new” car. The old one had nearly 285000 miles on it. This one has just over 100000 even though it’s a year older. Hopefully it’ll hold out long enough to get other things back in order and get to a place we can upgrade even further.
Got an email from a friend today with this link: http://www.letssaythanks.com/ Seems like a good thing to do.
I probably won’t blog again til afterwards, so Happy Thanksgiving!
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11.08.08
Posted in daily life stuff at 8:42 pm by Shari
It’s fixed… Shaun was able to get her car fixed today and is on her way back to where she lives for school. It cost her way too much, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders. She felt good about the place, but then she talked to her uncle, the mechanic, and had him call the garage to get a breakdown of what they were doing and what each thing was going to cost, etc. In the end they did knock a few bucks off the bill too.
So, that’s all good. I’m rather relieved.
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Posted in daily life stuff, knitting, wls at 7:59 am by Shari
I just saw a thread on Ravelry that sounded like a good idea…. This is in the Fingerless Gloves Fanatics group, talking about something being done in a sock group somewhere else on Rav. The idea is that before next year starts, package up a dozen projects with the yarn and pattern. Then each month, pick one and do it. You could do fewer if you felt like it would take longer. I get the impression you’re packaging them so you can’t see them and it’s a surprise when you open it. Heaven knows I have enough yarn and project ideas kicking around here, so this is sounding like an idea to try. I probably wouldn’t do it as all socks, or all fingerless gloves or all whatever, but a bunch of projects would be good. We’ll see…
I’ve been knitting on that pair of socks I mentioned. This is the progress a few days ago: 
Yesterday I stuffed them in my purse, figuring I was working long enough to have to take a meal break, so I could work on them then. Somehow I managed to also PULL THE NEEDLE OUT - 1/2 of one sock, numerous stitches on the other. ARGH! So when I got to work I had to try to grab all the stitches so they wouldn’t run, then my meal break was spent just getting them re-positioned so they were not split and mounted right. So much for progress, huh? I’m liking how these are looking, though. 9 rows of K2, P2 ribbing, 2 rows of P then 9 rows of P2, K2 ribbing.
Last week I got some PB2 (don’t recall if I mentioned this product here before or not). It’s powdered peanut butter that has 85% of the fat removed. They say it’s done in a non-chemical way, whatever that means. The company (Bell Plantation) also sells Peanut oil - I figure that’s what’s coming from the PB2. Anyway - I used it 2 times now to mix up some pb/yogurt dip for apples. It’s turned out pretty well. First time I just dumped PB2 in the plain, non-fat yogurt. It was okay, but had that tangy taste still that I don’t like about plain yogurt. The second time I mixed in just a little Splenda as well as a little cinnamon. Yum. It was great.
Baby girl is going for her certification for being a Childhood Specialist (or something like that - I’m not totally up on it all). She’s taking the exam today in Boston. She used the need to drive to Boston to add in a quick side trip to ME to see her buddy who is overdue on her first baby and also to NH to visit w/ some family up there. Tomorrow she’ll be back in classes, etc. In the evening, though, we’ll be talking since she has to interview me to get information about music in our household when she was young. It’s been fun trying to remember all the different ways music was around her when she was little. It’s also exhausting just THINKING about her schedule and how she does it.
How did she know I was typing about her? As I finished that last paragraph, she called - her car broke down in Portland, she hasn’t slept, she has to get back to NP and work overnight and classes tomorrow and all day on Monday and they can’t look at her car until Monday. And she tells me to not worry… Yeah….
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11.05.08
Posted in daily life stuff, knitting at 11:39 pm by Shari
So a year ago I was talking about the surprise birthday party I threw for hubby for his 50th.
Today was 51. We ended up going to the same restaurant - his favorite - for dinner. It was actually pretty comical. Hubby’s big on food… Likes a lot of it. Lindburgers is a burger joint (big surprise, huh) with something like 50 different burgers on the menu, as well as the usual appetizers, some sandwiches and some salads.
So his first question (I usually am holding the purse strings) was about appetizers - can we have some. Of course - it’s your birthday, get one if you want. He’s deciding between quesadillas w/ beef or ultimate nachos. I’d have loved the first, but the second, with the olives and peppers in addition to everything else, wasn’t quite my cuppa tea. For his entree, he decided on the Dagwood, which he’s had before and KNOWS it’s huge and comes stabbed through w/ a steak knife to hold it all together.
Out comes the food - the nacho plate is huge. HUGE! I had a little - like about 8 chips with a little cheese and meat on them. He ate the rest. ALL of it. Then comes the food. When the waitress asked if there was anything else we needed his only response was “yeah, a take home box!” Not only is his burger just as big as we remembered, he had requested to sub chili-cheese fries for the regular fries that come with it. They goofed and brought out fries AND chili cheese fries. He ended up eating only some of the regular fries and not even a bite of the rest of his entree. The rest got stuffed into a box to bring home.
Meanwhile, I had ordered the crock of chili with cheese and onions from the appetizer menu. I had lots to bring home - about 2/3 of what I was served - but that’s totally expected. At least I won’t be cooking tomorrow night 
The rest of our evening was going to Millennium Games to spend his birthday bucks (no luck - didn’t see anything he wanted to blow it all on) and then Friendly’s on the way home for a birthday dessert. He still has trouble with the concept that I might get nothing. He feels bad and I ended up ordering a watermelon shake thingy in a take-home container so I could have just some of it.
I had some knitting with me, so I did get over an inch done on the pair of socks I’m working on. I’m doing a pair with the Magic Loop method. I’m not crazy about it, but it’s getting long enough now that I’m dealing with it better. I *was* doing the mystery sock KAL from Through the Loops fans group on Ravelry, but since I’m still on clue 1 and the final clue was posted 2 (or is it 3) weeks ago, I’m obviously behind. Besides that, I’m thinking that I’d rather they be a fairly non-thinking project, so I’ve decided to just keep doing the clue 1 pattern for the entire leg, then I’ll switch to my usual heel and continue the ribbing as established at that point down the foot. I’ll try to get a pic sometime soon.
The cardigan continues to progress. I’m past the shoulder - nearing where I get to cast on even MORE stitches for the cross-over fronts. Rather than doing left front and right front separately, I’m working both sides with separate balls of yarn. Soon I’ll have to do some serious measuring and calculating because I’ve changed the length and can’t just blindly knit the front to the same length since there’s that whole swoopy thing happening on the front sections. Robin’s offered the use of her KP Options cable, points too if she has the size I need and if not, I know someone else I can borrow from, when it’s time to do the band my way. I should put it aside to work on Christmas gift knitting, but that means sorting out what I’m doing, who it is for, what yarn, needles, etc, etc… that isn’t appealing to me right now, so I’ll probably keep plugging on this for awhile and then go crazy later 
Meanwhile, web work has had some hiccups this week. Ccan’t work on it tonight since DNS’s aren’t updated to get to it, so I’d better hit the sack now. I hope it’s all propagated by early tomorrow morning so I can finish whipping this site into shape.
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