Surly And Derivative

I get to go muck about on Ravelry!

I've been staying home this week, shovelling a little snow, doing a little tie dye, knitting hats, trying to kick a cold. Tomorrow will be a whirlwind of activity, by comparison. The errand list is growing and I'm getting stir crazy.

Nina wanted a recipe for broccoli soup, so I made one up on the spot. She said it turned out well. Woo! I'll have to ask her for the recipe so I can try it sometime.

freerice.com is neat.
Play a word game that adapts itself to your vocabulary level, and PPC advertisers pay to donate rice to the United Nations World food Program.
By my scale, 100 grains of brown rice is about 2g. 1/3 cup is 56g. Cooked, that's 1 cup of rice. So 2800 dry grains = 1 cup cooked, give or take.

Today's title brought to you by the good folx at A Couple Of Different Word Of The Day Thingies.

The Breadbox ...

... should be kept clean by scalding and be exposed to sunlight at frequent intervals.
That's the last line in the directions for baking bread in my Purity Cookbook. I was so tickled with it that I forgot to read the rest of the recipe and ended up with a loaf of raisin bread as big as a house.

And, apropos of nothing, listen to the Be Arthurs, a ukulele cover band.

Puppies ...

Take them out twice a day.
Scoop up twice a day.
Feed them twice a day.
And the breath!
Yup, caring for sourdough starters is kinda like having puppies.
They go in the fridge tomorrow (the starters, not the puppies, of which there none, sadly), so the twice-a-days become once-a-weeks or twice-a-months.

Mama Bear ...

There was drama here, last night. It really didn't affect me, other than that I was aware of it and it involved Nina, about whom I care a great deal. Someone was phoning and upsetting her ... repeatedly. And then there was the wind ... blowing, howling, making the awnings snap and other things bump around outside. The wind just kept getting noisier, half-waking me a bunch of times. By the time I went to bed, I was ready to pick up the phone before Nina did, the next time it rang and go all Mama Bear on his ass. She got to him first and managed to get him to stop calling. Lucky him. I could just bite someone when the wind gets like that.

In other news, there is a small doodle in my sketchbook that has Cleo all worked up. She's looking at me all anime-eyed, trying to paw it off the page. I don't know what's different about this particular doodle ... there are hundreds of them, but this one is the one she wants.

Pumpkins, Ponies and a Party ...

The guy on the bottom is mine.
Nina and Den carved a flaming skull and a cat on their pumpkins, but they were all shrivelly by Hallowe'en, so I taped orange construction paper over them, turned the pumpkins around and carved faces in the backs.

We had fifty or sixty kids on Hallowe'en. That's way more than we've had in several years. The nice weather probably accounted for some of them.



















Inez and I got to meet the new babby on Friday when we went out to have lunch with Mary (and Ernie, 'cuz he was home from school, feeling wretched, poor thing)



Robin says he may name him Kyoto, but wasn't sure yet when we were there. He is so soft!



Here he is with Robin and his Mama (Lucky). That's his Pa (Mylo) behind the fence.



Barbara and Annailese were MIA on Saturday 'til they turned up on my doorstep after lunch, so we got a much later start on the day than expected. We went to the market and took Nina's old iMac over to their house and got them hooked up and running and accessing the internet, in spite of a set-up disc that didn't work and two rather lengthy calls to the tech line (first one disconnected about twenty minutes into the call). I don't blame the tech line folx. They're doing their jobs and have a script to follow. It's ... just ... very ... time ... consuming ... and ... frustrating ... if you know you've already checked all the things they're going to have you check. We used up all of the time we had, so I didn't end up hanging out with Annailese so Barbara could get stuff done.

I played Talisman with Drayce and a friend of his at Drayce's on Saturday evening. It rained a bit, then the rain turned to snow (some of which is still here). There was feet-up snow watching with a wee dram of the good stuff later.

The time changed, but noone told Tiger, so getting up was leisurely, but the pre-getting-up-lolling was kinda naggy. Sunday morning brought tea-drinking and geeking, and yacking in the snow on the deck, crunching snow underfoot.

And then, there was a party at Mona's for Auntie Asobel's birthday.

There were games.
There was lunch.
There were dancing girls.



There was visiting.
There were stories
There was a puzzle.



There were faeries.
There were pictures.
There was music.



There was cake and pumpkin squares and sorbet.



There was a present.
There was a homecoming.
There was hugging and kissing and telling of love.
It was a good day.