I'm on Ravelry

It’s October. It’s Minnesota. It’s 81 degrees today. What’s wrong with this picture? I’m sitting here typing away in shorts with the A/C on because I foolishly decided to block a wool sweater and the whole house reeks of wet sheep. It’s been raining and it’s too humid outside to be of any help in the dry the sweater department.

Who cares about the sweater as long as I'm comfortable - Bert

Before I start I just have to say how wonderful my new computer is. I’ve had it for 1-2 months and I still marvel at some of the new features. Right now I’m very much enjoying the picture card slot it has. No more hunting up the cable to connect things together to get my pictures onto the computer. Just – “plop” and it’s in the ‘puter ready to do it’s picturely things. I like it! I also like that when I got the new ‘puter, I broke down and finally got cable broadband. I’m flying through life so fast I can watch streaming TV shows on it. Oops I missed the first episode of Heroes so just go to the website and watch it whenever I’m ready. Cool.
Now back to our regularly schedule post….

Today is Mom’s birthday on the calendar. It’s also my Aunt’s birthday (the one I spend a lot of time talking about my parents to) and a co-worker’s. Being a Sunday and restaurant’s being busier, I’ll take her and Dad out later this week when things are a little quieter. I briefly thought about going out today but then it started raining and getting the two of them into the car – into the restaurant, etc. without rain is hard enough so, I’ll wait. I can’t bring them over to my place yet because I still have too much of their stuff hanging around the house. Mom gets all sad and confused and Dad just gets confused. It’s better not to have them here, unfortunately. Bringing them here for the afternoon would be SO much easier. With luck I’ll have everything settled by Thanksgiving.

So – what’s holding up getting done other than my basically being lazy? I’m getting the basement waterproofed – FINALLY! I got estimates the past few weeks and finally got it set up to have new window wells and floor drainage tiling put in. It quite the big deal. There will be jack hammers and all sorts of strange things going on in the basement the last week of the month. Once that’s done I have an electrician coming in to get the house out of the 1950s and into this decade. I still have fuses and not a lot of them. I have WAY too much electrically powered goodies to keep the old system any more.

After that, I’ll be able to bring the rest of my stuff here from the old house and finally dump that sucker! Then guinifer will get to see pictures of stash north and south as a combined unit and faint from the amount o’ crud I have. I have dreams of the 4 heddle loom, cutting table, knitting machine, sewing machine and serger and all the assorted things that go with them living happily in a “new” well lit studio of fiber goodness. For those of you who need a bit more, there’s also a build in fireplace and bar down there ready for use.

The view from the den window is changing. The maple tree is busy being all pretty and colorful while the apple tree is full of fruit waiting to be picked.

Meanwhile - Bert and Chief are still enjoying the little Secret Pal box. I don't think I'll ever be allowed to throw it away!

Hey Chief - It's your turn to sit in the box and protect it. Tonight's garbage night! - Bert

FYI - I've been busy this weekend because I was invited to Ravelry last night - I'm Jillsknit (there is also a jillknits - not me)

What will the sweater grow up to be?

Fruit Ice Cream
We're going to start with a very strange but good recipe. I make this every summer cause it's good and very low calorie. There's really no recipe but here's what it is... take frozen fruit - berries work best but you can use any fruit. Put in a bowl. In a cup or glass take about 1/2 - 1 cup of milk depending on what you decide is wanted. Mix in a little vanilla and non-sweetened sugar product (I use splenda). Pour the milk mix over the frozen fruit and watch. After about 3-4 minutes stir things up a bit. The fruit will give up it's cold and turn the milk to slush. The picture below is the process part way through. It ends up tasting like a fruit ice cream. Really good and really healthy!
Knitting
I've actually got some knitting done. These are more squares heading off to the Rebuilding Greensburg project. Four of the squares are from the same skein of Plymouth Encore. The fifth is the remains of a skein from my Victorian shawl.

The last month's Sock of the Month are done. They were easy to make. Sockotta yarn. Our next sock comes next Monday, I can't wait!

Finally, the sleeve to my silk cardigan. I got many skeins of this from a sale last month and decided to play around. I have no idea what this will end up looking like because I'm making it up as I go. It's going to be a sideways knit sampler style cardigan. The color is actually lighter than the picture but this picture shows the pattern better than the picture where the color is accurate. I think I'll end up knitting both sides from the sleeve to the center and graft the center back together. This will give both sleeves and side a mirror image look. We'll see when I get to the middle if I keep going or start at the other sleeve - time will tell.

Garden

Dad was wonderful with the garden. He'd look at a plant and it would grow - bigger faster stronger. Wait that's the bionic man- back to gardens. I have managed to not kill all the plants yet and actually have a few that are doing okay. So - here are a few of Dad's plants I haven't killed by neglect.

We'll have apple pie this fall - lots of apples on the tree.

There's plenty more of these guys but this one was perfect!

There's 4 of these rose bushes around the garden and they're full of blooms. What has remained without my care this year is so pretty I decided I better take care and become a gardener, at least part time. Dad will be so proud when I tell him.