Questions, questions

I've been asked to do an interview for the newsletter of the shop where I teach. The idea is that potential students will be able to learn a little about the teacher of the class that they are considering taking and realize that we are real people and will be approachable. Anyway, I thought to myself, self, I don’t want to do that I like to be anonymous. I’m just a shy person. But then, it occurred to me that I could use these questions as blog fodder and maybe come up with some ideas for this blog that has been rather neglected lately.

So, lets start off with the first question. What’s your background? What should I tell you here? Let’s see, almost lifelong Twin Citian, grew up in a northern suburb of St. Paul. I do like living in Minnesota but the winters do get long. I’m very active in my church and have a deep Christian faith. I have a degree in Dietetics and am retired from a career in food service management – I was a lunch lady and proud of it. I’ve always been interested in things “domestic” as one of my school girl friends accused me of. That was an insult – I grew up when it wasn’t cool to be interested in those things – one needed a career. Hmmph. I had a career and I stayed home for 14 years when my kids were growing up. The lunch lady career dovetailed nicely with being home when my kids were off of school in the summer and all those other days off in the school year. Anyway, I love to do crafty, fibery, homemaking kinds of things and I’ve tried many of them. One could call me a jack of all things domestic and master of only a few – to paraphrase a cliché. I’m mostly self taught but have taken some classes over the years. I’ve taken china painting classes for about 6 years but I’m still a rookie at that – some things are fun just to do even if you’re not that good at them! My grandmother and aunts on both sides of the family were interested in knitting, sewing, crafty things but my Mom not so much, although she did sew a little. So my interest in fibery things could be considered genetic!

And because every blog post needs pictures – here are some grandbaby pictures.

First up - Abigail with her new little brother, her "baby".

Next up, Jordan is 6 weeks old and smiling! I got to play with him when Anita came over yesterday. Oh, the joy of having a grandchild nearby!

Catching Up

I've been wondering how to get all I have to catch up on in one post. Maybe I'll just have to catch the highlights! It's been such a busy summer and I've been neglecting my blog.

So, before my son's wedding, in early July we went on our 2 week vacation to Colorado. I had gotten a cortisone shot in each knee and I timed it perfectly so I was able to do a lot of hiking. I also made an attempt to hike up a mountain again. Did you catch that? I attempted it. No, I didn't succeed - and I decided that I like the valleys just fine! The mountains towering above us in the valley are beautiful and much easier to enjoy!! The guidebook said that the hike up to Mt. Sherman was "easy". Ha!!! For a billy goat maybe. We lost the trail at one point because of snow fields and ended up on an area of scree. The rocks were largish and unstable and I am afraid of heights. At one point I almost sat and cried - I was afraid to go forward and couldn't go back. Yikes. We met several people that were just picking their way along without hesitation but I just couldn't do it. I ended up crawling along until we found more stable footing. While we were doing that we observed other people hiking across the snowfield to avoid the rocky area and that's the way that we got down - still not easy but more doable. I hiked up to the pass or saddle area of the mountain to humor the Compadre. This is a picture at the pass - as high as I got. He claims that the best part of hiking in the mountains is seeing the other side. Oh, I didn't mention that there were gale force winds blowing up there too and it was cold. We weren't the only ones that didn't continue.

We did do many, many enjoyable hikes during our trip. I logged 34 miles of hiking. I had great intentions of continuing to walk when I got back but....


On our way to Colorado we visited Pete and Carol, some good friends who live in Texas. Yes, I know that Texas isn't really on the way to Colorado from Minnesota but they live in the panhandle and it wasn't really that much out of our way. We really enjoyed our visit. While we were there we were able to see the church that Carol is pastoring and meet some of the people from the town. The town was getting ready for their annual festival and they had a fund raiser that I had to participate in. It was called horse drop bingo - and it is played just like it sounds. The field is marked out in a bingo card and a horse is let into it and the first place he, er, drops his load so to speak, is the square that wins. I didn't win but it was fun just imagining the game. I wish that we could have seen it! Rural people have a different perspective than us city folks!

After we got back from vacation we had to hit the ground running. A wedding happening in two weeks and....we had decided to have almost all the windows and the front door in the house replaced . What were we thinking!!! That meant of course that the workers had to get to all the windows. And I have stuff!! So we moved and cleaned and shoved the piles into the areas that didn't need to be accessed and somehow it got done. Then of course after the job was done I needed to move it all back. I took the time to organize the "fiber room" and now I can actually use it! And since I had to move all my fiber related books out of the bookcase that they were jumbled into I organized them and even entered them into Ravelry. At least all those that Ravelry currently has in the system. I found a couple of duplicates that I gave to Amy. What I should do is print out a list of my books and carry it with me so that I don't by duplicates any more. The downstairs family room/sewing area is still a disaster area but I'll get to that the next time I have some panic deadline - maybe Christmas. I know myself. In the meantime I'm enjoying the newly clean areas and hoping that I can keep them that way.

Amy, Eric, and Abigail came for the wedding and we had to try to babyproof this house. It was next to impossible so we blocked off areas and did a lot of supervising of Abigail. This is getting really long so I'll catch up on their visit in my next post.

Excuses, Excuses

I've been taking some flak because I haven't posted much lately. I've got some good excuses! Here's the first one. My youngest son got married on August 1. Granted, as the mother of the groom I didn't have quite the responsibilities as when my daughters got married but nevertheless I'm using it as excuse number one.

Megan and David's ceremony was a beautiful outdoor one. It was a perfect day - even the weather cooperated! It was actually "cold" on August 1 in Minnesota. And no, for those of you that don't live in Minnesota, it's not always cold here - usual temps in August are hot and humid!

Abigail was a very cute flower girl!!

I wore the shawl that Amy made for me and Amy wore one that I have that Kelly made as a shop sample and that I bought. I don't know what pattern Kelly made but I do know that it took only 100 gm. skein of sock yarn.

A School Lunch Story

When I saw today's comic For Better or for Worse I laughed and laughed because it reminded me of a real life episode in this former school lunch lady's career.

Back in the "old days" in school lunch we made most of the food on site, from scratch. Including the bread. And during this period in my career I started my job at 6 AM at a school about 50 minutes away. So that meant that I had to leave home in the winter before the radio station announced the school closings for bad weather. This particular day I made it all the way into the school and so did my assistant despite horrible freezing rain that coated the roads with ice. We had a discussion about what to do but since school hadn't been called off we started the day's menu. Including the bread. All the while we were worried about the weather and how we would get home if our day was canceled. So of course as soon as we had the bread rising we got the call that we could go home. We had a discussion about what to do with the bread dough - we wanted to get back on the road as soon as possible before the roads got any worse and so we made the decision to put the whole bowl into the freezer and deal with it later. Now we're talking about a lot of bread dough. My memory is fuzzy but I think we used to use at least 30 pounds of flour in each batch. A lot of bread dough. I bet you can guess what happened. The next day when we got to school we couldn't believe what we saw. That dough took long enough to freeze that it had time to rise and overflow onto the floor of the freezer where it then froze into a large immovable lump. The custodian got out his ice chipper and it took a long time to chip away the frozen dough even with his help (and teasing). We needed that bowl to make that day's batch too - so the bread was late in getting started for the day. And it took a long long time to live down the "thing that ate the freezer" stories.

And just because every post needs a picture - here's one of Abigail "walking" her baby doll.

Guest post by Amy

I haven't been blogging much lately. I keep writing blog posts in my head and then never get around to posting them! I even told the Compadre yesterday that I'm tired of my blog!! I hope I get over it! Anyway my daughter Amy came to the rescue. Here is a guest blog post about their trip to Canada. She got to go to knit night and the Yarn Harlot was there! How cool is that - I'm jealous.

Canada, by Amy

A year ago I wrote a guest blog about my trip to the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival. Well this year we took a family vacation to Toronto, Canada instead. It was well worth it!

Day 1

Eric wanted to go to Toronto for a couple reasons and they both had to do with sports (for the record, I like sports too). The first thing we did in Toronto was go to the Hockey Hall of Fame. We could have spent all day there if we weren’t so wiped out. It was a lot of fun and Abigail enjoyed walking around (the exhibits were safely behind glass).

I wanted to go to Toronto for several reasons, the first of which was to go to the Lettuce Knit SnB. I was hoping to meet Laura of Cosmicpluto Knits (blog) and Stephanie of Yarnharlot (blog) and I met both! Of course I almost chickened out of talking to either of them, but Abigail makes it easier to talk to people. Stephanie remembered Abigail from last year when we saw her speak. I somehow managed to cast on for a toe up sock and I bought yarn in a gorgeous rust red for Laura’s B-side Cardigan. Space was tight and Abigail got cold outside so we left early, but I was still on cloud nine for the entire walk back to the hotel (at least a mile) and I think I talked Eric’s ear off. Of course, afterwards I think of all the dumb things I said or didn’t say to the people I met. Sorry mom, I forgot to tell them that you knit the sweater Abigail was wearing, not me.

Day 2

On our second day of vacation we went to the CN tower, which is the tallest building in the world. We went up to the glass floor level and looked down at the ground beneath us. Abigail was completely unfazed by it and was more interested in the cheerios I had.

Day 3

We went to the zoo, based on a lot of recommendations. It was a very long subway and bus ride, but well worth it for Abigail. She loved the tigers, the elephants and the hippos. She even tried to make the elephant noise that Daddy made. She especially enjoyed walking down the trails by herself. We really wore her out.

After she got some rest, we went to a Blue Jays game where Abigail got to run around some more. It wasn’t very crowded and we let her walk up part of the steep ramp by herself. Unfortunately, she wanted to run around during the game too and Daddy only saw half an inning.

Day 4

We were walking through the mall when we saw on a TV that the Blue Jays were in the 3^rd inning. Whoops! We had tickets to that game! We rushed back to the hotel and sure enough, our tickets said 1pm NOT 7pm like we thought. We made it to the game in the middle of the 6^th inning, which turned out pretty well. Abigail sat through several innings and then I let her run around while Daddy saw more of the game. Afterwards, Abigail got to “run” the bases, though I don’t think she thought much of Ace, the Blue Jay’s mascot.

Day 5

We’re all glad to be home. While waiting at the gate to board the plane, Abigail handed us her pajamas. We changed her and she slept the whole way home and then some more!

The Second Knit of Christmas

This is the second Tulip sweater that I’ve made and I’m sure it’s not the last. I love this pattern as do many, many, others. Ravelry has 678 listed and it’s in 584 queues. And that’s only the ones listed on ravelry. I enjoyed knitting it both times because of the ever changing colors and its amazing cuteness. It’s also very easy to knit which is a big plus. I’m not against knitting challenging things but I love mindless knitting too. I bought a kit for this one at Yarnover – the big knitting extravaganza that the Minnesota Knitting Guild puts on every spring. The kit came from a yarn shop that I’ve never been to – The Coldwater Collaborative in Excelsior MN. So I used the yarn that the pattern called for in this one – Dream in Color Classy. The yarn comes in huge hanks and the pattern uses many colors so it would be very expensive to make this sweater if it wasn’t for the availability of a kit. My previous one was made with a substitute yarn but still – I had to buy 8 skeins and didn’t use all of any of them so it would be an expensive sweater too. But I will use the rest of those 8 skeins and reverse the order of the colors and make another tulip. Hmmm, maybe with a purchase of one more skein I could make the next size (size 2) for Abigail. I told you I like making this sweater. This one is size 12-18 months and I made one small modification. I used the rest of the blue yarn to add length to the sleeve – the instructions said to just continue on in the purple. I thought that would look strange. I wish that the kit had had more blue because I would have added length to the body of it with blue if I had had some. When I make the size 2 I’ll definitely be adding length in the body.

We took pictures of Abigail wearing this sweater at the last minute before they left for the airport. She was distracted and not very cooperative. I was feeding her cheerios one at a time to keep her happy. What is it about little ones and cheerios? Abigail sure loves them.

Mmmm, Good Coffee Cake

Amy requested that I make one our family’s favorite recipes for breakfast Christmas morning. It’s called Kwik Peach Kuchen in the Pillsbury’s Bake Off Breads Cook Book. I had already planned to make it and had the canned peaches on hand. It’s one of those recipes that looks really hard but is really easy.

Here is my version of it. By the way this was all that was left when I finally thought to take a picture of it!

Peach Coffee Cake

Prepare the topping first so that you’re ready with it when you need it:

½ c. packed brown sugar
¼ c. flour
½ tsp. cinnamon
2 T. butter
¼ c. chopped nuts (opt.)

Combine the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until crumble and mix in the nuts. Set aside for later use.

Prepare the dough:

2 c. flour
½ c. sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 pkg. or 1 tsp. bulk yeast
½ c. shortening
½ c. milk
2 eggs
¼ tsp. lemon or orange extract
1 can peach slices (large)

Combine the flour, sugar baking powder, salt and yeast in a largish bowl. (I do this in my kitchen aid mixer bowl and just run the beater for a few seconds). Add shortening, milk, eggs and extract and blend mix for a couple of minutes at medium speed. Spread over bottom of a greased 9x13 pan. Dough will be thick. Arrange peach slices on the top pressing them in slightly. Then take that topping that you’ve already made and sprinkle it on top. Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean in an area between the peaches. It took a little longer in my oven. Enjoy it warm or cold.

Here is how good it is...
Ignore the chatting in the background - they didn't know that I was taking the video.