It Was A Very Good Trip

The Compadre and I went on a quick trip out east to visit Abigail – and her parents of course. The Compadre was on spring break. Funny, now that I don’t have to worry about the school schedules the Compadre does. We had such fun playing with a 15 month old Abigail. She is enjoying her mobility as she walks all over. Her other grandparents came too and so Abigail had what we called “staff”. If she started out walking somewhere she looked to see if someone was following – and if no one was she made sure one of us did! Amy was a little worried that when we all left Abigail would be a handful but as of our last phone call she handled it fine.

For such a short trip we packed in a lot of visiting, yarn shopping and eating out. I visited Amy’s favorite yarn shop – Stitches with Style on the way in from the airport. It was fun to see that Abigail is such a regular at the shop that the staff gets down on the floor and plays with her. She’s also been well trained that she leaves the yarn alone!! She does have her own yarn that she can play with. I did have to stimulate the economy there and I bought some sock yarn and a cool necklace made out of slices of aluminum knitting needles. We ate at wonderful Malaysian restaurant twice while we were there. I wasn’t too adventurous but I did eat a dish called Fried Pearl Noodles. The noodles were kind of the shape and consistency of gummy worms but they tasted like fried rice. Very good. We also visited Amy’s other favorite yarn shop Vulcan’s Rest Fibers. This shop is in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay. I wished we had had more time to explore the area. This shop had spinning and weaving supplies. Of course I had to stimulate the economy there also and I bought some more yarn and some roving. I wanted Amy to use some of the roving to practice her spinning but she is reluctant to use “good” fiber to practice. Keep spinning Amy, you’ll get better and better and then you’ll be happy to use good fiber.

Abigail was dedicated at their church on Sunday. It worked out that the dedication could be scheduled when we were there and so that was a bonus. We got to meet a lot of Amy and Eric’s friends too. Abigail wore a dress for her dedication that I had made when my girls were little. This particular one is one of a matching set that I made for Amy and her sister and it was worn by Anita. I need to re-learn how to smock so that I can make some cute dresses just for Abigail. Another bonus was getting to know Eric’s parents better. It was fun to spend time with them.

Take a look at this

I've been working making bread from the Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day cookbook but I have to say I need to do it a few more times before giving you my review. But in the meantime I discovered this video of a 93 year old woman giving her stories and recipes from the depression. I can remember my mother feeding us pasta with ketchup on it and as kids we liked it!! She has a total of 10 videos if you like this one.

Quick Turkey Alfedo Soup

Yesterday we had a biggish snowstorm. Yesterday I was scheduled to drive my younger son from work to school because his car died and he needed me. Yesterday the Compadre had class to teach in the evening and he was sick. I'm sure the snowstorm wasn't a blessing to everyone but to us it was. School was canceled so I didn't have to drive in the snowstorm and the Compadre got to come home and have a sick "evening". He's a busy man - he only gets to be sick for one evening. Tell that to his body!

So I was planning to have the evening to myself because the Campadre would be teaching. My dinner on those nights is usually leftovers, or popcorn, or whatever I can scrounge up - you get the picture. Confession is good for the soul I hear. But the Compadre came home and he wanted something to eat! And he was sick. I checked the cupboards for chicken soup and the cupboard was bare (of Campbells chicken soup that it). So I remembered that my daughter - you know, Abigail's mother - had told me of a yummy alfredo soup that she made. With the wonders of cell phone technology I called her up and asked her for the recipe. She told me how she made it and then I proceeded to make it my way. And it was yummy!

It all started with a Pampered Chef recipe that Amy had. The basic premise is a jar of alfredo sauce and a can of chicken broth. It also included broccoli - but if you remember my last post - I can't do broccoli. So, here's what I did.

I found a cup of cooked diced turkey meat in the freezer and put it in a pan.
I dumped a jar of alredo sauce in the pan
I added about 3/4 of a box of shelf stable chicken broth (about 24 0z.)

I stirred it all up and started it heating.

Then I added:

1 cup of sliced carrots
1/2 cup sliced celery including the leaves
1/2 of a medium onion, diced
1 clove's worth of chopped, bottled, garlic

I cooked the soup until the vegetables were done and then we sat down to eat it. Yummy. Turkey soup for the grumpy, sick, Compadre. He pronounced it good. And it was super fast to make.

By the way - if you have extra cooked turkey or chicken meat, dicing it up and freezing it in small baggies make for easy meals later on. And if I had some, homemade broth would have been better - less salt and all the other mystery ingredients in the boxed stuff. I'll have to get on that - soon.

A Bad Night Last Night

I think that every writer goes through dry periods, sometimes called writer’s block. I guess I qualify as a writer now since I’ve had difficulty thinking of something to write lately. But I have a few backup ideas in my mind and now is the time to use one of them. QoE of Yarn and Chocolate tagged me a long time ago for the 6 things about me meme. I know all about the facebook controversy about the 25 things and narcissism and all that and really I’m not sure what I’d tell you about anyway but I’ve been meaning to tell you about one thing about me for a while.

I have a lot of allergies. They all showed up, the nasty things, when I became middle-aged. And they keep showing up. I’m allergic to a whole bunch of foods and some hay fever inducing things too. Oh, and some medications also. The family joke is that some day all I’m going to be able to eat is white rice. Most of the food allergies but not all of them are related to the latex allergy I have. So, let me tell you what it’s like to be me.

Last evening I must have eaten something that I was allergic to. I’ve gone over in my mind everything that I ate last night and nothing was on the known allergy list. That means probably another food is heading for the do not eat list. The prime suspect is chocolate. I might cry if that’s true. Some people who just don’t understand, think when a person who is allergic to a food tells them they can’t eat such and such “oh, they just don’t like that food and don’t want to eat it”. I like to eat cherries, cranberries, kiwi, bananas, avocado, pineapple, salmon, broccoli, artichokes. And I love chocolate. In fact sometimes I crave one of the foods on my do not eat list, but I don’t want to spend a night like I did last night for the short period of enjoyment I would have if I ate one of them. So, last night, it started with stomach cramps, like you normal people would get with the worst flu you’ve ever had and then it worked its way down to abdominal cramps. Basically I can feel the offending food working its way through my system. Sometimes I can sleep it off but it took a long time of tossing and turning and sweating and getting the chills last night for it to get through me. Not pleasant. I hope it’s not the chocolate.

And then there is the latex allergy. Food service workers and nurses are the most likely to have this one due to the latex gloves that we wore until we were sensitized to them. In my case it causes a red rash sort of like a bad sunburn but it itches and then hurts like the dickens if I scratch it. So, latex is a natural rubber product and is found in all kinds of things. Like elastic in your underwear or socks. This is one of my “justifications” for having a sock machine and knitting all my socks. I went on a tour of a sock factory in Indiana during the sock machine conference and noticed that the label on all their socks said that latex might be in the product. I mentioned that to the manager who was leading our group that maybe they could use a non latex elastic in their socks since there were many who were allergic to latex and his attitude was “that’s your problem, not mine”. Most medical establishments understand and take measures to make sure that latex is not a problem – in fact some have banned latex completely. Kudos for them! By the way balloons are made with latex. One popped balloon spreads powdered latex into the whole room. And elastic, I have a hard time finding underwear – most labels don’t even tell what the elastic is made out of. I found a brand I could wear and then they changed the way they’re made. So I’ll have to do some more searching and find another one. Or I could always make my underwear!! Not. And did you know that most condoms are made with latex. Heh. That’s all I’ll say about that one.

Some people actually could die if they eat the food their allergic to – my Aunt Ann is one of them. She’s got the type of allergy to nuts that closes up her throat and she can’t breathe. Some of the kids in school who have peanut allergies are that allergic – I pity their mothers. Can you imagine fearing for your child’s life every day when you send them to school?

I’ve met my share of people who are intolerant towards people who are allergic. Allergic people don’t choose to be that way, it’s not like we’re trying to make life difficult for you – it’s just that it’s difficult for us and we would like you to be understanding and helpful. Yes, you might not be able to have your favorite food when we’re a guest in your home in deference to the person that is allergic to it or you might not be able to wear your favorite perfume to some public places. And if you’re a manufacturer it sure would be nice if you would put accurate labels on things, not just generic labels that say the product might contain the allergen in order to cover your butt. But keep in mind that what you might be called on to do to defer to the allergic person is just for a short time – we live every day like this.

And just because what's a post without a picture - here's another picture of Abigail.

A Pair of Hats

I've been into the quick gratification of hats lately. I have some long, long projects going too but every now and then it's nice to make something that works up fast. And once you complete a hat you don't have that pesky second one to make - or if you do it's just another hat of a different type. So here we have it. A pair of hats.

The first one I made is from another CiD Hanscom pattern. Do you remember Radar from MASH? Well here is a hat like he wore. Only prettier. I was glad that I worked on this one during open knitting at Double Ewe because I got the instructions for the brim exactly backwards in my thinking. I don't know what I was thinking, really. But one of the gals at knitting had knit it already and even had CiD's phone number on her cell phone. She got me straightened out in my thinking even before CiD called back and it was clear sailing from then on. I'm showing you the inside and outside of the brim in hopes that you won't think backwards like I did. The hat is cute and really probably looks better on a younger model but what can I say.... This Radar cap is made with Frog Tree Merino for the main color and Frog Tree Alpaca for the contrasting color. Both in worsted weight. Very soft and comfy.










The second hat I made for the Compadre. I looked at his dismal collection of hats and decided it was a case of the cobblers children - you know, they never had any shoes. The Compadre was wearing either a store bought acrylic hat - ugly as sin - or a red and yellow polar fleece hat that I had made as a gag when we had students at Iowa State. Embarrassing. I guess I didn't think to make him a hat because I was afraid that he would lose it. He does lose things, but he takes offense that I consider it a given that he'll lose this hat. We'll see, I'm just protecting myself from being too crabby if he does lose it. Kelly is calling a disposable hat. And by the way, I have enough yarn to make another one with the colors in the opposite order. And Compadre, that doesn't mean you should lose this one! I made the hat using the Seaman's hat pattern with Brown Sheep Nature Spun yarn left over from Felted Rudy. It was fast to knit and I had fun designing the stripes. I like that there is a purled turning row for the brim - it makes it look neat and tidy. By the way - he requested a plain hat - I couldn't stand it so I added the stripes.


Oh, and Miss T gave me permission to show this picture of the super secret test knitting project that I'm doing for her. It's one of the perils of test knitting - do over.






And just because I'm a Grandma.....Abigail feeding her baby. Notice, she is using the bottle upside down - she's never used a bottle and she drinks out of a cup now - so the baby is drinking out of a "cup" too.

More About Soap and Saving Money

I got a lot of response to my soap recipe. It was one of the topics of conversation at open knitting last night at DE and it seems that people are willing to try it! But apparently washing soda is not available as easily as I thought. Here in Minnesota you can get it in some grocery stores but not all of them. I did some googling and found that in some areas of the country it is very hard to get. Washing soda is sodium carbonate, baking soda is sodium bicarbonate – they are not the same thing. But one on line source said that you can get sodium carbonate at pool supply stores. Haven’t checked but it’s worth checking if you’re in one of those areas that doesn’t seem to have the Arm and Hammer brand. And as always call ahead and see if a store carries what you want rather than driving all around to find it. Even though gas has come down in price it still costs money to go from store to store.

One other thing that I forgot to mention about the laundry soap, put it in the washer and let it dissolve before putting your clothes in. And the original recipe called for grated Fels Naptha soap but I used both my homemade soap and a couple of bars of hotel soap and it works just fine. I can’t make more homemade soap until I find a source of lye – the stores don’t carry it anymore because there are people that make bad things with it. Grrrr. It was fun to make – as long as I followed the directions exactly. I did have one batch where I mistook the temperature and started combining ingredients at too high a temp – big mess. Good thing that was in our old kitchen and it didn’t matter too much.

I just thought I’d mention one other cost savings I know about. Some of you make your own bread like I do and need to buy yeast. I was in the local grocery store with my son and since he expressed interest in making some bread I thought I would encourage him and buy him some yeast. Not at those prices!! I’ve always bought my yeast either through school or at Sam’s Club now that I’m not working for school lunch any more. So I did a little price comparison. It was about a dollar and a half for 3 tiny packets of yeast or 4 something for a 4 oz. jar at the grocery store. Yesterday I did my shopping at Sam’s Club and bought 2 pounds (yes I did buy 2 pounds – it lasts a long time. Just keep it in the freezer after you open the brick). Sam’s Club price was $4.16 for the two one pound bricks. That’s 8 times the yeast for about the same price as the 4 oz. bottle!! And I was asked recently why I still shop at Sam’s Club even though there are only two of us to shop for! Actually the main reason that I keep up my membership is that the price of hearing aid batteries is half of what I can find anywhere else. That pays for my membership right there. I would caution you that some prices at Sam’s are not as good as what you can find elsewhere – soda pop comes to mind. Again, you need to balance driving from one store to another with the savings that you can get. We usually do a big Sam’s Club run about once a month or we stop in if we are in the area anyway.

I'll leave you with a fun video that I found. And I'm not even a dog person!

Don't Try to Eat This One

I've been on a frugality kick lately. As has much of the world it seems. I read several frugality blogs and have read some books about thriftiness. I really recommend the Complete Tightwad Gazette - I found it in the library and then I loved it so much I actually bought my own copy!

I've tried various things and today I'm going to tell you about laundry. The Compadre hasn't totally come on board on this one. We've been hanging our laundry up to dry since early last summer and during the summer it was kind of fun even. The Campadre rigged up a pulley system laundry line so that I wouldn't have to do as many stairs to hang up laundry and it worked well. It's frosted with ice right now and so I really don't want to go out and take its picture - you'll have to imagine it. But now that it's winter we have been using two wooden racks to hang our laundry. There are only two of us and we do about 3 loads of laundry per week. This probably wouldn't work for a large family. And the Compadre isn't sure it works for us! But I can manage to dry a loads worth of laundry on my two contraptions and sometimes it only takes one rack to dry a load. And it really only takes minutes to hang it up. I'm not sure how much the savings are. If you have an electric dryer it's much more than my gas dryer, but any savings is good and besides I'm saving the planet too!

A couple of weeks ago I really got crazy about the laundry thing. I read a couple of blog posts about making your own laundry soap and thought "I can do that". So I googled recipes and read about it and even asked at open knitting. I learned to my surprise that Kelly has been making her own laundry soap for years! Who knew? So I tried it and I'm here to tell you it isn't hard and it does work. And there is a bonus! Those clothes that I hang up to dry used to dry hard and crunchy but now they are much softer. I must say that I like my towels to be crunchy - not all of you do. Some people put the clothes that they want softer into the dryer for a couple of minutes to soften them up if they air dry them.

So here is how I made my laundry soap. I decided to make dry powdered soap - there are recipes for the liquid stuff but I didn't want a 5 gallon pail of slimy stuff sitting around my laundry room - call me squeamish I guess. Maybe I'll try it someday if the powdered stuff starts to cake up on me in the summer. Anyway, the recipe is 1/2 cup borax, 1/2 cup washing soda and 1 cup grated (or ground in the food processor) soap. One of the sites I looked at suggested that this was a good use for all those little soaps that you might have collected from hotels. I have lots of them - pack rat that I am. I also have some soap that I've made myself but that's a story for another time. When you use this laundry soap you only need to use one tablespoon for a normal load and 2 or 3 tablespoons if you have a very dirty load. It also doesn't suds like the tide that I used to use and so that would be good if you have one of those front loading washers. If you try the recipe and decide it's for you, you can double or triple the recipe easily. By the way, I already had the washing soda but the borax was $3.98 at my grocery store and it will last a long long time. Interestingly the person right before me took a box off of the shelf and there were so few that I had to ask a stock boy to reach one of the few left way in the back of the top shelf. Making your own laundry soap must be trendy, right?