Tentacle Sweater

I've been working on my latest sweater since June and I am finally done. Sort of.

Yeah, that's the sweater. Not really done but at least the only thing left to knit is the button band and hem (which I'm probably going to do at the bottom and on the sleeves). Of course, I have to seam all the pieces together, too, since it looks a bit like I made tentacles instead of a sweater. But considering how boring this has been to knit (since knitting just creates pieces, not something wearable), I'm pleased as punch to be so close to complete.

By the way, those sleeves? Knitting both sleeves at the same time, each stripe took about an hour an a half. There are thirteen stripes. So yes, that means the sleeves took me over 18 hours to knit. Thank goodness I didn't track the back or front panels. (Nor will I keep track of how long it taste to seam and finish. Nope. Not gonna do it.)

Also, it looks like I'm going to have a decent amount of yarn left. I'm starting to think I need to make some stash busting socks to make my way through all leftovers I have from my various projects. Maybe after I (start and) finish Dan's socks, which is my next planned project.

Honestly, after this? I'm looking forward to socks!

Crazy Talk

Well, it is officially fall. Our heat kicked on for the first time a few night ago and, even though the high is near 80°F today, I'm going to say that the cold has officially begun.

I think we've sort of stagnated in getting our house all fixed up. The few remaining boxes are still remaining, our garage is still a jumbled & unorganized mess, we have paint picked out for at least two rooms that we just haven't gotten around to buying (much less actually using), and the third bedroom looks like we are in the beginning stages of an audition for Hoarders. But we've been so busy lately. This weekend was the first weekend in six or more weeks that we didn't go anywhere. Crazy!

That's not to say we weren't at least a little busy, though. We did some major renovation of the front bed - dug up the flowers and bushes we didn't want (or that were dead), pulled all the weeds, turned over the dirt and, drumroll please, planted the irises! Finally! I have irises from our old house (that I'll need to tag & mark next spring so I know which type they are), some hopefully bronze ones from my parents' old house, some purple ones from someone in our new neighborhood and four special ones that I bought from Clark Gardens last spring. Hopefully they all do great in the front bed and next year I'll be able to mark them, dig them up, separate them by color and plant them in the back yard.

Speaking of back yards, ours is in semi-bloom right now. We have some lovely fall wildflowers, most of which I have no idea what they are. Besides pretty, that is. I took a decent number of pictures this morning and uploaded about 20 of them. Don't worry, I won't post all of them on my blog, but they are on my Flickr page (link in the sidebar 'cause I'm lazy), just in case you end up bored and need to kill time on the internet. Here are my favorites, though.

Yep, all that is in our back yard! I'm still kind of floored with how large our yard is. And that it has wildflowers! (Speaking of which, drop me a line if you know what the flowers are! I'm looking at you, Pop!)

In other backyard news, we had our first meeting with a pool company! Whee! We have another one set up for tomorrow and have one more company we want to talk to, but so far they haven't called us back. So we might end up talking to a different company because I'm totally not going to chase someone down and beg them to take my money, you know? But yeah, pool planning is happening! We should get the first company's plan (and price estimate!) Friday. We already know one thing: we will spend a big chunk of change on the fence. Like, not quite pool-sized but, depending on the choices we make, big enough that it could be in wading pool territory. For real. It's crazy. Or maybe it's not so crazy and I'm just not used to spending the big bucks. I think there is still a big part of me that is that college student who thought that having three grand in the bank was amazing.

Now, that college girl couldn't even buy a fence!

Two Things

I learned two things today:

1) Never put jalapeño seeds down the garbage disposal (unless you want to napalm your sinuses the about two nanoseconds after you turn the disposal on) and

2) Gidget is a shameless rule breaker.

(Kitties are not allowed on the table. However the first time I saw her up there, I yelled at her to get down and she just flicked her ears at me. Agog at (and somewhat admiring of) her boldness, I took a picture to show Dan the blatant rule-breaking, then removed her from the table.

The second time, I removed her and put her in a more kitty-appropriate window-gazing spot.

The third time, I was finally loud enough that I might have gotten through to her - she actually got down off the table quite rapidly.

Of course, those three times were within 15 minutes and I was in the kitchen - about ten feet away - each time she got up there. No shame. None. At least the other kitties wait until I'm in a different part of the house before getting on the table or counters.)

Olive Update

Olive is starting to turn into a real kitty. She's figuring out this love thing (though she still hasn't quite got cuddles down) and has an endearing awkwardness when she rubs against us.

She seems pretty smart - she watches the other kitties a lot and seems to use them as a model of what to do. Which is great when it comes to learning how to deliver toy mice to loving parents, not so great when it comes to scratching on the back of our chairs. She and Gidget are tussling a lot together, most of which seems consensual so I try not to hover and worry too much. Though I am looking forward to the day I interrupt a mutual grooming session instead of a session of mutual bunny-kicking-the-other-kitty's-head.

She's starting to get a little squishy so I probably need to watch her food intake as she will eat pretty much whatever is put in front of her. (She even likes eating lettuce. Strange kitty.) But at the same time, the rounded edges make me feel like she is truly our kitty and no longer the scraggly little (swollen) stray we picked up two months ago.

We Had A Visitor

Not too long ago, Dan and I were discussing the fact that we hadn't seen the roadrunner(s) around lately. Someone on the neighborhood email group mentioned seeing a hawk eat one last week, so I think we were a little worried something had happened to (them/)him.

Happily, though, the rain over the past few days apparently brought out a lot of bugs and they, in turn, brought out the roadrunner!

The kitties were fantastically interested in watching him strut across the yard, eating bugs (and sadly, a butterfly). And, of course, I enjoyed stalking him too as he meandered across the yard snacking.

I'm pretty sure at one point he heard my camera because the little comb went up and he went into alert mode.

Once he had a little freak out, though, he seemed to realize that I wasn't going to bother him and he went back to snacking. But he did alternate eating with watching me cautiously.

Yay for roadrunners!

Now if I could just manage to get a picture of the rabbit that I think lives in the back...

All the Yarns!

Today was Yarn Crawl Part II for me. Last weekend I was really good and limited myself to one skein per stop. Today... I was not so good. At the second stop today, I cracked a bit and got two. But on the third stop, I had a bit of an impulse control problem. I got six skeins. Two are for Dan though!

Here's what my final Crawl haul looks like:

In my defense, two of the skeins pictures above were free - one was a Yarn Crawl goodie and one was a drawing prize... because I spent so much. Sigh.

But I did get some lovelies. See? (The peach and off-white yarns that are the third row down are my freebies. Yay for free yarn!)

 
  
 
 

And I mentioned that Dan got some goodies, too. Here are his!

 

Okay, so technically his yarn is still for me but after I play with the yarn for forty hours or so, he'll have new socks!

As much as I enjoyed the Yarn Crawl and having a reason to go drive all over creation to check out different yarn shops, it's probably good that it is over tomorrow. Neither my yarn cabinet nor my wallet can take much more.

Yarns!

Yesterday was the first day of the DFW Yarn Crawl. Naturally, I thought this was a great idea, so today Dan & I went a' crawling. We hit four stores and I was really good - I only got one skein of yarn at each place. But they are all oh so pretty.

      

Yay for pretties! There's at least one more store I'd like to hit (that was closed by the time we got near the area) and honestly, if I'm going to hit that one, I might as well hit whatever else is nearby, right? But that will be next week. Until then, I have plenty of pretty yarn to pet. (And ultimately make some socks out of... one day.)

100% Homemade

For breakfast, I had some of yesterday's peach preserves on some homemade bread.

Delicious! And the preserves turned out nicely thick and well-set. I'm really pleased!

Sticky is Everywhere

We were productive again today! Dan put up the new shade and two sets blinds as well as worked on installing our fireplace screen and I processed about ten pounds of peaches!

I did another batch of preserves as well as some sliced peaches. I'm not 100% sure the sliced peaches will work out, though, as apparently enough water boiled off (& splashed out because my pot was too small but the big pot just won't freaking boil) during the water bath that the very tops of the cans weren't covered by the end. Boo. It looks like all of the lids have popped though, so maybe they are going to be okay?

In still productive but less edible news, I have officially finished my latest pair of socks!

The weather has cooled a tad so it took a long time for them to block (three days!) but they are all done and happy now. They are a little difficult to get over my heel (apparently I have thick ankles) but with a little wiggle they go on and fit great, so I'm pleased with them. I will, however, have to make a mental note to go up a needle size on sock patterns that aren't stretchy (like lace or ribbing) so they go on easier. It's only taken me two pair of hard-to-slip-on socks to figure that out!

Stuff

Because life isn't unfriendly enough right now, when Dan & I got up this morning, Dan discovered that the freezer in our garage had stopped working. You know, the one that we put half a cow into a week or so ago.

Fortunately, we were able to save all of the beef and most of the pork that we had in there. Some of the venison was lost but we did save a few pieces (some that we will have to eat this week). Lowe's was really great, though, and let us exchange the freezer and upgrade to a model that has an alarm on it. Because it would not be fun to lose $800+ worth of cow. Next time the possibility comes up, I'd like more warning please.

My parents came down to let us use their truck for the exchange/upgrade so we were able to get the new freezer in and running today, meaning that all the stuff we had wedged into our inside freezer and stuffed into ice chests was quickly back in a freezing-temperature box. At least that turned out mostly okay.

The rest of the day was hectic (especially after cleaning up after leaking meat - yum) since we had to pick up our food co-op box. I picked that up while Dan was dealing with freezer things and the box was filled with all sorts of goodies. Including eight small bell peppers. Sigh.

But I had promised my parents dinner as thanks for their help and we needed to use some of the pork sausage that had defrosted too much, so I used the enemy bell peppers to make olive and pork stuffed bell peppers. So not only did I get to give our helpers a good meal, I used all of my bell peppers! Yay!

And more news on the cheerful side of things: I had my first attempt at canning today. Specifically peach preserves.

I think it turned out quite well. The preserves were nicely thick and tasted delicious prior to being put in the jars, so as long as the whole preservation water bath process of the canning worked, I think this one will be a win. Tomorrow I'm going to try to can some sliced peaches (as we bought 22 pounds and the preserve recipe only used four... though we have eaten a fair number of them, too).

Busy day today. But honestly, maybe it is best to stay busy.

Even Blurry, Olive is Hilarious

Olive is really starting to settle in. She's not quite the lovey kitty she was when she was on the streets or when she first came in the house, but she's calmed down some where she doesn't seem so ADD kittenish so I'm taking that as a step in the right direction.

That doesn't mean, however, that she's still not a bit insane and overactive with toys and other kitties' tails. But it's moved into the realm of funny, not exhausting.

Well, funny at least for the humans in the house. The kitties might have another opinion on that. I'm pretty sure Cocoa does.

I Made a Salad!

Dan and I did the food co-op thing again last week. It's really encouraging my culinary creativity because there are always random food things in there that I've never cooked before. The box we picked up on Saturday had: honeydew, cauliflower, green onions, bananas, pineapple, lettuce, some stuff I'm currently forgetting and some Hatch chilies.

Now, we aren't rabid Hatch chili fans like some folks down here are but surprisingly, I like them. 'Surprisingly' because they remind me of bell peppers. For that reason alone, I've never wanted to buy any, but if they are on offer I will eat them. But I had no idea what to do with the eight or nine we got in our co-op basket. I had defrosted a venison backstrap, so I figured I might as well use them for that. I wrapped the venison in sliced Hatches, then wrapped everything in bacon. Cooked it all up (baked then broiled) and served it with a Hatch cream cheese dip. It was awesome. The thing that made it though was the dip. Dan even gave it five and a half stars (out of five) so I'm happy with it. Pretty good for flying recipe-less!

In case you ever have some Hatch chilies and no idea what to do with them, I shall share what I did (and maybe this will help me remember it so I can repeat it!). I cooked four (cleaned, trimmed and deseeded) chilies in the toaster over at about 375°F until they were soft and the edges were a bit charred (25-ish minutes?). Then I used the immersion blender to blend them with eight ounces of soften cream cheese, a quarter cup of mayonnaise (I would have used sour cream but we didn't have any so mayo it was), some onion & garlic powders and some salt. Then I served that with the venison. Amazing. I even put it on the salad we had (because I really can't figure out what else to do with the lettuce we get from the co-op so yeah, I made a salad even though I'm not a fan of them... at least I also added mushrooms, squash, cucumber and green onion so it wasn't a totally lettuce salad) and it made a great ranch-like dressing. Num.

Sadly, the dip doesn't take a good picture (I mean, it's a faintly green blob), so instead I will give you a fluffy kitty yawning in a box.

ETA: I now have a picture!

Where is My Celebratory Marching Band?

It's the end of an era! Our first home has passed into other hands. That's right, we have officially sold our old house. Eight days after it was listed, it has sold - papers signed, money in the bank, keys handed over, sold.

Honestly, even though proof of this event can be seen merely by looking at our bank balance, it still feels a bit unreal. I feel like balloons should drop from the ceiling or a marching band should stomp through the living room. We were anticipating this long, hassle-filled process but we ended up with a contract on the house on the second day it was on the market and closed on it a week later.

It still just feels unreal. I'm very glad it is real, though! I'm happy! Especially since that means we get to shop around for pool companies now. Yay!

Socks!

My last post I shared a picture of the socks I am working on, but it was kind of an outdated picture. So I thought I'd share the current pic of where I am today.

The leg on one is done so the next step is to get the other sock to the same point, then start on the heel flap. Very exciting! Well, at least to me it is.

Aren't they going to be delightfully obnoxious when complete? The yarn colorway is called Hawaiian Sunset and, I have to say, I'm sort of absurdly addicted to it. I love how it is pooling and the pink is utterly delicious.

Weekend Please!

Gosh, we are still busy. We've finally gotten all of the paperwork done on the house - the survey and related affidavit, seller's disclosure, etc. Otherwise, there is no real new news on the house sale. The buyer had the inspection tonight but haven't heard anything on that yet. Honestly, nothing should pop up (well, a corner spald needs covering, but we had the same thing on this house and it's not a big deal) but I have an irrational fear that they'll come back with some massive foundation repair that's needed and will cost twenty grand or something. It won't happen, but hey, that's why it's irrational. Fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly and a week from tomorrow, we will be down to one house.

In other news, last weekend Dan and I participated in a local food co-op. We got a box of food that included all sorts of goodies like mango, kale and cantaloupe... and my nemesis, bell peppers.

I'm really not a picky eater. I mean, I've eaten pickled baby squid, goat, natto... I do draw the line at eating bugs, but maybe I'm just saying that because I've never been offered any. Anyway, as much as I have a try-anything-twice attitude about food, I cannot stand bell peppers. Just walking by them in the grocery store makes me wince. Their smell. Bleck. Nails on a chalkboard to me. And I was presented two of them in my little food co-op box. But I refused to let them defeat me though. And they didn't.

I stuffed them with pork sausage, olive, onion and tomato then topped them with fresh mozzarella. I was actually pretty worried about how it would turn out, especially with the olives, but it was awesome! I think it was the olives that really made this work for me since it melded really well with the taste of the bell pepper and helped temper them. Dan even gave it a five out of five! Yay! I win! I imagine we'll do the food co-op again in the future so at least I know I can survive if and when we get bell peppers.

Speaking of olives, kitty-Olive is doing great. We had a vet appointment last week and her kidney levels were half a hair high which means she is likely a little dehydrated so we are working on that. She's still out in general pop and doing great. She does like to playfully annoy the other kitties but it's nothing problematic. The other kitties mostly ignore her.

She has amazing energy levels though. As I told Dan, she has three speeds: flat out, passed out and preparing for one of the first two speeds.

In other kitty news, Happy's report from the vet wasn't as positive as Olive's. Her kidney levels were across the board high, as was her phosphate and her potassium was a bit low. Which means she's at the beginning stages of kidney disease. Not surprising given her age but still sad. I'm not overly worried though - Ashes started having decently serious kidney issues when she was the same age and she had another ten years before she passed away. We're going to try out a new food for Happy - canned, even - so we'll see if she likes it and it helps. Fingers crossed!

Earlier, I mentioned that we had found a dresser for the bedroom but were still looking for something for our dining nook. Well, Monday, we found it! I'm really pleased with both pieces.

 

The piece of the left is the cabinet we got for the bedroom - it has socks, underthings, knitwear and our bedsheets. It's not a perfect match to our bedroom furniture (not quite red enough in all lights to match perfectly) but it reminds me a lot of my lingerie chest so I kind of love it. The piece on the right is for linens in our dining room. It needs a little love, but I adore it. I'm pretty darn pleased with our new additions! I am eying a couple of more things for other areas of the house, though, so who knows how that will go.

And in the last bit of news, I've finally been able to pick up my knitting again. I'm still working on my cardigan but I found a sock pattern that needed test knitters, so I'm alternating between the two. For the socks, I'm using some yarn I bought for my birthday. It's delightfully obnoxious.

The pic is a little outdated - I've gotten the full leg done on the first sock and am working on the ribbing of the second. This weekend, though, I had practically zero knitting time. Hopefully I'll have some downtime this week. I can't think of anything other than ironing and cleaning that needs to be done this week, but that could be because I'm a bit brain dead after such a crazy last few days.

Day Two

So... we just accepted an offer on our house.

The other couple wants to close next Wednesday so the option period is short - just long enough for them to get an inspection and for us get all the paperwork together. Which means now we get to hold our breath to see if the inspection finds anything bad. It shouldn't - our house is in good shape with no indications of problems - but there's always the fear that something will pop up.

As I told Dan, I'm trying not to count our chickens before they hatch but I'm pretty much standing over the eggs chanting, "Hatch, hatch, hatch!"

Gratuitous Sam

This weekend (week, month, any of these work) has been kind of crazy. Dan and I have finally gotten our old house on the market - we even had our first showing today (and we only picked the realtor last night!). The showing went well - they spent an hour at the house - but sadly they want a larger backyard. Yeah, our old house's one downfall. But that's okay, at least it shows well otherwise, right? Eventually we'll find someone that doesn't want much lawn to mow!

We've also finally made some headway in the third bedroom. We've moved all the beer boxes out of there (Dan now has a beer & technology closet in his office) and put up the bed. No mattress yet, but we don't have a shower curtain in the guest bathroom either so it's not like we are billing the house as guest-ready. Hopefully we'll get the guest bath taken care of this month though. I'm sure we'll have 685 other things to do before we get around to the third bedroom's mattresses, though.

Something else we've managed to check off of our list: we finally picked up a dresser for the bedroom.

Don't let Cocoa's expression fool you - she likes it.

We still have our eyes out for one more piece of furniture (for the dining area), but at least our six or so visits to antique stores and malls have paid off with the dresser. It's not been loaded up yet but it's been all oiled and the drawers are back in it, much to the kitties' disappointment.

Speaking of kitties, last night was Olive's first night to remain out after bedtime. She even stayed in general population today while we were out. She's doing really fantastic. She likes to play with gray kitty tails a bit too much (Chloe gets rather squeaky and distressed) but Olive never moves beyond playful pestering when interacting with the other kitties. I think she might actually be making friends with Sam! (Which is good, because when we first started letting her explore outside of her room, Sam liked to go in there and pee on the towel she was using as a bed. I much prefer them playfully batting at each other from opposite sides of a box.)

Friday was a vet appointment for Olive, too. Other than having ear mites, she was given an all clear health-wise. She's now current on all of her shots and has gained a lovely 1.2 pounds since we took her in. She's a little over 8 pounds now, which the vet says is great for her but I'm still giving her a bit extra food at mealtimes since I think she has a little making up to do. Oh, and the vet puts her age at about one year old (younger if her teeth tartar on the fast side). Having such a young 'un around really drives home how old our other kitties are. Bitty, the baby of the family, is nine years old! Chloe is 11! I can't believe that much time has passed.

Speaking of time, I'm glad tomorrow is a holiday since Dan and I still need more time to get stuff done around the house! I'm hoping that my stove hood will be installed, maybe even the thermostat if we are feeling productive after our grocery-related outing (so Dan can see what goodies are offered by the stores now surrounding us). Even if we do get those things done though, our list of to-dos seems fairly never ending. I have hope that we'll eventually settle in though!

Ridiculous Dinner

The past month has been so crazy thanks to moving and related miscellaneous. Dan and I have eaten way too much fast food. I mean, when we are out and about at night, having to make an hour and half round trip to the old house for whatever reason, we've gone for a quick dinner rather than a good one. But as time passes and we get stuff done, we've been able to eat more at home than on the road, something for which we are both thankful.

A lot of my cooking lately has been trying to get rid of some older stuff in the freezer. Partially to cycle through stuff but also because Dan and I are splitting a cow with my parents. Yes. A whole cow. We need the freezer room. Tonight, for example, I roasted a couple of wild pig legs. And since it was easier to eat it off the bone than carve the thing, this was what our plates looked like.

I honestly didn't know how it would turn out, but it was quite tasty. (I rubbed the pork with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and cayenne then put it on a bed of onion, carrot and potatoes with a little beef broth and cooked it at 325°F until it was done.) But mostly I decided to share because... it's a pork leg. On a plate. It makes me laugh.

Slowly but Surely

We are slowly making progress on house things. After weeks of problems, we finally have new locks installed. That's lovely. All the painting is done in the old house and we've had it cleaned and the carpet repair is scheduled for the end of the week. A yard sale and digging up some irises and we should be all set to unload the thing!

In other news, Olive now spends her days out in general pop. She's finished her antibiotic cycle and her stomach is looking fantastic and unlumpy. She still hasn't won over any kitties but at least their displeasure isn't as strong. It's only a matter of time - after all, how can you say no to this face?

In all honesty, though, Olive is kind of a mess. She's only about a year old so she still has quite a bit of kitten in her. Bitty was the last kitten we've had in the house and she's turning nine this year, so it's been a while. Dude, kittens get into everything. She plays with anything and everything, from catnip toys to coaxial cables to the wall. She hasn't fully figured out the lap thing, yet. The few times she's tried to cuddle, she usually ends up draped over both me and the armrest (sometimes with little feet hanging over) and can only sit still for a purr-filled minute or two. Once she's more cat than kitten, though, I think she'll be quite the cuddler.

I'm not fully ready to leave her out unsupervised or at night, but maybe next week. I'd like to see her interact with one kitty without any hissing first. My money is on Sam. We shall see!

Poor Olive

I don't think Olive knows what to do with a house full of kitties that don't want to play with her. She's probably about a year old so still rather kitten-playful but all of our kitties are closer to the geriatric side of things. But Olive just wants to play! She's batted at a couple kitties in an invitation to romp and looks shocked and sad when the response is a hiss. Just now, she loped towards Bitty, ready for some rough and tumble playing. Bitty's hiss made Olive leap backwards and fall on her rear. She wasn't anticipating that kind of response! (Though I'm very glad she accepts it! She does seem to be a timid little girl.) I suppose it's a good thing we have a lot of toys for her to play with.

Interestingly enough, out of all the kitties Sam seems the most interested in her playful behavior. They haven't interacted more than a few nose touches (and one Sam hiss) but he's rushed after her with ears pricked in interest on more than one occasion as she barreled through the living room in play mode.

Who knows? Maybe Sam will end up with a friend. I'll just be happy if no one tries to eat her.