That sneaky week

I don't know how it happened, but a whole week managed to sneak by me. I had grand plans for this week's blog post...okay, no I didn't. I had some ideas, maybe, but here it is, Sunday afternoon. So, I'll just babble on about a few things and pretend like it's a *real* blog post.

One of my Facebook friends, I believe it was Salina Yoon, the amazing author of the Penguin books (e.g. Penguin In Love - not affiliate link), mentioned something about my having plenty of hand-knitted socks for the winter, and I believed that I did. But when I tried to scrounge up my knitted socks, I realized I do not actually have enough! I only have 6 pairs, 2 of which have holes and need darning. 

the blue-white striped ones on the left are made of a chitin yarn

So, it's a good thing I'm knitting a new pair of socks for myself right now...in a lovely shade of green, no less. Come on, Spring; bring it on!

Also springy is a little sketch I did for my good friend, Elaine Kiely Kearns (who founded the amazing Kidlit411.com site and runs it with our other good friend, Sylvia Liu) for an absolutely sweet story she wrote. If any editors or agents are reading this (HAH!), you really need to check out Elaine's story. :)

Lastly, more great news: Russell James, the leader of our Minnows Literary Group, announced that he'll be sending a check to Doctors Without Borders for about $130 for December's earnings on our anthologies...AND, that the earnings for February's sales will be more than double that! I feel like we are single-handedly fighting ebola with MSF...without, you know, putting ourselves in mortal danger, unless you consider getting harsh reviews of our books as dangerous.

Happy March!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Just to prove I wasn't totally slacking

I managed to finish up a few projects before the end of December, 2013. Granted, I started some of those projects at least several months ago, but I consider it a victory when I actually finish a project.

The socks and the washcloths are knitted but the hat is crocheted. It has a funky swirl pattern on top, which was what drew me to it in the first place. I owe Robin thanks for helping me get started on the complicated looking pattern.

What projects did you finish up at long last by the end of 2013?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Numba one son turns 15!

I have a back-log of a couple of posts; I'd started writing them, but because I wasn't really blogging, or reading blogs, I never posted them. So in the spirit of "feast or famine", I will dump them on you in a matter of days. ;) Here's the first:

It's not possible because I haven't aged a day since he was born. I am still in my early 30s as far as I can tell.

Yeah, I lied. The kids have aged me beyond recognition. I'm just a shell of the vibrant person I once was.

I lied yet again. The truth lies somewhere in between: I'm not 32 years old - my age minus 3 months when ds#1 was born - but I'm not decrepit either. I hate the idea of staring at Five-Oh, but I look forward to my AARP membership for those fabulous discounts! What am I complaining about anyway? At least I'm not a grandmother. (The idea of being a grandparent in my 40s really makes me queasy.)

But this isn't about me, even though I do go on. Ds#1 turned 15 on the first of February. We got hit by an ice storm that day, so we never took him out for a special dinner, nor cooked him one, as is our tradition. In fact, our power went out for about 21 hours, and I didn't even make him a cake until the weekend.

He chose Mocha Chiffon, and it turned out pretty well. I got the recipe from the Company's Coming cookbook I got from my mom's stash of cookbooks after she died.

Mocha Chiffon Cake
2 1/3 C sifted cake flour
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1 T instant coffee granules
3/4 C hot water
1/2 C cooking oil
5 egg yolks, room temp
1 t vanilla
1 C egg whites, room temp
1/2 t cream of tartar
3 oz semisweet baking chocolate, shaved thinly

Preheat oven to 325F. Wash angel food tube pan in hot soapy water to ensure it is totally grease-free. Sift first 4 ingredients into bowl. Make a well in the center.

Dissolve coffee in hot water. Cool.

Put cooking oil, egg yolks, vanilla and cooled coffee into well. Set aside. Don't beat yet.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until very stiff. Set aside.

Using same beater, beat egg yolk-flour mixture until smooth. Fold 1/4 at a time gently into egg whites. Add shaved chocolate. Fold in. Pour into ungreased 10" angel food pan. Bake in oven for 60-70 minutes. Invert pan until cake has cooled. Frost with frosting of choice.

And on a completely unrelated thought, here are the socks I finished knitting in January. I'm staying on track with my projects resolutions so far, but I don't know how much longer I can keep it up with more writing and critiquing on my schedule.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Too much socks & violets (Random Tuesday edition)

Because no good deed goes un-pun-nished. Yes, thank you for your groans. ;) I dedicate the title to Sherrie (Twenty-Two Pleasant) because she said one can never have too many puns!

I thought I'd write one longish post to share photos plus a few random thoughts before I take a leave of absence to spend quality time with my sister while she's visiting.

First up, photos. I hope my sister's friend, B, doesn't read my blog regularly because my sis commissioned me to knit B a pair of baby socks as a present for her baby shower. Cute, no?I also knitted a little hat but forgot to take photos today, so will show the socks that I'm making for me instead. Not as cute.This African violet (that I've posted a photo of previously) is still blooming like mad. The bottom of the plant is all wobbly and looks like it's about to die, but the top looks like this, as fresh as a daisy...or violet....
My numba one son is going to turn 14 in a week. Wow, where did the time go, and why does he look so much older when I look exactly the same as I did 14 years ago (ahem)? Here he is doing his biology lab.And what's he doing in his biology lab? Dissecting squids, among other things. I hope he'll go into medicine after all this stuff I have to put up with in my kitchen.We got the results back from his CAT-5 test for grade 10. He took the test for grade 7 back in June because he had just finished grade 7 (that was the grade he would have finished had he been in public school). Since he scored in the 90+ percentile in pretty much everything, I thought he should take the test for a few grades above his to see where he might be lacking. Weeeell, as it turn out, he's not lacking in a heckuva lot of areas. I think I'll have him take the grade 11 test this coming June. Surely, something in grade 11 or 12 may stump him. (No wonder he always acts like he's smarter than I am...)
Before I close up, here are a few random thoughts:

* There is such a thing as being too nice.

* I get a little tired of posting comments that disappear - either due to my own fault (because I turn off the computer without remembering that I was in the middle of commenting), the fault of cyber-gremlins that eat comments, or maybe the fault of the recipient.

* I think I would much rather be Patsy than Edina.

* Some people's friendship elevate me to a higher plane and make me a better person by association.

* Gretchen Rubin is right: do it for yourself; don't expect gold stars.

And finally:I may occasionally post something, and I will definitely continue to post regularly in my Project 365 blog, but for my own sanity, I need to feel like I don't have to blog regularly here.

By the way, I am loving my spec-fic writing course from the Gotham Writer's Workshop! I highly recommend them to anyone who wants a rigorous course in any writing genre.

Toodles, everyone, and stay warm...except for those of you lucky enough to live in CA! ;)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Another piled-up, jumbled mess of a blog post

...in other words, my usual. ;)

It was supposed to be a pretty busy week this week, with the Teen Book Club on Monday, playdate on Tuesday, Spanish class, ds#1's guitar lesson, and LEGO Club on Wednesday, biology labs on Thursday, and ceramics on Friday, but ds#1 inconveniently (or is it conveniently?) caught something and started showing symptoms on Sunday, so we had to cancel activities for Monday and Tuesday (in case he was infectious, and so that he could recuperate).

Since I have a 2 day reprieve, I'm going to get cracking on 1) blogging - reading and writing, 2) making paper for an order, and 3) reading the biology textbook because I'm waaay behind.

A quick look at the weeks past...this is one of the pretty leaf dishes that we made last month. This one is made by ds#2, my 11 year old. I love the color and used it for our Artfire store banner.I made a butter tart square a couple of weeks ago, and it was so tasty, I made it again when Meg (Get In, Hang On) visited on Saturday:
Last, last Friday, I finally had a free day with no obligations and could lounge around in my hand-knit chitin socks and read:
We finally got around to making bath fizzies that Anne-Marie (Soap and the Finer Things in Life) showed how to do last year. Here's ds#1 spritzing with rubbing alcohol while I mixed:
The mixture crammed into the molds:
We waited too long to pop them out so some of the fizzies broke while we were getting them out. These ones managed to survive, and are kind of cute!
We had the last watermelon from our garden a couple of weeks ago. It was surprisingly tasty for a late season melon.
I made pie crusts for quiche last, last weekend using the recipe in How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. It was really delish!
I do love my decorative edges. Alas, this is the only one I know how to do:
We've been harvesting beet greens for our salads. Is this not a beauty?
And also beeeeyoootiful is our broccoli - and sweet and tasty too:
Some cool nights have forced us to cover some crops with row covers. See the frost on the cabbage plants?
Sunrise over the covered crops...another day on the homestead begins:
As you may have noticed, the trees are in their lovely colors now (and rapidly fading). How are the colors where you are?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Too busy to write...

...but I do have some random photos to share. :)

Michelle asked what the buns looked like after being baked; we had already eaten all the hot dogs, so I took a photo of the burger buns (ds#2 made the plate the buns are on) ~Speaking of baking, I tried the Magic Blondies recipe that I'd printed out from MarthaStewart.com We'll have them for dessert tonight ~Ds#1 took a photo of the chickens (the roosters who will reside permanently in our freezer in another month or so) when they'd gotten up on the roost poles for the night. They've gotten so big already. ~I finished my first pair of cotton socks. I could have sworn they fit me when I measured them, but I discovered that they're just a tad too small, so my sister, who has smaller feet than I do, will get to take these. ~My dh is pretty clever. Our wonderful friend, C, gave us these peach baskets, but the handles were rusty wires that cut into our hands when we carry heavy things in the baskets, so dh cut off sections of an old garden hose and inserted them into the handles, which makes them really comfy to use now. The pear basket is without the hose insert, and the apple basket has it, for comparison. ~And now, back to scurrying around...

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim