Got Buick?

Here's where we were this past weekend:

 11 Hour drive to Ohio!  Whoopee!  Lots of knitting time....
I worked on my Oak Trail hat.  What is wrong with this picture?:

That there is my new ball of yarn, joined to the tail at the beginning of my hat, rather than the end of the yarn where I need to keep knitting.  Yup, I (again) wet spliced the new ball to the wrong end of yarn.  So annoying.  Got that fixed up and finished the hat:

 ....all except for the little sewing up part where that piece of yarn is sticking out.  And the blocking. Cute, don't you think?

Then we got to Ohio:

That's Paul's friend Rob's car in front of us.

....and we had several hours to go, so I worked on my Cozy wrap:

 ...and saw this at a gas station stop:

We were sorry to have missed that festival.

....and ate these at another stop:

Mmmmmmmm.

I make cookies for every racing trip.  Before Rob and his dad, Ray, even say hello to me when we meet up with them, they ask, "Did you bring the cookies????"

We finally got there and made a run to JEGS (car guys' equivalent of a yarn shop), then had a whole day of racing on Friday:

....except for Paul's friend Rob who blew up his motor on his second run.  Booooooooo.  Paul got some good runs in, as well as changed out his carburetor and got some better (meaning faster) runs in with that.

Then it was Saturday!  The main competition day!.....

....which was cancelled.

So we went home.  On the way home we saw this:

A huge golf ball.

And I kept knitting on my Cozy wrap until I ran out of yarn.  Ran out of what I had with me, not the yarn in general.  I know you are breathing a sigh of relief for me. 

So, I worked on my Citron shawl.

...until it got so dark I couldn't see.  Can you see this?:

Neither could I.  I was knitting only by feel for the last 50 stitches or so because I was trying to get the last increase row done.  The one in which I now have 600 plus stitches on my needle and now I have to knit 11 rows and then I'll be done! ....in about another year.

In the meantime, at one of our stops, I got one of my latest obsession:

Dulce de Leche Caramel shake. Mmmmm.

 



And since we were home a whole day early, I picked this from the garden:

Mmmmmm..... tomato sandwiches.

And also, since we were home a day early, we got back in the car and went for a drive to Sharon Springs to see the new Beekman 1802 Mercantile:

 Of course, I had to get a couple of things:

We haven't tried them yet, but I'll let you know when we do.

Then we made our way to Cooperstown for our favorite pizza:



 And THEN, as if the weekend couldn't get any busier.... I got  some spinning done, so I may actually have a skein of yarn to enter into the Altamont Fair by the August 9 deadline.

Resting, relaxing, waiting to be plied:

 Hopefully, plying will be done tomorrow so the yarn can then take a bath and have time to dry.

Ooh, and ALSO, since I had some time in Ohio, I read and finished The Lion's Game by Nelson Demille.  Great book.  Exciting, suspenseful, and funny.  Love his books.  That was a quick review.

books Books BOOKS

Finally!  Some book reviews.  Two of the books below were audiobooks.  It's so different listening to a book.  Some of whether I like it or not has to do with the person narrating the book and whether or not I liked their voice or if I thought they did a good job.  But I like to listen on long car rides to pass the time.  Or while I'm knitting so I can do two things I love at once.  Do you listen to audiobooks? 

The Good House by Ann Leary:  Audiobook.  From Goodreads  "Ann Leary's The Good House tells the story of Hildy Good, who lives in a small town on Boston’s North Shore. Hildy is a successful real-estate broker, good neighbor, mother, and grandmother. She’s also a raging alcoholic. Hildy’s family held an intervention for her about a year before this story takes place—“if they invite you over for dinner, and it’s not a major holiday,” she advises “run for your life” — and now she feels lonely and unjustly persecuted. She has also fooled herself into thinking that moderation is the key to her drinking problem."   The story takes us through how she deals with this "moderation" and how it affects her life, family and friends.  It is at times sad and at times funny.   Plus, there is an element of small-town scandal in which she tries not to get involved.  Overall, I enjoyed the book.  The narrator was pretty good, and had a very distinctive voice, and I just can't help but wonder how I would have perceived certain things if I was reading the actual book.  I keep thinking of the narrator's voice when I think of the book. (Click down there to get on Amazon...)


The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg:  Another Audiobook.  From Goodreads: "For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life together in the suburbs of Chicago. But now things are splintering apart, for one reason, it seems: Edie's enormous girth. She's obsessed with food--thinking about it, eating it--and if she doesn't stop, she won't have much longer to live." The story is told alternately through Edie's eyes, as well as the eyes of Richard, her two children and her daughter-in-law, how her declining health affects them and how they try (or not) to help her.  I enjoyed this one too, however, could not stand Molly Ringwald's narration! Monotone and horribly "acted", especially in contrast to The Good House, whose narrator was good at acting out the parts and narrating.  Looking past the narration to the story, the writing was very good.   Sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, and very good at relaying each character's emotions.
 

The Heist Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg.  For this book, Janet has teamed up with the writer of the Monk tv series (which I loved and I'm sad it ended).  I've enjoyed Janet's Stephanie Plum series for many years, so I decided to try this, which is "the first adventure in an electrifying new series featuring an FBI agent who always gets her man, and a fearless con artist who lives for the chase."  Two more fun characters and a fun story line.  Action, adventure and lots of humor.  I found myself laughing out loud several times.  The FBI agent is, like Stephanie Plum, a flawed quirky woman who you can't help but route for.   Light and fun, and a quick read.


Long Gone by Alafair Burke:  Another exciting and suspenseful book.  Couldn't put it down at times, but at times wanted to put it down because I was getting worked up about the suspense.  Lots of twists and turns, making you try to guess what is going on.  Alafair's style is to switch gears/points-of-view/story lines in each chapter so that at first you are thinking, "How can these things be related?" but then you slowly realize, chapter by chapter, how they are terribly, horribly, unfortunately related.


Next post:  Spinning and knitting.... the Altamont Fair Spinning Bee is coming up! I know... the excitement is killing you, too.

A Maine-ly Short Vacation

See how I did that with the title?  They do that all the time up there....  Mainely Meat BBQ (which we didn't go to), Mainely Vinyl (which we also didn't go to) etc.

So, we went to Maine for a long weekend last weekend and had a wonderfully relaxing time, although altogether too short for our liking.  We had a nice view of the water, so we spent a lot of time looking at it:

Had our usual fried and blueberry stuff:

Crab cakes and fish sandwich in
Wiscassett on the drive up

Blueberry beer

Blueberry soda, Fried shrimp and fish & chips

Then there was blueberry pie and blueberry cake and whoopee pies (not blueberry).

After all that.... we went for a loooooong walk!  We walked the carriage roads in Acadia National Park, around the top of Cadillac Mountain and across the low tide sand to Bar Island.  Ha! And I just realized those pictures are on Paul's phone.  I think I've just discovered a problem about us both having these new phones.  That's annoying.

Ooh and also, we went to Jordan Pond House for lunch and had their famous popovers which are so incredibly delicious with their strawberry jam and butter.  So of course:

And here we are nice and relaxed and rested:

....trying to figure out how to take our picture with the new smartphone with the function that you look at yourself on the screen so you know how it's going to come out.  It's harder than you think.

In Knitting News:
A better picture of one doodlebug's finished vest, while it is blocking, so you can see the pattern better:

Pattern is Sweaters and Slipover Vest.

Now that birthday knitting is behind me, I'm going to continue work on the Citron - I'm currently on a 642 stitches per row section.   And I'm slightly concerned I will run out of yarn.  Next task is to weigh what I have left and then determine if that gives me any information as to if I will run out!   Also going to finish the Oak Trail hat.  Stay tuned.

In Gardening News:
While we were away, squash bugs got my zucchini plants.  Full disclosure:  they were there before we left but I didn't know what they were.  I saw one or two.  Now, there are gagillions of them.  They seem to be way too overrun for me to do anything about them.  I was able to rescue two zucchini though and made this:

1/4 cup panko bread crumbs, 1/4 cup parm cheese, salt and pepper.  Toss slices with olive oil, coat with crumbs, top with leftover crumbs.  400 degrees for 25 minutes.  YUM!

Two cuties

Ready to give to my favorite doodlebugs at their second birthday party!  They are going to look so cute in them.

That's it for today.  Short and sweet.  Next post: Maine!

546

546.  Five hundred forty-six. That's how many stitches are currently on each row of my Citron  project:

(matchbox cars are all the rage in the babysitting venue these days...)

Would you just LOOK at them all?

Oh. My. Gosh. It takes a loooong time to knit a row.  I have only brought this on myself since I decided to add two repeats to this pattern.  I had a lot more yarn than was needed and the project as it is ends up rather small.  So, why not make the most if the yarn I have as well as making it bigger, right?

And 546 won't be the largest number of stitches.  In the next, and last repeat, I will have 642 stitches on several rows.  Six hundred forty-two.  I already said I was a little bored knitting this and it may only get worse. On the positive side, except for 3 of the 20 rows I am repeating, this is very easy knitting and good for in front if the tv. So, on I will knit. And knit.  And knit.  And knit.....

Also, it is so hot here, we have resorted to this to keep the house cool:

I have to fix this sideways thing!! Anyone know how?

Reheating leftover pizza on the grill.  It worked tremendously - nice crisp crust!

Excavation extravaganzas

Recently the craft room has gone through an excavation and re-model - "after" pics to come soon - but that's nothing compared to the real excavation going on outside.  We are building a pole barn.  Or in other words:  a garage to hold Paul's cars.  I showed you the excavation that Paul and his brother did:

This is a trench for the essentials.  You know water and electric.  And apparently the other essentials - phone and cable.

Now we have this:

View from the house

View from the house

View on the other side, looking
toward the house.

View on the other side looking toward the house.

Check out that last picture.  Because our yard slopes, they had to build this end up six feet to make it level.  Crazypants.

Also, I made these Italian Meatball Sliders the other day:

Meatloaf mix, Italian sausage, other stuff, and basil on top.  YUM!

In Gardening News
Something is eating my cabbage:

But the tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant are going strong:

 

 And the green heron has been around a lot still. 

argh! --- sideways.  The heron is way
over there on the rock.

We saw it catching and eating a frog the other day.  Ewwwwwww!

The usual summer stuff

Paul and I did some of our usual summertime things this past weekend.  First, we went to see Spamalot at the Washington Park Playhouse:

This is my usual  picture of knitting-while-waiting-for-the-show-to-start-because-we-got-there-an-hour-and-a-half-early-because-I-get-obsessive-about-not-getting-a-good-seat.  Apparently other people do too, because there were A LOT of people already there when we got there.  It was a terrific show - hilarious!   See the below knitting update for what I'm knitting in this picture.

Then we went to the Brimfield antiques show where we got a few things:

That would be:
1) A dolly for a 55 gallon drum.  I don't even know if we have any of those...
2) A Buick hubcap from the 1940's.
3) A Murray pedal car for Paul to restore.  This was the best one we found - in working order with only one thing missing that we could see.  And which we don't know what it is.   There is simply a hole where something should go.  We need to research.
4) Not shown - because we didn't find any - a dress form and a head model, for me to display and take pictures of my knitting.

No pictures from while we were there since it was HOT and I didn't think about it.  And when I thought about it, it was raining.  We got away with no rain for about 3 hours but trudged around for another hour while it was raining on and off.  Good times.  Mostly.

Then, we drove up to Lake George to see the lake and get ice cream from Martha's Dandee Crème.  I would put some pictures here but I took them with my newfangled "smart" phone but I can't find them.  That's not smart.

In Knitting News
Pictures of my blocked Mystic Spiral:

This picture is the best representation of the true color.

 

Like you really need three pictures, right?  The one I took of me wearing it came out terrible, so I spared you.

While at Spamalot, I worked on my latest obsession, the Oak Trail hat from Alana Dakos' latest book, Botanical Knits.  Here's the picture again, because I forgot to get a better one (click on the link for the official pattern pic):

In Book News:
I'm gearing up to do some book reviews, I promise.  However, I must tell you that Goodreads has informed me that "At your current pace, you're 4 books (9%) behind schedule."  And by "informed me" I mean shouted it from the sidebar as I scrolled down the page when I went to my Goodreads homepage the other day.  To remind you, my goal is to read 45 books in 2013.  I have only read 20. ONLY.