It was a really nice weekend. I experimented a bit on my oatmeal bar recipe with good results and made two fabulous appetizers which are new to my repertoire. I got to play with a yeast dough (always fun) then turned it into a tasty pizza with extra dough stashed in the freezer. Josh and I saw Kung Fu Panda, which was excellent. I bought an iPod Shuffle (because the price of an armband for my iPod Nano is almost as much), went on a run, and got some knitting and crocheting done.

I also stepped on a weird piece of plastic which ended up embedded in the ball of my left foot near my big toe about half an inch while I was trying to go out onto my balcony to take a picture of the nasty looking wall cloud. I then made a bloody mess on my kitchen floor while I yelled for Josh that I was getting blood all over the floor. At least I think it was plastic because Josh broke it and threw it away before I could examine it more closely. My foot feels bruised and tender and still oozes a bit. Lovely, I know. I am a bit worried about it getting infected since the piece of mystery plastic was on the floor and made it quite a ways into my foot (not that our floor is dirty it's just a floor). It kinda ruins my workout plans for the next few days due to it's location. I am surprised I have gotten any running in with my sore knee, chest cold with cough, pulled hamstring and now puncture wound to bottom of foot which prohibits even normal walking. I am trying to get into a running routine, but it's not going so well.

ETA: This sounds like a really neat way to power your home using solar panels.

Definitely make these if you aren't near a campfire.

My jeans are soaked! See that blob of orange and red in the middle of all that green? That's what I was in while waiting for the bus. Orange and red mean lots of rain.

The fact that the street outside my apartment was full of about 3" of water when a car drove by just helped me get wetter. Not that I needed it. Luckily I am wearing sandals designed for water sports, since walking through the raging river of our parking lot could be considered a water sport today. I went for a run this morning and the rain started while I was doing my stretching and sit-ups after my run. I actually would have enjoyed running in the rain until it became a torrential downpour that felt more like going through a car wash. I do love a good thunderstorm as long as I am not waiting for the bus in it. The sky still looks like it is about 9pm rather than 9am.


There has been progress on Ornette, though it has been slow. I love the pattern, but it makes my left wrist tired so I have to take a break every so often. I started Elijah using this yarn in turquoise this morning while watching the rain. He will be a gift for my former neighbor's baby. Since I couldn't decide on clothing for the kid, he or she is getting a toy and granny square blanket in Hawkeye colors since the dad is a big Hawks fan.

I made bars from this recipe (via Cookie Madness) last night with a few mods. I decreased the butter to one stick, added some apple sauce for more liquid and also a 1/4 cup of ground flax; since I didn't have raisins I used chocolate chips. I think Josh had three bars after dinner. He seems to like them. I will make them again, but I think with even less butter and more flax and apple sauce.

Look what the from and lady bug are doing on my iGoogle!

elephants, owlet, frog, airplane and another bird

I was busy this weekend. I had little energy to spare due to whatever virus has attacked me now, so I crocheted.


Pocket Elephant


Mini Stuffed Airplane


Owlet


Mr. Froggy

I made another bird as well, but it was dark by the time I finished so no pic. I have an army of 11 now and two more colors of yarn to go before I have gone through the colors of my stash. More pics can be seen here. The elephants have tails!

Seriously, the sitting and crocheting was about all I could handle. I had no energy and even laughing would make me cough. I am still coughing and am really sick of it. It's rather hard to get a workout in!

unrelated things

It snowed again yesterday. Not much snow. But it is April in Iowa and I believe the rest of the world so we shouldn't be having snow.

I am still sick and suffering from a lack of sleep due to waking myself up because I was coughing. Ick...

New bras are great. So glad I bought some.

I have decided to make tiramisu. I have never had it which that is a good enough reason for me.

I still have cake, which I will be throwing away.

The frogs didn't lay well so no extra work for me this weekend! Though, now I have to figure out something else to do today.

I am making a pocket elephant for a coworker.

Is it ok to eat lunch at 9:45am?

Whatever ick I have isn't too bad, but still brought on the annoying scratchy throat and coughing as well as wearing me out. I slept hard last night and am still tired (coffee snuck into the lab is helping a bit with that), so no workout this morning as I had planned. My plan to workout tomorrow morning just got nixed due to a new work obligation which will carry over through this weekend. I have to be in before 7:30am tomorrow and since my gym doesn't open until 6am there is no way to get a workout in before work. I think I may have to stay late as well. Is it funny that I had to go back and read one of the papers I am an author on to get some info for this experiment? I think it is, but that could be the tiredness talking.

Anyway, I have some new recruits who just got their wings and beaks.



I have a feeling this is a never ending project for all those bits of DK and worsted yarn I will have laying around.

Joining their ranks shortly is Mr. Froggy or whatever I decide to call him later.



I should really be working on socks instead. I am such a bad person.

The Sock Madness has left me or maybe something else took over. It may involve a crochet hook and cute stuffed animals. I am blaming the evil cake crazed dreams I had Monday night. I was so tired yesterday from lack of sleep due to cakey dreams. I have no explanation for the dreams, but maybe a little explanation for my lack of sock progress. Not a huge fan of the pattern, though I did see one sock today that is changing my mind and may have me switching yarns to something more solid.

My throat is dry and scratchy and I have been coughing a bit. I really do not want to be sick again.

Oh and for those of you checking up on my running, my knee has been sore for the last two weeks so I am giving it a few days rest but plan to run again tomorrow and maybe Friday to make up for it. Oh, and I skipped the rest of Week 1 because I just wasn't feeling it. Week two was still not too hard, but I don't want to break too many rules in case that is what's causing the weird dreams. I made my last cake on the day of my last "run", so they could be related. I told Josh to take the rest of the cake to work today so I don't have to look at it.

His coworkers seem to like it much better than we do. They get more products of my baking than my own coworkers because buses are not conducive to transporting baked goods, especially layer cakes. I should bring in some blondies or something less fragile to make up for it. I have been meaning to develop my own blondie recipe.

Baby Snow Dragon

Pattern: Baby Snow Dragon
Yarn: Knit Picks Merino Style in Vanilla
Hook: F 3.75mm
Mods: I made the eyelids a bit smaller.

I wish I wasn't giving her away. Josh thought it looked like a massacre had occurred on our coffee table this weekend due to the amount of bird and dragon parts covering it. It looks better now. You can see the new recruits tomorrow when they get their beaks.

Eating, shopping, baking, Wii-ing, jogging, crocheting, picture taking, and grilling; not a bad Saturday.

First up are bird parts.

I have started three more birds for my army to bring the total to 9. I purchased the red yarn and two F hooks at our new Micheals. Not the greatest yarn selection but now I can get Cotton-Ease locally.

Next is the first of my ribbed socks made from TOFUtsies yarn.


Last night after tae kwon do, I helped Josh with his one steps. In one of them he does a leg sweep as I do a round house kick therefor landing on my back. I landed wrong the first time because I forgot what exactly was going to happen. I landed rather hard; I am pretty sure I am going to have a very lovely bruise in a few days. Luckily it didn't hurt while I was doing my workout today. It didn't hurt too much while I tried out a bunch of things on Wii Sports that I hadn't tried before.

Ok, now for some cake!

I woke up to what sounded like sand hitting my bedroom window around 4am. In reality it was just sleet, but in my dream, right before I woke up, I was driving down some road and my right wheels where rolling through some sort of sandy gravel. No idea where I was going though. At least it's not snowing or sleeting anymore, but the wind is making it rather chilly and apparently thundersnow is predicted for our area later today or tonight.

I wish I wore a pair of my wool socks today rather than Tuesday when it was almost 60F. I had to take them off when I got home because my feet were too warm. That rarely happens.

The next round of Sock Madness doesn't start until April 1 so I haven't been doing much knitting. I think the amount of knitting I did to finish that first pair of socks did my wrist in. The tendinitis returned for a few days after I finished so no knitting progress. i may need to go back to my bird army. I recently remembered I have some teal left over from Wicked and a couple skeins of Patons merino wool that are destined to become this hat, but could each spare a bit for a bird.

For those of you who care what my DVD collection contains, I have not purchased the X-Files. I think I still want to though.

The time change is still kicking my butt. I am just waiting for the weekend so I can sleep in.

I finished one of the blah socks. I even wove in the ends! I will try to start the next one tonight. I promised them to a co-worker so now I have to finish them. If I don't like the next pattern chosen for SKP2008 I may give up. I don't see a point to knitting more things I won't enjoy.

Oh, for those of your curious about my bird army. I don't want any matching birds, but I have run out of different colors of worsted weight wool, so they are on hold. I can justifying the purchase of more wool for birds because the Happy Little Bird Army can provide security at my new house when I get one; therefor the money I spend on said wool is beneficial to the house I am saving money for. Right? Currently the birds are the overlords of the TV. Actually they are just sitting on it looking kinda innocent or malevolent; depends on the lighting.

My army grows every day. In the left you can see another taking shape, the green blob, and also the body and head of a friendly snow dragon. I don't think the dragon will be staying with me though. I just love looking at them!

Saturday is the start of Hat Attack, so you know I will be knitting on Saturday without interruption. My birds will have to wait for a little while. I would like to think I could finish my weapon on Sunday and get it in the mail Monday morning, but I am just not sure. Our internet is being wonky so I may have to run in to work to get the pattern. I should swatch tonight.

My Happy Little Bird Army

Sorry, again, for the crappy picture. My camera is very picky about light and apparently a cloudy 8:00am is not what it likes. You may not be able to tell, but the Purplebird does not yet have it's wings or tail. I will remedy that tonight and probably start another one. I am creating an army after all.

I have changed my mind. I still want a new camera, but I also don't want to spend a ton of money. I have been thinking about how I want to use my camera. I essentially want to take pictures like I currently do, but I want them to be a better quality. I want to be able to take close-ups and have accurate representations of the colors. I want the details to shine. Most of my pictures are yarn related or food and my 4.0MP, 3+ year old camera isn't doing what I want anymore.

I think I will get the Canon PowerShot SX100 instead of the Canon S5. It's about $100 cheaper and should do what I want it to do. I played with it at Best Buy over the weekend and liked it.

Happy Little Bluebird

Pattern: Birds of Feather
Yarn: Cascade 200 Heathers, 9456 sapphire heather
Hook: F, 3.75mm
Time: about 2 hours, maybe a little more with the finishing work

I love my little bird! I had an intense desire to crochet something cute and small yesterday. I blame the several inches of snow (ETA: I just read it was 8 inches of snow)we got yesterday along with Josh's incessant grumbling at Paper Mario. I made another green one, which I finished this morning while listening to the thunder. I need some good light so I can take a picture of them together. I took this picture last night in my rather dark living room. I could easily see a little purple one joining them soon. Maybe teal...

Happy May Day!

The UPS guy tried to give me my new shopping bags and a container to contain my knit and crochet WIPs yesterday, but I wasn't there. I am quite looking forward to their arrival today. I need to go to the grocery store and want to try them out.

I have restarted Norberta because I am actually better at knitting than when I originally started her so she hopefully won't be quite as sloppy as my first attempt. I am also working on a baby hat that I didn't get done for the baby shower on Sunday. I want to have it done by Friday because I know I will see the mom-to-be at our tae kwon do club's testing. I should try to finish Wicket sometime too. I am having trouble with his arms. I may just need to make him larger in general to get the arms to work.

I found out who my pal is for sockapalooza4 and I am looking forward to finding some yarn and a fitting pattern. It may be my excuse to go to my LYS today. I haven't been there for quite awhile.

I was totally not prepared for almost 90 degree weather this weekend. It's April so we should have temps in the mid 60s with light spring showers. It was about 68 when I went to the gym at 6:00 this morning and it is already 70 at about 9:00am.

Not really sure why I have been bad about this blog thing. There is no good reason.

I My current WIPs are Widdershins in Sockotta #6673. I am also working on Jaywalkers using Meilenweit #325. I should be starting Thermal for my sis soon. I need to refine my Wicket pattern. His arms look funny and I didn't write down what I did (duh!) so I am going to have to go back and count stitches to figure out what I did.

I also need to make some banana bread. I have very ripe bananas waiting for me in the freezer. Maybe it will happen tomorrow night. I may also try my hand at No Knead Bread sometime soon. I have always wanted to make a yeast bread and this looks like a good starting point. I hope my Dutch oven is large enough. It's only a 5 quart and this calls for a 6-8qt pot. I may try it in my insanely large skillet which looks more like a weapon than a pot. I really need to bake something soon. I haven't baked in a couple weeks. I haven't had the time or the energy. My cousin called to ask for my brownie recipe, which I usually have memorized, but I could not remember it today. It has been too long!!! I didn't even have a bag of chocolate chips in my apartment!! That is almost unheard of!

Last weekend during my grandma's birthday blowout, I was knitting my socks. I completely impressed much of my family with my multi-colored and patterned socks. that was, of course, until I explained that it was the yarn making that pattern, not me. They were still impressed, but it was the yarn that impressed them, not my new sock knitting skills.

I ended up frogging it and starting over because the stitches between my needles were really loose and I had some loose stitches at the toe. I have now started over and am almost as far as i was before I frogged. I actually un-knitted some of the heel turn this morning since I knitted the wraps incorrectly and left holes. I know what to do now, so I should have a problem. Once I get past the heel flap I can relax with some plain stockinette. I quite enjoy stockinette.

These are toe-up socks, so i think my next ones will be cuff down. i have some sock yarn coming soon and I have a good stash I intended to crochet with, but my leetle hook was splitting in a lot, so I am going to try knitting it instead and save the crocheted socks for some different yarn.

I have picks of the progress and the cupcakes, including the failed ones, but I have yet to download them. I am sure I will get that done this weekend, not that anyone cares.

So I tried to make my own little Wicket using a furry yarn so he would be furry, but I couldn't deal with the stuff! I couldn't tell where my stitches were and it was slippery. I am thinking about it with a plain acrylic yarn in brown so he's furry but I can see my stitches.


I am almost done with Norberta. I have her partially stuffed and am working on assembling her. I like her a lot.

Back to work!!

Why did I put exclamation points after that? It's not exciting.

Anyway, I am heading back to IC today b/c I have a ton I need to get done at the lab ASAP and I told my PI I was aiming to have it all done by Friday. The problem is I don't know what I am doing. I don't know the technique I need to used to analyze my samples. I do like that I will be learning something new, but I am not sure that anyone is going to be in the lab to help me. I have a protocol for it so maybe I can figure it out between that and what I can find online.

I am looking forward to Josh opening the rest of his Christmas gifts from me. I kinda spoiled him, but I am ok with that. I let him open one of the smaller gifts early because it made the bottling process a lot easier last week.

I have been feeling very crafty lately. There are so many projects, mostly knitting and crocheting, that I want to do. I am also thinking about buying a sewing machine. I haven't done any sewing for years and I am not sure I really remember how, and I don't think I was very good because I remember my mom ripping out every seam I had sewn. I know it would be a good skill to have and I kind of want to make myself a fabric case similar to this one. I may end up buying one anyway since it will take me quite awhile before I can make anything like that. I am als thinking about making one of these for my kitchen. I want to put it on the wall above my stove since I don't have the counter space for my crock of utensils.

I better start packing up my stuff so I can get out of here!

I think I have all my Christmas presents ready except for one more meal to make for my mom. I will be making it tonight. I am almost out of freezer space. I still may make a few batches of cookie dough to freeze and slice into ready-to-bake pieces. I am thinking chocolate chip, molasses, sugar and possibly something else.

I need to figure out how to be productive tomorrow in the lab. A lot of what I need to do will take a couple of days in a row so I can't really get started tomorrow. I hate having nothing to do at the lab.

I keep wanting to buy books. I don't expect to get any for Christmas so I should be safe with any I buy, but I really don't need any more books. I have a whole library at my disposal! I may need to stop at the library before I head to Eldora tomorrow so I have something else to read. I may check-out some books by Cornelia Funke. I may also see if I can find any good knitting or crocheting books to take with me so I can improve my mad knitting and crocheting skills.

stitchymcyarnpants.com

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