Winter Returns

As I suspected the schedule last weekend for my work didn't hold true.  Unlike the dress rehearsals, the actual migration ran ahead of schedule.  I was called in Saturday evening to do the tasks that I was scheduled to do on Sunday.  I was in the office from 7 pm Saturday to 2 am Sunday.  When I got home,  I was still keyed up from caffeine.  I poured a big glass of wine and jumped in the hot tub.  It was nice sitting in there in the middle of the night.  It was as dark as it can be since all of the house lights were off.  I relaxed and listened to the silence.  I got to see a shooting star, which I consider a blessing.  After my glass was empty, I jumped out and went into the house.  Still not sleepy, I read a book for a while.  It was close to 4 am before I fell asleep.  My Monday shift was also moved up and I was back in the office by 2:30 Sunday afternoon.  This shift wasn't quite so bad and I was home by 8 pm.  The system at work is now live and there are only a few problems to deal with.  We are in what is referred to as the stabilization phase.  I won't declare success until we get through an entire month-worth of processing without issue.  Ask me in March how it all went.

Here is my weekly backdoor shot.  We were hit with a snow storm yesterday.  About 3 1/2 inches of snow fell at our house.  It was treacherous driving while it came down.  At one point it was falling at a rate of an inch per hour.  I had to go into work for a meeting and then I took the rest of the day off.  Driving home, I saw at least 5 accidents.  I was so thankful to pull into the garage unscathed.

I love the pattern the snow made on the blocks in the front flowerbed.  Being an engineer, and a tiny bit OCD, regular patterns appeal to me.

 

Here are the front bushes.

I got a little more spinning in this week.  I have one bobbin filled and am trying to get this one done.  I'll try to ply again.  Hopefully it will be easier than my first attempt.  My sister who spins is planning on visiting our mom tomorrow.  My sister lives in Virginia and Mom lives is southwest Ohio.  I was hoping to get down to Mom's and ask Patty's advise about what I'm doing wrong with plying.  But I don't think I'll make the trip tomorrow because of the weather.  Freezing rain is suppose to move into the area tomorrow evening.  That's not the kind of weather to be venturing out on a 2 hour drive.

The pug has a head and has been stuffed.  I need to knit the ears and finish the sweater.  I decided to applique the eyes instead of buying safety eyes.  I think it gives the little guy the right, bug-eyed look that real pugs have.

While browsing on Ravelry yesterday, I noticed a pattern called A Grey Loop.  It hit me as the perfect pattern for some silk/mohair yarn that a friend brought back from San Francisco for me.  Last October my friend went to a conference in SF.  She mentioned that she was going to find Artfibers and visit the shop.  I gave her some money and a list of yarns that looked lovely online.  She brought me a cone of about 400 yards of Casanova in a beautiful blue (color #14).  It is soft and shimmery.  My only complaint is that it is a bit splitty.  I think this will be a quick knit.  I hope to have a lovely scarf to model soon, as long as my scarf-obsessed daughter doesn't steal it.

Pug Parts and Salvaging Blueberries

There wasn't much knitting time this past week.  The big project at work is nearing completion.  This weekend is the migration to production work.  If things go according to the schedule, I will have to work 10:00 am to 3:00 pm Sunday.  On Monday and Tuesday, I'll have to be in the office by 6:00 am.  I'm not entirely convinced the schedule will hold.  During the last two dress rehearsals, my shift on Sunday was much longer than 5 hours and went into the wee hours of Monday.

The only pug parts knit this week was an arm and the hood of the sweater.  After I sign off here, I'm going to dig through my sewing room to see if I have stuffing.  This project is turning out to be a fairly easy project.  The only issue I am having is the first increase row of each body part.  The pattern calls for a cast on row and then one purl row.  The next row involves significant increases.  I'm doing my increases as Make 1 by lifting the yarn from the previous row onto the left needle and knitting through the back loop.  This is proving to be a bit fussy because the ladder yarn from the previous row is hard to find.  But the end result looks good.  I grabbed a skein of Cascade 220 out of the stash for the sweater.  It is turning out very lovely.  The only other time I've knit with Cascade was my daughter's blanket.  I really ought to use it more.  It is a dream to work with.  I'll admit, I am in love with this red color.  Maybe that is the true source of the love.

On Saturday mornings I like to make something a bit more involved for breakfast.  My choices are not always appealing to my family though.  I have some picky eaters in the house.  Today's breakfast was one of those meals.  I had a pint of blueberries that were past their prime.  I had to do something with them today or else I'd be tossing the entire pint.  These are Oatmeal Blueberry Pancakes.  I found the recipe through Pinterest.  The original recipe is from The New York Times and calls for buttermilk.  I never have buttermilk on hand so I just sour regular milk with lemon juice or vinegar.  For this recipe I used lemon juice since lemon compliments blueberries.  The recipe made over a dozen pancakes.  I absolutely love them and they are filling.  They are full of healthy ingredients including blueberries, oatmeal and whole wheat flour.  A couple fill me up and keep me full all morning.  These leftover pancakes are getting wrapped and put in the freezer.  They are easy to reheat in the microwave for workday breakfasts.  Below is the recipe if you are interested in making these yourself.  (Don't let my photography turn your off.  I'm not very good at staging food.)

Oatmeal Blueberry Pancakes

Yields about a dozen pancakes

1/2 c. rolled oats

1/2 c. milk

1 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 Tbl. sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

1 1/2 c. milk

1 Tbl. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. fresh or frozen blueberries

In a small bowl combine rolled oats and 1/2 c. milk.  Set aside to let the oats absorb some of the milk and soften.  

In a liquid measure, combine 1 1/2 c. milk and lemon juice.  Set aside to allow milk to thicken.

In a large bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, thickened milk and vanilla.  Pour all liquid ingredients into bowl with the flour mixture and stir until just blended.  Fold in blueberries.  Allow the batter to sit while the griddle is heating.

Heat a griddle to medium high and lightly spray.  Use 1/4 c measure to pour batter on hot griddle.  

Refrigerate or freeze leftovers.

Thick As Pea Soup

The temperatures have risen over the past few days and rain has moved into the area.  As a result the air is saturated.  This morning I woke up to dense fog.  The pictures below are deceptive.  They make the visibility seem a bit better than it truly was.  Hopefully the fog proves a blessing for Ed.  He got up early to duck hunt.  He hasn't had much luck this season since it didn't get cold until recently.   Today is supposed to be dry and warm.  More rain is moving in tonight.  The prediction is for an inch of rain over night and another inch tomorrow.  I'm afraid there is going to be serious flooding in southern Ohio as a result of this rain and the snow melt.

I finally finished the Minimalist Cardi.  I seamed it together during the National Championship football Monday night.  I'm not completely happy with how this looks on me but it isn't the sweaters fault.  I think I should have made the next size up, but since it doesn't have buttons or other closures, it looks OK on me.  I wore it to work one day this week.  I think the shirt I had on under it was probably a bit too full.  Next time I'll try wear something a bit more form fitting and see how it looks.  I am also trying to lose some weight, so hopefully the size issue will disappear after I make some pounds disappear.

I needed something to entertain me because Notre Dame's performance on the field certainly wasn't doing it.  At halftime, Ed went to bed and I turned on Netflix to start watching the first season of Downton Abbey.  I believe I've mentioned sometime in the past that I tend to latch onto a popular show later than most.  I was curious about Downton Abby and got hooked right away.  I have the DVR set to record season 3.  I have finished watching season 1 on Netflix.  I need to figure out how to watch season 2.  Netflix doesn't have it yet.

They say the key to losing weight is exercise.  I certainly got enough yesterday.  Ed and I moved Kristin to her new dorm.  She transferred universities over the break.  Her new room is on the 4th floor of an older dorm that doesn't have an elevator for student use.  We had to carry all of her stuff up 4 flights of stairs.  Another artifact of the older building is that the floors are designated:  Ground - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5.  It truly was 4 flights of steps to get to the 4th floor.

Kristin's new roommate lived alone last semester and left for break not know anyone would be moving in with her.  She warned Kristin that the room was going to be a mess.  Kristin got to move in on Friday since she is a transfer student.  Returning students don't come back until Sunday.  We helped Kristin push stuff aside so that she could walk into the room.  We then moved the girl's stuff out of Kristin's closet and into the other closet.  The girl told Kristin she could move things around however she wanted, but Kristin decided to wait until the roommate comes on Sunday.  Ed and I then helped move the junk on one bed over to the bed on the left in the picture below so Kristin would at least have a place to sleep.  I wiped the mattress down with Clorox wipes and made it up for Kristin.  As a mom, it was very hard leaving her in that state.  I hope the roommate is able to clean up her mess.  Kristin likes her room tidy.  It will drive her crazy if she has to live with a messy roommate.

The pug knitting is slowly coming along.  I'm halfway through the body.  The only trouble I'm having is the tight gauge.  My fingers don't like it.  Thank goodness this is a quick knit or else I'd never manage to finish it.

Needing a Long Winter's Nap

I know I'm a week late.  Lately that is normal.  Life is just too busy.

We finally wrapped up our Christmas celebrations.  My husband's parents weren't around this year for Christmas.  Normally we spend Christmas Eve with them, but this year they decided to head south.  They came back last week so we had them over for dinner on Sunday.  I prepared again the Christmas feast, having done it once already for the season on Christmas Eve.  We had a nice time Sunday, but now I'm ready to put the decorations away and hibernate for the rest of the winter.

Honestly, I have about 2 more weeks to get through and then I can hibernate for the winter.  At work, the project I have been working on for a year is getting migrated to the production environment over the weekend of January 18-22.  I will probably work close to 40 hours that weekend alone.  Once it is done, I will remind the CIO of my company that he promised me some long overdue down time.  I won't be able to do it, but I would love to camp out in a cabin for several days and do nothing but eat, sleep, spin and knit.  First prohibiting factor is that I don't have a cabin to use.  Second prohibiting factor is family obligations.  As much as I wish I could disappear for a while, it really isn't worth it because when I come back things were so neglected while I was away it takes weeks to recover.

Last week I finished the cowl I was knitting in the previous post.  Without thinking, I boxed it up and shipped it off to a friend.  I forgot to take a picture of the finished product.  I could kick myself!!!  I have more yarn so I guess I will just have to knit myself one.

Hopefully I won't make the same mistake with this project.

These are the legs of a knit pug I am making for my niece.  She owns a pug named Odie. Hopefully he'll turn out as cute as the model with the pattern.