The longest week on record!!!!

I'm coming to the close of a very big project at work. The past week has been spent testing and retesting and retesting the software. Actually, I'm technically not doing the testing. As the project manager, I'm directing the testing, or being the testing bitch, as I've been referred to occasionally this week. Things haven't gone smoothly, which is typical with testing software. Murphy's Law rears its ugly head often. But some (too many) of the bumps were due to stupid human error. I expect software to misbehave when put through the rigours of testing, but I get extremely frustrated when someone makes the same stupid error when setting up the tests three times in a row!!! Actually inflicting physical harm on the project team is not a wise career move. Instead, I pulled out one of my double pointeds and casually mentioned that there are other uses for it besides making socks. Now, if I survive Monday morning when we migrate the software to production, I might actually get some of my sanity back.



In my last post, I had attempted to upload some picture of my acquisitions from Stitches East. Here's one of the sample blocks I made from the Get Twisted class:


Here's another in progress. I've fallen in love with doing cables. In the Get Twisted class, the diagrams for 4 sampler blocks were provided along with instructions for making a cute little bag out of them. If I have enough Lamb's Pride Worsted to make the bag, I will.


This will someday become my first attempt at making an Unpatterns sweater:


And this is my first skein of Socks That Rock. The colors are wild and fun.


Now, it is time to get a glass of wine and relax. Tomorrow's a big day. Daughter #2's volleyball tournament is tomorrow. Wish them luck.

Is October Really Almost Over?

I really meant to return sooner, but as usual, the evenings slip away before I know it. Right now I have a mostly quiet house. Dancer is in the other room reading a book. Dash is at his karate lesson. Ed is running. And VBGirl is at the library working on a project. (She is with her friends, so I doubt there is really not a lot of work being done. But they aren't here, so I'm happy.)

Since my last post there has been a flurry of activity. Ed and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary on September 30. It is hard for me to believe we've been married that long. This is going to sound like a cliche, but it is getting better as time goes on, like a fine wine. (There may be a clue in that saying. Our consumption of wine has grown proportionally with the years we have been married.) To celebrate, we went to first to the Wine Shoppe Bistro. After an appetizer and a glass of wine, we went to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for a nice dinner.

The next weekend was packed with activities. Friday night was spent transporting the girls and their friends to the high school football game. Saturday was the league tournament for VBGirl's team. The tournament started off badly with them losing the first match. It ended on a positive note with the girls winning the consolation bracket. [I tried to upload a picture but the server wasn't cooperating.]

After the tournament, I headed out of town to attend my 25th high school reunion. It was fun seeing a lot of my friends from high school. We all agreed that we all looked great and haven't aged a bit. There may be a bit more of us than in high school, but we're aging very, very gracefully. [no luck uploadign a picture of the reunion either]

Over the following weekend, I flew to Baltimore to meet one of my sisters and attend Stitches East. It was a great 4-day weekend. I took three classes and Patty took 4 classes. After the weekend was over it occurred to me that she and I have never spent that much one-on-one time together. My favorite classes were the Unpatterns class and the Get Twisted class about cables. [I'll try to post pictures from Stitches another time.] I bought about 1500 yards of Decadent Fibers Cookie Dough while at Market. I plan to use it to make my Unpatterns sweater. Now all I have to do is find a decent template sweater to work from.

Hmmm... I think I know just the thing. Time to go find it and take some measurements.

Ketching Up

Two weeks ago I was feeling domestic and nostalgic. My dad used to do a lot of canning, but since his stroke 7 1/2 years ago he hasn't been able to do it anymore. When my mom mentioned that they finally have used up the last jar of one of his favorite things to make, I decided I wanted to give it a try and carry on the family tradition.

What do you do with 14 pounds of ripe tomatoes, a half dozen green peppers and 6 medium onions?
If you add spices, vinegar and sugar and cook for 3 hours, blend, strain, and cook for 1+ hours longer, you get something very yummy...
12 pints of delicious Grandma Kettler's homemade ketchup.

This recipe came from my Grandma Kettler, my dad's mother. Dad made this many times when he was able to do canning. He wrote the recipe, and several variations, inside of an old recipe booklet my mom sent away for shortly after they were married in 1953. The booklet is a treasure, but even more so with my dad's handwriting inside. The booklet also contains the recipe my dad followed to make saurkraut and one variation of corn relish. Unfortunately, this variation is one my mom wasn't too fond of and she can't find the other recipe. If she can locate it, I'll give it a try.

Now to the knitting portion of our show. The other evening I decided I wanted to watch my middle daughter's volleyball practice. I took along one of my UFOs. Another mom sitting next to me asked if what I was making was for Ed. When I answered they were for me, she got a rather puzzled look on her face. She said they look like they could be for Ed but doesn't know why he'd need 2.


They aren't what you think! I have to admit, though, they do look awfully funny. It never occurred to me what they looked like until Diana said something. Ed got a big kick out of the story when I told him. Later that week when he ran into Diana as the school, he told her that they were too little to be for him.


What they really are: socks, toe-up, two at once on one circular needle. A couple years ago, a friend and I took a class on how to do two at once on one circular needle. I loved the technique because you get the pair done all at once. No strays laying about. Some time after the class, I came across the pattern for toe up socks in Knitty.com and fell in love with the pattern. The socks fit perfectly, so I decided to see if I could make it work with two at once. It worked out fabulously. This is actually my second pair done this way. I doubt I'll go back to making one at a time.

My Favorite Season(s)

This is my favorite time of year. The weather starts getting cooler. I can sleep with the windows open and listen to the night sounds. Most of the song birds have migrated, so I don't get woken up at 5:00 am by them. In a couple more weeks, I'll notice the first leaves changing. It is hard to tell if it will be an early change or late change. I'm guessing early since we had such a hot, dry summer. However, we've gotten a fair amount of rain lately, so the leaves may hang on longer.

Another reason I love this season is football. I got to go to the season opener for The Ohio State University with my sister Karen, my brother Tom, and Tom's son. Tom and I are both graduates of OSU. Karen goes with me to the games whenever Ed doesn't feel like going. Here's a picture Karen took of the boys. It was mini-Tom's first college football game.


As usual, this first game was Alumni Band Day. This year about 800 former band members showed up to play. I believe the announcer said the oldest was 92 years old!! It was awesome to see all those people. They sounded great. At halftime, along with the regular OSU Marching Band, they performed the greatest tradition is college football - Script Ohio. There were too many Alumni band members present for all of them to participate, so some had to play from the side lines.


The Buckeyes came away with a victory. It was a good day!