Month: January 2007

Sweet. I just picked my first double sided lock.

JT, Frank and a friend of his are going off to Tahoe in about 5 hours. JT was busy at home, putting stuff in his car, and he went to go put his snowboard up on his SUV, and doh! He found the ski attachment was locked. Well, no problem, he’ll just find the key and open it. Unfortunately the key was stuck in the other ski attachment – or rather I should say, half of the key was stuck there. Last season, JT managed to rip his key in half in his haste to come inside from the cold. So he was stuck…

He calls me up and luckily I had some spring steel that I had ground down into a lock pick at the bike shop. So I went over there and picked it. Sweet. I’m proud of myself, and have promptly earned a ton of, as Allen Iverson would say, street cred.

Yesterday I taught Vince how to use the timer function on my camera. He experimented. Jeremy wasn’t home yesterday for the timed photo so tonight Vince wanted to show off his new skill and propped the camera on our electronic keyboard for a family photo.

“You were standing right in front of me, Vince!”, said Jeremy. So Vince runs and tries to set up another photo. He grabs for the camera and resets the timer and balances it on the keyboard again but this time I see the camera slide off the keyboard and smash onto our marble flooring, which is pretty hard, just ask Edda who still falls and hits her head on it every once in a while.

Does it still work?

(Look at Vince’s face of concern. He did apologize quite promptly and rubbed my cheek with his little hand.) Apparently it still focuses and takes pictures although the outer case is a bit dinged up and it’s a little difficult to push the power button. Oh well, remind me again how I should never ever buy a super expensive camera.

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I’m making progress on my Icarus shawl. Thank goodness the main part of the shawl is over, it was really quite boring after I got over the initial shock of starting my first real lace project.

I’ve copied the pattern and I’m slowly crossing off the rows. I always imagine people knitting without patterns in front of them, but somehow I can’t manage this. Maybe someday…

The repeats are pretty easy to remember but I have to remember not to fly by the center spine which is slightly different than the body of the repeat. In the past I’ve actually had the stitch marker on the needle and I had to slide it from one needle to the next and I hated doing this, so I stopped marking the center spine. Then for about 5 RS rows, I completely knit past the center without noticing and I would have to backtrack. So I went back to marking, but this time, just a little under the needle, so no sliding and I can see when the center is coming up! So lame not to think of this earlier.

The fringe part is filled with unusual yarn overs. From a knit stitch to a yarn over to a purl stitch to a yarn over to a knit stitch. The first yarn over seems a mile longer than the second yarn over, but I guess it will all even out with blocking.

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Scientific name: Solanum rostratum
Common name: buffalo burr
Location: Austin, TX

Thursday is spaghetti night. Spaghetti is our favorite family meal, everyone loves to eat it – no one complains. Edda eats it all chopped up, Vince and Jeremy like to twirl with a spoon and I just shovel it in.

Sausage first. I cut it up into disks when they are frozen because I usually forget to put them into the fridge to defrost the night before. Today we had no onions, I usually throw a chopped one in. Then we add our favorite sauce.

I always laugh because Vince loves Paul Newman! I tried to explain that he is more famous for being a movie star but Vince thinks that he is the sauce man. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie starring Mr. Newman, but I’ve eaten gallons of his sauce. We have to go downtown to the fancy supermarket to horde up on this stuff. It’s good.

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I started knitting Pomatomus from knitty.com.

It’s my first time doing twisted stitches and so far the 1P, 1K tbl is working out just fine. I’m embarrassed to say that sometimes I forget which way to wrap the yarn around the needle to make the stitch straight or twisted so I’m hoping that I don’t screw up the pattern too much.

I’m using Sockotta yarn, which has a high cotton content and I think that will make the details of the sock show up better. Normally I’d feel a bit nervous about using a striping sock yarn on this textured pattern, but I think it’ll turn out fine. I do love the denim-y feel to the yarn.

Also, the pattern called for size 2 needles which is pretty standard for socks, but I find that the stitches turn out too loose for my taste, so I switched to size 0.

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Scientific name: Agaricus
Common name: mushroom
Location: Singapore

Edda fell asleep in the car today. Unusual for her.

So Vince picked up the slack at physical therapy.

Today Edda told me that she had to go to the potty – by ripping the “toilet” PECS sign off the wall at her school! It could not have been clearer.

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Scientific name: Thunbergia grandiflora
Common name: Blue Skyflower
Location: Singapore

1. I love McDonald’s and when I am there I usually order a Big Mac.
2. I love oranges, peaches and cherries.
3. I would like to be a vegetarian, but cooking with meat makes meal planning and cooking easier.
4. When I was in college, I had pretty bad heartburn which went away after I became vegetarian for about a year.
5. I did not know how to cook when I got married.
6. I do not drink coffee but I go to Starbucks often.
7. I prefer salty snacks over sweet snacks – Doritos over Hershey’s any day.
8. Now I can cook pretty well.
9. I didn’t eat avocado, mayonnaise, or sour cream regularly until 1996.
10. I like to try new things so there is nothing on my absolutely-will-not-eat list.

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Scientific name: Gardenia coronata
Common name: Yellow Gardenia
Location: Singapore

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I have officially joined the Flickr Nation. Woo hoo. What’s my most viewed and popular photo? Why of course, it’s a picture of my most favorite, extremely photogenic nephew, Vince. 🙂 119 views in like a week. All my other photos are at a scrapping 3 views.

Edda has a tendency to not sleep well if she doesn’t eat a good dinner. Since we have very poor memories, we relearn this lesson every few weeks or so – including last night. So to insure a good night’s sleep for everybody, here’s Jeremy encouraging Edda to have “just one more bite!” (Jeremy looks funny because he’s sucking in his tummy! Why? I have no idea.)

I started knitting some socks today. My shawl is getting too big to carry in my purse and I like having a portable project with me.

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Scientific name: Bixa orellana
Common name: Achiote, Lipstick tree
Location: Singapore

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Scientific name:Antirrhinum
Common name: Snapdragon
Location: Austin, TX

Vince needs a family photo for school on Monday.

Today was the first time I heard Vince explain to a stranger why Edda keeps sticking her hand into her mouth and is a little tippy when walking. We were at the park and he was playing with another family (for a total of about 30 seconds) and Edda walked over and he launched into enthusiastically introducing Edda (She’s my sister!) to them and explaining why she mouths. It was kind of cute, but also a lot of information for some folks you’ve known for less than a minute.

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Did you know that aloe grew this red flowers?

Scientific name: Aloe (about 400 species – not sure which one this is)
Common name: Aloe
Location: Austin, TX