Stuck on Socks

M is for

Muffaletta

I was introduced to this New Orleans gem by (still) blogless Jackie. Although she's a Michigander (is that a word?), her roots are in NO which makes her the best authority on that area that I know. Enter the Muffaletta. If you love olives and crusty bread, this is the sandwich for you! Easy to make, even easier to eat (just one more bite!), this will blow any diet in a matter of seconds. Want to make one of your own? Here's a recipe, and here's the "official" Wikipedia entry. Want another look? Enlarging the photo will only make you hungrier!

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One more "M"

Just couldn't let this letter go by without a Margarita!

L is for

Leather Leash

At Crafty Canines, dog stuff is a big part of our lives. Seeing as how humans are outnumbered 2 to 1, it seems reasonable to me. This is the first leather leash I purchased with the intention of showing my dog in the obedience ring. It was used with Gretchen, Elvis, and Pearl on all their Companion Dog titles (4 in all, Pearl has both AKC and UKC titles). It was 6 feet long when new, although it's almost certainly a bit longer now. If you want a leash for your dog, make the investment in leather. This isn't even good leather and I've been using it for almost 10 years now. Leather is so much easier on your hands than nylon. I have other leather leashes of course. Shorter ones, braided ones, dark brown and tan ones. This is still my favorite. Not too wide, not too thick, and now it's soft as butter. I hope to use it for many years to come.

K is for

Kite

This photo was taken on Easter 7 years ago. The day was bright and windy and we just couldn't stay indoors. So we took to the field with our kites. Elvis was a lanky young adult and wanted to do everything himself. Including fly the kite! He really is holding the stick with string in his mouth, and I'm really not looming in a menacing fashion at all. In fact I was squealing which doesn't happen often. Elvis may have been slightly alarmed at that. But he held on for a couple minutes and I'm very thankful to have this fun photo to remember it with.

J is for

Jigsaw Puzzles

It's been a long time since I worked a jigsaw puzzle. Pity, I really do love them! 500 pieces is a good amount if I'm working it alone, but my favorites are the 1000+ that my family used to set up around the Christmastime holidays in the living room to help keep boredom at bay. Nowadays, I have a cat that loves to steal pieces so I'd have to use one of those roll up mats to protect it. Then you've lost the spontaneous moments where you stop to just check if this piece goes over here. Or maybe here. Or there. And before you know it, an hour has flown by.

H is for

Well, let me start at the beginning…

This past weekend was the long awaited flyball tournament in Davisburg, Michigan hosted by the Slammers team. Pearl was just single-entered (one team’s worth of races) so I was looking forward to a less hectic than usual weekend. As usual, I was barging in on my friend Jackie – you remember her Olympic knitting?

To make the weekend perfect, we both took an extra day off work to go on a yarn store hop on Friday. We started with an excellent breakfast the Breakfast Club, then headed toward Lansing. You know what’s in Lansing, right? We’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks but still, there’s a lot in that store to take in and it can all be pretty overwhelming.

Here’s what I bought:
Cabin Fever pattern for a summertime tank top knit circularly and some cotton in a nice green.

But also the new Spin-Off, some Malabrigo for a scarf, a couple sock Chibis (one for me, one as a gift for Angela), and the the Celtic Dreams pattern that other people are knitting.

And here are Jackie’s purchases:

clockwise from top left – Lorna’s Laces, Manos of Uruguay, Schaeffer Anne, and some completely decadent silk.

But then we got in the car and braved many miles and lots of traffic and innumerable stoplights and finally arrived at my “H” for the ABC-Along:

H is for…
My new favorite LYS, Heritage Spinning in Lake Orion, MI. Yeah, I know, not exactly local to Cincinnati. You have no idea how disappointed I am that I forgot my camera. Ohhhh, the sock yarn room. I will go back and remember the camera – I promise! The suggestion to visit came from one of Jackie’s coworkers and I’m sooo thankful for it! From the first step in the doors all the way back through the spinning area, I was in awe. Wonderful yarns, amazing samples, and the Heritage Handpaints --- oh, don’t get me started! The gushing is not uncalled for.

Let me just get right to the photos:
My conservative haul – I showed amazing restraint:

Left to right is 6.8 oz of beautiful handpainted superwash merino (this is the spinning I couldn’t wait to start the other day), 500 yards of superwash sock yarn handpainted in the amazing “Go fly a kite” colorway, and last is 6 oz of Shetland and other wools in an oddly appealing color called Green Zebra. Although this is all I bought, I almost bought a whole lot more. And I’m sure I will buy more on my next visit which just can’t be too soon.

Here are Jackie’s choices:
2 Opals and 2 Heritage Handpaints – all of it oh, so worth it! The red is superwash sock yarn and the dark blue is 50/50 silk and wool. You can just use your imagination about the luxury of that skein.

What a day! What a weekend! I took my ball winder and swift and it’s a good thing – lots of balls of yarn are ready to be knit. Here’s the Anne getting the treatment, but my money is on the red handpaint hitting the needles first.

What day would be complete with some refreshment? You know what I like! But to make sure they were up to my high standards, our socks sampled the margaritas:

Is it just me or does it seem like my yellow and orange sock is dipping in a little more aggressively?

Finally, a lovely sky shot of the view from Jackie’s patio.

I hope everyone can have a day this wonderful soon!

G is for

Games

My biggest time-suck of all - including dog and fiber activities - is playing games. Hard to do when you live alone? Nope. Computer games to the rescue. But I don't play those fancy PC games - I prefer my good 'ol Hoyle Board games. Every meal is eaten in front of the PC while playing Pachisi (Parcheesi but spelled differently for legal purposes I assume). I've discovered that I'm not fond of playing the "human" type computer players so my regular opponents are Roswell, Harley, and Marvin. For myself, I choose the crocodile and usually win in spite of upping the level to the highest difficulty where all the bad rolls are programmed to come to me. Here's a screen shot of me winning. Again.

But my real love is card games. The old standby in my family is Multiple Solitaire. Anyone else play this? Everyone is required to have a visibly different deck of cards and you play a traditional Klondike game but all the aces go to a common area and everyone plays onto all of them. Rules are: no kicking, biting, scratching, pulling hair, using two hands, or crying. In the case of multiple finishers, divide the finished cards and count 'em. Whoever got the most up wins. I can remember playing this with 7 people at one time at a large picnic table while camping. Ahhh, good times.

This is a photo of 4 of my 40-some decks of cards. These just happen to be two of my favorites - I couldn't quite squeeze through the clutter to get to that part of the closet. Of the butterflies, I play the blue ones and from Colonial Williamsburg, it's always the Governor's Palace - the girls in dresses - who knows why I play them. Lucky cards maybe? My all-time favorite deck is unfortunately at my mother's house and is tigers. I always get the orange and black Bengal tigers and whoever is unlucky enough to have to lose to me gets the white tigers. Hmmm.... I wonder why so few in my family will play me now? Do you think I rub it in too much? Am I too competitive? Maybe I should work on that.

And now, for a few days at least, I'm temporarily caught up in the ABC-Along.

Lagging Behind

F is for fur. Anyone who knows me would agree that there is no other word I could possibly put with the letter F. It's on my clothes, my carpet, it's the main ingredient in my household dust. You learn to live with it - buy clothing in dog colors so it doesn't show so much. Worst Christmas gift ever? The year I asked for dark, jewel tone sheets and instead received sheets in the palest, most delicate blue. Yeah. That'll hide it.

Some of Elvis' fur: That bit of tannish color just below the collar? Fun stuff - I could probably spin that - fluffy undercoat from his German Shepherd linage. It's coming out like crazy right about now. Spring does that to a dog.

Louie says: "don't forget about my fur!" I could definitely spin this fur. Every bit of it is soft and cottony. It sticks to everything. And all winter and through most of the spring, we have a static problem. Poor guy. His fur will stick together in clumps from the static. It's hard to even touch him. We've both been shocked so many times it's not funny. In the middle of the night he'll want to knead the covers - you should see the sparks fly then.

And because I can't leave Pearl out, here is some of her fur you wouldn't normally see. Yes, that's white in there. Can you guess what bit of anatomy this is?

E is for

Since I moved away from home, I've become a picky eater. But I'll always eat eggs. They have to be cooked right, of course. None of that runny white stuff.

Hard boiled and devilled, or made into egg salad. Sunny side up, scrambled, omlets with cheese. Poached? Um, no. Did you ever make an egg in the hole? Cut a circle out of the center of a slice of bread and fry the egg in the hole. I haven't made one in years, but those were one of my (and my brother's) favorite breakfasts growing up. I prefer farm fresh eggs but I'm between suppliers at the moment. Brown ones from the grocery will have to do for now.

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In Project Spectrum news, I finished spinning and plying the Red Hot merino roving. Pretty!

And even though I have 2 socks in a race and nearing the finish, during the Oscars, I cast on the Neapolitan from Dani. The plain stockinette is a nice change of pace. Let's see, I cast on the Tiger stripe socks last fall? Is that how long ago I started working on them? Which do you think will be done first?

D is for

Disc-Doggin’

Here’s Pearl’s second favorite sport – and all you need to know to get started if your dog happens to love catching discs and bringing them back to you to throw again. And again. And again. And again. You know that type of dog? Yep, that’s Pearl.

Can’t throw a frisbee? Here you go.

Just like obedience and agility, there are several organizations that sanction canine disc events:
Skyhoundz FDDO UFO IDDHA NADDCA

They all have their own rules and events – but each is designed for maximum fun for dog, handler and spectators. If you notice a disc dog competition going on in your area, it’s a guaranteed good time.

There are 2 main events: Toss and Fetch, and Freestyle. T/F is just what it sounds like – throw the frisbee and the dog catches it and brings it back to do it again as many times within a minute (or other predetermined time allotment) for a score based on where the dog caught each disc. Freestyle is tricks performed to music that is scored according to each organization’s own requirements.

My local area (SW Ohio) is rich with events and clubs, as well as amazing talent. In addition to my own club, within easy driving distance there are also great clubs in Indianapolis and Kentucky. All three clubs have talented members that regularly qualify for and win regional and national competitions.

Is this dog having fun or what?

C is for...

CUBICLE As always, click it to make it bigger*

My original plan was to tidy before I took these pictures but then I remembered that this –along is supposed to say a little bit about ourselves. My name is Beth and I’m a slob and so is my cubicle. This is two photos put together (not terribly well) but it gives a pretty good look at my workspace. Not pictured is the set of shelves going all the way up the wall to the left and you also can’t see the cubicle wall to the right which has a calendar and a few more notes tacked up on it. Or the stacks of boxes around the corner waiting to be opened and worked on.

This could be a picture in an I Spy book, couldn’t it?

So here’s a list of things to find:
My nametag
Hedgehog
Scissors
Charlotte
Bengals 05-06 schedule
Headphones
Thermometer
Paper cutter
Knitting project

*edited to add - Although I keep saving a good-sized photo, Typepad keeps shrinking it so I Spy as best you can.

A few things to notice – I’ve got two computers. Well, one is a dumb terminal but I use both quite a bit. And there’s lots of dog pictures – Pearl playing frisbee, Elvis in the sun. And don’t you just love my window view?

If you’re wondering what sort of work I actually do, it mostly consists of cataloging DVDs (and still a few VHS). I make sure library users can type a title (or subject or actor or director etc.) into the catalog and see if we actually own what they’re looking for. Of course there’s a cataloger’s bible that I have to follow to be sure all the records have the same format which helps our catalog software do all kinds of wonderful things. (We’re a Triple I library, if anyone is interested and knows what that means.) The discs also need labels and stickers of all sorts and I should probably also mention that all the videos for 10 branches go through my cube.
I do a few other things like compile statistics and work on special projects that inevitably come my way. I have fantasies about getting all caught up and cataloging some books too – just to help out. And as soon as I get momentum going, some extra project will hit my inbox and the fantasy will evaporate. Again. Is it any wonder I need my knitting time at lunch to stay sane?