I am FINALLY connected again! But it’s late. I haven’t had time to knit! I didn’t even have the phone for 24 hours, and no internet for another 12. Talk about not being a happy camper. I DID learn about how to open up my computer and install things though. And the tech staff was good, but I am unhappy w/ the sales staff for not giving me any heads up on any of this. I’m calling them tomorrow and telling them I want them to make me happy…so me and my big mouth can tell the wide variety and large number of people that I know that I AM HAPPY with them and can recommend them rather than the other way around. This dsl sure is fast though…la harlotta came up super quick! No word from the button connection, so I may get something I saw at purl diva…big pink shiny stone looking buttons.

A year ago I met these creatures

Actually, this pic was taken 366 days ago…but I met them the day prior! Only one was distinguishable, the big tank, who got named Clifford. The rest, they all looked alike. Zuzu is in that pile, and so is Sid. Their momma, Mickey, is 1/2 border collie (Mickey’s mom is named Kate and is about the sweetest border collie…and I had one for 16 years) and 1/2 lab (Mickey’s dad is a big yellow lab named Tucker). Kate and Mickey and a sister (auntie to Zuzu) from another litter named Bear are all used in therapy work w/ kids. They are really great tempered dogs. The pups father is a nice looking and nicely behaved black standard poodle named Mikey (this gets confusing w/ Mickey).

The puppies were all so even tempered that we let Nick choose from the 5 girls. He picked puppy “b” at 5 weeks or so…even though I liked puppy c. The following weekend I told him we had to go back to visit the pups (who I’d been visiting regularly since they were born)…he got all mad at me thinking I was trying to trick him into getting puppy c. First thing he said to Karen (the woman who bred the pups and she owns Mickey, Kate, Bear, and Tucker-and she used to own Mikey the poodle) was “which is b?”…of course she had no idea! They all looked alike…though they were beginning to start to show very minor differences…one girl had a small hernia, she and another was a bit bigger, one had a bit of a pointier nose (zuzu), one had a more distinguised stop…but I’m telling you, they were all black curly things…and until you tipped them over, it was even hard to tell the boys from the girls! Except for Clifford…the tank. And what did I notice on that visit?, that the curly girl (who was “c”) was quite the explorer…separating from the rest of the litter and sneaking under a fence and off she went! So, I wasn’t at all sad to say “b”!

I’d load up more puppy pics (the day Nick chose and the week following), but this last pic took 10 (TEN) minutes to load up! At 7 weeks, the pup came home to visit for the day, and she came home named Zuzu at 8 weeks. She might have been zuzu at 7 weeks, hard to remember anymore! I do remember that we were tossing around names, and Don woke up one morning saying “cocoa” or “zuzu”…that night I came back from petco stocking up on something and what was on? It’s a Wonderful Life…so zuzu it was!

Here she is mid December, about the time we brought her home,

And now she’s the big girl you have seen in other photos. I’ll take a new one soon and post it. We were going to have a birthday party for Zuzu and Sid (a friend owns Sid), but they are still in quarantine. Only 10 days to go…it’s been a long 45 days. Did we do anything special? No. What bad doggie parents! I went with julie to see Ellen at Purl Diva . Ellen was having a premie hat knitathon. Bad Juju crocheted!!! Ellen said she’d post pics of the folks that were there today, so go check out her page.

Hey Tom, get Julie to make you something that uses this

Ginny’s Amazing Pie Crust (I have no idea what it is really called, but Ginny gave me the recipe)

12 Tbs butter, cut in 3/4 inch cubes, freeze 30 minutes

In a food processor, mix
2 cups all purpose flour (or 2c+3Tbs pastry)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

Cut 4 1/2 ounces cream cheese into in 3 or 4 pieces, put into the food processor and process about 20 seconds, until it is a coarse meal.

Add frozen butter and pulse until the mix is pea size.

Add 2 Tbs ICE water and 1 Tbs cider vinegar and pulse until the mix is small pea size (this is ridiculous, right?, oh, and I’ve used white vinegar and this is still good)

Put all this in a plastic bag and knead it until stretchy. Put it in the fridge for 45 minutes.

What’s amazing about this pie crust is that (1) it rolls out super easy (2) it has a great texture, even though it isn’t finely flakey it is crisp and (3) it tastes good…well great with fruit pies. This makes more than enough for a two crust pie….I roll up the extra w/ some jam, kind of like rugelah.

NEWS…DSL TOMORROW CAN YOU SAY I AWAIT WITH BAITED BREATH? I will be moving this blog after I get DSL, but I’ll keep you posted. Hopefully it’ll happen by mid week, but certainly by the weekend.

And if anybody knows anybody who wants a horse, Karen has a nice filly named Suzy Q who was born in the spring. She’s a paint with a little “Q” on her hindquarter. I’m pretty sure she’s an arab…let me know, I’ll pass it along to her. She’s got pics on line someplace.

OK, well, the vest STILL isn’t quite done. I started pinning the I cord and couldn’t tell if it was straight, so put it off until daylight…but now I’m distracted! I decided to get 2 dichroic glass buttons, in pink and aqua if Cheryl has them. They’ll go on the black I cord so will mostly show up. And, the intended recipient doesn’t often go out, so they are for her, and I wanted them to be special. Here’s a pic of some other dichroic glass jewelry on the vest for a sense of what it might look like.

and up closer

Just finished premie cap #3

It’s a nice (but discontinued) yarn called Schachenmayr nomatta grande, 50 cotton 50 acrylic. I have a hoodie in the orange (trim on cap).

This is what I returned to that sale for

I’m thinking to make Don the spartan pullover in the reynolds georgetown. Gauge is close. I wanted to be extra sure there was plenty of yarn. But she didn’t have any white (I THOUGHT she did, but it’s gone), so either I’ll use the white sitting in the pic (but it’s a bit textured) or double up on some sport.

The new VK came. Love looking at them, but nothing is speaking to me in this issue. More anticipation for IK. I saw somebody else had holiday issue (with the felted pears on the cover), and have been waiting for it to arrive in my mailbox. Only yesterday did I discover that it is not w/ the subscription. Some of the patterns are repeats and I have them already, so I’m not so sure I want to purchase it. But check out the “old world booties” on their web page. It’s a free pdf…VERY cute!

And how cute is this?

Alotta wicked cute stuff for only $4 at Mr. Paperback, where I was browsing after finally getting the goldfish their food. These goldfish are something else. When Nick was about 4 we went to a magic show at a local church. He asked the magician if he could have one of the fish, and the guy gave them all to Nick (who is now nearly 11). They’ve been here since, in a tank perhaps too small, it’s 10 gal. There were 6 of them, but about 2 years ago the biggest one got pushed out. We found it dead and hard on the floor. Kept it in a ziploc in the freezer for a while for show and tell. Last year as I was on the toilet or getting into the shower and done with being needed as mom, I got frantic “mom!” “MOM”…I’m thinking NOW WHY CAN’T I HAVE 10 MINUTES TO MYSELF???? Well, it was the next biggest fish, flopping on the floor. But it got tossed back into its life sustaining liquid (couldn’t a 9 year old boy have done that???), and is still with us. Once they had names, but they change colors sometimes, so it’s hard to remember which is which. And they are fairly demanding about their food. At about 7 or 8 in the morning they’ll start flopping and splashing and putting their little puckering lips out of the water, especially if somebody walks by the tank. We’ve all gotten wet from them! So I starved them for a day or two…I think they’ll make it.

Quickie post…CSI has started!!! But I can see it from where I’m sitting.

The vest is mostly done…pieced together and has I cord around arm holes. I cord for rest of border is done but not attached…here it is looking like it’s done…

oooh, the nunnie bunnies found blood in the palm of a statue…stigmata and miracle? No, body hanging from the rafters. whew. commercial

What do you think of these buttons? They are dichromic glass from cheryl kumiski in NH.

I think they are very nice, but I wonder if they will get lost in the color/texture of the vest. Of the ones pictured here I think I like the pink and aqua ones for the vest. Would plain glass buttons be better? I’m thinking 2 buttons, about 1.5 inches, one at the bottom of the v neck and one maybe where the black horizontal I cord is separating the 2 squares. Thoughts???

And, here’s Dulaan (see side bar) #3, modeled by Nick.

Have you guys seen the Island of misfit patterns? I especially like the naughty squiddy toy…will post links later.

I am SO anxious to get the dsl service, I think I spend 1/2 my time posting waiting for pics to upload.

Oooh, handsome young priest…does that happen FOR REAL? The young guys I knew who went into seminary were not especially handsome or sexy…

Oh, and the yard/yarn sale is Sat AND Sun, both days starting at 8. 21 Meadow Rd (or new meadow rd?, see below)…

This entry was originally “and you thought YOU had stash…or…do I need more yarn?”, then some random mouse click, and the whole post disappeared!!! The only thing left was the second explorer page I had open for currency conversion. POOOOOP… And this was not too long after it took me 3 or 4 times to get the machine turned on and running (damn that windows me). I know what I want for xmas, a new computer!

Anyhow, I’ll try to get out of pissy humor and show you the fantabulous fantasmagorical incredible find…

A yard sale? No a YARN sale! I thought probably mostly plastic, but maybe a few gems…NO! It was all good! Sirdar, Encore, Reynolds, Berocco, Lopi, other icelandic wools, some irish wool (that I reluctantly left behind, it was cream), shetland (a nice brownish heather mostly left), cotton fleece, brunswick yarns of several varieties, phildar, patons, I don’t remember what all.

Here is $2 side

And $3 side

And that’s Griffey, he nearly bought the farm when I walked across the street, apparently he thought I was some relative,

This is what I took away

Inside bag #1

is 10 or so skeins cotton fleece in antique lace, 5 Phildar Lenox 83 (superwash wool worsted 100g-a sweater for Nick?), 3 shetland (dk? looks like the $8 skeins of jamiesons, but it is another brand-gloves?) and 6 Briggs & Little 2 play (worsted, 4 oz skeins-ooh, love the mustard, a cabled sweater for me?).

And inside bag #2

is 5 Brunswick Berber Tweed (worsted, 50 wool 50 cotton, 250yd-something simple for me?), 12 Reynolds Georgetown (90 wool 10 mohair 120 yd-sweater for Don?), 10 light and 1 dark Adriafil papua (cotton tape 110 m-summer top, for me? again?), 6 Brusnwick Rams Wool (superwash bulky-gift for some kid), 2 saucy (no idea), and 1 phildar Mogador (flashy, black and gold, will use for black felted bag).

Ok, did I need more yarn? No… Could I pass this by? No!! I checked retail, and assuming $5 for Georgetown and mogador (couldn’t find these), and $8 for the shetland…that’s $349 worth of yarn!!! for a bit less than half. Great deals on berber tweed and cotton fleece…the rest just good deals.

SO FOR YOU…she’s doing this again next weekend! Be there, 8 am on Saturday, the 21st, 21 Meadow Rd, Augusta (the road behind Mattson’s off Western Ave).

I’ve got most of the I cords done for the vest…pics when it’s together…