Long weekends,

are pretty much the best thing ever. Late summer ones are even better. You get to do things like process all the beans! This year I planted green beans (my favourite) and red runner beans. After a tough start due to cold weather and very hungry slugs, I am finally seeing some results.

Left to right we have Frenched blanched green beans, pre-blanched red runner beans, and larger (older) green beans just chopped & blanched. It was all I could do to not leap in and steam up the entire lot of Frenched beans and eat them with butter and salt. Soooo good that way.

I decided I was going to blanch the red runner beans and freeze them for use in soups/stews/etc later in the winter. See how pretty they are? All bright red and purple. Look at them after blanching:

They went all dusky purple. Nature is so weird!

Today I grated and froze between 8 and 10 pounds of zucchini for winter use. Also probably in soups & stews but possibly in muffins & breads. This week we’ll be buying canning jars and starting to process all the beets. Oh my, do we have beets. LOL

Finally, the most fun this weekend was had making tubey scarves on a friend’s circular sock knitting machine. This this is soooo cool! I took a couple videos:

and

Oh wait. And finally finally, I finished a pair of socks:

These poor things have been on the go forever. I’ve knit and ripped them 3 times before finally being reasonably content with this pattern. They will be nice and warm when winter comes again. Which seems so far away when I’m still having to put on sunscreen before I go out and work in the yard.

 

I spend a lot of time…

On transit:

I don’t drive so me and the bus/train/neighbourhood bus, we’re pretty close. I’m also crazy nosy and get bored easily. Like most 5 year olds you see out and about unattended. So, to stop me from mumbling and wandering off I try to find things to take pictures of. It’s like having an electronic pacifier for when I’m out in public. Today’s roundup:

Willing to bet this one is a little bit different from the one in Harry Potter. Probably a fair bit more vomit & people yelling, “No man! I love you!”

Reading:

As evidence, I offer this photo:

I went to pick up one book that I had pre-ordered. It was even prepaid. There was absolutely no reason for the additional 4 books that leapt into my bag. Sigh.

Knitting:

This is my next big project. Still in string form, obviously:

Top down cardigan starting with the lightest and moving to the black. So excited!

Being distracted:

Bus bench engraved graffiti

The Fraser River and a rather unsettled bit of weather for the commute home.

Now, I’m going to have grilled cheese sandwiches & tomato soup for dinner, look at my books, and hopefully not get greasy fingerprints on the pages.

Happy Thursday.

Wednesday’s child is full of woe

Poor Wednesday, right?  What a burden to drag around.  I have to admit though, this week?  Wednesday is feeling a bit woey.  Probably not a word but that’s okay.  It is now. 

I’ve been feeling a little sporadic and in need of some pretty intensive nesting.  In the name of sporadic I give you the following:

Yarnpiggy, the Mr. and I had a little post new year’s cheesefest.

There were no fewer than 5 kinds of cheese at this soirée.   And faux champagne.  Very tasty stuff.

I also would appear to have a full fledged Wollmeise addiction problem as evidenced by this rather disgusting display:

Good thing I’m on a yarn diet for 2010.  Oy vey.

Last but not least, when I was unrolling toilet paper this morning I heard a sort of ‘ting’ kind of noise.  There on the floor was a perfect little clear plastic button.

It was trapped in the roll.  You could see the impression of it on the sheets.  Weird, right?  I wonder what else is inside that roll?  Will I end up with a whole set of buttons?  Maybe a buckle or two?

Finally, I read 42 books last year.  Definitely getting back to normal on the reading front.  I’m hoping to hit 45 this year.

 

Wondrous delicacies from far off places

I may have discovered the new Silk Road.  I was pretty surprised to realize that you can take Skytrain and Seabus to get there too, and that it’s only about an hour from Surrey.  Once there I was guided by the wonderful yarnpiggy who is a native of this amazing land.  Just look at the exotic things we found!

Chocolate, tea, fine china, and luscious olives.  I’ve been having dreams about those huge red olives since I first tasted one a month or so ago.  Mmmmmm.  And let’s not forget the silk portion of the Silk Road.

Hello Handmaiden and Fleece Artist!  These were discovered in the very cute Urban Yarns.  Oh, and I can also highly recommend the food at Burgoo Bistro and more than highly recommend their private label white wine.  Gorgeous.

It was such a wonderful day.  I’m now enjoying some of my new tea in that great Welsh mug.  So awesome.

Happy Thursday!

Hubby needed a camera for work, for insurance claims and such.  He decided it would be good if he took my old Canon Powershot and I got a new one.  He also did not have to tell me twice.  On Tuesday a new little Canon Elph came home to live at our house.  It is so wee and I think I might be a bit smitten with it.  First picture I took?

Of course I took a picture of the nearest animal.  Hi Stella Bo Bella.  Not a great pici.  I’m sensing there will be a small learning curve with the new technology.

Then today I had to pick up a package at the post office.  A week or so ago Lectio had sent out a twitter alert that she was running perilously close to not having enough of a certain Noro Kureyon yarn to finish her lovely cardigan.  As fate would have it, I had a ball of the colour she was looking for in the stash.  Take that Murpy’s law!  Hubby got out the FoodSaver TM.  super sealed it up that yarn, and Canada Post took it to her.  Turned out she did have enough, so Murphy was double bumped, but she’s thinking of a hat to match the sweater.  I think she’s going to need it.  It’s been snowing off and on at her place all week!

Anyway, I picked up this package from the post office and behold:

Um, yeah.  She ‘said’ she was going to be sending me one ball of Noro Kureyon in another colourway that she had, like a trade.  Get it?  She lied.  Look at this box o’ bootie!  It’s a Noro junkies wonderland.  Two skeins of Kureyon in a brilliant anti-winter grey colourway and a skein of Noro sock that makes me think of balloons at a birthday party.  But wait, there’s more!  Also in the box of treats, the coolest little gizmo ever.  Behold:

**Note, glass of wine is for scale only!**

I can now knit and read.  Sweet!  I’ve been using a rolled up tea towel to elevate my books coupled with a heavy plate to hold them open.  This is so much easier and compact.  It’s like I’ve been given fire, I’m that chuffed about this invention.

Thank you so much Lectio!  Also, and even more cool, she’s a published author!  She’s going to be in the the Evolve (scroll down a tiny bit), anthology that’s being published in spring 2010.  I keep checking the site for when I can pre-order.  Hopefully it will be soon.  She’s also been published in Kaleidotrope (which is also a very cool read).  Knitters who love zombies are truly cool individuals.

I leave you now with this.  We use a lot of garlic and ginger in our cooking.  I personally believe that stirfries (sp?) might just be one of the best food delivery methods ever.  While we were working on our kitchen and stuff we weren’t cooking much.  During that time our ginger sprouted.  I couldn’t eat it when it was trying so hard to live and grow.  So I planted  it.  Here is hubby’s picture of it.  He’s been playing with the settings of the new camera something fierce:

Then there is my interpretation of the same thing.  All auto, all the time.  I am just way too lazy to be as involved as him:

Hmmm, my colour is true but his image ‘cooler’ somehow.  Gotta go eat dinner now.  I’ll post hubby’s photo montage of beentsy (me, not the cat), tomorrow.

One word

Wollmeise.

Campari piccolo, Herzblut, Arlene

That is all.

Mini cruise!

On dialup?  Don’t even try today’s post.  It’s all about the photos.  Sorry.

Okay, we planned nothing and just left the house at 7:00 am and headed for the ferry terminal.  Decided to go to Victoria first and see how it went from there.

Let me just say right up front that I saw two seals and a killer whale but the moment I brought the camera up – poof, they were gone.  Must be shy.

We just made the 8:00 ferry, the Queen of New Westminster and we were on our way.

Deltaport

There was knitting:

Super secret lace & bead knitting is growing!  I got almost 6 hours work on her yesterday.

Hubby was laughing at me at this point so I asked him if he’d like a pici of his lap.  He said no, I did it anyway.  No knitting, heavy on the coffee:

Once in Victoria we headed to the inner harbour.  There you will find the historic Empress Hotel:

The Royal BC Museum:

The tallest spiral staircase I’ve ever seen.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t climb it, it was being worked on.  ;(

A lovely little garden & pond in the inner courtyard:

Then there were the Parliament buildings.  Victoria is the seat of government for British Columbia.  Not currently in session so I couldn’t chat with anyone about scrapping this whole HST thing.  Next time!

View from the harbour.

From the lawn:

Mr. B strolling on the grass

Queen Victoria

Honouring soldiers who died in Korean War:

Very cool place.  I wish we could have seen it at night when it’s all lit up.  We also had a really nice lunch at The Swiftsure Restaurant.  I highly recommend the halibut & chips.  Homemade tartar sauce.  Mmmm

Oh yeah, and I saw what I think might be the world’s biggest bottom whorl spindle at the harbour:

Human for scale:

After all this we were sure if we should hang out here all day and then head back home or if we should head up to Nanaimo and take the ferry from there.  Decided to head up island and see what we would see.

Along the way we passed the Whippletree Junction where I looked over and saw this sign:

Are you kidding me?  A yarn store in the middle of nowhere and it’s having a sale?  Squee!  This place was wild.  Yarn, floor to ceiling, little aisles that two people could not pass in.  Amazing.  Plus, they had stuff there that I’ve never seen here in the big city!  LOL.  Know what else they had?  7 skeins of Noro Kureyon in colour 128.  No, really, they did.  Now I have it!  Colour 128!  I can’t even express myself.  I also got a nice braid of Handmaiden spinning fibre (30% sea silk/70% silk), and 2 balls of Mini Mochi.  So soft!

At this stop we also fulfilled another mandatory car trip rule and purchased fudge and nice smelly soap.  It’s a bylaw, you have to do it.

More fortification and then back on the road:

Then we got to Nanaimo and because we didn’t know what the ferry schedules were like out of Duke Point back to Tsawwassen so we decided to just head to the terminal and make sure we got back home in a timely manner.  Creatures wanting their dinners and all.  Turns out, we just missed getting on the ferry that was about to load when we got there and had to wait 3 hours for the next one.

I remember this from when I was a kid but I was smaller then and I’m sure cars in the 70′s had more leg room and were more comfortable for extended sitting parties.  Got a tonne or knitting done though!

I got three hours of knitting done and then we got on the 5:45 pm ferry and we were heading back home.  It was some kind of windy and you almost felt like you would be swept off the deck.  Which explains the lack of focused photos.  LOL.  We were on the Queen of Alberni on the way back.

How cool would it be to live here:

Tired, wind & sun burnt, and ready for some food:

And that was our big adventure day.  The best part of a mini cruise?  You get to sleep in your own bed that night. 

Today, Harry Potter on Imax.  I understand the first 12 minutes is in 3D so that should be interesting.  Happy Friday all.

Well, this is a bit embarassing…

Yesterday I promised something pretty in sock weight by a Canadian dyer, right, right, no problem there:

Fleece Artist – BFL Socks – 115 gms/325m of lovely squishy goodness.  Unfortunately, my camera does not want to capture the red/fuchsia shades correctly.  Those sections that look sort of a barn red are MUCH more vibrant and vary between cherry/fuchsia/burgundy.  Loverly stuff.

Then, I promised something chunky and not from a Canadian dyer.  I can’t locate the skein I was thinking of here.  Maybe Stella ate it, who knows.  Anyway, in it’s place I offer you another skein of pretty sock weight ALSO from a Canadian dyer.  A local woman who owns Knitopia yarn store in Langley.   Unfortunately, they don’t have a website but here is a link to a google search of them.

So, what do I have for you?  This little bit of sunrise loveliness:

60% Merino/30% bamboo/10% nylon – 113 gms & 398 metres.  Very soft and it has a nice sheen to it too.  It does not say whether or not it’s superwash, so I would err on the safe side and hand wash if you are the lucky winner of this one.  Just think, you could make Tequila Sunrise socks.  How cool would that be?

So, post me a comment by midnight Pacific time, June 3, 2009, telling me what your favourite book is and why you liked it so much.  I’ll do the draw on June 4, 2009 and post up who the lucky winners are. 

Hmmmm, Sunday eh?

Half way through a long weekend (Victoria Day in Canada and Memorial Day in the US), which is sort of the unofficial first long weekend of summer, particularly for the weekend warrior type.  Huh, yeah, that would not be me.  I’m more of your weekend warrior typist I think.  See what I did there!  Snort, I slay me.

Okay, update time.  All these things going on and I get scattered and forget to let you know how stuff turned out.

1. Beentsy went back to the vet for her followup xray and like a good long weekend miracle, it looks like it was fluid on her lungs and the diuretics cleared it and she DOES NOT have lung cancer!  Much happiness ensued.  There is something going on with her liver or her kidneys so she’s getting an ultrasound on Thursday.  But either of those things could be managed with meds for a good long time.
2. My WordPress comment issue.  Thank you for all the very helpful suggestions, I tried all of them and it’s still very hit & miss.  I’ve sent them an email asking for help so I’ll let you know how that turns out.  I could just reply in the comments but that isn’t how I like it, darn it! 
3. Kitchen work is grinding along.  We started putting in new lighting.  Let me just say that when the former owner filled the walls with garbage and called it ‘recycling’ or ‘insulation’ he also thought this was perfectly normal and a good idea for the attic.  Dumb ass.  It’s not quite as much fun finding it in the attic as it was in the walls. Gravity and it falling on your face as you cut the holes for lights sort of sucks the joy out of that.  Here are the new lights:

And on:

18 watt compact fluorescents on a dimmer switch.  So much brighter then what was there before, which was nothing. 

Hmmm, what else, what else….oh yeah!  Stella snuck into the basement behind me while I was folding laundry and then snuck back out with a new victim.  This time is was a skein of Yarn Chef Minestrone Merino in beautiful oranges and golds.  Before:

After:

I think I can save most of it.  I think because it was a soft skein she couldn’t get a really good bite on it and snap through the individual strands in 75 million places like she normally does.  I firmly believe that cats are just a much more civilized pet than dogs.  I’ve never seen Beentsy running around the yard shaking a skein of yarn or a bra/sock/pair of underwear to death.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Beentsy run across the yard.  See!  Civilized I tell you!

Have a good rest of your long weekend everyone.  I think we’ll be installing the other three lights in the kitchen and then it’s time for this thing to get out of my house:

We’ll be without a stove for a few days.  Can you say barbecue?

Happiness is…

a wee box picked up from the post office:

Gratuitous skein of Noro for scale:

Tiny right?  Would you believe there is enough yarn in there for two cardigans?  Well there is!  One for me and one for yarnpiggy.  I’ll show you mine but it’s strictly up to yarnpiggy to show you hers!

Yep, I totally caved.  That’s four skeins of Malabrigo lace in Tiger Lily.  Grrrrrr!  Gonna make me a Featherweight Cardigan in almost but not quite safety orange!  Yay.

I ordered from Valley Yarn on Friday night, shipping confirmation received Saturday morning, card in my mailbox yesterday to pick up parcel today.  Sweet!  Mind you, Valley Yarn is almost a local yarn store for me so shipping to other further afield addresses would take longer.  There was also a nice little sample of Soak in the box, I’ll send that along to my co-orderer/enabler.  I already have this scent.    Shall I pop your yarn in the mail tomorrow if you wish, just drop me a note tonight.

Everything inside the box was wrapped up in a biodegradable plastic bag so it was all ecofriendly too.  Super service on this little mail order and really good prices.  Plus, added bonus, free shipping in the US and Canada on orders over $75.00.  Okay, my sales pitch is over. 

Now, I have to go soak my feet in some epsom salts.  I wore innapropriate shoes and then walked way more than was a good idea.  Oh vanity, thy name is strappy sandals on a sunny day!

The Beentsy entrée of the day will be leftover steamed salmon with some dried organic turkey liver.  The Mr & Mrs Beentsy entrée of the day will be tuna salad.  In case you were wondering.

Happy Wednesday everyone.