Monday, February 16, 2026

Encounters

Remember the Mystery KAL from the Rose City Yarn Crawl? Clue #4 was a bear! The rows are getting long, and the pattern was complicated and long. It was a lot of work, and the pattern doesn't show up much because of my choice of contrast yarn. (It's the strip at the bottom and left in the photo.)


Clue #5––the final clue––came out on Wednesday. I think I'll be able to finish this week. It's not as many rows of pattern, but then there's a fancy bind-off I want to try to do.


While I've been knitting, we've been watching the Olympics. It brought back memories of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, when we worked as volunteers. Charlie was at the Utah Olympic Park, helping members of the public. My sister-in-law Eileen, a surgical nurse, was on the medical team, while her other half, Jim, helped groom the slopes for the various downhill events. Because I speak German, I was assigned to be a National Olympic Committee Assistant for Germany and then went on to work in the same position for Austria in the Paralympics. I don't have a lot of photos from those times (I was busy, and we weren't allowed to bring cameras into the Olympic village), but someone snapped this photo of me leading the German team to the rehearsal for the Opening Ceremonies. Fun times!


I tried out some new recipes this week. Charlie found this recipe for Italian Penicillin Soup in a magazine called Ruralife. It calls for acini de pepe, a tiny pasta I've never used before. It was easy to fix. I used soy curls instead of chicken. We thought it was good.



Here's the recipe. I adapted it to use the slow cooker (for convenience) and ingredients I had, although I did have to buy the pasta.



We had a MadroƱa Vineyards pop-up meeting, so I tried to fix something fancy. This recipe was delicious. It was also pretty easy, except for preparing the tofu, which had several steps. It's called Sheet Pan Cajun Tofu and Vegetables. The original came from budgetbytes.com. The recipes are tasty and easy on the wallet.


And here's the recipe for this one:


Since you can't scroll down in an actual photo, and the direction are a bit long, I had to scroll down in the Recipe Box app and take another screenshot.



Charlie must have liked it, because when he went to Costco, he picked up a box containing four packages of Tofu.

We managed to get in a walk almost every day, including going through the woods, where the pups get some off-leash time.



On Thursday, we encountered some fellow creatures, who were also off-leash. There were six or seven deer (see red arrow). One young lady came out to make sure we were going to leave them alone...or maybe to say hello.


On Friday we came across a different kind of oddity. The landing strip near us often has planes taking off or landing, but this time we came across a plane actually parked on the strip. We had to go over to the chain-link gate and have a closer look.


We didn't walk on Saturday because I had bought us tickets to the high tea, an event held at Trinity Episcopal Church for Valentine's Day. The tickets were made available for a limited number of people at the fundraiser for the church's Condega ministry. The program provides support for the school for the deaf there, a dance training program and things the town of Condega, Nicaragua, might need, like a new water tower. A group of people from Trinity travel to Condega each year to work. We had a good time at the tea. The food was good, especially the scones, and both regular and decaffeinated tea was available.


On Sunday we had a saxophone and a string bass join us for the piece we were singing, "High Upon a Mountain" by Lloyd Larson and Trilby Jordan. The service was recorded on YouTube here. The anthem is found at about 57.00 in the video.


My vision is getting itself sorted out. I was told it would fluctuate for several weeks. The left eye adjusted quickly. My right eye has taken longer, perhaps because it's my distance eye, and it really only got some exercise when we were out for walks. I'm able now to make out the berries in the juniper trees and the needles on the pines, and I've adjusted to having one nearsighted eye and one farsighted eye. The adjustment process is supposed to take about two weeks, and it all seemed to click on Friday, which was the 14th day after surgery. Vision can fluctuate for several weeks, so my appointment to get a prescription for driving glasses isn't until the 27th. For now, I can drive with my old driving glasses with the right lens removed.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry, BlueSky or Spoutible if you need information.


If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon or B&N and search for Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah, Classic Tales RetoldOur Favorite Verses, More Classic Tales Retold or Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along shawl.

What's on my iPhone: Still The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles, on theAudiobooksNow app. Some progress this week.

What's on my sewing machine: Put away until the next project.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Happy Valentine's Day! Billy and Emil can't find Valentines to buy, so they decide to make some. That leads to a beginning exploration into poetry.




What's my tip of the week: We found a use for the yoghurt containers we've been saving. Garbage mixed in with trash releases methane gas as it decomposes, and this is bad for the environment and promotes global warming. Our trash/recycling service will collect our garbage in the container with the yard waste, so we collect it in the yoghurt containers. As we fill one, we put it into the freezer until pickup day.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog, and they are reproduced in print with a few changes.

The stories in Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Talking About Boys, ChangesShhhhh!, Staying After and Money in a Jar.

The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a StrangerThe RescueUnmaskedFuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's DayKeeping PetsBack to School, Victor the VultureThe Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green GreatcoatThe Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

The stories in Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Best BudsGetting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The stories in Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Being LittleBesties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, only 8%, because the vendor gets a cut. My author's page at Book Baby is here. Scroll down and click on any of the books that interest you. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well, or ask your local library to order the books.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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