Payoffs

The workroom cleaning is coming along slowly. I've just been working on it a little while each day. What's taking so long is the closet. I should have gotten a before photo. It was like Dagwood Bumstead's closet. (For those of you too young to remember Dagwood from the comic strip "Blondie," which originated in 1930 and was originally drawn by cartoonist Chic Young. Dagwood had a closet packed so full that everything fell out whenever he opened it.)

A lot of the stuff in my workroom closet have been there ever since we moved. Some of it I realize I don't need anymore, and some of it I had forgotten about entirely. One such item was an afghan I had been knitting at some point and then put away as something else caught my fancy. I bought the yarn in New Zealand when we were there in 1996. The pattern booklet was printed in 1981, but I bought it when I started the afghan (whenever that was, I think about 1999). Well, there it was, in a drawstring bag, one right-side row halfway finished, and the attached skein about three-fourths used up. The design was meant to be much bigger, but I didn't know if I still had more of the yarn (probably not), and I wasn't inclined to knit another two feet of this pattern, so I decided to finish the row and bind off. It was supposed to have long fringe. (I should mention that the pattern booklet was put out by a yarn manufacturer, so, of course, each project takes tons of yarn. I decided to cut some 6" yarn strands, count how many I had, and then figure out how to make a short but even fringe. I did the math, and it worked out to exactly one strand every other stitch on the cast-on and bound-off edges. It took a while, because the afghan was 220 stitches across, and I had two of those to do.

I was happy with how it turned out. It makes a nice, warm lap blanket for cold winter days.

The original design directed the knitter to knit the seven panels separately and then sew them together, but I had chosen to knit it all in one piece, because I hate sewing up. It's easy enough to just switch back and forth between the two panel designs as I worked across the row. 

It's good to get it out of the closet. It had been taking up a lot of room. The payoff is, I have a nice new lap blanket, and I can check off "finish a UFO (unfinished object)" from my New Year's Resolution List. Now that it was done, I could go back to my Vilai socks. It's just a few rows of pattern before it will be time for the heel turn.

We've been reading and hearing in the news about the cyclospora outbreak. It isn't a serious problem in Oregon yet, and we have bought lettuce with no problems since this hit the news, but I thought why not grow some more sprouts to supplement our lettuce, especially in sandwiches. We've had the seeds for several years, but they sprouted nicely. This is what it looked like on Tuesday. By Wednesday, the jar was packed full, so I changed the lid and put it in the fridge. We've been enjoying them.

Whenever I make a big casserole, I've been dividing it up between two 8" square pans. We eat one and freeze the other for camping. This week I made lasagne. The recipe calls for regular lasagne noodles, not the no-boil kind. The noodles cook in the pan with just the sauce and some boiling water added to the pan before it goes into the oven. I had some mushrooms that had to be used soon. The mushrooms and some fresh baby spinach layered with a cheese mixture (eggs, cottage cheese, silken tofu, and seasonings) and pasta sauce, makes a tasty main dish.

Tuesday night we attended the Madroña Vineyards pop-up party meeting. We had Vegetable Tikka Masala with brown rice. Our wine was Doris & Leopold Grüner Veltliner 2023, a white wine, nicely chilled. We had a pleasant visit with everyone. They commiserated with us about our annual fire season, which is in full swing. The West Coast wine regions have been having an unusually hot summer. That has an affect on the grapes.

We've been trying to sneak in some quick walks with the dogs whenever the air quality index (AQI) is low enough. Paul Bush, the owner of the Madroña Vineyards, recommended the app "PurpleAir." I picked it up, and I'm finding it more convenient than looking up my location in my browser. This screen shot will give you an idea of what it's been like.

We've been trying to spend as little time as possible outdoors. Sometimes the dogs and I just go around the block, if Charlie has something he has to do outdoors and can't join us. 

Saturday, however, the AQI was down in the "Good" range, and the high temperature for the day was only going to be 82ºF, so the four of us went on a longer walk, the full length of the Larkspur Trail and then to the woods, which we call our off-leash area, because that's where people let their dogs run.

The fires are mostly just to the north of us. Friends who live in or near Sisters, Oregon, have been told to get their "Go Bag" ready, just in case they have to evacuate. It would be a real mess if Bend ever has to evacuate! I've decided that our "Go Bag" will have to be our R•Pod, so maybe we should stock it up with some stuff that can just stay there: a change of clothes, toiletries, shelf-stable food, etc. Then if we do have to evacuate, we can just grab our jugs of drinking water and anything we think we can't live without. (I hate to think about all my quilts burning up!) It would be too bad if our house burned down just after I finished tidying and cleaning my workroom! Maybe I should leave it until the fire season is over, about October....

Alexa and Johan are back from Paris. Soren was happy to have his jet-lagged brother back home again.

Summer Choir is coming along. We worked on the most difficult pieces Monday night. I think we're getting a handle on them and they will only need polishing. Tonight we'll undoubtedly work on some different ones. 

I've been getting the next book ready. Book #7 only needs proofreading, but while I remember how to use MS Word, I'm preparing the next one. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to put them together, so I would like to have several more ready to proofread, just in case.

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 Retold, Our 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: Took some time off from the Vilai socks to finish the afghan I started and nearly finished years ago.

What's on my iPhone: Still listening to Wildwood by Colin Meloy. The movie will be out October 23rd. I can't wait! Here's the trailer:

https://youtu.be/ObRck-pQW8w?si=KlDnIlV70OsOYTLe

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

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Jolena has come back from another trip with the US Doll Ski Team, this time to New Zealand. Of course, she has photos. Here's Skiing with Kiwis.

What's my tip of the week: Iced coffee tastes pretty good during hot weather. I fill a glass bottle with what's left in the pot and as much cream as I need after I have my mug of coffee with breakfast. Then it goes into the fridge when it has cooled down enough. 

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

Book #7 is in the works.

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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Life at Home in the Summer

Well, the cover of the new book is ready to go to the publisher, unless I decide to change something. The inside pages are with my three proofreaders. I've decided to reveal the proposed cover, because, well, I just can't help myself. 

It's my biggest book so far. It should be available in time for Christmas.

Meanwhile, I've made some progress on the whole-cloth quilt. I've been spending a little time each evening after supper working on it. I've reached the second corner, but I'm not halfway around the edge yet. When I get about three-fourths of the way to the next corner, it will be the halfway point. It's getting harder to do hand-quilting because my fingers are getting stiff; I'm determined to get it finished while I still can.

I had some medical appointments this week, so I did get a little knitting done on The Love of Spiders Shawl. I have several rows of the blue sparkly yarn done past where I was when I took this photo. The directions say the two rows of the main color (the bright green) will take 5g of yarn. I have exactly 5g, but I knit a little loosely, so I'm skeptical about whether that's enough or not. Just to be safe, I ordered what I hope is a close color in Stroll sock yarn from KnitPicks. I checked the websites of the yarn shops around town, and they don't seem to have anything comparable to the green yarn. It only has to be close in color, because it will be all by itself in the blue border, but it has to be similar yarn, both in weight and fiber content. This is super wash sock yarn. I don't want to use a yarn that might shrink when washed, while the rest of the shawl doesn't.

Monday night we had another Summer Choir practice. I missed the one the week before when we were camping. We have some interesting pieces to work on. I miss singing with the choir at church, which is off for the summer, so this is a nice activity. I will have to miss another practice in early August, for camping again.

We had another Madroña Vineyards pop-up meeting/party Tuesday evening. I had a busy day Tuesday, so all we had was leftover mushroom custard casserole, frozen hash browns and string beans with a splash of salad dressing. We had a nice time, though, and it tasted good.

Remember that tablecloth I made for the RPod? I had to buy the fabric already cut at three yards, too much for the tablecloth. I thought it would be good to have some extra throw pillows for the RPod, and it turned out that the large piece of leftover fabric was just the right size to cover an old bed pillow, so here it is. 

I plan to make a couple more, but I want to use a bright turquoise, if I can find suitable fabric. 

Speaking of color, we have this growing out in the corner of our yard where the driveway meets the sidewalk. It's called Liatris pycnostachya, also known as Prairie Blazing Star or Cattail Gay Feather. It grows naturally in prairies, meadows and open woods. It's starting to bloom now. The photo doesn't do justice to the color.

We had very high temperatures this past week, and wildfire season has begun, making our air quality very bad for several days. We didn't get much walking in, as a result. I exercised the dogs indoors by throwing tennis balls up the stairs for them to chase. However, Saturday the air quality was good again and the heat was tolerable, at least before lunchtime. The church had a group hike planned with dogs permitted to Sawyer Park not too far from us, so when I saw that conditions were going to be good, I signed up. Charlie has been recovering from a cold for the past week, so I took the dogs alone. I think we had about 20 people and five dogs, predominantly poodles, as there was one standard poodle along with my two, and a doodle as well. We had a good time.

Dusty hates bridges, and we had to cross this one twice. Rather than drag him across, I unhooked his leash and let him follow me. After we were across, I hooked him up again. I knew he wouldn't run off.

This was the view from the bridge, the beautiful Deschutes River.

Beautiful but potentially dangerous. There are places in the Deschutes River where there are whitewater rapids and waterfalls. On Saturday six people apparently drifted down the river to the south of us and went over the Dillon Falls, which is about a 15' drop into churning rapids. There was one known fatality. Three people survived and are in the hospital here in Bend. Two more are missing, and the authorities have altered their mission from "search and rescue" to "search and recovery," so it isn't looking good for them. They were not part of any commercial whitewater rafting activity. Here is an account in the news.

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 or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for More Classic Tales Retold or Our Favorite Verses: Poems 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 Retold, Our Favorite Verses or More Classic Tales Retold, 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: Still working on The Love of Spiders shawl by Melanie Berg.

What's on my iPhone: Still reading The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles. I'm barely into it so far.

What's on my sewing machine: Ready for covering more pillows.

What's in my hoop: My whole cloth quilt. Filling in the rest of the border.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In While the Cat's Away the dolls are left alone for a week. They try to decide what to do while they have the house to themselves.

What's my tip of the week: We often grow sprouts for sandwiches and salads. They're easy to grow. Place two tablespoons of seeds (alfalfa or mixed seeds, available from iHerb and other places that sell seeds) in a wide-mouth quart jar with a lid that will hold a circle cut out of screen-door screen material, or you can buy special lids with holes. Cover with cool tap water and leave all day or overnight, depending on when you start the seeds, so 8-10 hours. Then drain, rinse with cool tap water and drain again. You don't want the seeds sitting in water, so find a container that will hold the jar at an angle with the lid down, so water can drain out. (I use a little box that mushrooms come in.) Repeat with the rinsing morning and evening as the seeds sprout and grow. After several days, when the jar is almost full, you can rinse and drain one more time, then remove the sprouts and place in a refrigerator container lined with paper towel, to keep the water from pooling around the sprouts. Eat within a few days.

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

The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a Stranger, The Rescue, Unmasked, Fuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

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

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

The stories in Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Being Little, Besties, 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, 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.

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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Running Free

By the time you read this, we expect to be at Timothy Lake, in Mount Hood National Forest, where we plan to do some hiking. Much of my time during the week was taken up with preparations, but we managed to work in a trip to Good Dog and Rimrock Trail for a three-mile hike on Thursday.

A couple of friends met us at the trailhead with their dog, Winger, who is known for absconding, the way our Rocky did when he was young. Winger did pretty well coming back to our group during our hike, though. (I had brought along a squeaker in my pocket, and that may have helped.) It wasn't too hot, but a lot of people were there, considering it was a work day for most people.

We ate our lunch at the beach, where the dogs had access to water and got to chase each other. They had a great time running around and playing, either in the water or in the dust. 

I imagine the water was cold, but it didn't seem to bother the four-leggeds, who delighted in going after sticks thrown into the water.

We had a couple of issues, first with the Walk for a Dog app, which somehow thought we were starting at Pine Nursery. I had to restart the app after we had walked for a bit and I discovered the problem. That's why the map shows us starting in one place and ending up in another. We actually started at the parking lot and ended up there (red icon). The green icon shows where we restarted the app. The other issue was where we took the wrong trail at one point and had to turn around. That trail ended at a fence, and you can see this on the map, with a detour that ends at the park boundary, in the northeast quadrant of the map.

I was happy to rest after we got home. So were Dusty and Sandy, who undoubtedly put in a lot more mileage than the human participants did, and many more steps, even if you divide their steps by two.

We've been getting the trailer ready for our trip. One of the big jobs is making the bed, after washing the sheets and duvet cover. What makes it difficult is that the mattress is surrounded on 3+ sides by walls. That means making the bed while kneeling on top of the mattress. Fortunately, it isn't too hard to pull the mattress up one corner at a time or one side/end at a time. Eventually it gets done. Not extremely neat, but this is as neat as it gets, because what you see is before anyone has slept in it. 

Tuesday was our biweekly Madroña Vineyards pop-up Zoom meeting. Some of the people had gone on a cruise with the owners to Portugal, where wines were discussed and consumed. For these meetings, I usually try to fix something halfway decent for supper to go with our wine. A few days before, we had cooked some cod, which fell apart. We had eaten the larger pieces that night, then had some of it in fish chowder. There was still some cooked cod left that needed to be eaten, so I made fish tacos. Taco Tuesday!

Our Walmart doesn't sell fabric by the yard anymore, so when I bought the nylon tulle to make scrubbies, I had to get three yards of it. I made two last week and another scrubby this week. This time I used this pattern. It had the advantage of being different from the others I made, and therefore more interesting. It has rows of double crochet and half-double crochet. You make two circles and then join them together with a slip stitch. It was pretty easy.

The Love of Spiders shawl is coming along. The rows are very long!

The whole-cloth quilt is also showing some progress. I've been trying to work on it more than the shawl when we're home, because I can't take it with me when we go camping. I don't know where I would put it in our little Pod. However, I'm almost done with the cross-hatching. I'm on the last corner. On to finishing the swags and other decorations around the whole border.

I love seeing things grow. I started some sprouts, and in a few days they were ready to eat. I've thrown a few into salads and made whole sandwiches mostly from the sprouts. Also pictured is my jar of sourdough starter, which I had just fed as I was making bread.

I've been trying to use up food from the fridge in hopes of not having to come back to spoiled food after camping. We had a lot more mushrooms than I thought we could use up in salads, so I added about five of them, sliced, to this Tofu-zucchini Custard Casserole. The zucchini and most of the sliced mushrooms are on the bottom, but I saved some sliced mushrooms to decorate the top. This recipe also helped me use up the leftover cottage cheese we had in the fridge.

Here's the recipe, although it doesn't include the mushrooms I added.

I made more granola and another batch of those Carob Fudge Brownies we took with us on our last camping trip. This recipe is better than the first one I tried.

I read through the new book again and found a few things that needed editing. My main goal, though, was to look to see where I needed to provide credits for things I was using. 

Soren was going to miss his 6th grade graduation because the family was going to Ireland, so they gave him his certificate early. The man by the door clapping for him is Mr. Klapton, Soren's SPED teacher. Soren has a lot of challenges to deal with, but he has a supportive family, and I'm sure Mr. Klapton earned his pay. Go, Soren!

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 or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for More Classic Tales Retold or Our Favorite Verses: Poems 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 Retold, Our Favorite Verses or More Classic Tales Retold, 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: Still working on The Love of Spiders shawl by Melanie Berg and my Cables and Herringbones Cardigan for dolls.

What's on my iPhone: Still listening to The Widow of Fallbrooke Court by Kasey Stockton using the Chirp app.

What's on my sewing machine: Still waiting on some dish towels or something.

What's in my hoop: My whole cloth quilt. I have moved the hoop several times, so I know that means progress is happening. 

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Billy and Emil have some questions about a doll in their class who has trouble getting words out in A Different Kind of Talking.

What's my tip of the week: I have a bamboo cutting board that's big enough to cover most of my stove top. I use it as extra counter space.

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

The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a Stranger, The Rescue, Unmasked, Fuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

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

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

The stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, 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, because the publisher gets a cut. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well.

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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