Whew!

The H-word* took up most of my attention for the first three days of the week. I listened to my audiobook while I worked. On Wednesday, the Beaverton grandkids arrived with their parents for a visit. I still managed to get in some knitting. The Hinterland pullover is coming along.

The pattern is by Jennifer Steingass. I’m really enjoying it.

The kids arrived Wednesday night. We spent the next few days playing games, cooking, eating, knitting (two of us), enjoying the out-of-doors and each other's company. The adults followed through on our plans to have a single-malt whisky tasting with our set from Flaviar.

Dusty was happy to see is best friend Louis again. They spent hours playing, but also got to go for walks together.

One of those walks took us to the dog park. Because Louis is a bigger dog, we went to the big-dog section of the park. The kids and their mother went off to the kids' playground. When everyone had had enough fun, we walked home again.

Rocky rode in the stroller most of the time on the way to the park, but he enjoyed walking around in the dog park.

Then he got out of the stroller about half-way home to walk the rest of the way on his own, while Soren pushed the stroller.

Speaking of Soren, here's some cuteness. They’re so sweet when they’re asleep!

The boys wanted me to read some of my stories to them. I read until I got hoarse.

Someone in Germany sent me a photo of her daughter with her copy of Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook as well as a photo of just the book. I'm keeping a folder with photos of children reading my books, but I don't post them, to keep their privacy. Being a doll, though, Mariah doesn't need to have her privacy protected.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. 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 our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

*Housework, especially cleaning.

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

What's on my needles: Still the Hinterland pullover and the Empower kerchief.

What's on my loom: No progress.

What's on my sewing machine: No progress.

What's in my hoop: No progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Fan Mail, we learn about a letter from Holly, Emil's friend and pen pal, and a real letter from a real human girl who uses our stories to learn English.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished listening to The Sanatorium  by Sarah Pearse on the Audible app. Downloaded and started The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone.

What's in my wine glass: Fabre Montmayu Reserva Cabernet Franc from Mendoza, Argentina.

What's my tip of the week: Some salads can be made up ahead of time, like slaw, corn, potato or three-bean salad. It's handy to have some in the fridge when company comes.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book 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. 

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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Design for Life

St. Paddy's day is always time for celebration at our house. We had a multinational menu with our usual Guinness, this time in a Finnish beer glass, a souvenir from one of our trips to Finland.

I've made some progress on the Hinterland Pullover. Here's how it looked on Sunday.

I've ordered Götz Little Kidz Paul for Zachary for his birthday. It's going directly there, so Pippa is having to act as my model for outfits. I got the pajamas all done but putting on the buttons. I may have to adjust the sleeve length, I think.

I'm planning a shirt and some jeans, and maybe a nice pair of slacks, if I have time. I'll have to send it off the end of the first week of april to get there in time.

We had Rocky in to the vet. He has some kind of a skin lesion that is infected. It doesn't seem to bother him, but the vet wanted to clear up the infection before sewing it up. He thinks he can do it with a local. We have his care worked out as far as taking him out at night and looking after him during the day. He has a little trouble eating and drinking without stepping on his dish and knocking it over, so we got the dogs a raised feeding station. We discovered during our trip to visit the Beaverton grandkids that this worked well, especially for the water, which all three dogs shared from Louis' elevated feeding station. (The black mat is designed to go under a litter box, to keep the litter from getting tracked all over the floor. We got it to give Rocky a little traction on the floor, and it does work for that.)

We have been working on the taxes. DH figured out that I've only lost about $150 on my publishing foray, which was a lot less than I thought. He also was shocked to find that my screwy bookkeeping actually balances.

We had another online get-together with fans of Madroña Vineyards. They had sent us a recipe for chimichurri sauce to go with macaroni and cheese and chorizo sausage, with a special wine, which was sent to each participant. We were supposed to take a sip of the wine with the mac and cheese, then try it with the chorizo added, then add the chimichurri to the whole thing and see how the wine changed. They used Annie's Mac and Cheese, but I made mine from scratch. I used Soyrizo, since we don't do meat. I made the chimicurri according to the recipe, although I cut the recipe in half. It was a delightful party.

Friday night, we had a Zoom date with our younger son and his wife. (They are the ones who live in Beaverton.) They had given us a two-part membership in Flaviar. We got to pick a tasting set. We chose the New World Single Malt. 

It turns out, they are coming to visit the middle of this week, so we can enjoy the tasting together in real life, instead of on Zoom.

I'll be doing the H-word for the next few days, and then I'll be busy with them. Anticipating that, I wrote two stories for The Dolls Storybook, so I don't have to do one this week. I have several ideas for the following week. I'm coming up on 200 stories, one a week, with no breaks.

For some cuteness, Johan had another chess tournament on Saturday. Two losses and three wins, an improvement over the previous tournament. He took second place in his age group. Not bad!

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. 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 our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left 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 the Empower Kerchief (a few more rows done in the dentist's office) and the Hinterland pullover (see above).

What's on my loom: Same as last week.

What's on my sewing machine: PJs for Zachary's Paul.

What's in my hoop: Same as last week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Caring for Pets––A Poem. The cast of The Doll's Storybook shares what is involved in keeping a pet. Be sure you know what you're getting into and can live up to expectations before getting a real pet.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin. I can really recommend it, especially if you want to know more about what happened at the Capitol on January 6th of last year, coinciding with a long eulogy to the author's deceased son. It was beautiful and gut-wrenching. Now listening to The Sanitorium by Sarah Pearse, a thriller. Both are on the Audible app. 

What's in my wine glass: Ithafa Western Cape Shiraz, 2019. Excellent.

What's my tip of the week: Here's my recipe for Cream of Mushroom Soup à la Morinu. I had planned to take a photo of the soup in a bowl, but it somehow disappeared. This is a high-protein, low-fat version of this creamy favorite.

Ingredients
• 4 T olive oil 
• 1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 carrot
• 4 garlic cloves minced
• 1/4 t thyme 
• 1 t lite salt
• 1/8 t Pepper
• 4 cups water
• 1 2-cup bouillon cube
• 1 t psyllium husks
• 1 box Morinu silken tofu (shelf-stable, found in the Asian Food section, either firm or soft is OK)

• Parmesan cheese for serving

Directions
In pressure cooker pan, sauté vegetables in olive oil for a few minutes until slightly softened. Add water, thyme, salt, pepper and bouillon cube and bring to full pressure. Cook for 2 minutes.
Add tofu and psyllium and blend in blender or use immersion blender. Heat up until just serving temperature.
Top each serving with Parmesan cheese.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book 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. 

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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Full Schedule

There hasn't been much fiber fun in the last week for a number of reasons, but I did get a few more rounds done on the Hinterland pullover. There isn't a lot of contrast between the navy and the lighter blue. I knew there wouldn't be, but I was hoping for the look of a pine forest at night, with the stars shining in the sky and moonlight reflected off of the trees. I have a turtleneck shirt in the lighter blue. I think they will go together nicely.

So what did I do if I didn't knit much or do any other fun fiber crafts?

Well, I took my MacBook in to Simply Mac to be checked on Monday. The track pad had been doing some strange things. They checked it out and found that the battery was getting bad. The battery, track pad and keyboard are all part of one assembly, and it needed to be replaced. Fortunately, it's still under warranty. It cost me all of $0 for the repair. They said 7-10 days, maybe longer due to shipping issues. It was ready on Saturday, and I picked it up yesterday (Sunday). I had waited to take it in until I knew I could do everything I needed to do on my new iPad, which I could/can. The keyboard was getting some gouges from my fingernails, too, so that problem, all cosmetic, is taken care of.

That took up some of my expendable time on Monday. Tuesday I had a dental appointment for an extraction. The only tooth ever to have a root canal broke in a place that couldn't be fixed. I was prepared with pain killers and mush to eat for a few days, but it turned out I didn't need the pain killers. I will have them in case I ever break a leg and have to walk to the hospital. (LOL!) I don't like to take them, because they make me sleepy. It's very boring to be sleepy unless you can lie down and go to sleep, and that is only fun if you really need sleep. I'm back to eating normal food but staying away from nuts and seeds for a while. I don't eat meat, and I can chew on the other side easily. I chose to get an implant, because there wasn't much difference between the implant and a bridge, due to the condition of the teeth on each side, and I find I chew more on that side, so leaving it empty isn't such a good idea. It will take a few months to go through the process. So that was Tuesday. I could show you my X-rays, but I didn't think to get copies.

Wednesday we had choir practice. We're still wearing masks, even though the mask mandate for our state ended on Saturday, so we were still masked on Sunday when we sang.

Besides those things, I tidied up the fiber studio in hopes of being able to get some work done on the T-shirt quilt. I took the photos for last week's story (see below) and got two more stories written. One I managed to illustrate with old photos and the other one should be easy to illustrate, because most of the action takes place in one spot. I wanted to get ahead, because next week the Beaverton grandkids come down for a few days during spring break. I'll probably get a lot of knitting done, but trying to write and take photos is always a problem with little visitors in the house.

My brother-in-law came back to town to get his house here ready to sell. He has bought a small house in Florence, a small town on the coast. He also still has his tiny house in Arizona, where he has been spending winters. He can stay with us whenever he comes to Bend. We had a nice visit with him over a pot of tea.

Rocky is continuing to go downhill very slowly. We're having him checked out again by the vet today. He still likes to go for walks, although he can't tell where he's going. He rides part of the way in the stroller but still likes to get out and walk for a bit. He love snoozing in front of the fire with Dusty and food? Yum!

He needs supervision, but we've worked it out so I'm getting a full night's sleep most nights now.

I've been spending some time online, following up on disinformation about the war in Ukraine, especially checking photos for photoshopping or misrepresentation, by doing a reverse image search. I use TinEye. You can upload a photo and they will search the internet for where it has been used before. You can find each date it appeared or whether it was altered. 

Speaking of the war, I found this joke online, which I enjoyed.

It's tragic that someone can have so much power that killing others who never did you any harm is so easy. I pray that it comes out all right in the end, and that no one else needs to die.

On a brighter note, the Wisconsin grands had a dance competition last week. I didn't see the photos until Monday.

I'm working on their birthday presents now. April and May.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. 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 our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left 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 the Hinterland pullover and the emPower kerchief.

What's on my loom: Still no progress.

What's on my sewing machine: Ditto.

What's in my hoop: Ditto.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Bowled Over. Pippa has a very unpleasant task she has been putting off.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin on the Audible app. Very close to the end. 

What's in my wine glass: Kirkland 2020 Malbec from Mendoza Argentina, from Costco. Actually, not bad!

What's my tip of the week: If you're looking for a place to donate to help refugees from the Ukraine crisis but don't want a scam, try Episcopal Relief's Ukraine Crisis effort. I had saved some money for a nice leather bag to use as a knitting bag and to carry my wallet, glasses and keys. I decided to send it to this organization after seeing how little people were bringing with them as they flee the fighting.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book 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. 

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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Yarn!

We’re back from our first trip since the pandemic began other than outdoor camping. I had a great time at the Rose City Yarn Crawl. You can read all about it in last week's post.

This week, you get to see some new acquisitions. First, I present the yarn I ordered for the Talvinen pullover. DDIL and I are going to make them together as a KAL (long distance, because we are no longer in the same location). The yarn is listed on the project page for the pattern. We’re both using the same colorway as the sample.

I dropped some $$$ in most of the shops on the Crawl. Here’s what I bought with no thought in mind as to project. (Actually, I plan to knit a kerchief/shawlette out of the pink, but the others just begged me not to leave them there in the shop.)

In addition to the above, I picked up enough yarn to make the Hinterland pullover, which I have already cast on. It calls for a main color and a self-striping yarn or one that changes color, which is lovely, but I wanted to use navy for the main color and two separate colors for the contrast. I picked a white and a lighter blue.

I’m having to knit with three colors in some rounds. I find it easier to work the two contrast colors first, slipping the main color sts as I come to them, catching the floats as I can, then working the same round again in the main color and slipping the contrast colors, catching the floats in the contrast colors by putting the longer float of the two contrast yarns over my needles and knitting the main color under it, then letting it fall back into place

DDIL blocked her Gresham Shawl. (The kit was a Christmas present from us.) Fancywork Yarn Shop had an online KAL, and she could participate, even though she's several hours away from the shop.

You may remember my broken bowls from two weeks ago. The replacement bowls arrived and one was cracked, but not broken into pieces.

The other bowl was intact. It’s lovely. It’s the Hedgehog bowl from the "In the Forest" set by Mason Cash. It’s about 8.5" across.

The second replacement was shipped on Tuesday and arrived Friday. I was very nervous when I opened the box, but it was fine. It’s another Mason Cash bowl, this one from the Original Cane collection. It’s the same size as the other bowl. I use this size a lot for salad, letting bread rise and mixing things.

We brought home several celeriacs (celery root). I use a whole one in celery and lentil soup. Then about half this much in a stir fry the next day. I’ve never cooked it before. It was delicious!

For some cuteness this week, I’m including this photo of the pups, waiting in the back seat of the car during our trip home on Monday.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. 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 our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left 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 Hinterland pullover. Still have the emPower kerchief to finish. It could go very quickly, and it’s almost mindless, so next time I have a meeting or something that takes my attention, I’ll work on it.

What's on my loom: Still

What's on my sewing machine: Still

What's in my hoop: Still

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Mandy's Adventures in Yarnland is about Mandy's trip to Portland with The Writer to participate in the Rose City Yarn Crawl.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin on the audible app. Hope to finish it this week.

What's in my wine glass: De Dauzac Bordeaux 2018. Very nice.

What's my tip of the week: Here’s my recipe for Celeriac Lentil Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 onion chopped 

• 1 T olive oil 

• 1 cup green lentils
• 2 vegetable boullion cubes

• 1 carrot chopped
• 1 clove of garlic chopped
• 1 celery root diced 
• 1 potato diced 
• 3/4 tbsp salt (or to your taste) 
• black pepper to taste 

Directions:
Sauté chopped onions until soft.
Rinse lentils in slow-cooker pot and drain.
Add onions and remaining ingredients.
Cook 6-8 hours on low.

(To peel celeriac, slice the top off, then cut it into four pieces longitudinally so you can slice thin pieces off of the sides. Then use a peeler to get the rest of it off.)

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book 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. 

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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