Out and About

The Speculoos Sweater is off and running. The orange stitch marker (lower middle right) is the center back. This project is less complicated than the Vilai socks.

I got my flu shot and Covid booster on Tuesday, both in the same arm. The pharmacist recommended doing it that way, because she said that leaves you one side to sleep on comfortably, if you like to sleep on your side. All my joints were aching for about 12 hours. My arm was no longer sore on Thursday. I should be mostly immunized in time for the Condega event next Sunday.

The Condega Celebration is a fundraiser for our church's support of the people of Condega, Nicaragua. I'll be there, selling my books. I'm happy that my new book will arrive in time for this celebration. It's basically a big party with nice things to buy. Charlie is going to attend and see what he might want to spend money on. Last year we bought tickets to a high tea on Valentine's Day. It was a nice outing, and we enjoyed the company with the other participants.

The dogs went to the groomer this week. First we walked with them to the dog park and walked around the trail in the big-dog section, because there were no dogs to play with in either section. When we finished that, there were a couple of dogs in the big-dog section and one little dog in the other. Dusty and Sandy played with the big dogs for a bit and then we went to play with the little dog, so he wouldn't be lonely. After a while, another little dog arrived, and it was time for us to continue on to the groomer. After we dropped them off, we walked home, cutting back through the park, crossing 15th Street and then going the rest of the way back the way we had come.

Charlie didn't want to walk with us the next day because he had some gardening to do, so I took the dogs by myself. When we were a short distance from the usual turnaround spot, it started to rain. Fortunately (for me, but not the dogs) I was wearing my waterproof windbreaker. Instead of turning around and heading home, we continued until we reached Bear Creek Rd, where we usually turn around. It only rained for about five minutes or so. I stopped to take a photo of the dogs on our way back. I wanted to get them immortalized while their haircuts were still fresh.

We walked past the construction site, as we often do, because the area where we can let the dogs off-leash is adjacent to it. I noticed that they had put in the walkways to the front doors of the little houses and had added some bushes and a few small trees.

I don't know how much longer we'll have access to this place, but for now, it's great for the dogs to run.

We walked again on Sunday. I discovered that the construction company had started building some fences surrounding the development.

During our walk on Saturday, we came across a big box labeled "FREE SQUASH." I peeked in. There was one left, so I took it. I've been trying to identify the type of squash. It seems like a winter variety, although the peel isn't excessively thick. It looks a bit like a cross between a zucchini and a green winter squash. It will be interesting to see what it's like inside.

I baked some bread on Saturday. I prefer this bread for sandwiches over the whole wheat bread from the store. It's made with sourdough starter and whole wheat flour.

On Sunday, the choir began singing again. We'll be singing most Sundays from now through June. We had a big back-to-school celebration, with a blessing of the backpacks. The children brought their backpacks up to the front to receive a blessing. Charlie came to the service because our anniversary is Tuesday and his birthday is Saturday, and we could get a blessing for our anniversary, and Charlie could get a blessing for his birthday. Here's a screenshot of that moment from the video of the service. (Those are my Vilai socks!)

The first box containing my new books is expected to arrive today, and the other two boxes should arrive tomorrow. I'm excited to open the box! If you have one of my books, please leave an honest review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or the BookBaby Bookshop, if you have the time. It helps others decide whether to buy or not, and the royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment.

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 Mandy's Little Science Lessons: 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. As I said, 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: Working on the Speculoos Sweater.

What's on my iPhone: Still listening to Wildwood by Colin Meloy, getting close to the end. I'm looking forward to the movie October 23. Here's the trailer:

What's on my sewing machine: Getting ready to make clothes for Elsie's Christmas doll. She and her brother are my honorary grandchildren, because she's the cousin of two of our grandkids and doesn't have grandparents.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Mariah is feeling bad because she thinks she did something wrong. A talk with Veronika puts everything to rights. This week's story from The Doll's Storybook is Bear.
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What's my tip of the week: Aluminum foil can be washed (if needed) and reused, even the "everyday" thickness if you buy good-quality foil and handle it carefully. After it has tears in it, it can be recycled. I wash it regardless.

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 on its way to me and should arrive today. Yay!

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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Making Progress...or Not.

There are not a lot of photos to show this week's activities. However, the shawlette is getting bigger.

I worked a little more on the whole-cloth quilt, but, as usual, it doesn't look very different. I'm at the corner now, ready to finish the last strip of cross-hatching. The trailer rugs are right where they were last week.

The air quality improved quite a bit for most of the week, we we walked almost every day. This was our usual route: Along the Larkspur Trail as far as Bear Creek Rd. and back. Rocky has been walking more than half the distance each time.

I had gotten behind on the stories when we had company, so I took the photos for two more stories this past week. We're scheduled now through October 1st.

It took a couple of days to replace all the photos in our new book, but it's ready to go now. There is only the cover to redo, and then I can order a new proof copy.

I decided since I had to remake the cover of Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, I might as well use a new photo of the crew/cast of characters, as we've added Pippa since the last one was taken. I had one photo I had taken on the stairs, but the lighting wasn't very good, so we all went out to the deck on Thursday to take a new one. It took a lot of photos to get one with all of them looking at the camera. Someone always looks away. (At least I can count on them not to blink!)

Laika, the film studio where our younger son works, revealed the topic of its next film, "Wildwood" with this picture.

The film will use the studio's usual stop-motion technique as their previous films. This one is based on the book Wildwood by Colin Meloy. 

I haven't read it yet, so I had to get it from Audible. If I like it, I'll listen to the others in the series. The character Prue and her friend Curtis enter the Impassible Wilderness, a world of warring creatures and powerful figures, to try to rescue Pru's baby brother, who has been carried off by crows. The Impassible Wilderness is located in Forest Park, located on the edge of Portland, Oregon, although no one goes there and and no one can find it.

For something different, some leftover rice went into this recipe for Nasi Goreng, which was our breakfast Friday morning.

Wednesday was our 56th wedding anniversary. DH pulled out this bottle of wine we have had since 2004. The owners of the vineyard had given it to us for our 39th anniversary, which we spent tasting their wines. We have kept it unopened all this time. It was amazing! The vintners are clearly better at producing wine than they are at spelling!

DH turned 80 on Sunday. I baked a cake Saturday evening. Devil's food with butter cream frosting. Very decadent. We don't usually eat stuff like this.

We had our regular Zoom call Sunday afternoon. DH's brother, who lives three blocks from us, came to participate in person. The three of us who were here in person each had a piece of  cake, and the rest went into the freezer for whoever is with us at Christmas. The Zoom call was very nice. We don't usually have our oldest, but he stayed home from other family activities to be there with us virtually for this special occasion.

The choir sang in person again on Sunday. I missed the rehearsal Wednesday because I decided to get my flu and pneumonia shots on Tuesday after my dermatology check, since I was out anyway. I got both: one shot in each arm. The next afternoon I began to have chills and a temperature about 1/2 of a degree above normal. I decided not to go to choir because I didn't feel well, and I also wasn't sure that it was the vaccines causing it. I called my doctor the next day, although I was fine by then, to see if I should be tested. He said it had to be the vaccines causing it because I hadn't been around anyone without a mask. The choir director wanted me to come on Sunday. There was only one other soprano, and he wasn't worried that I might infect someone, since we would be distanced and masked.

You can find us at 51:30 here:

We need a new roof, so we're scheduled for the middle of October. We knew it was going to need replacing, but a roof inspection revealed that the old roof was just shingles put on top of the old ones, and no flashing in the valleys, and the shingles were in bad condition. It wasn't unexpected, but we had thought we could wait until next year. It will be good to have it done, though, and it would probably have cost more next year.

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 Taina Shawlette.

What's on my loom: Trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: Repairs.

What's in my hoop: Whole cloth quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Little Green Greatcoat––A Fairy Tale. You may think you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but this story tells what really happened.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Deserter by Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille on the Audible app. It's an exciting book, so I want to finish it before starting Wildwood, which I have already added to my library.

What's in my wine glass: Sishaye Consult 2020 from South Africa.

What's my tip of the week: I hate having to count stitches after every row or every other row, so when I have a pattern like this, where there are increases at one edge of each row and a K2tog every other row on the other edge, I figure out how many stitches I will lose from the K2tog by the time I have enough stitches as called for in the pattern and put a stitch marker to indicate the stitches that will be gone. Then I just count to check when I have to remove the stitch marker. 

This pattern has you Kfb at the beginning of the RS row and then K all the sts. Then, on the WS row, you K2tog and then make another Kfb at the end of the row. This means you're adding two stitches and subtracting one for each two rows (one RS and one WS), for a net of one stitch every two rows. Where I have the marker shows I have 8 rows still to knit. I find this easier than counting the rows, too. The stitch marker is a good reminder it's time to stop and count stitches.

Where's my book: Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook is available from booksellers worldwide. If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop. Royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment, and that's 50% of the price when you buy there. Other bookseller take a much bigger cut. The three stories in the book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. The stories (and links to them) are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

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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