Cookin' the Books!

It's tax-preparation time, and while DH is working on the taxes, I've been cooking food. I made our favorite enchilada casserole, which we had with beans and Spanish Rice. My rice recipe makes a lot, so I planned to make TV dinners out of the leftovers. I just got out an extra can of refried beans to fill in the third compartment in the tray when the first one was gone.

For all my TV dinners I cook in the oven at 300ºF for about 50 minutes. 

Also going into the freezer was another batch of bran muffins.

We often have French-style lentil soup, and it seemed like a good time, so after using all the leftover enchiladas to make TV dinners, I cooked some lentils and vegetables in the pressure cooker.

I received a gift of an immersion blender for Christmas. (Maybe it was for my birthday. Having a birthday the day after Christmas and a childhood of presents that said, "Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday" may have had their impact.) I would have put this soup into the blender, but instead, I just blended it with my immersion blender, and voilà! It's certainly easier, and with less cleanup.

When the kids were here, we bought a big bag of potatoes and still have most of them left. Then DH came home from Trader Joe's with another bag of potatoes. I made a Tuna Potato Bake by modifying a recipe I found at The Spruce Eats. It turned out great! I basically just reorganized the order of the ingredients and substituted olive oil for the butter. I used soy milk and soy creamer left over from Christmas visitors.

Tuna Potato Bake

Ingredients

• 5 medium yellow potatoes, cooked and sliced (I cooked potatoes in water to cover and saved the water to use when making bread.)
• 1 can tuna, drained
• 1 C chopped onion
• 3 T olive oil
• 1 1/2 T prepared mustard
• 1/4 C flour
• 1 t salt
• 1/8 t pepper
• 2 C milk

Directions
Heat oil in saucepan. Add mustard and dry ingredients. Gradually whisk in milk. Cook over low heat until thickened.
Arrange potatoes, tuna and onion in casserole. Spread milk/flour mixture over  all and bake at 350° F for 1 hr. (We're at 3500', medium-high elevation, in Bend, so yours may cook faster if you're at sea level or more slowly if you're living in the clouds.)

I cooked some green beans to have with it, cut up some home-baked bread and made a salad. (I think I could easily have added a layer of vegetables to the casserole. Might try that next time.

I wish I could show you the progress on my Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL project, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for people working on it. I'm a little behind. Clue #3 came out on Wednesday, and I didn't get to it until Friday. Here's a hint, though.

My favorite doll company, Götz, has come out with a Little Kidz boy, "Paul." He looks a lot like Pippa. These are "official photos."

Here's a photo someone took of their doll, posted on Facebook. I'm hoping to order him in February. I have plans for him. Stay tuned. 

Saturday, we had a memorial service for Liz, a lady who used to sing with the choir. She had not sung with us for a while even before the pandemic and finally passed away on Christmas Day, surrounded by family members. She was 88. Eight members of the choir sang at the service, and after that, a couple of bagpipers from Bend Fire Pipes and Drums played Amazing Grace out in the courtyard. Liz owned a set of bagpipes that had belonged to her grandfather, which she donated to this group. After their performance with modern bagpipes, they demonstrated with Liz's grandfather's pipes. They spent some time with tuning, because it was cold, and the antique bagpipes were not built to perform in the cold the way the modern ones are. They couldn't play indoors, because they would have needed special equipment to mask the instruments.

My second iPad is nearly nine years old and can no longer be updated, so some of the apps are starting to malfunction. Safari has been running slowly, too, and often malfunctions. After some research, I came to the conclusion that it needs to be replaced. That will give me an opportunity to get a better camera, although it remains to be seen how difficult it will be to take photos with the iPad rather than my phone. This is the one I've decided on, the 11" iPad Pro 128g.

Everyone locally is temporarily sold out of this model, but I was able to order one from Apple and still get it in about 10 days. I could have picked it up at Best Buy in a little over a week. It's a fairly long drive, and then I would have had to go into the store with lots of people ignoring the mask mandate. No delivery is available from them. I could have ordered it from Amazon, but it would be March before I could get it. That's too long, as I've become very dependent on it. I could have bought a different model, but that would have cost more. They would only give me $55 for my old iPad as a trade-in, so I'm keeping it for use by the dolls for a fireplace and TV. It fits into the frame that hangs on the wall, and I'm not sure the new one will. I can still use it for my Recipe App, too. I'm afraid the app is no longer available for the iPad, although they have it for the iPhone.

That's what I've been up to. DH is still in his study, cooking the books.

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 Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL shawl.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs. No progress this week.

What's on my sewing machine: Still waiting for the T-shirt quilt. The iPad issue took up a lot of time this week, while I decided what to do.

What's in my hoop: No progress this week on the whole-cloth quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In "A Bigger Footprint?" Jolena worries that she might have to quit the ski team because carpooling to practice and flying to competitions might be adding to her carbon footprint. An explanation of greenhouse gases for children.

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

What's in my wine glass: Crystal Range Barbera 2019, one of our favorites.

What's my tip of the week: I discovered that my air fryer really doesn't need cooking spray to come clean after using.

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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Staying In and Venturing Out

Monday I got some use out of my mask.

I had to go to Simply Mac to see if they could fix my laptop, which has worked fine for 10 years but had become unusable recently. The track pad stopped functioning correctly, and the images on the screen would zoom in and out, or sometimes the windows that were open would all separate, or the image for a Zoom call would suddenly close. Although it was better if I used a mouse, it still happened sometimes. I was hoping they could just disable the track pad, but they said it was not possible. The newer ones can be fixed this way, but not those from 2010. I had to bite the bullet and buy a new one, but I got out of Simply Mac as fast as I could. They were only allowing three customers in at a time, which was good, but masks were optional. The other customers weren't wearing masks, and the employees kept pulling their masks down when they talked, so I decided to shop for my new laptop from home. I ended up with a 13" refurbished MacBook Pro.

Everything is mostly the same as I was used to, and I was able to set it up and transfer everything over by myself. It only took two days to get here.

I managed to knit Mariah a turtleneck and make her a skirt to go with it. She will be in this week's story, so I thought it a good idea to give her a new outfit.

We were out of whole rye flour, which I like to use, especially since I can't get whole wheat flour. There is none in the stores around here. I looked online and ended up going directly to Bob's Red Mill. The smaller packages were sold out, so I had to buy the 25-lb. bag, which was the smallest they had in stock. That should last me for a while. They had no whole wheat, either, but I can use unbleached all-purpose or bread flour and add bran and toasted wheat germ to it to get pretty much the same thing.
I see some sour rye bread in my future, since the sourdough starter is ready to use.

My second mushroom kit has arrived, this one for Golden Oyster mushrooms. This kit was easier to set up. It came from North Spore. You just remove the front panel from the box, slit open the plastic underneath and spray with the little spritzer bottle that came with the kit. This one is supposed to take a couple of weeks to produce anything.

In the meantime, we've been eating the Shiitake mushrooms our first kit produced. It seems to have slowed for a time. We'll see what it does next, but these were good.

DH has been working in the garden. We have zucchini, eggplant and winter squash already planted. We started some seeds for chard and peas.

Our strawberry plants have a lot of flowers, and we have two blueberry plants that are flowering.

Our lilac bushes are blooming. I'm not sure actually whether there are two bushes or one, but we have both white and purple flowers. I picked some to bring inside, so nice, since our tulips are about done. They smell lovely! (The purple ones are just starting to open.)

We had our Zoom meeting on Sunday, as usual. We were missing a few family members, but heard from them that they are OK. We used my new laptop and had no problems!

The Wisconsin grands had their dance recitals, during the week, all online, so we got to watch. The health department is working out a way they can perform onstage, one at a time, with the red carpet and everything, but only immediate family will be allowed in for each performance. That will probably be a real ordeal for the teacher and her staff.

We will miss the Zoom meeting next week, because DH, DBIL and I will be on the road to a campground for four days. We are taking our two RVs. DBIL has a Class C, which is all in one. We have our 5th wheel, which we can leave if we want to drive somewhere. We will be able to spend some time together with him and other people in the meet-up group, but with masks and social distancing. We will have our trailer to escape to if there are too many people.

Sunday afternoon we watched the Memorial service put on by the National Council of Churches for all of the people lost to COVID-19. It's still available as a recording, A Time To Mourn. It was a lovely service.

The weather has finally turned nice, so maybe we can start walking again.

What's on my needles: My COVID19 Rewilding Shawl. It's the Rewilding Shawl by Helen Stewart. "Rewilding" is sort of a rebuilding of an area of land to put it back in its natural state. This sounded comforting to me at this time.

 I started out with some yarn I bought during last year's Yarn Crawl, Moon Sisters from Farmers Daughter Fibers in Montana. I had written "Rewilding Shawl" on it, so I must have seen it finished and bought the yarn to make the shawl.

What's on my sewing machine: I'm going to try to oil the machines this week. Really!

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Growing Things. The dolls learn about growing seeds to produce food, indoors and out.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Just finished An Hour Unspent by Roseana M. White. Just downloaded The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.

What's in my wine glass: Apothic Inferno 2016. A strange name for a delicious wine. Very chocolaty. (We tried it because Apothic Red is so good.)

What's my tip of the week: If you grind your own coffee, it's messy to measure from the grinder. You can measure it before you grind it, even if your grinder doesn't have measuring marks in the cap. Just use a standard coffee measure to scoop out the beans for grinding, but level off completely, so the level isn't heaping. It will grow slightly when grinding.

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.

Steek, Not Steak!

Autocorrect has finally learned that steek and steeking are acceptable words in the English language. Its most common word to substitute (as in "change it to") is steak, with steep a close second. However, this is a steek:

For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a cut in knitted fabric. It's used when you knit in the round with the intention to cut it in one or more places before making up the garment. It allows you to work always on the right side, a real advantage for working in two colors. Some stitches are added to each side of where the cut will go. With all but the stickiest, clingiest yarn, some form of stabilization is used. I prefer machine sewing just inside the steek. This can be done before or after cutting. The machine stitching keeps the knitted fabric from fraying. In this project, I knitted the two sleeves together in the round separated by steeks. Here you can see the two sleeves after the first steek was cut. I like to make two lines of stitching in one direction between the first and second vertical row of stitches and between the second and third. I cut the two pieces apart by cutting right down the middle, along the wider dark stripe. 

I do the same thing with the front.

I end up with three pieces for this doll sweater.

Then I trim by cutting along the row of stitches between the second and third vertical row when I sew the sleeve seams or when I add the front bands to the body. It leaves a very narrow but stable seam allowance. I do the same thing with the armholes (armscye is the technical term). For this project, I grafted the shoulders together first, but they can be bound off and sewn or connected using a 3-needle bind-off. For doll projects, I prefer grafting (using the Kitchener stitch) because there is less bulk.

I started this cardigan for Jolena last June. With the move, no access to my sewing machine and other projects, it got pushed aside. However, I finished it this week, so here is Jolena, maybe looking a little proud of her new Finnish cardigan.

I called this one Kisu Takki, which means "Kitty Jacket" in Finnish, because of the kitties. It's a free pattern, suitable for learning to make steeks in a project that is more than a sample and yet small enough not to frighten you to death when you have to cut it apart. As is typical for Scandinavian sweaters, the raw edges of the front steek is enclosed in a knitted band that is folded over on itself. I used a dark green for lining the hems, and the front and neck bands.

The free pattern is here. One person besides me has already made it, but she used the directions for my Stavanger Cardigan along with the new charts. (The Stavanger has red trim in place of the green, and sheep instead of kitties, with a geometric motif in place of the fish.)

Before finishing the Kisu Takki Cardigan, I finished up Alister's wardrobe. I was running short of time, so I altered Billy's PJs to fit. All that was needed was to shorten the sleeves. Now I have to make Billy some new ones.

Alister couldn't go to Zachary's home without some kind of bathing suit, so I pulled out more batik from my fabric stash. All he needs is a boogie board.

I had been concerned about Alister's leg, which bent at an odd angle, a common issue with Kidz n Cats dolls like Alister. While he was wearing his bathing suit, I thought I would try to fix it. I did a little research, which led me to believe I might be able to tighten up the joint with a simple procedure. Here he is before:

And here he is after.

All I needed to do was (please skip this paragraph if you're squeamish) pull his leg (and I'm not pulling yours!) until it was out of the socket but still attached by the elastic...um...ligaments, twist it 360º and let it go gently back into the socket.

Alister is on his way to his new home, and may already be there, as he was supposed to arrive today. Next Monday is Zachary's birthday, so it's in plenty of time. Alister wrote Zachary a letter describing his life in Houston before he came to live with me after Hurricane Harvey destroyed his home. He is no longer being produced, as Kidz n Cats has stopped production. I guess you could say he is a collector's item now, but he has been looking forward to going to live with Zachary. I'm sure he will have a good life there.

Friday's The Doll's Storybook was called A Good Turn. I enter into the story line by being sick in bed, although I remain offstage. (I'm not currently sick. This is a work of fiction.) Here's a photo from the story. See if you can guess what the dolls are up to.

If you only read one of my stories, this should probably be the one. People have been telling me it's the best one. I did have a lot of fun writing it and taking the photos. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it and share it with any youngsters in your family or circle of friends.

Saturday, the choir at Trinity sang for the memorial service for the wife of a choir member. It was a beautiful service. I had met her at church, but didn't really get to know her. She was three years younger than I am. She and her husband were on a cruise off the coast of Mexico (if I remember correctly) when she developed pneumonia. She was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland, where she succumbed to the disease. Her immune system was compromised due to her second kidney transplant a few years ago. I assume she was on immunosuppressant drugs to keep her from rejecting the kidney. I have my issues, but I feel blessed that nothing that's wrong with me is life-threatening, at least as far as I know.

The weather has warmed up. The snow in the yard is almost gone. Friends in Park City have been posting photos of recent snow with huge walls along the streets in our old neighborhood, Summit Park. I'm so glad to be here. We have been walking just about every day. On Saturday, we decided to hit the Larkspur trail for part of our walk, which brought the total "mileage" to just over a mile. There were some muddy patches, but it was pleasant.

I hope everyone is enjoying the spring weather, or if some readers are in the Southern Hemisphere, the fall weather. Happy April Fool's Day!


What's on my needles: Fiesta Fun, a dress for Vroni using the pattern I got for free for participating in the KAL for Jacknitss' patterns, Designs by Jacqueline Gibb. I'm planning on making the dress version. Just cast on, so nothing much to show yet. I'm using Knit Picks Telemark in "Caution." (The yarn is long discontinued, but some of my stash has been around for a while.)

What's on my sewing machine: Clothes for Billy. He will be needing new PJs, and I want to make him some Cargo pants similar to the ones I made for Alister, or perhaps Capri-length.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt. I managed to get a little quilting done this week, but not much.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: A Good Turn, where I enter into the story, offstage.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Frankenstein: City of Night, Book Two by Dean Koontz, then Frankenstein: Dead and Alive, Book Three. Now listening to Frankenstein: Lost Souls, Book Four. I expect to finish up the series this week. I enjoy Dean Koontz. His books are full of suspense and horror, but also humor, and his writing is very poetic. This series has a little more humor than usual.

What's in my wine glass: Révélation Cabernet-Merlot Pays D'Oc de Badet, Clément & Cie, Elevé dans nos chais ("Raised in our cellars"), 2017. Very nice. From France, in case you couldn't figure that out. 

What's my tip of the week: A while back I mentioned that when I remove the kitchen trash bag, I put four bags in the bottom, folded one at a time, before lining the trash can again, a technique I learned from motel stays. I recently came across this quick way to line the trash can with the new bag, and I've been using it. Maybe you will want to give it a try. So easy a kid can do it. Or maybe a doll?

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.