Strickmuse

Lazy Sunday

2012-02-12T20:30:00.000-08:00

Very lazy.

Filofax separation

2012-02-11T09:40:00.000-08:00

I love my Filofaxes, don't get me wrong, but it has been some time now that I wanted a leather binder. And to be able to afford one, I have decided to sell some that I do not use at all or that did not work for me. I really have to stop keeping unused journals and diaries on my bookshelf, I know some of you can't hear this, but I really have to downsize my stuff.
I love my Domino, it is great. Although many do not like the elastic band, I actually prefer the band, because you can stuff the binder and it expands easily. I have also craved a real leather binder for so long, and that is why I decided to sell some of my binders to be able to buy one. I have had an eye on the Siena for some time, and now that it is not available anymore, I want it. (My timing has always been this way). I have searched like crazy and unfortunately have also encountered a webpage that seems to be out of service.
WARNING!
I ordered the Siena Personal from DailyPlanner.com but I am almost afraid to say that this webstore has gone out of business. No response from the customer service after several emails and to my horror, no way to contact them by phone. The numbers are not in service anymore. I have put in a dispute with PayPal, so I hope that this can be resolved.

I searched on and after two days I thought, well why don't I check out the European Filofax sites and low and behold, there it was at half price on the Italian site. So I have asked my sister (again) to order the Personal Siena Espresso, from Italy.

Do you know the feeling, when you have just ordered something you wanted so badly, and can't wait to get, you start reading all about that item wherever you find an article about it? So I have been browsing the web to see how other users liked the Siena, how they set it up and what other comments they have. I think this is called obsession.

I am taking it even further. I have been looking for a nice dark brown leather shoulder bag that will be carrying the Siena. Yeah, that's how crazy I get. Now I just have to deal with the wait. Patience, my friend.

The finished object

2012-02-07T18:01:00.000-08:00

Just updating a previous post on the cowl that I knit for my daughter. The Giselle cowl was finished some time ago, but we never had the right moment to take a picture of her wearing it. So now we have and here it is:

I forgot which of the top pictures she did not like, so I am posting both because I like both. The yarn is nice and soft and also gives a lot. With a pattern of k2p2 there is lots of stretch and now she can wrap the cowl twice around her neck to make it a tighter fit if it were really cold, which it is not here at all. It was a wonderful project with a great result.

Ink on paper

2012-02-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

My dear journal and Filofax lovers. I have finally bought the often mentioned 'Frixion' pen by Pilot. I saw a multi-color pack at Target for $5 and could not resist. Of course I bought two so I have all six colors and there were only these two packs left on the display rack, so I had to grab both, right? And yes, they are great.

They fit perfectly into the pen loop of my personal Domino and write smoothly without bleeding on the Filofax Diary pages. Same goes for the other different paper types which I have ripped out of unused and unwanted journals and cut to size for my Filofax, the pens write perfectly.

I played around here with the different colors by writing down the lyrics of the song Secrets by One Republic. Nice Cello introduction, that got me hooked to the song.

The creme colored paper is not Filofax paper but from some random journal book that I found at work and that I am re-using now.

I also could not resist taking the 'Liquid Pencil by Sharpie'. This one did not convince me that much. It writes smoothly but I have to give it steady pressure to have a clear dark line on any paper. It seems to write erratically, if you can say that about a pencil. It does erase easier and cleaner than a regular pencil. Now I just have to choose which color of pen to put into the loop.

Do you use a multi-functional pen/pencil that you like? You know, the pen and pencil two-in-one. Or three-in-one. I would be interested to find out if any of the FF users have a specific one they prefer that fits nicely into the (unfortunately non-expandable) FF loops.

Have a great week.

Superbowl

2012-02-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

Are you watching the game? Or maybe just the Halftime Show? Well I'm kinda watching and then knitting, reading and not to forget eating. Treated myself to two hotdogs, potato salad and baked beans. Yummy.

And here comes Madonna. Looking good.

Comfort Food

2012-01-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

My daughter and I try to live healthy. She works out a lot, I don't. At least I try to cook healthy food from scratch every day. We want to have those leftovers for lunch the next day, right?
Once in a while we get that craving for some comfort food and that is usually not the most healthy meal. Anyway, going through all my magazines (down to 15 now maybe) I collected a few recipes that I just know she will like too. There was one whole dinner in a Living by Martha Stewart magazine January 2012.The article is called Mad Hungry: TV Dinners and the article and recipes were written by Lucinda Scala Quinn, aka Madhungry.com.
I am proud to say that I made the whole dinner in 1.5 hours. Starting at 6pm after I walked the dogs and we sat down at 7:30 to eat.
I had all the ingredients at home, so there was no need to go out shopping either and leftovers were plenty for the next day.

Salisbury Steak with Onion Gravy
Potato-and-Carrot Mash
Creamed Spinach
Apple-Cherry Cobber (I used dried cranberries)

It was a feast and we enjoyed it so much, we forgot to take pictures except for the dessert (we like ice cream) which is made this way. So easy (ok-I found the link after I had typed the whole thing here, so I will just leave it.):

4 apples (Fuji or Gala) peeled, cored and cut into 1/2 inch pcs (4 cups)
2 tblsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup sugar
Salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tblsp flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
4 tbsp cold unsalted butter

Toss apples, lemonjuice and cranberries in 8-inch square baking pan
Whisk together sugar, pinch of salt, cinnamon and flour. Add half the sugar mixtures to apples, stir to combine
Sitir oats and remaining sugar mixture, add butter and stir. Pat oat-butter mixture over apples.
Bake at 375 for 40-50 min (apples should be tender and juices bubbling, oats get golden)

Comments: I did not have enough milk so my potato mash was made with a bit of chicken broth, butter and a dollop of sour cream. Great results.
And in the end, as my daughter's boyfriend came over to join us for dinner, we did not have enough left over to freeze, just enough for next day's lunch.
It was an enjoyable evening and made all three of us feel good (and stuffed).

Parting with few of my Filofaxes

2012-01-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

Tonight I decided to sell my

Domino Italia Pocket

Botanic Pocket

Finsbury Mini

on eBay, if you are interested, check out the links.

And why did I decide to sell them? Because I need to pay for my next Filofax that I have already ordered. Can't wait for it to arrive.

Roadtrip

2012-01-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

Camels? Really? I saw two camels while driving along Rte 67 in Ramona (this picture is from the web not from Ramona). They were standing there on a pasture. I wanted to stop but there was no shoulder to park and a few cars were right behind me, so I drove on, turning my head back to see if I had really seen right. And then there was the sign, so I was right:
Oasis Dairy Farm (Camel Milk). That definitely is a destination for me next time.

Ramona is always worth a short road trip. Antique stores, Ramona Cafe (great breakfasts and it was on Guy's DDD), Dudley's Bakery and most of all the wonderful nature. You drive through rolling hills and pastures and it was just such a great day today, in the 80s, can you believe it?
Of course, I had to stop at a bead store and check it out. Here is what I got there:

The seed beads and the leather bands are from the bead store. The peace pendants, carved out of stone, I found at the bakery. Weird huh?

Of course I had to buy a few of their wonderful breads. It is a bakery after all. I could not resist the 'Asiago Cheese and Oliv'e rolls, the 'Baja Jalapeno' bread' and the 'German Black" bread. Yes I am such a bread addict. Probably my German side. They will go into the freezer. Just take out a few slices and they will thaw out in a few minutes.
It was a great day and I look forward to many more weekend road trips.

Post Number 500

2012-01-26T21:08:00.000-08:00

This is my 500th post. Wow, I think that is amazing. I enjoy writing posts, sometimes daily, sometimes once a month, just depending on how I feel. Currently I feel pretty good.

I completed a Color Code Personality Test one evening and the results were spot on. Yes that is me. The Me that I want to be true to.

Your Color Code Personality: WHITE
The Core Motivation that guides you through life is peace. This is not referring to a political agenda or the absence of war. It is, however, an absence of inner conflict, much closer to the idea of serenity, and an acceptance of oneself and others. You have a strong and compelling need to keep things in balance in your life so as to maintain an internal feeling of tranquility and comfort.

As this Color Code, you seek independence and require kindness, especially from those with whom you are in a relationship. You resist confrontation at all costs. (To you, feeling good internally is even more important than being good.) You are quiet by nature, process things very deeply and objectively with great clarity. Of all the colors, you are the best listeners. You respect people who are direct but you recoil from perceived hostility or verbal battle.

You need your "alone time" and refuse to be controlled by others. You want to do things your own way and in your own time. You ask little of others and resent others demanding much of you. You are probably much stronger than people think, but are not often seen for your strength because you don't easily reveal your feelings.

The last paragraph is so true. I ask little, prefer to do everything myself, because I always feel if I ask something of someone (and here I have a very specific someone in mind) their demand increases every time. So if I do things myself I do not owe anyone anything. And I am glad that I have been doing everything (as help never came voluntarily and I would not ask for help either) because I am pretty much self-sufficient and a very independent person. Good for me. Feeling Great.

Currently reading

2012-01-25T22:05:00.000-08:00

I started "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert last night and by chapter two I was hooked. Actually, I just got to chapter five and am still liking it. (I have not seen the movie and do not intend to either). I can relate to the story very much (so far) and I admire how she describes her view of God in Chapter Three, starting out with the comment, that people can decide at that point if they want to get offended or not. Nice move, as people get offended as soon as you are not of the same opinion on God and religion. Love it.

Looking forward to reading on.

And here comes a Filofax reference: Some time ago I had downloaded a template from the Philofaxy website (which is about Filofaxes in every way). Now that I have set up my Domino in a new way (again), I have added a few blank pages titled Book Review to my Books tab (makes so much sense, right?). This is the first time that I am actually using this page and I started making notes for this current book. I jotted down some quotes and personal remarks. Wow, I like the feel of this.

Prior to this I read 'The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins and I could not put them down. Read all three of them in a breeze. After I finished I still felt the rush and had to take a break before I started reading anything else.

Now Eat, Pray, Love is on such a different level and such a different topic so there is no comparison here. This book will be more of a spiritual nature whereas The Hunger Games were simply entertaining, but so worth it. I enjoyed these more than the Twilight books (forget about them, I never liked them much, but kept on reading to understand the hype about them) and even more than the Tattooed Girl I must say. I have never been much of a Young Adult Book reader. But these are just great. I hope you like them too.

Just lent the first one to a friend through the Kindle option, so she can get a taste for them and see if she likes them.

On weekend mornings while I am having breakfast, I read The Red Garden, by Alice Hoffman (My favorite author). I love the way she writes and her stories always have a nice magical twist to them. So do the stories in this book, which take place in a small town over a span of a few hundred years, and always includes the old tree and the red garden. A wonderful read with a cup of coffee.

Feeling good.

Filofax do-over

2012-01-24T21:36:00.000-08:00

Filofax disaster
Previously I posted a Mini-Video which was titled 'A Reminder of the Important Things in Life'. I liked its simplicity and I needed that reminder. I found it on Google+ and had to send it out to my friends because I am sure everyone needs a reminder to stop and smell the roses once in a while. The last picture says, 'Be true to yourself'.
This is the direction I am going in 2012. I am going to be Me. I do not want to compete with anyone or anything and I am not going to change just to please someone else. It is going to be just plain Me. I have always been Me on the inside, so now it is also going to be Me on the outside. Sorry if you don't like Me.....

This 'being true to myself' is going to be applied to many areas in my life. One is my Filofax, of all places.
Yes, I am sorry to say my Filofaxes were a disaster. I was tempted and had bought a few wonderful binders in different sizes but actually none of them were working for me and I just did not want to admit it.
I really wanted it to work. I wanted to use a Botanic or Domino Italia Pocket that would fit perfectly into my purse and I wanted the Finsbury Mini in green as the perfect wallet.
Then temptation struck again and I started searching for other binders, I wanted a nice leather binder in Pocket size. eBay did not have any special offers listed. Nothing was on sale. I searched one week long, calculating if I really should be spending money on another Pocket size. Well, I am so glad that I did not, because I have to admit, I am a One-Binder Person. Yes, I am. I cannot divide my pages over several binders, carrying some information with me, while other pages are in my wallet and others again at home. No, that is just not how I am organized, if at all.
So, I have emptied my Finsbury Mini and my Domino Italia Pocket and have stored them in my desk. Maybe I will part with them and post them on eBay, for now I still want to keep them.Same with the two Botanics, one in pink and one in green that I had intended to try out instead of the Domino Pocket to see if they would grow on me, but as they did not, into the desk they went.

Now I am left with my Domino Personal and again I am re-arranging the dividers, this time I am going back to the way it used to be, maybe it was a long time ago, but it worked for me then and it still does now (I hope).

Opening the Domino it lies flat. The slots on the left inside have not been assigned yet. The binder pages begin with a clear plastic sheet which covers a monthly page that I print through Outlook (see instructions here).

This is an overall view of the month, where I note upcoming events as a reminder. The page will be thrown out and replaced with the next month in time. Six color dividers follow (which I still had from an older German version):

Kalender/purple (Diary): Wo2P with lines. One ToDo page is put between the current week and moved along until completed or full. Thanks to Tracy, who had given me that hint.

Notizen/orange (Notes): This is my catchall, when I see something I would like to buy or an idea, it goes there. My first page shows haircolor that I may want to use next time (I have been purging all my magazines and cut out stuff I wanted to keep).

Projekte/green (Projects): - not much translating is needed, right? So this section is sub-divided into:

Yarn (everthing about knitting and crafts),
Words (quotes, vocabulary),
Books (books, duh),
Food (recipes, wines, restaurants),
Travel (destinations, maps),
H&G (home and garden projects)

Informationen/yellow (Information): important phone numbers, current prescriptions, pets, cars
Finanzen/blue (Finances): budget notes, expenses, some bank info encrypte
Adressen/red (Adresses): A-Z dividers listing my contacts, going way back too.

And at the end I give you:
Pocket Zip Envelope: stamps
Pocket Envelope: concert tickets and other memorabilia
Assorted Sticky Notes

Wow, this has turned into a large post. I am curious how long I will hang on to this system. But somehow it makes me feel good and I love tweaking it here and there. It's just so Me.

Rainy weekend

2012-01-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

It rained yesterday and it was cold too, well as cold as it could get here in San Diego. A perfect day to stay inside and do some de-cluttering. My list showed kitchen spice cabinet and recipe collection. Good, I could do that. My daughter had given me this great spice rack for Christmas and I might as well set it up.
This is one of those 'As-Seen-on-TV' swivel spice racks and it really works great. I had to arrange it so that it sits in the center of the cabinet.

This way there is enough space for it to be pulled out and swiveled to the left or right.

I have also thrown out old spice bottles, washed out empty jars and refilled them from packages. I labeled them with the German and English name for each. The rack holds 20 bottles and I tried to choose only those spices that I use constantly and now they are arranged alphabetically. Let's see how long that will last. But it looks great and I feel great about it too.

I should have taken a before picture but I always forget. There were so many loose pages of recipes which I had torn from magazines and just stuffed right there between the spice jars. I hoped that I would try out one or the other recipe some time, but I actually never did. So I threw most of them away. I can always find them online and add them to Evernote or Springpad, depending on which site works best for me (have not figured that out yet). I kept a few and added them to a binder that my daughter started. (I told her to start early and then she would not end up with a mess like mine). If we do not cook a specific recipe within a few months, it will be tossed.

For dinner I made a big pot of lentil soup, added some Louisiana HotLinks, a perfect meal for a cold day.

And today, Sunday started out great. After a nice long walk with the dogs, breathing in all that clear fresh cold air after a rainy day, I made myself a big breakfast and enjoyed a nice hot pot of coffee. Scrambled eggwhites, topped with sprinkles of cheese and chives. Cut up fruit of strawberries, kiwi and banana. Coffee beans were given to me by one of M's friends: Guatemala Antigua (cocoa and soft spice) from Starbucks, tastes pretty good.
And my task now? Sort through a big stack of magazines and see if there is a recipe that I can keep.

Starting a new knitting project

2012-01-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

I have finished the scarf I knitted for my son. He has moved back to Germany last week and we are sad and also happy for him. I am glad that I had two weeks with him here at home doing fun stuff, enjoying the great weather we had during the holidays and cooking some of his favorite meals. The scarf will hopefully keep him warm. No additional pictures were taken as his departure was hectic in the end as these kind usually are.

My daughter's cowl is also done. Unfortunately I could not finish it on time for her New Year's Eve trip to Big Bear. Too bad. But there will be more trips this winter and currently the temperatures have dropped here too. So I am sure that there will be many occasions to wear this wonderful cowl.
It drapes nicely around the neck and feels soft and airy. I will post pictures as soon as she is willing to model.

Browsing through knitting pages and patterns I found this wonderful new edition of Wool People, Vol. 2 by Brooklyn Tweed. It holds a collection of original knitting patterns by a group of designers for Brookly Tweed yarns. I fell in love with the shawl Winnowing by Bristol Ivy and ordered the pattern right away. My fingers were itching to knit a swatch and get started. I have not yet used their yarns but hope to be able to purchase some of the Loft yarn on day. I love their colors.
Now for Winnowing I will use what I have and in this case I chose the two skeins of Regia Classic 4-ply in charcoal gray that I had purchased during my trip to Germany in 2009. I swatched with a 3.5 mm 36 inch circular needle and although this is a sock yarn and it does not feel that soft, the pattern stitch gives it some air and makes the swatch feel softer than I had expected. So it's a go and I have cast-on and finished the first chart already. This is a project I look forward to knit at the end of a stressful day at work.

Otherwise, January is what it is. It's a long month and it has never been my favorite time of the year. Kind of an anti-climax to the holiday season and on top of it, we were struggling with my son's departure. It has been hard on me, being the typical mother, but I think it has even been harder on my daughter who misses her brother now so much. Of course we shall be visiting but that may not be for a long time. Thanks to today's technology we are closer than we ever thought it would be possible.

And then I think of my parents and grand-parents, how they dealt with separation in the past. My parents left Germany in 1958 to live in Tehran, which was not a popular destination at the time or for many years to come. I am sure that the letters sent by mail were eagerly awaited on both sides.
Today we can phone on a daily basis and skype whenever we want to see each other too. How great is that.

A reminder of the important things in life

2012-01-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

Once in a while we need to be reminded to be true to ourselves.

Setting up my Filofax for 2012

2011-12-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

From the Filofax US website

Last day at work before the holiday week, all is quiet, co-workers are chatting and walking around to wish everyone a wonderful time. For me this is the best time to set up my Filofax for 2012. I brought the new inserts that I had ordered some time in October and I am joyfully adding birthdays, important events etc. and I look busy too...
My personal Domino is still the main information center and it stays at home. I have exchanged the 2-pages-per-week calendar, this time ruled, and updated the birthdays. Not much else needs updating.

I am also working on my pocket Italian Domino - for the calendar insert I have chosen 'week per page with notes', let's see how that works. So far I like that this format is taking up less space and the FF is lighter. This is good as I stuff this one into my bag everyday.

A question was posted on Philofaxy on how to store old diaries. This year I have come up with a plan to review my old diary before I dispose of it and jot down the major/main events of the past year on a blank notes page as a reference for the future. For example: Graduation was on May 22, 2011, last mammogram was in Dec 2010, etc. This page will be filed in my personal Domino under the 'Information' tab. I do not need to store any of the previous years.
In regard to unused pages, refills, index pages, etc., these I store in an old ring binder and they do not take up much space.
2012 will be a good year. I can already feel it.

There really are miracles....

2011-12-14T15:31:00.001-08:00

Today the most amazing thing happened. As I walked past our receptionist's desk this morning, I saw two small black and white photographs on her keyboard. I looked closer and recognized them as mine. They are the two pictures of me and my dad. The photos that I had thought I had lost. I wrote a post earlier about my dad and mentioned that I had taken two photos out of an old album to scan them and then suddenly they were gone. You know how that is, you were just holding them and you even remember that you put them in your bag, in between these papers so they would not get bent, and at that same moment you know that it was a wrong move, and suddenly they are misplaced, gone, disappeared.

The receptionist said that someone had found them and dropped them off this morning but she could not remember who it was. How can she not remember? Doesn't she know how important this is to me?

Well, I wish I knew who found the photos so that I can thank them in person.

This picture must have been taken in 1960. I could have been three. My dad at his workplace, the airport, but I think that it was on one of his days off, because he would fiddle on his own car in his free time. He took me along and I played around and pretended to fix things. He loved his cars and he refinished a 1951 Oldsmobile and it just looked wonderful after he was done. Dark red body and white top opposed to the boring pistachio green. This could be the Olds he was working on in the picture. We had an old Studebaker before the Olds and then for a while he drove around in a two-seater convertible MG, where the passenger door would not lock and my mom would have to hold on to the door to keep it shut while they were driving as it was secured only by a rope. My favorite car was the 1959 Pontiac Catalina, which we got after the Olds. We felt so special driving around with that "brand new" car in 1968. Now I got sidetracked with the old cars I still wish we had. The picture below is of me on one of the old mobile rampstairs that were used to board airplanes in the old days.

I am just so happy that the pictures are back in the album. It really is a miracle that they were found after such a long time.

The season has finally hit me

2011-12-13T12:04:00.000-08:00

I made cookies over the weekend, daughter bought a tree and we decorated it in the afternoon and hung up the lights outside. Around 6pm on Sunday I sat down and felt satisfied and remarkably comfortable with my knitting and a cheesy Hallmark Christmas Movie while the Christmas lights were sparkling around me.
The cookies are a hit at work.
First the Linzer Stars:

I found this recipe (and the next one) in Martha Stewart's Living magazine (Dezember 2011). I can't find the same recipe on-line but the link above is similar to the one in the magazine. It was pretty easy to make the dough and a bit time consuming to assemble the cookies with the berry preserve, but daughter was helping and they turned out great.

The second batch we made are the Chocolate Peppermint cookies, again the recipe is not on-line. I am sure

that any kind of chocolate cookie recipe would work here. The fun part with these was to grind up a few peppermint candy canes (I use a coffee grinder for nuts and such and it worked good for the candy too) and fill the button holes with the candy powder. It is supposed to melt and when the cookies cool off the candy hardens. They taste great and I think the two tiny buttons bring out just enough of a peppermint taste.

I still have leftover dough from both, so we will be making more cookies. Of course the traditional German cookies (Weihnachtsplätzchen) which I make every year Zimtsterne and Vanille-Kipferl are still on my to-do list. (the links are probably the closest to the recipe that I use which are in an old cookbook from my grandmother). If time permits, I will be glad to post my original recipe here.

Yes, the season is upon us now. Even at the office. We had a decorating competition and here are a few pictures of some really creative ideas my co-workers had.

A black scarf for a thirty year old boy

2011-12-05T17:06:00.001-08:00

My oldest is thirty, which I still cannot fathom. I have not knit anything for him since he was five or six maybe. A sweater in a tan colored cotton yarn with a purple tomato on the front. I guess I did not have any red yarn and I did not run out to buy yarn when I had leftovers at home that I could use, even if they were purple. So he actually had a round eggplant on his chest, (I think they are called Oriental Eggplants). He did not complain.

He will be going on a trip soon and I thought I should knit him a nice scarf. He is a guy and wears nothing else than black or gray or denim, so I took my three leftover black skeins of the Arcadia yarn by Cascade and cast on the One Row Handspun scarf by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

Now here is a funny thing about this pattern. I have knitted it before: A wonderful scarf for my dad in Mirasol yarn which he loves and wears a lot. But it always looked so different from the other projects pictured on Ravelry. More of a compact kind of rib pattern. I was wondering if it was the yarn that I used that made it look so tight. Well, to my total surprise I discovered that I had made a huge mistake in my dad's scarf and I do not know why I had knit the pattern that way. I omitted the two knit stitches completely and I still have no clue why I read the pattern that way.
Well, today I think I am knitting my son's scarf the right way and it looks great. I hope he will like it and not complain just like a nice five, em.... thirty year old good boy.

The Not for Giselle Cowl

2011-12-05T16:39:00.001-08:00

After one of her trips to the mall, my daughter came home telling me about this cool cowl she had seen at Nordstroms. She did not use the word 'cowl' but described in length the kind of scarf that is round and you can pull it over your head like a hoodie type of scarf.

And what a coincidence, because just a few days before that I had bookmarked the Giselle Striped Cowl on the Classic Elite Yarns page. She looked at the picture and confirmed that it was exactly what she wanted but in a solid color. Well, I still had two hanks of Punta Lace in brown and she liked the color and the softness of the yarn. Done deal!

I cast on and am now almost through one hank. It looks great and I know she will love it. And as it is a completely mindless knitting project, I have to put it aside every now and then and that's why I started a scarf for my son. Need to treat them equally, right?

And today (Feb 6th) I have a picture of the finished cowl. Taa daah:

Finishing one object

2011-12-05T16:25:00.001-08:00

Lots of things have been going on (but nothing really noteworthy). Besides cooking and baking, reading books and doodling a lot, there has also been a lot of knitting. I am currently on four projects. Two scarves, a cowl and my summer-top. Yes, that sleeveless Surprise top is still in the works. It is taking me ages to finish just because I have put it aside to start another project. This is why I do not participate in Knit-Alongs, I would never finish those as I would feel under time pressure.

So, let's bring this HMS Surprise (Her Majesty's Sleeveless Surprise) top to an end. I have been writing down the instructions as I was knitting along and I will post the pattern onto Ravelry for download.

Here is what I have done so far:

Body - Front:

Cast on 95stitches (long tailcast-on)

Knit uneven rows(RS), Purl even rows (WS) = stockinette stitch

(Optional - slipfirst stitch of each row respectively knitwise or purlwise = selvage stitch)

Armhole Shaping:

At 17in/42cm (ending with a purl row) startarmhole decrease:

Continuing with RS - bind off 6 stitches atbeginning of next two rows.

Continue decrease as follows (on RS):

Sl1, k2, ssk, knit across to last 5stitches, k2tog, k3

Next row: purl

Continue decrease as above another 8 times(decreasing 30 stitches total - including the 2x6).

Neckhole Shaping

At 4inches/10cm from beginning of armhole,start the neck shaping.

RS: knit first 26 sts, bind off 13 sts, knitlast 26 sts.

Continue with left side of top (resting theright side stitches on your cable).

Purl return row, decrease once at beginningof every knit row (RS) as follows: 1x 4 sts, 1x 3sts, 1x 2 sts, 1x 1 st.(remain 16 st) continue to knit remaining stitches until you have reached 9in/22cmfrom beginning of armhole.

Bind off remaining 16 st.

(Optional: or give the shoulder a slight shape by bindingoff on the purl side (WS) 1x3, 2x2, 1x9)

cut yarn

Now to the right side of top, RS facing startknitting the 26 sts with remainder yarn. Neck decreases are the same, but wewill decrease on the purl (WS) side.

1x 4 sts, 1x 3sts, 1x 2 sts, 1x 1 st.(remain 16 st) continue to knit until you have reached 9in/xcm from beginningof armhole.

Bind off remaining 16 st

(Optional: or give the shoulder a slightshape by binding off on the knit side (RS) 1x3, 2x2, 1x9)

Body– Back:

Knit exact same piece as front.

After assembling front and back pieces by sewing the sides and the shoulder seams, I turned the top inside out and picked up 135 (approx) stitches all around the neckline with a 26 inch circular needle in a fun contrasting novelty yarn, that could be any kind of frilly, colorful yarn as it should be an obvious contrast to the bland cotton yarn. When I turn the top back right side (RS) facing out , I want this colorful part to fall over the neckline like a round collar. After knitting about 3 in/7.5cm bind off loosely. (Actually I have not reached that part yet.)

Around each armhole I will crochet one or two rows single crochet (sc) just to give it some stability.
Sew in loose yarn ends and try on. I am a size 12/14 and this tops fits perfectly. (even in the unfinished stage). It will be a nice summer top.

And now on to the other three projects.

New books

2011-12-05T13:15:00.001-08:00

I have ordered a few new books from Amazon while they were on sale.
Yes, in print format and not for my Kindle. It is nice to hold a book in your hands and turn the pages. Sometimes I like to skip to the end of the chapter and take a peek, other times I like to reread a previous paragraph because I missed something. It's easier to do with a paper book than searching for bookmarks or names on the Kindle.
These four have been in my shopping cart for quite some time and I look forward to reading them.

TheGraveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

TheHistorian, Elizabeth Kostova

Outlander,Diana Gabaldon

TheDevil in the White City, Erik Larson

In the meantime I have downloaded a few free books, mostly German Editions of old books that are available now. Old German Christmas Tales for Children (Weihnachtsmärchen für Kinder). I would like to sit down and read them to my daughter one of these evenings.

December already...?

2011-12-01T10:32:00.001-08:00

Too much going on, then again nothing much going on.
Thanksgiving is over, passed by faster than ever, and I missed the first Advent on Sunday. No candles or decoration whatsover and I have not sent out the Christmas package to Germany yet.
But today is December 1st, so there is still enough time to do all of that and this coming weekend will be all about decorating, baking cookies and getting the second Advent candle lit up. No more procrastinating in December.

Susanne Namdar invited you to Google+

2011-10-31T17:00:00.001-07:00

Susanne Namdar invited you to join Google+.

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Baking Madeleines

2011-09-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

Madeleines are a favorite of mine. You usually find them next to the cashier at Starbucks or packaged in the bakery sections of the grocery store. I love their soft, light and fluffy texture. But they are rich, I tell ya. Six eggs and 2 sticks of butter? Man!
I found this recipe in Martha Stewart Living magazine, September 2011.
And I had an itch to bake them because I knew I had all the ingredients but I was missing the Madeleine form. Then I remembered that I had a mini-donuts form. Perfect.

It is important that the six eggs should be at room temperature because they will fluff up more when mixing them. The batter has to cool in the fridge for 2 hours. I had stuff to do so mine chilled for about 4 hours, but it still worked out well.

The results were wonderful. My coworkers loved them. It was a nice treat in the afternoon.

Try it out. It is easy and you can add flavors to them, make chocolate madeleines, or add some almonds or lemon zest. Yummy.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2011-09-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

We celebrated my dad's 80th birthday. Well, I celebrated here, far away from my family, while they were all together in Southern Germany enjoying my mom's cakes (she made three) and a wonderful pork roast for dinner. Dang.
But we tried to be part of the party by sending him congratulations via video. Happy Birthday Dad!

Werner, my dad

At the same time I found this wonderful article in the September issue of Vanity Fair which I would like to share. It's a witty, heartfelt poetry by Kirk Douglas. I love this.

Mom and Dad in the 50s in Berlin

My parents have been married over 50 years and still sit side by side watching TV, holding hands (whenever my mom is not knitting) and enjoying each others company. Very sweet.
My dad can repair anything and he is very creative with building a replacement part from scratch, which also means he collects lots of stuff which could be used for something one day. He worked hard, mostly shift and on weekends, we did not get to see him as much as kids. He was an airline engineer and in the very old days, before all this crap happened and there was no security needed, he once took me to work and I played around under an airplane wing while he had to get something done. And once he put me in the co-pilot seat while he taxied the aircraft to the hangar (we are talking about large passenger planes here, probably a DC-8). Wow, I can't even imagine anyone being able to do that today with his kids. Lucky me. Thanks, Dad.

Me and my dad 1960 in Tehran

PS: I am devastated because I misplaced two wonderful photos that I wanted to scan for this post. I cannot remember where I put them and I have looked everywhere. I am almost afraid that I threw them in the trash with some receipts and my shopping list. That would be the worst case. Here instead is a picture showing my dad's funny side. He can be silly and to a teenager sometimes very embarrassing. Nowadays I just enjoy his awkward comments over the phone and laugh at his strange humor which he sometimes has. I am still hoping on finding the photos and then I will add them to the post.

First projects

2011-09-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

I participated in a short meme once and one of the questions was 'what was your first knitting project?'
I can hardly believe it myself that it was a cardigan. Here is a picture of me around 1973/74 in my room on my bed, knitting away.

The yarn was worsted weight in grey. My mom helped me find the pattern, probably out of a Burda knitting magazine. I also remember that my dad had to take the time to drive us all the way downtown in Tehran into the fabric district of the bazaar, there we found a store that also carried yarn and buttons. I am sure that the yarn was 100% wool and very soft to the touch. My mom selected the yarn strength to go with the pattern as she knew all about gauge. The pattern itself must have been easy to follow as most german patterns are. Garter stitch all the way, one back, two fronts, two sleeves and a small rectangle as a collar, oh and two pockets. Wow! I remember wearing the jacket to school many times and I actually still have the buttons.
What was your first knitting project?

I can always follow the instructions of a pattern and if it is well written, any knitter can. So I assume my mom had chosen well.

My HMS Surprise top on the other had does not have any instructions and I am going on by the seat of my pants. Knitting on the second piece and we shall see....

HOA rules - I can live without

2011-09-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Living in a condominium has its advantages and disadvantages. The HOA handbook is one of those things you can either live with or hate to live with. One of the rules is that we are not allowed to put any items on the patio rail. I have violated rule A-6 of the architectural guidelines and have received a courtesy warning many times. My planters are hooked from the inside over the rails, trailing plants hanging over both sides and I have a few stones and little figurines in between. So this time I have decided to take them down. My hanging geraniums and the planting soil, as well as the planter boxes themselves are old and need to be replaced.

I found these very nice planter stands at HomeGoods (don't go there, it's the most dangerous store ever) and replanted new boxes with marigolds, thyme, salvia, superbells, verbena and cuttings from my geraniums. My little thyme fairy watching over them.

We felt like we were on exhibit, because now everyone could see us sitting here, so I decided to bring two boxes back and hang them over the rail. Let's see when the next warning will be dropped off at the door.

Back to my HMS Surprise - this is what I have done sofar:

4.0 mm circular needles

Cast on 95 stitches (long tail cast-on)

Knit uneven rows (RS), Purl even rows (WS) = stockinette stitch

Edit: Optional - slip first stitch of each row respectively knitwise or purlwise = selvage stitch

At 17in/42cm (ending with a purl row) start armhole decrease:
Continuing with RS - bind off 6 stitches at beginning of next two rows.
Continue decrease as follows (on RS):
Sl1, k2, ssk, knit across to last 5 stitches, k2tog, k3
Next row: purl

Today I finished one side of the top:

Continue decrease as above another 8 times (decreasing 30 stitches total - including the 2x6).

At 4inches/10cm from beginning of armhole, start the neck shaping.
RS: knit first 26 sts, bo 13 st, knit last 26 sts.

Continue with left side of top (resting the right side stitches on your cable).
Purl return row, decrease on every knit (RS) row as follows: 1x 4 sts, 1x 3sts, 1x 2 sts, 1x 1 st. (remain 16 st) continue to knit until you have reached 9in/22cm from beginning of armhole.
You can bind off remaining 16 st or give the shoulder a slight shape by binding off on the purl side (WS) 1x3, 2x2, 1x9
cut yarn

Now we do the right side of top, RS facing start knitting the 26 sts with remainder yarn. Neck decreases are the same, but we will decrease on the purl (WS) side.

1x 4 sts, 1x 3sts, 1x 2 sts, 1x 1 st. (remain 16 st) continue to knit until you have reached 9in/xcm from beginning of armhole.
You can bind off remaining 16 st or give the shoulder a slight shape by binding off on the knit side (RS) 1x3, 2x2, 1x9
Et voila.

Now I just have to knit the exact same piece again and then I will assemble........

Additional info:

Gauge: 18sts x 24rows=4x4in (10x10cm)

RS=right side

WS=wrong side

sl1=slip one

ssk=slip, slip, knit

k2tog=knit two together

The Sleeveless Surprise

2011-09-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago I had to drop off a traveler at the airport very early on a Sunday. On my way back I decided to take advantage of the early morning and all the free parking spots along Harbor Drive. I grabbed my waterbottle and started walking along the Embarcadero waterfront. What a beautiful day it was.

People were just getting up on deck of their boats enjoying their cup of coffee and the early morning joggers and dog walkers where passing by. I have driven along Harbor Drive so many times, but was never aware of all the sculptures displayed along the water.

These are the "Urban Trees" a collection of 30 sculptures. I liked this one the most: "Ask The Fish" (the iridescent scales are cds/discs) by Stephen Fairfield.

Walking on, I reached the San Diego Maritime Museum.

And look at this ship, I just had to stop and admire it. This is the HMS Surprise, a replica of an 18th century Royal Navy ship.

I understand that it was used for the movie "Master and Commander" with Russel Crowe. It's beautiful. You can't walk past it without imagining Jack Sparrow or a British Commander standing on deck.

Back to knitting. So, in my last entry I started a cotton top. Maybe I should call it HMS Surprise (Her Majesty's Sleeveless Surprise) - as I am just winging this with no plans on how it will turn out.

4.0 mm circular needles

Cast on 95 stitches (long tail cast-on)

Knit uneven rows (RS), Purl even rows (WS) = stockinette stitch

Edit: Optional - slip first stitch of each row respectively knitwise or purlwise = selvage stitch

By today I have made some progress. (This is real time, people, I am knitting slowly). I have knitted straight up for 17in/42cm and now it is time to decrease for the armholes:

At 17in/42cm start armhole decrease (end with a purl row:
Continuing with RS - bind off 6 stitches at beginning of next two rows.
Continue decrease as follows (on RS):
Sl1, k2, ssk, knit across to last 5 stitches, k2tog, k3
Next row: purl
Continue decrease. I will let you know when to start neck shaping.

Not a very clear picture, but you can see the armhole decrease.

Remembering

2011-09-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

9/11/11

It's a bitter-sweet day of remembrance. May there be peace.

A weekend walk

2011-09-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

Lake Poway

Just a few weekends ago I met up with my walking group (former co-workers) at Lake Poway. We meet every now and then to catch up on our lives and gossip about others'. :-) The weather was great, still cool in the morning, just perfect for walking. The lake is located north-east of San Diego, just a few minutes from where we live. It is not a large lake, but popular for its trout fishing season and the adjacent park for family picnics. We hiked along the multiple trails and by the time we were back on the parking lot ($5 to park, thought I'd mention that) it was getting hot again. I took the picture on our half way point. Afterwards we really deserved the great Einstein bagel with shmear.

This time Eileen handed me a bag with some yarn she had found while decluttering at home. Four skeins of natural cotton yarn, and two in dark green, among others. Can this packaging look anymore 80s? Yes, I used to have big hair like that too. I remember having knit a little sweater for my son with similar yarn, so that was over 25 years ago. Could this yarn be that old too? It does not show. It looks just like new.

Great, I am in-between projects anyway and this could be an easy and fast knit. I was thinking of a sleeveless top that I would give back to Eileen when done. Let's see how I will do with my own design.

For now I have done the following, which I will continue to update:

4.0 mm circular needles

Cast on 95 stitches (long tail cast-on)

Knit uneven rows, Purl even rows (stockinette stitch)

FO Hamamelis

2011-08-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my latest shawl, the Hamamelis pattern. I called it my "Persian Hamamelis" because of the colorway of this Malabrigo yarn which is called Persia. The yarn dyer probably felt the same way about these wonderful colors in different shades of blues, turquois and grays and they reminded him/her of the dominant blues in Persian mosaics tiles. The pattern of the Hamamelis also reminds me of the intricate patterns on these tiles which can be found on walls, ceilings and arches especially in mosques all over the country.

Wikimedia Commons

Unblocked

I enjoyed knitting this pattern, and then again I did not. I mentioned before that I had difficulties keeping up with the knit and purl stitches on the wrong side.

blocked

The patterns I usually choose require concentration on a lace chart for the right side of your knitting and then an easy purling on the wrong side. I prefer feeling like, "Row 3 Concentrate! Row 4 Relax. Row 5 Concentrate! Row 6 Relax....."

In this pattern I had to pay attention to every row. So, I only enjoyed knitting every other row until I made it to chart 3. Then it was a breeze and I just knitted on without paying too much attention to the pattern. Well, I should have. The ending has two rows of Yo/k2tog followed by three rows of knitting. My yarn did not make it to the last three rows, so I bound off earlier and was left with a 12 inch yarn end. That was fine with me (no need to unravel again) and I am very happy with the result.

I love the softness of the Malabrigo yarn and the beautiful color mix on the shawl. Too bad that the color does not show its wonderful blue hues. I will just have to wear it to show it off one day in fall.
Have a great last day of August.

More books

2011-08-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

It's always exciting to receive a package from Amazon.
I had a giftcard and finally ordered a few books that were on my wish list. Here are three:

My Nepenthe - Romney Steele

Several reasons I wished for this book:
- I love the Big Basin area on the Pacific Coast. We used to drive south on Highway 1 on our way to Los Angeles and enjoy the impressive views. We would stop for lunch at the The River Inn, or a campsite, like Jade Cove or Sanddollar Beach further south, but I have never been at Nepenthe. So, this goes on my list of things to do one day.
- I love books that tell a story and include beautiful photographs and recipes. This is one of those 'making you feel good' books. It does not disappoint.
- And then there was a knitting connection: I read about this book on one of the knitting blogs that I follow and I can't remember which one it was.(That's why I now have my little red Filofax to capture information like this for future blog entries). It has a knitting connection too, because this place belongs to Kaffe Fassett's family. That is how it got on my wishlist in the first place. It has definitely been worth it.

Don't fill up on the Antipasto - Tony Danza

This is another book that tells a story and shares family recipes. There is something about collecting original traditional italian recipes, how the grandmother made the best lasagne or bolognese sauce ever. I want to try these recipes and find the best ever sauce or pizza dough ever. I love to read about large family gatherings, where everyone comes together to cook together and share recipes - I want to be part of that. Tony Danza has a wonderful way of telling his family stories. And as I cannot have my family here (and I don't even have a large family), I love reading about them.

The Red Garden - Alice Hoffman my all time favorite author

Her books will not be in any kind of e-format, same goes for any book that includes a photo or a recipe. I have to be able to touch them and flip through the pages at my leisure. Alice Hoffman's books will always be books on my shelves. I look forward to reading this one.

August 29, 2011

2011-08-29T11:17:00.001-07:00

Yes, it was obvious that school started this Monday in our area. I almost got run over by kids on their bicycle and one on his skateboard this morning when I walked the dogs. Everyone in such a hurry. And the traffic sucked. Great way to start your week. Have a great School Year, dear students. I am so glad that we are done with that.

Short Knitting Meme on Google+

2011-08-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

This is what I posted on my Google+ account. I have a circle full of knitters and it's nice to follow updates in real time.
*************

A quick knitting meme I saw +Yana Weinstein complete - lot of answers are the same for me.

1) My favorite things to knit - lace shawls. Either triangular, which are fun to knit, but not my favorites to wear, or the rectangular form if they are in one piece, no kitchener stitch for me.
2) My least favorite thing about knitting - counting stitches. I have to count several times and still get a different number each time
3) My first finished object - a cardigan in thick grey yarn, knitted when I was 17.
4) If I could take only one yarn brand to my desert island it would be - Malabrigo.
5) My current knitting obsession is - looking for my next pattern to knit. I love to browse through all those wonderful patterns on Ravelry.

Don't call them Roach Coaches!

2011-08-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

It's the food trucks going healthy. The morning news today reported directly from inside the Green truck and what a coincidence when I took a walk after my (cup-of-noodles) lunch and saw a Patty Melt truck in front of our office.

They offer all kinds of melts, most of them $5 including fries and dogs too. Co-workers who did get their melt today were raving about them. So this goes on my calender for next time.
Nowadays you can follow their locations through the social networks.
I would like to get a hold of the Berliner Currywurst truck somewhere in Los Angeles, I think.

Knitting Relief

2011-08-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I have reached chart 3 of my knitting project "Hamamelis" shawl. I really do not know why this has been such a struggle up to here. The pattern is not too difficult, on the right side that is. It's the return rows that were giving me the issue. I am so used to pearling back without counting stitches, that this threw me off so many times.
And, I do not know why my stitch count is so off. I have repeated Chart 2 four times and my count is 256 stitches opposed to 231 stitches. No clue what happened here. Each pattern row ended on the dot, no additional stitch or missing stitch, so do not know what's up here. I may be miscounting, who knows.
Now it's a breeze from here. Good thing is, that I can bind off any time I want to. So let's see how far my yarn will go. 1 repeat of Chart 3 done tonight.

Filofax Journey continued

2011-08-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

In my ideal FiloFax world I would love to have only one FF with all the information in one place that I would carry around with me so that all is in immediate reach. That was how I used my FF in the 80s.
I could have my book list, my knitting patterns, travel sections, etc. accessable with one flip of a tab.
I actually do not like using multiple binders, having one FF for travel only, or one for knitting projects only would not work for me. All in one is my preference. But that would mean I would be carrying a huge heavy binder around with me. And of course not to forget all those pens that I love (over 20). That is way too much weight for me nowadays. And with all the identity scare, I rarely carry any personal information on me besides my drivers license and a debit card.
On the other hand, how can I resist when all these wonderful models and sizes are available - of course, I wouldn't mind owning multiple binders.

So, in my last FiloFax post in June I wrote about my new set up which I hope will work. I have since appointed my Personal Domino as the main information center at home. All appointments, contact information, important phone numbers, financial information, insurance, Home info, everything that I could think of is entered here. My kids have been informed that that's the place to look up stuff if needed.
It also holds any gift cards that we all may have received at one time or another and I am very happy with this solution.

My Mini Finsbury has been used as a wallet. Behind the green section I keep Shopping Notes where I list things that I plan to shop one day. Example: copper welding rods (to use for blocking knitting projects) with exact sizes and diameter. That is followed by another green tab where I keep a 'tab' on my expenses.

My Pocket Domino Italia is tucked in my purse and my all-day note taker. It lies flat on my desk at work and as soon as a thought, idea, book, quote is worth jotting down, that's where it will go.

Always have the recipe for a drink handy ;-)

I write these on the current day page (day-per-page) and if needed, I can transfer notes to the home FF or check out books or webpages when I am at home. This is the way I have set it up for now and I will keep an update on the progress. I am not sure which type of diary refill I will be getting for 2012. As I do not need a detailed appointment book for myself (occasional hair/or doctor apptm and birthdays are usually the only dates that I keep track of at home) and at work I use Outlook for scheduling multiple calendars, I think a "week per page with notes" would be sufficient.

My tabs are not final and I guess they will never be. Moving them around to find how they work best for me, is a constant activity.
I have kept the 1-6 dividers, just added a piece of colorful paper in front of the tab which I cut to size.
Tab 1 = Days
Tab 2 = The 411
Tab 3 = Travel
Tab 4 = empty
Tab 5 = empty
Tab 6 = Words - list of books, vocabulary, Kindle list
The A-Z dividers are currently not being used.

The pocket size is handy to carry around and a catch-all for scribbles and notes.
I am using a retractable 0.7 pencil I found at Staples in different colors.
And the journey goes on.

A velvet blanket

2011-08-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

Non-knitting topic this time. It's about sewing. I have a basic Singer machine. Not too many buttons, dials or touchscreens on this one. Forward, backward, zigzag, buttonhole, that's all I need. I have many projects in my head, but no fabric except for a few old denim pants.

One of my ideas floating around in my dream world is to recreate a velvet throw blanket that my mother-in-law used to have in the early 70s in Tehran. They were called "patoo-makhmali" which means blanket of velvet. Hers were in a dark red color with orange and yellow tacky printing on one side, blank red on the other side. The shorter sides showed off yellow/gold fringes. They were not beautiful, but they were so wonderful to cuddle up with for an afternoon nap. The material felt heavy but yet was cool. So you could use them in the winter and the summer time (at least that's how I remember them).
When my brother-in-law went back to Iran to visit family after 25 years, I asked him if he could bring me one of those wonderful blankets. Unfortunately, he was not able to find any and I was not able to find anything about them on the internet.

So here was my idea, I thought I could make one myself, so I went out to a fabric store and after touching all the fabric that looked velvety, I finally found a stretch-velvet that seemed to fit the feeling and the heaviness. It's in a dark-chocolate brown color mixed with a few lighter mauve colored swirlies. As a backing I chose a (stretch?) satin in a dark mauve color. They go perfectly together.
Of course, I had read that sewing velvet and another fabric together could be trying. So why did I not even think about trying a smaller swatch, maybe a pillow first? No, I jumped right into a full-size 3 yard long duvet cover. Lying on the floor trying to pin these two fabrics together with two dogs thinking "Yeah-it's play time" sure was a bitch. But I did it and I started to sew the seams.

It's not perfect, but it turned out nicer than I thought. The blanket feels heavy but comfortable and I am thinking of keeping the opening (where I turned the fabric) and add a button or two to be able to use it as a duvet cover. I have more fabric left and I should make a pillow case.

So, now the blanket has been thrown over an old chair to cover it (the chair). I have not taken out my sewing machine in weeks. Sewing just does not seem to be my thing. I see the results of a project pretty fast opposed to knitting, but I really do not enjoy sewing. Maybe I should take a class.

My 5-way No-Cable Shrug

2011-08-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

Although knitting has been put on the back-burner for a while now, every now and then I grab my project and knit a row or two. And even at this slow pace I was able to finish my black 5-way no-cable shrug. I like how it turned out and it is a great piece to wear at the office when the a/c is blowing like crazy.

buttoned in front

When I saw the pattern by Lily Chin on Ravelry I just thought what a great idea it was to place buttons on opposite ends of a rectangle to make it wearable in so many different ways (why did I not think of that?).

The cable pattern on the other hand was not really what I had in mind for a rectangular shawl. I had been thinking about the shawl I had once seen in a movie. Reese Witherspoon wore it in Sweet Home Alabama in one short scene. Hers is in a light blue color with a darker edge and knit on a bias. I reversed the color, black with a grey edge while mine is not knit on a bias. It's a simple basket weave pattern and a crocheted edge. The measurements came out as the pattern suggested 16” (40cm) wide and 55” (150cm) long.

sleeves?

The yarn I chose for this project is called Arcadia by Cascade Yarns and is a Cotton (80%) Angora (20%) blend. I enjoyed knitting with this yarn and even though it is cotton, it runs easily through your fingers and feels so light and soft to knit. The finished piece is also soft, squishy and light. Knitters commented on Ravelry about the splitting of the yarn, which is true, but this is actually true for most cotton blends and a matter of getting used to. Unfortunately this yarn has been discontinued.

close-up

The grey yarn which I used for the edge is some leftover mercerized cotton I have had in my stash for many years. I am very happy to have used it in a pretty project and it works perfectly with the Arcadia.
The funny thing is, that I ran out of yarn two inches before the end. That made me scramble to my 'under-the-bed' stash. I remembered that I had already used some of the grey yarn in my Logcabing Blanket and I desperately needed that yarn. So I unraveled the blanket to that point and was able to secure some more leftover grey yarn to finish those two inches. What a struggle that was. In the end all was well and I am very happy with the results.

wrap

As I did not have a model or cameraman, as usual, the chair is modeling the shrug in three different ways. The dogs of course did not want to be left out of the photo-shoot.

Rocking the Night away

2011-08-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

Awesome. The concert was awesome. Kid Rock rocked! I am stunned at his energy. The songs were a mix of hard rock, hip hop, southern rock, country, ballads and duets with Sheryl Crow. I loved it. I may be more deaf now than before, but I loved it. Stage show was great - laser, fire, pole dancers... just great and entertaining. If I was not a fan of his before, I definitely am now.

While I was gone....

2011-08-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

.... some spam posts showed up on my blog. So I did a bit of a clean up. My blog was blocked for a few days.
I have been busy at work and also trying out new networking sites, like Google+. Never being a big Facebook Fan (after the first few weeks of finding old friends etc. the excitement dwindled) and not getting Twitter at all, I find Google+ kind of interesting to use. It is a good combination of all mentioned above.
Not much happening here at this time.
Finally picked up the Hamamelis shawl again and finished my 5-way shawl. Updates are on Ravelry and I will post some pictures soon.

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Books You Would Recommend to a Friend

2011-06-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

Another nice topic for a bookworm. These are books that I would recommend. They may not be the top ten on my list, but they are the ones that I will always remember:

Desiree - Annemarie Selinko

I read this book when I was 14 (in German). I loved it. It is a historical novel of a young woman in love with Napoleon. Later she married the man who stepped onto the throne of Sweden (Bernadotte). It's a wonderful love story and a great step to learn about the french revolution.

Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood. This was the first novel I read by Margaret Atwood and it got to me. Part of it describes a long ago friendship where her best friend was pretty cruel to the narrator. She has to deal with her feelings now after so many years,when she returns to her hometown.

Digging to America - Anne Tyler
I love books by Anne Tyler, the first one I read was Breathing Lessons and since then I have been hooked on all her books. This one is so close to home as it describes a Persian family adopting a Korean baby. The Persian family's grandmother reminds me so much of my mother-in-law. Totally the same annoying habits. Only someone who has one of those MIL can relate to her. It just made me smile all the way. I can imagine this turned into a movie and Shohre Aghdashloo in that role.

The Third Angel - Alice Hoffman. Another of my favorite authors. I think I have read all her novels too. Did you know that she wrote Practical Magicwhich is such a cute movie with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. This book gripped me the most. It's like a fairy tale, most of her books are, and she is so great at linking three stories together that are about love, loss and hope.

The Cider House Rules - John Irving. Also a book I read many years ago.

Snowflower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See. I just finished this book and I really liked it. It's kind of an biography of a family in the 19th century China and a life-long friendship between two girls. I look forward to reading more of Lisa See's books.

Pontoon - Garrison Keillor. If you want to laugh - I laughed tears - this is a good book. It's one of his Lake Wobegon stories and he knows how to place humor in religion, death and a funeral on a lake.

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy. I have read many Indian novels and this one is by far the most interesting. Behind a family tragedy it describes social and political background in the India.

The Magician's Assistant - Ann Patchett. So far my favorite book by AP.

Case Histories - Kate Atkinson. Three cases are investigated by a detective and they all seem to link together in the end. A very entertaining book.

Of course there are so many more books I like. Not to forget the Stieg Larsson Trilogy, Amy Tan, Lily Tuck, Anita Shreve, Joyce Carol Oates, etc.

I have just picked up Water for Elephants. Just at the first chapter but I am curious to see if it is a good book as it is such a hype now.

As I have not been knitting a lot, books have been my companion again in the past few months. So I look forward to reading the other entries on Carole's blog and make a note of new books to read.

Dog Day weekend

2011-06-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

These are my friends.

Ardi & Trudi, waiting to go for a walk.

Trudi and her mom, my best friend for 40 years. We got together to make these:

But then the dogs wanted some attention too

Please pet me

Oh look what Trudi can do!

What is she doing to my sister?

Elf Ears. I know, it's so cute.

Have a wonderful Sunday.

By the way, my friend makes the best scented candles ever. Check out her website Home Art & Fun.

Good Morning

2011-06-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Wake up already! It's the weekend.
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My little red one

2011-06-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

My Domino Italia - ta dah!
In red. A Pocket. Ok, so it's not a leather Filofax. After using the Finsbury, I do enjoy the real leather feel. That's ok. I have no idea why I ordered this one (again through my sister from the Italian FF site). Maybe because it was on sale, or because of the nice red color or because it's a Domino.

Sofar I have only been using my Personal Domino. I have always been using the personal size since the 80s and it has worked well for me. In the late 90s I gave the paper diary a break as I was excited about all the new electronic devices popping up, using several versions of the Palm. Although I have a Blackberry today and still sync it with my Outlook at work, I went back to paper, just because I missed it so much. The personal sized Filofax was again in my purse, actually until just recently, where I had to scale down the weight I carry around every day. So, I have converted this binder to be the main home organizer. Or let's say I am in the process of doing so. All important info (in detail), addresses, appointments are entered in the blue Domino. It lies open (flat) on my dresser (which I have kind of converted to my desk) next to my netbook, pencil cup holding multiple pens and my mail sorter. It's a system which should work well, as I can check on my daily or weekly appointments every morning and enter updates in the evening. (I am actually still working on compiling all the information to be entered).

Now to put this Pocket Domino to use somehow. It came with an Italian one-week-on-two-pages calendar. My dear sister bought me an English one-day-on-a-page diary as she was not sure what would be included in her order. I exchanged it and as this is the first time that I am using a one-page-a-day I noticed how much space it takes up. I removed the pages up to the month of June. And I will be trying it out as my "dear diary".

The other tabs are still in in the works. If I do carry this pocket with me, there is some info that I want to have access to at all times (but not as detailed as in the home organizer), like my insurance stuff, car stuff, family sizes, room measurements (you never know when you come across a great deal), travel stuff, yarn stuff..... I am not really convinced. Maybe I do like the Botanic more or maybe the Pocket size does not work for me after all.
I must admit that I checked on other Filo blogs via Philofaxy on how they are using their pocket to get more ideas.

Dear Filofax Fans, isn't that what it's all about? Setting up a Filofax, trying it, re-arranging it, buying a new one, different size, color, material. Trying it, etc.
It's a hobby (obsession), which sometimes could be functional, if I wouldn't change it so many times!!!

I do have to add another picture:
Doesn't this sad face deserve a treat? Yes, I think so too.

Cooper

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Favorite Love Songs

2011-06-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

Great topic, I love love-songs. And I love the old songs and the more tears they bring to my eyes, the more I love them. They always seem to be associated with a broken heart.... Sucker....

And of course there is always a memory attached to each song. As far as I look back I was hopelessly in love with one guy, so I was heartbroken throughout my teenage years. Some of the songs still bring back those memories and tears. So, how long does it take to get over your first love? Now after 40 years, you should be so over it, girl....

Love Hurts, performed by Nazareth (the first time I heard this, our class was on a field trip in 11th grade. As we were on a hike I was singing at the top of my lungs, not caring that I cannot carry a tune - my poor classmates)
Knights in White Satin, Moody Blues (ah yes, slow dancing to this one at the Ice Palace)
Words, BeeGees (any BeeGees song makes me cry today, because they are no more)
Everything I do, I do it for you - a raspy voice always does it for me, so does a deep voice, actually
The Dance, Garth Brooks (the lyrics hit the spot. There was only one dance with the one I was in love (I was 14 mind you) and that was it, but I will never forget it or him
Time in a bottle, Jim Croce (this was a repeat on my cassette player)
Crying, Roy Orbison (today I like the duet mix with K.D.Lang)
Need you now, Lady Antebellum (sometimes I have too much to drink and I need him now too)
Herz aus Glas, Muenchner Freiheit (this is such a cheesy song, performed by a German band)
I fall to pieces, Patsy Cline (today I like the version performed by Aaron Neville and Trisha Yearwood)
All by myself, Eric Carmen (the very first version from the 70s - also one of those songs I like to sing along and I ain't no Celine Dion)
Susie Q, John Fogerty - CCR (everyone named Susi must love this one)
Just Around the Corner, Cock Robin (I used to listen to this guy endlessly in the 80s)
Con Te Partiro, Andrea Bocelli (this was the first song I heard by Andrea B and I fell in love with it at once)
Bleeding Love, Leona Lewis (I like this song since I saw the dancing performance on the show, "So you think you can dance" watch the link)

Stop me, I have too many.
Not to forget Elvis Presley, Barry White, Hot Chocolate, Dr. Hook
I know, I had the weirdest love-songs on my tapes.

Ok, Carole, you got me there. It was nice listening to some of these old tunes again.

Good Morning

2011-06-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

Isn't this a pretty coffee cup? A souvenir from Lechbruck Germany. My sister brought it and it is jjust today that I am enjoying a cup. Have a great weekend.
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Botanic Pocket

2011-06-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

I could not resist these two pretty Filofaxes. The Botanic, pocket size. They were also on sale on the German Filofax site.

Both are so pretty, I even like the pink one. And I love the buttons. Well, my daughter chose to take the green one. She is just out of college and the reminder book that she had been using for class needs to be replaced. She is planning on setting up her first Filofax. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did my first one.

So, the pink one is left. Did I mention I love the buttons? The interior is light creme colored, feels suede like. It has four pockets on the left and a large pocket on the right inside. It does not lie flat when opened. The closure is a sturdy thick rubber band that locks around the pretty button.

I do not have any idea how to use this one yet. I will put it this to the side and pull out the next Filofax that I ordered.....

To be continued.

Binder or Wallet, Wallet or Binder?

2011-06-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

I am surprised I did not unpack these beauties when they arrived. But I had to wait for some quiet time and after all visitors had left, my fingers were itching to get started with setting up the first one. It's the Finsbury Mini in green. After reading a post on Philofaxy on using the Mini as a wallet, I thought about that idea as well. This Finsbury was on sale on Filofax Italy. I chose green, as pink is not so much my color. The leather smells good and it is soft to the touch. The binder itself is rather sturdy, and it seems that it will make a good wallet.

It has three slots on the left inside on top of a larger pocket, and there is a zippered compartment for change on the right inside. Clasp and pen loop are in the same beautiful green leather. It is a perfect wallet due to the full length pocket in the back that will hold bills.

So, I started customizing it. I read on a comment post via Philofaxy how to make clear pocket holders for additional plastic cards. I had these business card sheets, cut them up, marked punch holes and used my personal sized Filofax hole punch, fiddled with it and was able to get the holes in the right place.

Then I found I had some green index cards at home, I also marked the punch holes and cut a few to size. They are used as dividers for now.

In the left inside slots I have placed my most used cards, driver's license and some stamps. After the first divider I have added the plastic holders and filled them with additional cards, like credit cards, membership cards, Starbucks card, insurance cards etc.
Followed by a divider and quad note paper, a divider and lined notepaper, a divider and a few sheets of address paper. I have removed the diary and the A-Z dividers.

My Finsbury will be used only as a wallet, no diary needed. I will use the notepaper as shopping list and to jot down random ideas. I have also kept a few pages of the address forms, thinking, if I run into someone and want to jot down their contact info, then these pages will serve their purpose.

A few months ago, I found these small colorful gel pens at Staples. They only write in black, but I like the size, they fit perfectly into the FF pen loops and they also write pretty smoothly. I could not decide which color to choose for my wallet. I took the green one for now as its color is a perfect match.

Xeno pens from Staples

So, I am all set. I was able to fit all my necessary cards and I have notepaper to scribble on. I have covered the cards in the plastic holders with either a picture or one of my doodle art works. This way they are not as exposed when I open my wallet. Now I just have to try it out for a while and see how I like it. For today, the first day, I can already say that my purse feels so much lighter, as my previous wallet was one of those large monsters.

Now to reveal the next new Filofax.... to be continued.

All is quiet again

2011-05-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

The celebrations are over, the commencement walks are done and all visitors have left. It is quiet again. The only sound is my sniffling. No, I am not sad that they have gone, quite on the contrary. But I have a cold. It came at a most inappropriate time. Right in the middle of my vacation and it is a stubborn one, not leaving at all. My first day at work was not much fun, as I was dragging myself through the day. And tomorrow will not be much better.

There is some good news, though. I have picked up some knitting again. Starting out very slowly and just a few rows when I do. Let's see how my hands will take that.

And I have three new Filofaxes. My sister brought the European order with her. We had imagined to sit down one evening and set up the new Filos together, but that did not happen. She returned with hers unopened and I just sat down today and opened my first one.

It is going to be fun to set this one up. More to follow......

Not much to talk about here....

2011-05-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

I am busy cleaning, sorting and making some space. My sister is visiting for 9 days. This has been planned quite some time to clebrate my kids' college graduation. Now she called and asked if she could bring her granddaughter along, together with the mom, her maybe future daughter-in-law. As we do not have that much space, and my son and his girlfriend are also going to visit, and there are the two dogs and my car is not large enough to fit all, it is going to be tight. Well, the more the merrier.
So now these upcoming two weekends are reserved for deepcleaning. You know, when you get on your knees and mop the floor behind the toilet. Also, time to declutter and give stuff to Goodwill. I have finally sorted my yarn, threw away scrap yarn, yes threw it out, it's gone. And tucked away my unfinished objects. No way I can knit at this time. My hands are still not cooperating. My connection to yarn and knitting is gone too. I have no feelings for them anymore. I don't care about the yarn wrappers, what the name was, what the yardage is, they are gone. In the trash. I had added them to the Ravelry stash anyway. I noticed that I did not care about all the nice skeins that are now neatly arranged in a under-the-bed shoe organizer. Usually, I fondle them, admire the bright colors and imagine what I could knit. Gone. No feelings whatsoever. So, it's time to give them a break and check on them once in a while to see if the relationship is back on track.

I never mentioned the progress (or non-progress) on my hands. I had an appointment to go get an EMG/NCV test done. After procrastinating it for ages I finally went and it was done by a technician I guess. She definitely was not a doctor and that is how it usually is. So before she started, I asked her what this test is going to prove and who would be evaluating the results. Her answer was kind of vague, she would see with what speed the electric current would go through the nerves and could determine where the current would be slower and that would show that there is a blockage, something like that. Well, she taped the electrodes and stuff on the palm of my left hand and said, " this may be a bit uncomfortable" and pushed a button, Hell yeah it was. I jumped up and told her that I would not want to continue and to stop. Which was fine with her, but she asked if I would want to go ahead with the second test where they probe needles into the muscles to see the reaction. I don't think so. So I left without having the test done.
And now I am icing my hands every night. I have not called my doctor again.

Wishing all the mothers a wonderful Mother's Day. May you always be happy, healthy and always be dancing. (I would add the lyrics of LeeAnn Womack's song " I hope you dance", but that would take up too much space). When we get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope we dance..... Have a wonderful Mother's Day.

Yogi tea

2011-04-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

is supposed to help me get out of my slump. I am drinking Kava Stress Relief. It tastes good, with a spoonful of sugar, as anything would. It says it helps melt away the stress. That sounds nice. I would not mind melting away into a soft bed myself. It's been crazy at work and the nights have been kind of a restless fight with the pillows. My hands still hurt, my left arm feels as if it has no strength left? What is up with that? I am finally having nerve and muscle tests done on Wednesday, let's see what the results will show. Maybe they will tell me, that there is something wrong with my hands, really? I knew that already. Yeah, I do not have much confidence in medicine.
I miss knitting in the evening, or during lunchbreak, on weekends, or in traffic.

C'mon, stay positive.......which is not so easy with all the sad stuff happening all over the world.

Too many women in my circle of friends and co-workers have been diagnosed with breast cancer in the month of March. That is so weird and almost scary. This weekend, I was invited to a Boobie-Voyage party. Which was a combo birthday party and farewell to the tatas in one wash. Surgery is tomorrow. Wow, everyone deals with their issues in a different way, I guess.

Today I was contemplating on deleting my Facebook account and this blog, but I am still here.

Ok, stay positive...
I had a wonderful weekend two weeks ago. Just going on a roadtrip, staying at a hotel for two nights and having some fun, a ballgame, a nice restaurant and great company - that is so refreshing.
We drove to Phoenix, AZ and watched the San Diego Padres play at their spring training location of Peoria, AZ. I researched restaurants on Yelp and found a German restaurant in Glendale, AZ 'Haus Murphy' - what a great unexpected experience. We had stuffed mushrooms, meatloaf with red cabbage, Wiener Schnitzel (the real thing) and with our coffee a 'Schnaps'. Good times.
If you can't take a full vacation, a weekend away from home and work will energize and lift your spirits too.

Distractions

2011-03-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Two rows of knitting, that's all I could manage over the weekend.

So, what do you do when you can't knit?
I sorted my MP3s and created playlists.
I downloaded more songs ($) from Amazon, like Fitz and the Tantrums, Adele, Bruno Mars, Florence & The Machine. ($$).

I looked at sales on Filofax sites, Italy and France had some good offers. ($$) I called my sister in Germany to order some if she felt inclined.
Didn't she think that the green Finsbury Mini or the Italian Domino Pocket in red or the Botanic Pocket in green and pink were the cutests ever? Yes, she thought they were and so the purchase button was pushed ($$$) - she will bring them along when she visits in May.

I went to Target ($$), never a good idea, but good deals.

I cooked a large meal and had too much wine and ice cream too. (insert pound sign).

So that was somewhat my weekend without knitting. There is so much more that I could have done (I have not organized my yarn under the bed yet, or filed my recipes).
I need a vacation.

It just shows that knitting keeps me from spending money and it always makes me feel so much better. Soon, I hope.

Happy Spring beginning - Happy Nowrooz

2011-03-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

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Filofax Belle

2011-03-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

Filofax Belle

I can't believe I lost a bid for the Mini Filofax (Belle) on eBay which was sold for less than $4.00. I have never placed a bid before on anything, not much of an eBay-person, but there must be an automated way to increase your bid when you are not able to watch the final minutes. I was in a meeting and I am very disappointed.
Isn't that pin-up girl button cute?
I wish I could contact the buyer and bid again.....

Now all listings are over $40. Unbelievable. I guess the word is out that the Filofax has a lot of followers again.

Amazing...

2011-03-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

I received a blog comment and an email from Deanne, who also attended Betty Goss Kindergarten in Tehran. I am amazed.
Deanne, it's so wonderful to hear from someone who has attended the same school. What is even more amazing is that you searched the internet at the same time as I posted my entry. That is a miracle in itself.
I will email you with many more details about my time there and I look forward to an interesting exchange of memories.

Waiting......

2011-03-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

His buddy Cooper was at the groomers on Saturday and Gino could not wait for him to get back home.
They miss each other when apart, but tease and fight over food when together, just like real brothers.

While we were on our own, without big brother, we did to get some playtime with the bird. Here is Gino, Dexter and M.

Cooper was not very happy with the results of his haircut:

Can those eyes be any droopier? (is that a word?) I think so.

Kool-Aid and Chocolate Chip cookies

2011-03-09T14:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's entry "10 Favorite Smells" brought back many memories. The one which stood out the most was my time in kindergarten in Tehran in the 1960s. I still remember it so well although it was over 45 years ago. I was supposed to be enrolled in the German kindergarten, but they were full and could not accept any more kids that year.

My Kindergarten Certificate

So my parents found a private kindergarten, which was run by Mrs. Betty Goss out of her home (on Zafar Street). An older gentleman (in our eyes he seemed old - he could have been 30'ish) would pick up kids from various neigborhoods in a large station wagon (Amir-Abad, in my case). I would sit in the cargo area in the back with a group of girls. My girlfriend's dad was African American and her mother was from Switzerland. They called her Tootsie, and so did I. She was my first best friend.
I attended the all-day program for a few weeks. This was the time my mom was pregnant with my sister, which I do not remember at all as she never mentioned that I would have a sister or brother soon. I never noticed any change in her appearance either, but I doubt that a 5-year old would pay attention to that. We would have to take naps after lunch on the big king size bed in the masterbedroom on the second floor. I loved that bed because it was so big and soft. There were only a few of us in the afternoon.
We did a lot of arts and craft and coloring, of course, that's what you do in kindergarten. I loved the assortment of crayon colors and the coloring books or sheets. I should have added in my entry, that the smell of crayons reminds me so much of that time.
For Valentine's Day we were supposed to make cards for our friends or maybe for everyone of the kids. At home we did not have much craft material and there was no stationery store in our area. So mom took my dad's Winston cigarette boxes and we cut out the red parts shaped as hearts.
I learned a lot about America during that time, about Presidents, the Capitol, Thanksgiving, Johnny Appleseed, Christmas carols, etc.

Christmas 1962

Christmas carols

My sister was born in December and I know that my mom did not come to our Christmas event. My dad was there taking pictures. I am the one looking into the camera, singing along, 'Jingle Bells' I assume. The time spent at Betty Goss' Kindergarten and Nursery has made a big impression on my life. I had fun and it felt like family and I wanted to live in the US where they have Kool-Aid and chocolate chip cookies and crayons in every color. It took a long time to get here but now I am and I am very happy I did.
I have searched the internet, but was not able to find any mention of this kindergarten, too bad, I would have loved to hear about other peoples' experience.

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Favorite Smells

2011-03-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

Image by jonycunha via FlickrSmells are always associated with a memory of something. There are a few smells that are very special to me:

- Lavender - reminds me of my grandfather "Opa Paul" who used a lavender scented aftershave. He was the black sheep of the family, but kids adored him, because he clowned around all the time. My grandmother did not have an easy life with him.

- Grape flavored Cool-Aid - I visited a private american kindergarten in Tehran in the 60s. Snacks were cool-aid and chocolate chip cookies from the PX. I fell in love with them and will never forget the good time I had as a 5-year old.

- Whiskey-Coke (breath) - my cousin, Ralf, three/four-times removed, I don't know exactly how we were related, I think he was the son of my grandmother's cousin, but I adored him. He drank a lot and I liked his whiskey breath (yes I kissed him when I was 15).

- Puppy breath - I have always been in love with puppies. When I was little I told my mother that I would rather have a puppy than a baby. I still feel that way some days.

- Railroad tracks - they smell like burnt wood, which reminds me of the Berlin subway (U-bahn).

- Chlorine - hot summers at the pool

- Scented Geraniums - or any kind of scented plant. I love to rub the leaves of scented plants. Lemon Balm, Geraniums, Jasmin flowers, mint, etc. It just gives me a kind of rush and I put together small bouquets to take to the office and smell them every now and then.

- Well, I have to admit, the smell of a joint - I have never tried one myself but it has been around me since high school and I like the sweetness of it.

- Fresh laundry - I am sure that everyone loves the smell of fresh linen and sheets. I don't know why my mom's laundry always smells so much better than mine.

- Leather - it smells like luxury in a new BMW. Which brings me back to Germany every time.

I would love to have a sample case to pick up a bottle every now and then and go back in time just by smelling and taking in the different scents. Remember the movie 'French Kiss'? Kevin Kline, who played the French Guy 'Luke' had a sample case in his room to distinguish the different smells that can be detected in wine (oh, I forgot wine on my list).
Thanks, Carol, for a fun topic.

It's about books again

2011-03-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
Not about knitting - as there is no knitting here. Giving my hands some rest and waiting for some tests to be done. Wish I had not gone to the doctor in the first place as she started talking about all the bad stuff like cortisone shots and surgery. Not for me, no..... maybe a brace and therapy but that's all I will do. Yes, I can be stubborn.
So, reading (and unfortunately eating) are my hobbies now. Now that I got my Kindle, I have only read the Hornet's Nest on it. After I was done and at a low point, a void, after so much action, my co-worker dropped four books on my desk a few days ago. I have finished two of them and they were on my reading list too. That was exciting.

The first one is The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. I saw that many bloggers had that book on their list as well. It's in my "I like it" category. A bitter sweet love story switching narration between the 40s and the 80s in Seattle. It describes the sad history of the japanese internment camps and how the two main characters are torn apart. It was not a tear jerker, no, but really sad and astounding to read about the impossible way the japanese were treated at that time.
Oh, tearjerker! - have you ever seen the movie "7 pounds" with Will Smith? Oh my, on a Sunday afternoon on the couch with a headache (I think I got that from hitting my head really hard in the kitchen), moping around all afternoon and then watching this movie... that really ended my Sunday in tears. Next on my Netflix queue is "Milk"...
Ok, I am rambling here, back to the books.

I picked up "A Reliable Wife" after that and just finished it. This one is so different to all the other books. The story is set in Wisconsin in the winter of 1907. So it is cold throughout the book. The woman who travels to meet her future husband has evil plans. It's kind of a gothic tale, dark, seductive and erotic.
The reviews are all over from 1 to 5 on Amazon, some loved it, some did not care for it at all. I actually liked it.
And now I started Shanghai Girls. Set in 1937 about two sisters living in Shanghai and about to marry and move to the US. So let's see how that one will play out.

Oh, just remembered that on my Kindle I read the short story by Rachael Herron, Honeymooning. It's short, sweet, witty and romantic. Her second book is out since yesterday How to knit a Heart back Home. It probably will be a cute one too. On my list.

I have found a way to archive the books I've read, more about that in another post.

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Things to Like About the Month of March

2011-03-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Haft-Sin Table

Can you believe it's already March?
Living in San Diego there is not much excitement about the winter backing down. Although we did have a few really cold nights here, we still cannot call it winter. So March is not really a special month in that way. But it is the month of the beginning of Spring. The vernal equinox, officially starts on March 20, 2011. What do I like about March?

Day Light Savings time is on March 13th. Not that I like to lose that one hour, but the days are longer and it is so much nicer to walk the dogs before it gets dark.
Time to plant the one tomato on the patio. This year I will have a few seedlings of some heirloom tomatoes that I bought just to save the seeds, of course they were great on my sandwich, too. Seedlings go to friends with backyards.
It is also time to resoil my planter boxes on the patio too. Every two years the whole soil should get changed, the geraniums should be cut back and little nice colorful plants are planted in between.
Beginning of Spring, March 20th, is also the first day of the first month (Farvardin) of the Persian Calendar and the celebration of No-Rooz, the Persian New Year. I try to keep up the tradition and set up the beautiful, decorative 'Haft-Sin' and cook a special persian dish. But more about that when the time is near.
It is time for the desert blooming. This year I would love to take a day trip to Anza Borrego State Park and see if the desert flowers are colorful after a very good rainy season.
It's always BBQ season here, but it's more fun when the weather warms up, so it's BBQ time.
Spring Cleaning - not on my list
Spring flowers are so pretty and a joy to look at, but I don't like cut flowers in a vase at home. (I forget to take care of them)
Spring Training - Go Padres!

Check out over at Carole's what bloggers like about the month of March.

If it's cold outside

2011-02-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

........ bake bread. Can't wait to share these buns with M and a friend tonight. Cheese platter and some eggsalad and tuna salad should satisfy everyone. And the kitchen is warm today.

There is supposed to be a record breaking cold front on its way. So we may get into the 30's in San Diego. I do not mind that as long as the rain stops. Keeping warm is not a problem, I look forward to wearing my knitted items, like warm socks, gloves and headbands.

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FO: Citron done

2011-02-21T21:36:00.000-08:00

Despite the hand issue, I finished Citron on Saturday night and blocked the shawl right away.

Then I had to take an ice bath. This is what I am trying to do now for a week each night, hopefully it helps the blood circulation. I did schedule an appointment for Friday morning with my doctor. And I do want to mention that my hand just looks this big from the angle the picture was taken.

Citron is such a wonderful pattern, a great idea with the ruffled parts, so easy, I could have come up with it, but alas, I am not creative at all.
The yarn is very nice to knit with. A fine yarn, no splits and even easy to knit with not so sharp knitting needle tips. I was using 2.5 mm circular needles, but they did not have the pointed tip.
The results after the blocking are soft, and detailed stitches are visible.

No model was to be found this morning and the shawl had to go off on its trip to the cousin, so the back of a chair had to do for the picture. I hope that it will comfort her and that she will enjoy it a bit.
I think I will knit another one as I still have one skein left. A very enjoyable knit.

For now we will rest the hands a bit.

Citron

Pattern by Hilary Smith Callis

Yarn: Punta Yarns, Lace space dyed

Needles: 2.5mm circular needles

Can I have ice with that?

2011-02-18T15:24:00.000-08:00

Not much knitting going on here, actually none. My hands are not cooperating. And I think I have to give them some rest.
I have scheduled a doctor's appointment but am not really keen on going as she will only send me off to another doctor and then a specialist and so on. I have found an interesting group and thread on Ravelry where a knitter posted about pain in her wrists. One of the responses came from Joshua Tucker who has attended Stitches West a few years ago at the Massage Oasis booth. He is the Tendonitis Expert. Check out his website with suggestions on how to reduce inflammation by icing. I will start this tonight for seven days as suggested and will post updates here.

I am really bummed about not knitting as I need to finish the Citron shawl this weekend, so I can send it off to the cousin who is already doing so much better.
So there are four projects sitting in the basket, just waiting to be finished. What should I do in the meantime? Well, first of all, read of course. I just finished the third book in the trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I liked it. There were too many names which confused me at times, Niemenen/Niederman etc. but notes on a small Post-it took care of that. And now there is something like a void, I don't know what to read next. Whatever book I will choose it will probably not grab me and take a hold of me like Lisbeth did.

Brain Freeze

2011-02-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

I am tired. I feel like I never sleep at night. I close my eyes and try to rest. I even started a mantra, something like, "think of nothing - think of nothing" imagining the word "NOTHING" written in capital letters and scrolling colorfully from left to right in front of my eyes.
But my brain takes over and works at an incredibly fast speed, processing so much crap I just have to run along with it. And it really feels as if I need to run, everything is moving so fast - it is at a high speed, somehow.

My dreams are the weirdest ever (yes, I keep a dream diary). Airplanes dropping into a sea, and a co-worker jumping into the water to save the pilot (my hero).
Large bullfrogs sitting in a pond on top of each other (am I looking for my prince?).
Boarding a plane to Vegas to meet my grandmother.
Trying to rent an apartment with a very weird floorplan over and over again.
Going to a spa and being charged too much.
What is going on in my head? I ask myself if I am accessing my Recycle Bin? The so called three stages of the memory (Registration, Retention and Recall) are not really working well in my case or let's say at my age. Yes, I register, observe, take notes. And then it is stored somewhere. But once the information is used it is forgotten or unnecessary facts are discarded. And that's where they have gone, into the Recycle Bin, which I seem to open up at night one more time before I hit the final delete button.

Memory Recall! don't even mention it. I can't memorize a phone number - I'm so grateful for my contacts list in Outlook and on my cellphone. I forget what I am doing several times a day. Either I am standing in the middle of the hallway like an idiot not remembering where I was going. Or I return to the same place (kitchen) over and over again because I forget to pick up the things I really needed, and now have to get them one at a time. Ah, spoon. Great. Oh, a bowl. Right, emmm, Napkins. Good.

Names, oh boy is this embarrassing. I forget the names of people that I have known for ages and standing in front of them, I go like, "Hi Bryan", when his name is Ryan... or I just mumble the name "Hi Ja...." (it's Jill). But apparently, being menopausal, this is supposed to be temporary, well let's just hope so. At least it's a good excuse. "Oh, sorry I had a menopausal moment there".

My mind is in a constant nebulous state. I can't seem to focus. The other day I decided to return two bras that I had bought but that were not really fitting well. I got the bag and the receipt, I grabbed the trash, my purse and my car keys and off I went. Two days later I remembered the bag with the bras but could not find it. I planned on returning the items that day and wondered where I had put them. Ahh, I 'recalled'. I had one plastic bag of trash and one plastic bag of bras in my hand when I left the house and after dumping the trash in the dumpster, I did not have any plastic bag in either hand. Hmmm. I guess I threw the bras away. So much for being proud of keeping the receipt. Is it hot in here?

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Favorite Non-Knitting Blogs

2011-02-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

Carole sent out a great topic today. I am curious what kind of blogs other participants will list. There are so many interesting blogs (yes even non-knitting blogs) out there, but one cannot be aware of all of them and this will help to add a few to my Delicious Bookmarks. My favorites are (in no particular order):

Behind the Stick - serving up bar stories one sip at a time
Cake Wrecks - these pictures of cake decorating gone wrong make me laugh out loud
Farmgirl Fare - recipes, farm life and cute animal pictures
Frugal for Live - great saving tips
Philofaxy - for the Filofax enthusiast
Smitten Kitchen - foodblog
Soshable - social media blog
Tea and Cookies - food blog
Mashable - Social Media News
The Pioneer Woman - photography, food and my favorite Charlie, the basset hound

And now off to read all the other entries. If you would like to join here is the link:

here..

Braids

2011-02-11T21:58:00.000-08:00

Hair, dough, leather can be braided. And so can paws.
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Monday, Monday

2011-02-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

Life is good!
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Go Dip!

2011-02-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

May the best team win today. It's Superbowl Food frenzie. Yes, also at our house. Twice baked potatoes were just transported to the car to be baked a second time at their destination. A 6-layer dip was just dropped and transported to the trash bin. I call that a touch down. Enjoy the game.
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Yoga Interrupted

2011-02-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

Gino, Cooper and M on the yoga mat

Everyone is doing yoga these days. M decided to stay home and bring out her mat and exercize in the livingroom. Well, the dogs joined her of course. I can tell you, it was not a serious workout.

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Tattoo of a Hornet's Nest?

2011-02-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting for the mass paperback book of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest for so long, I kinda gave up. Now that I have my Kindle I ordered it from Amazon. I actually would have liked all three books side by side on the shelf, maybe some time later.
So I began reading the third book in this trilogy and there are a few parts that I have forgotten. What happened in Book 2 with Bjoerman? Who was Paolo Roberto again? I looked at 600+ pages of Book 2 and thought, I cannot read this a second time. So I searched online for a short summary of Book 2, The Girl Who Played with Fire. I found it on Shmoop.com . Although it may not be perfect, it sure got me back up to speed. There may be other (better) sites, but I was so happy to have even thought of looking it up.
It is so much easier to read this book on the Kindle. Most importantly, it's easy to handle compared to carrying a 600+ pages book. I always have trouble laying it down flat as I eat dinner or do some mindless knitting. Impossible with a fat paperback. I would use all kind of weights to hold it down. Napkin holder, cellphone, pepper mill. Can you imagine what my book would look like later?
As I have the habit of scrolling through previous pages, I am now bookmarking sections on the Kindle so I can find them more easily in a large book as this. Especially with all these scandinavian names, it does sometimes get confusing.
I watched the movie on Netflix the other night. I like Noomi Rapace who plays the role of Lisbeth Salandar. That is actually the way I had imagined the girl to be. The Swedish language (I think it was Swedish although the movie is a Danish production) irritated me in the beginning of the movie. It seemed like I could understand it and would not need to read the subtitles, it just sounded like German, or like English, but then again, no I did not understand it.... Had I not read the book, I may have been lost as the movie was going way to fast in story. Probably not easy to pack all the information into such a short timeslot. Let's see how the American movie version will be.

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Things On Your Nightstand/Bedside Table

2011-02-01T20:53:00.000-08:00

My nightstand is my favorite small personal area. It's mine and no one else's. Lots of things accumulate on it over time and I have to declutter and rearrange it every now and then.

My nightstand

Currently it houses these things:

1. Alarm clock - I have had this for ages - brought it along from Germany and it is always reliable.
2. A lamp - this lamp may be old maybe not. We bought it probably 8 years ago at a small antique store in Santa Cruz, CA. It has a sticker on the bottom: "Present from Dorothy and Dean Dixon - 11-14-1996".

Mom and Blacky - Teheran '70s

3. Picture frame #1 - A picture of my mother and our cocker spaniel mix "Blacky" in the '70s. My mom is reading a paperback book on the terrace of our house. She is always reading. Blacky is sitting in front of her, leaning against her, as he always used to do. Mom is surrounded by her lovely plants, mostly geraniums as they thrived in the summer heat in Tehran and a large philodendron. We all loved this house a lot but had to move back to Germany, dog included, after the revolution started in '79.

Mom & Dad - Point Reyes

4. Picture frame #2 - A shot of my parents when they visited us in San Jose in 2001. We took a day trip to Point Reyes National Park, north of San Francisco. It was a wonderful trip. The lighthouse is located about 300 steps at the bottom of the cliff. When we reached it we were able to see migrating whales which was a wonderful experience. The beach of the Point Reyes Seashore is so wide and stretches out for miles - it would have been a wonderful place to take a walk and collect shells and pebbles, maybe sea glass. But we were out of time and could only take a few pictures. The photograph shows my parents standing on the beach.

New York 1997

5. Picture frame #3 - This picture was taken in New York close to Central Park, I think in front of FAO's Schwarz Toy store. Me and my best friend (I have known her since we were 10 years old). This was in August 1997, the weekend that Diana died in Paris. I was visiting my friend and had my daughter along, she was 8 at that time and probably totally bored with the two of us. Of course we had to follow the tragedy on TV constantly and that is the only thing that M remembers of her trip to NY with her mom. I hope she will experience New York in a more fun way.
6. Burt's Bees Lemon Butter cuticle creme - I try to use this every night
7. A glass of water.
8 Aveda Hand Relief
9 My pills - high blood pressure, low thyroid, high cholesterol and my menopausal relief "Remifemin" which I order on Amazon - I swear it has helped me sleep better and I have no more hot flashes.
10. And my books and my Kindle (not in the picture because it is in my purse).
Exactly ten items. Cool

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The oven is still hot

2011-01-29T18:23:00.000-08:00

Might as well bake some bread. Baguette from Dr. Oetker cookbook -" Brot und pikantes Gebaeck".
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That's what a Saturday is all about....

2011-01-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

I made the best brownies ever. Recipe from Bon Appetit magazine. February edition. Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts.
They have a crispy top but fudgy middle. I baked them 5 minutes too long. Next time they will be more of the fudge kind.
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Filofilo

2011-01-26T21:37:00.000-08:00

The other evening I sat down and picked up my Filofax to rearrange the pages again. Well, I like doing that!

I had kept some German colored dividers, pre-labeled (Kalendar, Notizen, Projekte, Informationen, Finanzen, Adressen) - I think a translation is not necessary. They are over 15 years old and I may use them again when I feel like reorganizing again. But for now they are retired. I really like the cream colored tabs in my personal Domino. So, I created an index page, after my mind cleared a bit and I had a vision of how to divide the sections. Sofar I had written down all my thoughts in the second section after the calendar. Mostly randomly in no particular order. It always takes me a while to find my comfort zone. Now I like the new result: Calendar, Notes, Lists, Books & Yarn, Home & Garden, Info. Yep, that is how I am winded at the moment. My To Do list is in section 3. Notes about books and new vocabulary in section 4, as well as any notes on yarn, patterns, knitting ideas. In section 5 I collect recipe ideas, anything home related, like measurements, decorating ideas, etc. Under Info I keep the personal info, medical updates, maps, etc. I think I can work with that.

In front of my diary/calendar I have a monthly overview which I printed from Outlook. Here I have a quick overview on birthdays or other important events of the current month. I will toss the page when new month begins. In a previous entry I described how to print this monthly view in Outlook to fit the Personal Filofax.

I think I am getting to where I will feel most comfortable with my set-up. It may take a few more changes but that is exactly what makes it fun.

I still love my Domino and the rubber closure is perfect (hoping it will hold for a very long time). You can stuff so much into the Filo, it just expands. Love it.

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Favorite Health and Beauty Products

2011-01-25T16:26:00.000-08:00

I forgot it is Ten on Tuesday today and today's topic is 10 Favorite Health and Beauty Products

Ok, so I am the old-fashioned Revlon Girl. "Never leave the house without some lipstick" (per mom) and always paint your fingernails and toenails the same color - this I stick to.
I think I am low maintenance but I could not live without:

Rule Number 1 - never sleep with your make-up on.
My eye make-up remover is Johnsons Baby Oil and a tissue
Eye-cream for the night Freioel Intensiv Creme (German product which I swear by)
Moisturizer for day and night - Kaloderma (German)
Deo - Ban
Perfume - Joop - Le Bain (German)
Lotion St.Ives Hydrating Vitamin E
Nailpolish - Revlon mostly - favorite for summer is Tuscan Sun, but mostly I use mauve/brown tones.
Lipstick - Revlon Colorstay Soft&Smooth #325 Fabulous Fig
Hydration - Water with a slice of lemon, cucumber and a sprig of mint

Well, maybe I am a little high maintenance, because I need my sister to send me the German products that I would not want to miss. I have been using them for over 20 years and I do not want to change anything about that.

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Book Updates

2011-01-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Well I missed the massage therapist today. Too much to do at work. What a bummer. She will be back next Tuesday and then I will definitely schedule time with her.

When I am not knitting, I am reading. Currently I am reading Pilgrims by Garrison Keillor always a good and funny one. Pontoon made me laugh out loud a few times and that is something I do not do often.

During lunch I have a book at work that a co-worker gave me: Those who save us by Jenna Blum. At first I was not too inclined to read it as it is about survival during WWII. Usually a very depressing topic and it is a subject that has been discussed too many times at my parents' dinner table. As much as my mother has interesting stories to tell how she and the women on her side of the family survived, my father remains very silent about that time. And I often wonder about what he and his mother must have gone through.

But back to the book. I did start reading it and it is good. Anna, a single mother during the war, tells her story of survival and she reminds me so much of both of my grandmothers. Jenna Blum describes the German women in such detail, that a single act like saving the string wrapped around a package brought back memories of my grandmother in her kitchen. I really recommend the book.

The latest books that I have finished are The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. A very strange subject to write about, the narrator has murdered her mother and you follow her thoughts and memories during the next 24 hours. There are moments where you would agree that the mother has totally deserved this end and then you do see that the daughter actually loved her. It is definitely a dark book, but it was not depressing in any way. I thought it was interesting, well written, because I never felt like putting it down. Probably not for everyone.

And Run by Ann Patchett. The life of a widower and his two adopted sons changes by a strange encounter when a woman throws herself in front of a car to save one of the sons from an accident. They wind up taking care of her little girl while the mother is in the hospital and it has a surprising twist. But I just could not get into it and the end was dragging itself.

I still have one more book on my nightstand Woman of Rome by Lily Tuck. I have been fascinated by Lily Tuck's books and that is why I bought it. This is a biography of Elsa Morante, an Italian author, who I look forward to read about as I have not heard of her before.

So many books, so little time.....

January 24, 2011

2011-01-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

My hands have started falling asleep again at night and I wake up, usually around 4am, with this tingling, burning sensation that I can't shake off. It must be a funny sight, when I sit up and start waving my hands sideways, clapping them over my head or rolling my shoulders while Gino, our chi-mix, wakes up and jumps on me all excited that something is up and one of his people is finally awake and he looks at me wagging his tail and waiting for a ball to magically appear which he is supposed to catch. My excercise remedy usually does not help but eventually after an hour or so I fall asleep again. It is exhausting. And it is time for an appointment with a massage therapist.
I have cut back on knitting a bit as I think that all this may be the beginning of some carpal tunnel issues.
Nontheless, I have started a new scarf, the Citron. This was a decision which I made in a matter of minutes.

The scarf/shawl will be a present to a cousin who at 46 has suddenly fallen ill and will be in and out of the hospital for a while. I am knitting it with good thoughts and well-wishing to her and I hope that the shawl will be a little comfort when she receives it. The yarn is Punta Lace and I bought it in December at the LYS Two Sister and Ewe in La Mesa with a good friend who was visiting while we checked out a few yarn shops. The shop has moved to a new location which is much larger and more open. I bought 2 skeins in green and two in brown.
For the Citron I chose the green, as it is a nice light color and should brighten up the cousin's day. I rolled the hank up into a skein the old fashioned way, over the back of a chair (there were no two hands available to borrow and the dogs really are not much help with that) and I cast on right away. This was four days ago and I hope to finish it asap. The yarns knits easily and it is a perfect choice for this pattern. I like the subtle variations of the greens, the show off beautifully.

My other projects are the 5-way shrug, about 3/4 done and the Hamamelis, which is still at the bottom of the knitting bag waiting to be finished. A pair of socks, I'm at the heel of the first one and I am working on a sleeveless top which I am knitting in the round and just winging it, let's see if this is worth writing down.
There is always something to do but I am not always in the mood to do something.

January is almost over, the days are getting longer and I am looking forward to spring.....

Quoting Piglet: Is it one of the f-f-fiercer animals?

2011-01-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaWhile I was walking the dogs through our apartment complex this morning, I met a woman with her two dogs and as I looked more closely she was also carrying a little piglet in her arms. This was the cutest little thing ever. I let it sniff my hand before petting it, and his little snout went up and down and it started to squeak and it looked so cute. Unfortunately we were both in a hurry otherwise I would have asked her if I could hold it. But just petting it made my day.

In Germany pigs bring good luck, so this is my lucky day. Have a good one, y'all.

Ten on Tuesday - Ten Ways to be more organized

2011-01-11T15:25:00.000-08:00

The best tips I have read are posted on Carole's blog. Great list, which I need to copy and apply to myself and everyone around me here at home. (That being just one person, the daughter M and two dogs).

By nature, I am a procrastinator, but I think an organized one.
Things run smoothly around here at home (mostly last minute, but that's what procrastinators do), I plan the
meals, do the shopping, pay the bills on time, file the papers, handle the correspondence, keep things clean and in order, remind everyone of upcoming events and appointments. How I do it, I don't know. I probably should learn "How to Delegate!"

I would need help to organize:

My recipes - clippings, handwritten notes, magazines, cookbooks and print-outs are all located in one cabinet
but in no kind of order and it is a major undertaking to find that cranberry/pomegranate relish recipe in November. I have started binders, 4x6 cards, excel sheets, pdf files, internet bookmarks. Nothing really worked for me so far.

My books - my Kindle may be a good help for future reading material, but what do I do with all the books and the 10+ boxes of books in storage? I do have a list of all my books in a little Moleskine notebook, that I update on a regular basis, I also update Shelfari, which is overkill.

My yarn - I need space in any closet to get a grip on this one. But there is none, so the yarn is kept in bags
under the bed which Gino, the chi-mix, loves to tug around under there.
I love Ravelry, where I can look up what yarns I have when I can't seem to find the bag under my bed. Just to
make sure that I have not lost my mind and imagined owning that Malabrigo sock yarn in blue.

Gino, the chi-mix - loves to steal my yarn bags

Always open to suggestions.

The Accountant's Cuff

2011-01-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

My cubicle neighbor, a member of our accounting department, is always freezing. Her hands are cold as ice in the morning and she can barely type in any numbers. So I promised her that I would knit her some wrist warmers. They knit up quickly and I was glad to put some left-over sock yarn into good use. She loves them and is wearing them happily today (as I look on proudly).

The pattern is easy (and is written for the approx 280 yds of Opal fingering 4-ply sockyarn which I used up):

The Accountant's Cuff

Cast on 56 stitches on 2.5mm doublepointed needles (dpns), 14 stitches on each needle, joined in the round. Mark the beginning of round with stitch marker or eye it like I do....(the cast-on end of yarn is my imaginary marker).

Knit 5 rows of ribbing: k2, p2

Continue in knit stitch for about 2.5 inches (6cm) and start the thumb gusset.

Begin increase round (you are creating a kind of triangle that will form into a thumb):

a. K1 - P1K1 in same stitch - K1 - K1P1 in same stitch, thereby making a 2 stitch increase - knit to end of round.

b. K1 - P1 K3 P1 - knit to end of round.

c. K1 - P1K1 into same stitch - K3 - K1P1 in same stitch (increasing by 2 stitches) - knit to end of round.

Continue with a. and b. rows increasing the stitches between the purl stitches up to 13 and end with a 'b.' row.

K2 - place the next 13 stitches on waste yarn and knit to end of round.

K2 - make 3 stitches with a loop cast-on and continue to knit in the round for 1/2 inch (1 cm).

End with 5-7 rows of ribbing: K2, P2

Bind-off - break yarn

Back to the thumb. Pick up the stitches from the waste yarn with three of the dpns. Pick up yarn and with fourth dpn pick up 3 stitches from the loops you had cast-on above the thumb opening. Divide the 16 stitches evenly on the four dps and knit about 5 rounds before binding off.

Sew in ends of yarn.

One of the best ways to use up leftover sockyarn. And they are appreciated by everyone. After going through a cold phase here in SoCal these have become useful at last.

Enjoy your week - the second one this year - but you already know that.

Relaxing

2011-01-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

It can't get better than. This is my favorite way to relax. Reading, polishing my nails, having my knitting close by and enjoying a glass of wine.
I am so glad the first week of work is over. January can be such a long month. I have noticed that the days are getting longer. That's a highlight, right?
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2011-01-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

My coat pockets feel heavy filled with pebbles, seashells and sand. Its a beautiful day in Del Mar. The sun is trying hard to break through the thin layer of clouds. There is a cool breeze and it feels a bit like winter, just enough and kind of perfect. I read somewhere that there are no perfect parents, kids or relationships. But there are perfect moments. These are to be cherished. This is one of them and there will be many more this year. . .
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A good way to start

2011-01-01T21:45:00.000-08:00

Did you know that it takes about 1.5 rows to knit (approx 125 stitches) in the same time that you rip a CD to your music files on your computer. That's what I have been doing all afternoon. I found some older CDs in storage when I stashed the x-mas decoration back in there. I was so glad to find some of them again and my iPod still has a lot of space. So, I copied some k.d.lang, elton john, beatles, pavarotti, rod steward, etc., also some German music, like Udo Lindenberg, Die Prinzen, usw. It also gave me a chance to clean up the iTunes files. I wanted to do this for a long time. Seems like a good way to start the new year. One thing I learned with iTunes is that I can't store the songs on an external harddrive, then they will not be available in iTunes next time you sync. Makes sense somehow, duh.

One more day off and then it is back to work. Although I am grateful for my job, I do wish I could stay home longer, it just feels so good. Maybe that's because I did not take any vacation last year. So, this year I will promise to take one or two vacations, even if they are short ones. Everyone needs that

Happiness is a New Day!

2010-12-31T10:29:00.000-08:00

Its the last day of the year. At this moment some are already celebrating the New Year, we still have all day to go.
2010 was a good year (knocking on wood - as there are still more than 12 hours left) and I achieved most of the goals that I had set for myself (except my weight, but that's ok).
I have not made any resolutions for 2011. Most important to me is to stay healthy and enjoy each day, one at a time. I am not in a rush nor is there a competition in life. I do not need to keep up with anyone as I do not care what others do or have. I am content with what I have and am grateful that all in my family are healthy and well. 2011 will be exciting as my daughter and my son will be graduating in May and my sister will hopefully visit on that occasion. That thought will get anyone through a long dreary January with a smile.

I will try to apply what Snoopy says: Happiness is a new day!
Happy New Year to all. Peace.

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and all is quiet again...

2010-12-26T19:57:00.000-08:00

It was a wonderful Christmas with both kids and their girl-/boy-friend here at home. We even played cards and ate the whole three days. And now that the family is gone again, the home is quiet. And I have so much leftovers, there will be no need to cook in the coming days that I am off from work. (yes, they did take some home with them) I have a big pot Mexican Bean Soup (cooked for their arrival), a big pot of Hungarian Goulash (made out of the fondue meat leftovers) and a half a meatloaf from Saturday's dinner (including the side dishes). Well, Moi always wants to spoil the kids and I guess I was successful in doing that with food.
Everyone got to play, even the pets. The dogs are tired and slept all day today, probably happy to get the couch back.
Now I look forward to one week off from work. A wonderful occasion to use this free time for things that I want to do. (not cook). Making a list of fun stuff. Lots of knitting time too. Enjoy your holiday!

Dexter spent some time checking out the goodies on the table while Gino looks very interested.

Is that the sun?

2010-12-22T16:50:00.000-08:00

After four days of recordbreaking rain it is good to see the sun again. Now the dogs like to take their walk.
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Alpenveilchen und Weihnachtskaktus

2010-12-16T20:01:00.000-08:00

The time I look forward to the most is sitting on the patio after dinner with a glass of wine and enjoying the xmas lights. My cactus 'Weihnachtskaktus' is blooming wonderfully and so is the 'Alpenveilchen' I forgot the English name for it. The weather has cooled off somewhat and feels much more like winter now. One more week to work and then we are off until January 3rd. Can't wait to wind down at home.
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Doodling away

2010-12-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's meeting had its moments where I had to wiggle my foot and pinch myself or draw endlessly just to stay awake. I even thought of a knitting pattern, inspired by the napkin under one of many coffee cups that I needed to keep alert. Caffeine overdose!
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No complaints - just trying to catch up

2010-12-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaI have not had the time to read any of my favorite blogs, listen to any podcasts or write anything on my own. The last few weeks and the next one before the holidays are very busy at the office.

I am not complaining about the holiday preparations as those are all in check. Decorations are up, presents are bought and mailed to Germany and have arrived, as I hear. Presents for family here are ready to be wrapped and cookies are in their tins, waiting to be eaten (I don't like cookies too much myself, but know who would).
I never go to the malls, online shopping is my thing. I do not knit gifts for anyone as they are usually not appreciated, so no pressure there either. Although, I have sent off the Traveling Woman shawl to my mother. She is a knitter, she will appreciate the effort and it is cold where she lives and she can use the shawl every day.
We on the other hand here, are just accumulating our knitted objects, stored tightly in zip-lock bags until it gets cool one day. After the record warm temperatures last weekend, I am at a loss of what to wear. Currently it's 64F (or 15C) here and kind of nice to take a walk outside during lunch.
So, once again I am just saying that work is getting in the way of my leisure time. Doesn't it always do that?
I am glad that all is taken care of at home and I really enjoy coming into a nicely decorated home (although stuffed and crowded with the x-mas tree taking up a lot of space).
M has submitted her last assignment for college last night and she is unofficially a college graduate now. Number 1 Son (I only have one) and his girlfriend will be here for Christmas. These are the things that make me happy and for which I am grateful. I look forward to an even more crowded home.

5 way shrug

2010-12-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

5-way shrug - That is such an interesting concept. I have been trying out different patterns over the weekend and got stuck on this simple one. It shows off the shine of the black yarn I think.

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Weihnachts Plaetzchen

2010-12-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

Cookies (in German) - Christmas cookies. Did you know that it is not much fun to bake at 85 degrees and sunshine outside? Does not feel like Christmas at all but it sure smells like it.

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Cooking and baking all day long

2010-11-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

Isn't that what today is all about? I made rolls with a rosemary bread dough. They look so yummy. Where is the butter?

And the pumpkin spice cupcakes for dessert that M made. Oh boy is it time to eat yet?

Happy Thanksgiving to all.
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A wonderful morning

2010-11-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

It's cold outside, only 11C - that's about 56F - well, cold for San Diego standards. Early this morning I was waiting for the birds to show up. They have finally found the bird feeder. It took about 3 months before the first bird arrived. Now they are making lots of noise and a lot of mess. Whatever they drop on the ground, a pair of doves comes and feeds on.

I am sure it's a finch, just don't know exactly which kind. They have a slightly red colored throat.
I hope that many different kind of birds will join soon. I used to love watching the bird feeder at my dad's home. It was a colorful event when all the birds arrived early in the morning.

I am looking forward to a 4 day weekend. Hopefully there will be time and some sunny days to take the dogs to the beach, enjoy the patio during daylight (hate getting home after dark these days) and maybe grill some burgers on Sunday.

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Things I love about Thanksgiving

2010-11-23T15:55:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia
Oh that is the perfect topic, of course. Who doesn't like Thanksgiving with all the food and drink, it's even better that Christmas and the cooking has begun:

Four day weekend
Cooking with my daughter
Trying out new ways to perfecting the turkey
Experimenting with new recipes for side-dishes - oh and just this last Sunday I tried out the Sweet Potato dish that can be served as a wonderful appetizer.
Baking a dessert and/or bread - in my last entry I shared the recipe for the pumpkin spice whoopie pies, check it out - they are delicious.
Enjoying the wonderful aromas from all of the above
Having family and friends over or visiting family and friends
Watching the football game while the turkey is in the oven
Enjoying the leftovers the next day. I love turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce
And the Christmas Season begins!

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Best season to cook and bake.....

2010-11-21T19:18:00.000-08:00

The wonderful season of cooking is here. This weekend, besides cleaning a little more detailed than usual, because visitors are expected, and also after being lazy on a rainy afternoon, I started cooking after 5pm on Sunday.

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (one of my favorite cooking sites) Sweet potatoes with goat cheese and it is something else, I mean actually literally. Something else, because I have never cooked sweet potatoes or yams before. They were not available in Germany, maybe now they are, but it is not a vegetable that is used in the German kitchen and I was always curious what they would taste like. Now at previous Thanksgiving celebrations I have tasted the sweet potato dish that probably came out of the can. Today I have bought my first fresh ones and made this recipe. Yeah, it's good, but definitely different for my taste.

Waiting for the second batch

As the oven was still hot, I decided to make these pumpkin spice whoopie pies, and I can't remember where I read about them, on which blog I mean. There seem to be multiple recipes on the web. I saw this one on a blog and I should have taken notes - which I always forget, to link back to that site.

The dough was easy to make, so was the filling. The filling was a bit soft, but in the fridge it should harden again. Maybe because I used the light version of cream cheese. But very tasty, I tell you.

So, this was kind of a quiet weekend. A few busy ones are on their way. Family and friends being together on Thanksgiving and then - I really look forward to the weekend after - a dear friend visiting. That would mean, knitting, antique shop browsing, a picnic by the beach (you see I have already planned out everything). It's going to be fun.

Now it's time to wash some more dishes. Good night.

This and that

2010-11-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

Last night I finished the book The Lace Reader: A Novel which is on my "I like it a lot" list. It is set in today's Salem, MA but brings back some of the old history on witches and their crafts. The story holds many secrets which are slowly unraveled as you get to the end of the book. I liked the way the author reveals more information in different styles. Letters, notes and essays in between the narration tell you more and you just get curious about the ending and don't want to put down the book.

I made a note to get Brunonia Barry's other book The Map of True Places. It's on my Amazon list.

Last night I also remembered that I still have my Hamamelis shawl in my knitting basket and have ignored it for some time. Now that I am over the hype of the new Fall Season on TV and not watching that many shows anymore (I do need to see Mike & Molly on Mondays), I can continue knitting this pattern which needs much more of my attention than any previous ones.

I did not make it this week to particpate in Ten on Tuesday over at Carole's. the topic was 10 movies you would like to see in the theater. Well, here are some that I think really should be seen on the big screen in no particular preference:

Fantasia (or any old Disney movie)
Bonnie & Clyde (the 1967 one with Faye Dunnaway and Warren Beatty) I hear they are doing a remake, blaah
The Godfather - a classic - just look at all those young actors, now big stars, like Pacino and Keaton
StarWars - we stood in line for hours to get tickets for this on in 1977
Avatar - I saw it on a large TV screen and found it amazing, too bad I missed this one on the big screen.

I see I am stuck with the old classics.
Not much else happening here.

Traveling Woman Shawl

2010-11-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

Traveling Woman

A good pattern to use for one skein of worsted yarn. It was easy to follow and the results are great. It is a small triangular scarf that can be worn in the winter under a coat. The only model that I had at hand was Cooper and he was reluctant at first but then he had the perfect pose, turning his back on me. Wasn't that exactly what I wanted? I needed to show off the pattern and he was willing to help.
.

The headband was knit with the leftover yarn and as this is such a fast knit, I made 4 within a few days. Nice Christmas presents. I found the pattern on Ravelry and it is a Drops design.
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Traveling Woman

by Liz Abinante

Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Tweed 6-ply

103 yards (0.75 skeins)

4.5 mm circular needles

October 3- November 5, 2010

And the next book

2010-11-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

I just finished the Sugar Queen and it was an enjoyable read. A nice romantic story with a happy ending and some magic in between. I think I have to send this to my sister so she can get out of her winter blues a bit.
Now I started The Lace Reader. It is a promising book and seems to have some mystical, magical content as well, nice for the darker evenings now. By the way, today we had 95F degrees.
I have also finished the Traveling Woman shawl, I mentioned that already but have not blocked it yet. With these temperatures outside it should dry overnight easily.

As M is planning on traveling in December and to keep my little girl warm I took the remaining yarn and knit a headband. It is a Drops Design and it is so easy and fast to knit. She looks great wearing it and it should keep her ears warm. I just started a second one, which will make a great Christmas gift. Pictures to follow:

Ten on Tuesday - Ten Ways to Simplify your Life

2010-11-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

I thought this would be a simple list. Have I simplified my life? I thought I had, but when I tried to list what simplifies it, I was not sure what to write down. It took me a moment to recognize ways that I may have chosen to make things easier. I am curious to read the other blogs to learn more.

Planning meals - I do not cook in advance, but I do try to cook food which then can be divided into two or three different dishes. Best example is to cook a whole chicken and use the meat and broth for chicken noodle soup, chicken tacos, chicken curry with rice, etc. Same can be done with ground meat...
Speaking of cooking, my biggest time saver in the kitchen is my pressure cooker. It is an old Presto pot which was a wedding gift from my parents. My mom has been using her Presto since the 60s and the are indestructable.
My lists - I love lists and make lists for everything. On Saturdays, my errand days, I write down the tasks in the order that I will run them. For some I do have to drive a bit further outside of our neighborhood, so I combine that with getting gas or a car-wash and groceries in that area, but I need to write it down, so I don't forget anything as I am out of my usual comfort zone.
Grocery shopping once a week. Shopping list is on the fridge and items can be added as needed. I only go once as I hate shopping (any kind of shopping)
Online shopping is a relief (see above)
Buying birthday/greeting cards in advance. As most of my cards are mailed (yes with the good old USPS) to Europe, I do need to get them out on time. So I usually buy the cards at the beginning of the month, write them, seal them with a stamp and mail them way in advance.
Routine - if my morning routine is interrupted, it gets complicated.
Decluttering - which I am in the process of one piece at a time.
Saying no to the things you do not want in life.
Not sweating the small stuff - It's so important to keep things simple. And if you did not have time to dust the livingroom, well then do it whenever there is time. Life is too short.

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