knitting mojo, where are you?

I left my f-ing knitting bag in Alabama last weekend and I had a nightmare about it last night.  I am going to see if I can trick Steve into driving there to fetch it.  I can't go because I have a shit-ton of work to do.  This includes cleaning the entire house since I fired the cleaning lady a couple of months ago (she was really not worth the money or the effort to keep from strangling her).  So now I am behind at work-work and house-work as evidenced by the cat hair tumble weeds rolling through the house.It was almost a waste of time to go to AL because we can't get the boat out and you can't go swimming.  No oil in the yard - yet.  We went down to the beach one day and, despite the heroic cleaning effort by the beach cleaners and an armada of skimmers and boom, found tar balls in the sand.

I have been taking pictures of the pool building progress but that has gotten pretty boring because there is not much progress.  The only good thing to come out of the mid-summer construction project was tickets to the Jimmy Buffett show in Gulf Shores, AL.  Our contractor seemed to have no end of spare tickets which were tough to come by. Jimmy did a fine job and he seemed to really enjoy playing a gig back in Alabama.  It was hot and the bathrooms were far away from the stage which set up the precariously imbalanced high beer consumption low bathroom ratio.  You can imagine how that went over with Steve, a man with a tiny bladder and dislike of large crowds. I had a great time, however.

My knitting ambitions have really taken a nose-dive and production has screeched to a halt. Simple projects are slow and full of mistakes.  But mostly, I am disappointed in the final outcome of my last few projects and I am not sure what I am doing wrong.  I want to elevate my knitting to a level where I can handle a cabled sweater or lace shawl with confidence but lately I really have my doubts.  I need a knitting-win. 

The cats really could care less about my knitting problems.  They are obviously having trouble getting comfortable: 

dose of cats

Knitting is decidedly slow so let's look at the cats:

Bath time over.

We are putting in a pool so let's have a look at before and after the big giant pit:

The before shot is after they removed all of the decking and the steps from the back of the house as well as all of the trees. That took about two days.  The pile of sand is for remediation of the water line erosion.  But that's another project.

Putting in a pool is a surprisingly slow process and requires that the contractor not work too quickly or too frequently.  Less than two days a week judging from the pace of it.  I am sure the snail-like pace is for our own good.  However, in light of the fast approaching oil, I want the pool done so we can at least go swimming when we go to our beach house. And in case anyone is interested - and we all should because it's a national tragedy - the NY Times has excellent coverage of the oil spill. It seems like they have an insider involved in the BP's inept efforts to stop the spill.  They scooped CNN and the Times Picayune on the fact that the top kill effort failed by at least 4 hours.

I am blocking the pin wheel blanket for step-grandkid #3 but it's not done yet.  Here is Reggie sneaking a quick nap on it while I was not looking:

Busted!

size 11 is normal

I am getting sick of shoes. I used to love them and now I despise them. I absolutely must wear a size eleven. It's not a choice, it's a necessity. I am willing to spend a fistful of money in any store that regularly carries nice stylish shoes in my size. I want to walk in, try them on and walk out with a pair or two. No, I don't want to order them. Sheesh. I have some painful problems with my feet and I wear two different sizes so the try-on step is a must.

Speaking of things that make me sick and  are two different sizes - here is my shrug disaster. The pity is I don't quite know what went wrong. I carefully did the math for my wildly off-gauge gauge, charted the new rows and stitches and started knitting. For the first time ever, I am off in the length of the right compared to the left. That is an a-typical mistake for me. I make A LOT of mistakes, just not usually that one. I carefully counted rows and decreases and increases and still this:

I wasn't really thrilled with the gauge anyway so I may frog and start all over with a smaller needle. Now I have to run out to the store and buy a shrug to wear at the Derby because my arms are too fat to fly solo. Sheesh.

not as stupid as I thought

When I first saw this sign outside of the Jefferson Parish office building I thought "gee what a ridiculous sign." I mean, even the TSA has realized that knitting needles pose no threat of bodily harm. Or at least they are not any more dangerous that some one carrying a pen or pencil onto a plane. And here we have the geniuses that run Jefferson Parish, LA all intimidated by addi turbos. I was even a bit disappointed when I read the sign because I was thinking that maybe I could get a little knitting done while waiting for my simple repair building permit I need for our tiny little lab renovation at work.

By the time I left the permits and code enforcement office I was glad I had heeded the sign's warning and did not bring my needles in with me. I would have stabbed the asshole in permits.

I had to share

Sometimes you are given a gift that must be shared with others.  I give you the gift of insane recipes from the 1970's. Candyboots (I have not investigated this site fully yet so I don't know his or her's story) discovered a treasure trove of old Weight Watchers recipe cards from the golden era of culinary arts.  I hurt myself laughing.  Enjoy.

by popular demand - 78% more cats

So friggin' cute.

Yesterday was uber-geek day.  First, I went birding at Big Lagoon State Park and then headed to Pensacola for some yarn shopping at Yarnside Gathering. 

I have been to Yarnside before. Its about 35 minutes from our house on Ono.  The gal who runs it is extremely nice and helpful.  I have one gripe though that may sound weird.  The lighting is terrible.  They have overhead harsh fluorescent lights that do nothing for the yarn.   The colors and textures are all gray blue and flat.  I know its probably rented space but I am sure the landlord wouldn't mind an upgrade of the light fixtures. Even an addition of some halogen spots along with the fluorescents might help.   My other very minor complaint is they did not have any silk yarn.  None.  In a  yarn store in Florida.  In the Spring.  Yes, I know it's expensive stuff but its a very sale-able fiber for customers who live and knit in such a hot climate. At least for me, it is. But it's not right for me to make a fuss over it since I am not a regular customer.

Anyhow, I bought some Classic Elite Premiere to knit a shrug to wear with my Kentucky Derby dress.  I wanted silk, but found this since they didn't have any.  It's nice and soft and a bit shiny. It is made of tencel and cotton.

It looks like mathematical gymnastics will be required to get my shrug pattern down from a gauge of 24 sts x 34 rows in dk yarn, as written, to my worsted gauge of 20 sts x 24 rows.  The stitch gauge is a piece of cake but the row gauge is a big pain in the ass.


Big Lagoon Park is awesome. Even though spring break is supposedly going on almost no one was there.  They views are amazing, the beach is white sand, and the trails are extremely easy and likely good for birds. I didn't have much luck for the same reasons as yesterday and it was about 1030 in the morning.

Here is my list of new ones for the weekend:

Fish crow
Eastern blue bird
Clapper rail
Blue winged teal
Osprey (eating a fish)
Tufted titmouse
Black capped chickadee
Pileated woodpecker
White crowned sparrow
Ruby crowned Kinglet

I finished out the day by cruising over to Pirate's Cove and Shucker's at the Wharf for drinks.  Steve's got the boat humming along so summer is already looking good.  All of the dogs are back at the Cove.  Whoever made a stink with the health department must have died or something because at least a half dozen dogs were relaxing on the deck while the band was playing and they have taken the doggy gates down.  Perfect. I love drinking with dogs.

birds and a recipe

So I grew a lot of dill.  And here is a recipe I came up with to use a very small fraction of the tremendous volume of dill taking over my garden:

Mango Arugula Salad with Lemon Dill dressing ( fancy title for easy but freaky good food)
Serves 3-4

2 cups arugula (baby or whatever you like, add more if you want)
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1/2 cup cucumber, seeds and skin removed,  diced
Ripe mango - the yellow creamy kind (not the green kind), diced

Dressing:
Juice of one juicy lemon
at least 2 very large Tablespoons of fresh dill (I used about 3 Tbs), finely chopped
Really good olive oil
Generous sea salt and pepper (tsp each)

Whisk together the dressing toss with the salad. Serve. Yum.

In addition to making fabulous salad, I went bird watching at Fort Morgan, AL and Daphine Island using the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail for my guide. I have done this route before and this time of year it should be full of birds. The weather is such (excellent, winds from the south) that the birds are not stopping.

Here is my bird list in the order I spotted them.  If I saw a species at an earlier location I did not note it at later spot.  (For example cardinals, mocking birds, and blue jays were every where. No need to keep writing them down.)

Entrance to Fort:
Swaison's warbler
Brown thrasher
Peregrine falcon
American oyster catcher (fishing pier)
Northern gannet (beach)
Laughing gull (everywhere)
Mocking bird
Brown pelicans
Cardinals
Common loon
Snowy egret
Cattle egret
Brown headed cow birds
Eastern king bird
Blue jays

Next I took the ferry to Dauphin Island and started looking around Fort Gaines and Pelican Point:
Herring gull
Rudy turnstone
Royal terns
Scissor tail flycatcher (!, note that this supposedly rare species has been seen by me twice, once at Ft. Morgans in the fall and now again at Ft Gaines in the spring. humph. )
Yellow-rumped warbler

Next I went to the Shell mounds:
Yellow bellied sapsucker
Red bellied woodpecker
Northern water thrush
Hooded warbler
Black and white warbler
White-throated sparrow
Lincoln sparrow (going out on a limb with this one)
Common grackle
Carolin wrens
Great blue herons (nesting)
White eyed vireo
Chimney swifts


At the Airport:
Mottled duck (looking lonely)
Reddiish egret (fabulously good looking but I had not time to get my camera)
Willet
Redwing black bird
Song sparrow (definite)

Lastly, I found the Goat trees:
Yellow vireo
Cedar wax wings
Northern parula
Red eyed vireo

Also noted in several spots:
Double crested cormorants
Morning doves
Eurasian collared doves

About 44 species, give or take.  Considering it was a crappy bird day (few warblers during migration), not too shabby considering I was by myself. If the weather keeps up being fabulous I will have to go back to knitting. 

Lastly, I would like to note that I miss my cats.  They are home in New Orleans while we are here in Alabama and the fact that I miss them  acutely is making Steve think I lost my mind. Which I probably have.