Knitting, Wine, Yard Work ...Thank Goodness for Audio Books.

 

Making headway with Snail Hollow Shawl.  Infact, I'm on the last section.  Not sure if you can see in the picture but am picking up stitches on the straight side to do the edging.  Then I'll need to tuck in tails where all the color changes happened.  I've mentioned before how difficult I find these colors to work with on the eyes.  Trying to pick up stitches is a chore.  I'm only part way through that process.  But, since my last picture I've completed two more sections, so I'm getting there.  This pattern has been problematic.  Both my daughter and I feel it's poorly written, as do a few folks over on Ravelry that made it.  The designer is Erika Flory.  I probably would shy away from purchasing another of her designs.  Not because I don't like the look; but because the pattern isn't well written.  Too many opportunities to guess at what should or shouldn't be.

Hubby and I really enjoyed this bottle of Chianti, Nippozzano Reserve 2018.  We purchased this at Costco's.  Chianti isn't generally a favorite for us, often we feel it's a bit heavy...but this was quite good and I think from memory was under $30.00.  We'll definately get this one again.  Very smooth.

I've mentioned before how many books written by Pam Jenoff I've read and liked (listened to actually).  The Kommandants Girl (book 1) followed by 

The Diplomats Wife (book 2), are 2 more I highly recommend.  I blogged about the author and why her historical books are so riveting.  That post is HERE.

Yes both are about WWII.  Add them to your list to read folks.

I mentioned in my previous post I had been doing lots of yard work which is why I hadn't been knitting, so thought I'd share a few more pictures of the flowers in my yard.  Cone flowers in the back ground, and an old fashion Flocks in the center.  Sadly most of these flowers are now done and I'm losing the color in my yard.  

Black eye Susans provide lots of contrast to the Cone Flowers.  I took these pictures over the last couple of weeks at the peak of the color.

Stella d'Oro generally bloom before the rest of the lillies, but, if you don't cut them back, they will bloom a bit later, just not as many blooms.  I love the yellow.

Hope you're all enjoying the end of summer.  It's gone too fast for my liking, and soon fall will be upon us.  I never look forward to fall as I know winter follows it.  I am not a fan of winter, cold, snow or ice.

Yarn a Plenty, I'll Drink to That!

Started another scarf.  I really love this pattern. This is my 3rd one.  The first one I actually made for myself........something I rarely do.
Love the colors of the one I made for myself, but it's tucked away now until fall, as it's finally gotten to nice to want to wear a scarf/shawl.

The 2nd one I made for a friend, who likes gray as she says it goes with everything.

This 3rd one, is for another friend, who loves everything Buckeye.  This is made with sock yarn, so it's going a bit slower and will be smaller when finished, I think.  The two previous scarves were a bit easier to work with due to using size 8 needles vs the 4's I'm using with this sock yarn (that has lots of silk in it).  Currently 17 points.  With the other yarn (which the pattern was written for, 25 is about what you get for the full cake of yarn.  So, will see how this pans out with the sock yarn, which is slightly less yardage.

This is yarn I purchased while in the Pacific Northwest on a recent trip with my daughter.  Love both colors and am trying to decide if I want a scarf from each one, or ........I want to double the base and make one larger with both cakes?

Thoughts?  It too is a lighter, more like the current weight yarn I'm working with.

I spotted this the other day, and thought WOW...someone is really good with photoshop, thought it worth a share...with all the talk of late about Sarah leaving her position.  Seems appropriate she leaves, she certainly didn't do her job anyway.  No real question and answer periods, no regular briefings etc.  And the others ...it would be funny if it weren't all so sad to have such lack of appropriateness in our government.

Wine Country.  A fun and funny movie I just watched while on said trip with my darling daughter.  We really enjoyed it, as we toured several wineries there in Sonoma...so this seemed very timely.  You no doubt notice several characters from Saturday Night Live!  If you watch, let me know if you liked it.  Be sure and pour a glass while you're at it.

After above post, I visited all 29 blogs on my blog list (plus one extra that was suggested by one of the 29).  I would like to encourage bloggers to check their settings to allow name and url instead of just google....truly folks it's a HUGE time saver.  All explained in previous post.

Calories, Crocheting, Charity and Wine

 I have many friends I know personally who use a Fitbit, plus I have a ton of on line friends who wear a Fitbit.  I love the little device and have met face to face with several of my Fitbit friends after knowing them on line.  I consider that a real plus.  It's really lots of fun meeting up with people you chat with on line.  My steps have been way down though lately.  I don't enjoy walking outside in the cold.  It didn't used to bother me.  Last winter I went to the gym and used the treadmill, but I haven't even gotten back into doing that.  I need to.  A couple of those pounds have found their way to my waste again.

 Aren't these cute?  Colorful too.  When my daughter was home for Thanksgiving she and I made these.  Well actually, I made a couple and she made about 10.  I took the picture early in the process.  These are water filter covers.  She's part of a group that sends water filters to Uganda.  Trouble is they are rather fragile and break easily, so they came up with the idea of making a filter cozy out of cotton.  These crocheted cotton cozy help protect the much needed water filters.  I've got a good mound of cotton in my stash and we'll no doubt make more when she comes home for Christmas.  My problem is you need to crochet quite tightly which is hard on my arthritis, so I can't make as many as she can.  I had to switch projects, to something that would bother my arthritis less; and I was trying hard to finish a couple of afghans for my charity, Bridge and Beyond.

This is a wine rack.  Can you tell?  LOL.  It was a kit.  Hubby and I've been looking off and on for one that would fit our space, so we could save space in the kitchen cabinets where the wine and wine glasses have been.

AND.....here it is all put together in corner in the dining room.  It holds 2 cases of wine, though you can see we have some empty spaces.  It holds a dozen wine glasses.  We're pretty happy with it....and it was on sale!

Are you getting ready for Christmas at your house?  I've barely begun.

What Should Your Future Look Like

Another blog challenge, another blog prompt.  Todays prompt, How You Hope your future will be like.

Join us at Paula's for the challenge, click badge.  Today's prompt reminds me alot of Day 2 prompt, Where would you like to be in Ten Years.  Here's the post to give the feel of what the future would be like in my dream world.
In addition to that there should be ample time for pedicures during Girl Time with Darling Daughter.

Lots of good food and wine.

 Time for party dresses

 Oodles of yarn and craft time

 Memories from Long ago

 Pretty flowers

And above all Loving Families

**If you missed, scroll back and join the fun for Memory Monday.  Get some Linky Love**

Stuffed Chicken and Wine Pairings

 Wine pairings, a work in progress.  What...no yarn?  One of the cool Christmas gifts we got from our Darling Daughter was a box of wine pairings for each of us.  My box was all Pinot Noir while hubby's wine tasting pairings were mixed reds.  You get 6 cute little bottles like this in each box.  We've been selecting one from each box that by description seems to go with what we're having for dinner.  We have special wine tasting glasses that are appropriately small and fun to use.  We get a card that tells about each of the wines in our boxes.  As we taste them we pick a favorite each time from the 2.  So far 2 from my box and 1 from his have been selected.

It's fun, and nice way to try wines you're un-familiar with.  Sorry this picture is on a bit of an angle.  The night we had stuffed chicken our pairs were suppose to go well with Duck.  That was as close as I could get.  A fabulous spinach salad, fresh green beans season with almond slices, and experimental stuffed chicken. 

Experimental?  Well, I hadn't made it before, and it was not made from a recipe per sey. 
I had 2 chicken breasts thawing, when I also took out a bag of ham to thaw (intending the ham to be for lunch sandwiches....from my Honey Baked Christmas Ham).  Nosing around in the fridge and noticed I had some swiss cheese.  So.....placed sliced ham, cheese and spicy brown mustard between the 2 chicken breasts.  Couldn't find appropriate string to tie, and all my toothpicks were plastic.  Hum......how to keep together to cook it as stuffed chicken?  More nosing around in the fridge and came up with a pastry shell.  Pillsbury intended for baked brie.  Sooooooo, wrapped the pastry the chicken and sealed it.  Was gorgeous.  Cooked covered wtih foil and meat probe.  Chicken tasted wonderful, and the pastry got nicely golden brown.  It was a big hit!  Should have taken a picture before we sliced and placed on our plates.

Soooo my wip continues with wine pairings, though the stuffed chicken is now a FO, lol.
AND work continues on Sea and Sand. *posting a bit early, will hop over for linky's tomorrow

Looking for more yarn news? (check out my pay it forward post on a new blog), cause as some point.....that will be a work in progress.

Wine Clubs are Fun

I1 Papavero Primitivo 2009, Puglia IGT, Italy. Puglia is the heel of Italy's boot if you look at a map. That's where this wine comes from. It's Italy's hottest region with lots and lots of sunshine. You'll notice the bottle is empty, lol. Well to say we enjoyed it would be an understatement. It's on one of my favorites list. We joined a wine club about a year or so ago. The Wall Street Journal Wine Club. You buy a case at a time at a much reduced cost. You can select a mix of wines, or stick to a particular type. The fun is trying different wines. The card you see tells you about each of the wines, where they're from, what type of grape it is, what types of food it's best served with etc.
You get a notebook when you join and an extra gift. The first time we joined we received a very fancy wine opener and case. We've not used it much truthfully. It's large and somewhat a pain to get out and put away. We lost interest in the club after awhile and stopped our membership. They weren't good at sending the cards which annoyed me. However, just recently they contacted us to see if we'd like to rejoin and made us a really good deal. And so...we did rejoin. The above specialty glasses are quite nice were our gift this time round. They will indeed be used. They're small taster glasses, very nice stemware from Italy.

Do we know how to detect notes of this and that in a wine, either in taste or aromas? Not really. But, we do know what we like. Hubby says I'm better at picking up on scents and flavors then he is, and perhaps over time I'll get better. But, it is fun even without those abilities. On the back of the card you're to make notes, so you know what you liked and didn't in order to know what to purchase or not purchase in the future.

Notes on this bottle read: Great with Pizza. So, you see this isn't a stuffy thing for us. lol My note continues to say, "Plum does come out as it warmed up, some chocolate aroma's. $10.00 bottle. Buy Again

Buying it from the club in our case of mixed wines we paid less than $10.00, but with each bottle, we check the price her on the net to add to our decision whether or not to purchase again. You can see, my notes aren't those of wine connoisseur at all. They say if you like a California Zinfandel, you'll love this wine; it's Italian Cousin.

Definitely a wine I'd recommend, and hope to enjoy again.

Sandy's Summer Salad

This is good eating if I do say so myself...and I do. Spinach, red and yellow peppers sliced, thick sliced mushrooms, red onion, handfull of sliced sun-dried tomatoes, 1 can Mandarine Oranges, 1 grilled chicken breast sliced, fresh ground pepper, hand full rice noddles. This would probably be good with a sweet sour type dressing; but hubby's not a fan so we used a regular Garlic Expressions. You can't go wrong with that dressing on almost anything anyway. I like avocado in my salads, but again hubby's not a fan so I had one sliced on the side. It was super ripe and good; but didn't slice that well because it was so soft. Complete your meal with seasoned olive oil to dip your hot bread in. Plain bread works best so you don't have anything flavors fighting each other.

No meal is complete without a nice bottle of wine. We're drinking a light red wine we shipped from The Callaway Winery in Temecula Valley in California called Fratello. It's one of their special selections we tasted while we were there and really enjoyed it.

Important Family Time, Eating Dinner Together

Have continued cleaning up my desk area, trying to transfer files etc. from stacks of CD's and my older computer to this one. You know the constant effort to get organized. Making headway for sure; though a heavier than normal work scheduled has slowed things down again. errrrrrrr Work gets in the way, frustrating. lol Life hun?

Anyway in the process found these nice pictures of my new dining room when it was new. Guess I hadn't ever gotten around to editing and posting my pics before. I've never had a dining room set before and so was super thrilled when we selected this. Also, today's furniture is soooooooo big, it's not all that easy to find something that is physically the appropriate size as well as something that isn't over powering in it's height. With new houses being so modern and having large open spaces furniture design has followed suit. I like to actually sit in a chair with feet on the floor, not do an Edith Ann imitation. And our house is not big and open, it's what I call normal. Kitchen, Living Room, Dining Room, 3 bedrooms, and 1 bath.

Dark gold walls, wine in the style of an old still life is the border. I have nice hand painted dishes that have been in the family multiple generations that I can now have on display in the china cabinet. I do still want a picture or two on the walls, but haven't gotten that far. I don't know art, I know what I like when I see... and am remembering a dark picture of an elderly gentlemen sitting at a table in perhaps France or Italy sipping wine. The picture is one that makes you feel like you're in the vineyards. Anyone know what that picture is called? I'd love to have that.

I know in today's busy world it's not uncommon for families to eat on the run, to not sit down and eat together. That's too bad in my opinion. I think one of the most important times of any day is dinner time. It's a time without TV, a time without internet, a time without kids being plugged in or turned off. Or should be. A time for families to look at each other and actually converse. A time to ask about each other's day.

Two wild and crazy sisters

Wine for lunch, sure why not! We'd been busy and productive that morning. We'd gotten to the barn, took tons of photo's; toured a cemetery ...why not have a nice leisurely lunch with a glass of wine.

We had our lunch, and our nice wine downstairs since upstairs was closed; but we did venture up there afterwords. This is a waterside restaurant with inside and outside seating; as well as an upstairs more casual bar with great view of the water.


We had such a good time, we're thinking of making this a regular routine. In fact, we've penciled in another date to return--drink some wine, have lunch, and enjoy the views.