Charmed Memories, Edwardian Life, Reality TV, Walking 4 Fun

Charm bracelets...This is mine from Junior and Senior High School.  Coloring is a bit off, and it it badly needs to be cleaned.  There's a phone (teenagers back then spent far less time on the phone then people do now with cell phones...but it was a big part of a teenagers life.  There is a green 4 leaf clover for good luck, a bowling ball and pin (I belonged to a very active Girls Bowling League through G.A.A.--Girls Athletic Association), the school pendant, a little Bible that actually opened though there wasn't anything inside it, an American Flag, a typewriter...(yes I know that gives away my age...a typewriter, not a computer --and in fact not even an electric typewriter cause that's not what we used in school, 2 vacation type charms (one from Cedar Point, Ohio and one from Ft. Launderdale, Florida-where I took my very first vacation with girl friends and no parents!  Lastly there is a Christmas charm, and a Pennsylvania Dutch Hex....aside from it being colorful, I don't know what it represented to me back then.  A group of us were reminiscing and everyone posted pictures of their charm bracelets.  Did you have one?  Do you know?  They're very different nowdays for sure.

**edited to add I forgot there's a key to my heart charm and the word No.  I have no idea what the No was for...no memory of that or it's significance.

I'm not a fan of "reality" tv shows at all, but this was totally different in my opinion.  People weren't voting each other off the island or any such nonsense.  This was a project.  The Series was called Manor House...  This first aired in The UK in 2002 under the name of The Edwardian Country House, when it was released here in the states the name was changed to Manor House and it aired in 2003.  It's one season.  The project lasted for 3 months.  People where chosen to live as they would have lived during that time in a Country Estate in Scotland.  Some were chosen to be servants, while one lucky family was chosen to be "The Aristocratic" Family.  They all make adjustments.  Some fit their roles more easily, others struggled.  Quite entertaining.  Some of the hard fast rules presented as truth in this series aren't quite in keeping with other period pieces I've watched, so perhaps some of the series had more research behind them, while others took more liberties with history.  Have you watched it?  Let me know what you thought.  I do recommend it if you're looking for something fairly educational and entertaining.

You may have noticed this addition to my blog.  This badge is located in the right sidebar and shows you my virtual location on a particular trail.  This site Walking4Fun is definitely worth your time.  You can link your Fitbit, or Garmin or other devices that track your steps daily, or you can manually plug in your distance once you register.  The site is free, registration is quick and easy.  There are wonderful photo's to enjoy along your virtual walk.  Just today I finished a short trail in Sydney that was loaded with history, so tomorrow my steps will count towards where I left off on The Pacific Crest Trail.  As you can see my badge, I am at mile marker 1,618.7 miles and have about 1,000 miles left to finish this trail.  Ryan is who you virtually walk with.  He is a real hiker and has been many places.  His photographs make you feel like you're right there.  He has a fun sense of humor also.  You can form a group and walk in your group, or walk solo ...there's also a diary, a daily log if you will where people who are walking virtually can post their thoughts.  

If you like stats, there are plenty of them on this site, your weekly, monthly, yearly totals and your grand totals.  Your best day, how many days you've walked and more.  Currently there are 21 trails to pick from, I've completed 16 of them.  It says I've walked 1,317 days and am 23.97% around the world.  LOL  It's going to take awhile.  It tells me my best day was Nov 16th back in 2016 where I walked 12.4 miles which was 29,823 steps.  It's been months of me getting around 4,000 steps a day with my broken foot....gonna be a long time........if ever I have one of those days again.

For the time being, I'm knitting, watching English Series on my ipad, and kemping around as my foot heals.  Continuing with physical therapy twice a week...left, right, and repeat.  

Welcome Blanket

Knit, Crochet, and Quilt/Sew and use your skills to voice to participate in art, to speak up, to become an activist with your yarn.

The project ask the question...........What if instead of building a wall to keep people out, 2,000 miles of yarn be used to make blankets to welcome people, just as our Statue of Liberty suggestions when she says, "Give me your Tired, your poor".  3,500,640 yards of Blankets is the call.

If you click on the picture, you'll be able to see the pamphlet better.  Or you can click HERE for the website.

I post this as a means to help spread the word about this project.  I stumbled across this the other day and was unsure how many people knew about it.  There's not a lot of time since the deadline is August 25th I believe to be included in the exhibit.  I've also seen a note in the RAVELRY Group that indicates the deadline to donate has been extended to November 4th, 2018

Knitting and Watching and trying to eat Light

Jeweled Lines has grown to about double the size from when you last saw it last with the addition of the green and now back to the amethyst.  Thanks for the input on the names between this blog and my charity blog, Bridge and Beyond.  I like the suggested name of Jeweled Lines, better than the flip of it, which is what I had initially.  I'm still not quite sure if this will be enough yarn with adding the green; but as yet.........still can't get to the basement to look further at my stash, so will play through and see what happens.  Though I did do some steps today for the first time at therapy...so might be able to soon.

Watched this show, Tulip Fever on Netflix recently.  I can't say I would recommend it.  It was dark...dark in the way it was filmed (somewhat on purpose I suppose 1634 in Amsterdam), but also a bit dark in it's storyline.  It wasn't at all believeable, though the write ups discussed how this was a long awaited film from Harvey Weinstein.  That in fact, it took 17 years to come to the screen.  First it was released in Germany from what I read in 2017.  The right up portrayed how this was a historic event and was expected to be much bigger than it was...........but, doing a bit more research I see The Smithsonian says the primary story about Tulip Fever is in fact NOT true.  If you watch it, I'll be interested in hearing if you liked it.  Not all reviews were bad.  This wasn't a series, it was a movie.  So, you can watch it without committing much to do so.

Have been trying to eat light (this was lunch) since my level of activity is soooo much less than normal with the broken foot.  Though this past week, I've not done as well as above.  

Knitting, Mother's Day Brunch and The Duchess

Here's the start of the next afghan.  Though this picture was taken a few days ago so it's grown since then and has one additional color, green.  I always name my afghans, but haven't thought of a name for this one yet.  This like 99% of all the afghans I made will be donated to Bridge and Beyond, my charity dedicated to helping the Homeless.  I think I'm sticking primarily with jewels colors so a name that would convey that is what I'm thinking about.  In the past I had one named Crown Jewels, and a 2nd named Jewels.  So, am thinking Striped Jewels, Jewel Palette, Lines of Jewels?  Lines being stripes?  Love some input, which of those 3 named do you like best.....and or do you have other thoughts?

Another Mother's Day picture.  This is the lovely brunch Dear Hubby fixed for me including Champagne.  Was nice enough (for a while) to sit outside and enjoy our brunch.

Still in my British TV kick while knitting and elevating my foot, or icing my foot.  The Duchess.  Quite an interesting tale of Georgiana Cavendish, The Countess of Devonshire and how backward women's lives were.  It's really good I didn't live in those times, despite loving the history....I fear I would not have done well.  The extremes between what was ok for a man and not at all for a women..wow!  Menaige a Trois.  Georgiana's husband's mistress lived with them a hugh part of their married life, took her meals with them.  I do recommend adding this one to your watch list.  Believe this was on Amazon Prime.

Mother's Day, Quick One Pan Meals, and The Crimson Field-WWI Field Hospital

The Crimson Field, the next series in my exploration of watching British TV.  LOVED this show.  It was an interesting glimpse into life in France (and England-Ireland) during World War I.  There was sadly only one season, as it was cancelled after that.  

It explored the importance of ladies who volunteered for service, and showed how difficult their lives were.  These 3 all had a story to tell and all joined the service for different reason.  They came from very different backgrounds.  At a time when it was scandalous for women to be in close company with me, nurses and volunteers had to learn how to bath wounded men...the difficulty of bridging their learned privacy rules from civilian life and that in service was huge.

Both men and women were drummed out, or executed for what was deemed to be unpatriotic service or cowardice.  Even though there is only one season, I do highly recommend it.  I was able to watch this series on Amazon Prime for no extra fee or membership.

This past weekend was Mother's Day.  My Darling Daughter sent lovely flowers on Friday so I was able to enjoy them for the whole of the wkend.  There were 3 bundles of flowers in the box, enough for me to make two large beautiful bouquets.  Thank you Darling Daughter.  This is a close up of one of the prettiest roses...look at the gradation of color on the outside of this rose as it begins to open.

I'm a huge fan of one pan, or one dish meals.  Makes prep and clean up so much easier.  That's even more important to me currently since I'm not super mobile with my broken foot.  In the beginning, I would do some prep, sit down...do a bit more, sit down again.  Was hard trying to move about the kitchen using a walker or crutches.  I would get things at the ready as much as possible (often it took a good while), so when hubby came home from work; he could actually do the cooking.  Generally, he put something in oven and with my chair-side direction........dinner would come together.  I am more mobile now with my ortho boot, but still trying to minimize how much I'm standing there in the kitchen.  It's just not that easy.  

Asparagus, potatoes, and chicken.  This required a minimum of work to prep.  The chicken breast's were cut in in medalions (smaller pieces cook quicker), plus the chicken breast were very large and thick.  They were dipped in an egg wash, and layered in the pan with thin lemon slices and topped with fresh basil.

Potatoes quartered, asparagus cut in half.  I put all in fridge, and when hubby called that he was on his way I sprinkled olive oil, dash, and Parmesan cheese on potatoes and asparagus and turned on the oven.  Cooked in pre-heated oven at 400-425 for about 20 minutes.  It cooked while hubby and I had our Martini's

Tasty, not time consuming with either prep or clean up.  The egg wash and lemon gave the chicken a nice flavor and helped keep it moist.  Was an experiment....one both hubby and I thought worth repeating.

I Spy, Out The Window, Yarn and Needles, and Other Sorted Affairs

Since I'm still not very mobile (broken foot if you've not been reading my blog previously), I've spent a fair amount of time looking out the window, watching spring happen in the neighborhood.  Took this photo out of my bedroom window.  Two little girls, one from next door and one from across the street like to set up in our yard.  It makes them feel more private I think.  LOL  Seriously, how cute is this!  It took them a while to get all set up and inside their umbrella fort.  Reminded me of when our daughter was young and we would travel.  She would put up a towel between the two front seats of the car...that way her space there in the back seat was private...she was in her reading fort.  She was an avid reader even when quite young and we traveled lots of miles out west to camp and she'd read a book a state basically...all in her private fort.

Having finished the previous afghan (Learning Logs..previous post), got something else on the needles.  Picture looks a bit mauve, but the color really is more purple-violet.  This is yet anothe afghan.  Not using a pattern, so guesstimated and cast on 202 stitches.

After all the color work in the previous afghan, and counting for texture, and the constant binding off and picking up stitches, wanted something truly mindless.  Doing basic stripes........probably all garter stitch to just let it flow.  Started this ghan a few days ago and have already added the above two colors to it.  Since it's all a guesstimate...I'm not yet sure if I'll need to add another color in order to have enough yarn.  I have the one gray as above, and 2 of turquoise and 5 of violet.  8 skeins of washable wool.  Violet skeins are 197 yards each, turquoise is 277 yards, and the gray is 277; for a total of 1816 yards.  That seems a bit shy of enough to me.  Thoughts???  When I can get to the basement to check my stash, I might have more yarn of the appropriate weight etc that could get added to the mix.  For now, I'll play through.  

Latest British Series is Upstairs Downstairs.  A bit more rambunctious than Downton Abbey, perhaps with some similarities of personalities.  A much shorter series, only 2 seasons.  Focused more on the torment before The War in England with regard to Hitler...and how divided The English Government was about doing something about it.

Quite an ending!  Fun to see Claire Foy (who played Queen Elizabeth in The Crown), be so very different in this roll.  Would have enjoyed the series more I think if Edmund Stoppard as Sir Hallam had been played by a different actor.  I've just never liked him, and don't find him at all attractive or sexy...so seeing him a roll where that's an issue was less enticing.  But, with that said.......the series was indeed enticing and I do recommend it.