Lightspeed

I took Ramses to the park today. Over the winter he has grown up, and evidently grown faster. Potentially faster than lightspeed.

At least now I understand his seemingly insatiable energy level inside. I thought I was just being lazy. It turns out he's a speed demon.

Look at how intense he is too. Poodles are definitely working dogs, he is serious about his play. He was also very serious about the bird he pointed to and then tried to get. Luckily it flew into some heavy woods and he didn't follow it. With the speed he was going he would have been in the next county before I could have reacted.

Goal for the summer: More exercise!

It Doesn't Look Like Much..

But it is!

I'm on my first sleeve. I am making progress on this cardigan. It's easier than I thought. Except for the fact I am the world's slowest Purler. Is that a word? I think that's a word. I am a slower purler than most. It takes me double the time. Now that I'm on the sleeves and working in the round it's going faster. Even with help.

Yarn? What yarn?

I don't see any yarn...

My Little Ponydoodle!

One reason I always wanted a poodle was because I do love dog grooming. I groom Ramses myself, and it's a work in progress all the time. Dog grooming is an art form along with a functional necessity when you have any dog with hair. I've been learning about dog grooming partially through websites, message boards and Youtube. In the process I've become great fans of some of the dogs that groomers use to showcase their artistic talents. My favorite to watch videos of is Lumi. Lumi is toy poodle, just a few weeks older than Ramses. Lumi is too cute for words. Every time I see a new picture or video I have to fight the urge to run over to New York and pet her, and potentially steal her.

Adding to Lumi's natural charm, is the fact that her mom Pam, who runs Pets By Pam Dog Grooming in Mattydale NY. Pam is a great artist, and also does a great job at training. If I was anywhere near NY I would be over there begging Pam to show me scissor skills and letting Lumi and Ramses play together. Lumi of course always looks amazing, but imagine my shock and surprise when I saw what Pam had managed to turn her into now! Lumi is a PONYDOODLE! A ponydoodle with PINK hair! Seriously, she's like a My Little Pony come to life. A My Little Ponydoodle! A pink and white one! I don't think there has ever been a cuter dog.

Yes, she's really a real dog!

Pink prancing proud ponydoodle!

Clearly this is her good side.

Or maybe this one is

My Little Ponydoodle!

If you want to see more pictures of Lumi you can check her out on her fanclub page, I mean Pets By Pam's facebook page...

Delusions of Grandeur

  "Jeez, I'm out of it for a little while, everyone gets delusions of grandeur"

Maybe not everyone, and I may not be be trying to become a Jedi Knight (seriously, I need a Star Wars marathon weekend), but I am trying to knit a sweater. I may have a better chance studying the Jedi arts under master Yoda. This time though, I actually started. I very carefully selected a cardigan made out of bulky yarn. I really want to knit this in Three Irish Girl's Aprils stash menagerie yarn. But before laying out a bunch of cash, I am attempting this in clearance stash yarn. Not the prettiest color, but it's nice to work with, and has a good fiber content. If I finish, it shall be a nice squishy warm sweater.

If may be the operative word. "Good luck kid, you're gonna need it".

Spring Preview

People here keep insisting it's spring. And I will admit, it's been unseasonably warm, the grass is turning green, and there are buds on the trees.

I however know the dirty little secret. That it can suddenly change, the temperatures plummet, and the a blizzard strike without warning. This I will agree is a pessimistic view, but here in the frozen tundra, I don't count my flowers before May 15th.

Of course I have spring fever as bad as anyone, hampered even more because I can't really plant things in the ground. So, instead, I bought daffodils at the store, and made a spring pasta.

Spring Green Pasta

1 - box of pasta (I used shells, use whatever)
1 - heirloom tomato
1 - bell pepper
1 - 8 oz package of mushrooms (really optional, I just had some I needed to use)
1 - tsp olive oil
1 - bunch fresh basil
2 - avocados
garlic
Italian seasoning
pepper
salt
nutritional yeast
---
Cook the pasta in salted water until just barely al dente.

Dice the mushrooms, bell pepper, basil and tomato. Reserve basil on the side.
In a large pan heat the oil and saute mushrooms, garlic, bell pepper and add any dried herbs you're using. Once the mushrooms are soft, add the tomato, nutritional yeast, and continue to cook. Add a list pasta water if you need to thin it out.

Once the pasta is done, drain it and add to pan continuing to cook for another couple minutes. Meanwhile mash the avocado adding a little salt and pepper to taste.

Remove pasta from heat, stir in avocado and diced basil. Enjoy!

This would be great with spinach, peas, or asparagus added to it as well. It makes you think it's spring, even if it's kind of a weird quasi shouldn't be spring but feels like spring day.

Start to Finish

I finished my Multnomah shawl yesterday night (ok maybe it was officially today). I left it out blocking overnight, and then moved it to a secured location to finish this morning. My secured location may have failed.

It's a huge squishy soft shawl of happiness now, even if the blocking security let me down. I love shawls. Matter of fact, I believe I shall go cast on another one. Just have to pick out the yarn, and continue to ignore the laceweight stuff that I need to ply that is sitting across the room eating potato chips, watching House reruns and mocking me.

From this..

To this..

To this.

Blocking is highly overrated anyway.

When It's Taking too Long...

When the bobbin never seems to fill, and the roving never seems to stop, it might be a sign.

A sign you're spinning the darn stuff too fine!!

I'm going to hang that quote up somewhere.

For some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to increase the tension and spin a bunch of Merino/Silk roving that has been tripping me. A week later and I was ready tear my hair out because it was NEVER ending!

When I finally decreed the bobbin filled and plied it, I realized why. My first plied bobbin had 350 yards of lace weight 3 ply. And I still have half the original bobbin to ply. I can't even call it fingering weight, it's lighter than the sock weight yarn I have hanging around. I'm guessing I'll have close to 800 yards off of the first bobbin. Now I'm not sure whether or not to spin the remaining the same way, or up it. I guess I'll decide.

Right now I've decided procrastination is the best course of action, and I was dying to knit with Bryn. So I started a Multnomah shawl tonight. Much faster progress than that darn tangly windy lace weight which is laughing at me from across the room.

Yarn Therapy

The Very Big Event is still in the works, and still taking most of my time. Soon, it will hopefully be completed and can be shared with everyone.

In the meantime, on the stressful days, Three Irish Girls scheduled a sale. Seriously. Not joking. So, I bought some yarn. The first shipment came today. Awesome therapy for stressful times, soft squishy Carys BFL yarn in Bryn. Gorgeous! This yarn has all my favorite colors. Purple, teal, green, blue, and dark rich brown. Now I just need to decide what it's going to be... I am wondering if I have enough for a nice wrappy shawl.

Craigslist Crazies

The last 2 weeks I've been listing things on Craigslist for sale. It's a version of Spring cleaning, and decluttering. The fact is, we have too many things, and it's time to minimize. Of course minimizing doesn't include yarn stashes or spinning wheels. That's a different thing altogether.

The beauty of Craigslist is it's an online community of people who will happily trade, barter, and otherwise take your castoffs and put them to use. Of course like any other community it's eclectic, and some are downright weird.

Take for example the people who made arrangements to buy the car we were selling, only to call right before we were taking it to meet them with the title to say they decided they needed a seat that adjusted in height.

Or the person who e-mailed me and chewed me out for pricing an aquarium at too high of a price.

The person who asked for the stove we were giving away and then requested we put it outside for them at 4:00AM.

Or the lady with the pet rescue who went to the wrong home improvement store, to meet us.

The guy who made arrangements to meet us to buy a dresser and then arrived to the pickup location in a car filled with other items and nowhere to put the dresser in the car.

The person who e-mailed 14 questions over a free fish tank. 

My hints for selling on Craigslist:

• 
  
• Price your item low, but 30% more than what you want to sell it for. If you want 50.00, price it at 80.00, and then negotiate. 
• Don't waste your time with tire kickers. Answer 2 emails and that's it. NEVER take your listing down until they've picked up the item.
• Keep it public. Unless it's way too big of an item meet in a public area. Take someone with you if possible.
• A sense of humor is necessary, people are crazy, it's fun.
• Make sure to fit them into your schedule, don't move things around. Someone who can only pick up something RIGHT NOW probably isn't going to show anyway.
• If someone emails with stupid questions just delete. Someone who asks how wide a dresser is when you put it in the ad, or how many gallons your 30 gallon tank is, is a waste of time. You can't cure stupid.

I love Craigslist, it's like the great American Garage sale.. Fascinating funny,  and my garage is getting empty!