Happy Valentines Day

From: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter08/PATTheart.php

I really can knit anything.

Someone broke into our house

Bastards.

Imagine a pic of our broken front door here

Sometime on Thursday between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm, someone kicked in our oak front door.  Why?  Oh, right.  To steal our crappy stuff.

Imagine a pic of our trashed living room here

They took 2 old laptops, a  4 year old wii, the cash from kiddo's piggy bank, and my grandmother's engagement ring.  They destroyed our door.  They threw stuff at our dog who, while sick, old, and deaf apperently got up from his bed under the dining room table at some point.  There was stuff broken in the doorway between the living room and dining room and they did not touch anything in the dining room, kitchen, or basement.  They went through lots of stuff upstairs and generally made a mess.   To top that off, fingerprint dust is a real pain to clean up.  The evidence tech warned us.  Wow.

Imagine a pic of the tech dusting our TV for prints with shimmering dust motes in the air here

There is a special place in hell for someone who steals cash out of a child's piggy bank.

Imagine a pic of Dante's Inferno here

The street value of our stuff was probably less than $200.  It's going to cost a heck of a lot more than that to put our household back to rights.  It's also going to be a bit before the blog is back on track as I used to post from my netbook.

Pizza Roll

This is easy and good.

A friend told me about it at knitting one morning.  Where has this recipe been all of my life?  Even the kid likes it.  There are a bunch of recipes out there for this but something this simple seems like you should just be able to wing it.

You need:

pizza dough

Shredded Motzarella

Provolone cheese

pepperoni

grated Parmesan cheese

egg

tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 350-375

Roll out pizza dough.  I had to pull it over the corners of the cutting board to keep it from bouncing back.  The first time we made it we brushed the dough with beaten egg, the second time we didn't.  I didn't notice much difference.  Layer the dough with the cheeses and pepperoni. Once we didn't have any mozzarella and cut up a bunch of the little cheese sticks that we picked up for the kid's lunch. 

Roll the whole thing up and put on a baking sheet with the seam side down.  We used a silicone mat to keep it from sticking,.  Brush with egg and bake for about 40 min.

Slice and serve with warmed tomato sauce in a little bowl for dipping.

Ours has had a blow out on the side each time we have made it.  No big deal.  

I'm looking forward to tweaking this with all kinds of different ingredients.

Another week, another update

I have not bought any yarn.

I have been making some.  This is from 4 oz of alpaca pencil roving that I picked up at the Alpaca Expo in October. 

 

I'm knitting 3 projects at once...

The Susie Sweater is slowly growing.  Love the cables.

Second is a doll nightgown.  I made it once already and it was waaaaay too short so this is the second go with bigger needles.  I think I am going to run out of yarn.  It might be a doll skirt when I am done.

The last is the Farmer's birthday hat from the brown alpaca I was spinning last week.  It ended up being 426 yards in dk weight.  I'm test knitting a friend's hat pattern.  It starts out with 9" of k1p1 rib.

The next creative adventure is making felted mittens.  Someone in my knitting circle of friends made these really cool mittens out of felted wool sweater.  It inspired a bunch of us and "T" went thrift shopping.  Here they are arriving at the house to be felted.  Yes, I never took the sleds out of the car.

Also in the works is a cookbook with the Farmer's family's recipes.  We are using Create My Cookbook.  We are up to 27 recipes.  Nagging family members for more.  I will be posting recipes as we proof read and test cook them.

Darwin seems to be a bit off.  He is only eating about half his food.  This is the dog who gained 30# when he came to live with us because he had us conned that he was starving.  Waiting for a call back from the vet.

Finally, with yesterday's paycheck, February's budget is fully funded. We were also able to throw $188 at the car loan.  Not much, but it adds up.  $2,223.83 to go.

It's finally winter

Winter arrived really late this year.  January 13th is late.  This time last year we already had almost 100 inches of snow.

When snow arrives in central New York, the kids go sledding.  Even when it is 7 degrees.  There is nothing like sliding down a frozen hill, completely out of control, to make you scream like a little girl.  One guy brought a lawn chair.  I admit I was a bit jealous.

After sledding you must have hot cocoa.  Because we went early, before the hill got too crowded, we had ours at the No Name Diner.  According to Kiddo, they make the best chocolate chip pancakes on the planet.

 Winter is good.

January 14th

I'm still here.

I even finished something this week.  It's Bubbly Curtain from Mason Dixon Knitting. This is the third project I have made from the book.  I made the curtain last summer and ran out of yarn.  It was too small.

So, I made it again.  This time from a full cone of Peaches and Cream cotton yarn.

Much better.

I also have a few projects in the works and some goals for the year.

Our financial goal is to have all debts but the mortgage paid off.  Right now we are working on the second car loan.  $2,400 to go on that one.  Then there are 3 student loans.

My next goal is to keep the dining room table cleared off.  It is amazing how much crap accumulates there.  It took me the better part of an hour today to clear it off and put everything away.

Here it is with only the Farmer's laptop, kiddo's homework and the library book bin on it.

As usual, I am knitting and spinning stuff.  I'm knitting Susie Hoodie from More Big Girl Knits. I'm using Cascade Eco+.  It means the cables will be soft and not well defined, but all in all I really like the yarn.  I'm spinning an alpca blend from Autumn Mist Alpacas that the Farmer picked out at the Empire Alpaca Extravaganza.  It is sooooooo soft.  I spin about 30 minutes a day.  I'm hoping to have it spun up and knitted into a hat in time for the Farmer's birthday.

I'm going to try to get back into the habit of posting.

Remember the blankets for Ethiopia?

Here is the finished blanket.  I had fun finding my 10 squares.  Original post: Charity Knitting