Bay City Weekend

Not to be confused with the Bay City Rollers; we spent the long weekend north of Tillamook at Eli's cabin with Eli, Fred & Melissa (who soon will be moving to Illinois for grad school, sadly for us), secret special guest Matt (laying over from a work trip in Arizona), and 2 of Eli's friends from work (for 1 night). Much alcohol (not nearly as much as in years past, we are getting old or possibly just smarter) and very good food was consumed. We hit the beach twice, though the second time was a misguided & unsuccessful attempt to see tidepools, and we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and the Blue Heron. We went crabbing, played board games and cards and rocked out, generally having a very good time. It was great to see Matt, he has mellowed out since college and is a really great guy. I managed to create a tasty carrot cake for the hubby's b-day without a real recipe (it was more like bread than cake, but still good).

On the way home we stopped at the outlet malls so I could search for a pair of work pants, only to find that they have been practicing size inflation. I know I certainly haven't lost any weight, so there is no reason that a size 0 should be huge on me. I hate shopping, and this makes me dislike it even more, when brands I used to be able to count on for decent clothes that fit (as much as I disliked supporting their corporation & 3rd-world labor) are now at least 2 sizes too big. Why should I suffer because someone wants to pretend they are a size 6 when they should really be a size 10? What's so horrible about being a size 10 anyway? The day was partially redeemed when we stopped at the Rogue Brewery for dinner and learned that the Hubby got a free beer & t shirt for his birthday, but then I got an itchy rash of hives or something afterwards which was quite unpleasant.

As for my knitting, I finished the Gryffindor scarf (just need to close the ends and do fringe)and am about half-way through with Victoria's very late birthday present. I should find some good yarn to do a summery sweater now, since working on thick scarves and beanies is silly.

dodging

Sometimes subbing is great, like yesterday (I got paid to watch Happy Feet, granted it was twice in a row, but I knitted during, and saw some of the members of my "fan club"); sometimes it is not so great, like today, 6 periods of dodgeball for 14 yr olds. It very quickly devolved into the boys (and some girls) throwing the nerf balls at one another's heads regardless of team affiliation or game rules or, you know, trivial things like doing bodily harm. Dodge ball is controlled chaos at the best of times, and this was *not* the best of times. It wasn't bad, just insane.
(Which reminds me of a place we occasionally used to go in college called the B&I mall, which we decided stood for "Bad & Insane" because it was like a flea market on crack- they used to have a live gorilla caged there, but that was before our time.)

At least the weather is back to being fairly spring-like again, so we can plant our starts without too much worry. We missed an awesome plant sale this weekend though, held by the master gardeners. We didn't go because it was advertised as a tomato sale, and we have no need of more tomatoes. Why advertise it thusly if you are selling all sorts of veggie plants for the very reasonable price of .50-$1 each? We could have gotten so many great things! The hubby's boss apparently went both days, but didn't think to call us and say "you have to go!" I even considered going on Sunday anyway to check it out just in case they had anything other than tomatoes, but we never do things I randomly suggest. Sigh. We did go to the beach that day, but it was cool and foggy there. Another instance of glorious and warm in town, cloudy at the beach.


But to include some good news, I finished my sweater and actually wore it to work the other day. I decided to leave off the eyelets and ribbon, so it's a square-necked sweater with cap sleeves now. I actually would have knit the neckline and sleeves longer, but I ran out of yarn. Oh well, it looks good as is, though I have to keep tugging on the sleeves to hide my tank top straps.

Heat Wave

You know you live in a mild climate when people begin to freak out when the mercury rises above 80°F. People compare what their thermometers read ("It was already 75 when I left for work at 7am!" "Yesterday afternoon it said 85° in the shade!") Of course the "official" weather station for this area is at the airport, at a windy, often foggy spit on the bay, meaning our temps are recorded as 68 when they are closer to 86. The kids in the middle school yesterday were very restless and hot, making themselves fans, some of the boys pulling their shirts up to their shoulders to cool off after recess- at least my room was on the back of the building and stayed fairly cool until the afternoon. This weather is so bizarre- we get heat like this about once a summer, and it's only May!

It seems as though we went directly from winter to summer, with no real spring in which to plant our garden. All the starts I planted the other weekend burned to a crisp in this heat, even with regular watering and the protection of a row cover. My flower seeds in the front are likely the same situation. We are probably going to have to purchase a bunch more nursery starts, since seeds and little homemade sprouts aren't going to make it. At least the tomatoes are happy. The parsley, beets, kale & broccoli we had overwinter is now bolting like crazy.

We grilled the other night, made grilled potatoes (so good- cut a potato in half, zap it for a few minutes, and finish cooking it on the grill, serve with sour cream and lots of salt & pepper) and buffalo burgers, the only meat burgers I will eat (if they are made with chip crumbs and bbq sauce, & cheddar & bleu cheese, with a thick slab of tomato on top). MMM summer food. Now if only we had fresh tomatoes from our vines for bruschetta and zucchinis to grill too.

This weather makes me feel like we should spend every minute outside, but really then it's too hot (I got sunburned a few days ago), and there are yellowjackets trying to make nests everywhere (we're at war with them, we found a non-poison spray that works very well). It also makes me feel like we should be somewhere else- it's so atypical for our area, it doesn't feel natural that the heat is here rather than somewhere hot. I feel ridiculous knitting a cashmere-ey sweater, even if it is short sleeved. I should be working on a little bamboo tank (like Honeymoon) or something, but I've only got like an inch left to go on Tempting.

Maybe I can convince the hubby to go out to the beach this evening with the dogs, or go with my Mom when she comes tomorrow. Too bad the water is perpetually 55°, swimming would be fun, but frigid. I do hope my nephew can come down this summer and learn to surf with me though.

Fun in the sun

It is so gorgeous out today! It is definitely one of those summer-preview kind of days, sunny and warm with a bit of a breeze- it even smelled summery, though I can't explain what I mean by that. I constructed a shade tent for the dogs and they sat with me in the back yard while I knitted.

I've temporarily put the sweater on hold so I can make my mom's (long overdue) gift, which I won't explain here in case she sees it. But I will say that I am moving smoothly now that I have the text version of the cable chart! I also need to construct the planter box for her Mother's Day gift, of which she has already been informed. My seedling sprouts are far too tiny for it, but luckily plants are on sale at Fred Meyer right now. I planted some other seedlings yesterday, lettuce, spinach, chard, and bok choy- I hope they do well. I will need to put up the row-cover tonight to protect them from the continuing mini-heat wave.

We made awesome sandwiches for dinner last night- the hubby brought home nice crusty wheat ciabatta bread from a local bakery, so we pulled out a can of local (Chuck's Seafood) albacore packed in olive oil, which we mixed with chopped kalamata olives & some brine and layered with sun-dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, pecorino cheese, & cracked pepper & oregano, all covered in a drizzle of olive oil (hubby's had prosciutto as well). This is our version of pane cunzatu, which we had in Western Sicily; the original has anchovies rather than tuna. It's the best sandwich ever, slightly toasted to warm everything up. MMMM!


Off to get more things done in this lovely weather! Maybe I'll plant the peas....

.
PS- this looks like the coolest yarn shop ever and I will make sure to go the next time I'm in Portland. Too bad I used to live 5 blocks away from there, before the store existed (also before I knew how to knit). So many fabulous places moved in to the neighborhood shortly after I moved out, it's kind of sad.

Working on things

This morning we & our neighbors hacked back a monstrous juniper bush between our 2 yards, and they again commented how funny it was that we are reverting the yard back to its condition before the idiots moved in and remodeled everything poorly. There used to be all sorts of flowers and fruits and wonderful veggie gardens, which is such a shame that the stupid people tore them all out. I was lamenting the fact that it isn't looking to be a very bountiful year, so many of our sprouts keep dying that it's unlikely we'll have a big harvest, and she mentioned that they go to a u-pick farm up the river. It sounds pretty great, she says the guy can't drive, so people have to come to him to get the stuff, and he typically has more produce than purchasers. She said he grows corn, potatoes, melons, pumpkins, and other things we can't grow here because it isn't hot enough, as well as other things it would be nice to have more of than our garden can grow at this point. So we said we would follow them up some weekend this summer to get locally grown produce, yay! It will be nice once our fruit trees & bushes start producing much, we've got strawberries & rhubarb planted, but we had to buy some at the store to make a pie Thursday because it's going to be another few years before we can use our own.
Tomorrow if it's not rainy I'll have to plant more seeds. I hope my flowers I planted in the front last weekend sprout.

I'm working on the 2nd sleeve of Tempting, so I'm close to being done. I don't want to do the ribbon at the top though (too girly and fancy). I saw a version I loved on Ravelry (Ravelry is seriously addicting), but she didn't say how she altered it to make the top fit tightly rather than loose and off-the-shoulder. I wish I knew more about creating garments so I could adjust it myself. I also need to take my sewing machine in to get it fixed so I stop having an excuse to not learn to sew. Also, I really should work on the present for my mom, since she'll be here next weekend. I don't know if it's possible to finish in a week though....

This afternoon we went to the electrical & plumbing supply store, and the hubby got all the necessary bits & pieces for wiring the garage, so that will be exciting. It's almost completely finished on the outside now.

Tidepools & Teaching

I went out to South Cove with Carly & her husband earlier this week, it was the lowest tide I'd ever seen. John and I spent probably an hour crawling around in what is usually underwater when I take people on tours (I hope Carly wasn't too bored waiting). There were purple urchins *everywhere*, and several big red urchins. We saw all the regular stuff, plus 2 sunflower stars, a blood star, a few 6-rayed stars (or possibly 2 different species), and a bat star, which I had never seen before! No nudibranchs though. John took a zillion photos, so I hope they turn out and I can get some.

The HS called with an interesting opportunity- I could sub for a whole trimester for beginning Spanish classes next year. I certainly know enough to do it, but I'm still not sure. I don't have much experience teaching yet, and unless long-term subbing is an extenuating circumstance, it would use up all my allotted sub days (meaning I wouldn't get to do my favorite bio classes). I would also have to leave the park at the end of August rather than working through September, but last summer I ended up doing maintenance & entry-fee booth stuff for the month anyway. I don't know how to decide, and (as usual) the husband is less than helpful in making decisions. Several students really like me as a sub, there are 2 girls and one guy in particular who, each time they walk in the room and see me there, they exclaim "Yay, we have Ms. H today!" The girls almost skipped a field trip just to spend 85 minutes with me (doing boring busywork, so I convinced them to go), and one called the other to say "You picked a bad day to be sick!" when I subbed in field biology on Friday. But that doesn't mean I'd be a great Spanish teacher for 3 months....

I don't know how to decide this one. I guess I still need to call a few people to find out more information. It would be fun, and good experience (and good money), but I don't know.

Carly & Ravelry

Well, after all my complaining about how hard friendships are in the last post, now I'm reconnecting with an old friend from HS! We lost contact sometime mid-college (she moved to Texas), but she's in the area for a week with her husband & parents, and Victoria told her to get a hold of me. They all came over last night to sample homebrew and eat homemade pizza (5 cheese with artichokes, and prosciutto with chicken sausage) & strawberry rhubarb crumble. We talked quite a bit, and I am taking them out to see the tidepools tomorrow morning, so I hope we'll get to catch up even more. I'll try to keep in touch better from now on, both with her and with a couple of my other HS/college friends in Portland & Seattle.

In other news, I finally got my Ravelry invite yesterday. I don't know why I didn't sign up for it ages ago when I first heard of the site, but I'm on there now. I'm disappointed in the photo aspects of it though, you can only put up pictures if you have flickr. Why not just make it possible to post any picture hosted elsewhere, be it photobucket or picasa or even your own blog or website? Seems easier and more universally applicable. So for now my ravelry page is boooring, no photos. Of course, I don't have photos of some of my gift-projects anyway, (4 scarves, a totebag, & a stuffed ant), sadly. I have so many things on my "to do" list, it's fairly ridiculous, so I don't think I'll put all those up, just the ones I actually have planned for the near future. But this is exciting, so many patterns at my fingertips!