Still Snowing

Envious of your crocuses. Envious of sunshine and 50 being "cold".. Kentucky is pretty screwed up today. Just like it was yesterday! I was running last night after work and was planning on doing four miles when Philo came bowling down the road and skidded right past me into a ditch. The road had turned to black ice under my feet! Needless to say, I hoofed it back to the car and called it quits at 3 miles.... Then a shower, some soup (which was pretty bland so i added hot chili sauce, lemon juice and zest and fresh parsley), tv and knitting (my cowl) before bed.

Pup was up at 3am (really dog?!) and then back up at 7....

Oh and I'm sorry, Miss Celebrity Tea Leaves Cardi Wearer, you are famous!! The cardi looks fabulous- I'd really love to find a pattern that i think would work on me and commit to a real project :)

F comes tomorrow, pending blizzard conditions messing with his flight.... Keep your fingers crossed.

love, cb

Charlotte

Signs of Spring!

While it's snowing in Kentucky (weird!), it's been unseasonably dry and sunny here. I'm only guessing that it's unseasonable due to the usually rainy nature of the Pacific NorthWest. There are many signs of spring in my backyard, and I can't wait to get started on my garden in a couple of months!

I found these beauties hanging out near our garden:

Our plum tree (yes, we have a plum tree) is starting to show some buds:

Check out that lovely blue sky!!

I'm sorry to hear of your unfortunate yarn shopping experience! It seems like a poor choice to "figure out" a new computer system during a sale. I haven't found a stellar yarn shop here, either. Although, it could be because I have high standards after shopping at Purl Diva for the last few years! There is a cute yarn shop down in Eugene in an old victorian house that I bought some baby alpaca fiber from this weekend. I also just ordered some Madeline Tosh yarn from Purl Diva. A lot of MadelineTosh. Like 10 skeins worth. Enough for a sweater (for me), 2 baby blankets and this. I also joined the MadelineTosh yarn club. Okay....enough yarn confessions for today....

I'm excited about the Ravelympics!! I think I'm going to cast on for this for one of the many people I know having babies this spring. And then if I have time I'll probably whip up a baby sweater or booties to go with it.

Congrats on the running!! I'll pass on the good news to Seth when he gets home from work.

Well, I'm off to make some homemade pizza for dinner....I haven't had it since before I left for Hawaii!

Love,

liz

Lots to tell you.

First, it's snowing. Again. Where do I live??

It's been a nice few days here... We had a family weekend with 16 families (half capacity) and a whopping 7 volunteers (normally 30) but it didn't feel too stressful. Most of the families were returners, so they knew how to navigate. I even ran on Saturday during rest-time, which was awesome.

Sunday rolled in and I ran up to Bowling Green for a yarn sale. Your sweet Mama sent me a link to her sale and I wish I had had her pull stuff for me... because let's be honest. The sale here wasn't a sale really... it was 10% off if you paid in cash, she was "learning" her new computer system (WHY GOD, WHY!?) and the line took me more than an hour to get through. On top of that, the woman in line in front of me complained the whole time about how the owner hates her because she only buys sale items.... and then she cut me in line. Regardless, I dropped bank on some pretty things for me (a first!) and baby C... Didn't find any nice looking tweed for Dad's vest...

Here is what I got:

The pink and puke green are for this and the purple bulky funness is for this. Fun fun!

In other news... after the sale, I did my long run of the week- seven miles (go tell S!!) and did it at a relatively good pace too!! I came home, showered and turned on the tv to remember it was Superbowl Sunday. I didn't watch a second of it... I know, I'm so un-American. I watched the last part of Emma on PBS instead and got to knitting!

I'm almost finished with Mom's sleeve. I swear. The problem is, I think I'm going to redo the other sleeve (I think I added too many stitches and everything will be way too big now... I will finish tonight. I'm determined.

I definitely need to bring in my yarn and needles to the office tonight and practice my two-strand long tail cast on... I am not capable of reading and processing the directions from the book. Frustrating.

Last little bit of fun has been FOOD. After the weekend we had left over fruit which I got to take with me... which resulted in me eating too many kiwis... blackberries... blueberries... and strawberries for my own good! Such luxury! This is my breakfast (two days strong now!)

Then there was dinner. Don't have a picture, but took a bit of butter and browned some garlic, then added cherry tomatoes and let them burst.... added some fresh parsley and a bunch of lemon juice and put it over angel hair pasta. Ahhhhh, how I love pasta!

Okay, technically I'm at work today, so I should get to it, but I wanted to say hi and send some loving!

Oh and ps, I got your email about the fiber festival. It is the week before leadership orientation this summer, so it's possible!! We'll see ;) I really want to find a different yarn store/supplier after this fiasco this weekend, so hopefully I'll meet some sweet amish lady that spins yarn or something...

And one more thing. We need to chat about ravelympics, because I don't want to screw anything up and not have my things counted!

And one SUPER EXCITING THING. I bought a Shark Steam Mop last week! I will have to take pics. My inner cleaning geek is super excited about the amount of nasty it picks up off the floor!!

Love you!

cb

While I'm waiting around for the plumber...

We have a clogged pipe near the washing machine which causes the water to back up (and then overflow) into the sink next to the washer.....hence the waiting around for the plumber. So I thought I'd write you a quick note to share a finished sweater and some yarn I finished spinning!

I started with these two roving braids:

And ended up with this lovely yarn! I still have half of the roving left to spin so I'm hoping to end up with around 600 yards to make a Mara Shawl (but I promise I won't wear it like a bandana!)

I finally finished my Tea Leaves Cardigan as part of a Knit-a-Long at Purl Diva. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I had a bit of a freak-out moment when I blocked it and it grew in length quite a bit. But per Ellen's advice I threw my swatch in the dryer to see what would happen (the yarn is superwash wool), and then put the sweater in. It shrunk just enough, and it fits perfectly now!

I'm off to continue to wait for the plumber to arrive....

Love,

liz

Make Sure You Are Sitting Down...

Here comes a flood of pictures from the LOST tour. We drove all over the island and stopped at TONS of places that LOST uses/has used for filming. These are just the highlights....poor Seth had to suffer through looking at all of them!

Our first stop was a walk up a fairly steep path on the eastern most point of Oahu. Back a few seasons ago when Jack, Kate, and Sawyer were held captive by the Others there was the "other island". Apparently the "other island" was just a rock. Our tour guide tried to replicate this:

Our second stop was the campsite beach. The set is permanently set up on private land right above the beach.

Campsite Set:

Another stop we made was at the crash site beach. When they filmed here, sand was brought in and the road was covered in sand to make the beach bigger. Huge props were also brought in and used right on the beach.

Me on the crash site beach!

We stopped at a beautiful park and walked to Kate and Sawyer's waterfall (and a few of us took a swim in the 65 degree water!):
On the way out of the park we stopped at the Banyan tree that has been used for the Nigerian plane (where Boone dies) and several other things. Funnily enough, it's right next to the road.
Sun's father's house is actually a Buddhist temple that is a replica of a temple in Japan. It was absolutely gorgeous. There were black swans, a bamboo grove, and huge mountains behind the temple.

The Other's/Dharma Village (aka...a YMCA camp!):

Another cool stop was at an airstrip where a bunch of the really large props are kept. The props, such as the Nigerian plane, are kept in a big fenced in area:

A church that is used as Cambridge University:

I have a TON more photos....maybe I'll try and make a slideshow to post on the blog with some photos that were left out of this post.

I was a crafting slacker while I was on vacation and barely did any knitting. I did, however, manage to finish 4 books and start a 5th!

On the food front, I bought a Hawaiian cookbook and tried a recipe last night....Sweet Ginger Chicken (orange juice, honey, orange zest, ginger and garlic)....it was delicious!

I'm off to the gym....

Love,

Liz

welcome home

It's been exciting on the weather front here too- snow -not just snow, but accumulation of snow occurred during this past weekend! We had a family weekend- seven families braved the conditions to come out- just in time for us to get hit by about 5-7 inches of very wet snow on Saturday morning by 7 am!! This meant lots of shoveling in the early morning hours, which was fun, as it was camp people and their typical enthusiasm :)

In knitting notes, I finished the hearts for haiti coat for baby Natalie (friend from high school had a preemie baby the same day as baby Charlotte. She's been at Boston Children's due to some big issues etc.. but is finally home in Vermont. It was a quick knit and I used the same yarn as the snuggly I made Charlotte this fall from Purl Diva :)

I'll post some pics tomorrow after I block it tonight. Also almost finished with the sweater that wont die (mom's...)... still have a sleeve....

Made a really good pasta sauce the other night -the basic sauce, plus squash and a dash of cream... rather indulgent :)

I also had a good start to the running week- did my long run, just five this week, AFTER the weekend on Sunday night. A friend snuck me into the YMCA in Scottsville, as there was too much snow on the ground to run on the road... fun fun!

Post more later :)

Back to the Mainland

Charlotte,

I thought I'd do several posts over the next few days to share some pictures of my trip to Hawaii! I arrived home this morning after taking a red eye from Honolulu. Hawaii was beautiful and the weather was heavenly!

My Mom and I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Wednesday, which was really interesting and fun! My Grandma sat that trip out since she's been about 6 or 7 times. The Cultural Center has the islands of Polynesia represented, and each island does demonstrations and there is some entertaining audience participation.

There is also a canoe pageant down the "river" through the center:

This guy did the demonstration for Samoa:
He made fire with 2 sticks and a coconut husk, broke open a coconut and then made coconut milk. Another person from Samoa climbed the coconut tree:

This cutie was part of the luau at dinner:

After dinner there is a huge show that has dancing and music and fire twirling:
Off to unpack and start laundry....and then take a nap (4 hours of sleep on the plane was NOT enough).

Miss you!

liz