Working on a Christmas present for my niece. She went to Peru last year and I off handedly said to bring me back some yarn. She did. She brought back an oversized under tied hank of tangled singles. I balled it up and let it sit until a project idea came to me. So I'm crocheting a hat, and will use the remaining yarn in a pair of corresponding mittens. So far it's just a circle.
So today's topic is"journal about breakfast".
I like to eat a big breakfast and smaller lunch, so I typically have eggs and something else, today I had sausage, eggs, and an English muffin with grape jam on it. I'll be satisfied until lunch which won't be until about 2 pm today. It was delicious.
Today's prompt is what was my biggest change recently. Well that would have to be working for North East. There is a whole lot to learn plus I find myself in a constant battle against time. My hours are later in the day, but since Quinn's schedule has not changed I can't just shift my schedule so I find both ends of the day coming up short. A lot of things I have routinely done for cost savings in the household just aren't happening, I feel guilty about that and Quinn's homework seems to be suffering. The extra money has eased things a bit but it's not a huge relief. I'm hoping I can get into a groove, I really only have a year and a half before things will begin to ease up. Quinn will be in middle school by then and she'll both have an earlier bus ride plus we won't need afterschool care. I'm also hoping the Y will have some youth activities by then as well. But also my required time in my current department will be over and I can apply to other functions at the bank so I won't have such a late schedule, and won't have to take so many calls. So I can stick it out. A year and 1/2 isn't so long.
Today's mundane task will be cutting pallets and moving wood oh joy.
My friends Amy posted about wanting to journal more and that if the day was low key she often felt as though nothing was good enjoy to journal about, so looked up a bunch of prompts. This sounds great. So I'm going to try to follow along too. I'm not at all consistent to blogging and often berate myself for not being better at it, but because Facebook and instagram are quick one liners or just a photo that's where I typically post. So here goes, the first prompt is goals.
I like to keep my goals small and attainable. For right now, I'm going to try to blog at least one a week for the month of January, that's 4 posts? I think I can do that.
I'd like to give more knits for Christmas in 2016, they were so we'll redirected this past Christmas and I feel good about not contributing to the consumer fest that is Christmas in the 21st century. So I'll be sprinkling mitten projects around the year, I bought a pattern for my mom years ago and haven't made them, my niece got me some yarn from Peru, I want to full circle that back at her and make winter accessories for her or of it.
I'd like to stay on budget for camp, school, and holiday purchases this year so we aren't stressed out, scrambling to come up with the cash like we seem to do every year.
And my big big goal is that I want to go to the NHA gathering in NY this fall. I need a trip away by myself.
So there it is, my goals for 2016
Yesterday I alluded to a new project I had just started. I'm going to give you a little background first. A year or two ago I joined a wool swap on the sheep-l list-serve. All the hand spinners sent in zip lock baggies of fibers from the animals they had (this was before I sold the girls), and the person organizing the swap reassembled the boxes to include one of every kind and sent them back to us (So I sent in 9 baggies of the same thing and got back 9 different baggies).
Kind of hard to see from this picture, but it's mostly an off white fleece with red hairs incorporated throughout. The white is pretty soft, but the red is scratchier and though spun it makes a really interesting heather effect, it's probably not next-to-skin soft enough for most people (I have a high prickle tolerance). It will be a nice mid-color in a fair isle.
This picture is a prime example of the rubble stone walls in my basement. This is another bit of stupidity on the part of the previous owners...there was a bulkhead here, which they filled in, so we have no way to get into or out of the basement except by the door in my living room. I think they may have done this in a vain attempt to keep water from coming in - it didn't work, the water rises from the floor.
So you see, the house is OLD, it looks OLD, and just 'cause it's old doesn't mean it's pretty.
We didn't get anything at the Wool Room, but I overheard Anne saying that she wasn't going to participate next year so it was nice to see the place one last time. At Chauncy Farm we got a pumpkin, some apple butter from Thyme and Ewe farm in Claremont (which isn't on the picture 'cause the hubs had put it in the fridge and I forgot to get it back out, sorry Thyme and Ewe), hats for the girls from We-Z Farm in Hancock and the harp player was fantastic...Quinnie was wary of him while he was playing, but she struck up a conversation with him between songs - apparently he's only scary when he's playing. On to Western View Farm where I got some sweet shetland roving from Hope Thomas. We didn't buy anything at Mirage Alpacas either, but we spent an inordinate amount of time with their alpacas and their turkeys - Quinnie loved them. And last but certainly not least the Fiber Studio...Wow what a change! I hadn't been there since it was taken over by the new owners, they were busy and I didn't get a chance to talk to them, but they seemed friendly enough. The place has gone through a major overhaul though....they moved almost all the knitting yarns into the weaving studio area, and the upstairs was open to the public, and they had a new staircase that went downstairs to a classroom/studio space and there were two more vendors down there. The whole place just seemed open and airy and you could find things without going into tunnels and it just was lovely. I got two balls of sock yarn to make my sister Beth and Brother-in-law Kris socks for Christmas, and a braid of pretty dyed roving from one of the vendors outside the name of which regrettably I didn't pay attention to 'cause I figured the name would be on the receipt and sadly, it wasn't...well in any even it's very pretty and quite soft....I plan to spin it thin and make some gloves out of it.
One of the items I wanted to try for the growing challenge was potatoes. I tried them last year but I don't know what happened to them 'cause when I went to harvest them they weren't there. I think someone, or should I say some thing ate them. So this year I put in a few potato pieces I hacked from some store bought potatoes 'cause the seed potatoes I had ordered were sold out. So anyway I waited until the plants died back. I never did get to hill them, lacking a ready supply of stuff to do that wit and not having the energy/ability/ambition to dig any dirt in the oppressive humidity that was our summer.. So considering I didn't hill them and there were only a dozen or so pieces of commercial potatoes I think I did all right. Quinnie had a blast helping me find them, and she was very proud of her haul.
There are tons of caves, and the girls enjoyed some spelunking in them. The rocks are huge and of varying levels of difficulty for climbing. Most of the climbing is the free climbing sort - no ropes required. Quite a few, in fact I'd say all of the good rocks have chalk residue from previous climbers.
We turned around after these and did some more cave exploring, and then we came home. Next time we're taking Dad 'cause he'd be able to give Ali some boost up to better rocks and maybe free me up from Quinn carrying duty enough to pack a lunch and some drinks and we could picnic up there.
Ali had her inaugural goodwill shopping spree today. Around here the good children's clothes are found at specialty children's consignment shop, and we've shopped those her whole life as well as hand-me-downs she's real big on hand-me-downs. But she's outgrown children's clothes, and she's the same size as her cousin, and Sam-me-downs don't come as often as they used to when she used to live here. Soooo I took her to goodwill today.
Ok so it's not that bad really. Nothing earth shattering certainly. But I have a tendency to want to do everything and participate in every challenge that comes my way and I get overextended and beat myself up for not being able to do it all. 
My greenhouse is overflowing with green. True, most of it is in the form of weeds but the humidity has been so darn oppressive I can't seem to bring myself to weed it. I need to stake my tomatoes. I still have a month or two before I'll need to install the plastic.
I've been putting nasturtiums in my salads since they started blooming a couple weeks ago. Very tasty! Sometime this week I plan to retire all the cut and come again lettuce and plant carrots in it's place. I'll plant new lettuces and spinach in the greenhouse between the tomatoes once I get those staked properly. We'll see how the weather cooperates.
My summer squashes have turned out to be the most rewarding though. Despite being completely in the shade they are big and bushy and quite robust. I can only attribute this to the 16 wheel barrels of sheep poop that they are planted in.
My feet and hands hurt, but the fence looks great.
I finished spinning up the california red. It's much softer in 2 ply.
