it's like working out...

i was doing so good! multiple posts in one month! oh well. hope everyone had a fantastic christmas. I had an AWESOME christmas. i got new shoes, winter boots (that aren't kid sized!), cross country skis, and a gift certificate to camas creek in kalispell (over half-way spent, fyi). with all those great gifts, why would i buy myself one? okay, because I really wanted to go on the winter knitting retreat put on by camas creek. I am so excited! 2 days, three classes, at a cross country ski area. it's perfect! so i'll let you know how that goes!

so my little sister came with me to spend some time down in beautiful anaconda. so far we've gone bowling. when we had left kalispell it was a winter wonderland. lots and lots and lots of beautiful new snow. by the time we got to anaconda it was 34 degrees and what snow we had was melting. talk about a feeling of defeat. by the way, there were two brand new pairs of cross country skis and a brand new snowboard in the back. talk about depressing! so we went bowling last night. and this morning we're...going skiing because we're sitting on 8 new inches of snow!!! how exciting! so leah and i will take advantage of it and hit the hill (half day because we are worried we'll be too tired with a full day, we can go again :)) then tomorrow, cross country skiing, and then i think a trip to beautiful fairmont hot springs. it is going to FUN!!! hopefully i'll have some pictures with my beautiful christmas knits and some new things i've started for myself :)

why did it take me so long to figure it out?

I finished the Twilight series. So seriously good. like crack. i don't even know what to read next because they were so incredibly good that everything else will pale in comparison. and i finished the last one last night. it was good. but let's think about this for a minute. each book was at least 500 pages long. The last book was over 700 pages. that is a lot of reading. now at the same time i have a large amount of knitting that MUST GET DONE. so i have been torn for the past two weeks. do i want to knit or do i want to read? what to do? well i sat down to do some knitting. i have to watch tv when i knit. i just need that background noise to keep me somewhat focused. otherwise i just get bored. but at 6:30 the tv was turned off and i was going to read. but i still wanted to knit. bob said he wouldn't turn the pages for me (i thought that was rather rotten). but i opened my book to see if i could read and knit at the same time. OH MY GOD! it was the best knitting and reading breakthrough of my life. forget learning to cable or the first time i cast on. i can read and knit at the same time! my life has gotten exponetially better. i'm satisfied now. :)

so i'm working on a blanket and need to start my christmas list. i'm looking for a sweet toupee pattern, does anyone know one? thanks :)

what have you done this week?

Bulleted list for me because that's how busy i've been!

1. Reading completed this week

• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
  
• The Cay by Theodore Taylor
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
• and to be honest, I think there was one more in there

All of them were so good! But twilight was superb. so superb in fact, that i went to my library (that i'm the librarian of) on sunday night to get the next book. but it was checked out. so i did what any librarian would do...i ordered it! hahahaha anyways, the next two should be here on wednesday. A long way gone was for book club number one, and it was depressing, but a good story. The Cay is for book club number 3 (!) I had a group of girls who wanted to start a book club and they opted for that book. They meet every two weeks and are really a fantastic addition to my day : )

But wait! There is more! I also knitted this week. A lot!

These are bootie pair number one finished like 7 days ago. They are for a brand new baby and are waiting patiently to be put in the mail. Unfortunately, I cant find a good card to go with them.

These are booties number two almost finished...they need buttons. These are for a friend who is having her second grandbaby this december. I have one more pair to make for her. And a white pair to make for a coworker who wants them for her grandbabies baptism. Then another pair for Camas Creek Yarn :) Those need to be done by Thanksgiving and I'll drop them off.

This is my sister's scarf that I made for her. She has been waiting for this since July (though not needed until a month ago). I didn't knit this all this week, but I did finish it. So I am counting it.

And finally this scarf from here. I used...uhm...some sort of big yarn :) it was brown sheep i think. i started friday night, finished saturday. a fun easy knit. it's okay. i'm giving it to a special person. ehehehe what am i kidding, she doesn't know how to use the internet. it's for my mom.

So that's my week. It's been great. I start a book fair tomorrow. Cross your fingers it all goes well. I am terribly stressed about it. but super excited too. And happy birthday lex! here is your gratuitous bad blog photo :) miss you.



i'm also getting my haircut on wednesday. think i need it???

happy halloween

i am still alive. i do still knit. and read. it's been hectic here. this is the first weekend i will have been home for the whole thing since before school started in august. i'm pretty thrilled to be honest. we're having a quiet halloween here with scary movies and handing out candy. we live in an area of town with hundreds of children, but i bet we won't see more than 25 trick or treat-ers. they all go to the other end of town where it's not so creepy and people give out BIG candy bars. i don't blame the kids or the parents either. but it means we'll have a ton of extra candy again. but i'll use it in my library as prizes.

i have been knitting a ton. i'm working on a scarf for my sister using sublime yarn. it really is beautiful but i think it's going to shed a ton. i'm also working on some baby gifts. i made a sweater last weekend and it turned out perfect. of course i forgot to take a photo. so maybe mom will send me a picture when baby is born. i'm also working on some beautiful booties that i LOVE (pattern on the right hand side). i'm going one color because i realized that one of the two yarns i planned on using was a little too girly and these are for a boy. so i'll hope and pray that there is a girl baby somewhere in my knitting future. also, i have cast on for the ladies february sweater three times now and haven't been happy with it yet. after reading over at ravelry some suggestions, i'm ready to tackle it again with better plans. i would much rather have a sweater that i made and LOVE and am satisfied with, than one that is just okay, so i will keep casting on until i cast on right!

dad...this post is for you :) and i will try to get back to blogging more. i have exciting news about my library and great things i'm trying to do this year so i am really thrilled about that. and knitting has me feeling really good...when i sit down and knit i am constantly amazed at what i am able to accomplish. i feel like i am quite successful at it...makes me think i should be doing something with knitting for a living :)

it was going to be mean...

the trip to seattle is going well. we've done lots, seen lots, and eaten lots. tonight we went to the game to watch the mariners lose. again. you would think that i would be able to see someone win. but we had fun seats above the bullpen. until we decided to sneak downstairs. now they must go to the senior citizen center to get people to volunteer to check tickets and we had an eagle eye senior watching the seats we decided to sit in. she told us we couldn't sit in the back row...we had to go back and sit in section 184. so we just stood. well that eagle eyed senior finally at 9 let us sit down and watch the rest of the game. so here is to you eagle eyed senior!!!

more to follow!

blogging from afar...

currently in kalispell...about to go to seattle for three or four baseball games.  we'll have fun.  

even better news.  i've been knitting.

even better news than that:  I went to a camera store (Shout out to the camera store in kalispell uhm....photo video plus i believe) and they have a charger for my camera.  therefore...photos of seattle while i'm in seattle.  AND knitting photos soon.

by the way, i'm out of school for summer.  yes!

*gasp* i think i was kicked out

so apparently my procrastinating got me kicked out of the knitting ring i'm in. that really is a sad day for me. dang it anne...get your knitting shit together!
****whew! i wasn't kicked out, it's now defunct! thank god i'm not such a failure. i'll have to find another blog to join.
well, i'll have to do some investigating when i'm not feeling so hard on myself. i have two days left of school...with only 3 hours of actual educational time left. which sounds really awesome...if i hadn't deleted 75% of my fiction collection. so i have to enter that all in. i have lovely girls who are helping me and i think they're doing a pretty good job. one even said she wouldn't mind being a librarian...except you have to be quiet. she struggles with that. so do i. :)

knitting, i do still knit. i actually have some baby hats i'm trying to work on because i have 5 friends having 6 babies within like...4 weeks of each other. but again...no photos because i don't have the camera charger. my dad said he would buy me one if i worked for him. but apparently i didn't work hard enough. dad? yah? huh?

what do you have planned for summer? i have baseball with my dad and sister, sister time, laying tile at my sisters house, working, swimming, and kayaking with my mom. oh and camping around anaconda and yellowstone. hopefully that all will work out. i haven't found a buyer for my kidney though so i can afford gas. ehehehe just kidding, i can't sell my kindey, that would get me into all sorts of legal problems. and health issues too. so i do exhist and i'm going to try to post more regularly now that summer is here.

books, blogs, and back gammon

i read like 20 blogs most days. i do this by venturing up into my favorites. scrolling to knitting, then to blogs and then reading each one. sometimes i open two browsers so that i can have one loading while i'm reading another blog. i do that when i'm in a hurry. today i took a new route. don't worry it's not rss or rrs or whatever it is. (although one of my library professors would have a heart attack because she loves it, or suggests it at least). today i went from the bottom of my list up. it sort of weirded me out because i didn't know which blog was coming next. have you noticed that blogs have tastes? like some...they're strong knitting and i like that about them. some are just a hint of knitting mixed in with life (that's mine). some are familiar...because i know the people. and some i read because i'm addicted. i'm not particularly fond of the writing style or what the person has to say, but i feel like i need to know what that person is doing. like looking in windows at night really. and i love those blogs too because there is something that i do enjoy and it keeps me coming back for more. but anyways, i went backwards today so i wasn't prepared for what was going to come next. do you do that? it was rather refreshing.

tonight: i had bookclub number one. book club number one is the first one i belonged to. they are my first anaconda friends and it's been really wonderful. we were supposed to read angry housewives eating bonbons. i didn't read it because, of course, i forgot i had book club this week. i belong to a second book club that i started this year. it's rather intense because i feel like i'm reading one book for bookclub (the sooner meeting) and then i rush through the second so i can be prepared. this usually works out because the meetings are two weeks apart. but i have noticed that my reading has decreased because i'm feeling rather...forced to read. i keep buying books to read, but i can't make it through them. really, it's a pity. so i'm down to two books a month + whatever book i'm reading at school to keep up to date in my library (mainly so i can find some kid that NEEDS to read that book). it's like a came of matching. find the book that matches the kid. some kids have lots of matches...some don't. it's great.

my husband loves to play backgammon. i've never played it. lex, remember the board at the north fork that we tried to play with...but it turns out we didn't know how to play so instead we made designs with dominos? i'm thinking i should learn to play it, but often when bob teaches me a game i get frustrated and it's added to the list of games we can't play. such as canasta, phase ten, and monopoly. too bad, so sad.

if there is some amazing chance that someone out there reading this is a librarian who blogs with their students, i would love it if you would contact me about doing it. i'm thinking of starting a blog of book reviews because students are WAY better at convincing each other to read books than i am. so i thought that would be awesome! or if you know someone. :) night!

spring is in the air...

ooooh hellooooooo! spring has sprung which means...spring cleaning time! wooohoo! so i've been busy doing one little spring cleaning bit at a time. this will come as no surprise to my parents because they know i'm a terrible cleaner. when i was little and i shared a room with my lovely sister we would have to clean our terribly messy room. and lex would get her side done and i would still be looking at the filthy sock i had picked up an hour an a half ago. i would still be deciding whether it was just covered with cat hair and i could shake it off and put it in the sock drawer, or if it really had been worn two and a half months ago and i should clean it. so i would start crying about how i can't clean and i'm overwhelmed and in two and a half minutes lex would have cleaned it all. this worked well into my adult life until it was time for us to get married. turns out, i still need her to come and clean my house. lex, are you here yet? but i digress. i've been working on it and am rather proud of myself. now if someone walked into my house, they wouldn't really think of it as clean, but i know that to me i'm making a difference.

also since i have last checked in, i have achieved a goal of mine, and that is to run a 5k. i'm going to preface this with a story about my 1st grade teacher, mrs. a. mrs.a, if you're out there reading this, this was in 1987 in whitefish mt and i was the short, thick girl. now, in first grade we were out on the track running the mile (i still don't think 6 year olds should be made to run the mile) and after we finished we were walking back to the school (muldown school--i'm giving lots of hints as to who i am incase mrs. a is reading :) ) and as i was huffing and puffing because i had to walk a lot of the mile mrs. a looked at me and said, "anne, why can't you be more like your aunt lexie?" well, my aunt was phenominal runner, ran in college and set lots of records. and i just kind of looked at her thinking, "uhm....because i'm not her" so this is for you mrs. a! i may not be a big track runner, but damn it i finished the race and i'm proud! so i ran in the st. patricks day race here in anaconda with my sister lex who has been training with me (but apart from me) and my mom and baby sister came down to join us. they walked it with my husband and everyone finished. i'm terribly proud of everyone. next year dad, you're joining us! but the best part of the race...it ends at a bar. where they proudly serve green beer to the race participants...at like 11:15 in the morning. it was great. so now lex and i will find races every few months to meet up and run together. we're cool like that.

also, i have been knitting a most kick ass project. however it can't be shown because a reader of this blog will be the recipient. funny thought though...only like 8 people read this blog, so they're all thinking its them! hehehehe

so that's my life in a nut shell. camera charger: still broken. weather: changing slowly to spring. family: all good. and possibly big changes next year. woohoo!

uhm...if my dad didn't read this, it would have swearing

so. i'm a big fat failure. i don't remember if i let you in on my little new years resolution. it's what i call "low pressure" as in, do it if you can, if not, don't worry! it's to cook one new thing a week this year. so i should have 52 new recipes...if i hadn't of skipped a few weeks, and if i hadn't screwed up some recipes. now don't get me wrong, the chili turned out awesome. and i owe it to me. really, i do. the original recipe, boring and awful! so i experimented and it turned out great. not once, but twice! i even made it for my dad and mom and my mom and dad have mad cooking skills (dad not so much in the chili department though). and they both thought it was great! me too. i was amazed. cumin and tomato sauce need to be added. note to self: try blending the nasty onions into the sauce next time. and the other successes include a roast chicken which was so good i didn't mind eating it for the next three days. i'm thinking i should switch to roast turkey breast though because i really only like the white meat. also a success the most amazing brownies with peanut butter icing. holy moly were they good. and also (i forgot) my pulled pork sandwiches on sweet potato biscuits. i did also make the white bbq sauce that was supposed to go on them...that was a failure. which brings me to the whole point of this.

i failed twice this week at two new recipes. number one: salsa. now, how can you go wrong with salsa. it all begins with being afraid to chop things small. i can't chop my onions and tomatoes small enough. but don't worry, i come up with a really really great idea. i'll just blend it! i don't like the chunks in salsa anyways! yeah, well it looks like green cat throw up. green you're thinking...but i thought you made salsa. yes, well apparently when you blend up three jalapeno chilis it will greatly influence the color. and the heat. that is some really really hot salsa. but it's okay tasting. tomorrow i'm going to mix some into my hamburger meat and see what i come up with. should be good. you would think after that i would be done with failing this week. but i'm an overachiever (or would i be an underachiever?) and i thought i would try to make porkchops. porkchops and cassaroles are dishes to me that anyone can make. it's such an...american food that i thought if you were born in america you could cook it. well, i can cook them, just not well. i dredge them in egg, then breadcrumbs then flour. i think the flour was my mistake. and then i put them in a pan with some olive oil. now let me also add i bought the thin cut ones (seriously, i haven't found a recipe that calls for these. someone help me out with that). and i started cooking. i thought it shouldn't take very long so i went to flip them after like four minutes. well wouldn't you know that all the olive oil was gone and after i flipped the chops, they started to smoke...and set off my smoke alarm. which truely did surprise me because i only seem to do that when my inlaws are around (they must wonder why dear husband married me). so i thought to myself what should i do? and i knew i couldn't add more oil to the pan because you never add cold oil to a hot pan (thanks food network). so i got another pan. perfect. and this time i put in LOTS of olive oil. well, that fried the hell out of them and they finished cooking in record time. i ate them anyways because i was starving. they were okay. but bland. SALT! that's what i need to add. good to know. so they weren't a complete failure. but not really great.

so i need suggestions on what i did wrong. or if you have an awesome pork chop recipe (especially one calling for thin ones) please let me know. and i'll try it! hell, if i ate the ones tonight, it can only get better!

and finally. when the recipe says medium high, what does that mean? i assume it means halfway between medium and high. yellow-orange is the color half way between yellow and orange, so it only make sense to me.

knitting funk: still in full gear. another 7 inches of snow fell today. no end in sight.

for next time: lactose intolerant? or just some sort of virus?

february 7, 2008

this is for my sister who asks me why i never blog anymore. the short answer: i broke my camera charger and i can't take photos until my cheapness goes away for a few minutes and i buy a new one. and since knitting is sort of not fun without all the photos, it's hard for me to blog.

BUT i have been knitting and i will describe. my favorite knit piece in my absence would be the fingerless gloves that i made my dear husband. because this is the first thing i've ever knit for him. first. thing. ever. after five years! i have friends that i've knit for who haven't been my friends for five years! i have knit for coworks that i've only known a few months and i've knit them something. so he was due. and i tell you, they're beautiful (well, minus the strange purple hue, i swear they were grey!) but the pattern is dashing and i loved it. it's the first time i've done a thumb this way and it totally rocked my socks off! i think all mittens from now on will go this way. it seemed to help me not get that obnoxious hole in the side, so that was an awesome learning experience! the yarn i used was a hemp/wool combo. not at all what the pattern called for or suggested, but they turned out just perfect anyways. i'm a bad knitter: i pick the yarn i want and then the pattern and i make the pattern work, even if it shouldn't. because i live so far from yarn stores or anything, i usually just wing patterns with what i've got.

speaking of yarn stores, my friend melanie cross opened up camas creek yarns in kalispell. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!! it has to be the most incredibly yarn store i've ever been in. like...let me die here wonderful! please stop in and visit her. you won't be able to leave empty handed. and you might go back three times in one day and buy something each time. and not because you forgot something but because you love it so much you don't want to go back home. it's really spectacular--i can't say enough about it!

other than that not a lot is up here. we've had wacky weather. as noted in november, part of our roof blew off due to high winds. well today we've had a blizzard dropping 12 inches since 8 this morning and winds well over 40 miles an hour. you could see a block and a half and that was it. so we've been sticking close to home for the most part and enjoying quietness and the wonderfulness of LOST on dvd. no commercials, no writers strike, and no waiting for a week for the next episode. it's awesome :)


happy les? when do you leave?