ispindle

Meet Athena …

She’s come to hopefully help us wage war on those blasted fruit flies. For some reason, our home- custom-made fruit fly death trap just isn’t working well lately. I’m not sure Athena will help too much (they seem too tiny to trigger her reflexes!) but I’m willing to give it a go. Plus we happened to see a display and Emily wanted one and so did I she twisted my arm really hard .

My planned Food on Friday post will have to wait until later this weekend. I didn’t get a chance to get to the market today. I ran needed last minute errands to get the two older girls ready for their “Twilighter Overnighter” in Forks. Tonight I’ll be uncovering the septic tank for the guy to inspect it tomorrow (Jack called to say he’ll conveniently be home from work tonight after dark … ). Then tomorrow, Sarah and I are heading to the zoo. Busy! busy!

10.5″ of tube knitting and still working …

Hardly worth bogging about, but there ya go.

Making a sock with an afterthought heel (hence the odd green line in the sock). Thought it would be a good thing so I can replace the heel as needed. However, knitting the tube, which will be almost a foot long before the toe is tackled … UGH.

At least the yarn is gorgeous! Hard Twist Petite from Lisa Souza. Skein label says it’s the “Spumoni” colorway. I’m dubious since this colorway looks way different on her website. Heck, it even looks way different from the photo. In person, the color is a light banana yellow w/ stripes of the palest pink and green and random flecks of color. Pretty!

Have been hoping to reign in our food spending and get it under control this summer. It was bad this winter when Jack worked late and I was in school all day. Too much convenience foods went into our bellies! I hope to turn that around this summer and work on a plan for this fall. It seems that I will not be home until after 7:30pm Monday – Thursday for the first 6 weeks of school. After that, only Tuesdays and Thursdays will be late days. Even still, I’d like to have dinner plans and stock up on good things now.

Taking a small cue from fiftybucksaweek.com, I decided to use that as a general guideline for our food budget. I say general guideline because we are a family of 5 — includes two teens and an 8yo — so the $50 per adult might not be so “us”.

Fridays here are grocery days. I picked up 90% of what we will consume this week for $113.81. WOOT! I think I did pretty good. I went up to the market (my favorite where I can get a fair amount of organics and/or local, not the commissary where things would be cheaper but decidedly not organic or local) and pretty much stuck to my list. I did however spend $11.96 on two flats ($5.98 ea) of fresh, local strawberries and $9.79 for a block of my most favorite cheese ever, mango-ginger stilton. I did not have to buy any cereal (a budget buster!) and relied on some items from our freezer (chicken, pork). All in all, I think I did pretty good.

So what is on the menu this week?

Grilled chicken, mac n cheese and broccoli

Caribbean Rice with tofu and peas

Smoothies (tofu, mango, blueberry w/ pineapple coconut juice) and a strawberry dumpling dish and greek yogurt (I should probably serve this for desert, not dinner but I’ve convinced myself it’s not much different than serving breakfast-for-dinner- pancakes and strawberry sauce for dinner. Right?)

Grilled pork loin and israeli couscous salad

Chicken or tofu (eater’s option) melon salad over a bed of lettuce

Burgers, cucumber salad and tater tots

Tacos (tortilla, boca-type crumbles, cheese, olives, tomato, lettuce, sour cream, etc … )

So that is the plan this week. I plan to post my progress each Friday through the summer. Check on back to see how we’re doing!

I know how I like to knit socks. I know how I like my socks to fit. I am pretty good at recalculating existing directions to give me the sock fit I demand when I knit my own socks. But I’m tired of doing the same  calculations and modifications. You’d think I’d actually save it somewhere, huh? Yeah. I had that thought today too!

So today, as I knit the heel on Summer Sock #2, I made a little chart I could save and print whenever I wanted to knit a new Sherman Heel for my sock. This particular sock needed a heel done over 40 stitches so the tweeking was done and a chart was created. And now it’s shared with y’all. Download below or use the soon-to-be link on my sidebar.

Sherman Heel over 40 stitches.

Knitting a nudibranch and its killing my hands.

Large quantities of oddball white buttons are hard to find. Curtains may not get knit.

No pictures.

Over and out to Trader Joes this fine sunny morning.

1) Graduate! Oh wait, I’ve done that already! President’s List even! :::giggles:::

2) RELAX

3) ENJOY life!

4) Not think about school for a bit (at least until September).

5) Wake up late as much as possible. No more 4:30am!

6) Get a fun new hair cut.

7) Play in a fountain or two or five.

Blow some glass.

10) Consume an adult beverage anytime the mood strikes without worrying about tomorrow’s test, notes, quiz, lab, etc. Any bets on how many adult juice boxes will pass thru the doors here? Current count: 1 purchased, 0 consumed.

11) Visit the ice caves.

12) Polish a rock.

13) Read a few good books. Any suggestions? I’m currently reading Interworld by Neil Gaiman.

14) Eat garlic fries. Jack, you listening? Pick a game!

15) Maybe knit curtains for the living area windows. Four windows, roughly 70″x45″ each … polishing that rock doesn’t seem so nutty anymore, huh?

16) Crochet a little.

17) Harvest from my garden.

18) Build a chicken coop.

19) Visit the Ballard locks while the sockeye are running. Maybe stop and see the troll and tour the chocolate factory while there.

20) Clean out my closet. I may have gotten a head start and accomplished this last Friday to “celebrate” my last day of classes. A thirteen gallon bag was hauled off to St. Vinnies!

21) Catch up on housekeeping. Anyone do windows?

22) Get the front door painted. We’ve only had the paint to do it for 12.5 months now.

23) Consider painting the pantry door w/ chalkboard paint.

24) Put my toes in Long Lake more than once.

25) Find interesting jars for my button collection, now sorted by color.

26) RELAX

27) HAVE FUN!

28) Not think about school anymore until September!

Mail lady was good today! I received notices that …

1) I have been accepted into UWT’s Environmental Science program. My prior acceptance from UWT was just to the school in general, not the progarm I wanted.

2) My graduation application has been reviewed and accepted, pending my performance this semester (which I’m not worried about.)

It’s been a good day!

Jingle, the resident gerbil, weighs 34 grams more than the average gerbil. That translates into 155.7 % of the average gerbil’s weight.

Doubts where he gets his nickname “Dinner Roll” from are now put to rest.

Just want to share a picture of my sweet little Darwin. He lived with us on and off for the last two weeks. He was part of a biology lab “experiment” on observing animals and imprinting. He’s back on his home farm now. I miss the little guy — squawky and loud as he was. He LOVED to settle in the palm of our hands and just rest peacefully.

Update on the family: Jack got ahold of them. Warned of all the closed roads. They went anyway. And couldn’t get anywhere or see anything because of all the closed roads. We tried. =}

Nothing really too new to report. Things here have pretty much been all school and nothing but school so help me God.

Really.

In knitting news … there is nothing.

In crochet news … there is nothing.

In spinning news … there is nothing.

In reading news … about 49% done with Wicked. Kind of an odd book. I don’t say that in a bad way at all. I kinda like the oddness. I’m just not too into it. Mostly I think because it is part of my bedtime ritual and I’m reading just a wee bit each night. I do find it entertaining and I want to see it through. If school wasn’t such a focus right now, I’d be able to read more.

In audible news … Finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society a couple weeks ago. I didn’t care for the story at first. The letter format turned me off. But soon enough, I was sucked into the lives of these people. I cried at some points. Laughed at others. Quite enjoyable. Have not selected a new listen yet.

In kid news … Sarah is now a level 3 swimmer and I spent 45 minutes standing in line last night waiting to get her registered for the next round of lessons. I got there 15 minutes before sign ups started. We were lucky to get one of the last two remaining Level 3 spots. I pity the long line of people who arrived after I did!

In family news … we have family currently in the state (tho not visiting with us). They planned trips to Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens. Jack tells me about these plans this morning and I laugh worry. I tell him the all the open closed passes and open closed road. Then moved onto the open closed visitor centers and the spring like weather forecast 24-hour snow totals. He planned to make a phone call or two. I really hope he got in touch with them. If nothing else so they are aware of the closures and all. I’m not sure if they would have packed snow gear or even have chains with their rental car. I had to run to school and my cell phone hasn’t had a signal all day long (why do M & I not have any coverage today but Jack does?)  The family is supposed to be back to visit here in the summer. Hopefully we can make plans to see the mountains then. I love Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens. It’s eating me that I am allowing an internship there pass through my fingertips.

In school news … graduation is scheduled for June 14th. WOOT! Yes, I’m excited, but I’m a wee worried. I know I’ve gone over my transcript with a fine toothed comb and I think all my eyes are dotted and my tees are crossed. BUT, my graduation application is still in the review process. I won’t know for absolute sure until I hear something from the school. I turned in my stuff the first week of April. The cashier said it takes 3 or so weeks to hear anything. Its been four.

In social news … Jack and I have a date tonight … Star Trek baby.

Groan.