Sunday Morning

I am so stiff and sore from yesterday's yard work (which is depressing, but after all I'm 50 & haven't exercised since recovering from the shingles) that I can't bring myself to bend over or pull anything today. I've finished one whole graph pattern (20 rows) of the gansey socks, which is very satisfying, even though my hands are stiff and sore, too (I'm inconsistent, I know). I've just started the next round of the pattern and then will decide whether to make them anklets or mid-calf length.

Back out onto the porch!! It's an absolutely heavenly day. DH made the coffee too weak this morning (our perpetual tug-of-war) so I'm fixing myself a nice strong cup of my dwindling hoard of Irish Breakfast tea (Ahmad's of London is DISCONTINUING IT and I am shattered).

I was up early as usual today. The cats are as good as an alarm clock.

6:15 am Sunday or not, they sit near my nose and start batting it. If that doesn't work, they jump on my bladder.

I decided to turn on the outside water this morning. This is a major project, because I have to hauling boxes out of the storage room to get at the trap door to the crawl space under the house. Then I crawl on my knees to the tap, praying there are no mice around, and turn the thing on. I've learned to put a step ladder down so I can crawl out again. I'm not as nimble as I used to be. Now I have to take all the recyclables I hauled out of the storage room down to the bins. So I'm on my 2nd pot of coffee and regaining my energy.

Gardening hasn't gone very far yet. I have a lot of baby plants indoors, and planted some lily bulbs that had sprouted yesterday. The irises are coming up and the peonies have started to make an appearance. The woodruff is already up. I'm not sure it was ever gone. Tough little plant.

Hope everyone has had or is having a good day, Dora

I didn't get here this morning. Kandace spent the night, and we had the early service this morning, so there was no time to get on the computer. In fact, there was no time for my morning latté either! SO I am having that now before I go to bed. LOL

SPring is definitely arriving in Labrador. The snow is melting, and in most places, I can see bare pavement. Wonderful, after all winter! That being said, the snow that is left is dirty. We are an iron ore mining community, and the snow at this time of the year is black with iron ore dust.

I am still cross-stitching this week, with my knitting projects put out of earshot for a few days.

Have a great week, everyone!

Katherine

Hi Everyone,

Yes, some of you are already in bed and here I'm just getting started reading RCTY. It was a lovely day weatherwise here in upstate NY so we took a ride and it's amazing how the leaves are coming out and flowers are in bloom. Mine are just beginning to come up.

Enjoy your week and I'll be here tomorrow.

Hugs,

Nora

search for

search

determined that

needles

kitty

planted

month when

before our

almost over

depressing,

socks,

mid-calf

made the

fixing

Have a look at Adiago teas.... JM2C, Noreen I might've misspelled it....

search for

search

determined that

needles

kitty

planted

month when

before our

almost over

depressing,

socks,

mid-calf

made the

fixing

Have a look at Adiago teas.... JM2C, Noreen I might've misspelled it....

I wasn't at the computer until now...

If you can't get more yarn, could you make the bottom half of the sleeves in a lacy pattern on bigger needles?

If someone made them with permanent "needles" sticking out (like those spiked dog collars in cartoons), I bet the teenagers would wear them.

Why not try making them tip-down? I think it's Meg Swansen who recommended making the fingers and thumb as wide idiot-cord tubes with a 'ladder' instead of trying to draw it tight. You make the ladder the right length so that you can hook it up with a crochet hook as another line of stitches. You could do them up from the palm part or you could do them top down, put them on a holding string, kitchener or bind off or sew the stitches between the fingers, and then pick up the rest of the finger bases and knit the palm and wrist. You add the thumb a short way down from the fingers, of course. It can be either a side thumb or a palm thumb.

=Tamar

start

(doing

seriously

garter

balls

mine

duplicate

works

since

sore,

mebbe... Adagio teas... they're online and have a great selection, but I lost my bookmark.... Noreen

Irish Breakfast tea is a strong blend of various types of tea, usually Assam teas. You can find similar blends, sometimes not called that, from many vendors of specialty teas. Look for the words "strong" and "good with milk and sugar".

If you google for "Assam tea", you should find plenty.

Breakfast

usually

I am nmore a coffee person , and like all sorts of coffee , and at times also Nescaffe , but lately the local factory that makes it changed the taste of my favorite `Aroma` into a disgusting taste ,,,, thus went through several brands , and unhappily settled for the Least nasty tasting , instead for the Best tasting, it sems like politics today , where people vote more against somebody than for somebody ... what happened to good tastes ???? mirjam

But if Teas ,,,,i like Honey teas , and Berries teas mirjam

In a word, *-bucks. People have been snowed into believing that burnt, Rubusto bean coffee has snob value by overpricing it and calling it "French Roast". Those of us who prefer a lighter roasted, milder, Arabica bean coffee, even as instant, are getting squeezed out. Even one of my local grocery chains has abandoned using re-labeled Chock Full of Nuts as its store brand, which lost me as a customer since another chain now carries the brand name version.

One way to buffer bad instant coffee is to turn it into mocha. Fill a small jar half full of the instant, then spoon in a roughly equal amount of regular, not Dutch Process, cocoa powder on top. Replace the lid and shake until mixed. The fine cocoa will coat the coarse coffee granules and the volume will be greatly reduced -- almost back to the original coffee volume. Then use it just like the plain coffee. This also has the advantage of getting you the beneficial flavonoid compounds in cocoa without all the sugar and fat of chocolate. The reason to avoid Dutch Process for this is that the alkali used in that process destroys those beneficial flavonoid compounds -- or so it said in a recent newspaper article.

In fact, I think I'll go have a mocha-soy latte right now. It's even better with GOOD instant! ;)

Helen "Halla" Fleischer, Fantasy & Fiber Artist

Balticon Art Program Coordinator

Ah, Mirjam, that is too bad. I am lucky here. I recently discovered a small independent coffee roaster right in my neighborhood! It is a young couple who decided to start their own company. They use mainly fair trade and environmentally and socially responsible coffee and deliver it right to my door the very day that it comes out of the roaster! They had a baby last summer and all I could think of was the smell of coffee driving the poor pregnant woman crazy! (here in the U.S., caffeine is frowned upon during pregnancy, though it seems they have relaxed the "regulations" a bit recently).

So, good taste is still out there, sometimes you just have to be lucky to find it in the right place. I hope you find some good coffee soon!

LauraJ

I don't like the bergamot flavoring added to Earl Grey. I like my tea straight!

Thank you Helen , great idea , only i am alergic to cocao [chocolade etc] , but i had a similar idea and added vanila ,,,, it worked , and started to drink more Filter Coffee , for which i grind my owm beans ,,, Half Arabica half Brazillian ,,,,,,, i also have tasted some nice Espresso , somewhere ....

Oh yes the Soya milk adds a nice flavour to the nescafee Ps did you know i was born so close to the original Nestle factory , that my mother claims to have smelled Coffee after my birth ... mirjam

That sounds interesting, Helen. Where do I buy regular cocoa powder rather than the Dutch process? Do you add any sweetener to this?

Katherine

Around here the regular is usually easier to find. It's the plain old Hershey's Cocoa Powder that we use for baking and hot cocoa. The Dutch Process usually says so in bold letters when they have it.

Helen "Halla" Fleischer, Fantasy & Fiber Artist

Balticon Art Program Coordinator

Ah well. Glad the vanilla worked. I love vanilla, too.

I am way too lazy when it comes to coffee. I'll grind other things, but not coffee, for some reason. Maybe it's the instant gratification in the morning. ;)

Sweet! My husband was raised very near the Nabisco Factory in New Jersey. Sometimes when we used to visit his folks the smell of Oreo cookies was just overwhelming! I think I might actually prefer the smell of a coffee factory.

Helen "Halla" Fleischer, Fantasy & Fiber Artist

Balticon Art Program Coordinator