Im starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this project. We’re still at the hospital though. Thanks for all the kind thoughts.
Six
Monthly Archives: September 2013
Five
Like my new shoes? Ellie has some too.
Four
Back in the hospital with Great Gran. I’m getting lots of knitting done and its MUCH quieter than the neural care unit but Great Gran feels much worse. This is the end of Antibiotics Day One. I’m hoping for a better and less fevered tomorrow.
Three
Two
One
Detour
Ellie has chili con queso in her thermos today with corn chips for dipping (extra points for whole grain). Yesterday she had a chocolate chip muffin leftover from a weekend breakfast, a picknicker veggie sausage (she is crazy for them) mixed up with Organic Valley cheese cubes, snap peas (another consistent winner go figure) and a fruit roll that is actually made of fruit. The little orange box has about six pieces of candy corn inside.
I love this box! I only have one but I use it once a week.
I wasn’t sure if they’d let her eat the candy corn, but she says nobody had a problem with it and they were YUMMY. Her lunch box came back as empty as it did the other day:
I think that one had heart-shaped almond butter sandwiches.
I had a little bit of a Lunch Epiphany over the last week. I realized that I am going to be packing lunches for a long long long time and that she’s not going to be a picky eater forever. Or if she IS a picky eater, she’s going to be picky in different ways. I’m not sure what to do with this new knowledge, but it is oddly comforting.
In other news…
The other two texture-related patterns are on hold. I’ve had a Christmas request from a delightful customer and since it was on my pattern list anyway I’ve moved it up in the queue. Since my darling baby dear also wants one in pink and has drawn pictures of what she thinks it should look like…well, you see where I’m going. I’m actually a little anxious and excited about it since it’s a bit of a departure from my normal alphabet critters! Still the same scale and still the same feeling I think. If it turns out like the sketches.
Fingers crossed!
Post from the Carpool Lane
You know those days where you can’t seem to get anything done because of all the things that need to get done? Yeah.
I did finish another CounterPain square.
That’s two and a bit this school year! At this rate, I’ll be finished by middle school.
Aw, Nuts
October is my second best month for toy sales (early Christmas shoppers). Weirdly, August (and the last half of July this year) is the absolute best. Which does mean that September is a bit of a scramble to restock.
The latest finished piece.
That’s Cashew Bear. He’s made with Lion Brand Nature’s Choice organic cotton. I’m actually a big fan of this yarn. It’s readily available, reasonably priced for an organically grown cotton AND plant-dyed. You do have to watch the dye lots since shades can vary radically between batches but I don’t care because plant-dyed is cool. Nature’s Choice listed as a worsted yarn, but I treat it like bulky with no trouble. The soft spun core plied with a skinny thread gives a fun wooly texture to the fabric but it can be a problem for seaming. The friction caused by drawing the strand through the knit stitches may cause the strand to fray and break. Which may cause you to tear out your hair. Not a huge big deal with toys – I just swear a little, pick it out and start over. If I were making a sweater I would consider using a different yarn for the seams.
While we’re on the subject of cashews (we’re not really but stay with me), Ellie’s school is peanut free. Which means that for my vegetarian child, a dependable source of lunch time protein has become completely unavailable. Since I can’t give her cheese every day, she’s not real big on leftovers and veggie deli slices aren’t the easiest things to get, enter the nut butters:
Presented in order of highest protein content per serving to lowest.
While peanut butter (as a legume) still has the best concentration of protein at 8g per 2T, sunflower seed butter is right up there with 7g. Almond butter has 6g, cashew 4g, and Nutella (while the most chocolaty of the contenders) has only 2g of protein. There are other brands of hazelnut spreads that I have not investigated, so it may be that the protein content is higher in those. The fat content ranges from 18g (cashew) to 12g (Nutella weirdly). Those are just the nut butters I have found available locally! Know of any others to add to my collection?
ETA: Ellie has just revealed that she does not care for SunButter. I’m going to have to figure out something else to do with it.
Routine
Seems like we are growing accustomed to this whole ‘school’ thing.
We’ve taken the bikes to school every morning this week but it’s still 90° by afternoon and too hot to pick her up (my limit is 85°). There’s been no struggle to get her out the door, and Ellie’s usual assessment of her day has been upgraded from ‘fine’ to ‘great’ (‘fantastic’ is the highest rating).
We blow each other kisses at lunchtime so that we can make it through the rest of the day.
I’ve sorted out what days which housework happens so that I don’t have to spend hours at domestic activities and that there is time left for work each day. Sweeping the whole house, for example, occurs on Monday and Friday (I do the kitchen and den again on Wednesday – Truman sheds like you would NOT believe). Sweeping is rewarded with a little bitty mug brownie.
Shown in a FiestaWare tea cup.
Brownie in a Mug
(also delicious in brownie batter form)
Get yourself a microwave safe mug and add the following ingredients in the following order:
1 T. oil
1 T. some kind of milk (almond today)
2 T. AP flour
2 T. sugar
1 T. cocoa powder
pinch of salt
Stir! If you’d like your brownie cooked, pop the mug in your microwave for 60-90 seconds. You’ll have to experiment a little since all microwaves are different – underdone is far far better than over done.
Ellie and I like ours with a spoonful of peanut butter on top. I’ve also sprinkled chocolate chips on top and I suspect one of those caramel squares stuck down in the cooked brownie would melt into something divine.