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.
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.
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.
It’s still too hot most afternoons to pick Ellie up on the bikes. So I put the CounterPain in the car for sitting and waiting knitting.
It was one of my better ideas.
The new back pack has KITTIES.
We’ve taken a stray dog to the shelter, taken a cat to the vet, I’ve cleaned the whole house AND mopped and there’s still three hours and change before I get her back.
I may die.
Or I might finish a rooster.
One of those.
How do y’all feel about log cabin style knitting?
Kindergarten starts tomorrow. I should have more time to talk then.
PS I missed my 10th blogaversary at the beginning of August. I always miss my blogaversaries, so this is nothing new. The part about TEN YEARS worth of my thoughts out in the ether is really making me feel old though.
Dear Sheep Test Knitters,
If you don’t have a copy of the finished ‘S is for Sheep’ pattern waiting in your inbox this morning, give a shout and I’ll fix that.
All my best,
Emily
It’s before noon on Wednesday, so it’s still early in the week!
S is for Sheep
She’s available on Ravelry and Etsy. Etsy does instant downloads now, although it is still easier to get corrections to you by way of Ravelry so that’s still what I recommend. I always seem to need those corrections.
As an aside, I know that ‘Sheep’ isn’t a technically correct choice for ‘S’ from a phonetic standpoint. But it is the only choice for ‘S’ from a knitter’s standpoint!
Our field trip series continued with the Gulf Coast Exploreum, a kid-focused science center in Mobile. I’m very glad we worked our way through the physics exhibit and the iMax movie about coral reefs (Ellie loves reefs) before we made it to the imaginative play room.
It was really well done – a boat with bells in a ball pit and a light house in the corner (with a working light and fog horn). There were loads of plastic fish and a pretend fish market with a cash register and bins for sorting. That’s all she wanted to do after that. She even gave up lunch at Moe’s to rescue more fish from sharks and the horrors of the Fish Market.
After everyone made it safely into the boat, we drove it to the coral reef and released them all where they would be happy.
(Sheep pattern early next week.)
In the few weeks left before school starts,* we’ve planned a bunch of field trips to places we’ve been meaning to go but just haven’t managed to visit. Today was the Dauphin Island Sea Lab!
hee
They’ve got a little octopus, fossils, a lot of delta fish, rays, coral, a bit of a salt marsh, a pretend fishing boat and plenty of information about all of it. You can also see the oil rigs out in the Gulf. There’s a little wind tunnel thing that *supposedly* blows 72mph wind (just under hurricane strength) on you.
I didn’t have a pocket anemometer to prove anything, but I don’t buy it.
Ellie had a great time – the wind machine was her favorite part. With the possible exception of the gift shop, of course. Please note the plush sea star in the wind machine with us.
*boohoohoo