Momma Barrett

Also on Monday night, Barrett from my library knitting group received the blanket that the group made for her and her husband Tim's soon-to-arrive baby. We all pitched in 10" squares (or somewhere near to 10" and possibly slightly square) and Elaine was kind enough to assemble them, seam them and add a great crocheted border around the edge.

I also gave her a few little knitted baby gifts. I love the Saartje's Bootees pattern, so I made a little bitty pair out of Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport weight yarn.

Also given to Barrett was a Bib O' Love from Mason Dixon Knitting. I made this one striped with a bunch of cottons and a little bit of silk. There were a lot of ends to weave in on this one!

There have been lots of finished objects around here in the past few months, but not many have made them onto the blog. Much of that is the fault of babies! Since most of the soon-to-be-moms have given birth, you'll be seeing more of the baby related FOs really soon. Also at fault for the lack of knitting content is a lack of photos. I'll hopefully be taking some nice pics of some FOs while on our camping trip this weekend. I'm planning on finishing the Monkey socks and starting Paul's Birthday Sweater during the trip.

Keep your fingers crossed for us. We are headed north to camp amongst lots of "scattered thunderstorms."

Bye Bye Becky

As of today, Becky no longer lives a 10 minute walk down the road from me. I've really enjoyed having her live so close to me, but it is time for her to set out for her new home in Salt Lake City. Luckily we got to share one last knitting night together (see, there I go with the "last time" stuff!). On Monday she finished the shawl she has been working on with her yarn from Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. I am not going to be there to witness the magic of the lace blocking, but I can already tell it is going to be a gorgeous shawl.

Safe travels, Becky!

Lowell Folk Festival

I am starting to think of things in terms of "this is the last time I will ______ ". Well today was the last time I will go to the Lowell Folk Festival. For those that haven't been there, Lowell's folk festival is more of an ethnic/traditional music festival than it is a hippy type folk festival. It happens annually, packs a lot of good music into 3 days and doesn't cost a thing. Unless you buy one of last year's t-shirts like I did. Then it costs $5. Oh yeah, and the baklava. You have to buy some of the out of this world baklava that the Greek church sells.

Abby has been going to the festival since she was a wee one. We met up to enjoy the music together.

We spent most of the day at the JFK stage, where we saw these groups:

Lonesome River Band

Balla Kouyate

Whitetop Mountain Band

We also browsed the art booths and saw Amanda selling her awesome beaded jewelry. She makes, among many things, crocheted seed bead bracelets. Amanda and I met at an open studio event in December. Since then we have been reading each others blogs and watching each other's knitting projects on Ravelry, so it was fun to see her in person again.

I also made the most of the time listening to the music by working on my Monkey socks. Which got me to thinking. There has been a real lack of knitting related posts as of lately. I have quite a bit of knitting content to put up before I am caught up to my current projects. That will come soon.

Paul Bday Part 2

Another part of Paul's birthday celebration was a dinner that I arranged with friends Guy and Sarah. They came over last night for some good eatin' and some good talkin'. I neglected to take any photos except the one above, so hopefully Sarah doesn't get too mad that I posted this one!

The Countdown

We are now upon the 1-month-until-we-move mark. Becky and Brian decided to beat us to the punch so they are moving next week. We had them over last night for one more game night and a few more bad jokes.

Somehow their move makes our move seem more real. We have a lot to fit into this next month!

Big Rough Cool City Pad

Paul has returned from his trip to Minneapolis. And now that enough ducks are in a row, I can reveal the main reason why he was there. We are moving back to Minneapolis! All of the recruiting must have the done trick! Paul went there to find us a place to live. After much effort and two sore biking legs, he found us an amazing apartment in this historic brick building:

We found the listing for it on Craigslist under the title Big Rough Cool City Pad. With a title like that we were sold from the start. When the description contained the phrase "not polished, but cool" we thought this had to be the place for us. Paul's viewing of the apartment confirmed what we already knew, we had to have it. And, now we do. Now all we need to do is get from here to there....oh, and to get jobs, too. All minor stuff. Really, no trouble at all. Nothing to stress about. (See how I am talking myself down from the ledge here?)

Somewhat Offensive Sense of Humor

Paul's birthday evening went off without a hitch. He is known for unintentionally spoiling surprises, so I was happy that all of my plans went smoothly. I was able to make him a tasty dinner and a birthday pie before he got home from work. We enjoyed the evening together celebrating the big 3-0. He liked the food, he liked the presents and he felt the birthday love from me, from friends and from his family. He also liked the happy birthday comments on the blog!

I made a blueberry pie in place of a birthday cake. We still had some blueberries left from when we went picking, so I used them in the pie. I even made the crust from scratch! It was my first attempt at this type of pie. Paul deemed it to be "perfect" which is unheard of praise coming from him. He tends to use words like "ok" and "just fine" when he likes something, so having my pie called "perfect" was pretty flattering.

One of the gifts he got from me was an envelope filled with 30 hearts. I wrote something that I loved about him on each heart. Here is one of his favorites (you can click the photo to make it bigger):

It says, "I love your somewhat offensive sense of humor."

I am going to go where I have not gone before with my knitting. I am going to knit Paul a sweater. So far, I have only knit sweaters for myself and one baby sweater. I gave him the yarn and the swatch with the promise that he'll have the sweater by the time it is cold enough to wear it. Before his birthday, we looked through patterns together and he chose the Unisex Knock-Around Cashmere Pullover pattern from Weekend Knitting. I am going to knit his in Lamb's Pride Bulky. Here's hoping for a successful sweater!

A Much Better Day

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY PAUL!!

I LOVE YOU.

Totally Not My Day

Today was one of those days where nothing majorly bad happened, but there were enough little things that added up to make it Totally Not My Day. This post contains a GROSS OUT WARNING. I will talk about poop and bloody oozing dog parts. For those new to the TrinKnitty blog, Paul is my husband, Jack and Tchazo are my dogs and Fanny is my cat.

Tchazo has a cyst on his leg and last night it ruptured, oozed blood and gunk and scared me. I had to call in sick to work today because Paul is out of town so I needed to bring Tchazo to the vet. He will be fine. Part of the treatment for Tchazo's cyst involves ointment, which means he has to wear an e-collar. When he wears it he has no sense of the increased width of his body, so he smashes into everything all over the house including my legs.

When we got home from the vet, we found Jack in total anxiety spazz out mode, despite my having left him with a frozen peanut butter and rawhide stuffed Kong. I could hear him barking outside of the building. He must have really pleased the neighbors with that racket for an hour and a half this morning.

Next, I finally got to sit down to some breakfast only to be disturbed soonafter by Fanny butt scooting across the floor. Those of you without pets may not realize it, but because pets don't use toilet paper, sometimes they resort to scooting their butts across the ground to remedy their dirty and/or itchy butt issues. She was alternately butt scooting and seemingly trying to outrun her butt. I picked her up to find that she had a big piece of poop stuck to her fur. Disgusting. Needless to say, after I helped her with her "hygiene" I was not so hungry for breakfast anymore.

I had a bunch of errands to run so I set out to get them done. I managed to cut my finger while carrying out our returnable bottles and then forgot to turn in the slip that the machine gives you, which means I might as well have not bothered returning them at all.

It is super hot and humid here, so while I was out I picked up some food. I got some instant food so I wouldn't have to heat the house up by turning on the stove. While transporting it home, the salsa leaked all over the cloth tote bag. It seems that the container had been busted in shipping. Then I opened up the package for a bowl of microwave teriyaki noodles (aka lunch) and found that it was smashed too.

Next up was the evening dog walk during which time Jack had the grossest poop. He must have eaten some polyfil stuffing from one of Tchazo stuffed animals because he had a foot long stuffing poop, not all of which came out of its own accord. So, for the second time today, I had to pull poop off one of my pets.

I decided what I needed next was a nice, cool bath. I turned the ceiling fan on in the bedroom to help it cool down while I was in the bathtub. While in the bathtub, I noticed an alarming smell. I had to get out of the bathtub to investigate and found that it was the smell of the fan motor burning. No more ceiling fan.

After my bath, I went into my closet to get some clothes and found that the fluorescent light bulbs are burnt out. Without the light, I can't see my clothes.

I was in no mood to cook dinner tonight so I thought I would have a bowl of cereal. While taking out the container of milk, I dropped it on the floor and it spilled all over the floor, spraying everywhere. Hopefully I cleaned it up well enough so that my apartment doesn't start smelling rancid. For a second I almost cried in frustration but the moment quickly turned to laughter as I realized that I literally almost cried over spilled milk!

I thought about going out tonight, but I think it would be best if I stayed home. Who knows what kind of disaster would strike if I went out in public.

Here's hoping your day went more smoothly than mine.

Like Bubba Gump

...but with blueberries.

Since we picked so many, I've been enjoying all the ways one can consume blueberries. I realized as I was brainstorming the list how Bubba-esque it all sounded.

Bubba: Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.

from IMDB

So, for me, there's blueberry smoothies, blueberries and milk, blueberry pancakes, blueberry popsicles, blueberry pie, blueberries on ice cream, blueberry cheesecake and blueberries by the handful.

Should I Be Concerned?

While walking to the subway one morning this week, I met a new neighbor.

He was hanging out by a tree looking fairly harmless....that is, until you got close to him.

He looks a bit shifty, don't you think? And, what is with that pencil mustache and chest tuft? I didn't want to say anything but he had his pants unzipped. I'd watch the kids closely, if I were you.

BBQ

On Sunday evening Arturo and Sam invited us over for a BBQ on their porch. I am so jealous of their porch! Oh, the company and the food was good too. Thanks for the dinner, guys.

Birthing Week

It has been an eventful week in terms of baby-havin'. Mark and Jerri went first with their Zoe, followed by Jamie and Adam with their Sylvia. Congrats to the moms and dads! Now you know why I have been knitting so many baby things!

Happy Birthday Guy!

After our morning at the farm, we headed back to town to join Guy, Sarah and their families to celebrate Guy's big 3-0. Even his cousin the paratrooper came into town for the occasion.

Here is a shot of the birthday boy himself and the ever-posing Paul.

Guy and Sarah recently moved into a new apartment in a fantastic location. They are in Winthrop, which is a thin piece of land sticking out into the ocean. On either side of their small neighborhood is water. We took a walk down to the beach.

On the way there, we saw these strange hydrangea-esque flowers. Pretty in purple.

Even though it was Guy's birthday, his son Silas stole the show.

Coming in a close second to Silas for show stealing, were the 3 (!) musical birthday cards Guy received. He was serenading by meowing cats, the Star Wars theme and Austin Powers.

Cider Hill Farm

The early bird gets the...

and the... and the ... .

This morning we woke up at 6:30am in order to get to Cider Hill Farm when the picking was at its best. Our purpose was to pick blueberries but it turned out to be a golden time for harvesting. The blueberries and raspberries are just starting and the strawberries are about done. So, we got to pick all three. I've never gone to a farm to pick blueberries before since my family picked wild blueberries around our cabin. It turns out that picking blueberries on the farm is like stealing candy from a baby. We didn't have to contend with any horseflies and the blueberries were growing on huge bushes that were heavy with berries.

The farm is using renewable energy so we saw a small field full of solar panels and three wind turbines. This farm has an old-meets-new feel.

We went light on the strawberries and raspberries but heavy on the blueberries.

I'm going to try to make a blueberry pie from scratch. It'll be my first time making pie dough. Does anyone have any killer pie dough recipes?

It was only at our last stop, the raspberry patch, that I saw this "sample" rule. I totally ate way more than my sanctioned allotment of blueberries. Good thing the local cops were too busy escorting the triathlon bikers past the farm to monitor my blueberry consumption.

Getting up early was totally worth it! Right Paul?!

How hot is it?

It is so hot that dogs need to wear barrettes.

The Mordo-Kardo Krew

I am a week late in posting this, but still want to get it out there since it was a special one. Last week we had our first veggie dinner club guest (with the exception of Beth's roommates).

Ann's sister Nikki was in town from Ohio. We very much enjoyed having her at dinner. I hope we didn't scare her too badly! We weren't very good at censoring our conversation to the PG-13 level. I believe "assless chaps" may have been mentioned at one point during the meal.

Dinner consisted of a plethora of grilled pizzas, fruit salad and .....drum roll please..... homemade blueberry cheesecake. Can you tell I am a dessert girl?

You'll have to ask them what was so funny about the slow cooker book. I am not so sure, myself.

Ann and Lee recently returned from a trip to Japan. We got to see their photos, many of which were arm's length photos. We were all impressed with Long-Armed Lee's ability to capture so much in his photos. There were pictures with the two of them plus a bunch of scenery in the background. We decided to test his skills and see if we could get a group shot with his reach. We managed to get a photo with the whole group (except Paul who wasn't able to make it to the dinner this month).

The Bag For Me

For a long, long time I have been dreaming of owning The Swift by Tom Bihn.

Photo from Tom Bihn website.

It got great reviews (see here for a detailed review) and seemed like it would be a great dual purpose bag. This bag was designed in collaboration with knitters and thus, has design features specific to the needs of knitters. It is big enough to carry a knitting project, book and the usual items I bring to and fro on a daily basis. However, the price is steep, I was always skeptical about the lack of exterior pockets, felt it should have a top zipper and wasn't totally in love with the color choices. Still, I thought that I would likely buy one at some point.

That is, until I decided to poke around for some other options and found the Allston Tote:

Photo from EMS website.

This one ain't much of a looker either, but it has some super neat-o features. It is a similar size to the Swift bag and made of the same durable Cordura fabric. The Allston is a padded tote bag that stands up on its own without being really heavy. There are two flush zippered pockets on the front and a full size open pocket along the back. There is also a clip for keys and a zippered pocket on the inside. And then, there is my favorite pocket of all time:

Photo from EMS website.

This photo is of the padded, recessed, zippered pocket that I think is meant for a water bottle. Most of the time this pocket houses my Nalgene bottle. When I want to bring a banana to work this tall, cushioned pocket becomes a built-in banana cozy. I love it! When I get to work the banana is not smashed, bruised or otherwise mangled from my commute.

I have been using this bag for the past two weeks and have been nothing but happy with it. It provides all the function that I was hoping to get from The Swift bag and it costs less than half as much.

I know not everyone gets this excited about a bag, but there are many of us that find utter joy in finding the bag that does it all. And, the icing on the cake: the bag was on sale when I bought it (and still is until July 8th)!