Seriously. Might as well just move along now.

Total progress on anything in the last few weeks:

I made a pie (or three) from scratch:
I baked some wee little pumpkins:

I scraped them into the food processor:

I got completely distracted and took a random picture of pastry tips drying in the unused soap holder:

Pureed pumpkin glop, ready to have all the rest of the stuff added:

Pie number 1 in the oven. The filling is REALLY soupy at this point, so there’s also goo on the bottom of the oven, which will smell even nastier than pumpkin pie in about 20 minutes…

And, finally, the prettiest of the pies, all baked and ready for someone who isn’t me to eat.

Then I made a scarf. Crocheted it, no less. Expanding those horizons every chance I get:

And then, just to feel productive, I put all of the bulk spices in little jars instead of the nappy plastic bags most of them were in:

See? No progress.

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I finished cutting all the rest of the funky pieces yesterday, and got them stuck in place (and completely failed to take pictures of it.  Please to be using your imagination)

The tiles, they are not flat.  They are not all the same thickness.  They are not square.  The grout float refused to put the grout in the spaces between the tiles, so I had to do all that with my hands.  It was kind of nice, really.  And then it looked like this:

And now, a couple hours and a bit of buffing later it looks like this:

There is still more buffing yet to do, and some caulk to add, and the fixtures. Then a couple of dump runs, and several hours of vacuuming, and maybe some sense of order will be restored. Maybe.

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The day started out slowly.  REALLY slowly.  Yesterday?  SLOW.  Almost no progress made at all yesterday, other than getting all of the plumbing in place (twice! yay!).  So much frustration yesterday.  And this morning.  This:

Took many, many hours this morning.  It was probably close to 3:00 this afternoon before the whole thing looked like this (ready to finally start putting up tile):

And now it looks like this:

I have 23 more pieces to cut, and one more row of the 6×6 and the top caps, and I am DONE with the sticking tile to the wall part.  Tomorrow I can grout!  And Thursday I can TAKE A BATH. Hurrah!

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There is something unbelievably cathartic about taking a hammer to something you hate.   Take, for example, the goddamned pink tile in our bathroom.

I have hated this tile for years.  Many, many years.

ZOMG I hate that pink tile.  The black around the bottom isn’t on the outside, mind you, it’s on the inside.  Which is very, very, VERY bad.

This morning I got to have the happy, happy time of getting all SMASHY! smashysmashysmashy! with a hammer and removing it.

That’s the bit I got smashy with.  Every. Single. Tile.  SMASHY!  Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  OMG.  Loved that.  smashy

As I was getting SMASHY! with the tile, I kept finding twine.  Every row had the twine.  I think it’s what they used to space the rows.  It made removing the tile a bit more difficult.

That’s dad.  with the old plumbing, which we had to cut out, in several pieces.  Bye bye crappy old plumbing!  We won’t miss you!

So much rubble.  I’ll leave that for M as a special present. In the truck, mind you, since there’s too much to fit in the tub.

Look, ma!  No more pink tile!  This is what it looks like right now.    This is where we left it for the night.

The new plumbing is this far along.  This, however, isn’t attached to anything at the bottom.  We’ll do that part in the morning when we’re not so tired.

Then we can start on getting the piles of tile out of the middle of the living room floor.

That’s what it will look like.  Sort of.

And now, a beer, some dinner, and bed.  ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

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Her first rocket.  And no, she never does take that hat off.

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Yep, I’m here. (well, technically, I’m in my hotel room at the moment). Guess how many pictures I’ve taken so far? If you guessed none, you’d be WRONG. Just sayin’. I’ve taken at least two. Maybe three.

Thus far, in no particular order:
I gave Anna Zilboorg my Sharpie yesterday (I think it was yesterday at any rate – it all runs together). And? Seriously? If I didn’t have such a deep loathing for Twitter, I TOTALLY would have tweeted that.
I have purchased exactly NO yarn. (c’mon, really? do I need any?)
I have been publicly outed about the Orion sock pattern.
I have talked to at least a million people. (I’m working registration, so maybe it’s not actually a million, but it seems that way. Almost all of them have been incredibly nice).
I have fallen in love with a set of RED buttons from Sheila and Michael Ernst, whom I adore more than I can express. (I know! Red! Who woulda thunk?)
Barbara Walker said hello to me on the escalator (yes, *that* Barbara Walker). I’m pretty sure I didn’t make an ass of myself like I did when I met Nancy Bush at Madrona a couple of years ago.
I have repaired a broken friendship. Yay!
I have met some really, REALLY nice people.
I ated too much lunch (Pok Pok. Mmmmmm.)

I still haven’t been to Powell’s (this trip – I’ve been there before, but haven’t made it over there this year)
I haven’t yet had a Voodoo doughnut (although I have heard a rumor that I might be having a bacon maple bar for breakfast tomorrow)
I haven’t slept much
I haven’t knit anything other than about 10 rows on one of Lara’s socks

And now? At 7:13pm, I’m seriously considering getting ready for bed. Lame sauce.

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Moving right along to year 2. Chop chop!

On the agenda for this year:
puffy sleeves (ick)
dolman sleeve (ick)
matched pattern raglan (ick)
Aran
Gansey
crochet collar (seriously?!, yes, apparently so)
Fair Isle yoke
decreasing cable skirt/cape (no, really)

Puffy sleeve evilness is 95% done. I have 1.25 button bands left to go. Yes, I hate it. Kind of a lot. I was not meant to wear the poofy sleeve, no.

Dolman. A word that strikes terror in the heart of anyone with sense or boobs. This was probably the one project of them all for this year that I dreaded the very most. There have been previous posts on how I thought what I’d come up with to make it less awful was a good idea. It was, really, aside from the ELEVEN HOURS OF GRAFTING. But see? Worth it. (and my that needs blocking again)

The matched pattern raglan was another one I figured I’d never wear, but that turned out to fit reasonably well, and is (holy crap) warm and soft and has buttons that I absolutely ADORE.

The seams? They are all very matchy. So very matchy.

The Aran and the Gansey are languishing at the moment. The Gansey is swatched and drafted and ready to go, the Aran… let’s not talk about the Aran.

The crocheted collar is… DONE. I kid you not. Me. I crocheted. (and yes, I still refer to it as “crotch-etted”. It amuses me. Get over it)

The Fair Isle yoke sweater we had the option of doing two ways – one as a narrow yoke with set-in sleeves, or a more Lopi style with a wider yoke and raglan style sleeves. I opted for the narrow yoke with set in sleeves, and am sooooo close to being done with solid-colored body bit. I should be able to start picking up the many hundreds of yoke stitches tonight or tomorrow. Excitement! But no pictures yet.
The last in the list there, which still pains me to read, is the decreasing cable skirt or cape. I have decided (and Jean is going to let me get away with, primarily because a)Lara did it and b)it means WAY more work for me) to do this as the wide-yoke sweater instead of a cape or skirt, neither of which I would EVER use (ICKAY!). I have a cunning plan, but no picture or swatch or yarn for yet.

So. There you have it. Progress. With proof. Go me.

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Good grief! Finished knitting! In roughly the order they appear in class (which is not necessarily the order they were actually finished), I present the finished pieces that I still have*:

Year 1, project 1 (2?), the Incredibly Evil Top Down Raglan Which Will Never Be Worn (and which is also not quite finished, but so close! So close and yet… I hate it so much I can’t bring myself to actually finish the sleeves, which is all that is left. Really. Look at the sleeves. The are SO damn close to done. Yet there is the hate. So much loathing. Blech. Hate). The yarn is, um, that stuff? from the front of the store? you know the stuff. Lara? help me out here. Ooh! Briggs & Little. The scratchy stuff that will soften up some day, I’ve been assured. Smells like sheep. Scratchy sheep.

Next up was the Vest, which went to The Best Physical Therapist EVER. No decent picture exists. I’ll work on that.

Year 1, project 3 was the Round Neck Pullover. Which will also never be worn. Which needs to be (gasp!) ripped out and reknit. At a different gauge. I am reasonably fond of the yarn (Ultra Alpaca from Berrocco), although it does tend to get big globs of fuzz on it, but this was knit at too loose a gauge for it, and it grows like a mofo across the neck and shoulders when worn. Alas. Original pattern was out of one of the Japanese knitting books. Let’s Knit #10, probably.

Followed by the Year 1, project 4, the V-Neck Pullover. Yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts WooBoo, a divine wool/bamboo blend. This one is one that I actually wear rather a lot during the colder months. It’s just about perfect.

The super shallow v-neck which turned out exactly as I had hoped it would:

Year 1, project 5 was the Round Neck Cardigan, which was done for O, and which has been worn almost to tatters. She will undoubtedly have outgrown it by winter, which is ok, since there’s another one for her on the needles at the moment. Again? No picture.

Y1, P6 was the V-Neck Cardigan. This was the project that I had knit the entire body of, and got to rip out in class. Jean made me. I was, mind you, SO over ripping out at that point that it didn’t even phase me. Yep, ok, rip rip rip riiiiiipppppp. Start over from scratch. I was pretty sure that this one was going to be another one for the “never gonna wear it” pile, even after it was finished, but I ended up grabbing it to try on one last time a few weeks ago, and discovered that I really actually kind of like it. Sort of.

And I do absolutely love the buttons:

There are two more year 1 projects that I haven’t even started yet. The crocheted tank and the final project. There has been no progress on either yet, so don’t ask.

Up next: Year 2. Momentarily.

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Than the THUNK! of a canning jar sealing itself. A close second is the sound of the vacuum being broken when you open a jar of summery goodness in the dead of winter.

I realized about two weeks ago that I was, of all things, completely out of jam. COMPLETELY out. IPE! Panic! Panic!

So, now my kitchen counter is covered in jars, and The Jam Shelves are no longer naked. See?

This morning it was apricot, strawberry, and strawberry/apricot to add to The Jam Shelves. Last week it was bing cherry, strawberry, raspberry, and loganberry/raspberry, along with watermelon rind pickles and bing cherries in wine.

The two bigger jars at the front are pickles from my friend Elana. She? Is a kitchen GODDESS. Seriously. She makes the best pickles in all the land. And wicked good feta. Just how over-the-top amazing are her pickles? Aside from being unbelievably tasty, they are guffaw-inducingly named, and, I kid you not, sometimes cut into little shapes before being stuffed in the jar. Enclicken the pic to embiggen that sucker and look at the beets. Seriously. Look closely.

Toldja. WAY cooler than I’ll ever be. Girl crush!

Speaking of thing to crush on, these jars:

The only thing I don’t like about them is that they’re deceptively large. And hideously expensive (not as bad as Weck jars, mind you, but they’re up there). I got them from Amazon (linky here?) on sale, plus a 4-for-3 deal, plus free shipping, which brought the price down to a reasonable amount (and way, way less than I could have gotten them locally from Sur La Table). I still covet the Wecks, but am not likely to be ordering any anytime soon.

On a completely unrelated side note, there has been a crapton of Nihon Vogue project progress. I’ll be heading out to take pictures of finished sweaters shortly. Seriously!

Edit: I’ve just noticed that the pics in this post look all jacked up in Firefox. I have NO idea why (it could just be this computer, but in IE they look much more like the originals, but even there they’re darker). Who knows.

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For once, though, not because of an injury!

I blame New Podlandia* and these:

That’s only part of the set, although it’s all of the part that’s currently finished. Sigh. Yes, behind on that too. Alas.

*We married off our friends Torrey and Dietrich this past weekend, and much fun and extremely excellent food was had by all at their new embassy, and the towels were my wedding gift to them. Also? Embroidery takes flippin’ FOREVER. Who knew?

There are at least two, possibly three more sweaters for class finished (maybe I’ll finally get around to taking pictures this weekend, or make the child do it) (ooh! speaking of the child… http://www.flickr.com/photos/orionodegard/ – take note, Parental Units, there are pictures of us there). More sweaters on the way, although the current class sweaters are all miserably fine gauge jobbers, so the progress is slooooooooow.

Random, yes. Context-free, always.

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And the people who have WAY too much time on their hands.

The most amusing case mod I’ve seen yet.

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The pickled grapes are tasty. Weird, but tasty.

That’s all.

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Sophomore Prom Princess. Need I say more, really? (other than “no, sorry, I don’t have pictures to share yet” – although I have seen one blurry shot and she looked absolutely lovely)

Also? Did I mention she shaved her head? Well, she did. And she’s rockin’ the stubble.

Go forth and squeeeee! at her!

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Grapes, people. Pickled GRAPES. Seriously! Also? The internets are proven, once again, to be a very small place.

There’s this (really quite lovely) food blog that I read regularly called Smitten Kitchen. (the rhubarb crumb cake and polenta pizza recipes are staples around here now) The woman who writes it occasionally refers to a friend of hers named Molly, who just had a book published. I assumed from the way she talked about her friend that they lived close to each other, and I know that the SK author lives in New York. Silly me.

SK posted about pickled grapes a week or so ago, mentioning that the recipe she based hers off of was out of her friend Molly’s new book. The recipe looked interesting and easy, and, as I am prone to doing, I googled to see what other variations might be out there.

The first hit google returned was to an NPR interview with Molly about the book, and the origin of the pickled grapes recipe turned out to be…. a restaurant next door to my office.

So small, those internets!

More pictures from the day of cooking and taking pictures of stuff in the gallery.

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In spite of the snow and the canceled flight, the holiday was still a good one. We tested the limits of sitting around the house in our jammies watching bad TV. We cooked (a LOT). We curled up on the couch and read good books and watched the snow fall beyond the twinkly lights on the tree. We accomplished very little. It was good.

Critter Boy got me a new camera for my birthday, and the three of us had much fun taking random pictures last week. (being that I’m too tired to really explain all of it – the cats are Hugo and Darwin, in that order, the hat is the Kauni flower hat I knit while snowed in, and the hot chocolate and cupcakes were from the trip downtown on Saturday with the Booger. Sugar Rush wee bitty cupcakes with peppermint hot chocolate at the Chocolate Box. Go there. It’s chaotic but yummy. Photo credits there are Boy, Boy, Booger x4, me, Booger)

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