Running in Place

I have some photos to show you as a catch up. I put two threads into Tall Guys (Holiday and Sparrow) last Friday, and I started June Morning (Good Huswife) on Saturday.

But I have to admit I haven’t been able to keep up with my goal of stitching two threads every day.

On Sunday, I went to take out Fish Tale—Teresa Layman’s mermaid. You may remember that I had lost the color key. I was so on top of it, I emailed Teresa requesting the color key only for the parts I had yet to finish, and she sent me a whole new one. Color key in hand, I went looking for the project—and I couldn’t find it. I’m sure it is somewhere but I was a little disheartened. So I started grabbing other WIPS—St. Basil’s Cathedral, seems I’ve thieved all the fibers from this one for other projects, same for Watercolor Geranium; I’m still waiting for my orders from three of the four stores (one of those is my fault); I just felt discouraged by it all so I just went and sat.

On Monday, we had Cookbook Club at the library. I don’t think I’ve told you about that. The dude and I joined last summer. Every month, the program director at the library* chooses a cookbook. Sometimes with our help; sometimes with our general direction; sometimes whatever grabs her fancy.** Anyway, we all sign up to make a recipe from the book. Then we get together to eat and talk about what we’ve made. It’s quite a diverse group—a grandmother who loves to cook but is married to a meat-and-potatoes man comes with her adult granddaughter (and sometimes her daughter), mothers and teen children, mothers and adult children, husbands and wives—one of the husbands has over 2000 cookbooks in his collection—single young women, older women with families who leave them at home. It’s fabulous. In fact, it’s such a hit they’ve started Cookbook Club Junior for the littler set.

Anyway, we ate the tiramisu I made on Sunday (soooooo easy! And good!). (The dude made roasted pepper salad.) Then I had an appointment; we didn’t get home until 9:30. And I just didn’t have it in me to face the basket of projects to put in two more threads.

After another day of sitting, I dragged out Off the Deep End for Wednesday stitching with my knitting peeps. And when I pulled her out of the bag, I found Fish Tale. Emerald Mermaid was in there too, so I guess it was a little underwater maiden party. Sometimes you just got to stick together.

*she’s not an MLS and hates when I call her a ‘librarian’ but dude, you work at a library…most people don’t know the difference. Though all props to those who are trained.

**June – The Dean Brothers’ Get Fired Up

July – The Everything Ice Cream, Gelato, and Frozen Desserts cookbook

August – Main Course Salads (agreed: “A lot of work for a salad”)

September – The Greatest Ever Jewish Recipe Book

October – The Dead Celebrity Cookbook (disappointing, but of course)

November – 1896 Boston Cooking School Cook Book (early Fanny Farmer)

December –Appetizers, Finger Foods, Buffets and Parties (we missed this one when the car died)

January – The Soprano’s Family Cookbook (surprisingly good!)

February – Our own family recipes

Tall Guys

Quite a few of you were interested in my mother's cooking. (I did link to both recipes in the post so I expect full reports on your Chinese pot pie, which is seriously not as interesting to eat as it seems it should be.) At any rate, my mother was an indifferent cook. Her food was always palatable. I, however, inherited my father's cooking gene. He loved it, and even studied Chinese cooking for a number of years. I was going to say it's probably easier to be interested in it if you don't do it every day, but I love cooking and I do it almost every day. In fact, the dude cooked on Saturday night and I couldn't think of the last time he had. Perhaps that is why I made so much progress on the stitching front...

The Tall Guys have faces! Here's where we were when I picked them up earlier this month. You should also check that link out because the color of the fabric is totally washed out here. It's green! Really green.

Tall Guys and Parking Woes

The dude took me out for lunch today with one of the gift cards he got to one of the specialty food stores nearby. They have outstanding cheeses...well they have outstanding everything but it's the cheese that people are thinking about when they buy the gift cards for the dude. And we did buy cheese--a very expensive gouda-style (raw milk cheese) Old Remeker. But the swearing and gnashing of teeth involved with finding a parking space threatened to ruin our meal. I won't be able to get him to leave home on the weekends again until February at the earliest. (He decided to convert to Judaism so he wouldn't have to celebrate Christmas. When I reminded him Hanukkah had eight crazy nights, he decided he may start living up to his atheist values and refusing presents. Of course, that wouldn't keep me out of the parking lots on his behalf.)

I worked on my Tall Guys Christmas last night while we watched Taken. We were watching it in preparation to see Taken 2. That's off the table--we thought the first one was only okay. (Lincoln and Skyfall are still on the list however.)

Tonight we're headed out to celebrate the dude's new job. Burgers! Fries! Alcoholic milk shakes! Woohoo!