A veritable cornucopia of updates!

There has been knitting. Oh yes. I’ve nearly finished my Hooded Baby Blanket, and I’ve made two soakers.

I’ve also been working on a cardigan sort of intermittently, and pretty much given up on my Noro sock for the moment.

More fun, however, has been the exciting foray into preserving.

Last weekend, I served my carrot cake jam, warmed and drizzled over cheesecake, to my mother-in-law. She raved about it and wanted to know where I’d bought it. I told her I’d made it, and how I was enjoying making preserves but I couldn’t make any more until my jars were empty. MIL pipes up with “oh, about 30 years ago I bought a preserving kit I’ve never used, I think I’ve still got it under the house somewhere…”

Later that afternoon, my father-in-law comes in with this old, tattered cardboard box containing… a Fowlers Vacola Year Rounder.

OMG.

She’d never even taken it out of the box - the warranty card and everything still inside. Completely new, pristine, and perfect in every way.

OMG.

So last night, I washed everything, carefully read the instructions, and started a batch of Dilled Carrots.

I must seem carrot mad - it’s just because they’re cheap at the moment, OK??

The preserver worked perfectly, the carrots look gorgeous, and I can’t wait to try them.

This is a lot of fun.

Tonight I have made the foray into making my own preserves. Exciting!

I bought a book called The Complete Book of Home Preserving. I’ve become fascinated with some of the “gentle arts” over the past couple of years, and preserving always seemed like one of those magical things that ladies did to make sure they had pie filling on hand without having to go shopping. Fascinating! I was also driven by the lack of pineapple jam in the supermarkets these days (I love K for sending some to me, but jeez - we grow fricken pineapples in fricken Queensland, for frick’s sake!!).

So I’ve been reading the book, and there really are some delicious sounding recipes in there - along with some very practical, well-written advice and instructions on how to actually sterilize, prepare and seal the jars so you don’t get nasties growing in them. There are some plain-jane recipes like strawberry jam, etc… but there are some really interesting jams and pickles that I’ve never seen in a shop - one such is the Carrot Cake Jam, which I have attempted to make this very night!

Carrots, pears, pineapple, lemon juice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and a metric butt-ton of sugar.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble…

Cook it up, process the jars, and voila - jam! This stuff has made my house smell absolutely amazing.

I’m desperate to try this on toast with cream cheese

Now, this whole process did not go off without a hitch. I need a proper set of canning tongs (which I have ordered). Trying to manoeuvre glass jars in and out of boiling water, both empty and full, was quite a challenge using random bits of long-handled kitchenware I had lying around. I could also use a sacrificial pot to do the processing in, instead of my extraordinarily expensive non-stick stock pot. One of the jars also came unsealed in the processing phase, so I did lose one jar of jam, but I reckon on the first attempt that two out of three ain’t bad

As I pulled them out of the pot at the end of the processing phase, I got a very satisfying POP! indicating that the jars had hermetically sealed! I hope this stuff sets properly, because it smells divine and I can’t wait to eat it.

Next up - some kind of pickle! I have to use up the jam first, because I only have 3 jars

I got my Wii-Fit last week, and tonight we took it out of the box.

Holy crap on a cracker, this thing is fun!!!

I have not laughed so hard in ages - watching P’s Mii get smacked in the head by soccer boots was absolutely hysterical. Watching him wobbling on the board, unable to stop getting hit because he was laughing so hard - priceless

I’m really looking forward to having a go on this thing, I want to try to use it over the next few months to maintain some fitness before the sprog pops out. I’ve done yoga before, so I’m across most of the simpler poses, and I’ll just be careful not to strain anything. I’ll avoid the advanced poses for now.

I’d love to suggest to Nintendo that they tap into the pregnant lady market with some specialised stuff - I’d sure as hell buy it!

Gotta go - time to play

Today we went to the Brisbane Markets to pick up some fruit, veg, and whatever else looked fresh and interesting. P and I took along the mother-in-law, sister-in-law, two nephews and the niece for a lovely day out listening to large ethnic men shouting about vegetables. It was very educational for the kids, let me tell y’all.

However the most exciting thing for me was the tomatoes. I absolutely adore tomatoes. I can’t get enough of them, they are one of my favorite foods. I like them grilled, raw, in sauce or stuffed and baked. I like them in absolutely any format you can think of. I have been so disappointed lately in the quality of the tomatoes in the grocery store, I stopped buying them there. I don’t make it to the fruit & veg shop as often as I’d like, so I’d been missing out on tomatoes for a while simply because the ones that were available to me were pale, hard, and had no flavor at all. They were tomato-shaped blandfruit.

Thanks to the market, I have rediscovered the tomato. I bought about a kilo of the reddest tomatoes I have seen in years, and the fragrance coming off these babies was just incredible. I brought them home, placed them on the counter (NOT in the fridge), and gently took one out of the bag. I sliced it, put it on a plate, and ground some sea salt and black pepper over the slices. Seriously, I was in tomato heaven. You could actually taste the freshness, the ripe tangy sweetness. It was exactly what a tomato is SUPPOSED to taste like. And they were cheap-o.

I ended up with baby zucchini, button squash, parsnips, pears, mandarins, grapes, free-range eggs, a loaf of freshly baked turkish bread, a bag of kipfler potatoes, and some green olives stuffed with preserved lemon (holycraptheseareincredibleomggonnadienowkthxbai). I am so pleased with this market We’ll probably start going every fortnight to take advantage of the prices and the quality seasonal stuff, and I don’t intend to buy any produce from the supermarket if I can avoid it. It’s a long drive, but worth it.

OK, the news is slowly starting to get out into the world, so I might as well blog about it

As of today, I am 13 weeks and 3 days… UP THE DUFF. For those non-aussies among us, this means that I have the PG, am knocked up, preggers and in fact actually pregnant! Yay!

At the risk of making this a baby/pregnancy blog… ah heck, my blog, I’ll post what I want

I’ve been reasonably sick for most of the past 9-10 weeks - lots of nausea, a bit of spewing (I don’t like to bomit!), and a general tired feeling. From what “they” tell me, this is supposed to drop off in the next week or so, and believe me - I would be extremely pleased if it did, because this is not a lot of fun. But all signs point to normal, and I’m living with it, and it could be a lot worse.

Had the second round of scans yesterday, and everything looks pretty good so far. I’ve put on a little weight, but not a huge amount, and I’m pretty comfortable with it. Being too fat for my normal clothes and not fat enough for maternity clothes is an awkward place to be, though!

No, I don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy, and I don’t want to know - I want to make it a surprise. I have this gut feeling that it’s a boy, which I can’t explain, and I’ve got a 50% change of being right so I’ll leave it at that.

I’m due in November (Nov 3, if the squidgee actually arrives on time), so I’ll probably start my leave about 6 weeks before that to get everything ready while I can maybe still move around a little. All my classes are booked in, as much as I can organise has been organised.

It’s so much more exciting now that I’m “allowed” to share it - it was mighty hard keeping the secret!

I have once again set my mind to gardening, and planted some actual plants.

OH NOES!! Poor plants, you might think - they don’t stand a chance.

But wait! They actually DO stand a chance this time - because I had previously set in motion some plans to prepare for this momentous occasion. I purchased a compost bin, and have been adding leaves, lawn clippings, veggie and fruit peels, along with coffee grounds and tea leaves. A gorgeous, dark, warm organic breakdance was happening in my very own back yard! I also have a completely full 5000L rainwater tank, ready and willing to give my lovely little plants a drink when they need it.

I actually have had a veggie patch before - unfortunately it dried up and blew away in the summer heat when we went overseas and no one watered it for me (despite me asking someone to do it, but never mind). I had some beans, carrots, strawberries, and a few other little doomed sprouts. I did get to eat a couple of those things before they all died, but not much.

So now I have a well-dug garden bed, with lots of yummy compost, some new soil, all forked into the existing soil, and I have planted the following: “chocolate” capsicums (mini-black capsicums, black on the outside and burgandy on the inside, supposed to be sweet and good for salads), alpine strawberries, french beans and heritage tomatoes (4 colours - red, yellow, green and purple). I wanted to go for some plant that I can’t get in the supermarkets or veggie shops.

If this is a success, then I have another little patch of ground marked out to be more herbs and veggies, but I don’t want to get too ambitious just yet, don’t want to jinx myself

The reason for all this inspiration is because I’ve been reading “Jamie at Home” - this book is sensational and I cannot recommend it highly enough if you’re even remotely interested in cooking or growing your own food. The recipes are sensational, the tips for growing fruit and veg are great and the photography is gorgeous. By the way, K, you will be getting a copy of this for your housewarming present!!!!

So y’all keep your fingers and toes crossed for my wee little veggies, may they actually survive into fruitful productivity

Yup, it’s been a while, but I have been knittering away on some various things. I’ve even finished a few! Holy crap!

Just you TRY and tell me this man is not adorable. I dare you.

I finally finished Ben, which had been hibernating in the back of the queue for some time. I am extremely pleased with the result! I made it from Lima (purchased at Lincraft) which is a rayon/alpaca blend. Very soft, and has a nice sheen to it. Hubbyface is pretty pleased with it I’ve also made him a beanie and a matching scarf, since when he came back from Minnesota, one of the things he complained about was how cold his ears and neck were. Apparently it’s cold in Minnesota - who knew? I certainly didn’t, since I DIDN’T BLOODY GET TO COME ALONG. Ahem.

My girl K will be getting the leftover Lima. I bought far more than I needed, and I think there’s enough here for a sweatervest or something, so I will share the alpaca love

I also knitted a pair of sporty socks for P with Cascade Fixation - yarn which I have since discovered I hate, and will hopefully never use again. The stuff is annoying to work with, luckly P is happy with the result.

Maybe K will get the rest of my Fixation too

I’ve also started a pair of RPM socks with some Noro Kureyon Sock that P brought back for me from Minnesota - love the pattern, not so much love the yarn. It’s “crunchy” and hurts my hands after a while, and I must admit I am struggling to finish these. I like soft yarn. This stuff not soft. That sentence no verb.

Among my WIPs are the RPM socks, a Bettna jacket (from the Noro booklet “Noro Revisted”), the mitred squares shawl… I think that’s about it.

More later

Stacy Pershall, a knitting-tattooed-bellydancing (did I mention knitting?) all around gorgeous gal, is making a cinema verite documentary entitled Better the Devil You Know with cinematographer Alice Brooks. Their plan is to teach adolescent girls in inpatient psych treatment facilities to shoot Super 8 film, and to include the girls’ films with theirs. They are asking everyone they know to donate $1 to the cause. Here’s all the info, including budget, resumes, etc:

http://www.stacypershall.com

Please check out their site, and, if their mission intrigues you, consider making a donation and spreading the word among your friends!

Dayum. It was so hot today, I could hardly believe it. If it’s got to be hot, why can’t I be somewhere like this?

No, I don’t know why we’re crouching like that. We’re weird. Vacation shot from July 2007, near Port Douglas, Australia - with my girl K

I wanted to take my woofmonster out for some fun today, but it was too hot to do anything except cower in the house in front of the air conditioning. I ventured out to hang some washing, instantly regretted doing so. To be fair, we haven’t had a lot of stinkers so far this summer, so I guess we were due one, but still… dayum…

I make some major progress on the bag for my Ravelry bag lady swap. No teaser photos though, in case my swappee reads my blog I’m having a lot of fun with this project. I’ve done all the knitting, some of the sewing, and have some more sewing and some embroidery to go. I’ve also done a bit of knitting on the mitred-squares shawl, which had been hibernating because of P’s sweater (which I didn’t finish before he went to Minnesota - now he’s freezing over there! Guilty much? Yeah, thanks for asking!). So today was a mix of lounging around and some crafty stuff, which is just how I like it

I do wish the hubbyface would hurry home though, I miss him. My house is way too quiet without the sound of muffled cussin as he carries out various household projects… I also have to wash dishes now, an activity to which I wholeheartedly object.

Baby, come home, willya?

I had always pretty much intended this blog to be light, knitty fluff stuff, nothing overly deep or meaningful. But I haven’t really felt up to writing fluff these days, because I haven’t been very satisfied with my life lately.

I’ve been stressed about work, stressed over my home projects, stressed over my study, weight loss, exercise, being nice to everyone and meeting everyone’s expectations. I am just about at the end of my rope as far as some of these things are concerned. Something’s got to change.

But where to start? I need my crappy job, because the pay is pretty tasty. I have a good lifestyle, I can buy yarn and travel and eat out and wear nice shoes. Could I scale that back? Could I simplify my life by looking for a different job, with less political bullcrap to distract me? Certainly it would mean less pay, but y’all, I really like wearing nice shoes.

Because I’m at my crappy job all the time, I struggle to stay motivated with all my other projects around the place. I could quit the job, finish all my projects and my study… but I really like wearing nice shoes!

The work thing is definitely the problem - I’m not loving my job, I’m not seeing much of a future, and from the gossip chain things are about to get stupider than they are now (which is pretty stupid, I have to say). I’m heavily involved in a project that has been going on FOREVER and I want to see it through, but I really don’t know how much more I can put into this. It’s sucking all the life out of me, and I don’t have enough mental energy for anything else in my life.

Is it possible to just decide to stop worrying about it? Can you make a concious decision to just go with the flow, and actively not get involved in stuff that you know is going to upset you, even though it has a profound effect on your work situations?

I did something today that I just don’t do - I passed the buck. Someone, a very high-level someone, asked me a question that had anyone else asked, I would have answered. Instead, I told them to ask someone else, because they’d be better prepared to answer. I know the answer, and it would be the same one coming from me as from the other guy, but I decided not to answer because I knew it would lead to an argument, and I actively handed the fight to someone else. In a way I feel good that I dodged the bullet, but bad at the same time because now someone else has to get involved. I guess the control freak in me wants to run everything, be responsible for everything, know all the answers. When I say something is so, I just want people to shut up and accept it.

Can I decide to let it go? Can I control that? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?