Blueberry Retreat Day 4 Already

I don't seem to be doing very well with this damn phone I've tried posting a blog post twice and cyber space eats it. The food here is awesome, the conversation is delightful with many gales of laughter. I'm not getting much work done on my levels but I'm getting above bit done on Teapot's mittens and yarn for his hat. I will write more when I get home and have access to the REAL computer. I'm off too spin grey Alana/merino and knit mittens. Later, i will be spinning two colors at once, eat food, yum! Ta ta for now.

Blueberry.... Today.... Oh My!

Wednesday morning at last. The crescent moon is shining down in a medium blue sky. Teapot and Daughter #2 are getting ready for school and the other Daughter is lying abed with stomach ills. I am surrounded in chocolate. The living room looks like a chocolate bomb and flower bomb hit at some point recently. Valentine's seems to have been better than it started yesterday. I spent the day cooking and baking. I made a Curry Pork and Beef Shepherd's pie and cheese biscuits, and Birdseed bread buns and white and millet bread buns. Today I will be baking once again and trying my hand at salmon aspic.

I've made jello molds before but I have never made aspic. Aspic is slightly different from Jello molds because you are usually using clarified meat or fish broth to make your mold. Aspics are generally hard to make because traditionally they did not use gelatin. The meat was simmered until it formed a gelatinous substance and then other things were added so that the mold would look nice and taste even better. Now-a-days gelatin is used to help form the jelly substance and the sky is the limit for what you can put in it. Have a look at some of the pictures I found of pretty aspics.

This one has macaroni and wieners.

This one is ham and olives.

This is my favorite one for just shear prettiness with tomatoes and mint leaves.

This one has peas and asparagus and some kind of fish I think

Not sure what's in these but they are so pretty.

Carrots and asparagus and inside there is a meat substance I think.

This one I think would be really tasty... love mushrooms in beef broth...

I think they just look amazingly pretty. Clarified broth with anything that your heart desires for ingredients... think of the amazing combinations you could put together.

Anyway, I packed mostly what I am taking to the Blueberry, yesterday afternoon. I am taking a variety of wool and fibre for spinning. I am taking silk cocoons and my mawata frame and washing soda. I am taking my weaving frame pin loom in the 14 inch size and I am taking my weight scales and the bamboo and cotton for the level 5 50 hour project. I am taking the mittens that I started for Teapot as his Valentine's gift... the one's I started about four years ago and never finished. I am not taking the silk socks to knit... I am leaving those at home. I am not taking my rigid heddle loom and I am not taking the logwood dye and stuff. I am leaving all of that at home. I have one more lot of Tea buns to make today that have to have no dairy in them... this will be difficult since flavouring them will take a little stretch of the imagination and I can't use baking powder and I can't use anything with cornstarch... this leaves very little to bake with... I will use oil instead of butter or margarine since both have dairy in them.... I will use baking soda and cream of tartar instead of baking powder because baking soda has corn in it. I will use water instead of milk. But what to flavour it with I don't know.  I thought about garlic and onion powder since they are both ok ingredients and I thought about
jalapeno and ham.... that should make it tasty eh!

I still have personal packing to do... but that won't get done till later since I have to do some shopping before I go and I have to dig out my sleeping bag and foamy.  There are beds but they are institutional beds so I always bring my foamy... and we have to provide our own bedding. It's a lot of work getting ready for the Blueberry but I love going and once you get there it is so worth it. Four days... four full days of relaxing and spinning and most importantly laughing and gabbing...

The day is getting on... Teapot and Daughter #2 have been gone for over an half an hour. Daughter #1 is stirring and I had better get to it if I am going to be ready to go at 3:30 this afternoon. I'll be posting from the Blueberry so stay tuned...

Today And Tomorrow And Then.... The Blueberry

Jeepers creepers... for heavens sake... even the best laid plans get smoked. So my partner in crime.... my buddy... my pal extordinaire... no not Teapot... ok let me clarify that.... my SPINNING partner in crime... my Spinning buddy... my SPINNING pal extrordinaire.... is not able to come to the Blueberry retreat. Poop! (I'd use stronger expletives but I'm not in the mood... "poop" will suffice thank you very much!) So the dyeing will be once again not completed. I will be leaving the merino and logwood at home. (sigh) However, on the up side... my decision regarding my spinning wheel is made. I WILL bring my spinning wheel.... and now today I will sit down and figure out what else I have to bring...Oh decisions decisions.... (sigh... that's two today so far...)

Since it is February 14th... I will wish you all, Mar Faultin'!!

I can see you all now... what the hell does "Mar Faultin'" mean. Well if you are a regular and have been reading here for a while, you will know that "Mar Faultin'" means "good morning Valentine". Right,... I'm not sure what language it comes from, it might even be something from the dark ages... I just know that people in the little town where my mom and dad grew up would say Mar Faultin to each other on Valentine's day and it meant "good morning Valentine". So I will say it again.... Mar Faultin to ee. (Good morning Valentine to you). I hope your day is full of hearts and love and romance. So far I have stepped on Daughter #2's foot as I tried to kiss her cheek... All I got in return was complaints and irritation. Then Daughter #1 stayed in bed because she has a twinge of stomach flu and felt like she was going to throw up! This of course was very flattering to me... "Oh mom,... don't kiss me... I'm going to puke!" The dog tried to slip me the tongue.... which was very scary and somewhat disconcerting since I had recently brushed my teeth and so am weary of what the hell I have on my breath after all night long... as a result when my true Valentine tried to kiss me, I put my hand over my mouth and turned my head to the side and mumbled something like...."the dog likes my breath.... you however, may not." I am hoping that this is not an indication of the rest of Valentine's Day for me.... it could be bad.

We will be celebrating via the parents house which will tell you why I have nixed Valentine's Day as one of the most unromantic days of the year. When other people are celebrating love with candlelight, wine and sex.... I will be discussing the merits of stomach medication with or without food with my dad and reminding my mother of the next church service five times in ten minutes while Daughter #2 rolls her eyes around in her head fifty times in one evening and Daughter #1 tries to avoid spewing... and Teapot quietly gets tea and ignores all by staring diligently at his cell phone. Yes.... Valentines' with all it's significance is lost to me. Romance blooms not on Feb 14th but at any other time of the year when my dear one and I can avoid all familial obligations. That will be some time in July possibly when we sneak off for a walk through the woods and some hand holding and other stuff that you need not know about... (if your mind is in the gutter then that's your problem... I'm glad to have aided the Essence of Valentine's day.)

On that note I will head off to the kitchen to cook Shepherd's Pie for my contribution to the Blueberry food. I will avoid all things Valentinish as I'm not sure I want to particularly go down that road right now.... especially after the start it has had.... we're not quite sure where it will end.

But I do hope you enjoy it.

In the meantime... I'm all about the Blueberry.

Blueberry.... Jumping Excitment In The Tummy Region and Other Stuff

Ok... the count down is on.... Monday.... Tuesday..... Wednesday.... BLAST OFF! I'm getting a little excited. Everyone keeps asking me if I'm really going without my spinning wheel. I don't know.... I can't make up my mind... I think it will be a last minute decision. Really I should leave it behind and that will force me to do what I need to do... which is dyeing... and weaving.... and tapestry.... and weighing... NOT SPINNING. Errr.... not sure though if I can do it.... am I strong enough to leave the wheel behind! We'll have to wait and see.

Wool Basket Fighting 101:
When my good friend Anita passed away two years ago, her family came to clean out her house and when they had sorted through everything there were several things that they thought I might like to have.  So I headed over to have a look at all that Anita had left. Among the stuff was a largish basket that she had used for putting her clean and picked wool in. This was great because I love baskets plus this one had poignant meaning for me since I had seen it every time I had gone to her house for a cup of tea. I brought it home and sat it in my living room and a few weeks later when we had our summer dyeing retreat I filled the basket with unspun wool that I had dyed. It wasn't very long before my old black cat Midnite discovered the comforts of the wool basket. He took ownership of it quite quickly and so now we refer to it as Midnite's basket. In the bottom of the basket is the same pile of wool that I had dyed at that retreat. It is now squashed down and somewhat felted and it is covered in black cat hair. Recently the wee kitty has decided that she likes the basket too. So now each morning the two cats have a fight over who will get to sleep in the basket.

The fight will go something like this... Midnite will come into the house, after a night outside on the town. He will have his breakfast and then head for his basket with the expectation of a long and fruitful day of sleeping and coziness... but then shortly after he settles down the wee kitty, (Little Monster, and never was a kitty more aptly named) will come along and bat at Midnite's head. This will progess to licking Midnite's ears and then slowly she will ooze her way into the basket, dislodging Midnite from the basket in the process. Midnite will proceed to his bowl to have a look and see if he left any crunchies there acting as if he meant to vacate the basket all along. Then he will sit in the middle of the living room looking more and more like a thunder cloud as time goes by. Meanwhile the kitty will settle into the basket of wool as if she is the Queen of Sheba.  Finally, after an half an hour of missing his basket of wool, Midnite will go over and stare at the kitty in the basket for a while. This will then progress to Midnite licking the kitty's ears and so the cycle begins but with opposite cats doing the kicking out. Over and over this scene plays itself out until about mid way through the morning Midnite (who is a much fatter cat) will promptly get fed up with the whole business. At that point, diplomacy will frankly end and he will sit on the kitty's head.t  This puts an end to such shinanigans as the kitty will indignantly remove herself from the scene and go sleep on Daughter #1's bed. I get a great kick out of watching the fight each morning. It is a quiet fight. No cats make any sound... they just diligently go about their business asserting who is top dog cat. So far there is no real contest... Midnite wins by weight alone... but as he gets older I think there will come a day when Little Monster may take the trophy. Meanwhile I have given up on ever spinning the wool at the bottom of the basket... 'cause I know that as the human in the house, there is just no contest. The basket belongs to the Cats and as a result everything that is in it too.

Whitney Houston:
So sorry that such a beautiful voice has been lost to us... though I think in reality her voice was lost to us long before this... so sad to see the slow denigration of this lovely lady... so much to live for... so much thrown away... perhaps now she will find the peace her life never afforded.

Awake?... Wide?.... What Does That Mean?!

So here I sit at 25 minutes to eight. Teapot and Daughter #1 have left for the school. Teapot won't be long but Daughter#1 is off for a day of down hill skiing. She is going with the JCRs. Teapot decided to stay home today. I think he has been feeling like he's been away enough in the last few weeks. My eyes are having a really difficult time staying open. Why am I up... mostly because I was having terrible dreams.... disturbing and confusing. I opted to get up as daughter #1 was leaving... (I wanted to give her a kiss good-bye). I'm so thankful that Daughter #1 is quite comfortable with mummy displays of affection. Most teenagers in my experience want nothing to do with a kiss from their mothers. But I force a kiss on Daughter #2 while Daughter #1 is quite alright with it each and every night... and before they leave the house in the mornings too. The other reason I'm up is because that blasted dog next door has decided that Saturday morning needs to be disturbed with a good bark. (I really am learning to hate that f$@#%$#ing dog!)

So for all intents and purposes, I have made inroads into the merino spinning. There were moments of panic when I went to get the two spools yesterday and forgot where I had put it. A half hour of frantic searching almost sent me to the hospital! However, I found it eventually, exactly where I had put them, in a knitting bag for safe keeping. (I'm really going to have to start writing stuff down if this forgetfulness continues.... mind you it was months ago.) I have also made great inroads into the tapestry. I stated balling all the little skeins of yarn yesterday and then decided that my warp was just too open. So I took off the warp and rewarped the whole thing so that my warp would be closer together. I have an inch done almost all the way along the bottom. Today I will stick with the merino since I need to have that finished by Wednesday... and the tapestry can come along as one of my wee projects. I am wavering back and forth.... should I... should I not take my spinning wheel. Am I nuts.... am I not nuts..... wheel... no wheel. I am definitely taking my loom. Thursday will be dyeing... and I could work on my tapestry.... Friday will be warping the loom and weaving. Saturday will be weaving... I could bring knitting and the pin loom for Sunday.... hmmm. Wheel or no wheel.... I can't imagine going to the Blueberry without it. But it really is a good time to force myself to get these other necessary things done. Oh I don't know what to do. I could bring my scales too and start weighing out the fibre for my level 5 50 hour project.... then I definitely shouldn't bring my wheel. But I might fall over from the DTs!!! I better bring my wheel..... oh shit... help!

I just finished one of my Christmas books. It was a murder mystery called Dyed In The Wool. It was good ... as murder mysteries go... not really my thing but I did get into it after a while. I guess the author is writing a series of murder mysteries... the murder is situated in a wool shop and then the rest of the book involve the same characters... with a bit of a love interest between the wool shop owner and the investigating officer, well I can safely say that it read... well ok. I certainly couldn't give it a two thumbs up... maybe a one and a half. (Not sure how I'd do that... especially when I only have one thumb to begin with.)

Well, Teapot has just walked in the door... and hurrah.... the dog next door seems to be settled down... I'm going back to bed with the dear one.

See ya tomorrow.

Here We Go Again... Friday.... And Other Stuff... Mostly Boring

So... write ups. I'm just about caught up with the write ups... I just have two more to do... Problem: I have run out of plastic paper protectors and double-sided sticky thingies. This is extremely irritating since I am unable to finish any of the write-ups entirely.... I mean I do finish the write-ups but am unable to get them into my book... gotta have the paper protectors, which sucks, 'cause I was right next to a Staples store on Wednesday... I could have got the stuff then... like, how irritating is that. For now I am doing all that I can for each question and setting it in my book in baggies... in the hopes that I can get my supplies soon.

Today I'm spending time spinning merino... I do have those two more write-ups to do but they won't take long. The merino is for my level 3 50 hour project. I will be dyeing that next week. I can't believe that the Blueberry retreat is only a few days away... I'm so excited. It's one of the best times of the year.... My goal while there is to finished the level 3 50 hours project if I can. I will probably bring along my wheel just for comfort.... and evening relaxed spinning. But the goal is the 50 hour project for level three... I will also bring along my scales and the cotton and Bamboo for my level 5 50 hour project... remember the plan to spin for socks?  And I have one other little project that I will bring along... that's cotton for a small project that I dyed in class last summer... I am working on a Sumak tapestry.

This is the drawing that I did while at Olds last summer. It will be the picture that I use for my tapestry.

These are the skeins that I dyed for the tapestry.

And this is the beginning of my tapestry... the first step... string a warp. it will be 6 x 6 inches. Just a wee tapestry... but a wee one is probably all I have time for. 

Oh and here is my constant companion who keeps looking up at me as if he's saying when are we going back to bed.

Not today little guy... too much to do..

I think he is mad at me.  But that's the way it goes. I'm off to get at that merino... I have half a spool to spin and then I have to ply.

I'll be glad to spend the evening with the family....  with, maybe some movies for movie night.

TGIF

Write-ups And Other Stuff

It kind of has been a non-stop day. Finally at 4 p.m. I had to go have a quick snooze after a bad night... (last night was the full moon). After tossing and turning for the first part of the night I finally settled down around 2 a.m. which did not mean I was bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. Then I came down stairs to face a sink full of dishes which I had forgotten to do last night after supper and noticed as I was going to bed. After a "Nah", I headed up to bed... and what did I do, wasted my time trying to sleep.... fooling myself into thinking I was going to fall asleep any time at all... I should have gotten up and done the blamed dishes in the middle of the night... I'd have been better off. Then it was off to FSJ for another flippin' appointment which took all of 7 minutes. 75 minutes driving in for a 7 minute appointment... an expensive lunch at A&W (snork) and another 75 minutes home! What a waste of time.... actually not really but you get my drift... the appointment was necessary I just wish they could have given me an appointment on the same day as the last one, then it wouldn't have been such a waste of time.

In the end, the evening yesterday and the rest of this day has been spent doing write ups for my level 3 homework and I even managed to get a couple of write ups done on the level 5 homework. I'm getting there... so I guess some progress is something to be happy with.

Teapot has departed for a meeting at the school with the Rangers which meant a hurried supper and no radio since Teapot seems to be the antenna these days for the radio which crackles and spurts and hisses when he's not here. Even the radio is complaining because he is away so much. I guess it's just one of those days... you know.... the kind that just seems like you should have slept through it.  (Remember I am part old bear... and sleeping in wintertime comes naturally to us old bears!)

Still the weather around here seems generally moving toward spring... I'm not sure that's good since the snow levels are decidedly down and of course we are always aware that grasshoppers love hot dry summers... and that's usually what follows early springs and winters with low snow falls.

I just read through this and almost deleted the whole works since I sound dreadfully gloomy. But then I took the time to write it so I guess I will post it even though it's not worth a cobbler's cuss.

Anyway, I hope your day is going better than mine and I hope you are not bored and I hope that flippin' big round nightly silver globe is not playing havoc with your tides... and rhythms... and I hope your not having bad events in your life either.... let's just end here and say I hope your day is a whole lot better than mine was... not that mine was particularly bad... just that I hope yours was better.....

Over and out.... till tomorrow when I hope I have had a better sleep and have something more interesting to write about... for heaven's sake are you still here.... go... I'm sure you have better things to do!

Ta ta ( I couldn't resist getting the last word....) ; )