It’s my birthday

Yay! 34 and looking for more!

Ripple Afghan 2

I’m just about done with it. I’m so pleased that it’s still rippling. It’s not perfect. It’s a little narrow, but I’m adding a border. It will make a nice throw for over the back of the couch. Now what to do next?

Farmer’s market and cooking

The weekend before school started, I spent cooking and prepping stuff to cook. I went to the Farmer’s Market and got this haul.

Eggplants (2 varieties), squash, jalapenos, jalapeno jelly and cheese. I got mushrooms from HEB and spent the day in the kitchen. My mother had given us a bunch of meat, so I prepped and prepped and prepped.
I browned the ground beef and froze most of it in baggies to use later. I used some of it to make a stuffing – onions, jalapenos, rice, meat, mushrooms, some homemade chicken broth, etc. I froze most of that stuffing, but I used some of it to make stuffed squash, stuffed eggplant, stuffed jalapenos and stuffed bell pepper the next week. Yummy!
I also sliced the eggplant and squash and grilled it on the George Foreman. The eggplant I added some spaghetti sauce and cheese for an appetizer for Star trek Sunday.
I also took 2 cans of spaghetti sauce along with onions, mushrooms, bell peppers and meat and made spaghetti sauce. Some of that I froze for later and some I used later in the week with tortellini  I found on clearance at Big Lots.
I processed most of the jalapenos and froze them into ice cubes. I stuffed other ones for me. Oh so good. 
I also processed some garlic and froze it into a large sheet so I can just break off some as I need it.
I ended up roasting some of the smaller squash and that tasted just like candy. I’m so amazed that I have never cooked this stuff before. Grace even liked it. 
I went back to the Farmer’s Market this week and found this.

No eggplant and no cheese this week, but I’m excited to stuff those little squashes and that huge zucchini. I took Grace with me and she played on the playground for awhile. It was a continuation of our “girl’s night” from the night before. I had wanted to find eggplant and cheese and some fruit, but there wasn’t. And I’m not paying $7 for a watermelon. Just not.  Though I paid $2 each for hibiscus tea and a blueberry cake thing, though it was delicious. I need to learn to make it myself.
We made fruit bars with pears and apples and those were good. We just need to get some other fruit and experiment.
I’m still making my yogurt and eating it for breakfast and my lunches. I still make homemade chicken broth. The freezer is full, so we are blessed.

Cranky baby and the mysterious rash

For all of Millie’s adorable smiles, she’s the crankiest baby we’ve had. She can be full and clean, but still scream, holler and push you away. Especially her sister. She’s very strong willed and if you tell her “no,” it just makes her more determined to do whatever. She thinks she’s something when she manages to get into the bathroom to look around. Or when she gets ahold of your phone or remote control. She can lift the lid of the computer. She likes to play in the animal’s water.
Right now she has reason to be cranky. She’s had a rash for about 3 weeks. She looks like a leper. We took her to the doctor initially and she said it was a viral rash. When it got worse, we took her back and the doctor said it was scabies – a mite and highly contagious. I doubt that, though the medicine for it did seem to work for awhile. If it were scabies, we’d all have it, and we don’t. But it’s getting worse again. It was getting better, now it’s worse.
When I was little I had eczema and the doctor said it was hay mites. I got Millie some baby eczema lotion to help with the itch and it helped for awhile, but it didn’t heal. So I don’t know what’s going on. She’s not sleeping well, which may be related and may not be related. Poor baby. She looks like a leper. We’ve rewashed all of her bedding and stuffed animals. I guess we’ll start tracking her food to see if it might be a food allergy. Sometimes she’s pretty miserable with it and sometimes she’s just fine. It’s back on her face, so it looks worse than she feels now.
Pobre baby!
  

Austin Vacation

The weekend before I went back for inservice, I took another mini vacation to Austin to visit another friend I hadn’t seen in a few (maybe 7) years. My sister-in-law works for a salon in town, so I got into her stylist for a cut and color. It was the most expensive hair-do I’ve ever had and it looked great, but the red has already faded, even with the color-protected shampoo/conditioner. Still I like the dark and in certain lights, you can still see the red.

So after my hair do, I went to meet my friend for drinks. I didn’t take a single picture of her or of us together. Weird, but I didn’t.

We met at Iron Cactus, then hung out at her house, drinking chocolate strawberry wine and port. We decided to go to roller derby the next night.

Saturday, we started out at a Farmer’s Market, which was awesome. They had so much more than ours here in Beaumont, which is not unexpected. If it was my town, I definitely would have gone to town with all of the fabulous goods, but we just walked around. I had a brisket taco, which I have really started to enjoy. We spent a lot of the day in Salido(?) a little north of Austin. It was a really nice day and a really nice little town. We visited the wine tasting room there, ate at a little bakery café and walked around a bit.

We had dinner at Moonshine close to the Austin Convention Center where roller derby was. It’s a popular restaurant and we hit it just right for dinner. The food was delicious, but too much. We had to walk it off in the convention center before sitting down to roller derby. Which was pretty cool. It’s a very athletic sport.

It was nice to get away again and see my friend. I left early Sunday after going to eat breakfast with Scott’s sisters and his parents, who were in town to see the girls. I did not do as well taking pictures of this trip as I did the last one

   

Crafting

I started a baby blanket with this yarn, but it was turning out terribly. I finally ripped it all up and started making granny squares with the variegated yarn, sewed them together in a rectangle, then went around it with the solid light aqua for a border. I don't know why I didn't take a pic of that before I gave it, but I didn't. Summer was busy. I gave it to my college friend who I hadn't seen since Grace was born. She was finally pregnant with her "miracle" baby and I was able to go to her baby shower. Full of joy for her precious little boy. I was able to go back after he was born to see him. So nice. 

Then I found a website with great patterns and tutorials called Attic 24. My mother had given me some yarn she got at a yard sale, so I started a ripple afghan with it. I'm going to use it until it runs out, then figure out things from there. It really ripples, which is exciting. It's also infinitely variable and can be used for a baby blanket too.  

Podcasts, Star Trek Sunday

I've started walking in the mornings. Not fast and  not far, but just moving. I try to get to bed around 9 (ha ha, that hardly ever happens) and get up at 5 to walk. I've been moderately successful. I walk up and down the street 3 times. In the interest in becoming a better person, I've been trying to find free podcasts to listen to on those walks. I've found the 5 am Miracle, Tell all with Ryan O'Connor, Professor Blastoff, the Nerdist, and TrekFM. I really like all of these in different ways, but I've found myself really liking the TrekFM because there are several different ones that each deal with the different TV series. It's been so long since I've seen any of them, much less heard intelligent discussion about the characters and stories. I really want to start watching them again. Hulu has some, so I think we're going to start Star Trek Sunday, watching some episodes with Grace.
The podcasts are on iTunes.  The 5 am Miracle guy is all about personal development, and some of his stuff is interesting. He's a raw vegan and a runner. Tell all is a celebrity gossip thing, but has some interesting guest stars and is really funny. Professor Blastoff is also sometimes funny, though it's hit or miss to me. The Nerdist is also hit or miss, depending on their guests. Some of it I'm just not into. But I'm always into Star Trek of all flavors, excluding The Original Series, though the current movies are fun.