Beaded Shawl

So I'm going to do a beaded Mets shawl this summer with this yarn and beads:

I'm trying to pick the pattern.  If you're on Ravelry check the craft a long thread here, to see the three I'm deciding between and give me an opinion.

Here's pictures of the three I'm considering:

 

Christopher's Easter Bunny

Might I add he spent much of Easter carrying it around and playing with it... I only hope I stitched the neck up enough, he seems to want to carry it by the head!

(love my pompom maker - how cute is that tail?)

 

Indoor Kitchen Gardening

Indoor Kitchen Gardening: Turn Your Home Into a Year-round Vegetable Garden - Microgreens - Sprouts - Herbs - Mushrooms - Tomatoes, Peppers & More by Elizabeth Millard

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Book makes me wish for a bigger house! I think I am definitely trying microgreens. I've discovered some of my veggies inside failed because of lack of wind - need to use fans. I now have radish, carrot and chard seeds to plant this weekend!



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Went to the Auto show

Good pics are on Curt's camera - so 6 more pictures at a later date.  Yes, I actually like 7 vehicles this year!  The FIAT spyder has actually replaced the Saturn Sky in my heart.....

I'm weirdly in love with this one - the Elio, about to start production in Shreveport, LA (so I'd be supporting Curt's peeps) 2 seater (I'm not sure I'd want to ride in the back seat - but since 99% of the time I drive alone it's good for stuff) three wheels, three cylinders, top speed over 100, 0-60 in 9.6sec, 84mpg( with an 8 gallon tank- that's a 672 mile range- I'd only need to get gas every 28 days), COMES IN A STICK!  West Virginia and Missouri would require a helmet - but I don't picture driving long car journeys in it. Starting base price will be $6800.

 
 

Easter pics

The Angie and her grandma on Easter. 

Christopher on Easter

The Easter Bucket I made for Christopher

Happy Easter!!

Hardly a hardship

When one can't have meat, but can have fish on Good Friday - sushi with Curt and the Angie!

Finished my mom's afghan

It took a few days more than a year (according to Ravelry) in my defense I did complete a lot of other projects in that time frame, and while it wasn't done for Christmas, her birthday was two weeks ago - so I'm giving it to her for her birthday when I see her this Sunday.  The yarn started out as just leftovers from projects for Christopher and the Angie, but then I added some red's from mine to give it better balance.

Dragon Warrior

Dragon Warrior by Janet Chapman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Book 2 of the Midnight Bay Series. In Book 1 William is presented as a self centered immature childish pain in the ass. This book fleshes him out a bit and he's grown up. I love his befriending of the seniors in the old age home " centuries of untapped wisdom" We also meet Maximillian Oceanus, not as we've grown used to him in the Spellbound Falls series, but as somewhat of a cad.



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I've been on a roll - this is book #16 for the year (my Goodreads 2016 Reading Challenge is 50 books - so way ahead of schedule at this point, but the year is young!)

Growng Food in a Short Season

Growing Food in a Short Season: Sustainable, Organic Cold-Climate Gardening by Melanie J. Watts




Good tips on sustainable and organic gardening, more toward farm setting with chickens and sheep. Also, makes NJ seem like the tropics - the parts about the 2 month growing season not that practical.



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I guess spring is here

The Ordinary Spaceman

The Ordinary Spaceman: From Boyhood Dreams to Astronaut by Clayton C. Anderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A great read - story of how a kid from Nebraska achieves his goal of US astronaut after 15 years and 15 application tries. How he ends up in mgmts "penalty box" which while cutting short his career after the end of the STS program, did allow him to stay himself. The credit he gives his wife, family and faith, as well as the heartbreaking death of his mom a month after he returned to earth. The amazing experiences he has in space, training for space and life in general are a great inspiring read.

(also as someone who has motion sickness issues - it's great to know that astronauts also have puking issues!)




And I must confess, the Columbia and the Challenger tragedies still make me cry


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Three things Day 8

1.  Breathing better. (still coughing though)

2.  I thought the appt I had to close Fred's blind order customer was going to be a nightmare - but was a piece of cake!

3.  One of my nerdy friends brought me a cherry pielet.  It was so cute almost a shame to eat.. but I managed :)
 

Three things Day 7

Store meeting this morning.  At 6am. Daylight savings time Sunday - so 5am. ugh.  Bit of a backstory for thing #1.  Our store is stoopid.  They have a stoopid theme they want people to dress up in costume for the store meetings.  But they never seem to be organized enough to announce it earlier than tue or wed right before a Sunday meeting.  Seriously not enough time.   So the theme for this meeting was the new Empire.  The pictures they posted in the locker room and breakroom were Roman.  BUT they didn't actually say Roman.  So since my favorite empire is the one invented by George Lucas...

1.  I wore my Darth Vader onsie to the store meeting... yes it was totally awesome!

2.  Since I had 2 1/2 hours between the meeting and having to work, Curt drove down and went to breakfast with me... yes awesome husband points.

3.  Had accumulated overtime so I got to go home early.  Fell asleep so didn't get to see my pick win the race.

Three Things Day 6

1.  Called out of work, stayed in all day.

2.  Figured out how to make an octopus square work (will make sense in future posts)

3.  Devils beat the kings.

Three Things Day 5

First be warned I felt like crap today.  Runny nose, sinus headache, coughing, sneezing.  Not a day I expect to find three good things.  And Fred called out so I had to deal with Don on my own.

1.  My supervisor's boss Miguel, brought me a green tea when he went out for lunch because he thought it would help.

2.  I hatched an evil genius plan for the store meeting.... mwahahaha

3.  Curt ordered dinner.

Three Things Day 4

1.  Returned 2 books to the Library- they only had one for me to pick up (feels like a win)

2.  It was nice enough out, I trotted around  the lake instead of the gym.

3.  Got all my errands done in one shot.

Nothing finished

I am however, totally in love with this coat that was recently added to Ravelry.  It is the "Gypsy that Remains"  I'm not sure, but I think you may need a Ravelry account to use that link.  I'm torn.  I want to make it, however, as more of a knitter than a crocheter, I'm not sure I actually have the skills to make something like this.  It takes 14 skeins of yarn (2900 yds) so timewise - forever.  I guess we'll find out which way I go in the future..

Three Things Day 3

1. I was able to bend the rules a little to really help a grateful soon to be grandfather.

2. Worked off some stress helping out receiving for an hour.

3. Watched the Mythbuster's wrap show - and was relieved to learn the would still be airing the old episodes on Science Channel. 

Wedding the Highlander by Janet Chapman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Maybe because I was rooting for the MacKeages in the earlier books, I was surprised to like Michael MacBain in this one.



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Three things day 2

1.   Got a package from Three Irish Girls ( you yarnies will understand).

2.   Curt went to the gym with me.

3.    Found a pelican cloth pattern...and there are pelicans in zoos. (Not sure why they don't fly away, and this will make sense to fellow Nerdopolis competitors)

Three things

So, I'm going to do something for the next 21 days ( I hope) everyday I'm going to post three things that were good about my day.  We haven't decided if duplicates will be allowed - if not I may have to get pretty detail specific to use Braun's multiple times...

1.  I didn't have to work with Don.  ( I knew Fred was off and usually that would mean working with Don.)

2.  I went to the gym before work.  ( Did that last Friday as well, I'm going to try to do that most days, I'm a morning person and by the time I get home from work, the gym just seems sooo hard) 

3.  Will made me laugh. 

Big Brew Beer Fest

Went to the Big Brew Beer Fest at the Morristown Armory yesterday.  Actually took public transport!!  (the Angie would be proud) Took a train and then a shuttle bus!!

Forgot all about the pretzel necklace thing - but fortunately there was a table with Food Bloggers that was giving away pretzel necklaces if you liked them on Twitter or Facebook.

I got my picture taken with the Horny Goat!

There was a guy there with a Revolution Brewing t-shirt like mine so yes, I gave a high-five!  We chatted with Chris, the ciccerone from Hot Rods, bought some meat sticks and Jerky to send to the Angie from Mr & Mrs Jerky (also walked around with their stickers on!  The chocolate covered bacon guy wasn't there (sadness) but there was a lady selling

bacon jam (win!) Had a great Guiness cake treat from A Cake and  A Jar - they build on 2 mini cupcakes in a jar. Very Cute. Shared a pork mac n cheese from Morris Tap and Grill with Curt- so yummy!



Discovered some really interesting cherry ciders one was way too sweet, but it's been forever since I've had soda so it might have been me.  There was a competition BBQ booth, and I decided to split an order of bacon wrapped meatballs with Curt.  There was a choice of regular and spicy.  Now, in my defense usually "spicy" really isn't.  Also in my defense, Curt didn't say no, get regular. 

I thought they were really good, actually had a nice kick, good flavours underneath, bacon not overcooked. I ate mine in 3 bites.  Curt popped the whole thing in his mouth  Curt's head just about exploded!  (and there is no milk at a beer fest, I don't think milk stout would work - alcohol usually just spreads the burn) I gave him my two pack of raspberry fig bars- it was a close to bread as I could figure.  I bought some fried cheese curds, but apparently temperature hot is not good when your head is on fire.  He even used his inhaler. It was scary, but now that it's over it's funny. 



I've decided that this guy had the funniest shirt at the fest.

 I also bought a cool license plate plaque, I'll post another day- don't know where Curt has it.

Michael Symon's Ham and Cabbage Potato Gratin

Made this for dinner on Tuesday.  Actually followed the directions close to exact, almost measured accurately.  It was so yummy!!!  I wish I had this recipe when we had that huge snowstorm - it would have been perfect!

Math Geek

This was a fun book, showing all kinds of ways math is present in day to day life. My top ten topics in order that they appear in the book:

• Bubbles
• Tangled cords
• Raindrops are not shaped like teardrops
• Why are manhole covers round
• Gauss and folding pizza
• Why buses run late and then a bunch come together
• Juggling
• More roads do not equal less traffic
• Social Media jealousy - yes mathematically your friends will have more friends and be more successful than u.
• Candy Crush

The one thing that I found made it difficult to read is probably a plus to everyone else: each topic is a chapter of 2-4 pages.  Since I tend to read a couple chapters of a book at a time it took "forever" to read the 248 page book because it was split into 100 chapters, and after 2 or 3 my brain just didn't want to keep reading.