National Cheesecake Day

And it's Friday, what better wayto end your day than with a date night out for dessert.     Think we'll do this tonight.  I love cheesecake, but don't usually buy it becuase it's so rich and we can't eat it all.   Well we could, but we don't.

In knitting news I finally admitted that thre is a sweater I'm never going to finish.   I have the back done, I have the sleeves done.   I've started the front five times.  It is a simple ss stitch except for the 45 stitches of pattern.   I count the stitches between my markers.  45.    I knit the pattern row and there is always a stitch left over (and there was no increase stitch).   Or I knit the pattern and it ends where it should so I knit to the end of the row.  I purl back.   The pattern row has too many stitches.   I rip out, I try again.   

I have seen a couple of people  knit up the Minimalist Cardigan and thought it looked pretty nice, would make a good sweater to wear everywhere.   Yarn?   See above.  Why yes, I am ripping out the back as I knit this one, there is just a tad of satisfaction in finally winning over that stupid sweater I started two years ago.

Now however, I'm finding that not only am I challenged with a simple k2, p1 in one diection and p2, k1 in the other, but I can't even seem to do a moss stitch.   Well, I did finally realize I'd dropped a stitch so once I fixed that it got better.   

National Milk Chocolate Day

Well, I'm not a huge fan of milk chocolate, and I'm trying an experiment and trying not to eat candy during the week - more sitting, less exercise is making for a wider nether regions.  But maybe today I'll make an exception as I have in the past and have just one dark chocolate kiss.   yummmm
[no it's not milk chocolate, but it has the work chocolate in it so work with me here]

AND, my new ice cream maker came!    the barrel is in the freezer and as soon as I can get to the market we'll be testing it out.   I got the hamilton beech 1.5 qt. model from Amazon - LOVE Amazon.

I had to laugh when I read the part of the directios that said ice cream tastes best when fresh.  Itiwll begin to lose it's fresh taste after 1 to  weeks in the freezer.   Hahahahahahaha

I don't think one container of ice cream has lasted more than 3 days in my house.  

Yarn . . . for a change

Got this from Jennifer earlier this year, her own hand dyed fiber

Spun it up

soaked it

waiting for it to dry

wonder if I can get these two together successfully the pink is double ply and Jennifer's is a single . . . hmm

National Junk Food Day

Well, there's a day/activity we should certainly celebrate!   I'm waiting for National Salad Day myself. 
Still waiting for my ice cream maker to arrive.   I couldn't find what I wanted in any local store so ordered.   Of course the first one I ordered was out of stock so I had to start over again, and I'm lazy so it took a few days.    Should be here by the end of the week though so the weekend will be a haze of "ice cream testing"

And, shamelessly stolen from someone else   . . . .

Did you ever stop and wonder who was the first person to look at a cow and say "I think I'll squeeze those pink dangly things here and drink whatever comes out"?

Hmmm, we had an earth quake this morning. It was in  about 15 miles away from me but I felt it quite well. Rattled the windows a little and maybe shook the house a bit, but no more than if a train had been going by.

You would have thought that nothing else in the world happened this morning. The news started reporting it by 5:30 and they  preempted  Good Morning America so that we could continue to hear people in the area calling to say, my house shook!
Really.   There was no structure damage anywhere, no one seemed to be hurt.   Half the news people on the air didn't even know it happened until their phones started ringing.

With all the other things going on in the world, did I need to hear about "how scared" every citizen in the area was?    Please. It lasted 15 seconds maybe. Although it was nice not having to hear about the latest celebrety scandal.   I'm about ready to give up the morning news too. Just need it on long enough to tell me how how it may be that day so I know how to dress.

My house didn't collapse on us and if I hadn't been awake I might have missed it.

I'll bet California is laughing like crazy right now.

Psychosomatic

Last fall I came up with tennis elbow.   It is painful.   I went to the doctor after about a month becuase I thought Arthur had come to visit.  Alas no, she said, wrote me a prescription and said if it wasn't bettern in 6 weeks to come back and she would do a cortosone shot.    No, I said you won't.  She looked at me and said, well that is the cure.   I said No, I'll learn to live with it if it doesn't get better.    I duitfully went and got my pills.    And, becuase I rarely take medication, I read the phamplet that came with the little bottle.   Then I threw the bottle away.    The side effects were far worse than the illness.   I bought a sports band thingy for my elbow, took Advil or Motrin on a daily basis and slowly have gotten better.    

Then I saw an article about how athletes wear magnetic bracelets for their aches and pains.   Humm, well, it was worth a try so I looked on line and saw a few that weren't too ugly.  Before I ordered one though I saw them in WalMart for $5.   Perfect price, not too ugly and worth a try.

Now, does it really work or is it all in my head?    How do I know?   I must admit that my arm has felt better the last few days and doesn't ache.   So what do I do, wear it for a week then notf or a week?   Am I being easier on my arm because I've got the bracelet on and therefore consciencious of  it? 

I'll have to try and remember to keep track for the rest of the summer.

Class Action Suits

Silly, some of them are just silly.    I joined classmates dot com awhile ago.   I'm not sure why, I didn't really care for anyone from high school except a hand full of people, I've only run into two former classmates "in public" since I graduated over 30 years ago.   And I live less than 10 miles from my high school.   My kids went to a different high school and I never saw a parent I knew from school.   But the web site caught my interest and I wondered if I could see what people have been doing, did any one really remember me, and I think the first time I checked it out was because our 20 year reunion was coming up.    But I don't pay for that suff.   So of course I can't see "who signed my book today" and who is doing what, about the only information I get is when another classmate signs on - and sometimes it appears to be a class mate who graduated several years after I did.  

Then someone took over the job of planning a 30 year reunion, she gathered everyone's email addresses and sent out a mass email.   I get those still and after the reunion (I didn't go) I'll get a mass email about either the next one they are planning or about someone's parent passing away since we're old our parents are somehow older too.   

But I digress.   I got an email this morning about a class action suit against classmates dot com.   I was "flagged" as someon who might be eligible to receive a settlement.   Someting about how they were charging for gold services and either you didn't get them, or your membership hadn't expired or something.   I didn't read it all because as we all know, if I can't get something like that for free then I won't do it.     Although I did pay for a subscription to another thing like this . . . bug!

So I read the email to see what was what.   I stopped when I got to the line that said you may be entitled to a check for $2.00  or a credit of $3.00 the next time you renew your gold membership.     really.    the lost opportunity of getting this refund because I'm too cheap to spend money to be in contact with people I no longer know has passed me by.   I could have gotten a cup of coffee and a hash brown with that money - maybe.

I wonder how much money was truly lost/spent in the pursuit of my $2 - 3 refund opportunity?   

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th!    I went to the neighborhood parade which wasn't nearly as well attended as in years past, but still fun.   and promptly lost my phone.   Of course, being a neighborhood parade full of neighbors, when I called it someone actually answered it and then he apologized because he didn't know how to use it or he would have called someone on the list to let me know he had it.   I told him that was okay, I didn't know how to use it either.   But my son was still in the park where my phone was so he retrieved it and brought it home with him.    Yay honest people!

Jack apparently partied too much.

Missions

I'm now on a mission and none to happy about it  .  .  . 

I had planned to do nothing this weekend that I didn't feel like doing.   That meant I'd be sitting on my rumpus knitting anything I felt like knitting and I'd already had a talk with myself about finishing up a project I owe someone and then starting just ONE thing and trying to get it FINISHED.  HAHAHAHAHA

Then I read Norma's blog for today.   She's making home made rose ice cream.   And she's branching out to other flavors.  The mint and Chocolate flavor about did me in.   SO now I'm in search of an ice cream maker  and I want it N O W.    I have three days in a row at home.   I want homemade ice cream.

I remember we use to make it when I was a kid.  I will NOT be getting a hand crank maker.   And I'm trying to be reasonable and research the electric ones becuase I remember the electric one we got wasn't the best . .   but that was probably when they first invented the electric ice cream maker so it may not have been perfected yet.  

Oh my middle is truly going to grow this summer.   I have lots of mint in the yard.   I have lots of lavender in the yard.   I have lots of lemon verbina.    Ice cream, sorbet, yogurt.    Wonder how wine flavord ice cream would taste?   hmmmmmm

I started making my own yogurt because of Norma.   I can't see how I'll go wrong with ice cream.