Friday Funnies, Matey!

These are courtesy of my Seester, queen of silly jokes. Thanks Seester!

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Why did the pirate cross the ocean?





To get to the other tide!

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A pirate walks into a bar with a paper towel on his head. The bartender asks "what's with the towel?", and the pirate replies "Arrr! I've a bounty on me head!"

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How much did the pirate pay for his piercings?





A buck-an-ear!

Wednesday, huh?

What a long strange week it's been. Let's see...

1. I am now part of the 7.6% of Americans who are unemployed. I kind of knew it was coming, but it still stings. On the plus side of things, this means I probably have more time for spinning and knitting till another job comes along!

2. I'm going to Stitches West this weekend. Actually, I leave tomorrow morning. I'm driving up, picking up a fellow Raveler about halfway. it should be loads of fun, especially as I have a portion of my tax refund to spend as I wish!

3. I have not yet begun to pack for this trip. I don't even know what knitting projects I'm taking, and I have to do a load of laundry. I am sure I'll forget nothing (yeah, right). I will try to remember to take photos, though.

4. I don't know that I even have 4 things tonight, much less 5. It's been sort of a draining afternoon/evening. Did I mention that when I got to the rental car place directly after work, that location had closed and *no one told me*? I was, um, "annoyed". I was able to go to another nearby location and get my silly rental car though.

5. Hey look, 5! But nothing substantive to post, so here's a picture of my cat. Again.

Another one bites the dust...

Hopefully I've now gotten that song stuck in your head, because I'm evil like that. Another week has flown by. Thanks to my pinkeye (which seems to be resolved now, thankfully) and some goings-on at work, I had a three day week this past week, and I'm going to have another one this week because I'm going to Stitches West!! I'm pretty excited, though it doesn't really seem real. I've already made up shopping lists for all the yarn weights and yardages I'll need for all the different sweaters I want to make. If you actually clicked through, you'll see two men's sweaters. Yes, I'm convincing Big Man he wants a sweater. Considering how tall he is, I think I now qualify as a masochist. At least they're both done in worsted weight yarn, so it won't be too awful.

I'm also excited to see many of my online friends from Ravelry. I'm road-tripping up and picking up a lovely Raveler about halfway up, and it should be a lot of fun. I made loads of muffins this weekend (more on that later) and intend to take quite a few with me, both for delicious snacks and to ensure I have something to eat in the mornings that doesn't come from Starbucks!

The only sad thing is that I don't think I'll have much in the way of internet access while I'm gone, so the virtual world will have to muddle through without me somehow!

Yesterday (and Friday night), I decided I wanted to bake. As Big Man will testify, I don't usually do things in a small way when I cook. I should probably sign a contract to cook for the local firehouse (though they would probably take exception to my vegetarian meal planning). I looked in my cabinet, saw that I had 4 kinds of dried fruit, and decided I would make muffins. I don't think I've ever made muffins, but that didn't deter me. So, when making muffins, the recipes usually make 1 dozen--muffin pans only have 12 cups, so why not? However, if you're going to take the time to cook one dozen, why not make TWO dozen? I mean, really, it would be silly not to. Right? Right?

That's a 5.0 cubic foot freezer. Sure, there is some other food in there (like Big Man's Lean Cuisine, which will go to work Monday and be replaced with more muffins, see below). but there are also approximately 60 muffins stuffed in there too. Oh, and about 4 cups of cookie dough (see it perched precariously in between the top two bags of muffins?) because 8 dozen muffins weren't enough.

This is why we discussed getting a small chest freezer last night. That's about 20 blueberry muffins that wouldn't fit in the freezer yet, plus a few of each flavor to be eaten sooner rather than later.

Since I was waiting to go to the specialty store on Saturday for the sparkling sugar to sprinkle heavily on top for that lovely sparkle and delicious crunch (though it turned out they don't carry it anymore, phooey), Friday night I made Olive Oil muffins from Smitten Kitchen's blog (which is amazing, go look). I cooked mine too long, as I'm not used to making muffins, but they're still just wonderful. I imagine they'll be perfectly delightful with a salad or soup, or, well, anything. I didn't use fresh zest, but rather splashes of citrus oil. It's wonderful stuff, and just the thing for adding flavor when you don't have fresh fruit handy, or when a recipe would suffer for too much liquid added. Take note: a little goes a loooooooooooooooooong way!

On Saturday, after discovering I wasn't getting any prettifying sugar, I came home and started baking. First up were Sour Cream-Apricot muffins. It says it makes 1 dozen muffins. When I doubled it, I had enough for 2 dozen muffins and to fill a loaf pan (if somewhat shallowly). This is ok, actually, as they're delicious! Despite me (again) cooking them too long, they're very tender and delicately flavored. When I chopped the dried apricots in my food processor, I added some candied ginger to the mix (and should've added a bit more). Note: if you make this recipe, the dough is much more like biscuit dough than batter, and will seem EXTREMELY dry til you add the soaked apricots, so do not skip the soaking! Also, they don't really rise almost at all, so feel free to fill the cups FULL.

The line-up, L to R: Olive Oil muffins, Sour Cream-Apricot muffins, Cherry-Lime-Almond muffins, and Blueberry-Lemon muffins.

Next up were the Cherry-Lime-Almond muffins. I used the same recipe for these as the Blueberry-Lemon muffins, but modified it to suit what I wanted. Disclaimer: I think I'm going to try a different recipe next time, as this wasn't quite right (though not bad!).
Trader Joe's makes a neat product called almond meal (though I expect you could find it lots of places) which is ground almonds that you can use to replace part of the flour in your baked goods to provide an almondy flavor without the chunks. Obviously, I used it here, or else I wouldn't mention it! I used both the lime oil and some lime juice. I only made up a small part of the total liquid called for with lime juice and made the rest up with water. Even so, the batter was VERY limey, but it mellowed out some on baking. I chopped the dried cherries in the food processor again, and again added some candied ginger to the mix. Also again, I needed to add more ginger! I again cooked them too long (noticing a pattern?), but they are very flavorful nonetheless. I really like the lime in particular, and the cherry flavor becomes more noticeable as they sit.

The final contender was Blueberry-Lemon. I also used some almond meal in these, but didn't feel like including it in the name. I actually used real lemons in this one, so no lemon oil for me! I scraped the zest of two lemons and used the juice like I did with the lime. I added a good bit of powdered sugar to the liquid, though, to make up for the intense tartness of the lemon juice. For these, I used dried wild blueberries (I love Trader Joe's!), and they're so wee I didn't chop them. I finally learned from my mistakes, too, and took them out sooner than I thought I should, and they have the best texture of any of the group. The blueberries are wonderful bursts of flavor, and I wholeheartedly recommend them, even if they are a bit pricey.

Finally, the cookie dough was my old fallback, modified of course. I added chopped good-quality dark chocolate, dried cranberries, and delicious tulip poplar honey (thanks Dad!) instead of the egg. I usually tip in some shredded coconut too, but I didn't have any. I have no idea how these bake up, because I don't think I've ever actually cooked them. I always just eat the dough. Oh don't look at me like that--I know you've done it too!

Oh, right--I'm supposed to talk about yarn and stuff, huh? Well, though the twist hasn't been set yet, I did some spinning amidst the baking this weekend. This is spun from FatCatKnits' last installment of the first merino club. It totals 4oz, though it is obviously in two yarns. The thin two-ply is spun from what wouldn't fit on the bobbin when I did the single. I had thought I wanted to do a N-ply, but thought the colors would look good and tweedy as a two-ply.

Approximately 45yds/2.6oz of the single and 80yds/1.4oz of the 2-ply. Approximately.

I would also love to know what your favorite online or local yarn store is. I have another huge batch of promotional postcards to send out, and would love your input on who you'd like to see carrying my yarns. Sadly, I can only do within the US right now, as selling wholesale internationally is a bit much for my feeble brain to comprehend at the moment!

Friday Funny

René Descartes walked into a bar and the bartender asked if he’d like a drink. He replied, “I think not” and *poof* he disappeared.

Have you heard about the vampire who decided to be come a poet?
I hear that he went from bat to verse.

What's orange and sounds like a parrot?






A carrot!

Wednesday!!

1. I'm nearly out of jokes for Funny Fridays! Someone help! Ok, the internet will probably be useful in this endeavor. So will my Seester, queen of goofy jokes. I'll be ok. I think.

2. My eye is much better, thank you. Antibiotics are pretty amazing.

3. The scarf of doom was used to great effect--lookie!

That's my old friend Katie in the middle, dressed as Rikku. She's accompanied by her friends Mary and Lauren dressed as other characters from Final Fantasy X-2. See the scarf of not-doom-but-awesomeness? She wears it well.

4. Due to upcoming changes in my life, you may get to see more yarns, FOs, and blog posts! Hurray! Or, you may not--I don't know yet what precisely is going to happen.

5. I don't normally post things like this, but it made me laugh today. Hope it makes your day a little brighter too.

Hmmm.

Welp, I was worn out Sunday and didn't post. Last night, I didn't much feel like it. I still don't tonight, but think I ought to. So now, I'm going to simply caption pictures rather than writing. So I think I shall. It's good to be da king.

Point Loma, the westernmost point of land in the continental US. That pic is for you, dad.

See, I told you we went whale-watching. That right there is the best picture I got. Sure, we saw tails and blow-sprays and flukes. But no, I couldn't get a single one on film.

A replica of the schooner America, who gave its name to the America's Cup race when the title was snatched from the British in 1851.

Look, handknits! See the neckwarmer? You saw it a few weeks ago too. The sweater was bought on clearance at Target. Can anyone explain to me why a sweater made of 60% cotton/25% wool/15% acrylic is the itchiest damn thing I own?!?

A nook-u-ler submarine. They can go 30 YEARS without refueling!! No, that's not a typo. YEARS. I know what I'm doing when the zombies come.

Lazy sea lions. They're sunning on some docks that date from the 1950s and are used for holding live bait.

Part of the SD skyline and the USS Midway. Though it's slightly cut off, the width of the Midway is nearly 26 stories. It's just over 100 stories long, twice the allowed "height" of San Diego skyscrapers due to FAA regulations.

Super delicious "Car Bomb" cupcakes I made for our LSG/Ravelry get together on Sunday. They have Guinness in the chocolate cake batter, whisky (that I didn't use) in the chocolate ganache filling, and Bailey's Irish Cream in the buttercream frosting. They are AMAZING, and you can find the recipe here.

That's all I've got for now. Have to save something for tomorrow's post of randomness, right?

Friday Funny

A neutron walks into the bar and asks how much for a drink….. barman says “for you, no charge”

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What does the H in Jesus H. Christ stand for?

Haploid

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What do you do with a dead chemist?

Barium.

Promiscuous Wednesday

Yes, promiscuous. See last week's post for clarification.

i. Don't forget--any purchases of yarn, patterns, or knitted items throughout the month of February will help support the Australian Red Cross in their efforts to deal with the devastation of the ongoing bushfires.

1. I think of things I could write all week, and then forget them. It's terrible. I can't wait to see how awful my memory will be when I'm 70!

2. I joined Twitter. Seemed like all my Ravelry friends were on it, and it also seemed like a great way to keep inane babble out of this blog. So, really, I did it for you. Check out my tweets (not twits) in the sidebar over there to your right.

3. You may have forgotten, but I have yarns on consignment over at Material Whirled. The wonderful Reenie Hanlin has a lovely website, so check it out!

4. On the note of yarns--I'm going to have to spin my head off the next few weeks, as my stock is incredibly low, and (thankfully!!) people want skeins. However, I have to finish a custom knitting project first, and I feel like it's the slowest thing I've ever knitted. Sigh.

5. I long for a proper crafting space. Right now, my wool storage/workspace shares a room with the guest bed and the computer. I would want a computer in my future studio (the internet is sort of integral to my happiness and crafting abilities), but I would LOVE to get the dang futon out of the room right now. That, however, would leave nowhere for guests, and we do like having visitors on occasion. Of course, there's also the comfy chair in the living room, and the yarn in our bedroom--those should all be in one place with the wool and other supplies. One of these days...probably the same day we cease to have noisy neighbors!

Australian Bushfires

I have several e-friends on Ravelry who are in the "danger zone" for the Australian bushfires. You may have heard news reports about the fires. One friend said "this must be what the apocalypse feels like".

I'll be donating all profits from the sale of yarns and knitted items and all proceeds from the sale of patterns to the Australian Red Cross during the month of February. Please consider making a purchase and supporting our Australian friends in their time of need.

I'll be donating weekly, and posting a running total of donations here on the blog. I've donated US$40 myself already to start us off. Help me make that number grow.

Additionally, if you're interested in supporting the care of wildlife injured in the bushfires, please click through to Wildlife Victoria to donate for the animals.

Are you sure we had a whole weekend?

I'm just asking, cause it sure seemed to fly by for me. Let's see...

SATURDAY

• Started out the day by visiting a local yarn shop interested in carrying my yarns. Not only did they agree to place a wholesale order, but two of the employees nearly cleaned out my stock for their own stash! I'm quite pleased, to say the least. I was also delighted to do the math and figure out I'd only need approximately 8 wholesale orders a month in order to match my current salary at my day job--time to step up my marketing!
  
• After doing a few things at home, Big Man and I went out for dinner to celebrate the sale. We ate at Monsoon downtown, and you should do the same if you're ever nearby--it's quite delicious, and the atmosphere is wonderful. I had coconut-ginger soup and dizzy noo shak (curried bananas), and of course delicious naan. We also ate at Extraordinary Desserts for (you guessed it) dessert. I was painfully full on the way home, but all the food had been so good I couldn't turn it down!
• Sadly, upon arriving home, I discovered my ankle was exceedingly unhappy with me for some reason, and I spent the rest of the evening grimacing and watching Iron Man.

SUNDAY

• Due to the stupidity of my ankle, we had to skip our beach walk. This made me very sad, and I alleviated my sadness in that time-honored way: baking. I made Blueberry-Lemon-Ginger bread from scratch, bastardizing a cranberry-nut bread recipe. I used dried wild blueberries from Trader Joe's, and diced up some candied ginger from the bulk food aisle at my local natural food store, and lemon oil instead of fresh juice/zest. It turned out quite well, though I always have to bake quick breads for FAR longer than the recipe says to get the middle done. Sometimes I don't care and eat it doughy, but I wanted to do this one right so I wouldn't be embarrassed to show y'all a picture!

• After making the bread, I decided I couldn't stand the clutter in the house anymore, and recruited Ian to join me in a cleaning whirlwind. It felt great, and we threw out plenty of useless junk, collected coins to cash in, and even rearranged a few things. I'm not done, of course, but a good portion of the apartment is much prettier now!
  
• While the sun poked its head out for a few minutes (it's been rainy here lately), I snapped some shop photos. Yes, you heard correctly--I have new yarns to list! You've seen the two black ones (remember them?), but this one I spun AGES ago, and hadn't shot yet. Heaven knows why, because I love the yarn so much I'm tempted to keep it.
  

It's spun from FatCatKnit's handdyed merino in colorway Crocodile Tears. I got it some time ago, so you may not remember seeing the roving in her shop. It's 116yds and just over 8oz of thick/thin bulkyish weight two-ply, and has delicious raspberry sorbet colored sparkle spun in at the raspberry parts (you can see it in the big version of the photo, so clickity!). If I could think of something specific I'd make with it, I would keep it!

• I'm now off to do a custom knitting order that I should've finished by now. I'm also packing up some packages (none of them orders, btw, so don't think I'm slacking there!) that I should've already mailed. How is time so speedy, and so much speedier than us?!?

Friday Funny

Because I have no problem whatsoever remembering to make regular posts, I decided to start another recurring post! I'll post something funny (and clean!) every Friday.

Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?











To get to the other...oh, wait.

Arbitrary Wednesday

1. The online thesaurus I sometimes use gives "promiscuous" as a synonym for random. That's a fail right there, thesaurus.com!

2. Any suggestions on a comfortable low stool, preferably with a back and no arms and perhaps 16" high? My regular spinning stool works just fine with my Sonata, but my Country Spinner requires me to be much lower, and the sofa heaped with pillows won't cut it for more than a skein or two of plying. I love being tall, but sometimes being regular-sized would be most helpful--I wouldn't scrunch over just to be closer to my spinning, and the regular stool would probably be fine!

3. Do you prefer cold water or room temperature water? I like mine to be icy, though I will usually finish my glass if it's warmed to room temperature from icy (but not usually if it's been out overnight, as on my nightstand). I know some folks like warmer water all the time, but I just can't fathom it!

4. I adore pudding, but only instant (or Snack Packs if I must). Cooked pudding (aka the real stuff) has never appealed to me, especially not when it forms a skin, ugh. Instant pudding only turns into pudding because of some sort of reaction between the pudding mix and the calcium in the milk. That's why soy or rice milks don't really work at all and just make pudding-flavored soup, and a reason I occasionally buy cow's milk. But only once in a great while, as it kind of squicks me out (for various reasons I won't go into, cause they're gross). Oh, and NEVER tapioca. I don't like eating fish eyes, thankyouverymuch.

5. I saw this on Cute Overload today, and it made my whole day. Except, it did make me sad I don't live in Australia, because nothing like this would ever happen in the States. At least, if it does, it's never an animal as cute as a koala.

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Hot damn.

It is HOT.

Hot enough to sneak into this cinderblock haven and look for relief! [Koala makes 'ehn!' sounds]

WAIT A MIN! [sploosh sploosh] WHAT'S THEES!?

[Test Slurpitty test slurpitty]

Yes.

Yes, this will do.

[Sizzling Koala sounds]

According to Sender-Inner Kathy M., "A guy at work's wife sent him these photos of a little Koala who just walked into the back porch looking for a bit of heat relief. She filled up a bucket and this is what happened!"

Enjoy.

While it may seem like I'm being a fab blogger and sharing loads of photos, really, I'm just tired. So, I'm not going to type a whole lot. Just going to load a bunch of pictures and pass that off as a post. Hope you don't mind...

I noticed these little root dealios on one of the few plants I haven't managed to kill yet. The whole plant (a succulent of some sort) is smaller than my palm, so the root-ish things are quite tiny.

A marsh drains directly onto the beach here, and make a neat little creek. There've been loads of stones washed onshore lately, so it's rockier than normal.

just pretty

boids.

The groundwater seeps out of the cliffs along the shore, but I just liked the feet hanging over the edge.

The groundwater seeps out on some mosses in some places. The dripping is quite loud, actually.

We weren't the only ones enjoying the beach today.

Big Man took this. Quite lovely, I think.

So wee I had to give you scale (that's my palm).

more pretty

ane-nem-o-nees

So you can relax too.