Weekending

 Good Morning!

How are you at the start of Thanksgiving Week?  And how was your weekend?  Mine was a good one.  And I feel fine this Monday morning.  A few sips from the first cup of coffee have gone down my throat, Mabel is blissfully quiet at the moment, and it is the quiet time in the morning that I love.

Thursday that cat was the devil!  She did not let up ALL day.  I finally had to shut the office door and keep her out of that room whether I was working or not.  But over the weekend she was very good.  Just look at this yoga pose:

What suppleness!  What a great stretch!  My whole body feels better just looking at this picture - LOL

On Saturday, after going over to Colin & Mailing's to feed Talbot & Marcel, I met up with Dee for a bit of therapy time - you know:  coffee, knitting, chatting.  It was delightful.  Once home from seeing Dee, I headed upstairs.  I wanted to put flannel sheets on the bed as I saw the temps are supposed to get pretty chilly at night this week.  Mabel, of course, raced up the steps ahead of me.  Once I got to the top I could see that she had jumped up on the bed.  Once she saw me, she arched her back, pulled her two front legs up in the air and hopped sideways!  It was the funniest thing and I just wish I had gotten a video of her doing that.

Saturday night I managed to finish the scarf for Zhongren!!

And here is a close up so you can see the pattern and the color of the yarn is much better here:

The pictures are all before blocking.  Last night I soaked it in some Soak and it is now on the blocking mats (hopefully) drying. (still very damp this a.m.).  Blocked out it is roughly 48" long.  The yarn is Jackalope from The Light Brown Hare and the colorway is Call Box #3.  I used #6 needles to knit this and the pattern is Mariner's Scarf - free on Ravelry.

Sunday was filled with grocery shopping and I made a big pot of red beans.  We love this dish and I decided to share the recipe today since I do not plan to post on Thursday.

Red Beans

Soak a bag of dried kidney beans overnight.

In the morning, saute about 2 lbs of Italian sausage - sweet and hot.  I crumbled it up and just let it cook until done.  Remove that from the pot and drain the fat off.

Put a little EVOO in the pot and add in

• 2-3 big onions choped up
• 1 green pepper chopped
• 3-4 stalks of celery chopped
• some cloves of garlic minced (I used 2 huge cloves)
• An handful or two of fresh parsley chopped

Stir that all around and let it cook for a bit.  Then add the crumbled and cooked sausage back and throw in the kidney beans.  Add some water (I don't cover it with water, but maybe 2/3 of the way up).  Sprinkle in:

• 2 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp tarragon (I used about 2 or more tsp)
• pinch of sage
• salt and black pepper

Let this cook for 3-4 hours.  I bring it to a boil and then turn it off and let it sit...then boil again and turn off - leaving it on the burner the whole time.  Later in the day I smashed some of the beans to thicken up the sauce.

Oh yum!  We served this over rice and had a garden salad to go along with it.  There is some in the frig that Fletch can have for lunch and the rest is in the freezer.  It makes a lot!

I'm expecting this week to be a light one.  My office closes at 1 on Wednesday and Friday is a holiday as well as Thursday.  Today I'm heading to the office as I need printer paper for home and have a few things I'd like to print in color.  I do have some work to do too - LOL

Here's hoping your week is off to a great start!