Tiny Needle Tuesday August 31, 2021

 Good Morning!

Gosh it is dark in the morning now.  Noticeably dark.  This is the first week in months that I have not pulled the shades up on the livingroom windows as soon as I come downstairs.  Oh well, we are at the end of August - as unbelievable as that is - and we are coming into my most favorite season.  I will not be sad to say goodbye to the humidity and mugginess we've been having.

This is the last Tiny Needle Tuesday of August!  Honestly, I did not feel like stitching at all the past week until yesterday.  Thankfully work remained quiet and I did get a bit completed:

The flower pouring out of the vase/urn on the right is what I managed to stitch yesterday.  so, it is coming along bit by bit.  I did not do any stitching on the Coverlet Birds piece.

At some point I took a tiny break from stitching and walked out to the garden.  The figs are ripening again.

(My poor chipped and cracked bowl, but I love the size of it, so I can't get rid of it.)

And then I looked at the jalapeno plants.  There are two.  Last week Fletch had brought in around 8-12 jalapenos, but I could see many more were ripe.

I ended up picking 4 dozen!  And there are more out there.  That's a lot of peppers!  I plan to make candied jalapenos.

Time for me to get moving.  As I mentioned yesterday, I am heading to the office today.  I hope to be out of there before lunch, but it could end up being a longer day.  Hope your Tuesday is a good one.

Weekending

 Good Morning!

My weekend was so nice and I hope yours was too.  Mine started late Friday morning when my last conference call scheduled for 11 a.m. was cancelled.  Joy!!  A good part of that afternoon was spent looking at knitting patterns and getting some ideas for future projects.

Saturday morning Dee and I met up for some quality time at a local Starbucks.  We knit and chatted and sipped and oh man did the rain come down!  In torrents!  The afternoon cleared though and Fletch and I headed over to Mailing's parents for some dumpling making and consuming.  You should see the melons growing in Zhongren's garden!

Look at the size of this!  I'm not sure what kind this is (the bamboo he uses for supports is from the stand of bamboo on our property!).

This one is known as a "loofah squash" and is related to the cucumber family.  We had some of this at dinner sauteed with a ton of garlic - very much like yellow summer squash or zucchini - not really strong flavored, but good.  One last one:

I know I've shared this previously, but it is such a work of art I need to share it again.  The "Horse Head Fiddle" that Zhongren plays occasionally.

So beautiful!  And here's a picture of the table before we sat down to eat:

We had dumplings (of course!!), some pickled veggies (cabbage, carrots and daikon radish), wings, ribs, a noodle salad with tofu and the loofah squash.  We brought a Peach Blueberry Greek Yogurt Cake and there was also Moon Cake.  Everything was delicious!  After dinner we took Otto (Anna's dog) for a walk in the neighborhood (it was good to move a bit after that meal - lol).

Sunday was a pretty quiet day.  I made pecan waffles for breakfast and Fletch and I did a small grocery shopping.  Fletch mowed a little and I knit a little in the afternoon.  Dinner was the vegetarian stuffed peppers (I just cooked a bit of brown rice, added some red onion chopped up and refried beans.  Put that in the peppers and topped with a little shredded cheese).  I mixed up some guacamole to go with it and also a sauce using the tomatillos and hot peppers that Colin had given us last week.  Yum!  We watched a little TV Sunday night and called it a wrap on the weekend.

This week shouldn't be too bad work-wise.  I think everyone is winding down to Labor Day Weekend.  I will be meeting up with Bill at the office tomorrow to go through a few things and start to clear out his office.  Nothing major though.

Wishing you all a great week!

Friday News

 Hi There,

Really no news...but I couldn't think of another title.  I miss doing Friday Feline posts...and I know I need to change the picture in my header and I will...at some point...just not today.

Today is my 3 conference call morning from hell.  I've a call at 8:30, another at 10 and another at 11.  It's torture I'm telling you.  And the 11:00 one drags on and on and on.

In the meantime (and before my 8:30 call) I wanted to show you that I actually have a finish!  Yup - Damon's "Out of this World" (my name) socks are complete.  

These were knit using #2 needles.  The yarn is from KnitPicks - their Static line and the colorway is "Neptune" (thus the name I gave the socks).  The pattern is a simple K6, P2 across after 15 rows of ribbing for the cuff.  The foot is just plain knitting.  Today (I guess this afternoon) I plan/hope to cast on for Peggy's socks (Peggy is Damon's wife).

Thursday's Mailing goes to her office and then out in the evening with work friends for Trivia at a local bar.  Colin has gotten back in the habit of coming over on Thursdays for dinner and he usually hangs around for a bit.  He'll have a cigar and sometimes we have a fire (not last night - way too muggy out).  The chicken thighs were a success as was the buffalo cauliflower.  I made some couscous to go with it all.  Colin brought over some of his garden bounty.

A bunch of hot peppers and some tomatillos!  The green bell peppers on othe left are from our garden -they are finally coming in!  I plan to make a vegetarian stuffed pepper dish and maybe I'll whip up a sauce using the peppers and tomatillos from Colin.  That may be a Sunday plan.  Tonight we will just have leftovers (there are so many in the frig).

Tomorrow I plan to get together with Dee (note:  she has a new blog address) for coffee, chatter and knitting in the morning.  And tomorrow night we are going to dinner at Mailing's parents.  Dumplings!!  I will make a dessert to take - most likely the peach/blueberry cake that I made a couple of weeks back.

It's already in the upper 70's this morning and it feels like it will be another hot and muggy one.  I think I'll brew up some tea now so that it can cool for iced tea later today.  Wishing you all a happy weekend!

What's for Dinner? 8/26/21 (With a Side of Lunch)

 Good Morning!

Feels like it will be another uncomfortable day.  It is already muggy (or stayed muggy overnight perhaps) and in the upper 70's.  Upper 70's sounds cool after 90, but still...it is warm and close.

Naturally I've chosen something to make for dinner that requires the oven to be on, and on at a high temp.  Oh well.  It's that time of year when I start longing for stews and chili, soup and roasts.  Come February I'll be tired of that food and longing for summer salads.  Oh well, such is life.  But tonight we will have:

Sweet Hot Mustard Chicken Thighs

Take 6-8 bone in chicken thighs and cut 2 slashes in each (to the bone).  Place in a zip lock bag.

Mix up a marinade of:

• 1/2 Cup Dijon Mustard
• 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1/4 Cup red vine vinegar
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp chipotle pepper
• pince of cayenne
• 4 garlic cloves minced

Pour the marinade over the thighs and put in the frig for 4-6 hours or overnight.

Preheat your oven to 450.  Line a pan with aluminum foil and spray with Pam or some other oil.  Place sliced onions all over the pan and place the chicken thighs on top.  Bake for approx. 45 minutes.

As long as the oven is going to be on so high, I will also be making buffalo cauliflower bites to go along (we do like our spicy food!!).  Simply roast (with EVOO, S&P and a little garlic powder) cauliflower pieces.  Pull out of the oven and pour over them a bunch of melted butter with Franks Hot Sauce added in.  Put back in the oven for 10 minutes or so.  Oh yum!!

On a cooler note, this was my lunch yesterday:

A radish quartered, some cherry tomatoes, a few sugar snaps, some black olives, a little bit of cheese and some of those luscious figs!  Not pictured but consumed:  a few crackers.  It was refreshing and tasty and I may do the same thing today.

Wishing you all a wonderful day - make some fun!

Unraveled Wednesday, 8/25/21

 Good Morning,

I hope your week is going well.  As I had planned, yesterday I was able to get to the office, take care of some printing and scanning, participate in the conference call at 10, stop at the State Store for wine and make it home just before Noon.  I would call that a good morning!  And I only saw 3 other people while at the office!

My plans do not include another office visit until next week.  My boss Bill's birthday is the 2nd of September, so I will at least go in and leave a card and bottle of wine for him.

But today is Wednesday.  It is most likely going to be another hot one, but the sun is shining and the sky is blue.  It's a little later than usual for me to be writing a post - I slept in till 7 this morning (usually I am up by 5:30 or so)!  Such a luxury.  And it's Unraveled Wednesday, so as usual I am linking up with Kat and the merry unravelers to talk about making and reading.

Once again I do not have a lot to show.  I did not do much knitting in the past two weeks, but I am finally on the foot - and about half way down it - of Damon's 2nd Out of This World sock.

The yarn continues to please me - I like the different tones of blue and it is an easy yarn with which to knit (Static by KnitPicks in the colorway "Neptune").  I'm hoping to finish this up in a day or so and move on to something else!  But the heat and the humidity have not been making it fun to either knit or stitch.

On the reading side I did finish a few books.  First up Bonny had mentioned a book I had never heard of:  "Miss Buncle's Book" and I was intrigued.  It was an enjoyable read, but I was plenty bored in places.  I gave it 3.5 stars.

Next up I read another in the Cork OConnor series by William Kent Krueger.  This one was "Blood Hollow" and was very good.  I gave this 4.5 stars and highly recommend this series.

Lastly I read "Off the Wild Coast of Brittany" by Juliet Blackwell.  I was hoping for recipes and there were none.  The story was just ok for me - a bit trite.  I gave this 3 stars.

Last night I started the most recent book in the Elly Griffiths series about Ruth Galloway.  This one is called "The Night Hawks."  The series is fun (archaeoalogy and crimes and England) and the books are quick reads.

Our garden has been a disappointment in some ways this year.  We did have rhubarb (we have rhubarb every year which is a very good thing), but our sugar snap peas were a bust (thank you voles).  Our green beans have produced, but not as strongly as usual and tomatoes are slow to ripen.  There will be no beef steak tomatoes this year (thank you deer) and the Early Girl ones are all still green.  Fletch did pick about a dozen jalapenos the other day and then last evening went out to look at our fig and voila!!

We had been averaging one or two per day and sharing them at dinner time, but yesterday's haul was just lovely.  I need/want to think of something special to do with these beauties.

Well, that's a wrap for me today.  Have a good one!

Tiny Needle Tuesday 8/24/21

 Good Morning!

I hope this morning finds you well and ready to face the day.  Yesterday did indeed end up being a bit on the rainy side, but not all day.  We had rain in the morning and again in the late afternoon and evening.  It was pretty muggy out there and the cicadas were making their noise, that's for sure.

Last week didn't really lend itself to doing much.  I just could not get motivated for anything.  However, there is a tiny bit of progress on both samplers that happened during the latter part of the week prior.  First up the Coverlet Birds piece.

I've started the blue between the birds and then up a little higher.  I will need to fudge this a bit as my count is off a tad bit.  LOL and I just couldn't wrap my mind around the math last week.

The Pomegranate Birds sampler also had a (very) few stitches put on it.

One side is not quite identical to the other side, but I am following the chart.  I'm ready to fill in the flower on the top right with both whiskey and the pink shades.  There is a large pink (pomegranate colored) flower in the middle that should pull this together nicely.  This is taking a bit longer than I anticipated (what with 40 count fabric and my eyes...), but fortunately it is still holding my interest.

The forecast is for another hot one today.  I plan to head to the office in a bit.  I've a conference call at 10 and I have some stuff (both work-wise and personal) that I need to print and scan.  Hopefully I can be home before Noon.

Weekending

 Good Morning Friends!

Thank you so much for your kind words and thoughts this past week.  It did feel good to take a week off, away from the screen and just be.  Today it feels good to get back to my blog.  Last week was a hard one but also an extremely busy one at work (2 days in the office - unheard of!!).  Other than work, I didn't do much.  Just moped around a bit.  My right eye has taken longer to heal than the left one did so it hasn't been the best time to knit or stitch.  I've done a little, but not much.

We did spend the day with Colin & Mailing on Saturday and that was a lot of fun.  We started off in the morning with a short walk in a part of Valley Forge that I had not been to previously.  There is a tree they wanted to show us known as Pawlings Sycamore which is purported to have survived the tree cutting in Valley Forge when Washington's troops were there.  This Sycamore is massive!!

I would have liked to take many more pictures, but there was a wedding that was going to take place a few minutes after we got there.  Men in kilts!!  The groom was Welsh and he and his brother were in kilts.  A few others were as well.  The bride had not yet arrived when we were there, but guests were walking in.

Here's a link to a little more info on this beautiful tree:  https://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/usa/pennsylvania/chestercounty/10198_asmallbuildingoffpawlingsrdinvalleyforgenationalpark/

We went out to lunch after that and then headed over to Pennypacker Mills.  https://www.montcopa.org/928/Pennypacker-Mills

We toured the house which was the home of PA governor Samuel Pennypacker in the early 1900s.  I did not take any pictures (but the link above has some shots both of the exterior and the interior).  If it had been a little cooler/less humid, it would have been enjoyable to walk around the grounds a bit.

Instead we headed over to a local winery (Cardinal Hill Winery in the Lansdale/North Wales area) for a tasting.  What a mistake!  All of the wines we tasted were simply horrible - like cough syrup or worse.

So, one bad thing out of three - not too bad!

We ended the day back at Colin & Mailing's for dinner which was delicious.  We had pasta with sauce Colin had made during the week with tomatoes and other veggies from the CSA farm.  He fried some eggplant (also from the farm) to go with the pasta and we had a big green salad.  Dessert was some strawberry sorbet I had made the other week.

It was a busy day for Fletch and me (the old folks) and we headed home shortly after dinner.  Henri was expected to impact us some and we wanted to get home before any downpours occurred.  We did end up getting some rain overnight and then more again last night and it is raining now.  A good day to stay home.  I will most likely end up at the office for a bit tomorrow, but am hoping for a quiet day today.

It is good to be back here.  Thank you again for all your kind words and sympathy.