tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360202372024-03-14T04:43:21.692-04:00The View from the Manor"Let her dyet proceede more from the provisions of her owne yarde, than the furniture of the markets; and let it be rather esteemed for the familiar acquaintance shee hath with it, than for the strangenesse and raritie it bringeth from other Countries."
- Gervase Markham, The English Hus-wife, 1615Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-90822119433464615722018-03-16T19:16:00.000-04:002018-03-16T19:23:33.959-04:00Pie Crust Scares Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So, this happened today.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvlJtZ94mK3H9WxVYIL0jUFx_gJKu7sJRpOBabrU7iCfz6yXSa2xb_6oipBfGv9MZNRFVwVtrIqyVFSIT_Nqg4dl0IK4vkwwnq7dC7iBKbmSjohKUZPK6oO3X2K5NHzYdOdBWH/s1600/IMG_0232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvlJtZ94mK3H9WxVYIL0jUFx_gJKu7sJRpOBabrU7iCfz6yXSa2xb_6oipBfGv9MZNRFVwVtrIqyVFSIT_Nqg4dl0IK4vkwwnq7dC7iBKbmSjohKUZPK6oO3X2K5NHzYdOdBWH/s640/IMG_0232.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
My first ever, completely made from scratch, lemon meringue pie.<br />
<br />
I've decided my challenge this year is going to be to master pastry. I'm happy making bread, cake, cookies, etc., but I'm a coward when it comes to pastry. I've made a few simple tarts in the past, but mostly, the few times I've made pies, I've used store-bought crust. I know, I'm ashamed. So I've decided that this year I'm going to try various kinds of pastry, and keep making them until I'm satisfied I've got it down.<br />
<br />
I'm at the farm for a couple of weeks and was going to make lemon curd with the Meyer lemons again, but then I thought I'd make a start on the Great Pastry Experiment while I'm here, so found this recipe for lemon meringue at <a href="https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/lemon-meringue-pie-10149" target="_blank">Epicurious</a> and made their basic shortcrust. Of course, the proof is in the eating, but Mom made little pear dumpling things with the scraps of pastry and they were pretty good, so I'm fairly sure the crust part of the pie is OK. I licked the spatula after I poured the filling into the crust and it tasted great, and the meringue looks gorgeous, so I'm confident it will be edible. Dad's been away for a couple of days for medical treatment and it's his favourite pie, so it should be a nice surprise for him when he gets home this afternoon.<br />
<br />
On my list of other pastry to try is (in order of ascending scariness):<br />
<br />
Choux - for cream puffs, profiteroles, and eclairs.<br />
Flaky - for sausage rolls, pasties, and turnovers.<br />
Puff - for palmiers, pot pies, and croissants.<br />
Filo - for baklava, strudel, and hors d'oeuvres.<br />
<br />
I'm hoping that, by the end of the year, I can confidently whip up a pie from scratch at any given moment.<br />
<br />
Wendy<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-49760676819003168612018-02-05T11:46:00.000-05:002018-02-05T11:48:25.343-05:00So, 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://viewfromthemanor.blogspot.com/2017/01/not-new-years-resolutions.html" target="_blank">In 2017 I didn't make New Year's resolutions.</a> Instead, I made of list of things I'd wanted to do in the year, and I purposely made it challenging. Not to make myself feel bad when I didn't "accomplish" everything, but to make me more intentional for the year.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, some health issues basically kicked my butt in 2017, so there were things I wanted to do that I just couldn't, but I AM NOT beating myself up about it.<br />
<br />
I'm not going to list the things I didn't get done, but I am going to glory in the things I DID!<br />
<br />
1. Make and attend all necessary medical and dental appointments.<br />
<br />
Yep.<br />
<br />
2. Do one thing I'm scared of.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://viewfromthemanor.blogspot.com/2017/01/whyimarch.html" target="_blank">I went to my first ever protest march.</a><br />
<br />
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<br />
3. Put a new raised bed in the garden.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://viewfromthemanor.blogspot.com/2017/05/gardening-2017.html" target="_blank">I did!</a><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb24qvfP7JZB3TEgQ_tz_V3nYUgTXwBGHX-XWM4C16jX7Nd3DI_KaXdd4Zg1t50bU-BtRWzXB6nGyQyGgBr8jDq25rY-J7T7jH2nwlf3l0l9U9nGdVkN38Wn_Kh1rbdz7-s9cE/s1600/IMG_5166+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="1600" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb24qvfP7JZB3TEgQ_tz_V3nYUgTXwBGHX-XWM4C16jX7Nd3DI_KaXdd4Zg1t50bU-BtRWzXB6nGyQyGgBr8jDq25rY-J7T7jH2nwlf3l0l9U9nGdVkN38Wn_Kh1rbdz7-s9cE/s640/IMG_5166+%25282%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
4. Finish off one of my many half-done projects.<br />
<br />
I painted and put back together a beautiful cast iron <a href="http://viewfromthemanor.blogspot.com/2017/08/" target="_blank">floor lamp</a> that had been in pieces in the garage for years.<br />
<br />
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<br />
5. Make 12 favorite and 12 new recipes.<br />
<br />
This one was fun.<br />
<br />
<u>Favorites</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
Most of these I made multiple times during the year, except the hot cross buns, which obviously I made a Easter; the pavlova, for a dinner party; and the mashed potato, which was for Christmas.<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 582px;">
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<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hot Cross Buns – The Pioneer Woman’s
<a href="http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/hot-cross-buns/" target="_blank">recipe</a>. I halved the amount of currants and added the zest of one lemon and
one orange (in lieu of the candied peel they have in them in England).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Best Cinnamon Rolls – these <a href="http://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/cinnamon-rolls/" target="_blank">no-knead rolls</a> are the BEST! I did change the cream cheese frosting for a powdered
sugar/cream/vanilla icing so David could eat them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Banana Bread – from my ever-handy
Better Homes and Gardens recipe book (best wedding present ever).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 3;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Peach Crumble - ditto<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 4;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Kombucha – My favorite flavoring
for the second ferment has turned out to be Concord grape juice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 5;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Morning muffins – Also from
BH&G<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 6;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Cornbread – and this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 7;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">No-knead Bread – <a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread" target="_blank">the famous recipe</a>
from The New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 8;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">9.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Pavlova with Lime Curd &
Raspberries – this was a combination from a couple of different recipes and
was amazing. I swirled the lime curd with whipped cream, topped with
raspberries and sprinkled with chopped pistachios. Best pavlova ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 9;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">10.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Peach Jam – one batch with yellow
peaches, and one with white.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 10;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">11.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Chili – basically throw tinned
tomatoes, tinned beans, tomato paste, garlic, chili flakes, cumin, and balsamic
vinegar in a pot and let it simmer for as long as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 11; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">12.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mashed potatoes – this has been a
bugbear for me, but I finally got it right this year. Thank you, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMKOlrklBsY" target="_blank">Kitchen Conundrums</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><u>New Recipes</u></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><u><br /></u></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p>Some of these were more successful than others, but we enjoyed all of them.</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 582px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Deconstructed Eton Mess – I didn’t
really use a recipe for this. I made bite sized meringues and served it with
a bowl of sliced and sugared strawberries and a choice of Chantilly Cream or
Cashew Cream (see below).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Cashew Cream – I made this from the
recipe book we got from the Take 10 program we did in California a few years
ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Carob Brownies – I used <a href="https://www.thespruce.com/gluten-free-carob-brownie-recipe-1450945" target="_blank">this recipe</a> and just used regular flour and added peanuts. They were
gorgeous, and if I hadn’t known they were carob I probably wouldn’t have guessed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 3;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Curried Potatoes & Chickpeas<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Apple Butter – two batches, one
with some gifted Red Delicious, which I’m not fond of eating fresh (too mealy), and the other
with Honey Crisp, which are gorgeous. I did it in the slow cooker with apple
cider vinegar, brown sugar, whole cinnamon and cloves, and freshly grated nutmeg.
I’m really pleased with how both batches turned out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
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<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 5;">
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Pickled Beets & Eggs – this was
really fun and turned the eggs a lovely shade of magenta.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 6;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Cherry Compote – I bought some
cherries that looked gorgeous but tasted really disappointing. I didn’t want
to waste them so I found <a href="https://www.marthastewart.com/1050050/cherry-compote" target="_blank">this recipe</a> and it turned out amazing. I ate it on
everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
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<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 7;">
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Refrigerator Pickles – from my home-grown
cucumbers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 8;">
<td nowrap="" style="height: 15.6pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 436.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="582"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">9.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Peach Ice Cream – It was OK, but I
folded in too much fresh peach chunks at the end and it froze a bit grainy.
Next time I’ll just use puree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 9;">
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">10.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Gluten free peach crisp – not bad
but I used a rice flour topping which didn’t stay very crisp. I’ll have to work
on this one again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 10;">
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">11.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Blood orange sorbet – absolutely bloody
gorgeous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">12.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Carob cake with Swiss Buttercream –
my crowning achievement in 2017. I made it for our Boxing Day dinner and it turned
out perfect. And no one knew it wasn’t chocolate until they were halfway through. The red walnuts on top are from my parents' farm.</span> </div>
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Tune in next time for This Year's Goals.</div>
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Wendy</div>
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-90081027010574618962017-08-13T15:37:00.000-04:002017-08-13T15:37:27.072-04:00Everything Looks Better with a Little Beaded Fringe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Several years ago I found a cast iron floor lamp at the thrift store for about $10. It was a bit bashed about and didn't work - but $10!!!<br />
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I took it apart, intending to repaint and rewire it, and then it sat in a corner of the garage. One of the things on my list of things to do this year is to finish one project that's been languishing and this definitely qualified. So, I busted out the Rustoleum Heirloom White and gave the pieces several coats, and then finished with a clear coat. I bought a lamp rewiring kit from Home Depot and put the whole thing together. This was a bit of a challenge, because there is a narrow tube that runs up through all the separate pieces, holding them up and together, and it was just wide enough for the cord to go through, but too narrow to actually push it through. I tried pushing string through and it just kept bunching up inside. So in the end I tied some sewing thread to a narrow nail and dropped the nail through the tube. Then I tied the string to the end of the thread and pulled that through, and then tied the string to the electrical wire and finally pulled that through. Rewiring a lamp sounds a little scary, but if you buy a kit it's actually fairly straight-forward. Everything is pretty much put together for you and the most technical part is screwing the wires into the socket, and the instructions tell you exactly how to do that.<br />
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Once the whole thing was together I had to find the perfect shade for it. I knew what kind I wanted - the old-fashioned fabric dome shape, to complement the old-fashioned style of the lamp. Unfortunately, it's so old-fashioned that it's out of fashion. Unless I wanted to pay many, many $$$$ to have a bespoke shade made for me (they are beautiful and I was very tempted), there were only two ready-made options I could find online, anywhere. The one I could have afforded was the right shape, but looked a little cheap. The other one was outside my price range, but, fortunately, I had a birthday coming up so my mom, bless her, ordered it for me and it's perfect. The right shape, lovely fabric, and dripping with beaded fringe.<br />
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One more tick in the "accomplished" column for this year. Yay!<br />
<br />
Wendy</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-78087400008395442862017-05-18T17:36:00.001-04:002017-05-18T17:36:48.196-04:00Gardening 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the things I promised myself this year was to expand my garden by getting another raised bed. We have really heavy clay on our property so, short of the huge effort of digging organic material into the soil, the easiest way to grow anything is raised beds. For the last couple of years I've grown various things, particularly tomatoes and peppers, in a single 8x4 cedar plank box full of municipal compost.<br />
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This year I ordered another box, put it together (inhaling the beautiful scent of cedar as I did) and set it out perpendicular to the first box. My gardening guru, Master Gardener Bob, brought me a pickup load of the most beautiful compost I have ever seen from the Howard County (where he lives) landfill, and twenty trips from the driveway to the back yard with a wheelbarrow later, I had filled the new box, topped up the old box, and filled three new patio planters. I also filled three of the four tires I've had hanging around since the last time we got the tires changed on our car. I've been meaning to plant potatoes in them.<br />
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Since we've been travelling so much this year I didn't have the chance to plant seeds indoors this year, so I went to a local garden center and bought most of what I wanted as seedlings.<br />
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In the new box, at the front, I have eight tomatoes (four cooking and four eating), four peppers (three bell and one hot), two cucumbers (for eating and pickles), a yellow squash, a basil, and two marigolds.<br />
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In the old box, at the back, I have planted four marigolds, a line of sunflowers along the back of the box, and a patch of beets (from seed) in the left half. It was a little late for cabbage so I'll plant those in July for a fall harvest.<br />
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I've also branched out in the herb department.<br />
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In addition to my rosemary, thyme, sage, mint and oregano...<br />
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I've added lemon verbena, lemon balm, lemon basil, amethyst basil, dill, cilantro (coriander) and chives.<br />
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I've also finally added parsley (in the middle) to my box of sage, rosemary, and thyme.<br />
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I felt a little adventurous and bought something entirely new to me - Sweet Woodruff/Sweetscented Bedstraw - just because I liked the smell of it, and because it's supposed to grow well in shade - of which I have a lot. It's supposed to make a nice sweet tea, too.<br />
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My favourite new acquisition is this:<br />
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<br />
The smallest bay tree in the world.<br />
<br />
(I may be able to sneak a couple of leaves off this year, but I'm really going to have to wait till next year to start harvesting.)<br />
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I love cooking with bay leaves but the dry ones you buy in the grocery store really don't have much flavour, so I've wished I could have my own tree. Voila! Unfortunately they aren't hardy to Zone 7, but, fortunately, they do really well in pots, so when it freezes I'll bring it in and set it by the back door for the winter. It will be a bonsai bay.<br />
<br />
Due to unforeseen circumstances I had to fly to California yesterday, the day after I planted everything out, and the weather forecast is for record-breaking heat. Thankfully, my dear friend Reiko has promised to keep an eye on them when she comes to feed the cats while I'm away, so hopefully they'll all be thriving when I get back.<br />
<br />
I am so looking forward to having a few months of just being at home!<br />
<br />
Wendy<br />
<br /></div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-21592244010291310112017-01-22T16:06:00.001-05:002017-01-22T16:07:13.485-05:00#WhyIMarch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This tweet perfectly sums up yesterday for me.<br />
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Any introverts (and/or Brits) will understand why this<br />
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was so hard for me.<br />
<br />
Showing up to a crowd that ended up exceeding half a million people, alone, in a hot pink, knitted, pussy hat.<br />
<br />
Only something truly serious could get me out doing something so silly.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
Because:<br />
<br />
I am a well-educated, middle-aged, middle-class, Protestant, white, American citizen who is becoming increasingly aware of my privileged status, at the expense of millions of others.<br />
<br />
I am the mother of a twenty-something daughter.<br />
<br />
I am the aunt of two brown-skinned girls.<br />
<br />
I am the sister-in-law of an immigrant.<br />
<br />
I have been an immigrant.<br />
<br />
I have benefited from the welfare system.<br />
<br />
I have benefited from the education system.<br />
<br />
I am a Christian.<br />
<br />
Because the new regime is targeting all the most vulnerable members of society and is clearly intent on pillaging the world for their own benefit.<br />
<br />
Because of all these things, it is my responsibility to stand up. Even when I'm shaking inside.<br />
<br />
Wendy<br />
<br /></div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-46367654532056096612017-01-01T18:57:00.001-05:002017-01-01T18:58:31.907-05:00Not New Year's Resolutions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
I'm not a very organized or ambitious person, and I tend to meander a bit aimlessly through life, going wherever the current takes me, and mostly I'm OK with this. Life has taken me in some really interesting directions over the years. But I got to the end of 2016 and realized that I didn't have much to show for the year. I certainly went to some amazing places, for which I am grateful, but I didn't feel very stretched as a human being.<br />
<br />
Partly this was because of pain, fatigue, and depression, but also, as Evie kindly but firmly pointed out to me, I just make excuses. I'm very good at finding reasons why I need that extra slice of cake, why I can't go outside for a short walk, why I have to sit on the couch and play Skyrim instead of [insert activity here]. There are always lots of things I want to do, but inertia is like the gravitational pull of a very large planet, and I end up mentally kicking myself because I've let another period of time elapse and haven't done the things I want to. And it's not just hard things, or virtuous things, like cutting out sugar, or exercising more, or drinking more water that I fail to do - it's fun stuff like baking and knitting and gardening. Time just slips through my fingers without me noticing.<br />
<br />
So, instead of making a New Year's resolution, I've made a list of goals for the year. Not things that I HAVE to do - things that I WANT to do.<br />
<br />
And. so I have a bit of accountability, I'm posting them here. One of my goals is to post 12 times in 2017. I haven't even said once a month - I might post 12 times in January (but probably not). Hopefully this will give me the best chance of actually getting them done, since I'll have a structure, but won't be putting so much pressure on myself I chicken out. I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't accomplish everything either - at least I'm making an effort.<br />
<br />
So, in no particular order (except that I thought of them in this order) here are the 12 goals I have for 2017.<br />
<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Wendy’s 12 Goals for 2017<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Increase the size of the garden – buy
and install another 8x4 raised bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Build up my strength so I can walk 5
miles in one go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Try 12 new recipes – and make
12 favourite recipes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Repaint one room in the house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Read 12 of my books on medieval
mystics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Send 12 handwritten letters to 12
friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Do one thing I’m afraid of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Make and attend all necessary
medical/dental appointments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">9.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Post on my blog 12 times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">10.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Start and finish one knitting project
using a new technique.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">11.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Finish one of my half-done projects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">12.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Try out one of the crafts I’m
interested in that I’ve never done before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hello 2017.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Wendy</span></div>
</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-47040618564157306542016-09-05T16:37:00.000-04:002016-09-24T20:23:06.423-04:00Playing Catch Up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have <u>got</u> to stop saying that I'm going to do things on this blog. Every time I do, the universe kicks me in the backside, and then stands back laughing.<br />
<br />
We came back from India sick; David with a chest infection that turned into pneumonia, and me with a cold/ear infection. Because of all the immunosuppressants I am on I have to nip infections in the bud so I went straight to my ENT and she said I had such a classic blister on my eardrum she wished she had students there she could show it to. Thanks Doc.<br />
<br />
Anyway, we were pretty much down for the count for the whole of March. Then I spent April and the first part of May in a funk, realizing that this is now my life. (More on that in another post.)<br />
<br />
However, on the whole, 2016 has been a year of milestones and ticking items off the bucket-list.<br />
<br />
<b>India</b> - see previous posts.<br />
<br />
<b>Thirtieth High School Reunion</b> - 30 years! How did that happen?<br />
<br />
Only five of us turned up, partly because the school had moved Alumni Weekend up a week, so it caught people by surprise. We had a great time anyway. Amusingly (in a dark way), our dinner conversation ranged through stories about our jobs, our children's escapades, and eventually turned to our parents' health and I realized we were at that age now. All of us had either already lost or parent, or had at least one with some serious health issues.<br />
<br />
<b>Girly Weekend</b><br />
<br />
I had a Canada Air voucher I needed to use, so I contacted my college friend, Alicia, in Toronto and asked her if she was up for a weekend visit. Happily, she was, so I left the husband behind for a weekend of long conversations, macarons, yarn shopping, pink lattes, playing with Miss Mable (the cat), and (me) trying poutine for the first time. Seriously, what's not to like about fried potatoes, cheese, and gravy?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifvPdxDuPrZzErOITqkcYPu62kxC1QV_QoRGtQ4vm685Jzy1hzh_Y2YcCNhaIXUN00IGwLdrm6ctvXi6UV4TipO4JDP-oXImfc9oepUpcRRhRG4eCh6OLXnGkNNUKT_W-RVfV5/s1600/Macarons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifvPdxDuPrZzErOITqkcYPu62kxC1QV_QoRGtQ4vm685Jzy1hzh_Y2YcCNhaIXUN00IGwLdrm6ctvXi6UV4TipO4JDP-oXImfc9oepUpcRRhRG4eCh6OLXnGkNNUKT_W-RVfV5/s400/Macarons.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of Alicia Homer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This was the first girly weekend I've had in years, and Alicia is a very gracious hostess: to the point of giving up her bed and sleeping on a mattress in the living room, so I didn't have to heave my arthritic bones up and down off the floor.<br />
<br />
<b>Annual Leave in England</b><br />
<br />
We took our Annual Leave (previously known as furlough) at the end of May. David had to attend meetings at Newbold the first few days, so we rented a cottage on a farm near Maidenhead, and drove to Binfield nearly every day, partly for the meetings, but also to see as many friends as we could while we had the chance, which was lovely. We had so many meals out that week I hardly had to cook!<br />
<br />
The second week we spent in Cornwall. Finally! All that time we lived in England, and Cornwall was one of the places we never managed to get to. I've wanted to visit Tintagel since the first time I read about King Arthur as a child, so that was definitely a check mark on the bucket-list. There's a lot of steps to climb to get up to the top of the island, and many stops were made to catch our breath, but it was totally worth it. I wasn't expecting an atmosphere, as there were a lot of people about (unfortunately our week in Cornwall turned out to be half term), and also because it was a blazingly hot day, but somehow, despite the people and the cheerful sunshine, I could feel the history of the place. There were several places I could just sit on the grass, or a bit of stone, and stare out over the sea, as clear and green as glass, and imagine Merlin smuggling the baby Arthur down the cliffs in the dead of night.<br />
<br />
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Knitting was done.<br />
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We went to the Eden Project, which is an amazing accomplishment, and I'm glad we saw it, but what I really loved was the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Just the name alone is enough to tantalize. It's an estate that lost most of its gardeners in the First World War and was allowed to fall into ruin until a couple of crazy people discovered it in the early 90s and brought it back to life. (They went on to create the Eden project later.) It was another hot, sunny day, so the walks in the woods were very welcome, but my favourite thing, and the reason I knew about Heligan, was the Mud Maid. I'd seen a postcard of her at my friend Stacy's house years ago and have been fascinated every since.<br />
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So many cream teas were eaten in Cornwall. This one was the best.<br />
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<b>Turkey and Greece</b><br />
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Every five years, after the church elections, each of the executive departments (Presidential, Secretariat, and Treasury) have a "bonding" trip. David's department comes under Secretariat so, as head of department, he gets to go on the trip, and spouses are encouraged to come as well. We moved to Maryland in 2011, so three weeks after we moved into our house, we were off to Italy, Germany, and Switzerland for "The Reformation Tour" - sites related to the Protestant Reformation. This time it was the Journeys of Paul, so we got to visit Turkey and Greece.<br />
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We started in Izmir (Smyrna) and saw various sites in Western Turkey, including Ephesus and Troy! We weren't originally scheduled to go to Troy (no connection with Paul) but our guide decided at the last minute to go anyway, since we were going to be so close. David and I were mentally punching the air when that was announced!<br />
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It was so hot! The first few days we were there, when our schedule was the heaviest, it got up to 105F. As we clambered over dusty ruins, every time the guide would stop speaking, everyone would scatter in the search for shade, wherever it could be found.<br />
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We travelled up and around the north eastern part of Greece and then down the center, visiting the monasteries at Meteora, and then stopped at the site of the Battle of Thermopylae, where the 300 Spartans faced down the armies of Persia. David, in particular, was very excited about this.<br />
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In Athens we saw the <strike>Pergamon</strike> Parthenon (we did go to Pergamon, but the week before, obviously), visited the <strike>Pergamon</strike> Parthenon museum and, because we had a free day, wandered over to the Archaeological Museum, where David got to fulfill another boyhood dream and saw items from the excavations at Mycenae and the Mask of Agamemnon. We didn't even realize it was there until we turned a corner, and there it was, staring at us.<br />
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The final thrill was taking a ferry to Patmos and seeing the Cave of the Apocalypse, where John is said to have had his vision, and written Revelation. I am totally in love with the Greek Islands. I was determined to swim in the Aegean Sea, so we spent an hour in the afternoon paddling at the tiny beach in Skala, near our hotel. The water is indescribably blue. It's no wonder artists go mad trying to capture just that particular shade, which seems to shift every time you look away.<br />
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<b>Folk Singers and Children's Books</b><br />
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Last month, David had a conference to attend at Harvard. Normally he'd fly up, but we discovered that the night before the conference was to start, one of our favourite folk singers, Dougie MacLean, was going to be in Schenectady, NY. I saw Dougie in Seattle a few years ago, but David hadn't seen him live, so we decided to drive up to Schenectady on the Monday, attend the concert, stay the night, and then drive to Cambridge, MA, Tuesday morning. We were hoping to get there in time to check into our hotel and unpack, but it took longer to drive up than we expected to we drove right to the theatre, and were about half an hour late. He hadn't brought his band on this tour, just himself and a guitar. I think it was the first concert of his tour as he said he'd only been in the country for 48 hours and was still jetlagged; his energy levels were lower than the last time I saw him, but it was so worth the drive.<br />
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The next day we drove to Harvard. I've never even been to Massachusetts before, let alone Harvard, so it was a week of firsts. I had been hoping to get into Boston, but I had to work that week so I spent Tuesday afternoon and all of Wednesday on the computer. However, I was absolutely determined to get to Concord. I've loved <i>Little Women</i> for as long as I can remember. It was one of the first "big" books I ever read; I think when I was about seven, I pretty much had it on permanent loan from the library until my parents finally bought it for me one Christmas. After that, I think I read it about every other Christmas for the next 20 years. It's been a while since I've read it now - I should get it out again. And of course I read almost all her other children's books over the course of time.<br />
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On the Thursday I drove out to Concord and got to Orchard House just before it opened. I browsed around the exceedingly charming gift shop until the first tour started. I'd been excited (by my phlegmatic standards) about getting to finally see the house, but I wasn't expecting to get as emotional as I did - I actually teared up as we started the tour.<br />
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I take terrible selfies. So I don't take them very often - only when I'm <u>really</u> excited to be doing something, and there is no one else around to take a picture for me. Also, the sun was in my eyes and I couldn't see the screen, so I had to kind of guess when I had both the house and myself in the frame. But here's me - at Louisa May Alcott's house!!!!!!<br />
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I also visited the Concord Museum and Emerson's house, which I very much enjoyed, but neither gave me the sheer joy of the Alcott's house. I would have liked to see Walden Pond, but it was $10 just to park in the parking lot, and by that time I was getting tired. If I'd had time and energy I'd have liked to walk around the lake, but as it was, all I would have done was walked to the pond, looked, and left, and I'd already spent a fair amount of money for the other three sites. So, I left it for another visit. I'd seen the things I really <u>had</u> to see.<br />
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Wow, looking back it's been a lot of travel this year! A lot of really good travel. I'm glad I'm home for a while now. I had the chance to go to Bermuda with David next week but I'm really ready for a break. Nothing now until Thanksgiving.<br />
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Next year's travel plans include a trip in February to Australia to see David's family, and camp meeting in California next summer. But I don't think it's going to be as intense as this year. That's probably a good thing. I'm kind of exhausted!<br />
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Wendy</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-68602702749376337662016-03-12T12:42:00.000-05:002016-03-12T12:43:27.784-05:00A Glimpse of India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last month I got to go with David on a work trip to India. I've been wanting to visit for ages, particularly since David was born there and I've heard stories about it for as long as we've been together. <div>
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I'm going to try to avoid making this a travelogue - others have done that much better and more comprehensively than I ever could. I just want to give an overview of what we did, and highlight some of the things that caught my fancy while we were there.</div>
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We spent the first couple of days in Mumbai (Bombay) where David spoke to a meeting of Mumbai Metro church workers. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the church workers David spoke to in Mumbai</td></tr>
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He was very pleased to be able to speak from the same pulpit his Dad would have preached in more than forty years ago.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David speaking at the Mumbai Central English Church</td></tr>
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We also had our first experience of Indian hospitality, with the first in a series of flower garlands and bouquets we were presented with during our visit.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first, and my favourite, of the flower garlands we were presented with.</td></tr>
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We were scheduled pretty tightly while we were there, but we did get an afternoon to do a little sightseeing before we left Mumbai.<br />
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First stop was the Breach Candy hospital, where David was born. It looks a little dilapidated from the outside but inside was very clean and modern - unfortunately they wouldn't let me take pictures inside.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai</td></tr>
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We then drove by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhatrapati_Shivaji_Terminus" target="_blank">Chhatrapati Shivaji train station</a> (formerly Victoria Terminus), an amazing Victorian neo-Gothic extravaganza, but unfortunately we didn't stop so I couldn't get a picture.<br />
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We did get to get out and walk around the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Someday I want to spend a night at that hotel - it's gorgeous.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel - Mumbai</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taj Mahal Palace Hotel - close up</td></tr>
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While we were admiring the architecture, a group of Muslim girls, and one young man, decided they needed a picture with me. There were a few other Westerners about so I'm not sure why I was the lucky one - maybe it was the sunglasses. David managed to catch the moment on his phone.<br />
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It was a bit of a whirlwind afternoon but I managed to capture a few images that caught my fancy.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrGPeNo9SH0xZH1CT22fIbcnv1w5zhXvD92r3LTUpHPh1hv4TCB2qWIiWQKJ3ySxZqin_pvDMqySxVag3PeD-OvBgePkTfw5A_9fvh8w-tpfpZ49BQMN_TtA8Nc1z4bhMv0-n/s1600/IMG_3060.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrGPeNo9SH0xZH1CT22fIbcnv1w5zhXvD92r3LTUpHPh1hv4TCB2qWIiWQKJ3ySxZqin_pvDMqySxVag3PeD-OvBgePkTfw5A_9fvh8w-tpfpZ49BQMN_TtA8Nc1z4bhMv0-n/s320/IMG_3060.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Construction workers clambering around bamboo scaffolding - about four floors up.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A man selling some of the most gorgeous strawberries I've ever seen.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ45wl1tPtxvG1xRXJ3ZaZbHUrXMvuv3DJtoR7WSbtnCgJ8IKhDbJt6iAyt64fxOVMkT_yD1km80ChxkZBFRRir22O_bvxeajSO1B7uD3AtG7htH0x7rHSex_E0kw7wyzzI_Vh/s1600/IMG_3073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ45wl1tPtxvG1xRXJ3ZaZbHUrXMvuv3DJtoR7WSbtnCgJ8IKhDbJt6iAyt64fxOVMkT_yD1km80ChxkZBFRRir22O_bvxeajSO1B7uD3AtG7htH0x7rHSex_E0kw7wyzzI_Vh/s640/IMG_3073.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ferries in the harbour by the Gate of India</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Hindu shrine, near where we had lunch</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTG_2qgvSeOxjEACuFfYJj6Am4TarY-ZGPqkAj4Hjbg9uOBsd6-UUa_nRwZvobhU9MYS7zg72mrmaXyMIEGvx6ana_Hm9PTTm4olN44vH9hXMhJTDvqoe_fIBt_EoufP_dABE/s1600/IMG_3105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTG_2qgvSeOxjEACuFfYJj6Am4TarY-ZGPqkAj4Hjbg9uOBsd6-UUa_nRwZvobhU9MYS7zg72mrmaXyMIEGvx6ana_Hm9PTTm4olN44vH9hXMhJTDvqoe_fIBt_EoufP_dABE/s640/IMG_3105.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An example of India's somewhat idiosyncratic English</td></tr>
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We left Bombay the next day and drove to Pune (previously Poona), about ninety miles south-east of Mumbai, where the church has offices and a college (Spicer).<br />
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Maharashtra, the state Mumbai and Pune are in, reminded me of Central California, with dry hills and scrubby trees, punctuated with the verdant green of irrigated agricultural land.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAifTrF5ovIr8p48q6W5N9gULBeJnvKweG6yHFudIPmtK13_Sc5PbtLSPYTomiqA6n-e-kpLf15Zpi5zfF0pSeZhHGfbWyrBIgydk1LJKMDo8RfLWnUzD-X42rj6AbOAwNfGvK/s1600/IMG_3154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAifTrF5ovIr8p48q6W5N9gULBeJnvKweG6yHFudIPmtK13_Sc5PbtLSPYTomiqA6n-e-kpLf15Zpi5zfF0pSeZhHGfbWyrBIgydk1LJKMDo8RfLWnUzD-X42rj6AbOAwNfGvK/s640/IMG_3154.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maharashtra</td></tr>
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One of the things David wanted to do while we were in India was to visit some of the small churches, not just the bigger, institutional ones. We visited several church plants in the outskirts of Mumbai, Pune and Aurangabad, where little groups of 20-30 members came out of an evening to hear David speak. They spoke little English, but smiled and greeted us with "namaste" or "salaam," and gifts of flowers presented by little girls in their best dresses. One group fed us dinner of homemade curries and iddly. The sightseeing was fabulous, but my favourite moments were these.<br />
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We also got to briefly visit the school in Pune, which has more than a thousand students. They were very well behaved when we were there, and despite the size of the school, the class sizes seemed to remain small. We popped our heads into a classroom of nine- or ten-year-olds, and there were about twenty children, with a teacher and one or two assistants.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzuRqCsMyJnkzaX3UrlgR4I3xIKIPUfJju_LwU0S9bBN7MCWCcgLb2bhgmBe08w71n-Vryso0DUucRZ_fsBh9AAD14sNsDGSFhvy3sG18zYG6IpPYCZ1y48TJRwBCY_0PdtmYN/s1600/IMG_3130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzuRqCsMyJnkzaX3UrlgR4I3xIKIPUfJju_LwU0S9bBN7MCWCcgLb2bhgmBe08w71n-Vryso0DUucRZ_fsBh9AAD14sNsDGSFhvy3sG18zYG6IpPYCZ1y48TJRwBCY_0PdtmYN/s640/IMG_3130.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting small boys to line up in order is apparently hard whereever you are.</td></tr>
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We left Pune and drove to Aurangabad, 150 miles north-east. Our van got a flat about two hours into the trip, so we got out and waited on the side of a very busy, dry, dusty road for about half an hour. It was a warm day, in the 80s, and there was very little shade. There were trees along the side, but since it was still technically winter, there were few leaves. David caught a picture of me while we were waiting - the scarf was not intended to make me blend in, it was just to offer a little shade.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, not blending in at all.</td></tr>
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We did visit a church in Aurangabad, but the real reason for going was to visit the the Daulatabad Fortress and the Ellora caves.</div>
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Ellora was amazing. It's a series of 34 "caves" carved right into the rock of a ridge north of Aurangabad, over several hundred years. The older caves are Buddhist, and are more cave-like; caverns carved back into the rock with columns and a few statues. They were dark and a bit of a relief from the heat and glare of the outside. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Buddhist caves at Ellora</td></tr>
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Although Buddhism was all but extinguished in India long ago, this site is clearly still a draw for Buddhists from other parts of the world.</div>
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My favourite part of Ellora was the Hindu temple closer to the entrance. The craftsmanship was incredible.</div>
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We stopped by the fortress at Daulatabad, but it was getting late, we were tired, and we had a plane to catch, so we didn't climb all the way to the top, but we did wander around the bottom of the hill.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daulatabad Fortress</td></tr>
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The tower used to be open, but too many lovers were jumping off.<br />
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There were monkeys.</div>
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Before we left Aurangabad, we also briefly visited Bibi Ka Maqbara, known as the Mini Taj Mahal. It was built by Azam Shah, son of Aurangazeb (after whom Aurangabad is named) on the same model as the Taj Mahal, his grandmother's mausoleum. It is a charming building, of white marble, with exquisite carvings of flowers and latticework.</div>
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Finally, I'd like to share a few random pictures of things I just found interesting or charming.</div>
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Indian babies are the most adorable things in the world. I asked this mother if I could take a picture and she graciously agreed. </div>
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When I had done the little girl indicated that I needed to take another one, so I did.<br />
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Indian lorries (trucks) are movable works of art.</div>
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And they want you to honk your horn at them - almost every truck had "Horn OK Please" emblazoned on the back. Many of them seem to lack wing mirrors so I think it's to let them know that something is coming up behind them.<br />
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Cows. So many cows. David managed to get a picture for me on our last day. </div>
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Saris - so many beautiful saris. It was interesting - most of the men I saw wore Western dress, but most of the women were in traditional dress - either saris or some form of a salwar kameez.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A woman with an angle grinder on the side of the road on the way out of Mumbai - sharpening knives</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Women, in saris, on scooters - everywhere</td></tr>
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We packed so much into our week in India, and yet saw so little of the country. It turns out it was just an appetizer, to whet our appetite for more. David has been invited back next year, so hopefully we can extend our visit and see some of the south and north as well.</div>
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Wendy</div>
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-59283356858039410452016-02-28T20:25:00.000-05:002016-02-28T20:25:37.698-05:00It's Been How Long!?! (or, My Baby Girl Turns 25 Today)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was going to finally get up my pictures of India today, but we've had yet another basement related (mini) disaster.<br />
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So, in honor of the fact that it's Evie's 25th birthday today I'm going to post a few before and after pictures.<br />
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Twenty five years ago, today.</div>
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A few weeks later (we've pretty much been mutual fans every since).</div>
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Four years old - playing Glinda, the Good Witch, from The Wizard of Oz</div>
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And a few of my favourites from the last few years.</div>
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Happy Birthday to my incredibly artistic, talented, focused, sarcastic, adorable, and beautiful daughter - Genevieve Elisabeth.<br />
<br />
Wendy (Mum)</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-54552410123619612822016-02-22T19:45:00.000-05:002016-02-22T19:45:33.417-05:007 More Things I Learned in India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>The Maratha hero Shivaji was my husband's boyhood hero.</li>
<li>I assumed that when we got here "real" Indian food would blow my head off, but I actually found much of it fairly tame, spice-wise. </li>
<li>I am ridiculously charmed by the sight of women in saris perched decorously side-saddle on the back of motorbikes.</li>
<li>Indian toddlers are the most adorable creatures on the face of the earth.</li>
<li>I never want to visit India between April and October. It was quite hot and humid enough for me in mid-winter (into the low 90s).</li>
<li>I love how most of the churches we visited haven't slavishly used the Adventist Church Hymnal, as in many other parts of the world, but have created their own sacred music with Indian tones and rhythms.</li>
<li>Indians follow their celebrities even more fervently than Americans. Kim Kardashian and Ryan Gosling have nothing on Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.</li>
</ol>
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<br /></div>
</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-63607780670927037162016-02-14T07:21:00.000-05:002016-02-14T07:24:18.548-05:007 Things I Learned in India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
(Bearing in mind that so far I've only visited the triangle comprising Mumbai, Pune, and Aurangabad.)<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>I want a sari. Seriously. I don't care if I'm a fat, middle-aged, white woman. I'm getting myself one of those someday.</li>
<li>There are cows. Lots of cows. And I didn't get a single photo.</li>
<li>There are also lots of dogs. And goats. And pigeons. But I only saw one cat the whole time.</li>
<li>Indians love two-wheelers (motorcycles/motorbikes/scooters). You'll often see three or four on at a time. But very few wear helmets and when they do it's only the driver - the passengers just have to hope for the best.</li>
<li>Maharashtra looks a lot like Central California: semi-arid, with parched brown grass and scrubby trees; punctuated with areas of lush farmland.</li>
<li>Everything is covered in dust. Everything.</li>
<li>Hospitality is everything. Guests are considered to be like God visiting so all the stops are pulled out to make them happy. I like this.</li>
</ol>
<div>
Wendy</div>
</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-33920183446064159372016-01-19T16:23:00.000-05:002016-01-19T16:23:34.541-05:00Lemon Curd (More Appetizing Than it Sounds)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I first moved to England there were a number of new tastes I had the pleasure (or not) of discovering. Salt and vinegar flavoured crisps (yes!), Marmite (no!), lemon barley water (yes), Ribena (not so much), tea (took me a while, but yes!), Christmas pudding (with all the will in the world, no).<br />
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Lemon curd I loved at first bite,even the store-bought variety, but it wasn't until a friend gave me a small pot of homemade that I really came to appreciate its rich, silky, tangy lusciousness. A few years ago, on a visit to my parents, I took the opportunity to pick a handful of lemons from one of their trees and attempt a batch of my own. It's surprisingly easy, if somewhat time-consuming, and you do have to pay attention. I made another batch while we were there at Christmas and then another last week when we had company to dinner. I'm kind of addicted now.<br />
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There are various ways you can choose to make it: directly in a pan, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water; with yolks only or with a combination of yolks and whites. Liking a culinary challenge (and feeling, obscurely, that taking shortcuts in cooking is somehow "cheating") and also the richest taste, I've only made the yolk-only, water-bath way. Eventually I'll try one of the other methods and see if it really makes any difference.<br />
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The recipe I've been using is <a href="http://www.chowhound.com/recipes/lemon-curd-29540" target="_blank">this one from Chowhound</a>. Mom and Dad have a couple of Meyer lemon trees so that's what I used at Christmas and I loved it so much I searched out Meyers to make it at home as well. I think some people like the sharper taste of regular lemons in curd, but to me the fragrance of Meyer lemons is an ecstatic experience, so I adore the curd it makes.<br />
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I am very bad at remembering to take pictures of food so this picture is not mine - I got it from <a href="http://www.thegalleygourmet.net/2012/04/meyer-lemon-curd.html#more" target="_blank">The Galley Gourmet</a> website - it just looks so gorgeous, I couldn't resist it. I'll try and remember to take pictures next time I make it!<br />
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<br />
Wendy</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-6529488855062782642016-01-11T15:09:00.003-05:002016-01-11T15:10:18.192-05:00Knitting Update January 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Just a quick update on the small amount of knitting I've done in the past few months.<br />
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I made these socks from wool I bought in a yarn shop in the Shambles in York last winter. Unfortunately I can't find the ball band, but it was a fairly local yarn.<br />
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I knocked up a quick rolled-brim hat out of the Maiden Hair I bought in Kelowna in 2014. I haven't blocked it yet.<br />
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And I finally finished off the Multnomah with a bit of mauve yarn I had in my stash. I think it blends in pretty well.<br />
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In the summer, after the experiment with the cabbage, I went on to dye another skein of sock yarn with loquat leaves I picked off my parents' tree. I'd read that you can get a pinky colour, but mine turned out a rather lovely pale pumpkin-pie. Normally I'm not fond of orange, but this shade's not bad.<br />
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I've also knit or crocheted several scarves of navy blue acrylic for our homeless project at church but I didn't get pictures of them.<br />
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I still have a couple of projects I keep picking up and putting down (and sometimes ripping out entirely). One is a beaded lace shawl I just can seem to get right. I love the pattern but it's tricky and I just can't get the edge to look nice. I may just have to give up and try another pattern. The other is a spring green shawlette I started last summer when I was a little depressed and needed something bright to knit on. I'm not sure why I can't seem to get this one done. I like the yarn and the pattern. I think I'll just have to sit myself down with a good audio book and force myself to get past the section I'm stuck on.<br />
<br />
Wendy</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-50928986124919961142016-01-03T21:27:00.001-05:002016-01-03T21:28:06.251-05:00Catching up on 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So...2015. Quite a year, huh?<br />
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As I've mentioned in a previous post, I had a lot of trouble with my arthritis last winter, and it followed me into spring and summer (which were very late). I missed a lot of work, either not being able to come in at all or, more often, coming in late because my joints are worse first thing in the morning.<br />
<br />
I finally got a mixture of medications that seemed to work pretty well, but by that time I'd given some serious thought to trying the work-from-home route. It's something I've always wanted to do but, as a secretary, my skill-set didn't lend itself to remote working. However, in the past few years I've picked up a fair amount of copy-editing experience and, more importantly, contacts. So, in August, I finished up my job and went into business for myself.<br />
<br />
I am now sole proprietor of Taylor+Foote, freelance research and copy-editing. So far I have four clients, two of which are fairly substantial and one which may become so. I don't have enough coming in yet to match what I made before, but I think I can build it up in the coming year.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, I very much enjoy getting to sleep in, slouch around the house in pajamas if I feel like it, and work whatever hours suit me (when the work comes in). I may have mentioned that I am not a morning person.<br />
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I'm also really loving having the time and energy to do more things around the house. Especially cooking. I've been making bread, and finally managed to get a wild-yeast sourdough starter going (after a few failures). I've also been experimenting with fermenting vegetables and kombucha, which I'll post about another time.<br />
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I've also been rearranging my work spaces. I decided to have the room upstairs strictly as an office and move my sewing and crafts to the basement (except the yarn, which, as Bartholomew-bait, stays shut up upstairs). I cleared a corner of the basement, moved down my sewing table, and put up some shelves and I'm gradually getting things organized and put away down there.<br />
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I haven't been knitting a lot - I suffer from startitis, but not much motivation to get things finished. I'll try and get some pictures of the few things I have done.<br />
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Now I'm off to peruse seed catalogs - it is January, after all.<br />
<br />
Wendy</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-47077767589864553122016-01-01T18:44:00.001-05:002016-01-01T18:44:53.394-05:00Happy New Year 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I only have one New Year's resolution this year...to write a blog post once a week, all year long. Unlike "exercising more", "eating more healthfully" or "losing some weight", this is specific, and do-able.<br />
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This first post, being New Year's Day, is on a Friday, but I'm going to try to post every Sunday here on out - the first will be a catch-up post since I haven't posted since last summer. We had some big events last year so I may spread those out over a couple of weeks. We will be traveling to some interesting places this coming year, including India and Turkey, so there will definitely be travel posts. I'm currently writing this in the United lounge in San Francisco airport, on our way home after 10 days with my folks over Christmas.<br />
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In the meantime, Happy New Year to all my friends, and may 2016 be blessed.<br />
<br />
Wendy</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-32336436285376057672015-05-03T20:50:00.000-04:002015-05-03T20:50:42.286-04:00Natural Dyeing Project #1: Red Cabbage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been wanting to try natural dyeing, with things I have to hand, for a while and a couple of weeks ago I discovered a rather manky red cabbage lurking in the back of the fridge. We love cabbage so it usually gets eaten quite quickly, but we'd been away and it had been pushed behind some other items on the back shelf. I did a quick survey of my facebook friends to help me decide whether to try making sauerkraut or dyeing with it and the results were pretty overwhelmingly "make dye". (I still want to try my hand at sauerkraut and the crock I just found at the fleamarket is going to come in very handy later in the summer.)<br />
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I've collected a number of old canning pots from local thrift stores to use for crafting, so I chopped up my cabbage, covered it with water and simmered it for an hour.<br />
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In the meantime, I soaked two skeins of Filatura Lanarota Natural sock yarn (90% superwash merino wool/10% nylon) in tepid water for about 20 minutes and then simmered it for an hour in 3 tsp each of alum and cream of tartar as a mordant. This is supposed to help the dye bind with the wool.<br />
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When the cabbage was done I strained the very purple water and the now much paler cabbage went into the compost.<br />
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I ended up with four quarts of dye, which I divided in half.<br />
<br />
I had read someone else's blog about dyeing with red cabbage and she changed the pH of the dye by adding baking soda and vinegar to get two totally different colours and I really wanted to try that. She didn't give measurements so I randomly added 2 tsp of baking soda to one half of my dye, and 3 Tbsp of vinegar to the other. The first instantly turned a lovely teal green and the other a fuchsia pink.<br />
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I added one skein of the mordanted yarn to each and simmered for 20 minutes.<br />
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They looked gorgeous soaking in the dye<br />
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Unfortunately, when I rinsed them a lot of the colour came out, particularly of the pink one.<br />
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The green one is still quite colourful but the other one has gone to a pale grey with a slight tinge of purple. Still pretty, but not quite what I was aiming for.<br />
<br />
Mulling it over, I think there were a couple of things I did that may have affected the uptake of dye (although I'm not sure why the green stuck and the pink didn't - maybe the vinegar affected it?).<br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Although I soaked the yarn before I mordanted it, I didn't actually wash it. I noticed when I rinsed it after dyeing that it felt kind of "soapy" so it may have had something on it that interfered with the dye absorption.</li>
<li>I took both skeins out when they looked the colour I wanted and then chucked the dye before I rinsed them. There was quite a bit of colour left in the dye baths so I should have kept it anyway and tried dyeing something else, but I certainly should have kept them until I was sure the colour was going to stick. If I had, I could have put the pink back in to simmer longer or even sit in the dye pot overnight. Well, live and learn.</li>
</ol>
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Now that I've given natural dyeing a try I have a list of other things I want to experiment with. I have a skein I dyed this weekend with loquat leaves I scavenged from my parents' yard drying now (more on that later), and I'd like to try black beans (blue) and avocado pits (pale pink) next.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Wendy</span></div>
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-30923044302195276072015-04-16T13:50:00.002-04:002015-04-16T13:51:37.416-04:00Socks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
David asked me why, if I loathe handwashing so much, I keep knitting him socks that he wears once and then sit on the top of the washer for six months. It is a very, very, good question.<br />
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I've decided that unless I find a luxury sock yarn that absolutely MUST be made into a pair of socks, all my socks from now on will be made of superwash wool.<br />
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When I planned to knit all my California family socks for Christmas last year I determined to make it as easy as possible on them, so all my Christmas knitting was superwash. <a href="http://www.knitpicks.com/" target="_blank">Knit Picks</a> is my friend - all these socks were knitted with <a href="http://www.knitpicks.com/cfSearch/Search.cfm?q=stroll" target="_blank">Stroll </a>I ordered online and had delivered to my door.<br />
<br />
From top to bottom these socks were for Lauren, Dad and Mom - Lauren's and Mom's I heavily adapted existing patterns and Dad's I kind of made up as I went along. <br />
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Fin's were my favourites. I'd been wanting to try doing something with Latvian braid and I found this pattern just about the time I was planning my Christmas presents. All the trim was done using bits from the other socks.<br />
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I knit Ally's and Madie's socks using a basic sock pattern but added an eyelet cuff (cause I love eyelet) and did duplicate stitch on the heels for their initials. I couldn't get the colours to come out quite right in the photos - Ally's are a little more purple and Madie's are a really vibrant hot pink.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDQvhyphenhyphenLFh8mUzx6Dm8PtijUaA8EhyphenhyphenYroeYgYlo1gSsbEMItb3V708K-dbiCCIzgF0XheEzbXHhlHr__bdw1lX4Ws1oSYthvTumNamnDnOW3NioM4FWCytKhrkuf_792BaCakGz/s1600/Girls'+Socks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDQvhyphenhyphenLFh8mUzx6Dm8PtijUaA8EhyphenhyphenYroeYgYlo1gSsbEMItb3V708K-dbiCCIzgF0XheEzbXHhlHr__bdw1lX4Ws1oSYthvTumNamnDnOW3NioM4FWCytKhrkuf_792BaCakGz/s1600/Girls'%2BSocks.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
By the time I got to Cedric's socks I was running late so didn't initial his heel. However, I don't think anyone's going to be confused about whose socks these are.<br />
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Over the winter I did manage to coordinate our church's Homeless knitting project and we ended up with over 200 donated items (some handmade, some bought) - here are a few of them.<br />
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One lady brought all hers in individual ziplocs with hand-written notes inside, which I thought was a nice touch.<br />
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For the rest I printed little labels and attached them with a bit of scrap yarn.<br />
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Since Christmas I've only knit one pair of socks for David (no pictures yet) and one sock out of a pair for me. I loved Fin's so much I found another pattern with Latvian braid and am doing myself a pair in purples.<br />
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I have a long-ish list of requests, including a knitted viking helmet/beard from Lauren which I was hoping to have done for his birthday, but I'm so far behind it may have to be a Christmas present. I'm also commissioned to knit Evie's young man, Greg, a <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/firefly-hat-triggers-corporate-crackdown#.oukGY2Zyo" target="_blank">Jayne Hat</a> but his birthday's in October so I have time to get to that one (this request deeply satisfies the geek in me).<br />
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So, that's my knitting for the last few months. I'll try and get pictures of David's new socks (superwash for the win). I have a flight to California coming up next week so hopefully I can get the second sock of my Latvian pair done then and pictures up soon.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Wendy</span></span></div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-67418408260836025142015-04-13T12:39:00.001-04:002015-04-13T12:41:01.497-04:00After a Long and Painful Absence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This winter was long, cold and very painful. I have rheumatoid arthritis and until last fall the medications I was on were keeping it under pretty good control. I'd have the odd flare that would last a day or two and then I'd be OK for a while. But in September the flares starting coming more often and lasting longer and in November my whole body seemed to flare up - I was having pain in every joint. A couple courses of steroids helped settle that down, but my hands just hurt all the time. My rheumatologist has been trying to find a new combination of drugs to control the flares but we are still tweaking it. I'm on a longer course of steroids right now so I'm pain-free for the moment and after nearly six months of constant pain it's such a relief! <br />
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I found that when the pain and fatigue are unrelenting, not only can I not make much physical effort, I can't even <u>think</u> about making physical effort. Now I love planning, sometimes even more than the actual doing! I love looking at knitting patterns, browsing yarn websites, poring over seed catalogs, reading about travel, watching youtube videos refinishing furniture. But chronic pain narrows your focus down to just getting through the day, and anything else just sucks away the little energy you have. Even blogging and posting on Facebook seem like too much of an effort.<br />
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Also, I found that it's downright depressing thinking about all the things I can't do. At the worst of it I was missing a lot of work and I kept thinking "if this doesn't get better I'm going to have to quit work, and then we won't be able to afford house payments, and then we'll have to move, and how am I going to move house if I can't even move my hands, and I like my house, I don't want to leave it". Getting back on my antidepressants helped a lot with the anxiety, but it's still an issue I may have to deal with.<br />
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However, at the moment, while I'm pain-free, I'm taking advantage of the reprieve and in the last couple of weeks have had a little flurry of baking, knitting and gardening that I really missed during the winter.<br />
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I realized I never posted pictures of my Christmas knitting so I'll work on a post to show those, and one to show the beginnings of my veggie patch this year.<br />
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Here's to warmer weather and feeling better.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wendy</span></span><br />
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-75156992604918466442014-09-29T10:53:00.000-04:002014-09-29T11:46:35.003-04:00Six of Nine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Earlier this year I made the fateful decision to knit my family in California socks for Christmas. That's seven pairs of socks.<br />
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I know this about myself - I'm not a fast knitter, and am easily distracted, so I started early. Mom and Lauren sent me everyone's shoe sizes and preferred colours. All the adults chose blue. Fortunately Lauren and Dad gave me alternatives so I didn't have to knit four pairs of blue socks in a row - that way madness lies.<br />
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I knit the first two pairs (for Mom & Dad) while we were in Australia this summer. Socks are the best travel knitting. I didn't have a pattern for either of them, just a basic sock recipe, to which I added cables to Dad's and lace to Mom's.<br />
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A couple of weeks later we went to California for campmeeting and I actually remembered my plan to trace the kids' feet so I had a visual for their socks, rather than just a shoe size.<br />
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I had given myself the goal of getting everything knit by the end of October, which would give me plenty
of wiggle room in case I knit even more slowly than usual, or something
catastrophic happened, and I wouldn't be frantically wrapping and posting seven pairs of socks on Christmas eve.<br />
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I'm pleased to say that I've finished Lauren's, Fin's, Ally's (adult size 4) and Madie's (adult size 6!) and only have Cedric's (who, mercifully, has the smallest feet) to go. <br />
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This means that I have knit four pairs of socks (and most of a shawl) in about seven weeks - I am basking in the awesome. And simultaneously worrying like heck about whether any of them will fit. Remote knitting is a bit of a crapshoot.<br />
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Also, in a moment of weakness, I recently asked Evie and David if they'd like socks for Christmas and they both said yes. Honestly I wasn't expecting Evie to because she's not a big sock fan but I'd just (again in a moment of weakness) sent her a link to a Spirited Away chart<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiez108FxoneVlX5N2oBrYeMZL9d4-9HVdl2RaCAcfvZ85_Kprirks4LosM1v5peSVbir3eYUKRjZesSEHP-WphCajY6dAx0jENau7aRaJEoatFpL9EvOJDb6okzY7Buw2qZyhm/s1600/Spirited+Away.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiez108FxoneVlX5N2oBrYeMZL9d4-9HVdl2RaCAcfvZ85_Kprirks4LosM1v5peSVbir3eYUKRjZesSEHP-WphCajY6dAx0jENau7aRaJEoatFpL9EvOJDb6okzY7Buw2qZyhm/s1600/Spirited+Away.jpg" height="320" width="288" /></a></div>
and she couldn't resist the soot sprites. She also wants them to be tabi socks because her big toe likes its personal space.<br />
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This means I have three more pairs of socks to go. Six more socks - fine yarn, tiny needles, thousands of stitches. I love knitting socks, but when I've finished my Christmas knitting I'm casting on something involving bulky yarn and size 15 needles.</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-80817201578563050492014-09-05T08:13:00.000-04:002014-09-29T10:54:03.668-04:00Sneak Peeks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Although I can't show you pictures of my current knitting, I can put up a few pictures of some of the yarn, and the awesomeness that is the swift I got for Christmas last year.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh60H8gBo74d3ddq3pWaKaJJlWjR5FuNpmv_mbgOufbKzs1fin4HfSe-RwM2666XghrVjCOu1qsKtx-WP5HRaCalb-EHOPIzXjs_thjxOLnizGckF7aQZGtyEgIC8nJjlk-jq9q/s1600/Swift+&+Winder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh60H8gBo74d3ddq3pWaKaJJlWjR5FuNpmv_mbgOufbKzs1fin4HfSe-RwM2666XghrVjCOu1qsKtx-WP5HRaCalb-EHOPIzXjs_thjxOLnizGckF7aQZGtyEgIC8nJjlk-jq9q/s1600/Swift+&+Winder.jpg" height="532" width="640" /></a></div>
Totally beats hand-winding yarn off my knees.<br />
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Behold the beauty of tangle free yarn -<br />
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And perfectly wound yarn cakes -<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOE_nmhQBw4GB8rEbIL5UgwTbRwFm_orlZUnHxyAApXHeJ5Yw57Mcho-rZBc7aqhE0VPfJiTBYU5Ddq5S5wIQzdCe0TI5_R4Mt236w4W6b3nuPoAt4Fgl8tw1StMHLULdrzVsE/s1600/Yarn+cakes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOE_nmhQBw4GB8rEbIL5UgwTbRwFm_orlZUnHxyAApXHeJ5Yw57Mcho-rZBc7aqhE0VPfJiTBYU5Ddq5S5wIQzdCe0TI5_R4Mt236w4W6b3nuPoAt4Fgl8tw1StMHLULdrzVsE/s1600/Yarn+cakes.jpg" height="307" width="400" /></a></div>
These are <a href="http://www.knitpicks.com/yarns/Stroll_Tonal_Sock_Yarn__D5420134.html" target="_blank">Knit Picks' Stroll Tonal</a> in Blue Yonder and Thunderhead. I love tonal yarn. Love. It.<br />
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OK, here's a little peek of how it's knitting up<br />
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-83623853077225943402014-09-03T17:17:00.001-04:002014-09-03T17:18:11.574-04:00All the Knitting, All the Time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Actually, there wasn't a lot of knitting early in the year. I had that crisis in Portland that resulted in these socks:<br />
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In February, a girl I work with had twins and it took me a while to decide what to make for them, so I didn't get really going until our trip to Kelowna, when I started knitting the first blanket. I (foolishly?) promised a blanket/sweater/hat set for each of them and I've only just finished it over the holiday weekend. Here are the blankets blocking on the guest bed (my first attempt at steam blocking)-<br />
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They are the <a href="http://lifestyle.howstuffworks.com/crafts/knitting/free-knitting-patterns-for-baby-blankets3.htm" target="_blank">Honeycomb Stroller Blanket,</a> and I love how they look much more complicated than they actually are to knit. I may have had to block them somewhat severely to keep them from being knitted strips, rather than blankets. When you've got that many stitches on the needles it's really hard to tell when you've got a square. I crocheted a border around to help disguise the rather messy edges and I'm OK with the way they turned out.<br />
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I love this little sweater pattern so much. It's <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/beyond-puerperium" target="_blank">Beyond Pueperium</a> and I liked enough to pay for it - usually I'm all about the free stuff. <br />
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The buttons on the green cardi are little white roses<br />
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Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture of the buttons on the blue cardigan. They are the cutest navy blue airplanes.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7hyphenhyphen-yoEvrg7EIwEBMo7GL9dKQcUqmkdisoXan8D3fjKzk3_JKXsmQMPejl6F90Qr6T6OlOu-cIbP41T6LcT1_KT2sKyQQZ7wRA5ykz4c97_SCBfCTfgQpgHI3fyz4r7maqvf/s1600/Blue+sweater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7hyphenhyphen-yoEvrg7EIwEBMo7GL9dKQcUqmkdisoXan8D3fjKzk3_JKXsmQMPejl6F90Qr6T6OlOu-cIbP41T6LcT1_KT2sKyQQZ7wRA5ykz4c97_SCBfCTfgQpgHI3fyz4r7maqvf/s1600/Blue+sweater.jpg" height="334" width="640" /></a></div>
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The hats are just striped baby hats, with little i-cord knots on the top.<br />
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The photos were taken on a table at work as I'm hoping to get them to the babies tonight or tomorrow, and see if any of it still fits. They were born at the end of February and were a couple of months early so I made size 6 months - fingers crossed.<br />
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What I'm knitting now is for Christmas so I can't put pictures up or it will spoil the surprise.<br />
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-86736259759769263452014-09-01T08:56:00.004-04:002014-09-01T08:57:03.233-04:00SSK<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This post is going to mean nothing to a non-knitter so if you want to just scroll back to previous posts about travel, furniture or news updates, I won't be offended.<br />
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I've been knitting for just over four years now. I've been knitting socks for just over four years. Oh, the joy of socks. The hypnotic rhythm of 2x2 ribbing, the soothing stocking stitch of the leg, the fun of a heel flap, the cleverness of turning the heel, the intrigue of picking up stitches for the gusset without leaving little holes at the corners and then...screeching halt as we come to decreasing the gusset. The first decrease, the k2tog goes fine, nice tight little right leaning stitch. We knit across the instep and then, then it all goes pear-shaped. For four years I've idly wondered why, when k2tog makes a tidy, even, pretty little column of stitches, the ssk makes this loose, sloppy, ugly column of stitches. Being an <strike>intrinsically lazy</strike> laid back person I just accepted that the left leaning decrease was going to look like that, and knit on.<br />
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Bearing in mind that I taught myself to knit using library books and the odd youtube video, I thought that you always slip a stitch purlwise - that's just the way you do it. Imagine my surprise when I recently discovered that with a ssk you slip the stitches, one at a time, KNITWISE! This tightens up the stitch and you end up with a tidy, even, pretty little column of left leaning stitches.<br />
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This may not seem like an epiphany to anyone else but as a committed (dare I say slightly obsessed) sock knitter, this is like discovering you aren't supposed to drive with the handbrake on.</div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-87447190604932643292014-08-31T17:53:00.000-04:002014-08-31T17:53:54.862-04:00Gingerbread and "What I Bought on my Vacation"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The last of the travel posts, just because I love the Victoriana so very much.</div>
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Ferndale, CA</div>
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There is a vintage car convention in the area every year around this time, so there were a number of these little cuties spotted.<br />
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This was my favourite building - I'm totally in love with those colours and all the detailing.<br />
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Even the public restrooms are cute.<br />
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This is the yarn I picked up at Foggy Bottom Yarns when we were in Ferndale.<br />
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They didn't have any local yarn, but they did have a new shipment of Sweet Georgia Cashsilk Lace, which is 55% silk, 45% cashmere laceweight, in the colourway, botanical. I was havering between this and a purple and I came down on the side of the green since it reminded me of the redwoods we were camping amongst.<br />
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When I travel I do try to look out for local yarns when I can. <a href="https://www.artofyarn.com/" target="_blank">Art of Yarn</a> in Kelowna in May didn't have anything in that was truly local but they did have Hand Maiden, which is hand dyed in Canada, and which I'd been wanting to try for a while. I bought a skein of Maiden Hair, 67% silk, 23% kid mohair, 10% nylon sport weight, in the Blomidon colourway. It's lovely and sqwooshy.<br />
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In March, when we went to Portland, I realised (after it was much too late to turn back) that I'd left my knitting bag by the front door, so the day after we arrived, while David attended some meetings, I googled the nearest yarn store, <a href="http://woolnwaresyarn.com/" target="_blank">Wool 'n Wares</a>, and went in for some emergency stash. Turns out that Portland was having a yarn crawl that weekend so they had some really gorgeous local yarn, which I petted and sighed over, but when I asked the price I had to sit down - from $120 to $400 a skein! I quickly bought a ball of Zwergers Garn's Opal Flower Power self-striping sock yarn, a set of 2.5mm dpns and cast on a pair of socks to calm my nerves. </div>
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The next day, our coffee tour with Lora ended near <a href="http://www.knit-purl.com/" target="_blank">Knit Purl</a> in downtown Portland, so I dragged David in for a quick look. He's so good about going shopping with me.<br />
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I bought two really nice skeins of wool in Portland (apart from the Opal) but I can't remember now which one I bought at Wool 'n Wares and which at Knit Purl.<br />
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This is Madeline Tosh, Prairie - a 100% merino laceweight in the Cathedral colourway, which I <u>think </u>I got at Knit Purl -<br />
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The other is an Oregonian yarn, which I think I got at Wool 'n Wares, after I picked my jaw up off the floor. It's Alexandra's Craft, Baby Silver Falls, a 60% superwash, 30% bamboo, 10% nylon, fingerweight in the Kaleidoscope colourway. I forgot to take a picture of it skeined up but here it is being knitted up. Although I like the way variegated yarn looks in the skein, I usually don't like the way it knits up, but the colours in this were just irresistible. They remind me of an early evening sky. And it really suits the garter stitch.<br />
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It seemed appropriate that I use it to finally make the Multnomah shawl (which I'm calling my Keeping Portland Weird shawl).<br />
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Unfortunately, I still have a four-row pattern repeat, plus the bind-off to knit, and I only have this much yarn left,<br />
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So it's on hold until I can rummage through my stash and see if I can come up with a complementary yarn I can use to finish it off with. I can totally pretend that it's a intentional border. Yeah.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Wendy</span></b></div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-54132284815929627472014-08-28T12:28:00.003-04:002014-08-28T12:28:56.710-04:00Ruthlessly Pillaged<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've snagged some of the photos taken by iPhone this year from my David's Facebook page. What's his is mine, right?<br />
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<span id="goog_1005134352"></span><span id="goog_1005134353"></span>First up is the coffee cart stop of our <a href="http://www.thirdwavecoffeetours.com/" target="_blank">Third Wave Coffee Tour</a> in Portland. I discovered on this trip that Portland is my spiritual home.<br />
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That's Lora there in the middle checking her phone. I can't remember the name of the cart (memory like a sieve, me) but they were the ones who provided us coffee with that lemon/rosemary/Douglas Fir syrup, the latter of which was sourced from their own yard. They also had a great pay-it-forward system - you can "sponsor" a free cup of coffee for someone in the future. You pay for it, it's marked up on a blackboard, and anyone who comes along, feels the need for a cuppa, but is short of cash, can take it up. Very cool. <br />
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In Kelowna, David was there to speak at their "campmeeting" held in the local school, and we were tickled to find this when we arrived. <br />
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The Okanagan is beautiful, as I said before. This is a view of the lake from the local lavender farm Lori-Anne took us to while we were there.<br />
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Unfortunately the farm itself didn't open for another week but the shop/tearoom was open and we spent a ridiculous amount of money on lavender-related goodness, and had hand-blended tea on the back verandah.<br />
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The elegant and charming Lori-Anne is on the right, in an Audrey Hepburn-esque turtleneck, and the adorable <strike>cheeky monkey</strike> Amelie is making eyes at us at the front. Oliver was off doing whatever small boys do when the grown ups are being boring.<br />
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David and I drove along the lake and a short visit to the beach, where a few of those crazy Okanagans were sunbathing and swimming. David took the first picture of me in a very long time that I actually really like.<br />
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While in Canada we also discovered the awesomeness that is...deep fried pickles. How did I not know about this? Why has no one told me?!!!<br />
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We had them twice. It's just as well we weren't there for longer, really.<br />
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On the food-related theme, we were in Australia on my birthday and David's brother Geoffrey took us on a drive to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Bay,_New_South_Wales" target="_blank">Byron Bay</a>, where we had lunch at what he said had been rated the 2nd best place to eat in town. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be a cafe attached to the local Adventist church.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mannahaven.com.au/" target="_blank">Manna Haven</a> is a vegan restaurant with really, really good food (sadly, often not the case at vegan places) and a hot mint-carob drink that David could have and, despite my long-standing bias against carob, would have fooled me into thinking it was chocolate if I hadn't known otherwise. <br />
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Geoff oldest son, William, wasn't feeling well and didn't come along, but his wife Anne and Ben, the youngest, in all his curly-headed-Trim glory, were there to help me celebrate heading into the back stretch of my 40s.<br />
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Although still suffering from the colds we came down with the moment we arrived, we had a really good day. And despite being winter, the weather while we were in Australia was perfect - hovering around 70F most of the time.<br />
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I'm including the photo below because it's funny, and because I think I look surprisingly cute with a hard-hat. We went on a tour of the new section of the Sydney Adventist Hospital, which is a building site, so everyone had to wear hard-hats and day-glo vests. (David has several pictures of senior church officials looking silly in hard-hats and safety vests, but I will not be posting them here, to preserve their dignity.)<br />
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I rocked the hat, not so much the vest.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitvS_LrLDJJF3twsnThINtjX7UaNTKXJCR4BPV1U5GYTc0jbK5OtdOHzFdcw6m7j7OvpezaTAJ7tzZyJeXHT31DVJjofw9yrP7gaX5vx6JEsLVvSr6954ffcaib_U30D8NjdsM/s1600/Wendy+-+hard+hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitvS_LrLDJJF3twsnThINtjX7UaNTKXJCR4BPV1U5GYTc0jbK5OtdOHzFdcw6m7j7OvpezaTAJ7tzZyJeXHT31DVJjofw9yrP7gaX5vx6JEsLVvSr6954ffcaib_U30D8NjdsM/s1600/Wendy+-+hard+hat.jpg" height="320" width="286" /></a></div>
<br />
Next time I'll show pictures of the Victorian extravaganza that is Ferndale, CA, and my souvenir yarn.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Before the Rain"; font-size: 22.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Wendy</span><br />
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36020237.post-21700829382983551132014-08-26T18:08:00.001-04:002014-08-27T10:46:04.029-04:00I've done it again...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
...and gone MONTHS between posts.<br />
<br />
Here's an update of what's been happening in our lives during the (NINE!) months since I last blogged.<br />
<br />
My parents came out on Amtrak for a month-long visit last November. It took them four days to get here and the only two complaints they had were that their cabin was too close to the restrooms and Mom had to climb the stairs to the second level for every meal (she doesn't do stairs). On the way back they changed their cabin to be away from the toilets and on the same level as the restaurant, and it was much better. Someday when I have the time (like after we've retired) I'd love to do that trip in reverse to visit them. It's a great way to see the countryside, and think of all that knitting time!<br />
<br />
It was so nice to have Mom & Dad around for so long and to finally show off the house. They were with us for a week and then drove down to North Carolina to spend a week with Mom's cousin Lil. They came back for two more weeks and we all went to my Uncle Jim's (Dad's brother's) place for Thanksgiving. Lala's youngest son Bill, who I haven't seen since I was nine, was there with his family. I'd completely forgotten that when I was growing up I thought he was her only son, since he was the only one I'd met. When you are little, people you've never met don't actually exist. Since he was a step-cousin I always thought of myself as having 5 1/2 cousins. Jim and Lala lived in McLean, Virginia in a very nice, but relatively modest house, compared to some of the McMansions in the area - we're looking at you, Dick Cheney. They were planning on downsizing and selling the house, which they'd lived in for about 35 years, so it was going to be their last Thanksgiving there and there was a certain poignancy in the atmosphere.<br />
<br />
Lala is the most amazing woman I've ever known. She is 90 and has more energy than a teenager on a sugar high. She also collects the most beautiful antiques. The table we ate Thanksgiving dinner at had once been owned by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook" target="_blank">Captain Cook</a>.<br />
<br />
Three weeks after my parents left, we flew out to California for Christmas. We decided not to bother with renting a car so we arranged to fly from San Francisco to Modesto airport, which was the first time I've ever done that. It's tiny. Really tiny. The only commercial route they still operate was the one to San Francisco, the plane was the smallest I've ever flown in and our baggage was handed to us in the terminal directly from the tarmac through a roller shutter.<br />
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The daughter-child came over from England and met us at Mom & Dad's house Christmas Eve and stayed till Boxing Day. It wasn't long enough, but we have to take what we can get these days.<br />
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Just before Christmas I had my first root canal. I tell you, the minute I turned 40 I started falling apart - arthritis, varifocals, root canals and now, when I recently had a hearing test, it turns out I have some pretty bad hearing loss and may have to get some hearing aids! I'm turning into my grandparents.<br />
<br />
Our travels this year have been pretty fun. In February we went to Portland, OR where David held some meetings, and our friend Lora, who runs <a href="http://www.thirdwavecoffeetours.com/" target="_blank">Third Wave Coffee Tours</a>, took us on an abbreviated version of her Downtown Tour. If you are visiting Portland, and love coffee, check her out. She knows her stuff, loves coffee, and is really fun to hang out with. I love coffee but I'm really a bit of a Philistine about it. As long as it's hot, milky and caffeinated I'm good. I did really enjoy learning about the different roasting, brewing and serving methods, although by the end of it was vibrating slightly. My favourite stop was at one of Portland's famous food carts. The owners make their own syrups and treated us to a coffee flavoured with lemon, rosemary and Douglas Fir, which I was initially skeptical about but which was awesome.<br />
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In early May we got to visit another friend from college, Lori-Anne, a freelance writer/<a href="http://thepeartree.ca/" target="_blank">blogger</a>, who lives in Kelowna, BC. This was actually my first ever visit to Canada and as an introduction I think it would be hard to beat the Okanagan. It's billed as the Canadian Napa Valley and it's certainly beautiful, fertile and, in the winter, milder than most of the rest of Canada. We finally got to meet Lori-Anne's charming husband Kyle and her completely adorable children, Oliver and Amelie. Kyle is an artist and graphic designer who works at the <a href="http://kelownaartgallery.com/" target="_blank">Kelowna Art Gallery</a>. Lori-Anne spent a lovely day with us, showing us around Kelowna and we stopped at the gallery where Kyle gave us a tour round. I also took the chance to snag another one of his paintings. He's a<a href="http://thepeartree.ca/kyle/" target="_blank"> very talented artist </a>and for the past few years has been working on a project called "100 for 100" in which he is creating one hundred 10"x10" original paintings and selling them for $100 each. A couple of years ago I bought one he'd done of pomegranates (my favourite fruit).<br />
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<a href="http://thepeartree.ca/kyle/2011/10/03/pomegranate-study-2011/" target="_blank"><img alt="Pomegranate Study" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW_eMd8B_JkLH8sZF7rms2ijDf5NdLYs-nlYH_7yabnAm9h5uHsyYL8JORI8CYmshLlTbO8858jumDtH9T-GCPI52BVt68fzcdbTjqhTidMg50TNNAMvAgE42wBmZ5nqzrJbeo/s1600/Kyle_Poirier_Pomegranate_Study_2011.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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When we visited I asked Kyle if he still had the one he'd painted of Tintern Abbey and I was so pleased to find that he did! We visited Tintern Abbey on our first summer vacation in Wales, very early on a Saturday morning before anyone else was there, the sun was only just up, mist was rising from the river nearby and everything was so still and quiet. Just lovely.<br />
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<a href="http://thepeartree.ca/kyle/2012/02/22/remembered-ruins-2012/" target="_blank"><img alt="Remembered Ruins" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7yE4qPMohqN6iVQgcHMX5Qml0FjdrUZnKWMVbxzMB8ZgyHg0HZNayAk9WgDLHG_dMRhTmCTbHT-tlbCC0c2cFeUAz7CRJEYt2YjtZoEbaunQ3MdVZuM85Y4XPrRp7YZcaujNu/s1600/Kyle_Poirier_Remembered_Ruins_2012.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
I borrowed these photos off his website, but I'll try and get some pictures of them up in the house as well.<br />
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In the middle of June we took our annual leave in Australia to coincide with a work trip, so we had five days with David's brother Geoffrey and his family on the Gold Coast, and then five days with his mum in North New South Wales (yes I'm aware of how funny that looks), and then another five days in Sydney where we attended meetings and got to see his sisters.<br />
<br />
We both came down with bad colds on the flight over to Australia and had just about finally shaken them off when we flew back to the States via California and stayed a couple of days with my parents to celebrate Independence Day and Cedric's 5th birthday. I was starting to feel like I was coming down with something again on the Sunday when we flew home and sure enough, it was another cold, but this time I ended up with a bi-lateral ear infection with perforated eardrums and resulted in having tubes put in both ears - leading to the ear test which indicated that I have some long-term damage. Sigh. As my mother frequently says, "Getting older is no fun".<br />
<br />
Two days after the tube insertion (which was NOT fun - about on a par with a root canal, but quicker) we flew back to California where David was speaking at the Northern California Conference camp meeting, which is the best camp meeting on the planet. This has nothing (well little) to do with the fact that it's the camp meeting I went to growing up - it's just an intrinsic fact. It is located in the Northern California redwoods, just south of Fortuna, California, and is actually located right in a redwood grove. My family reserves the same spot every year - my parents take their 5th-wheel (and when I go they put up a tent), my brother, his in-laws and his brother-in-law each take their trailer campers, and they set everything up around a large central area. We call it "circling the wagons". Tarps are strung around the perimeter for a bit of privacy and laid on the ground between the campers and then several tables are put end-to-end along the middle for everyone to sit and eat at. There are about six pretty good sized redwoods in their campsite so they've worked out the best position for each camper to take account of the trunks, and everything is shaded beautifully. That's especially good in summers like this one, when we had several days in which it was nearly 100 degrees in the sun.<br />
<br />
As a speaker, David had a hotel room in Fortuna, which he returned to each night. He's not fond of camping so that worked out well for him. I like camping, and I wanted to spend as much time with my family as possible, but I also like hot showers and sleeping with my husband, so I spent alternate nights in the tent and in the hotel. It worked out well.<br />
<br />
We were pretty busy but David and I did get one day to see the sights, such as they are. Fortuna's not much to write home about, but we did drive the <a href="http://avenueofthegiants.net/" target="_blank">Avenue of the Giants,</a> which is beautiful, and also visited Ferndale, which is chock full of Victorian gingerbread-y goodness. Unfortunately, we didn't get there until after 4.00 and they appear to roll up the pavements in town at 5.00, so we didn't get to see as much as we would have liked. I did my research though and made sure that Foggy Bottom Yarns was the first place we went. I got a skein of forest green laceweight, to remind me of the redwoods. <br />
<br />
The BIG news of the year is that my baby girl has moved to California. After a year of post-graduation, being a grown-up, supporting herself with coffee shop jobs, themed hen nights, and teaching Lindy Hop and Charleston at dance studios, she decided she was sick of living in Reading (since she was four) and wanted to try something new. She has a lot of friends in the Bay Area from our two years there in 2008/9 so while we were in Australia she packed up and flew to DC, where she house/cat sat for us while we were away. She stayed with us for three weeks, flew to California with us, and we dropped her off in Santa Rosa on our way up to camp meeting. She's staying with her friend Claire (who is a complete sweetie) while she settles in. Amazingly she found a coffee shop job, a free bike and the possibility of some dance teaching, all within the first couple of weeks she was there, so now she's house-hunting. Or, rather, room-hunting, because even a one-bedroom apartment in the Bay Area is too expensive for her at the moment. <br />
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Have I said how proud I am of her? She's an incredible combination of fantastic creativity and focused determination. She can be very goal oriented when she wants to be and once she decides to do something she is very good at figuring out how to achieve it. I like to think she gets a lot of her creativity from me, but she definitely gets her focus, determination and self-discipline from her father.<br />
<br />
This is a much more text-heavy post than usual because sometime after Christmas I discovered that I'd lost my camera. I knew I'd had it at Christmas because I could remember taking photos of the kids with it, but at some point I must have "put it somewhere safe" and now couldn't remember where it was. (I can't tell you how many things I've "lost" that way.) All the photos taken so far this year have been with our iPhones. A week ago I opened a bag in which I'd brought Christmas presents back, that I was sure I'd emptied when we got home, and sure enough, there it was. There was much rejoicing.<br />
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Since this has gotten rather long I'll post later on the (lack of) knitting/crafting progress this year and put up a few pictures.<br />
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<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Before the Rain"; font-size: 22.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Wendy</span></div>
<br /></div>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17979535011790869140noreply@blogger.com0