11/19/2005

Pie Guy

We made apple pie today. I haven't made one in years, so I was pretty nervous about it. The dough, which I was most worried about, turned out very nicely – I was paranoid about overhandling it, but it turned out flaky and nice. I did forget to brush the top crust with anything, so it didn't brown much, but no big deal. The filling basically turned to mush because I cut the apples up too small. It's more like applesauce pie, really. Still tasty though. Check out the creative vent holes in the top, huh?

I've thrown caution to the winds and started the toe decreases on the sock. I'm so determined to finish it tomorrow and not go over the 2 week mark that I don't care if it fits, dammit! I think it'll be ok. It's going to be bigger than my socks, so how wrong could it go? [foreboding music cue here].

I'm going to bed now, at 10:30, to make up for a short night last night and a no-nap day for M.M. today. I'm really tired and I was very cranky today, so I need to get some sleep. I hope the early bedtime doesn't backfire on me. I often seem to stay up later when I go to bed early, because of some freaky circadian rhythm thing, I guess, or some screwy psychological mid game I play with myself, or maybe because I'm just so darn stubborn.

G'night.

11/18/2005

Aquaria

I learned about this from Scrivener : Opening Wednesday, it's the largest aquarium in the world . I'm a big aquarium fan. I think it started with the tv ads for the National Aquarium in Baltimore when I was a kid. They showed these giant column filled with water and bubbles rising to the top, and they just looked so magical to me, I was hooked. The Boston Aquarium is pretty good too, but I found it a bit limited. Good penguin exhibit though.

Knitting-wise, I'm very happy that the missing sock of the pair I recently finished for M.M. mysteriously showed back up today. I had looked lots of places for it, but apparently not in the middle of the bedroom floor, because that's where it was this morning. I'm getting close to finishing the first of the socks I'm working on for my brother. I was hoping to do the whole pair in three weeks, but it looks like this one is going to take at least two. This means that my cousins will not be recieving hand-knit socks for Christmas this year. Not from me, anyway. However, this will not stop me from ordering Socks that Rock. I've already got the pattern picked for that, as well as for the Koigu that I got last month (was it only last month?).

M.M. has laryngitis of some sort. The poor thing can barely speak, and when she does, she sounds like a hard-livin' 17 year old. Her voice is low and hoarse and alternately crackly and squeaky. It sounds like she spends all her nights smoking and drinking whiskey, which is a little disturbing to this over-protective Mama. Luckily, other than being a little less energetic – or perhaps I should say more quickly tired-out – she doesn't seem to feel unwell. And she gets to take medicine, which is her all-time favorite thing to do (I'm so worried she's going to turn into a drug addict!). I've only been giving her homeopathic remedies, which don't really do anything, but they taste good.

She's really really excited about going on the train to Boston next week. The tickets arrived by FedEx today. By the way, don't even get me started on the fact that Amtrak forced me to pay an extra $12 for FedEx delivery of my tickets. In an age when they make machines that sell subway tickets and airlines don't even have actual tickets anymore, you can't tell me that they can't come up with some other way to work train tickets than delivering them by FedEx. Not only that but I had to actually call their 800 number rather than just order them online, because that was the only way to waive the signature requirement - which would have meant that I had to be home Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 because they couldn't tell me when they'd actually get here. Is this real? Do they actually think this is 1954 and people are home all day?

Anyway, what was I saying? M.M. is really excited about the trip. About half and hour after the tickets came, she said "Mama can I go on the Amtrak train now?" When I said no, it's in 5 days, she got out her Weebles and played train with them. This meant that she sat in her chair and set them up in rows in front of her, I gather as though they were all riding on a train together.

11/13/2005

Progress!

Progress has been made. The leg of the sock is over 6" long, and the heel flap is done. I do have some confusion about the heel flap, however. The pattern calls for 24 rows, after which the flap is supposed to be 2 1/2" long. Mine is only 2" after 24 rows. At first I thought I'd just keep going until it was the desired length, but then I started thinking about picking up the stitches for the gusset and worried that everything would be askew if I had the wrong number of rows from which to pick stitches up. So I think I'm going to charge ahead and hope that the shorter heel flap is not a fatal flaw. The color in this photo is not at all true. It's really a much richer, darker, heathery-er red.

In other news, we got rolling suitcases yesterday, in anticipation of our upcoming holiday travels: a train to Boston for Thanksgiving (highly inefficient, but the whole reason for the trip is for M.M. to be able to go on a train, so there we are) and flying to North Carolina for Christmas. M.M. had a great time pulling her suitcase through the throngs at the Holyoke Mall yesterday. I hadn't been there before, and I truly regretted going, particularly on a Saturday during the expanded holiday season. It was way too crowded, overstimulating, and crazy for me. M.M. did ok except for getting low blood sugar in Old Navy. She was better after an apple. We won't make the mistake of going there on a day like that again.

We had a last-minute house showing yesterday, so the morning was a frenzy of cleaning and tidying. I'm crossing my fingers, because according to the realtor, the people liked the house and are interested, though they haven't made an offer yet. We'll see what happens. I had a good feeling before the showing, but I'm trying to keep expectations and hopes low to avoid disappointment.

Here is some gratuitous cuteness. M.M. was eating like a lumberjack tonight, including grapes, caught here for digital posterity. Her sweater is wet because she had been washing dishes for a half hour before the grape-eating.