Man-Cub at bat

Playoffs start next week - tonight's the last regular game - his team stands to do pretty well in the playoffs - with only 3 losses this season...

...lost my marbles

That's OK the Man-Cub found them - here he's counting his 'collection' - if we're out 'antiquing' and he finds marbles he always asks to buy them - so he has some old marbles mixed in - and he has his favorites too - we make a yarn circle on the living room floor and play...

Dishcloths

I took the Man-Cub to see Ratatouille - it was good but the whole Rat in the Kitchen thing did sort of bother me...

Anyway between walking the dog and watching movies I got some simple dishcloths done - nothing complicated - no lace - just plain knitting - it's perfect for dishcloths...

Cookin'

I know you think that I've not been cooking -only knitting - but really I have. I tried two seitan recipes - the Seitan-O-Greatness (http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15959&p=1)and Fat-Free Vegan's vegeroni (http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/printer/veggeroni.htm). I loved the vegeroni and I've been having a lot sandwiches made of that.


Here's the Seitan-O-Greatness with a soy gravy - 1/2 cup of soy sauce 1/2 cup water and 1/4 cup of flour - cook until thick and bubbly - YUM. Everything else on the plate is pretty generic.

Swing with Abandon

I used to be able to swing and love it - now it sort of makes me car sick...

The Man-Cub still swings with abandon 'though - we have a swing set too - but if you swing too high it's posts start to wiggle out of the ground - so he really loves these super sturdy ones at the park where he can swing so high that he can touch the bars overhead...

... and I can sit on a bench and knit - I can tell the secret project is quickly becoming too large to be portable - so that will be for TV knitting - the 2nd baseball sock and the Vanilla KAL are progressing well - and I've just cast on for a pink prayer shawl for one of our neighbors recently diagnosed with cancer - I'm using the Major Knitter's pattern - http://majorknitter.typepad.com/photos/patterns/march_2007_052.html - but I'm adding some little openwork hearts...

Swimming Lessons

Thank goodness the Man-Cub has swimming lessons and baseball - otherwise when would I ever get all my knitting done.

Perfecting the crawl...

New Pattern for the Secret Project

Here's the final pattern for the secret project. I have 8 squares done already - so I'm a little behind - I'm still going to try and get one square done per day...




I think I'm going to leave off the very top row and only have 7 as it's getting pretty long - we'll see - I can always add it later.

Here's the process - to avoid sewing all the squares together - I pick up and knit from the side and then add a stitch in from the uncastoff edge - you can see where I've picked up stitches with black on the white square - and the grey square's stitches are still on the needle I'll pick them up as I knit the black square and just knit them in - it's working well - I still don't know what I'm going to do about the curling under st st at the edge.

New Pajamas

The Man-Cub needed some new pajamas - he only wears the bottoms - for a top he always just wears a t-shirt. So I bought some flannel - he picked the green - and just a pair of trousers for a pattern - it's only pajamas - right...

Here they are modeled in the early morning light...

Secret project

Shhhh! I'm knitting an afghan for my nephew Robert to take to college with him this fall. I've been trying several different arrangements of squares for the afghan and can't decide. It's NC State's colors. I kind of like the one with white in between each block, but think that may be too much white - and it's pretty symmetrical - a little too much like a checkerboard - I also like the more random placement, but not too random - I'm trying to make sure that a color doesn't come in contact with itself.

There are four colors maybe I need an odd number...



Each block will have 60 rows - if I'm really focused (rarely) I can finish one in about an hour - there will be 40 blocks...

Practice makes perfect...

It's really cool and windy here today - high about 64 - not looking forward to swimming lessons tonight...

The Man-Cub takes his baseball seriously - here he is practicing his little heart out...

Vegan Cooking Blog Updated

I finally made the CCC Cookies for the Vegan-Cook-Along - they were very good.
http://vegancookalong.blogspot.com

Mom's Lasagne = Sunday Dinner

I realized yesterday that it has been literally years since I made Mom's recipe for Lasagna - veganized of course. When I was little there were few meals I looked forward to so much as Mom's Lasagna. Karen even had it for her rehearsal dinner before her wedding...

Equivalent to 1 lb ground beef - they don't sell the crumbles up here so I just crumbled up 4 Boca Burgers
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 T oil
1 can tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
2 cups water
1 T chopped parsley
2 t salt
1 t sugar
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t pepper
1/2 t oregano leaves
8 ounces lasagne noodles
7 slices tofutti mozzarella slices
grated parmesan substitute
1 cup tofu ricotta

In a heavy pan cook onion in oil. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, water, parsley, salt, sugar, garlic powder, pepper, and oregano; simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile cook lasagne as directed, drain. In 13x9x2" baking pan, spread about 1 cup sauce. Then alternate layers of lasagne, sauce, tofu ricotta, and parmesan substitute, ending with sauce, tofutti mozzerella and parmesan substitute. Bake at 305 F. for 40 to 50 minutes until lightly browned and bubbling. Allow to stand for 15 minutes; cut in squares to serve.

The pictures are pretty self explanatory...

Cook the noodles and drain well...

Simmer the sauce...

I made a simple tofu ricotta - just mash a block of silken firm tofu - add some lemon juice and salt - you could also add a dash of garlic powder if you want...

Start layering with sauce...

Then noodles and ricotta...

Then noodles and parmesan substitute...

Then top it all off with vegan mozzarella...

and bake until bubbly...

Ahhh... Sunday Dinner

The Happy Camper

The Man-Cub couldn't have been happier. We spent Friday evening and Saturday at the lake camping. It was very relaxing and the weather was perfect - a breeze blowing off the lake kept the smoke out of our tent and the mosquitoes at bay - nice.

Our new tent - a bit difficult to set up - I'm sure we'll be better at it next time - we read directions really well... It has a rainfly but we didn't bother as we weren't expecting any rain.

Our beds - very cozy and comfortable... Yes those are sheets inside the sleeping bags and the Man's is on top of his sleeping bag - it was about 65 degrees so we didn't really need the sleeping bags.

The only not so happy camper - Jack thought it was just too intense (too many smells and new noises)- he was on a thirty foot lead on his stake out...

A beautiful sunset - and the time to appreciate it - priceless...

The breeze that kept the mosquitoes away made a campfire feel nice - I wish I had made some vegan marshmallows - Oh well next time...

Got your Goose

The Man-Cub was outside playing and he called us to come quick - so we hurried outside to see what all the commotion was about - a goose had flown up and landed on our roof. So of course that called for a few pictures...



The geese are nesting on a slough near our house...

A New Kildeer Family

We found a new kildeer nest in our yard - right before we left for vacation - so we counted up the days and realized that the eggs should hatch shortly after we returned. (Our Birder's Handbook says 23 - 26 days)...


And today was the big day.

You have to click on this photo to see the egg closest to you with the hole in it and the little black beak - so sweet...

Mrs. Kildeer scolding us for looking at her babies...

she went right back to the nest as soon as I had snapped a photo. I didn't use a zoom - we were really that close...

Happy Independence Day!!!

Small town parades - gotta luv 'em.

We went to the local Independence Day Parade - If I'd been here in June I would have organized a Pack march for the parade - oh well - next year...

The Parade was a lot of fun - we rode our bikes up to Main Street - found a vacant spot and started grabbing the candy that was thrown to us...



After the parade we had lunch at the local Chinese Restaurant then got ready for the big cookout and fireworks display chez nous...

The parachutes were a big hit before dark...


As were the tanks...

The Parachute Capturing Booty...

Our little Pyro... If there's anything happier than a boy with a weapon - it's a boy with fire...

Our giant firecracker - actually labled "celebration firecracker" it contained 5000 firecrackers - pretty awesome...


The city once again WOW-ed us with their elaborate display...

And I got to try out the fancy-schmancy fireworks setting on my camera...

Remember that it's not dark here until about 10:30 at night - so the fireworks don't even start until about 11:00 - so it's really late and I'm really tired...night-night...

Baby Kildeers

Another update on the baby kildeers - they're up and about - and loudly peeping at us as we take their picture.

Oversize Top Remake or what you can get for a quarter...

I got this top for a quarter - yes - 25¢ - on the clearance rack at K-Mart. I liked the pattern and figured I could do something with it. Here it's a size 2x...

I just cut a couple of inches off of each side and seamed it back up. It's very long - almost like a tunic and I like it a lot...

I took it on vacation and found that it matched my swimsuit perfectly so I wore it as a sort of coverup...