I don't watch much television, but there is a new show I really like: Monk, on the USA channel. Really entertaining, and entertaining in a deep-character sort of way. And Monk is played by the guy who was Antonio on Wings!

I don't know, maybe I'm a freak, but I find him appealing....

A cool and useful website about climate: Earth Observatory

And another one, I don't remember if I put it up here before (and some of my archives have gone poof, anyway) is the Weather World 2010 that University of Illinois has up. Truly an amazing resource for matters of climate and weather and Earth science.

(I've been redoing the climate lectures for ecology...)

I have an Abelia bush in my front yard. I had thought of gettting rid of it, as it needs trimming every month to keep from looking messy. But - it has white flowers with a strong sweet smell, and they attract lots of interesting insects. This spring, I've had lots of bumblebees (and other bee and bee-mimic things), butterflies (including Tiger Swallowtails, probably one of the most beautiful creatures on Earth). And now, this morning, there was a hummingbird moth visiting them. Hummingbird moths are what they sound like - moths that you would swear was a hummingbird, until you saw the 6 legs, antennae, and compound eyes.

It was too cool.

Some links:

Free doll patterns at Cloth Doll Connection
There are some cute ones, some funky ones, and some basic ones.

My favorites:
the Zaftig fairy
Your own tiny little Sumo wrestler Awww, isn't he cute!
and then there is the (in)famous Dammit Doll, complete with poem.

I actually made one of the sumo wrestlers. It is a cute pattern, if a little bit weird to an American. I even bought a little piece of Ultrasuede to make the waist-wrap-loincloth thingy (which has a technical name but I can't remember it now).

Yes, I am bored at work.

About once a week for months now, I come home to a message on my answering machine from some debt-consolidation company. It's totally bogus; they tell me that they've already sent me "correspondence" about lumping all my credit-card payments together and getting a rate "as low as 1.5%".

The thing is, I don't have any debt. None. I pay my credit card bills off in full every month, I own my own car outright. I don't even have a mortgage, thanks to an inheritance from my grandparents.

So it started getting on my nerves to keep getting these calls. This time, I wrote down the number (they ALWAYS call when I am not home and leave a message; that seems to be their M.O. to keep from getting hung up on or told "put me on your no-call list") and called them. I patiently and politely explained to the woman on the other end that 1. These calls irritate me. 2. They will never make any money off me (both because I don't carry debt and because even if I did, I wouldn't use a service that cold-called me). The woman took my name and number and said she'd put me on their no call list.

We'll see if that works.

Still knitting away on the sleeves of the Sand sweater. I discovered last night that somehow I got a couple rows ahead on one sleeve and had to do some correcting. The sleeves are close to half knitted.

I also worked some on my quilt (quilting the Spools quilt) this weekend, but it was too hot to work on for very long.

And I had my SECOND serving of tomato-stuff out of the garden! Yeah! I made homemade tomato soup, following my mom's recipe:

Core and cut up 1 quart (4 cups) of fresh garden tomatoes. Combine in a large saucepan with 2 c. chicken broth (of course, vegetarians can use veggie broth), 1/4 tsp cloves (or 4 whole cloves if you have them), 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, and one big slice of onion.

Let that simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occassionally.

Then: strain the broth (I used a strainer into a bowl and used the back of a spoon to mash all the juice and goodies out of the tomatoes. The skins, seeds, and big onion slice should stay in the strainer. (I want to get a food mill; that would make this go smoother).

Then reheat the broth, and while the broth is heating, make a roux of 2 Tbs. butter and 2 Tbs. flour. Add a little of the soup to the roux to heat it up (you don't want to dump it in or it will coagulate and be nasty). Add the roux to the soup, heat, stir, and enjoy.

This soup is heaven. It is the best soup ever. It is so far superior to the stuff out of a can you won't believe it. I used about half Arkansas Traveler tomatoes (a pink tomato) and half Big Boy tomatoes, with one Roma thrown in to make it thicker.

Having a garden makes me so happy.

It looks like a lot of the knitbloggers I usually read are on vacation. Hope they have a good time! I'm supposed to be gearing up for fall classes (new textbooks for two classes = lots and lots of updating lecture and activities material) but am having a hard time being motivated.

I did get Diana finished up (at least on paper) with her thesis yesterday. So now she'll have a Master's Degree and will be able to walk in December's graduation.

I also got the final copy of the paper sent off to the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science. It should come out next year, I think.

I have a recipe of sorts for you today:
Simple smoothie

Backstory: when my brother and I were kids, he was the Fussy Eater of the World. If it looked "natural", he wouldn't eat it. (I was a little better: I would eat fruit and I ate corn and even the funky wholegrain bread our mother made). Our mom came up with this recipe to try and get a little more fruit into my brother. It's surprisingly good considering how simple it is.

It makes a very good "cocktail replacement" (i.e., something you drink when you first come home from work if you don't like/don't drink alcoholic things). It's cold and refreshing and is actually kind of filling. It makes a good light summer dessert, too.

So here's the recipe already:

1 box frozen strawberries, partially thawed (like 1/2 hour in the fridge or maybe 20 minutes on the counter)
1 standard sized (not the giant one, not the tiny one - I think it's somehwere in the 12-15 oz. range) can of Bartlett pears (the blah white ones that every grocery has).

If you can, get the kind of pears that are canned in their own juice instead of a sugar syrup. Ditto on the strawberries. You can always add sugar if it's not sweet enough for you.

Drain the pear juice into a glass or a measuring cup. Put the pears and the strawberries and about half the pear juice into a blender. Run the blender on its highest speed for about a minute or until everything is pulverized. If you need to, add more pear juice.

Serve. It makes enough for 4 people to have a smallish serving. Or you can put it in the fridge for later. Or you could freeze it and make a kind of sorbet.

No knitting last night. I'm having to drive to the Albertson's because our Winn-Dixie closed down and I don't like any of the remaining grocery stores in my town. We are getting a Super Wal-Mart but that won't open until September. So for a while, I'm stuck with weekly or so drives to the Albertson's - which is about an hour round trip, not counting time spent in the store.

Let Hello Kitty assess your stress level. Truly demented. It says I have "Fair Stress" and that normally I handle stress well, but "However when you come across many troubles at the same time, you might be unable to handle it."

How does it know?

(Courtesy of Centre Pull Ball)

I did start a new pair of socks - dug some Jaeger Dublin (green and grey tweed with bright colored flecks) out of the stash and cast on a pair of simple socks. I'm using size 3 needles and 56 sts because this is roughly a DK weight but it doesn't feel like it's got much stretch. I might go down to 2's for the foot to give a firmer gauge....

Had to go get a cavity filled this morning. Oog. I do not like that one bit. The worst part for me is the Novocaine shot, followed by the hardware-store-stuffed-in-my-mouth feeling, followed by waiting for the Novocaine to wear off. (I guess that means I pretty much hate all of it).

At least the dentist's assistant was nice. She was German and commented on my socks that I was knitting. She said that she had learned to knit in school. She commented "It's good to see an American knitting socks!" (I didn't tell her about all the hard core sockers that are out there - I probably should have but I'm not real talkative before big dental procedures).

After the filling, she looked hard at me and said "You must have some German in you somewhere." I said yes, my dad's side of the family was 1/2 German. She said that she knew the knitting had to come from somewhere.

I need to start something new. I'm trying to decide between a simple pair of worsted-weight socks (have lots of worsted weight wool in various variegated colors in my stash), or doing the Lithuanian socks from Folk Socks, but using turquoise and black yarn (again, from stash) in place of the amber and black.

If I hadn't resolved to be less acquisitive (and to put more money in savings than I currently do) I'd like to order a bunch of stuff
from The Unemployed Philosopher's Guild

I did spend a fair amount this weekend. I decided I needed a "fluster" (this is supposedly a German custom, according to my dad, but no one else I've talked to who is German has even heard of it). A "fluster" is a small gift when you have gone through something painful or unpleasant - for example, when my brother and I were kids, we used to get some small cheap toy after vaccinations. And I remember getting Snoopy paperback books after having to have plantar's warts burned off with liquid nitrogen.

Anyway, I bought myself a pair of "spa slippers" from Bath and Body Works. They are big foam-padded white chenille scuffs. I really needed something to wear on my feet in the house (bare feet + wood floor + not-so-assiduous housekeeping = beat up soles covered with house dirt). So I decided on them. They were, like $25. Yes, I cringed, and I thought how I could make something similar myself - but I'd have to buy the materials, and find the time, and the slippers in the store were what I wanted, and I wanted them now, not at some undefined future time when I'd get a pair sewn up.

So I'm going to try to be good now. I'm not visiting any of the .com web sites I ususally visit (like Amazon or Powell's or Elann or Equilting). I have told myself that if I'm good between now and the first Friday in August, I will treat myself to another trip to McKinney, to buy some more candles and foo foo type stuff.

I'm really a materialistic girl, you know that? I like stuff. I like things like candles and pillows and expensive nice soap. If I see a book I want, chances are I will buy it. I own more fabric and yarn than I will ever use.

I don't know where this comes from. It's not like I had a deprived childhood. If anything, I had too many toys and clothes as a kid.

The funny thing is, I hate shopping for clothes. If I need something, I scope out where it's most likely to be sold, go there, find the one in my size, try it on. I don't like spending hours trying on clothes I probably won't buy. I'd much rather shop in a bookstore or a home-accessories store than a clothing store.

Got a few more rows done on the sleeves of the Sand sweater. But frankly, it's hard to get excited about a sweater when it's 90+ degrees outside.

I'm thinking I might pull out my quilt and finish quilting it (yes, I know, how can I be un-excited about a sweater but excited about a quilt in this kind of weather??). I don't have far to go on it and then I can start a new project. I have a top all marked and just needing layering and basting and then I can put it in the frame.

I want to start a new quilt, too - as soon as I finish the Provence quilt top I'm doing (I just have a pieced border to put on). I am going to use the "State Flower" fabrics (I think I have at least a 1/2 yard of each one they've done so far) and am going to just do a simple Variable Star pattern (which is also called Sawtooth Star and sometimes Ohio Star - but is different from what I know as Ohio Star....)

A good line-drawing of it is here

I like simple, graphic patterns for quilts. Especially when I'm using some kind of a pictorial fabric where I want the pictures to show up.

I did do a little quilting over my vacation - the church my parents belong to has a small quilting group that meets on Wednesdays. When I'm in town, I'm the youngest. Otherwise, my mom's the youngest. They quilt people's quilt tops for what seem to me to be very reasonable prices (I had a twin-bed-sized top done and it was $75 even though there was some elaborate border work). They give the money to the CWF (Christian Women's Fellowship) for outreach projects. They actually bring in a surprisingly large amount in a year, and there's always a waiting list for quilts.

Anyway, I went and quilted for a few hours on the current quilt. I also made a mini-quilt in red, blue, and gold fabric.
The mini was simple - I cut 1 1/2 strips and sewed them together, and then cut out a rectangle the size of a sheet of paper from them. But I cut it so the strips were running on a diagonal from corner to corner. Then I cut a 2 1/2 wide border and sewed it on. Then I hand-quilted it. (amazingly, I got it done). It's pretty, but I find that bed-sized quilts excite me more right now because you can actually use them for something other than decoration.

I used to make tons of mini quilts. I still have many unquilted mini tops.

I'm still tired. I'm hoping it's pollen allergies and adjusting to the warmer more humid weather down here, and not a sign that my house has some kind of funky mold that's poisoning me (it smelled ever so slightly musty when I first got back).

Read four chapters (and summarized two) in the new textbook I've selected for my Ecology class. I'm using Charles Krebs' Ecology textbook - a more recent edition of the same text I had when I took Ecology. (this is the third textbook I've used in as many years - the one that my predecessor used was chock full 'o' errors, and the second one I selected I decided was too simplistic). I like Krebs because he uses a "case study" type of method, where he discusses a well-known ecological study to explain some principle.

I hope people like it. It comes across as more erudite to me than the other texts I've used.

More on the vacation knits:

I knitted the Carnival shawl from Knitnet (link is to the current issue, which is also good; if you want the shawl pattern you'll have to buy one of the back issue CDs but they are worth it, IMHO). I used the five different colors of Mexican Wave as suggested. I didn't fringe it - I don't like fringing and I find that fringed stuff always looks ratty after I've had it in my grubby paws for a couple months.

I do need to block it. Instead of being a triangle, it is a diamond shape right now thanks to the fact that the increases are down the center.

I also did another thing differently: instead of waiting for a color to run out, I stopped about 1/2 to 2/3 into the end of each ball and used the remainder as random "stripes" up in the next color or colors - I felt that blended the yarn better.

The other socks I knit were a pair of simple worsted-weight cabled socks. I used some Big Ben I had in stash (in beautiful autumnal colors; it's truly a shame that most of the Socka yarns are out of production - they were good yarns, good quality, interesting color combinations. But I guess when Schoeller bought out Stahl they decided that Fortissima in sockweight was more important than the whole Socka family. Oh well).

I used a standard top-down sock but added in a 14-st (12-st if you don't count the two purl sts used to set off the cable) braid. This pattern is from the Knitting Stitch Bible, a nice if expensive new book of knitting stitches. (I had checked it out from the library in my parents' hometown, then looked at it at the Barnes and Nobles and decided that it wasn't worth $30 to me to have yet another stitch treasury).

I modified the pattern slightly to make it narrower.
Rows 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8: p1, k12, p1
Row 3: p1, slip 4 to cable needle and hold in front, k4, k4 from cable needle, k4, p1
Row 7: p1, k4, slip 4 to cable needle and hold in back, k4, k4 from cable needle, p1.

It makes an easily-remembered cable stitch and works up into a nice fat braid. I think I'll use this again,
on solid colored socks, so it'll be easier to see. I have some very old Stahl Hobby ("mit Merino," as it says) that is roughly sportweight that would look nice as a sock with a fat braid down the front.

My persistent headache (the one that started when I saw that Eggbert's passenger window was broken Thursday, and that continued through the afternoon's un-merriment, through the drive home, and through Friday) has finally lifted.

I'm in my office for a bit doing some minor tidying on a paper that has been accepted to the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science Whoo-hoo! It's always a good feeling to know you have a paper coming out. And even better for the tenure-dealy for me, because this was a research project that students did with me (that always looks good!)

FO #1 from the trip: I finished the Cabled and Ribbed socks from Heels and Toes Gazette. They are lavender. Every female who sees them comments on how pretty the color is.

FO#2 from the trip: Opal Tiger socks. Yeeeeeah! I did these by casting on 64 sts on size 2 dpns, knitting with a k3 p1 rib for about 8", and then changing to size 1 dpns for a slip-stitched heel (the typical old "heel stitch" - where you do sl 1, k1 on the right side rows) and the foot. I used a Half-handkerchief heel on these and a Round toe (described in Folk socks and also in the Heels and Toes gazette pattern for socks #1 above). I really like the Round Toe - it looks good, fits comfortably, and is easy to do. And no Kitchenering!

I'll report later on the other socks and on the other projects I did. Gotta get back to that paper because I also need to go to Sherman today (okay, so it's not a real need in the Maslow's Hierarchy sense, but I want to go...and it's time to replace the cheezy hoe I bought last fall that broke when I tried to use it on St. Augustine grass)

Not much to say today other than I'm back, I'm tired, and I'll post more later.

My passenger window was broken by vandals July 9 while my car was parked at the station in Longview. I got back yesterday and found that out. The good news is nothing was stolen from my car (freaking amazing; I had a cell phone in there, a GPS unit, a bag of yarn I bought at Stitches n Stuff, and a bag of books from Barrons). I got the window replaced with some hassle. I did lose the afternoon to that and didn't get to go to the Target for bookshelves like I planned.

Oh well. I'm still tired from the trip and am kind of headachy because I had to mow the lawn this morning. I did finish a couple pairs of socks and a shawl while on the trip. I'll talk about them later on.

It's good to be back home.