Yay, classes start today. I think I'm ready to have a more regular schedule again. Because of some reshuffling (we have one person on sabbatical, one person on maternity leave, and one person who is having to take medical leave) to accomodate our adjuncts, I now teach all my classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (except for one lab on Thursday that I'm covering until the maternity-leave person comes back - probably midsemester or before).

But no Monday evening class this year, which is kind of a relief.

I did do some knitting this weekend. The thing I did the most on were the Snicket socks:



I like the pattern better now that I've got a full repeat of it done. It's still kind of tight and fiddly (and I best not work on it for too long a session at a time; it does make my hands hurt), but I like the way it looks.

I am going to do a standard flapped heel rather than the short-rowed "hourglass" type heel in the original pattern; flapped heels fit my foot better.

I also started back in on the sleeves of the Greek pullover. It's kind of nice to have some uncomplicated knitting.

Annnnnd.....first Horseshoe Crab socks sighting! Karin is making them, scroll down to the last photo on that post for a "sneak peek." I like the colors and it makes me so happy to see my little pattern being interpreted by other people.


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I also did some cooking this weekend. I baked bread again - this time, using the "rapid white loaf" in that bread book I keep talking about. I altered the recipe a bit, adding 1/4 cup of wheat germ (I had wanted to make the wheat germ bread in the book, but it took more flour than would fit in my bread machine and it wasn't an easy recipe to scale back).

Wheat germ is a good addition to plain white bread. Next time I might try it using honey as the sweetener.

I also decided - after the potato fiasco - that one thing that helps get rid of a strong bad smell is to replace it with a strong good smell. And I'd been wanting to try a new (to me) way of preparing beans - it's called "Soup Beans" and is supposedly an Appalachian recipe, though it's really very similar to how folks around here make beans.

Part of the recipe involves cooking a whole onion in with the beans, so the good smells of onion and garlic took over my kitchen.

(Soup beans are very simple. Basically what you do is boil a pound of dry beans in 12 cups of water, with an onion, a clove of garlic, some salt, some pepper, some cayenne, and 8 ounces of diced ham. You simmer it until the beans are soft, then you take out a couple cups of the beans and mash them to thicken the liquid. I halved the recipe and it still made a great deal. Also, next time, I think I will add a bay leaf with the onion and garlic - the beans were missing just one certain taste, and I think a bay leaf will correct that. Or maybe a clove or two stuck in the onion. I may try both.)