Like So Many Things...

I didn't succeed in finishing 7 miles of knitting by October first. I really like lofty goals, especially because when I don't meet them I'm not overly fussed. I really, really would like to finish the 11-Mile Quest by December 31, though. For reals.

I did manage to churn out a bunch of knits, stay project-focused (mostly), and rekindle my love of spinning. I also managed to not buy any more yarn.  I made a very successful Yarn Trade with Spilly Jane in which I gave her my poor unloved Kauni and she gave me some Mad Tosh Merino Light and some Knit Picks Shadow - I'm pretty sure I won that round, but shhh! The overall yardage in was higher than the yardage out, but at least it's yards I'll actually end up knitting. My last September finished knit is my Sacred Scarf, which I cast off and sewed the ends into almost exactly as my train from the Bay Area pulled in to Sacramento yesterday evening. I'm quite pleased with it and will not be giving it away no matter who asks. Unless it's The 4 Closer, because she's effing incredible and I would bribe her with knitting to be my friend if I thought she'd let me. 

Regia Silk/Wool and Cascade Heritage Silk, 652 yds. total

But anyway. 

I have a bunch of things with a good amount of yardage knitted into them already. My High Seas shawl has only 60 rows and the edging to be done, the Tide Pool Pi is less finished but it's been TV knitting, which has to share time with TV spinning (and you know how well that's been going! Yay!). My Rosebud Shawl hasn't seen much action, but a girl can only focus on so many things at once, right? Plus I haven't quite figured out Fleegle's no-purl garter stitch method, so there is a LOT of purling. Ick.

And then there are the bebehs. I'm going to a joint baby shower with two of my good friends on October 29th. They're besties and of course are due right around the same time, but in a fit of pique that can ONLY be aimed at me, one of them refuses to figure out the gender of her baby until it's born. I ask you, how am I supposed to knit matching baby outfits if I don't know whether or not I can make this adorable baby dress?

Evelyn thinks this is SO RUDE. 

And then there's a wedding on December 10th in Arizona that I have to go to, and my Awful Ex will be there so naturally I need to look smashing and have something I can throw over my shoulders that exactly matches my dress and I can say, "Oh, this old thing?" Because that's how you do when you see your Awful Ex at a wedding and you're the only single people there. My secret weapons are: a Groupon for 6 weeks of CrossFit and the 2 weeks I'll be spending in Mexico in November.  And some killer shoes.*

Well, it lacks 50 minutes to October first, so I think I'll plug myself back in to Pride and Prejudice and see if I can knock some of those rows out of the High Seas shawl. I could conceivably finish it tomorrow, and then there would be pictures! 

*Whether they slay him or kill me first is up for debate.

The Long Draw

I've decided it's time to learn how to spin.

"What?" I hear you say. "Isn't that handspun in your last post?" Well, yes, it is. And I spun it, which means I know how to spin already.

What I mean is, I'd like to know that such-and-such a fiber would be best spun such-and-such a way, to be able to spin multiple thicknesses of yarn on purpose (as opposed to varying degrees of thin), to spin fluffy yarns or tight sock yarns as I choose, and to spin stuff like this for fun:

Sparkles! Flowers! So cheerful! 

Puffy! The orange reminds me of a certain favorite Sister of the Art for some reason...

Basically, I want to be the boss of my spinning.

Now that my desires have been established, let me take you back to the very early days of my current knitting career. I learned to knit English style, with the working yarn in my right hand. In its infinite wisdom, the Internet informed me that this was not, in fact, the only way to knit! I found a video, watched it a mazillion times, cursed a lot, and learned to knit Continental, with the working yarn in my left hand. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience to take something my muscles already knew how to do and try to change it.

Learning to spin long draw is much like that experience. Here is my first attempt, rudely chain-plied and completely unstable, unstructured and not really good for anything:

48 yards!

Still, it's finished, and I learned something. For the next attempt I dug into my Copperpot Woolies bag and pulled out 5.1 oz of the Prairie Lady colorway. I don't really know why I bought this one, although I suspect the wool fumes may have something to do with it. The colors aren't my favorite (what gave it away?), so it was first in line to become Long Draw Experiment #2:

132 yds., sport-to-bulky weight

This one worked out better, although I still have some serious kinks to work out with the next experiment, which will happen when I come back from Portland next week.

In the mean time, I've revived a project I started back when I was still living in San Jose. I haven't done a lot of spinning since then so I have no idea why it's easier this time around, but it is. When I started spinning this Falkland from Pigeon Roof Studios, it immediately spun very fine. I've never really encountered a yarn that "wanted" to spin at a certain weight, but this one definitely does. With a very little fluffing and pre-drafting - which might account for it being easier to spin now - it wound onto the bobbin at a very satisfactory rate.

I don't have any illusions that this yarn will be finished before October; I got 2 braids as a gift from my friend Colleen that weight in at 232 grams, of which I've spun... 32 grams. It'll make a lovely addition to my spun yarn total by the end of the year, though!

Fiber Surprise!

On Monday I delved into my Box of Surprise Spinning and pulled out one of the Big Bags. What can I say? After a weekend of completed spinning projects, I was feeling cocky.

Remember me from Monday? I knew you would.

Even though I packed the bags myself, and even though I thought I had an idea of what could be in it, I still jumped up and down a little and squealed "Ooooooo! Yay!" when I opened it.

It feels like sheepy clouds.

I should hide things from myself more often if I'm that easily delighted, is what I'm saying.

UFO Files: Be-Bop-a-Lula Yarn

I woke up this morning convinced that my calves would be abominably sore; after all, I plied roughly 8.5 ounces of yarn last night!

Proto-yarn! 

I actually laid in bed and stretched experimentally for a few minutes before I realized that roller derby had given me a gift in the form of Calves of Doom (not to be confused with the Ass of Doom or the Thighs of Doom, which generally follow the Calves in short order. Oh, derby.).

When I was preparing to go to Coal City last summer I weighed out a bump of Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino fiber from my (extensive) collection. I wanted a 3-ply, so I divided it into 3 smaller bumps by weight and took it with me to Illinois, where I got through about 2 2/3 bobbins before I came back to sunny California.

The singles have sat in my Loet Victoria bag ever since, waiting patiently for their revival.

After finishing the Bright Fig yarn on Friday, I pulled out the Vic and finished up the singles on Saturday, then spent the bulk of yesterday plying on the Schact while watching the last few episodes of The Tudors on Netflix.

Bobbin #1: 3-ply marl

I wound the yarn off the bobbins this morning, soaked it, and dried it on a rack outside my back door.

Ooo, kinky. 

One skein is a traditional 3-ply, as I had planned, and the second is a chain-ply. They are both bouncy and cheerful and the pictures don't really do justice to how green the yarn is. I was worried that it would be over-plied and kink up all over the place like the picture above, but after a soak and dry, it's perfectly balanced! Hurrah!

3-ply, 510 yds.

Chain-ply, 450 yds.

I'm not a huge fan of the marled look of the first skein - although it's growing on me in all the delight of LOOKIT WHAT I MADE!! - so I tried the chain-ply to see if I would like it better. I'm not certain that I do, but if looking through pictures of handspun on Ravelry has taught me anything, it's that going from fiber to yarn to finished garment can completely surprise me. Perhaps I'll knit dueling baby sweaters and see which one comes out the victor!

Next up: learning to spin long-draw with some ancient Copperpot Woolies bats from The Stash! But first, what mystery fiber does this bag contain?

Something AWESOME, I have no doubt!

In Which I Make Yarn

I always have a nagging suspicion that making my own yarn is ridiculous, especially given how much commercially-spun yarn I already have. On the surface, it's a no-win situation: the fiber costs just as much as yarn that's already made, it takes for-ev-er to create, and in the end I'm left with yet another material as opposed to a finished product.

But spinning is more than that, somehow. It is meditative in a way that knitting often is not. That isn't to say that knitting is not meditative; it's just a different kind of meditation. One that recently has involved a disproportionate amount of swearing, in fact. Not being able to count tends to hinder proper knitting.

The meditation of spinning comes in the rhythm of treadling and the quiet whirr of the wheel; on my cherry wood Schact it sounds like rain and sometimes I can almost smell wet earth.

For a long time I've neglected my spinning for one reason or another. Some of those reasons are pretty small - as in less than 10 feet - but they make a difference and I'm suddenly interested again. For this project I wanted to try lining up the plies of a 2-ply to make a self-striping yarn. It's more difficult than it looks because unless your spinning is perfectly even, there's bound to be some differences in thickness.

Clearly my spinning is not even.

In retrospect I probably should have done a simple, straight-up spinning project first to remind my muscles how this whole process works and to iron out my singles. That pile of wasted singles definitely took some of the meditation out of plying, even if I did have a disc of Fringe season 1 to keep me from shrieking obscenities at no one but myself.

All in all, however, I'm pretty chuffed with the finished yarn:

Girl on the Rocks 100% merino in "Bright Fig." 716 yards, 2-ply, 101g. 

I'm looking forward to winding it into a yarn cake and showing you all how cool it looks. Now I just need to find a pattern...

UFO Files: Shetland Shorty

Last spring I started making the Shetland Shorty pattern from Knitty Summer '08. I used some black Panda Silk that I've had in my stash forever - I think I bought it in San Jose when Commuknity went out of business.

I made it through the garter stitch ties, the honeycomb lace body, and the 3-needle bind-off before the ends began to unravel from under the sleeves. It turns out that a yarn made of bamboo and silk doesn't stick to itself as well as a yarn made of wool; go figure. It's been in Time Out ever since with a vague impression of "UGH re-work ends..." attached to it.

Today I pulled it out along with a bottle of Fray-Check, that incredibly useful sewing glue, and set to work.

Dear Reader, you may imagine my amusement and irritation when I tell you that it took literally fifteen minutes to finish the garment. A spot of glue here and there, a re-knitting of 3 rows of sleeve, and a bind-off were all that was left. After fourteen months of avoidance, a mere fifteen minutes sufficed to take the (admittedly tiny) weight of this project off of my mind.

Better pictures to follow, but for now it's blocking:

Crystal Palace Panda Silk, Black, 380 yds.

Instinct tells me that it will grow a bit, which is fine since I made it a little snug in the first place. The yardage gives me a bit of breathing room on the 11-Mile Quest, as I'm finding it difficult to knit 126 yards of lace per day even though I started a Pi Shawl for relatively easy, low-pattern knitting.

Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud, "Tidepool" 1760 yds in stash.

I may have to branch out and start some sock-weight projects!

For Those Who...

The Rosebud Shawl is an "audiobook knit." That is to say, I can't knit on it and watch TV - no matter how cerebral (or not ::coughBuffycough::) that television may be - but I can listen to an audiobook and make fairly regular progress.

So for TV watching and mileage-increasing purposes, I pulled out the Moderne Baby Blanket (pdf link!) that I started back in 2009 when Evelyn was the size of a can of beans in her mother's womb. In true knitterly fashion, the blanket is finally finished in plenty of time for her second birthday!

Knit Picks Comfy yarn in Blackberry, Planetarium, Honeydew, and Cashew. 1603 yards.

I really liked not needing to block this or wash it or ANYTHING before it was considered finished! I'm toying with the idea of knitting another one; I've got 5 skeins each of off-white and chocolate brown Comfy in my stash, so it would only require two more colors (or 1.5 more colors since I have almost 2 skeins left of both the Blackberry and Planetarium). For those who care, I followed Kelly Petkun's advice of doing an applied i-cord edging instead of a garter stitch one. I like the finished look much better, although if (ok, when) I end up doing this again I'll probably do both a garter stitch border and an i-cord edging for extra contrast around the block pattern.

Alas, my Knitting Schedule has reared its ugly head and I don't have time before my deadlines to knit any more simple garter stitch projects. Or maybe I do... ::looks at the list of babies due in the next 6 months::

For those keeping track (me), there are 44 days left until October 1st, when I would like to have finished knitting and/or spinning 7 miles-worth of yarn. There are 5,558 yards left to complete, so that makes 126 yards per day. YIKES! I gotta go...

My Favorite Baby

I went to visit Jer and Eliz in San Francisco last week and took full advantage of the time to huff my favorite niece:

Now with more yogurt!

She's now just over 22 months old.

And obviously cute as a button. What does that even mean, anyway?

She's definitely still a tiny little thing.

But that little package holds a whole lot of hilarity.

And also teeth. 

Plus, I've finally graduated from being "N-T Kaka" to being TIKA!

Consolidation not Consolation

My Knitting Deadlines list is getting out of hand. There are upcoming babies, weddings, celebrations of various kinds, and all between now and January. Yikes! Last week I was looking through my stash on Ravelry - because why would I look at the ACTUAL stash when I can just browse through pictures?!? - and realized that a lot of what I know I have wasn't listed. This prompted a 2-day Stash Toss that involved my laptop, a camera set-up, and two huge uploads to Flickr of yarn that I knew on some level that I had but didn't know where it was.

I managed to catalog everything I could find; now it's a matter of inputting the yarn and images into Ravelry. And then the fiber stash needs to be done, because that's never been put into Ravelry. Lazy Raveler, no cookie!

And at the end of the day, the results appear depressingly minimal:

I emptied out the box on the left and 3/4-filled the box on the right. Argh.

But by heck, I know where all my yarn is and I have pictures of all of it! Now to just work through enough that I don't need overflow bins at all...

Nerd Books

I have a lot of books that a layperson would probably dismiss as "nerdy." I did a quick perusal of my shelves and confirmed that they are largely made up of differing categories:

Theater Nerd Books:
The Theater and Its Double - Artaud
Brecht on Theater - Willett
Norton's Complete Shakespeare - Norton and (of course) Shakespeare

Literary Nerd Books:
The Mysteries of Udolpho - Radcliffe
The Annotated Pride and Prejudice and The Annotated Sense and Sensibility - Austen
Aurora Leigh - Browning

Anthology Nerd Books:
17th Century Verse
18th Century Verse
Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry

Classics Nerd Books:
The Essential Plato
The Essential Dante
Antigone - Sophocles
The Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle

Scholastic Nerd Books:
Major Voices: 18th Century Women Playwrights
A History of Italian Renaissance Art
The Art and Architecture of Islam: 1250-1800
Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries

In my living room alone, there are seven dictionaries, four novels by Dickens, two copies each of Moby Dick and The Essential Koran, and more Barnes & Noble Classics editions than I can easily count.

But despite book spines that proudly announce their contents to be A Dictionary of Fictional Characters or Etruscan Art, and despite that there are authors on my shelves whom most people have probably never heard of (Burney, Trollope, Boccaccio), I'm pretty sure I just opened a box containing the single nerdiest book I have ever owned. Behold:

That's right. It's Harry Potter in Latin. 

You Spin Me

Last night instead of going to derby I went to The Ballroom in Sacramento and took the beginning Charleston and intermediate East Coast Swing classes. It. Was. Incredible.

Derby has been frustrating me for awhile; I haven't felt like I'm getting any better, and the bar for passing to the next level has been getting further and further away. I rolled my ankle (on skates!) at the beginning of July and it hasn't been the same since, and while I don't have many issues with crowds, I do get the heebie-jeebies (and occasionally throw a punch) when random people touch me - something that I didn't anticipate being a problem in derby, probably because I didn't know anything about derby when I started. So I'm taking a month off to reassess (it's apparently a theme this summer) and to try out the world of ballroom dance.

It is so nice to be in a world where my Dance Resume, as it were, has some weight. One does not enjoy discovering that 20 years of serious work and dedication can be dismissed by a casual, "yea, but did you do it with wheels on your feet?" Especially if that One is Me. The owner of The Ballroom said that I could potentially be at competition level in 6-9 months.

It's nice to be in a dance world where, at 32, I am not the weird old fat person at the end of the barre. 

It's nice to be in a world with an amusing and intelligent dance instructor who is a good dancer, a good teacher, and has a crinkly smile. Ahem. That little crush clearly didn't take long to develop; I trust that it won't take long for it to dissipate, either. 

I hear some of you thinking, "But Tika, won't ballroom dance also require other people to touch you?" The answer to that is a decided yes, but I figure that working through that challenge in an environment where I feel successful is good. It's been a long time since I strapped shoes on my feet and danced anywhere but at a club. 

I am so excited. This isn't Home, but it is in the same vicinity as Where I Grew Up, and for the moment it feels really, really good. 

A Little Night Maths

October first is 61 days away.
October first is also the day I'd like to click over the Mile 7 mark on my 11-Mile Quest.

I am currently 121 yards short of the Mile 4 mark.
Therefore, I need to knit (1760x3)+121 yards to hit Mile 7.

5401 yards / 61 days = 88.5 yards per day, not including spinning singles for plied yarn. Singles yarns have never looked so attractive.


I'm going to need a wrist replacement by the time I'm 40.

It's Time to Re-assess

It is amazing what effect a small change can have on my crafting. For example, I recently moved my spinning wheel from one side of the sofa to the other:

Not pictured: spinning wheel.

Now it lives between my computer desk and the sofa, and I use it much more often! The sticking point was that my sofa is too low to comfortably spin from it, so I have to use my desk chair. When the wheel is within a 3-foot scooting radius, it gets more use. Geometry at work! 

Before I went to Disneyland I managed to finish the first half of the Bright Fig roving:

The yarn will be so pretty!

And since then I'm about 1/3 through with the second bobbin. I'm trying to spin it evenly so that the 2 plies will match up through most of the yarn, but we'll see. 

Since I've been on a Shetland Shawls kick it feels like my 11-Mile Quest has slowed down considerably. Lace knitting takes longer than sock knitting (but apparently not as long as sweater knitting ::coughSalinacough::), so I'm trying to find projects that are half-finished - like the Great Bebeh Project (a KP Shine Moderne Baby Blanket) - that are somewhat mindless. I'm also thinking about overdyeing a bunch of my sock remnants to make a log cabin blanket of some sort, but I haven't come to any conclusions on that yet. I am nearly finished spinning the third bobbin of singles for the Be-Bop-a-Lula that I was working on in Coal City last summer, so once the Bright Fig is finished I'll be pulling that out and finishing it up. 

My tentative goal is to be at 7 miles by the beginning of October. That's roughly 4 miles worth of knitting/spinning, which is *ahem* more than I've accomplished in the last eight months, so it'll be a challenge indeed! 

What a Trip

(Formerly) Crazy Sarah and I went to Disneyland in mid-July, where we rode rides

Grrrrr!

Creepy! 

Watched the end of the parade:

It's a jolly holiday with Mary

Had (very strong) cocktails at Ariel's Grotto:

The Bloody Mary's were surprisingly and pleasantly spicy.  

Did the obligatory posing next to statues:

No one carries a watch anymore.

And of course, rode rides:

Do the Disney Muppet!

We also took a day trip down to San Diego where we visited the incredibly talented Jackie Dunn Smith at Flying Panther Tattoo. I've been wanting to turn this image into a tattoo since I saw it at the Wild West Showdown in March, and Jackie took it and created this, which is even better than I had imagined:

This was taken a few minutes after the tattoo was finished, so all of the dark looks black. Now that it's more healed, the book itself is a beautiful blue. I effing LOVE it, and I've been wearing low-backed shirts since I got it. 

The trip was a lot of fun; I haven't done a Grown Up Disney trip in awhile and I had forgotten how much I like it. Here are the rest of the pictures; the crop of Crying Disney Kids was very low for some reason, but there are still a few for your enjoyment. I know I enjoyed it! 

I DO Believe in Fairies!!

This is pretty much how I've felt all day about the book I just bought:

In this scenario, I am Ziegler and the book is Satine. 

I definitely clutched it to my chest, although it's more difficult to overtly grope a book than for Ziegler to grope his Little Strawberry, it would seem. But I tried. Do you blame me? The cover of this book is sexy, y'all.

Now with more Jaime Lannister? Mrowr.

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving my house early and heading down to (Formerly) Crazy Sarah's, where we will get into her car - blessedly air-conditioned as my car is not - and drive to Disneyland! I'm stoked and will get sunburnt and do very little reading or knitting, but I will take both with me in case of downtime. At the moment I'm about 90% packed and already in pajamas so I can make some popcorn and crack open this delicious book. I may raise a toast to it beforehand; 5 years is a long time to wait! 

Chipping Away

Despite not participating in the annual Tour de Fleece this year, I have been reading many blog and forum posts about the progress of other people's Tour de Fleece goals, and it's been causing me to give my poor neglected Matchless the side eye.

Those of you with long memories for my personal spinning goals will remember my leap onto Spindlicity's Stashdown 2011 bandwagon. (For those of you who don't, here is a link. I won't judge you if you click it.) I must have done something wrong since it took me less than a month to tumble off of that particular vehicle, and the Matchless has sat in a corner of my living room with 1/2 of January's project on it for 7 months. I admit that every time I considered the Tour de Fleece I made myself look at that bobbin full of singles and cringed a little inside.

But on Wednesday I decided to (literally) dust off my wheel, give it a coat of lemon oil, and do some spinning. Halfway through the second bobbin of singles I remembered that my derby friend Bite Size had a birthday this weekend, and I decided to give the finished yarn to her. This is not as random as it seems; she is an avid crocheter. Yesterday I plied and this morning after derby practice I skeined, soaked, and set the final project out to dry:

Copperpot Woolies "Chantilly Lace," 220 yards.

It came out squishy and soft and more the purple-ish of the first picture. She was THRILLED and couldn't believe that I'd made it myself, which I found a little hilarious considering that she's an artist! But I'm pleased as punch that this yarn went to someone who will make something out of it relatively soon; I tend to hoard my handspun much like I hoard my yarn and fiber, despite knowing in my head that even if I ruin it, there is always more wool in the world.

But don't cheer too loudly for my stashdown progress yet; back in April I fell down and ordered some Polwarth from Fat Cat Knits, but I made a deal with myself that I couldn't open the package until the current project was off of my bobbins. Well, that day is today, so I opened it! (See? Sometimes I have self-control. Just don't get used to it.)

It was worth the wait.

"Curry," 4 oz.

"Magnolia," 6 oz.

I fell in love with the Magnolia colorway after perusing thing4string's truly amazing Flickr stream. That woman is not only an excellent spinner, but she's also prolific! I wonder if those two things go hand-in-hand? Hmmm.....
Although I'm certain that I've missed the Stashdown 2011 bandwagon entirely by this time, I did go and pull out another brown paper bag with a mystery fiber in it. Inside was a pleasant, cheerful surprise:

Girl on the Rocks "Bright Fig" merino,  4.3 oz

I bought this at Color: A Fiber Festival back in 2008(!!!). I wonder how long it'll take me to spin it up? Maybe I should go start now. After all, between the Chantilly Lace (5.5 oz) and this, I'd be very close to net zero fiber input for 2011, which I'm fairly certain hasn't happened since I discovered spinning back in 2007.

That's what I call Progress.

I Have Had this Congress

Last Thursday I set off for Philadelphia, PA, to watch the Sacred City Sacrificers play in the 5th annual East Coast Derby Extravaganza.

It. Was. Awesome.

I listened to 1776 the Musical in the airport both going and coming home; after all, it seemed only appropriate. The other passengers may have looked a bit askance while I bopped and mouthed the words, but as I'll never see most of them again (Rose City Rollers A-Team, the Wheels of Justice, were on my plane so I'll probably see THEM again), I didn't care at all.

Then I spent a glorious 24 hours with my dear friend Brie. We went to high school together and she is one of the few people from Juneau that I keep in touch with.

Old friends are the best friends!

We went to her local(ish) yarn store, The Tangled Web, where I couldn't resist this particular yarn:

Silky Wool XL in pink and burgundy. WOOT!

I also bought the most aDORable buttons for my Sacred Tempest Sweater (still not finished but much closer!!):

I also rescued a bunch of unloved sock yarn from Brie, who has an aversion to my beloved Lorna's Laces (the horror!). She was going to donate it to charity, but instead she donated it to ME. Hooray!

Then I left Brie and joined up with Sacred. I didn't get many photos of the actual skating, but if you check out Photography by D.E.sign on Facebook, there are lots of great photos. Donalee is the BEST. One photo I definitely stole from her is this one:

Rhymes with "Jones."

My derby name was accepted on June 23, the same day I left for Philly! It didn't take long to break out the glitter paint and get to work. Yea, I said glitter paint; it turns out derby requires more sparkles than a Madonna video from the 1980's. On Monday a bunch of us toured around in downtown Philly. We saw the Liberty Bell:

The crack is on the other side. Oh well! 

And a derby rules sign in the wild:

and generally had a boatload of fun. Then it was time to come home, and I was SO READY. Derby weekends are not known for their restfulness, y'all. Or their healthy effect on vocal cords; I currently sound like a frog, which is a definite improvement over Monday! I managed to get bumped off my flight in Denver despite the text messages from my bed and my kitty about how much they missed me. It got me $400 in United Airlines credit, which will be used to off-set the price of my ticket to go to Puerto Vallarta with the family this Thanksgiving! I got home at noon on Tuesday and it was totally worth every sleepless moment.

On Tuesday night I went to practice and worked out a bit, then on my way home I remembered that my milk had expired and stopped at Safeway, where I wandered around for 45 minutes putting random things in my cart, including the ingredients for the first Caprese Salad of the summer:

Best salad of all time. Final.

I can't wait for my own tomatoes to ripen! I also made creme fraiche using the recipe Brie posted on her blog, but with the addition of 1.5 tablespoons of sugar since I use it exclusively on top of fresh fruit, which for the next few days will be the FOUR POUNDS of strawberries I got at the store. Yeesh. I was a bit dubious about leaving dairy products on the counter for 24 hours, but it worked and now I have 2 cups of deliciousness in my fridge with only 3 ingredients! Science is fun. Next up might be my own mozzarella so that my 6-ingredient Caprese can be 1/2 homegrown!