Who Who!

Who Who!

Well, look at me blogging again! That's twice in one week! Don't get too use to it.

I finished up these two Who hats that I found here. Pretty darn cute, don't you think? One is for that baby, Blake, and one is for Mara's baby that apparently will never come out.

Quick deer update: No sign of the evil one. Don't know if the Irish Spring is actually working, or if the creatures of darkness are haunting another neighborhood this week. We shall see...

Quick summer break update: So far my boys have spent almost all of their time outside, which suits me just fine, until they come in at the end of the day so filthy that I need to hose them down on the deck. Keith next door is nearly finished with the tree house his is building and rumor has it that Ryan and Eric will be packing their bags and moving into said tree house as soon as it's done. Again--I have no problem with that.

Quick job update: SphericalDave, husband of My Pink Toes, generously loaned Mike a laptop that, wait for it wait for it, works upon booting up. Each and every time. So that is making life a bit easier for the man who is spending every waking moment searching for jobs, applying for jobs, and networking with people who have jobs, all the live long day. Mike continues to apply for everything that moves and soon will have applied for every job posting in the world. One of those has got to work--right? We do have a couple of things we are a little more excited about than the average nameless faceless job, but we continue to wait and pray.

That all for now. Over and out.

Bob's Mom's Funeral Salad

By popular request (well, from 3 of you), here is the recipe for Bob's Mom's Funeral Salad.

About 40 years ago my dad's best friend, Bob's mom, died. More specifically, she took her life. And while that event in itself is tragic, this particular story is a little funny.

At Bob's mom's funeral, some anonymous person had brought this salad. My mom thought it was great and wrote down the ingredients. Since she never did figure out who brought that salad, we have always and forever called it Bob's Mom's Funeral Salad. Every summer, for the last 40 years, she has made this salad. And ever summer for the last 20 years, I have made it.

Several years ago Mike and I were sitting around my parents' kitchen and the subject of the salad came up. And suddenly my dad said "you call it WHAT?!?". My mom looked very uncomfortable and said that she had always called the salad Bob's Mom's Funeral Salad. "Really? This is how you have always referred to this salad?!?" Well, yes..... and suddenly, with a gleam in his eye, my dad exclaimed "It's suicide salad!"

So, without further ado--here is the recipe for:

BOB'S MOM'S FUNERAL SALAD

1. Cook one package of small sea shell pasta

2. At the same time, boil eggs (I use a tried and true method--put cold eggs into a pot of cold water, salt, cover, and bring to a boil. When the water starts to boil, turn the burner off and let the eggs sit on the burner for about 15 minutes. Voila!).

3. Drain the pasta and add the following: chopped celery, chopped sweet pickles, a couple of small cans of sliced black olives, and about 3/4 pound of shrimp.

4. Mix it all up with some mayo and salt and pepper.

5. Slice the boiled eggs and lay them over the top of the salad.

6. Refrigerate, preferably over night. The salad is best when the pickle juices and olive juices can really soak in.

Enjoy!

Weekly Update

Catawampus Hat

Hello All. I'm back again--this time with the pictures I promised. I have several updates for you, none of which is job related. We are STILL waiting to hear back from that interview. Apparently a key person was out of town for the week. Which is a very valid excuse for not calling my husband for a second interview and offering him the job with buckets of money. However, it was a long week waiting to hear that information. So we continue to look, and apply, and wait....

The scene of the crime

The deer. Sons of Satan. Masters of evil. Behind those soft brown eyes and fuzzy nose is the face of a killer.

So, I built this little fence out of the deer netting my friend gave me, but it seems it was not tall enough. Woke up one morning to find the tops of my roses and tomato plants gone. Fine. Need to build a taller fence. Keeping in mind of course that we're broke. Mike and I rummaged through the garage and found several pieces of spare molding that are quite tall and stuck those around the roses, draping the netting over them. It looks hideous. It looks awful. And I still don't think it's working.

Tuesday I went out in the garden for a bit to weed. I noticed one rose bush, closest to the house, actually had 3 roses on it. This bush is, honestly, not 10 feet from the big glass door which opens to the living room. It's right there. And on the other side of that door is the couch. The couch where I sat that afternoon to knit, with my back to the rose bushes. Later on that day I went outside to cut some peonies and thought I might as well cut those 3 roses while I'm at it.

Gone. The roses were gone. In broad daylight, just feet from me, while I had my back turned, they disappeared. The netting is still intact....72hours later I am still baffled. Roses there in the morning, gone in the afternoon. All I had to do was just turn my head. Now, you have to know, I have a big back yard. Any deer coming into my yard in broad daylight is walking several yards to get to those roses. And walking up onto the deck. That deer was 5 feet from me and I was completely oblivious to it. Lately I've been keeping that door wide open--I can only imagine how fun that would have been....

See that planter? Right there.
That is where the deer was.

My next trick is to remove the netting and place pieces of Irish Spring soap all around the rose garden. I've been told the strong scent is unpleasant to the deer and keeps them away. I'm not yet ready to let my husband pee in my garden, but I'm getting closer.

Who!

The knitting: I finished the Catawampus hat for my nephew Jack. I think it's a pretty awesome hat--just perfect for an 8 year old boy.And I'm nearly finished with Blake's owl hat. I just have to find little buttons for the owl eyes, to make them really stand out. This was a fun hat to make. I had a couple of skeins of Debbie Bliss Wool/Cotton in my stash (and where that came from, I'll never know!) and it was an easy knit. So fun, in fact, that I think my manager Mara will get one for her impending kid as well.

And I'm making Kristin a pair of Narragansett socks from A Fine Fleece out of the Pagewood Farms sock yarn that Jane gave me.

Narragansett Socks

Things that are broken at my house: Car window is fixed, Ryan's eyes are not. He had a thorough eye exam and they were not convinced he needed glasses. Apparently the eye doctor has seen a lot of kids lately who are complaining of blurry vision, and she thinks it might be the stress of the end of the school year. Perhaps that goes along with the fact that he has been pure evil lately. I'm suppose to bring him back in 6 weeks to see if there is any improvement.

The tv: Yes, after 8 months, Dish Network and our ABC affiliate finally came to an agreement and we now have ABC again. Actually, we have no idea how long we have had it back, since Dish didn't actually inform us of it. Mike just stumbled upon it a couple of night ago. "Hey, look at that--channel 4 is back". THAT is customer service, I tell you. No apologies, no notifications, in fact, no communication whatsoever. Clearly Dish is run by men. And what do you bet they remove the free channel they gave us for robbing us of ABC? Dish had given us The Hallmark Movie Channel as a special prize to make up for losing the ability to watch Lost, Desperate Housewives, The Academy Awards and the NBA Finals (when I emailed to ask if they planned to show The Academy Awards on The Hallmark Movie Channel, they didn't actually give me a response). I don't particularly want The Hallmark Movie Channel and don't really care if it is part of my package, but it would be just like them to try to charge us for another channel that is clearly costing them nothing, now that we've gotten access to ABC again.

I think the president of Dish Network is a deer.

He gets it from his mother

This is an essay written by Ryan in its unedited form. I found it in a pile of papers he brought home from school yesterday. Bad parents that we are, never have we laughed so hard. And yet it's a little frightening that even in his writing, Ryan takes after me. Only Ryan can write about his favorite day in a way that makes it seem like torture.

Easter Sunday

Have you ever took an hour just trying to get home from a ferry line in Whidbey Island? I have. It's not much fun. That is what happened at the end of the story.

This is what happend first. First I packed up about a million things to go to my grandparent's house in Whidbey Island. We went there because it was Easter. We drove from Renton all the way to the Ferry Boat close to Seattle. When we got off the boat we took about five minutes getting to my grandparents house.

Next we got in and ate lunch. For lunch we had baken, orange juice, and cinnamen roles. I loved the cinnamen roles!

Then, my cousins came. We all said hello. The worsed part of it was this: haircuts. It was a good thing I didn't get my hair too short! All my cousins , my brother, and I played hide-and-seek. When we finished playing Hide-and-Seek, my cousins and I got out swim suits on and jumped into my grandparent's hot tub. It was very fun!

Last, like I said it is very boring sitting in the car waiting to get on the ferry boat. Luckily my family got to see my cousins on the boat! We went outside and watched the boat move.

That was my favorite Easter Sunday.

Thursday News

Ellie's Koolhaas Hat

Hello people--yep, it's Thursday again. My unofficial blogging day. Let's see, what's new in my world. A whole lot of nothing.

I did finish my niece Ellie's Koolhaas hat, which I think is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. And I know she will love it, so I'm very excited to give it to her. Even my husband, a person lacking in all details, commented on how much he liked it.

What's new on the job front, you ask? Well, Mike had his job interview a week ago. It was a screening interview, which he thought went well. And what have we heard since then? Zippo. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Goose Egg. So the hunt continues. We are still hoping to hear from this particular company, but until an actual offer presents itself, the search must go on. And on. And on....Don't I sound optimistic and hopeful? I'm just a bright ray of sunshine these days. In fact, if you ask "how are you?" in just the right way, I may burst into tears right in front of you. Just ask Tiffany's mother-in-law. Oh yes, I'm just spreading happiness and joy where ever I go these days.

Glenwood Socks for Caroline

I did finish my sister's socks, so that can be considered a worthy accomplishment.

I also have a couple more hats I am making, one for Ellie's brother, and one for that baby Blake, but naturally I forgot to take pictures of them before beginning this post, so you lose. We'll try for next time, ok?

And now it's time for a really fun segment called ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE BROKEN AT MY HOUSE:

1. The garage door. Yep, still broken. Apparently those things don't fix themselves.

2. The front window. See #1.

3. My tomato plants and roses. The deer fencing I put up apparently was not tall enough, as I discovered the other morning. Bastards.

4. My Blue Potato Vine, the crowning glory of my front yard. A helpless victim of this last winter's prolonged subfreezing temperatures, now an ugly brown stump. In my front yard.

5. My husband's laptop, i.e. job-hunting-machine. His monitor stops working periodically. For significant periods of time. Very helpful when you're at Starbucks for the day researching jobs and in the middle of an on-line application. That's not frustrating at all.

6. Alice, the passive aggressing neurotic peeing cat. She seems to be irked at us again. For any number of reasons. And is taking it out on our comforter. Again.

7. The sucking/dirt picking up power of my Target vacuum.

8. Ryan's eyes. Apparently he can't see anymore, so he gets to go to the eye doctor tomorrow to determine if he needs glasses. That doesn't sound expensive at all.

9. And the newest addition to ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE BROKEN AT MY HOUSE: my car window. Yep, that's right. The driver's side window to my van. Which I stupidly opened yesterday while waiting in the car at school so Eric and I wouldn't suffocate in 80 degree weather. As I started the car I tried to shut the window and heard a loud CLUNK. Which is the sound of my window being stuck inside of the door. ARE YOU &#@!*@& kidding me?!? That was an actual fist-shaking-to-the-heavens moment for me. Really. The car window. Two days before it is suppose to rain. The ONLY thing that kept me from completely losing it with a car full of kids is the fact that my brother-in-law owns a garage. Guess he'll get a pair of socks too. That Jane has no idea how her sock yarn is blessing the people in my life.

The broken window comes on the heels of our dead 4 year old refrigerator (according to Sears, this was our fault for failing to vacuum under our fridge on a regular basis and so the dust that collected overheated the motor. Seriously, that is what the Sears repairman said. First of all, that is never going to happen. Second of all, see #7). So you can see why I'm feeling especially cursed these days.

You may now refer to me as Mrs. Job.

Global Warming Is Trying To Kill Me

Hi People. Short blog today. It is approximately 1 million degrees out and my brain can't function when I am on fire. Seattle was never meant to be over 75 degrees. When Seattle was invented the highs were 75 and a little overcast. I don't know whose idea it was to crank it up to 90+ this week, but it was unauthorized, I assure you. When I find out who did this, I am writing a letter to their manager. 95 in June is just flat out UNACCEPTABLE. Do you hear that? UNACCEPTABLE. We don't have air conditioning because we live in Seattle. Which means my newest form of exercise is running around the house at 7:00 am and opening up all the windows while it is still below 85 (and I know there are those of you out there who prescribe to the "make your house into a cave by shutting all the blinds and pretending no one is home when someone knocks on the door" theory. We can't do that because we don't have blinds on all our windows. If I shut all my windows and hid behind the couch like you do, I would just fry like an ant under a magnifying glass).

Here's a quick recap of life at the castle:

--Today is Mike's job interview. In about 8 minutes. It is 105 degrees out and he is wearing wool gabardine pants, a wool blazer, and a tie. Blech. Good thing the interview is at 9, before he has time to melt.

--Ellie's Koolhaas hat is really fun. I would take a picture but that involves me getting up and finding my camera. More physical energy than I am capable of right now.

--Now that I have defiled my garden with deer netting, there has been zero evidence of deer. Of course. But you know I can't take it down because the second I do they will all make a beeline for my yard and start pushing and shoving for a place at the front of the line. Much like a certain kindergarten class I know.

It is suppose to rain this weekend, which makes me practically giddy with excitement. Perhaps I'll be able to write more then, when my fingers are no longer fused to a melted keyboard.