Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

Remember that from last semester? Yeah. What did that job last? A week? HA! I've beaten that with this semesters' work study.  My work entails streaking petri dishes with bacteria, as well as inoculating broths with said bacteria. I also make more media to put into those petri dishes. Yeah, that's more like what I do every working day Each of these tasks is a skill. Yep, a skill I've had to learn and am still learning. Yesterday's mistake was that I should've set the media I just made into the autoclave and ran it through. TOTALLY forgot about it while I was doing other stuff.  But while I'm perfecting these skills, I'm getting $9.00 an hour instead of minimum wage. So the question I always ask about a minimum wage job with minimum wage skills is this: If I can walk into your job and with about 5 minutes of 'training' DO your job, then your skills are worth minimum wage. I don't think that other people could do what I do with 5 minut...

Lots of challenges going around on Facebook.  Here's a challenge I have for everyone: 1. Donate whatever money you want to whatever charity you feel would benefit from that cash. Don't post a video of it, don't throw water on your head. Do NOT- I repeat DO NOT- challenge others to do so. What a person can give to a charity and to what charity they believe is beneficial is none of your concern. 2. I've seen the 'gratitude' challenge. Dude, if you need someone to TELL you to be grateful, you've got problems. Even in my worst days: my worst pain, my most desolate times, there were things to be grateful about. Even if that gratitude was that I woke up alive that day. If you're stuck in a complaint rut, think about 5 good things that happened to you today, even if one is that you got dressed correctly. My list of gratitude is endless. When you see geese dance like that, it always brings a smile to my face. That's George, by the way...drying off a...

Grebe. Thing happen around here that are both fascinating and just odd.  Last Friday, Dave was settling down for a good nap. We're getting over our colds slowly. Chores were done, and he had the time... A Coworker of his calls, they have what they say is a juvenile goose that's near their pond. We have geese, come over and get it before their dogs get it. The Coworker has hunting dogs trained for retrieving geese, ducks and pheasant. So there's sort of a rush rush to this scenario.  I wake up Dave, we put the dog kennel in the back of the Jeep and head on out to the other side of town.  What's funny is that there IS another side of town when the town's population is about 1,300 people. The coworker's place is off a dirt road near a creek. He's got a pond, but it's frozen over right now, and some nice work areas to perpetuate his hobby of fixing up old cars.  We get out, he points over near the pond and there sits a bird. It's small enough to b...

Classes start again at the end of the month. I'm using the time to rest . Usually that would mean not doing much, but in my case it means doing what I want to do instead of have to do. So....I'm knitting, spinning and sewing. The first up is the baby quilt fresh off the sewing machine. It's a zig-zag pattern that is inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. No, really! I actually DID something I saw on Pinterest! The pattern is a bugger though. In order to get the zig-zag lines to come out right, you need to put a solid color between the patterned pieces and keep the same solid color throughout. I sewed a top last Saturday that was just tragic because the lighter stripes were not consistent. The gray thing is a sweater. It's from the book Men's Knits: 20 New Classics  . It's the one called the Tweed Cabled Sweater.    It is one sleeve short of completion. I was knitting this for any male in my house, but a preliminary pre-blocking fit test showed that I...

They are random and quirky 1. I don't like phones.  I don't call people unless forced to.  I don't like answering phones.  It's as close to a phobia as I can get.  After 10+ years in customer service answering phones with people on the other end yelling that I screwed up something I've never created, packaged nor shipped....well I correlate phones with bad.  You want my attention? Email me. 2. I don't like my cuffs wet.  It's just icky feeling to me. 3. I never cook anything in the microwave in plastic. It's either Pyrex or ceramic. After seeing the plastic melt a few times I had to ask myself, "where was this melted plastic?" most likely in my food. Since the majority of plastic is derived from petroleum...ew! Incidentally, you can put 2 packets of ramen noodles in this loaf pan, fill it 2/3 with water, nuke for 12 minutes and both packets will be cooked.  When it's not in use for that, I usually use the pans to feed juvenile ...

Sounds like fun doesn't it? Kicking pools.  Except I've been doing it for a few weeks now because of the ice. The pools are used for the geese and ducks.  They're just kiddy pools, but it gives them a chance to bathe and get clean.  Apparently the pools also play a crucial role in mating for both ducks and geese. That happens in the big pool There's a larger pool that's deeper and more uh...mating friendly over by the house.  In this picture, Buddy is in the blue one, Percy is in the pink one and Ron is in front.  Now wait for it............. Up pops Sissy! Isn't she adorable?!?! The interesting development over the last two weeks is that Sissy and Ron have bonded.  Geese are one of the animals that chooses a mate for life. I checked the forums on this and it's not a hard and set rule that the ganders won't go astray, but they do have their favorite gals. Ron likes Sissy.  Oddly enough, Ron is not our biggest gander and he does bully Percy on ...

About a month before we got the ducks and eating chickens, my Sister asks if we wanted these chickens her Brother-In-Law had. Sure, 'in for a penny, in for a pound'.  So we got 6 chickens.  We did not realize until they got older they were Bantam Chickens, or as my Momma would call them 'Banty Chickens.  They're smaller than your usual chicken. About the size of a Cornish Game Hen. Ah well.  We kept them, threw them in the coop when they got older  and they free range.  I even gave them names:Fried, and Fricasee are the roosters, and Sauteed, Broiled, Broasted and Curried are the hens. Yeah, that was before we realized they were too small to hassle butchering them. They're like 6 months old now.  We have fun watching the rooster displays, holler at Fried and Fricasee to STFU and let them eat bugs. Well Sauteed come up missing one night.  We have a nightly ritual where Dave herds the ducks into the coop with the chickens and I herd the ...

That's me with the yet un-named African Goose Chick.  He's bonded with me. I'm not sure if it's a boy or girl, just go with me on the 'he' bit..it's easier than doing the whole he/she all the time.  He follows me, hollers for me, and wants to hang out and eat my hair.  It's like having another child in the house but fuzzier.

I promised myself that when I was finished with the sweater that I would buy the Deephaven Cowl pattern I so coveted on Ravelry. With the sweater all sewn up, the ends woven in, I purchased the pattern.  Then came the scavenging for anything worsted in my stash.  My only option was about 3/4 of a skein of Cascade 220 in blue: Knitted on size 7 circs, I have learned how to knit cables without a cable needle.  It's actually very easy once you learn the concept. I watched a video on youtube; the one with lots of 'splaining that was unnecessary because I can actually visualize something without a tedious play-by-play.  The look of the cowl is good. I like the cables.  I don't like the curling. It's probably going to take quite a bit of blocking to train that out of the cowl.  Since the pattern calls for something like 500 yards, this is more like a close-fitting cowl than it's original concept.  No matter, I will give it away.  I also think t...

I remembered it actually, but there were many things on my mind: Ok, not so random as I had to go to the 'Alex" specific area. Alex is on the left, his buddy Joe is on the right.  Dressed up as Organization 13 from Kingdom Hearts game.  BTW - if you want to make this for yourself - use the "Neo" coat pattern. My dear son Alex was 19 yesterday! He seems a bit contemplative about it, more than I was at that time. Happy Birthday Son!!

I had a topic already in my mind but forgot it. Um. Oh well. Yesterday I was parked permanently on the recliner sleeping, shivering or aching.  The dreaded Flu found me.  Today I am much better, but taking it easy just to be sure. Random Monday instead: Hmmm interesting choice.  This is a picture of the display down at the library about a year ago.  Made by one talented knitter, it was great to see.  I remember now that she was standing beside me as I took the photo and invited me to Monday morning Knitting Group.  Unfortunately, I don't have a car to drive into town for that. 

I closed my eyes and randomly selected a photo from my "Family" photo file.  This one is of my Husband, Dave and my Sister, Tami watching a bonfire at our house.  Taken about a year ago, since it was one with a bunch of other pictures that had Alex and his Girlfriend (now EX-GF) in them. How time has flown since then.  Oh my Sister is fine. So is Dave.  There's another big pile of branches and leaves to burn soon as the wind dies down. 

Hexipuffs are the new thing going in the knitting world.  Why? Well everyone who has knitted a sock has bits of sock yarn left over from them.  What do you do with them?  My first effort to get rid of them is the sock yarn blankie  which I started on a very late night a few years ago.  I blame the late hour for the fact that I'm knitting it wrong: Instead of a garter stitch blanket, mine is stockinette. That makes it look like fish scales.  Well, take a look: It gets the job done at using up scraps too small in yardage for anything else. Right now it's big enough to use as a throw on the couch. But now we've got the bee keepers quilt:   This blanket is made from little separate puffs stuffed with stuffing.  I'm using wool to stuff mine, since I've got like..tons of it around (read the last post) My total puff count right now is about 45. The consensus is to make a throw is about 300 puffs, a queen sized blanket would be 900+.  T...

The family has been experiencing a lot of changes lately, and I've not been knitting nearly enough! Our son Alex has graduated from High School and was preparing to enter Tech School for a welding degree. Everything was all purty and quiet here and then he got a text - from his girlfriend - who broke up with him - in a text. So 2 years of relationship ends in a text (can you tell that's a real annoying point for me, the text?) and my son is left bereft, hurt and without a real need to stay in this podunk little town. Two weeks ago, he announces, "I want to go into the Navy." Okay! This option was floated about in the last few years for many reasons: 1. We've got no real $$ saved up for college. 2. His grades are not really indicative of ambition towards a college goal. 3. This kid can code computer programs IN HIS SLEEP, and needs a place where he can expand on that knowledge is a more structured environment than college. College has too many distractions (girlz...

Every day we drive down the same road to our home. This road goes up and over hills, through fields of hay and corn and soybeans and then into a stand of trees. For the last month or so, I've seen these large nests way up high in the trees about 200 yards back from the road. Now screaming down the country road at 60 miles per hour, there's not a whole lot of time to get a real good look at these birds. From the passenger side of the van, I knew they were big, with long legs and neck and were dark. The nests looked huge and were perched on the top of what looked like ancient oaks. Today I decided to walk the 1/2 mile over to this stand of trees to take a picture of this mysterious bird. It's been nagging me; what in the heck is this bird? I took along my husband's expensive, but so worth it Nikon camera and the telephoto lens. Hey, he spent some of his retirement on the gear, so who am I to argue? It's still so worth the $ he spent! The big damned birds are Hero...

This pattern was in the Beadwork magazine in the Feb/Mar 2011 issue. It was so intriguing that I hunted down the issue and then got the beads to make the bangle. Mine is more of a bracelet, since the bead shop didn't have enough of the magatma beads to make it longer. It was my first ever attempt at making a beadwork bracelet. Oh sure, I flirted with a bead loom in my younger years, but only made a small thing. The pattern was well written and I managed to figure it out by myself. If you're wanting to do this for yourself, I would recommend getting out some plastic clay to seat the first row in while working on the 2nd row. It keeps things from moving around so you don't have to feel like you need 5 more hands to get it off the ground.

Sometimes it is good to find a focus and stick with it until it works. A few weeks ago, my friend Sue and I were reminiscing about good Jewish food. That got me thinking about Challah - that wonderful braided bread made around Passover. Wouldn't ya know it, but Passover is this next week! So I've taken one day each week to attempt to perfect my recipe for Challah. The first few tries were uh....tragic. Not enough flour led to something that looked like a pie crust and too much yeast led to something that resembled a 9 x 13 brown rectangle. The last few have been more successful. This last one was made entirely by hand and tasted very good: not too sweet, yeasty with great chewiness. That is what it looked like after the first rising and before the next rising. Like the 95 year old pan? I swear, it's from my Grandmother's stash. It very well could be 95 years old! The last Challah will be made for Thursday. Perhaps I will find another focus. I'm thinking somethi...

I've been doing a lot of knitting, a lot of sewing, and a lot of meeting. Let us start with knitting: The Janesville Area Knitting Guild's Annual Knit-In was last weekend. Anyone who knows me know's I am the Door Prize coordinator for that event. Usually that keeps me from taking classes. As a help to vendors this year, we asked for less donations and gave them to the first 50 registrants. I got to take a class! I took steeking. Really, it's not as frightening as you think it is, once you know how. BUT, we need pictures! (Note to self: STOP TAKING PICS WITH YOUR CELLPHONE!) The pictures don't really turn out well when I do. My entrant into the knitting challenge is a Christmas Stocking done in colorwork. The yarn is entirely handspun, and the designs came from a book called "Aran and Fair Isle Knitting" and is part of the Harmony Guide Series from Britain. Sewing? Oh I'm in a Amy Butler phase again. Pop on over to the store for a nice bag while they ...

As a member of the Knit-In committee for the Janesville Area Knitting Guild, I am privy to information that others might not have until later. Being an honest lady, I knew that this years' competition challenge would be a cabled accessory. I make it a point never to start my project until January to give everyone a sporting chance. I thought about it and knitted the Divine Strawberry. Divine because I knitted it while attending my class at St. Augustine on the Apostle's Creed. I have become aware of the fact that I listen more intently when I am knitting, so I bring something that I can work on that does not need much attention and can be placed low on the lap. That way I can knit and not draw attention....mostly. It turned out a bit snug for my head, but cute nonetheless. Last week was the first time in over two months that I could make it to the yarn shop to discuss the Knit-In and such. That's when I found out that the challenge had been changed due to changes in our...

The year was 1996, and fresh out of Tech College I landed a cushy job as a Maintenance Mechanic at a local Potato Chip Factory. Maintenance Mechanics by the way, make some tall cash and earn it about 30% of the time. The rest of the time is just piddly work. I'm digressing here.... My beloved Packers made it to the Superbowl!! I felt that this endeavor was enough to warrant a Father-Daughter tattoo. I was ready, willing and able to pay for Dad and I to get a tattoo of the Packer Helmet + 'Superbowl Champs 1996' written underneath on our upper arms. I had made the appointment. My Dad, he chickened out. He called and said, "Bren, I don't want the tattoo. Spend your money on something worthwhile." Oh GEEZ Dad! COME ON!!! So I did what he said, and I am left tattoo-less. Fast forward to 2011. Here we are at the brink of another Packer trip to the Superbowl (BTW, if that's got some trademark infringement thing going on if I say it, I'm sorry. The Bowl...