Knitting Content!

I tend to get cranky when I can’t do whatever it is I want to do. I went to gym on Monday and had to get off the bike and leave after 10 minutes because my leg was seriously hurting. So I basically cracked the shits for the week and sulked, thereby achieving very little.

I did finish the gusset increases on MIL’s Easter Sock early in the week and turned the heel, only to find at the end that I had two more stitches than I was supposed to have. So, instead of ripping back as any logical person would, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to just knit two extra rows, decrease 1 stitch per row, and then all would be right with the world. Anybody see a problem with this?

Ah, yes. The heel is now 2 rows longer than the instep and it looks weird. It is currently sitting on the table waiting for the inevitable frogging. (See ’sulking’ above.) I hope to get to it today.

Sunday Roundup 11/04/09

It’s been a strange sort of a week. I spent last weekend in the garden working hard and of course hurt myself because I haven’t been out there for a while. Ooooo the hammies. Serious pain on Saturday night which lessened somewhat on Sunday but wouldn’t go away entirely. I finally went to the chemist on Wednesday. She advised that it was probably residual pain from whichever specific nerve/muscle I hurt and that it all just needed to be calmed down to heal properly. Three days on Nurofen Plus and I’m all back to normal. Thankfully. My inner drama queen was at full roar wondering about how I was going to achieve all the walking I want to do in Spain.

But back to the garden. I finished laying the edging bricks on what I call the chilli bed. Added soil, compost, gypsum (we have clay soil); watered and mixed it all through the existing dirt. Did the same with the jasmine bed and weeded the rosemary bed. Planted brown onions and seed garlic in the first two beds and mulched well with sugar cane mulch (no wonder the legs were hurting). In the chilli bed I also planted these (click to enlarge):

Spinach you say? No no no. They’re Asian greens. But the label says spinach? Still no; still Asian greens. It might be labelled spinach, it might look like spinach, and it does taste like spinach. But it’s not. You see, Husband doesn’t like spinach but Husband *does* like what I told him years ago were Asian greens :-/. There’s a method in my madness.

Asian Chicken Soup

I’m not a lover of soup as I grew up in tropical North Queensland and we just didn’t eat a lot of it.

Last year however, Husband went to the Doctor for an infected bite or some such and Doc thought it would be a good idea to run some routine tests. Oh dear. Cholesterol level? Out of this world. Not was he was eating at home but those bought lunches were doing some damage. He’s a big man (and that’s just big, not fat) and accordingly he needs a lot of food. So a full meal at lunch every day (usually served with hot chips), a greater than average moderate beer consumption, little exercise and Houston, we have a problem.

So three days a week now he takes his lunch (which I get up early to make). Soup, a sandwich, piece of fruit and something to nibble. Any cook will tell you that there’s just something they ‘don’t do’ or ‘don’t do well’. For me that ‘don’t do’ is soup but this recipe is a gem, especially if you like Asian influenced dishes.

The original is here but this is my take on it which is even easier:

* 450g fresh thin noodles
* 1 tablespoon peanut oil
* 3cm piece ginger, peeled, finely chopped
* 2 garlic cloves, crushed
* 2 small red chillies, deseeded, finely chopped
* 6 cups reduced-salt chicken stock
* 500g chicken breast fillets, trimmed
* 2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1 teaspoon sesame oil
* 3 teaspoons brown sugar
* 1 bunch baby bok choy, chopped

Chop chicken into what ever sized bits you want or feel like doing. Place oil and chicken in a pan and start to heat. Don’t add so much oil because if the chicken catches a bit it just adds flavour and texture to finished dish. Clean up cat spew and wash hands. Chicken should be browning by now so add garlic, ginger and chillies. More garlic and less ginger because Husband prefers it that way and too much garlic is never enough. Quantity of chillies used open to interpretation on the night: disregard any opinion voiced by Husband. Discuss rugby results with Husband and give pot a stir every so often so it browns but not burns. Add stock, soy sauce, sesame oil and brown sugar and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and float off to PC to check various blogs. Remember that soup is cooking when you go back to kitchen 20 minutes later to pour a G & T. Boil water for noodles, cover noodles with aforementioned boiled water* and pour G &T. Add drained noodles to pot with bok choy**, discover you don’t have any spring onions, say to self ‘who cares?’, simmer for five minutes and you’re done. Contemplate another G & T.

* If you add dried noodles instead of fresh ones then you will have a superb chicken and noodles main meal. The starch in the noodles soaks up the stock. It’s wonderful but definitely not soup!

** You’re not limited to baby bok choy. Try beansprouts, mushrooms, water chestnuts, asparagus etc.

Another thing to note: An Aussie tablespoon is 20ml. The rest of the world functions on a 15ml tablespoon but we just had to be different.

I’m So Excited…

Arrived home from work tonight to find a docket from Australia Post advising that I have a parcel to pick up. Not just any parcel; an International, signature required, parcel. Ooooooo. My sock? Please please please! I can’t think of anything else that it could be.

A Yummy Dinner

As I was bringing in the washing the other afternoon, my next door neighbour called out to ask me if I wanted some (home grown) silverbeet. Silverbeet (known as chard in the Northern Hemisphere) is one of my favourite vegetables. Husband doesn’t like it but I knew I had stew in the freezer that he would eat so I accepted readily.

I diced a couple of short rashers of bacon and sautéed them in a non-stick pan. Then added two cloves of minced garlic and some pepper and cooked until the garlic browned a bit. Sliced up about 5 leaves of the silverbeet, added it to the same pan, and cooked until the silverbeet started to wilt. Over the top I poured two beaten eggs and left it unstirred over low heat until the egg mix was cooked. (I don’t like raw eggs: I don’t like partially cooked eggs: I like my eggs DONE.)

Result? One amazing silverbeet-omelette thingy. I know the plate is scratched but I really like these bright yellow, cheerful plates. Until they are no longer with us I refuse to buy other plates.

Woah!

Hoo boy. Went back to gym today for the first time in a few weeks. Not only was I returning after a break, but I was starting my new program. It really did demonstrate how complacent one gets. The old program was good, I enjoyed it, but was it really challenging me? That would be a no. Tomorrow, though, I am going to be a bit sore I think as I’m doing more weight work now. Weights aside, the rest is:

Bike – 15 minutes
X Trainer – 10 minutes
Rower – 200m, 400m, 600m, 400m, 200m at maximum possible speed with 30 second intervals

Progress on the first 2 is monitored by Level and Distance, progress on the rower measured by Level and Time. Today’s results:

Bike – Level 4 – Distance 6.2km
X Trainer – Level 3 – Distance 1.2 km
Rower – Level 5 – 11m 30s

Bike and rower are fine; X trainer is not. That thing just kills me. Still, I’m looking forward to carrying on with this. I’d like to lose another 3 – 4 kg before my holiday but I’ll see how that goes.

Sunday Roundup 29/03/09

It’s such a gorgeous Autumn day here – very still with clear blue sky and lots of sunshine. Most definitely I’ll be out in the garden this afternoon, making plans for what I’m going to do over Autumn and Winter.

At the moment I’m not speaking to the Anastasias although they probably don’t want to talk to me either. “Just how many times can you make the same mistake idiot? Give us to a more capable knitter!” Yes, a couple of rows tinked back again. I know WHAT I’m doing wrong (knitting the stitch and previous YO together when I should be knitting the 2 stitches together BEFORE the previous YO) but once the mind goes into auto mode, zoom, we’re back to doing it wrongly. I blame the Dublin Bays as that’s how their pattern works!

I knitted a pattern repeat on the new socks but wasn’t feeling the love so ripped back to the toe and switched patterns. The new one is Up, Up and Away (Rav link) and is coming along quite nicely.

They look very narrow but I can get them on and MIL has slender feet so I have no doubt that they’ll fit as long as I get the instep high (wide?) enough.

Yeah, right …

Libra
It really is wonderful when all the day’s connections point to having a fun and happy day – and this is exactly what today has to offer. All you need do is to ascertain what it is that will make you the happiest and then go about doing whatever you want to do and include whoever it is that makes you happiest too. There is a strong social pull tonight as well as a leaning towards a romantic sort of night – so why not combine them both! (Courtesy of The Age)

What would make me the happiest is to have the knitting go right and be able to stay home and do it. I dropped down to fix the mistake as per last post, knitted it back up and continued on to the next needle. 1, 2, 3 … 19. 19? There’s 18 stitches per needle (or should be). I have actually learnt something though. In the past I would have automatically presumed I’d miscounted, continued on my merry way and discovered a few rows later that I *had* actually counted correctly and now had a mistake to fix a number of rows back. So I immediately recounted and yes, sigh, 19 stitches. Looking back, I found it was the same mistake that I’d made on the previous needle. Drop down and fix yet again.

I started another sock in a lighter yarn so I’d have something to knit at night that I could actually see. Changing the pattern to knit toe-up, I allowed 40 stitches for the increases and started with 13 wraps (Turkish Cast-on). Brilliant! 13 x 2 + 40 = 66. Yay for me. Except for the fact that the pattern calls for 64 stitches. Hmmm. It wasn’t that much of a disaster as I just increased x 4 until I had 62 stitches and then a further 2 on the sole only. Also, the pattern is mainly stocking stitch. It’s just annoying to be making these mistakes.

Serves Me Right

I wanted to knit last night. Something. Anything. I didn’t want to cast on the second Dublin Bay sock. Actually I didn’t want to cast on for any sock at all, I just wanted to knit. So I picked up the Anastasias. Counting, checking, looking.

Yes. A mistake. Bollix. Yarnovers hate me. So I put it down and went to bed.

Sunday Roundup 16/03/09

Yes, it’s Monday again. Such a lazy weekend and very much enjoyed. It rained most of the day Saturday; a good opportunity to laze about and not do much at all. The garden appreciated the rain as well as it’s been quite some time since we’ve had decent showers here.

MIL’s first Dublin Bay sock is finished but not without its hiccups. As well as not knitting after having a couple of G & T’s, I need to stop knitting dark coloured yarn at night. I simply cannot see the detail any more. As well as that I’m tired and therefore more prone to making mistakes.

I found this out when I picked up her Anastasia socks which have been sitting in the basket, untouched, since about May 2008. Thinking that I would start knitting socks from different pairs alternately to stave off boredom, I did no more than 5 rounds when … ooops. A mistake back on the first round I knit. I swear I was counting, I swear I was looking but there it was. Nothing too difficult to fix, just 20 minutes wasted. So I’m trying to work out whether I can use that to justify casting on a third pair in lighter coloured yarn.

As I’m away for the month of May I will miss MIL’s birthday, H’s birthday and Mother’s Day. I was thinking about knitting MIL a scarf to leave as her birthday/Mother’s Day present but realistically I’m just not going to get there. I don’t want this year to be like the last time I went on holiday. Between cooking for Husband, wrapping up everything at work and then burning the candle at both ends for four weeks in Europe, I came home more exhausted than when I left. So maybe I *will* put another pair of socks on the needles.

MIL has long, slender feet i.e. no meat on those bones at all. Consequently, in winter, her feet get cold easily. She currently has only one pair of socks. If I could get the Dublin Bays, Anastasias and another pair finished in the next 7 weeks then surely I’d be No 1 DIL? OK, I’m the only DIL but that’s irrelevant! Still, that’s 4 1/3 socks in 7 weeks. Could be interesting.