Amazing knitter

I'm on Ravelry, which is a must for anyone who knits. You have to be a member to view items, so I can't link directly. But I found this amazing knitter, username Ishi. From her project notes, she is amazing fast knitter and amazingly good. I've already favorited some of her projects. One is an intarsia yoke sweater called Poeme, a lace shawl called Lattice Lace Wrap that she did in a week. Wow, when I grow up, I wanna knit like she does!

Barbara

Improv Bean and corn enchiladas

I had some leftover black bean/corn soup and some leftover refried beans. I poured out most of the liquid from the soup and put the beans and corn in a bowl. Mad some quick enchilada sauce (using Mary McDougall's recipes) and while that was cooking I mixed the refried beans into the black beans. I then added a few sliced black olives. Used small corn tortillas and made about 5 rollups in a round casserole dish. Poured the sauce on the bottom and top and baked. Came out great and tasty.

Back to work tomorrow. Two more weeks on this awful 4am-2:30pm shift. Not sure what shift I'll be on then, but I'm sure my boss will find a way to mess with me.

I've lost 4 pounds in 6 days so far eating McDougall vegan. My blood pressure is also down and I've stopped my bp meds. I'm so excited about that!

Barbara

Summer doings

Well, our trip to Victoria BC was wonderful! The weather was great, the city is sooo lovely, and the people are nice. Had great food but with all the walking we did, I actually lost weight. We went to the museum and Parliament, which was right across the street from our hotel. We stayed at a place called the Embassy Inn, about a block from the Inner Harbor of Victoria. My partner's mother came with us and she had a great time as well. The Prieus used only about 18 gallons of gas to drive up there and around the area, then back.

Now we're back and back at work. I started eating more vegan again, but not going to say much about that until it sticks for longer.

Barbara

Trying to stay cool

Had some nice days here in Portland and had some not so cool days. Staying inside, fans on, trying to stay cool. I'm cooking a bit, mostly salad type things. I'm also doind some more knitting. Did a beautiful dishcloth and using now for the dishes. My partner and I are going on vacation soon, with her mother, up to Victoria BC. None of us has ever been there, so it should be fun.

Barbara

Rice cooker and Trader Joe goodies

I bought a Zojirushi NS-LAC05 Micom 3-Cup Rice Cooker and Warmer. It wasn't cheap, but I believe it to be a frugal purchase. From my research on the web, it seems to be sturdy and makes great rice. It's also the perfect size for the two of us. I've already made steel cut oats in it, came out perfect. I also made long grain brown rice, which came out not quite perfect, but I didn't rinse the rice as directed. I bought some bulk brown basmati, which I will be making for some stir fry to take to work tomorrow.



I also wanted to show off my purchases at Trader Joe's today. Got all the things I wanted without having to go anywhere else. I picked up:

- tomatoes
- 3 cans of garbanzo beans for hummus
- 3 bananas
- a bag of stir fry veggies to go with the rice for tomorrow
- baby lettuce mix and baby spring greens mix
- red plums (they smelled sooo good!)
- bag of valencia oranges
- whole wheat pitas
- whole wheat lavash wraps

Total cost was $21.26. (no sales tax in Oregon)

I'm off to do some cooking!

Barbara

106 unread books

I don't do memes usually, but this one caught my eye.A website called Library Thing had a list of the top 106 unread books on peoples lists. I was amazed at how many I had read. So here it is.

Asterisk – I own the book
Bold – I’ve read the book - w/link if reviewed
Italics – I’ve started the book
Stricken – I hated the book
Underline – on my current TBR list

*Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote (Read in Spanish)
Moby Dick
*Ulysses
Madame Bovary
*The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
*The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
*Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi Boys
*The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
*Sense and sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
*The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
*A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
*Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

So I own 10. I've owned many more in my life, but have gotten rid of them since.

I’ve read 39

I’ve started 2

I’ve hated none
And none are on my TBR list
How do you fare against the 106?

Barbara

Hot, hot hot!

Today it reached 95 in Portland a new high for the day and month. Odd weather we've been having this spring. It should be back in the high 60's where it belongs by Wednesday. Even the coast got very hot, which is unusual.

I'm still plugging away at knitting and starting to have fun. I'm working on a dishcloth at present.

Barbara

First farmers market of the year

Went to my first farmer's market this year. It's the Moreland Farmer's Market and today was their opening day of the season. I got there early but it was already quite full of people. Not a lot of produce yet, of course. The Sellwood Middle School Marimba band was playing and it was fantastic. Very upbeat, cheery music.I bought some cookies and some Sensei Sauce.It's really tasty and will be a good addition to my stock of sauces.

Barbara