Spring is arriving!
Spring! Sproing! Sprung!
Spring appears to be here finally. No telling yet if it'll stay here, but at least this weekend we have it. Got my motorcycle out for a few hours on Friday. Went out to lunch. Went shopping. I love the looks I get when shopping for girly clothes while I carry around a motorcycle helmet and jacket. :o)
I'm getting the gardening bug again, like I do every spring. Weeded my perennial bed (mostly black-eyed susans) and will transplant the rogue Black-Eyed Susans from the gravel driveway to an actual flower bed. Probably should move more Lily of the Valley soon too. They are again threatening to take over the side yard. I've got just hte spot to put them too. By the NW corner of the house, where there is little sun, and they can keep the hostas company. Need to spray broad-leaf herbicide on my backyard before the silly violets and Creeping Charlie take over again. Next week I'm planning on overseeding the whole yard, which reminds me that I still need to pick up a bale or two of straw. My goal is to actually have grass in my backyard by the end of the summer. (My former neighbor liked to park on the backyard and drive through it regularly, so the grass all went away.) I don't know that I'll have nice enough grass to walk around barefoot, but something besides weeds would be nice.
Friday FUN!
Although I am not a fan of clothes shopping and, in fact, avoid it unless I really need to buy something. Found myself a nice halter top sweater and another shirt to wear with my little black skirt. The pressure was on to find something good as I had tickets to go see Yo-Yo Ma last night. I must have done fairly well, based upon the looks I got at the concert and at dinner. My dinner/concert companion made a point of telling me that people were looking at me, including one gentleman who "nearly gave himself whiplash 3 times". If that isn't more motivation to keep working out, I don't know what is.
Before the concert, we went out to dinner at The Great Impasta. I still have some leftover linguine with shrimp and sun-dried tomato pesto. It was very delicious, though the shrimp may have been a bit overcooked. The fresh pasta was wonderful as always. I'd pretty thoroughly stuffed myself with an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms and I also wanted to save space for dessert (vanilla panne cotta with blackberry-blueberry compote). It was a lovely time. Fortunately my skirt had some lycra in it, so my fully belly didn't get too squashed. Got my picture taken with manager Bob, waiter Ben and owner Harold. Bob used to work at the Courier Cafe and has quite attractive legs, though he doesn't get to wear shorts to work at The Great Impasta, which is a bummer. Turns out that Bob will be leaving town in June and headed to Portland, Oregon where his wife has a new job.
So, we head on to the Krannert Center. Funny story regarding Mr. Yo-Yo Ma. The restrooms in the lobby at the Krannert Center are rather small (I think the women's room has only 4 stalls), so I always use the lower level restroom which has twice the number of stalls and nobody knows of its existence. It happens to also be at the stage entrance level. I pop out of the bathroom door and who do I nearly run over as he goes past? Yep, Mr. Ma and his cello case. We said hi to each other and went our merry ways.
The concert was lovely. He played the 3rd, 5th and 6th Unaccompanied Cello Suites by J.S. Bach. And a couple of encores, one of which was a piece from his Silk Road Project. Someone threw him a rose from the side balcony, which he picked up and gave to a lady in the front row. Finally, he started shooing people out of the concert hall. I have met Mr. Ma after previous concerts. He's a very nice, down-to-earth kind of guy. He's absolutely amazed that people will come see him repeatedly or that they'll drive a couple of hours to hear him play. Always smiling. Unfortunately, Mr. Ma wasn't available for autographs this time. :o(
FLEECE!
Slept late on Saturday. No, really, I did. I was still in bed at 7:30 this morning. (Ordinarily sleeping "late" for me is about 6am.) Spent about half the day in Greencastle, Indiana at the Fleece Fair. I almost didn't go since I already have half a dozen fleeces in need of preparation for spinning. Decided I'd go anyway since it's an annual tradition for me. I save my Christmas gift money, plus a bit extra that I save from January to April and then I get to spend it all on whatever I want at the Fleece Fair.
So I now own two more Coopworth fleeces (one gray and one cream) from Hidden Valley Farm, a black shetland lamb fleece from Wool's End, a black shetland fleece from Windy Acres, 8 ounces of black alpaca roving from Oak Meadow Alpacas and a cream crossbred fleece from Cascade Sheep and Wool (teesdale-border leicester, I think).
There were fewer vendors selling raw fleeces this year, I thought. I was surprised to not find dyed silk hankies or silk roving. I also didn't see much ingeo, silk latte or soy silk, dyed or undyed. I had thought these fibers would have appeared in at least a few booths, but alas. Not that I've had much luck spinning the soy silk I got a few years back. I apparently didn't put enough twist in it as I can't get the singles back off the bobbin without it falling apart. Looks like I'll be combing it into some wool and spinning it that way. There wasn't much in the way of prepared roving in bright colors either. A couple of vendors I have regularly bought from in the past just didn't have much selection or at least didn't have a selection which was different from anybody else. Several vendors had prepared roving with veggie matter in it, which I just won't tolerate at all.
For the past three years I've bought at least one fleece from Hidden Valley. They're incredibly clean fleeces, coming from covered sheep and being heavily skirted. I've had virtually no veggie matter in any of the fleeces I've gotten from them. The gray fleeces are without sun-damaged tips, for the most part too. I've definitely been spoiled. And I've become a much more picky consumer as a result. I don't tolerate much in the way of veggie matter in my fleeces, particularly not the really fine stuff which appears to me to be finely crushed alfalfa leaves. I know that stuff won't easily comb or card out of the fleece because it's so fine, particularly on a fine fleece. Ain't no way it'll come out of a merino fleece. Might come out of a Lincoln or Romney, but not something I want to mess with if I don't have to.
I'm looking forward to working with the lamb fleece from Wool's End. The lady in the booth struck up a conversation as I was looking at a different fleece. It turns out that she and a friend just started raising sheep at the friend's house. Both of them are spinners and thought they'd give it a try. They have four sheep. They also have angora rabbits. I went back later, after dropping off the first round of purchases at the car and helped a 10 year old boy talk his mom into maybe purchasing him an angora rabbit for Christmas. Of course, during this exchange and my purchase, the husband of the sheep lady was staffing the booth. He was a good sport though and, despite his statements to the contrary, was very knowledgeable about the wool. I'll have to keep in touch with them and buy more fleeces from them in the future. I may also have to try their angora fiber. I haven't ever tried to spin angora.
Baking this weekend:
Sunday's activity is going target shooting at Kenny's house. As always it's a potluck lunch. BBQ chicken on the grill will be handled by Kenny and Diane. Mitch requested that I bring apple turnovers. To keep the low-carb crowd happy, I'll probably also make spinach-cheese turnovers. Those always go over really well. Mitch was going to bring brownies, but isn't going to have time to bake, so I'll bring them too. We have discovered, to our dismay, that the disposable foil brownie trays are no longer available. They were 9 1/4 x 6 1/2" and just aren't to be found anywhere. They were really handy for making brownies to take places and then not have to worry about either getting the brownies out of the pan neatly or getting the pan back. Of course, the obvious solution is to double the recipe and use a 9x13 inch pan, but whining is so much more fun than finding a solution. :o)
On the workout front
Today's workout consisted of carrying stuff to my car and eating not only Skinny Dippers at The Courier Cafe, but also a hot fudge sundae (on top of last night's huge meal and dessert). Going to have to eat in moderation the rest of the week and keep going on the workouts or I'll find that my "skinny" jeans will no longer be baggy and that would be bad. Besides, the marathon is only 6 months away. YIKES!
Spring appears to be here finally. No telling yet if it'll stay here, but at least this weekend we have it. Got my motorcycle out for a few hours on Friday. Went out to lunch. Went shopping. I love the looks I get when shopping for girly clothes while I carry around a motorcycle helmet and jacket. :o)
I'm getting the gardening bug again, like I do every spring. Weeded my perennial bed (mostly black-eyed susans) and will transplant the rogue Black-Eyed Susans from the gravel driveway to an actual flower bed. Probably should move more Lily of the Valley soon too. They are again threatening to take over the side yard. I've got just hte spot to put them too. By the NW corner of the house, where there is little sun, and they can keep the hostas company. Need to spray broad-leaf herbicide on my backyard before the silly violets and Creeping Charlie take over again. Next week I'm planning on overseeding the whole yard, which reminds me that I still need to pick up a bale or two of straw. My goal is to actually have grass in my backyard by the end of the summer. (My former neighbor liked to park on the backyard and drive through it regularly, so the grass all went away.) I don't know that I'll have nice enough grass to walk around barefoot, but something besides weeds would be nice.
Friday FUN!
Although I am not a fan of clothes shopping and, in fact, avoid it unless I really need to buy something. Found myself a nice halter top sweater and another shirt to wear with my little black skirt. The pressure was on to find something good as I had tickets to go see Yo-Yo Ma last night. I must have done fairly well, based upon the looks I got at the concert and at dinner. My dinner/concert companion made a point of telling me that people were looking at me, including one gentleman who "nearly gave himself whiplash 3 times". If that isn't more motivation to keep working out, I don't know what is.
Before the concert, we went out to dinner at The Great Impasta. I still have some leftover linguine with shrimp and sun-dried tomato pesto. It was very delicious, though the shrimp may have been a bit overcooked. The fresh pasta was wonderful as always. I'd pretty thoroughly stuffed myself with an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms and I also wanted to save space for dessert (vanilla panne cotta with blackberry-blueberry compote). It was a lovely time. Fortunately my skirt had some lycra in it, so my fully belly didn't get too squashed. Got my picture taken with manager Bob, waiter Ben and owner Harold. Bob used to work at the Courier Cafe and has quite attractive legs, though he doesn't get to wear shorts to work at The Great Impasta, which is a bummer. Turns out that Bob will be leaving town in June and headed to Portland, Oregon where his wife has a new job.
So, we head on to the Krannert Center. Funny story regarding Mr. Yo-Yo Ma. The restrooms in the lobby at the Krannert Center are rather small (I think the women's room has only 4 stalls), so I always use the lower level restroom which has twice the number of stalls and nobody knows of its existence. It happens to also be at the stage entrance level. I pop out of the bathroom door and who do I nearly run over as he goes past? Yep, Mr. Ma and his cello case. We said hi to each other and went our merry ways.
The concert was lovely. He played the 3rd, 5th and 6th Unaccompanied Cello Suites by J.S. Bach. And a couple of encores, one of which was a piece from his Silk Road Project. Someone threw him a rose from the side balcony, which he picked up and gave to a lady in the front row. Finally, he started shooing people out of the concert hall. I have met Mr. Ma after previous concerts. He's a very nice, down-to-earth kind of guy. He's absolutely amazed that people will come see him repeatedly or that they'll drive a couple of hours to hear him play. Always smiling. Unfortunately, Mr. Ma wasn't available for autographs this time. :o(
FLEECE!
Slept late on Saturday. No, really, I did. I was still in bed at 7:30 this morning. (Ordinarily sleeping "late" for me is about 6am.) Spent about half the day in Greencastle, Indiana at the Fleece Fair. I almost didn't go since I already have half a dozen fleeces in need of preparation for spinning. Decided I'd go anyway since it's an annual tradition for me. I save my Christmas gift money, plus a bit extra that I save from January to April and then I get to spend it all on whatever I want at the Fleece Fair.
So I now own two more Coopworth fleeces (one gray and one cream) from Hidden Valley Farm, a black shetland lamb fleece from Wool's End, a black shetland fleece from Windy Acres, 8 ounces of black alpaca roving from Oak Meadow Alpacas and a cream crossbred fleece from Cascade Sheep and Wool (teesdale-border leicester, I think).
There were fewer vendors selling raw fleeces this year, I thought. I was surprised to not find dyed silk hankies or silk roving. I also didn't see much ingeo, silk latte or soy silk, dyed or undyed. I had thought these fibers would have appeared in at least a few booths, but alas. Not that I've had much luck spinning the soy silk I got a few years back. I apparently didn't put enough twist in it as I can't get the singles back off the bobbin without it falling apart. Looks like I'll be combing it into some wool and spinning it that way. There wasn't much in the way of prepared roving in bright colors either. A couple of vendors I have regularly bought from in the past just didn't have much selection or at least didn't have a selection which was different from anybody else. Several vendors had prepared roving with veggie matter in it, which I just won't tolerate at all.
For the past three years I've bought at least one fleece from Hidden Valley. They're incredibly clean fleeces, coming from covered sheep and being heavily skirted. I've had virtually no veggie matter in any of the fleeces I've gotten from them. The gray fleeces are without sun-damaged tips, for the most part too. I've definitely been spoiled. And I've become a much more picky consumer as a result. I don't tolerate much in the way of veggie matter in my fleeces, particularly not the really fine stuff which appears to me to be finely crushed alfalfa leaves. I know that stuff won't easily comb or card out of the fleece because it's so fine, particularly on a fine fleece. Ain't no way it'll come out of a merino fleece. Might come out of a Lincoln or Romney, but not something I want to mess with if I don't have to.
I'm looking forward to working with the lamb fleece from Wool's End. The lady in the booth struck up a conversation as I was looking at a different fleece. It turns out that she and a friend just started raising sheep at the friend's house. Both of them are spinners and thought they'd give it a try. They have four sheep. They also have angora rabbits. I went back later, after dropping off the first round of purchases at the car and helped a 10 year old boy talk his mom into maybe purchasing him an angora rabbit for Christmas. Of course, during this exchange and my purchase, the husband of the sheep lady was staffing the booth. He was a good sport though and, despite his statements to the contrary, was very knowledgeable about the wool. I'll have to keep in touch with them and buy more fleeces from them in the future. I may also have to try their angora fiber. I haven't ever tried to spin angora.
Baking this weekend:
Sunday's activity is going target shooting at Kenny's house. As always it's a potluck lunch. BBQ chicken on the grill will be handled by Kenny and Diane. Mitch requested that I bring apple turnovers. To keep the low-carb crowd happy, I'll probably also make spinach-cheese turnovers. Those always go over really well. Mitch was going to bring brownies, but isn't going to have time to bake, so I'll bring them too. We have discovered, to our dismay, that the disposable foil brownie trays are no longer available. They were 9 1/4 x 6 1/2" and just aren't to be found anywhere. They were really handy for making brownies to take places and then not have to worry about either getting the brownies out of the pan neatly or getting the pan back. Of course, the obvious solution is to double the recipe and use a 9x13 inch pan, but whining is so much more fun than finding a solution. :o)
On the workout front
Today's workout consisted of carrying stuff to my car and eating not only Skinny Dippers at The Courier Cafe, but also a hot fudge sundae (on top of last night's huge meal and dessert). Going to have to eat in moderation the rest of the week and keep going on the workouts or I'll find that my "skinny" jeans will no longer be baggy and that would be bad. Besides, the marathon is only 6 months away. YIKES!
Comments
Shooting up a Kenny's was *fun*! (And you're definitely somebody to send if anybody ever needs a baby rescued from a hostage situation. :-) )
And the Apple Turnovers were *wonderful*! :-)