Yarn Along: 9 March

Another Wednesday Yarn Along with Ginny...

Oh the knitting and the reading have been rather exciting for me this week (although the general population might find those words strange in one sentence together, I know that you will relate),

Two arms completed on the B.O.B.!  Oh yes, I may just finish this one in time to make use of  it this year.  I really am in dire need of something warm and cozy and not a zip-up hoodie.  I do love my Brooklyn hoodie but it seriously lacks style (so do I these days), fit, and form (I do believe I am actually lacking all of them...).   

I am going to come perilously close to running out of yarn on this baby though so the project might be stalled.  Ordering a new skein is not in the budget unless it absolutely has to be so we are waiting and seeing...  Living on the knitting edge over here, I tell you.

The Good Life is proving to be a really very informative read.  It adds color and shape to my own homesteading dreams.  Meanwhile, I am tending to our backyard garden and enjoying some great gardening reads.  The Family Butterfly Book and How to Grow More Vegetables are getting the most use right now.

For The Love of Bread and Its Storage

I have long struggled with how to properly store our bread.  We don't have a bread box and I am unwilling to give up the counter space for one.  I try my hardest to stay away from plastic baggies.  Up until now, I have been left with wrapping our loaves with wax paper and putting them in the refrigerator.  While this is a good solution, it is not a great one.  The wax paper can be reused only once or twice--by the second time around it is a crinkled, ripped and crumbly mess.  

Then I remembered this post. On Saturday, with two happily playing together and another one sound asleep, I made some bread bags.  Out of old linens given to me by my mother-in-law, they were really very simply to make.  I sewed two rectangles together and added a drawstring.  An end to my dilemma and some happy crafting time for Mama.

This endeavor inspired some bread-making today.  Normally, I bake two loaves of bread and a batch of granola on Monday morning.  For the past couple of weeks I have fallen out of the habit so it was nice to get my hands in some dough again.  It is easy to forget the meditative powers of kneading bread; how sweetly it comes back to me when the whole process begins.  

I use this book each week (it remains permanently open on my counter).  I have been using it for a couple years now and have not ventured beyond the first bread recipe in the book.  In fact, until today, I had not even looked at the recipes.  

On bread-making days, snacks are so easy.  I try to time the bread to come out of the oven when my two older children are emerging from their quiet time.  Warm bread with honey and milk is just right on these windy March days.

I remember baking bread with my Grandmother in California--her white apron, her various  bread concoctions, her freezer bags, and the folds of her hands folding into the folds of the bread.  Days long long past and days that have yet to unfold in the endless cycle of bread-making and life.  It goes on.

Nature Study Monday: American Robin

I was so surprised to see a gaggle of American Robins gathering at our backyard feeders this winter.  For me, and for many others, this bird has been a harbinger of spring, but the American Robin overwinters year-round in the Northeast (and throughout the rest of the United States).  My father-in-law originally spotted them and, like any red-blooded daughter-in-law would, I doubted him, severely.  But then I witnessed them with my very own eyes.

There they were--red-bellied, skinny-legged Robiness right in the middle of a New Jersey winter.  There was something about it that felt very wrong to me.  Robins spend their winters roosting in trees, rather than foraging for food on the ground, so we see a lot less of them.  They can hatch three different broods in one year, although some robins may not actually hatch any at all.  Few of the hatchlings live and even fewer make it through a winter.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  

Amanda Soule

The Harvey T

I find it so interesting the individual clothing style that develops with each child.  Our daughter loves to wear dresses.  This one was a hard one for me to accept, because I am more of a cords and turtleneck kinda gal; despite my grand efforts.  She likes dresses, the pinker the better.  So there it is.

Our middle child has very unique tastes in what goes on his body.  Over the summer, he wore only pajamas (long-sleeved ones in 90 degree weather).  He has since taken off his pajamas (glad that phase is over) and now (along with leggings and socks pulled over them) he dons all kinds of interesting t-shirts that reflect his very quirky, very lovable personality. For Christmas, I made a volcano t-shirt for him; for his birthday he got an {imperfect} H {for Harvey}.  He loves it and wears it like he is some sort of H-Man superhero.  I don't love the shirt so much but boy do I love the boy in it...

Yarn Along: 2 March

Joining Ginny again today...

Winter is coming to an end around here (or so we think) and I am finishing up on some reading and knitting projects.  I read the final pages of Winter World a couple of nights ago.  A wonderful read.  I learned so much about the lives of creatures big and small during the cold months.  I am looking forward to reading Summer World now.  In the meantime, we picked some Elsa Beskow books from the library and I have started The Good Life.  I am knitting the second sleeve on the B.O.B. and am looking to wear it in the very near future.

Happy Birthday Little One

We think you are simply spectacular!