Knitting 40 shades of green

On the road

For no sane reason whatsoever I subjected myself to the insanity that is traffic the week of Thanksgiving -- because of this I find myself exhausted in a hotel room without the ability to form a coherent sentence (may have to do with missing dinner and the hotel restaurant was closed by the time I checked in) so my recap of todays adventures will have to wait until morning.

Buy nothing day warm-up

To be honest with you, I have nothing.  Here we are on day 19 of the NA-poblano-MO challenge and I don't have anything to say.  I have some things for later in the week and maybe I can eek out a knitting update this week since I am almost to the lacy parts.  But for tonight, I have nothing.  So I am going to post some ideas and a reminder that Buy Nothing Day is quickly approaching on this Friday.  I wanted to give a heads up before you forgot and bought something.

Some other ways to curb the consumerist callings of the month of December

Catalog Choice is a free service that lets you control the catalogs that come into your house.  Save some trees -- especially if you aren't even looking at them.

Buy Nothing Christmas suggests some alternative ideas for gifts here. 

You can support artisans by taking Esty's handmade Holiday pledge -- the pledge is here.

Buy things from local shop owners and producers or offer gifts of your time and skills.

Whatever you choose to do -- make sure you take a moment to think before making those holiday purchases. 

Book Review: Kabul Beauty School

  A group of educators that I am associated with choose a book every year to discuss in a book group.  The Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez was our selection for the 2007-2008.  I am not sure that I otherwise would have found this book, but it definitely had an effect on me. 

Do you ever read a book that causes you to question what you are doing with your life?  That makes you realize there is so much more you could be doing to make the world a better place?  That makes you see the people out there that can use their skills to make positive change while you are sitting around drinking Guinness?  The kind of book that makes you want to be a better person?  This was one of those books. 

The premise of this memoir/non fiction book is that Ms. Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother from middle America, finagles her way into a humanitarian team heading to Afghanistan after the September 11th terrorist attacks.  On this team of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals, she questions her usefulness while continuing to make friends with the local Afghanis and cutting the hair of the expatriates and aid workers who find themselves living in or visiting Kabul.  While there, an idea is born.  She decides to start a beauty school to train Afghani women, giving them autonomy and newfound respect in their families in this patriarchal culture.

I was impressed by how Ms. Rodriguez was able to identify her strengths and over come many obstacles to make her idea a reality and to better the lives of so many women in Afghanistan.  In the same situation, I wonder if I would be able to think as big and execute such a plan to make it a reality.  If you have any interest in humanitarian aid and international projects this book is a must read.  I found it both enjoyable and entertaining.   

Inside the blogger's mind

So it's a meme. I really should have chosen a different sweater for NAKNISWEMO so that I could be posting interesting knitting posts or beautiful progress but it is pretty much just all stockinette all the time at the moment so I will distract you with a meme(and a certain amount of ripping and re-knitting as I battle with the yarn and my perfectionism). I stole this from Laura at Urban Hennery

Here are the rules:
1. If you decide to answer, please leave a comment with a link to your blog.
2. You have to post these rules before you answer the questions.

1. What is your favorite word?
fortuitous

2. What is your least favorite word?
chunk (especially in referring to parts of a word)

3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?
Open-mindedness, true conversation and exchange of ideas

4. What turns you off? 
People who can't entertain any ideas other than their own.

5. What sound or noise do you love?
skillfully played violin

6. What sound or noise do you hate?
the sound of paper being torn

7. What is your favorite curse word?
I really don't curse much, I do use Norma's W.T. F*ck from time to time. I remember a post about it and where it came from but can't find it in her archives. But I like (as I believe she mentioned in that post) how it is like someone's name JD Salinger or that sort of thing and it catches people off guard.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
foreign service or some other job that involved my background in international development

9. What profession would you not like to do?
sales of a product that I didn't believe in. I would be pretty bad at most sales jobs but I can't lie well so trying to sell something I thought was crap or useless would be horrible.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"you made a difference..."

Here is the recipe

Kind of a cheat of NABLOPOMO to make two entries out of my local meal this week but then, when I said I would post daily, I never said it would be interesting. Besides, it was getting late last night and I had typed the same post three times and had it not save (internet connection issues) and was getting frustrated.

Here is the recipe for my squash bake

Winter Squash Bake
Serves 6

5 cups spaghetti squash
2 1/2 cups butternut squash, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup onion, chopped
1/3 cup flour
2 cups milk, skim
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut spaghetti squash in half and scrape
out seeds and strings from the cavity. Place cut side down on a sheet pan
and bake for 30 to 45 minutes until flesh is soft. Let cool slightly.
When cool scrape strands of squash from the shell.
2. While spaghetti squash is baking, heat onion and butternut squash in
olive oil over low heat until the vegetables are soft. Stir in flour with
a wooden spoon. Gradually stir in the milk until the mixture is smooth.
Bring the mixture to a boil and add salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
3. In a 9 × 9 × 2-inch baking dish, spread a little of the vegetable
sauce over the bottom and cover with spaghetti squash. Add more vegetable
sauce and spaghetti squash in layers until all is used (ending with a
layer of sauce). Sprinkle top with cheese. Bake uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes
until nicely browned and heated through.

spaghetti squash, Three Way Farm, Warsaw, VA (62 miles)

butternut squash, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)

onion, Three Way Farm, Warsaw, VA (62 miles)

flour, Byrd Mill, Ashland, VA (76 miles)

milk, , Natural by Nature, Avondale, PA (98 miles)

cheddar cheese, Lancaster County Fresh, Lancaster, PA (94 miles)

non local: olive oil (CA), salt and pepper

Oh and with a little salt sprinkled on the squash seeds were great!

DDELC, week 5

This will be my third attempt to post -- so please excuse the brevity

I wasn't sure what I would make this week for my local meal but it seemed that I had quite a bit of squash on the counter and I thought maybe I could figure out a way to use some of it up, so I threw a spaghetti squash into the oven to bake. The seeds looked so much like pumpkin seeds, I attempted to roast them as well.

While the squash was baking, I cubed some butternut squash and cooked it over low heat with onion until the vegetables were soft.

Once soft, I mixed in some flour and slowly stirred in milk to make a thick sauce. This sauce was layered alternately with the cooled spaghetti squash in the style of a lasagna. When it was all layered, I sprinkled some cheese on top.

I threw the whole thing in the oven to bake until it was brown and bubbly. It made a tasty and filling dinner.

It is getting late, so I will post the recipe and food miles tomorrow.

Entranced with color work

I have been drawn to buying color-work kits lately. I am knitting a simple basic sweater for my NAKNISWEMO sweater and it makes me even more eager to start some color-work. You may remember that I bought this kit at MD Sheep and Wool this year.

However, I put off knitting this until the weather got a little colder. And then I was talked into getting this kit to participate in the Autumn Rose knit along.

Well, since I haven't actually started any of these kits, I haven't slacked the thirst for color and another colorful sweater has called my name...and I have a slip from the PO but won't be able to make it there today so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I think it is the yarn for this lovely sweater:  Autumn by Ruth Sorensen. 

I better finish up the stockinette soon so I can start on the lace and finish Jade before I start casting on for color-work.

NAKNISWEMO progress

Well, I snapped a couple of pictures at Panera last night (as seen above), as I was planning on posting on this sweater. They were nothing fancy and no feats of photography but I sort of noticed something amiss about the sweater. However, I was trying to get my computer to work and get the post up and so I continued to operate in denial as if all was right with the world. But it kept nagging at me. There seemed to be some mottling in the yarn -- this solid colored yarn was coming out a little more semi-solid in places. It seems some of the yarn has faded a bit but overall it wasn't too noticeable. Well, surely that was denial speaking -- while I think I can get away with the back (which is finished) the front? That is another story.

You see that stripe? Well it really shouldn't be there and I was pretending that it wasn't until someone (who doesn't knit) asked about it. Damn, burst my bubble and make me face reality. And while I am facing reality I should probably rip the last 2 1/2 inches of the back as well.

I have an extra skein of yarn and it seems that this fading is only on the outer part of the skein (as evidenced by the difference between the last few inches of the back and beginning of the front)

so maybe I will have enough yarn despite this fiasco. I could probably get away using the faded yarn for the lacey bits if I had to and I truely think the rest of the back (aside from the last 2 1/2 inches) while it does show some of the fading, doesn't have any stark contrast lines. I really like the color of this yarn and have been enjoying knitting it so, I really hope I will be able to make this work. Fingers crossed, I am going to frog...

Place Holder

I really was going to post an update on my NAKNISWEMO sweater -- I brought my computer with me to Panera so that I could post during out knitting group but it seems that my computer is having issues with wireless -- while the signal strength was excellent it took me 15 minutes to have the web programs acknowledge it and then it kept losing the server.  So that post will have to wait until tomorrow.  Instead I will have to distract you with my latest time sink here.  I have been addicted to it since I saw it mentioned in the Washington Post last week.  I seem to be stuck at level 41/42.  I better start reading the dictionary.

Presents

First off I would like to recognize the sacrifice of all the veterans who have fought in this country's wars as well as those who served in peace time.  Thank you for your service to the country and the sacrifices you have made to carry out this service.

Totally unrelated to veterans' day is my recent yarn purchases.  I have been fairly conservative with buying yarn, as of late.  But with my birthday approaching I gave in to the siren song of the hand painted and dyed yarns out there on the web.

My first purchase was from Ball and Skein.  I bought three skeins which I don't seem to have the names of but they are fairly accurate below.  I think they might  be fallen leaves
Atlantic,
and dress blues.  I then made a purchase from Dani at Sunshine Yarns in Costa Rica, Indian Corn and Plunge

and she included a free skein of a color called Pop.  They are calling my name and I would love to cast on for more socks as I have been wearing my hand knit socks all week but other than an occasional row on the Pomotomus sock, it seems all my knitting is focused on Jade, my NAKNISWEMO sweater.  I will give you an update on that tomorrow.