Confession time. I am pretty addicted to Goodreads. Between that and Ravelry, it’s amazing I have any time at all for reading and knitting. Oh, the irony. Here’s my maiden voyage testing out the “blog this” feature on a book I just finished over this holiday weekend.

Bread Alone: A Novel

This book is fine summer reading.  After I finished the book, I noticed  the back cover heralds the publication of a sequel called The Baker’s Apprentice. I hope to get to it before the end of summer.

The story takes place in 1988. The main character, Wynter, is a L.A. trophy wife who has just been unceremoniously dumped by her husband. She flees to Seattle to become a baker’s apprentice and set a new course for her life. In 1988, I was also setting new course for my life, though not under such dramatic circumstances. I lived in a little cottage much like the one she lives in and I was in a relationship that was becoming more serious, all the while I was preparing to drop back in to college after a two year absence. It was a big year for me and I re-lived parts of it through Wynter. Hard to remember a time when home computers were a rarity and no one had a cell phone. I was also car-less, as is the main character, which doesn’t seem like much to comment on, but her day-to-day life of getting to and fro is written accurately and adds to the overall ambiance. I kind of miss the car-less days, but I do not want to re-live them with two kids, that’s for sure!

Check. Corn’s right on schedule.

We are finally getting some daylilies to speak of. Our clumps have been taking life easy for a few years and coughing up one or two blossoms when they feel like it. They seem to be motivated this year.

We always know summer has arrived when the evening primrose explode.

Dayflower Progress!

I’m quite pleased with my decision to use a needle two sizes smaller on the skirt. I just had a feeling that with my tendency to knit loosely and lace’s tendency to stretch that I could wind up with way too much volume on the skirt. I love the way it has turned out. The hem is curling a bit, but I’m pretty sure I can steam that out.

We had a lovely 4th of July…hope you did, too.

Spent yesterday morning knitting away on Dayflower during Alvin and the Chipmunks, courtesy of the Regal Family Film Festival. OK, so it was cute…my favorite part was the credits where all the Chipmunk album covers were shown in order. I made the kids wait until Chipmunk Punk (1980) showed up and I said ” HEY! I HAVE THAT RECORD!” Then proceeded to exit the theater singing My Sharona and Let’s Go in my best Chipmunk voice. My son is just old enough to really be annoyed by this. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, really. I’ve been riding a wave of nostalgia lately. I think the combination of my imminent 25th high school reunion coupled with becoming absurdly hooked on Swingtown has made me itching to go out and buy a baseball t-shirt and find a roller skating rink with black lights. Is it silly to miss having to untwist phone cords?

Just can’t resist…

We had visions of a relaxing week at the beach, hoping to get away from it all before embarking upon what promises to be a very busy summer. We had eaten dinner, and I swear had not even been at the campsite for two hours when Laserman fell out of a tree. He had a really suspicious-looking bump on his wrist, oh, and he was screaming in pain, so off to the emergency room we went. He was splinted, x-rayed, and sent back to camp with orders to keep it elevated for two days and see an orthopedist “sooner rather than later”. Over the next few days, as we burned through all our phone minutes arranging for a doc back in Portland, visions of summer began to look very dour indeed for our boy should his wrist truly be broken. No swimming, bowling, in-line skating, you name it. His whole summer was flashing before his eyes and he responded in typical pre-teen fashion: he slept. We did get a appointment with an orthopedist back home and cut our trip short. The good news is there is no break, but he does have to wear a brace for a few weeks. He cheered up immediately, but was not nearly as happy about the promising turn of events as my husband and myself. Two days of a possibly broken wrist is just as bad as a definitely broken wrist and we are all relieved we do not have to endure summer in a cast.

We did stay at the beach long enough to get a few photos.

You can see the splint on his right arm. Couldn’t get it wet, couldn’t get sand in it. Poor kid. I have promised some make-up camping trips this summer….and I doubt he will be climbing trees any time soon!

Progress Report

The Dayflower is officially in progress! Happy Birthday to me! My goal is to wear this to my 25th high school reunion in August. Piece of cake! Perfect summer knitting. I did get gauge on the recommended needles, amazingly enough. However, I’ve had enough lace garment wipe-outs to hedge my bets on this one and I went down two sizes to knit the lace skirt on size 4s. (the stockinette bodice will be on size 6)

I also finished a sock!

It’s Reina, from the Woolgirl Sock Club. Yes, I am already behind. The new shipment is here and I am nowhere near ready for it. It didn’t stop me from buying a skein of Dream In Color Smooshy when I was at the beach. I call it yarn therapy.

It’s time to get back in the blogging groove after a few busy weeks.  Slowly, I will get there.  For now, I am sharing a meme that has been going around, and has intrigued me enough to jump on the bandwagon.  No tagging, so if you feel like doing it, just go right on ahead.

The instructions to create the mosaic are:
Type your answers to each of the questions below into Flickr Search
Using only the first page, pick an image
Copy and paste each of the URLs into the mosaic maker

1. What is your first name? Katy
2. What is your favorite food? sushi
3. What high school did you go to? West Linn High
4. What is your favorite color? Red
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Clive Owen
6. Favorite drink? Wine
7. Dream vacation?  New York
8. Favorite dessert? Apple Pie
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? Teacher
10. What do you love most in life? Family
11. One word to describe you. Persnickety
12. Your Flickr name. Knitterkate

I got the meme from Sharon’s blog, so, thanks Sharon!

I just offered to sew 75 beanbags for Vacation Bible School.  What can I say?  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  The ipod is charged and ready, I’ve eaten and am well-hydrated. The serger is all warmed up and ready for action…

The Lazy Garden ‘08, June edition will have to tide you over until I have knitting content:

The corn on the lower left is off to a good start; it’s sure to be “knee-high by July”.  Next to it is asparagus, newly planted. I can’t quite understand if I get to cut a few spears this year or not.  I know they are a perennial and not to expect a full crop for a year or two. I put them in in late April, so my plan is to leave them untouched this year, then harvest a few next year.  It’s an adventure!  The broccoli in the second bed…not so much.  We had one really hot day, followed by very cold wet weather and the first heads bolted.  I cut them off and ran in a panic to read all my veggie gardening books, which I really should have done before I bought 6 plants.  They may end up being too fussy for my lazy style of gardening. Live and learn.

The greens are doing exceptionally well. As you can see, we have snipped the mesclun and spinach.  Again. The chard is going to get snipped soon as well. This will be the second harvest off these plants and we aren’t done yet!

An early Happy Birthday to me!  I may have made a strategic error in buying Tetris for my brand new Nano…after all I have aspirations to productivity this week.  I will have to be strong.

I’ve been knitting up a storm this week, but sadly, it is all Contractually Unmentionable for the time being.  I do want to point out the clever button on my sidebar.  If you want to check out some fabulous Portland knit-bloggers, just click on the button and you will be take to The Ring.  If you aren’t back in five hours, I’ll send a search party.

Scenes from the Living Room

As I passed through the living room the other day, I happened upon Pumpkin sprawled on the couch with a bag of frozen mozzarella cheese on her head.  Naturally, I inquired.  She moaned, “I bonked my head, so I had to get a bag of frozen cheese!”

“Honey, it’s supposed to be a bag of frozen PEAS”!

For the record, I did not take a picture.  She will thank me later.

My first sample knit project makes its debut!

The plot to make my knitting obsession pay for itself continues…

If you look very closely, you can see broccoli down there…

Yep - there it is in all its bovine glory. Last year, due to remodeling craziness, the dairy compost ended up being my birthday present in June. This year it is back to is rightful and more timely place as my Mother’s Day present. It’s one unit ( 7 cubic yards) and it can be purchased, delivery included, from Mt. Scott Fuel.

For the next week or so I will be spreading this over all the beds and while, on the surface, it may not seem to support my Lazy Garden philosophy, it does upon closer inspection. It nourishes the plants I like and suppresses the ones I don’t. There aren’t that many weeds and, if some do pop up, the ground is soft enough that they are easy to pull. Dairy compost holds moisture so I won’t have to water very much; some of the more established beds won’t need watering at all. Now that’s what I call lazy!

Once the compost has been spread, I can get ready for Birthday Sweater 43! Yay! I made up my mind! Only it’s not a sweater; it a camisole, but I am the queen and I make the rules.

It’s the Dayflower Camisole from Knititude. I mentioned it in an earlier post as being in the running. The deciding factors were that a) my 25th high school reunion is coming up in August and this will be perfect with a short sleeve tee underneath for that occasion and b) Webs had the yarn on sale. The yarn is Classic Elite Premiere, color #5205 and I have a tee the exact same shade. It’s fate, I tell you.