Monday, October 05, 2020

October

 Let's see what has been going in my life this past month...


Lots of knitting and as always, I am continuously trying to decrease my yarn stash. 

Hopefully I will be able to find all the things I completed.




My largest project is the Playful Shawl. This was so enjoyable to knit and that is key for me. I love all the colors and getting some of those neverending leftovers used up is extremely satisfying.

Now for something different but still sock yarn is the cute little baby sweater called the Baby Vertebrae. My nephew and his girlfriend are expecting a girl in January so I thought a little sweater would be handy. I chose a variegated yarn that has blue, pale pink and yellow. Recently I am steering away from the typical gender colors because why limit myself and others when there are so many gorgeous colors out there!


 


 Another nephew and his wife can't be left out so I knit a cute little sweater vest for fall. I have to keep track of the weather and the age/size because that would not be great to knit a warm weather item that will fit the baby in the summer. I think that this will be perfect to layer over a shirt. Bulky yarn got this project done fast.



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Sunday, August 16, 2020

Hot hot hot

 Well, our mild summer is over. All of SoCal is experiencing a heatwave which is interesting during COVID times. No malls, movie theaters or public pools are available. Here in the South Bay, most of the homes do not have A/C since the daily breeze usually takes care of hot weather. In the last 10 years, we've been having warmer summers and colder winters. This summer has been usually mild with maybe a couple of days of 80+ degrees. It's already August and now we can turn on our room air units to cooldown our bedrooms to sleep.




Some random things going on at the cheese house. I've been wrapping my coins because there is a nationwide coin shortage. I have this bucket of coins that I've been saving up for yarn but I figured now is a good time to turn them in. Couple of weeks ago I was the bank and asked for coin wrappers. So far I these all ready to go to the bank. It's $241 and I still have more to go. Wouldn't you know, I was just at the bank again and forgot to ask for more wrappers. Ugh.

I started another Chickadee cowl this time with the yarn leftovers from my Vacillate shawl kit. I also will add in some yarn from my Blended shawl hopefully to contrast a little with all the jewel tones. 

School will begin soon for both boys which is virtual/online. I'll have to get a good system for Josh so he can stay on task and be focused. Eventually, when he is able J will have a blended schedule (half online and half in-person).

Even with the heat, I cooked this weekend. I am tired of takeout so I chose butter chicken and chile verde with pork ribs.

I'll try the butter chicken for dinner tonight and have some leftovers this week. The same with the chile verde although it's pretty spicy and I'll need plenty of beans and chips to lower the heat for me. Hector brought me extra limes so if I can deal with using the oven I will make lime bars. 

I hope all of you are keeping yourself positive and healthy. Tell me what you've been up to int he comments!

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Friday, August 14, 2020

San Diego weekend

 It's August!! Everyone in our household has been adjusting as best we can as time passes and we try to stay safe. Joshua finished summer school and did really well. He was focused and managed his 3 classes to get good grades. It was time to celebrate.

We decided to go to San Diego for a long weekend and stay at a friend's house that has been unoccupied for several months.There is a pool and hot tub so that already feels like a vacation to us!

Now, San Diego is not too far from us about 1.5-2 + hour drive BC (before COVID) and there was zero traffic slow downs. The thing I didn't take into account is that public restrooms are not available. We tried fast food places (only drive-thru) and gas stations (bathrooms closed) so I'll leave out the graphic details but we had to rough it.

The weekend was wonderful. The weather was mild (currently our weather is in the 80's) so that wasn't too bad. Saturday morning we got up early to eat at IHOP (patio set-up). My funny story is sort of a reverse drivers license type story...like when you're underage and order a drink and hope they don't ask for ID. This time I'm underage (by a year) and I want to order off the senior menu!! All I want is the one (egg, bacon, sausage & pancake) for $8. So does Hector but he's definitely a senior (lol). We ordered and the waiter didn't ask for ID!! Woo hoo. I thought I scored/won but he misunderstood and brought out the regular breakfast sampler vs the senior sampler so that was a bummer.

Hector and I went to Balboa Park to walk around and do Community Day for Pokemon Go. It was a lot of fun!! Lots of people doing the same as us, biking, dog walking and general hanging out. I caught several shiny magikarp and a shiny Deoxys. 


Saturday night, we hit up our fave spot from our dating days, Ichiban. The food is still fantastic and good prices. They had several tables outside so that was easy.  We were so stuffed we walked down to Pacific Beach. Lots of people and places adapted to outside gatherings which was cool but I noticed lots of people were not wearing masks or a proper distance, mostly young people and locals. I wasn't very comfortable with that. We wear our masks out in public, even earlier when we walked all over Balboa Park. We also stopped at Belmont Shores and the same thing there.

Sunday, we spent some time searching for a surrey bike rental place in Mission Bay, Tried Campland first but we could only bike on the property but the guy said all the resorts should have the rentals too. We found a bike for the 4 of us and boy, it was a lot of work, fun but a lot of work. I notice that during the pandemic, my stamina is really low. My original idea was to have the boys in front steering while Hector and I could play Pokemon. Well, that wasn't possible since we spent all our energy peddling and avoiding people on the path. 

After our workout, we spent a nice relaxing afternoon in the pool, playing goofy games and tossing a ball around. Overall, just a nice relaxing weekend and enjoying each other's company.

But it sure is nice to be home.


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Hopefully, you found a way to enjoy summer and stay safe!!
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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Hump Day

My day began great. I do a little bit of Animal Crossing to do my daily activities and see who is visiting. On Tyler's island, Julien was crafting something neither of us had so he decided to try Turnip Exchange to have people visit your island for turnip selling, DIY recipes and more. We have used this site to sell our turnips and get DIYs but never hosted. It was interesting and I think a positive experience for Tyler so maybe I'll give it a go one day.

 We then did our errands, going to CVS, the bank and the post office. I got some coin wrappers because I have a plastic tub of coins that I've collecting for 5+ years. With COVID going on, there has been a coin shortage so places require a credit card or exact change. The other day when we went to the beach, we paid the $7 parking fee in quarters.

I managed an hour of sorting and packing coins. There are still a lot of coins to sort.

 I started my 2nd batch of limoncello. This time I was able to get the Pure Proof 151 which will be a lot stronger than my last batch, thanks to my cousin who brought it from Arizona. Now we wait a couple of weeks and see how it goes from there.



Dealing with my mom who is hard of hearing is exhausting especially when she calls me on the phone asking questions and no matter how loud I speak/yell, she can't hear me or gets it wrong. Sometimes, I can see the humor of it all but today it was just frustrating and depressing. 


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Wrapping it up for tonight...enjoy a close up of Phil.
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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Knit update: July edition

Knitters are prepared. We have plenty of yarn to keep us busy probably way after we die. I am not a fast knitter. I prefer to knit with sock yarn mostly so that will extend my knitting process. Sometimes I switch it up and double the sock yarn to get worsted weight which is a bit faster for hats.

 This project called for 3 strands of sock yarn so I was down to try it. I have lots of sock yarn leftovers and mini-skeins so I am always looking for projects to make me feel productive and get my yarn stash lower.  I laugh because yarn, in general doesn't weigh much so in the grand scheme probably didn't put much of a dent in my stash.

 So the pattern I found is called Scrappy Birthday Cowl. It calls for 3 strands of sock yarn (which can be a little tangled) and lots of bobbles which is a nubbin or boobles (my term) of yarn so it'll just use up more yarn so I was game for this. 

 The fun thing with using different strands of yarn, you can achieve some interesting looks depending on our choices. I decided to use a dark, almost black green yarn to be used thoughout the entire cowl and throw in other colors similar or contrasting because I wanted the bobbles to stand out a bit. Overall, the cowl has that dark tone with some pops of color.




This cowl is heavy, way heavier than I thought it would be. Definitely for colder weather than SoCal. I am thinking of gifting this to my SIL who lives in MD.

 And here is another cowl but in a single strand of fingering weight which may be okay for California but only for those really cold spells. This cowl hugs the neck so we will see. Also it sits tall (about 14 inches) but can be scrunched down and my neck is not long & elegant enough for this cowl to work for me. This why there is no photo of me wearing it. It really is pretty though. I'll put it in the gift pile for now.



I have a couple more sock yarn projects waiting in the wings, a hat and another cowl. Seriously, I need to stop with the cowls. I do want to start another shawl. I volunteered for a test knit of a hat in worsted weight so I can get that done fairly fast. at the beginning of the year, I gave myself a goal of completing 25 knit projects and currently I am at 11. Hats are the easiest for me to get to my goal but I am trying to challenge myself with bigger projects.

 I do want to start another 10-stitch blanket because I heard a little birdie say another baby is on the way. Not me...



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(Mis)Adventures with Hector #12,739

I love my husband. 

 He keeps me on my toes and makes me laugh, sometimes unintentionally. 

 Last night, he was about to head out for some errands and says, "I can't find my phone." Not unusual, he looks in the typical places and no phone. I offer to call his phone and we don't hear anything, not in his car or upstairs. Hmm.

 After several minutes, I've stopped calling his phone so he takes our house phone and begins calling it. Hector was outside and then comes back in announcing, "I found it!" 

 Earlier, Hector was packing our old TV in the spare bedroom into the new TV box. As he lowered the TV into the box, his cell phone was in his shirt pocket and fell into the box without him noticing. He then and taped up the box and put it in the SUV to drive to our storage. 

 It was fortunate that he found the phone before the box was put into storage because we may have never found it again or at least many years! It was so random yet so Hector.

 So have you or your partner have some similar story? Share in the comments...
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Monday, July 13, 2020

Catch up: Knitting

Since it is already July, I will show the latest knits I have completed so far. I have several social media platforms but it can be hard to keep up with it all since I don't like to focus on one particular thing and people may find that topic boring. It shouldn't really matter to me what people think but sometimes it does occur. 

 So here we go...

 These hats were done in January for my Puck This group and our annual Hat Trick Challenge. Knit 3 hats in January to get a hat trick. No prizes but it is a fun way to knit some hats, use up yarn and see all the different hats. It never fails that I'll add about 3-5 more hat patterns to my library that month.






Hats are usually a quick knit and it can be satisfying to get projects done. But that leads up to my other projects I have for 2020. I try to set some knitting goals for myself like 25 projects completed in 2020. I also throw in a bigger project to challenge myself or learn a new technique. 

The year began great with my hat trick and I even finished another project for January.


This cowl used scrap yarn and leftovers so half of the battle was choosing the colors. Choosing colors can bog me down super fast but I think I just plowed forward once I picked the colors. This cowl used worsted weight which is heavier for the SoCal climate but I decided it  would be my snowboarding cowl and it worked great. I have some cowls commercially made and I find them a little tight and warm. This one seems to fit the bill, a looser cowl to allow more air flow because it's easy to get hot snowboarding. 
On to February!! The beauty of knitting is having multiple projects going at the same time. I think this Blended Shawl was a 2019 goal of finishing 2 shawls. Didn't make that goal since it was started in October 2019 but I picked it back up and got it done for 2020. Every project is a celebration for me and this shawl is so pretty! Didn't use leftovers this time but the yarn was mini-skeins as part of an Advent Calendar from 2018. 



Another complete project for February...another cowl knit with leftovers (yep, sock yarn doubled). I have a lot of sock yarn and sometimes I swap with other knitters mini-skeins plus the Advent Calendar yarn...well it's a lot. 


 So by now, you may be thinking that I am on a roll for 2020 and I was until mid-March. That's when I got COVID-19 and everything stopped. My body and mind had to recover and it took a lot longer than I expected. I don't think I started knitting again until May and even then it had to be a very simple and mindless project. Well, I always have a simple and mindless project on the needles and I finished it. 

 A 10-stitch blanket is a great project for using up yarn and very adaptable. I don't even remember when I started it but it was in 2019 and it just sits there until I pick it up. After COVID-19, this blanket was a blessing. Only 10 stitches and knit until the corner where a little bit of focus and counting are required and that's it. In May, I realized that my nephew and his wife were expecting their baby early June (so there's my goal). 


I was finally getting my knitting mojo back! It was frustrating when my mind and fingers wouldn't cooperate after COVID because I had started a new shawl project in February with a yarn kit that I bought in 2018. This pattern seemed a little intimidating and a larger scale but since my knitting was on fire in February, I started Vacillate.




I love these colors and it was already chosen for me!! I started knitting and it was going along really well, I figured I could finish it at my current rate by the end of March. Well, that didn't happen. But I DID finish it in June!! 



So the month of July, I have sort of stalled only because I don't have many projects going. I was so focused on finishing i didn't have many ready to go. I don't why it takes me so long to begin, maybe that's why I need several projects going so I can pick up what suits my mood, attention span etc. 

I did complete another cowl by sheer will and nothing else to knit...using mini-skeins again. Looking back, I had a hard time choosing the yarn and order like usual. 


So that's it for now...I do have a couple of projects going so we shall see which one will emerge done first. 
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