Miss Oribel

was being tortured recently by this little fellow,

 

which of course meant a lot of running around inside the house as he moved from place to place on the deck. (I think he was doing it on purpose.)

 

Later there was a certain amount of investigating to be done.

 

Speaking of investigating, for some reason she suddenly noticed a bag of charcoal next to her door and had to learn all about this "new thing" in her house. ("Suddenly" and "new" being used a bit loosely here, as it had been there for several weeks, not to mentioned used at least twice. We were rather boggled that she hadn't noticed it before this.) Anyway, I saw her messing with it, and knew she was going to pull it over. Did I stop her? No, I just grabbed the camera so I would be ready when she came back out of the sack.




Some of them are a little blurry and dark, but if you click on them, I think you will be able to see the results of her doing the standard rubbing stuff with her chin to remind everyone that the charcoal belongs to her.

 

Sunday afternoon I asked Hubband

if he wanted to go investigating with me. He did, so we went off to get an up-close-and-personal look at something I had noticed one day when I was taking my dad home. I had seen evidence of some interesting activity at the edge of a major parking lot and wanted to see if it really was what it looked like.
It was, but doesn't seem to be currently inhabited, though it couldn't have been abandoned very long ago.

I have been doing

some knitting lately, but this was all done before my kitchen accident.
Another shawl, same pattern as the last one, except I made it a bigger before I started the lace section. This one is a gift for a friend.

 

A couple of baby hats, one is for a new baby at church and the other is for a friend of Hubband's. I know of six or seven more babies coming by summer's end; good thing these only take me about a day to make!
Socks continue to be worked on, but the ones I was hoping to have done in time for Easter aren't going to be done. Another stranded color-work pattern that has given me fits on gauge. Le sigh. Mastering that problem is probably going to be one of my knitting goals for this year. Right up there with finishing twelve pairs of socks, which I am quickly falling behind on. The fact that I have another shawl/scarf in the works might not be helping, but at least it is a different pattern this time.

Well, last Thursday or Friday you

were supposed to get a blog post sponsored by a cooking experiment. Yeah, the post didn't happen, but then, the cooking experiment didn't really either. It got started, but then was interrupted by a kitchen accident that resulted in Hubband being call and asked to come home from work an hour early. Said accident also precipitated a call the next day to the Ask-A-Nurse line, which resulted in another call to Hubband, who insisted on coming home for the trip to the Emergency Room, rather than letting me call a friend to drive and meeting me there. Not that this was a real emergency mind you, but apparently the ER is more prepared to deal with burns than the regular doctor's office or the Express Care clinic.
So now I suppose you want to know what happened to cause all these phone calls and driving to and fro, don't you? Well, I had started said cooking experiment, which involved frying some (gasp!) tofu, and then I did my normal thing of pouring off the leftover oil into a can from the freezer. I did a few more steps in the cooking experiment and then went to move the can of oil. Turns out it was either fuller than I realized and/or I moved it faster than I should have and some of the still hot oil splashed over the top onto my hand. So of course I did the proper thing and ran it under cool/cold water right away and was able to use some soap to get the oil off the burn. After it was so numb from the cold that it was driving me nuts, I pulled it out of the water long enough to look at it and call Hubband. It wasn't blistered or charred or anything like that at that point, so that was a good thing. I kept it under cool/cold running water as much as I could until he got home and was able to add his opinion to the subject. Still no blisters, so with a few directions Hubband finished fixing dinner, but it didn't wind up being the planned on experiment. (It is way easier to change what is being cooked than it is to try to explain how to do something when you don't know exactly what you are doing ahead of time. I know I can't be the only one that makes up food while it is cooking.)
Anyways, cool/cold water continued all evening and there was still no blistering (and the burn was only on the top part of my hand) so medical attention was deferred until the next day. In the morning, there were a few little blisters and they grew a little bit as the morning went on. Since we have access to the Ask-A-Nurse line, it made sense to call them to find out what should be done regarding what venue would be best to seek medical care. I know burn first-aid, but I also know there is second- and third-aid for burns that I am not qualified to cover. (There is a reason why First-Aid is called "First" after all, no matter what the situation is.)
The nurse said I shouldn't drive myself due to potentially breaking blisters, hitting it, etc. and since Hubband had wanted a report, he decided to drive home and take me into town. I told him he could just drop me off and I would call him at the office when I was done, but he wasn't willing to do that, so he hung out in the ER waiting room with me.
So, the deal is I have first ans second degree burns on a small part of the top of my right hand, it is all wrapped up in gauze to protect the blisters from popping and keep it clean and germ free. It is also supposed to stay dry as possible (washing my hair with a plastic bag on my hand is just silly, but one does what is needed) and we are to change the gauze once a day and put new antibiotic goo on it when we do. (Fortunately the doctor said driving with it wrapped up is OK.)
Said cooking experiment has been rescheduled for a later date.

Today's baking

involved making a new-to-me type of bread.

When you have done a lot of cooking in your life,

you can often tell what something is going to be like, just by reading the recipe. I can usually tell that something is going to be OK, good, or great, just by reading the ingredients, though on occasion it does help a little to read the directions in case some item is in question. Sometimes I can read through a recipe and know that it really isn't going to be very good at all and there is no point in even bothering. Once in a while I can even tell that something isn't going to be worth eating just by the name of the recipe, but I am usually willing to keep reading past the title. (I don't totally decide that if it has shrimp or other such seafood/shellfish in it, even though I don't eat those. I can tell if it has potential for others, even it isn't for me.)
The other day I came across an exception to the "keep reading" thing while on the Internet. I came across a link to "Beef Hummus" and it sounded so gross to me that I wasn't willing to click on it to learn any more. Now, you have to realize that I absolutely love hummus, and make a very delicious variety here at home on a fairly regular basis. Also, hummus technically means (roughly) "stuff pureed together to make a spread." So in theory hummus could be made out of beef, but really? GROSS, I tell you! I fussed at Hubband over Skype about how gross it sounded just from the name, and he did agree with me on the subject matter.
Finally my curiosity got the best of me, as it is often want to do, and I clicked through on the link. Guess what? Beet Hummus isn't gross at all. In fact, it is really yummy, especially when you use freshly picked lemons Hubband brings home from Arizona.
(What? Are you going to tell me that I am the only one who misreads stuff?)

I think I havea new knitting love,

and I know I have a new yarn love. I started knitting a very popular shawl pattern on February 17, with some very beautiful yarn, and finished it nine days later, on the 26th.

 

 

I was so taken with the color and everything about it, I took several pictures before it was blocked. (So happy with it that you get several big pictures of it. You know how to make them even bigger to get an even better idea of how beautiful the yarn is.)

 

Plus, there is the whole "before lace is blocked"

 

and "after" to document.

 

Kathy's dyeing is so amazing and perfect for this shawl, and happen to have a skein of a different colorway, calling my name, telling me that it too will be very nice to work with and beautiful made up. I keep telling it that I should finish at least one of the three pairs of socks I have on needles before I cast it on, but maybe I'll at least wind it into a cake.
I see more shawl knitting in my very near future.


(Did I happen to mention how crazy in-love I am with my new shawl?)

Sunday morning at our house