Science Lab

I am happy that with regard to home schooling I am not a pioneer. I'm thankful for the friends and acquaintances I have sharing this adventure. And lately I've been most thankful for friends with children much older than mine who thought of me when they made room for college books on their shelves.

We were generously given a microscope set a few years ago. And this week, for the Artist's science experiment, she got to use it for the first time.

First her experiment instructed her to drop a drop of iodine on a potato. If it remained yellow-orange there would be no starch present. It turned a vivid blue-black instantly. She watched the inky blob expand across the surface of the potato under her magnifying glass.Next, we took a scraping from the potato, prepared a slide, and looked into the microscope world. We both look forward to many interesting science labs in the future.

Seasons Change

I'm not ready for it but it is happening anyway. Over the weekend the Engineer wanted to play outside. When he asked if he could shovel snow how could I say no? There were actually more leaves in the driveway than show, but he had his own hap hazard fun anyway:
He made a slushy pile of leaves at the bottom on the back stoop steps. And another right in the middle of daddy's side of the driveway. Thank you, son.

That was a few days ago. The snow is gone now, if only for a while. It was gone long enough for me to try one more time to gather fresh parsley to add to the crab croquettes I mixed up for last night's dinner. Under the entrapped leaves there were still a few good looking sprigs of parsley large enough to harvest. I have frozen some baggies of parsley to use in the winter , but the fresh is so much nicer.

After knitting the scarf I wrote about on Monday, I began a sweater for the Engineer. I jockeyed his position in my queue partly because he is smaller and I'm following a simple pattern, therefore his projects are faster. So far the front, back and shoulders are done. Hopefully I can knock out the sleeves this week and finish the neckline and seaming during the Brown's game on Sunday. I figured I could get this done rather quickly and keep busy while I stall and stall and stall some more before casting on for a more complex sweater for the Artist. The sweater I make for her will require my adjusting an adult pattern down to her size. I am not confident, so I plan to make lots of gauge swatches and use tons of lifelines and hope not to need too many of them.

As Christmas decorations are going up all around us, I still have my autumn decor bucking the trend. This is my favorite piece. It hangs inside the vestibule door in the living room. The advent box is still up in the attic, but I still hope transition our home from thanksgiving to advent before Sunday morning.

We are going to have our largest group of guests ever this Christmas, so Rick and I have already decided to use our doesn't-smell-real-but-takes-up-a-lot-less-room-than-a-real tree this Christmas. That means two years in a row we will all miss doing this:

Hug For Snickers Scarf

Learn About Snickers Here

Over the weekend I completed the Hug For Snickers scarf for the Artist. She wore it to play on Saturday and to church on Sunday and pronounced it very warm. Mission Accomplished! And it coordinated beautifully with the pale pink coat her grandparents bought her and the pale pink dress coat her cousin handed down to her.

The scarf has the X and O (kisses and hugs) patterns on the edges and alternating cat's paw and kitty face lace in the center panel. Over the Thanksgiving weekend we were treated to our first accumulating snow of the autumn. The kids welcomed the weather and built a small wet snowman on the back steps. With the weather just barely at 32 degrees F he lost his features little by little. And by time to kiss Daddy good-by on Monday morning, he made for peals of laughter from the kiddos. Poor soppy snowman.

Miles and Miles

It has been quite a while since I've reported on my walking. I'm so glad we invested in a treadmill years ago. With my children still being too young for me to take off for walks around the neighborhood, the treadmill helps me get the job done. Taking a week and a half off to rest an ankle really kills one's exercise goals.

Thankfully, the rest did get rid of the pain, although the swelling is still there sometimes. I think it will be with me for a while. New walking shoes have made a difference too. How much of a difference I have yet to learn because, per doctor's advice, I am not walking at the steep incline I like to use.

Treadmill view: The Engineer enjoys Wheel of Fortune or
Jeopardy with me while I walk.

August went along as expected, 20.05 miles.

September. Well, in September I logged the fewest miles since the new year, only 12.25. Since then, I've been making up missed miles little by little. Sometimes it is only a tenth or a twentieth of a mile extra I'll walk. Other times I'll have the time, ankle stamina, and energy to walk an extra quarter or three tenths. Eventually it all came together.

October brought me some very slight increases in incline. I'm still not able to walk at "full tilt" for a reasonable length of time. But I did begin making up some missed miles from the prior month. In October I put 19.75 miles on the mill.

November is not over yet, but I'm determined to keep up the pre-injury pace. So far I have 14.20 miles with eight days to go.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Artist and the Engineer will join the children's choir is singing Come, Ye Thankful People, Come for our church service tomorrow. They have been preparing for a few weeks.

I'm beginning some small preparations for our feast hosted by my in-laws tomorrow as well. I have the sourdough starter out of the refrigerator to proof (get all bubbly). It is smelling nice and beer-like and looking ready for the next step.And I have the heavy cream draining into a jar to be made into butter. Mmmmm...so sweet and good with the fresh bread.
The bread is made with a mix of white and whole wheat flour. This way I can add in a little more nutrition and still keep the bread fairly soft. This will be the first time I'm serving my home made sourdough bread outside my immediate family. I hope it goes well!

Come, ye thankful people, come;
Raise the song of Harvest home.
All be safely gathered in
Ere the winter storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide
For our wants to be supplied.
Come to God;s own temple, come;
Raise the song of Harvest home.

I nearly forgot...23 cups of pumpkin puree.

That's a lot of soup waiting to be made.

Burnt Orange, Yellow, Bronze and Brown

It was a colorful weekend in my kitchen. While the Artist was away at a Tae Kwon Do tournament I had a chance to cut up the large pumpkin Rick and the kids bought in October. I didn't get any photos of that, but I imagine you all know what a pumpkin looks like anyway.

I roasted the pieces of pumpkin meat until they were soft enough to separate from the skin. They were a homey-smelling burnt orange and yellow when them came out of the oven. Then I began mashing until I had enough to make a large pot of pumpkin soup (a flour and butter roux with pumpkin, milk, water, ham, onions, nutmeg added), a more attractive yellow than my photo indicates. When Rick and the Artist came home, I was still making pumpkin puree. I had graduated to the blender because I was making puree to freeze for pie, cookies, soup, bread, whatever was needed first.

Those two were exhausted from a long day, but very proud of the Artist's two new bronze medals. She scored more points in sparring than ever before and sparred against her toughest tournament opponent to date. She also won a bronze in the forms competition. Rick told me that a tenth of a point separated her from the gold medal winner. Sounds like it was a pretty tight race! After loading three containers with 18 cups of puree I needed to do some searching form more containers. There was a lot of pumpkin left. Two more cups went into the soup. I started running the dishwasher so I could use some more containers that were in there, and I began mixing up a double recipe of pumpkin bread. The house began to smell so good, and our mouths began to water as we played Monopoly and waited for the bread to be done. It emerged from the oven a deep beckoning brown, but it did not cool before bed time. We decided to have it for breakfast Sunday morning. It was a delight! I like it spread with sour cream or cream cheese. The Engineer likes it spread with butter. The Artist and Rick like it without any spread. I'm sure the last of it will be finished today.

Sleeveless Ribbon Shell

Come spring time or warm weather, whichever is first, I'll open my dresser and experience that little excitement of a brand new garment to wear. Finally the Deborah Newton sleeveless ribbon shell is complete. Thank you, dear Artist, for interrupting your school work to be my photographer.

I had a worried moment at the end. While biding off the last sleeve edging the end of the yarn came dancing into my field of vision. It would be a pain in the neck to join a new yarn just to complete a bind off. But this was more serious, I had no more yarn to join. Now I was so very thankful that I had made the neck and sleeve edgings narrower than the instructions prescribed.

I am so pleased with the way this garment turned out. The ribbon yarn was a new experience. It is beautiful, but I am not sold on its long term merits.

Next I have a smaller project lined up...a Hug for Snickers scarf. The pattern I bought for the Engineer's sweater has not arrived in the mail yet. Maybe I'll receive it by the time the scarf is complete.