Ho Hum

That is what you say on your blog when you're too busy to have any interesting thoughts about which to blog.

Ah me.  The house is cleanish.  The Halloween decorations are on the steps ready to go up and replace the Christmas stuff in the closet.  Laundry's mostly put away.  Dinner's in the crock pot.  Hum drum, I tell you. 

I can't find my camera charging cord, so no pictures.  The Hemlock Ring blanket is nearly 600 stitches around and 6 rows from what I am going to call  finished.  Turns out it's recipient has been checking the blog to see how I'm doing, so I shouldn't post pics of it anyway.  Maybe on Ravelry.  I'll link you to it when I get around to it. 

What's in the crockpot, you ask?  The standard pulled pork.  3 pork tenderloins, 1 bottle of Newman's Own Balsamic Dressing.  10 hours on low.   Yum.

I think I'll throw out some controversial statements, in no particular order, and see if I can get you to bite.  Howzat?

• Moon Sand, while a wonderful time filler for sick kids, ought to be put on some recall list.  It's just too messy.  Or it should come with a warning. 
• I hate mice.   In general and specifically the one that has found a place to live under my corner kitchen counter.  I think I will hate even more though a dead mouse on a trap.  Which by the way is a very effective dog catcher -- the sticky thing has caught Monte twice.  He is not the sharpest crayon in the box.  Cutest, but not sharpest. 
• Dressing up like the Jamaican Bobsledders or Tiger Woods or even Al Sharpton for Halloween is not "donning blackface" as my local paper called it no fewer than 9 times in a recent article.  Painting your face black with a white O for lips and singing like a black minstrel is "donning blackface".  The first bit is inflammatory and misleading and simply historically incorrect -- using the term under those circumstances smudges it's sharply and deeply offensive nature.  Which I think might be just the exact opposite effect from the one the esteemed editorial department was expecting.
• Helping people learn to knit is super rewarding.  It's my absolute favorite thing to do.  Except that I do it so much that I've been missing the Wednesday Night Knittsters at Knitorious pretty consistently.  Which is a bummer.  I miss my peeps. 
• Meeting random people who then tell me that they read my blog is disconcerting.  Which is counterintuitive.  I publish this thing so that people will read it right?  Then why do I get a pit in my stomach when unexpected people do?  It actually has had a dampening effect on my writing.  No, silly, not soggy writing, less writing.  And no, I'm not talking about you.
• Spinning is a fascinating, compulsive, time sucking black hole of a hobby.  I've got about 800 yards of fall colored 2-ply yarn and about a 3rd of the roving yet to spin.  What do you think, Deborah, can I get a ribwarmer out of that?  (You should see Deborah's Ribwarmer... simply smashing.)  And some singles of Dyeabolical superwash. Rachel will know the colorway.  To ply or not to ply.
• I'm raw feeding my dogs -- at least partially.  And Big Dog's allergies are disappearing.  Even with no hard freezes yet.  But raw feeding is yucky.  You need one of these and lots of soapy water to mop the floor around the food bowls after each meal.  At least I no longer have a toddler around the house. 
• A funny thing to do is to take the Thanksgiving turkey carcasses and make a stock out of them (I feel so virtuous -- I always say I'm going to do this and never quite get around to it) and store some of it in what is usually the lemonade pitcher.  I didn't quite have the heart to let Dear Son actually pour a glass and take a swig of it, but nearly.   'Cause that would have been hilarious.  I have a dark side.
• I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when the Irish Composer said, during a recent practice, "Next year, when you do this, blah blah blah..."  Next year?  God, don't talk to me again about Irish Gaelic anything until July, 'k?  I didn't even hear what she said after "next year".   Love, love, love this challenging thing I'm doing, but I'm bonkers tired of it right now.  I wake up with "Taw esagawn ina lee, es kuhloo sa wanshayre twee" running around in my head.  Oh, pipe down, that's the phonetic pronunciation.  I don't even have the keys on my keyboard to write what it really looks like...
• 5th grade math is way over my head.  Or at least it's way too fiddly for me -- and I really don't have the patience for it between 4 and 6 in the evening.  All those factors and long division.  Yeeeuuuccckkk!

Well.  That's enough of that.  The paper should be here by now and I'm off to get jerked around by their editorial staff once again.  It'll be fun.  Promise.

Comments

[cecily]

Do you have any recommendations for crock pot recipes online/cookbooks? I've had one for awhile and never used it and am either going to sell it or actually start using it, I haven't decided yet. :P

[Lucia]

Ah, you have been aspinnilated. I told you resistance was futile.

Cecily, pretty much any stew recipe can go in a crock pot. I used to do it with the Joy of Cooking's beef burgundy. As best I recall (too lazy to go get the book), you marinate 2-3 pounds of beef cubes overnight in red wine, then coat them lightly in flour with a little thyme added. Brown and cook with the wine and onions, carrots, potatoes, and whatever else floats your boat. And a can of cream of mushroom soup if you like. (IIRC there was something about salt pork in that recipe, but never having seen it, I always left it out. The edition I have always seems to have one outlandish ingredient per recipe -- "blend together one cup flour, one quarter-cup butter, one egg, and one salamander gonad.")

[Carole]

I had a stranger approach me in the grocery store the other day because she knew my blog. I think it's weird when local people know me but I don't have a problem with random people from all over the place.

[margene]

I'd love to sit and have a drink with you...I love your dark side and your political side, too. Come back and post more often! You're missed!

[Bridgett]

Hey Ann, I read your blog.

[trek]

We have a Moon Sand toy in a bag from Neatnik's birthday party. I still don't want to open it two months after she received it. I wonder if the child would agree to let me give it away and get her something in place of it.

Why don't people ask the parents what a suitable toy would be??

[PICAdrienne]

Hmm, sounds like busy times in the life of a mom.

I so would have let the kid drink the stock...Of course, my kids actually LIKE to drink chicken stock, so the amusement factor would have been down considerably. But, then again, I am one of those evil mothers, who tells the kids outright, you were placed on this earth so I would have someone to embarrass in public.

[Pat K]

I don't mind total strangers reading my blog (and I'm not referring to my regulars), but I'd go freaking crazy if people I actually run into start reading it. Does that make sense? In other words, nobody I work with or go to church with. If that happened, I might never blog again.

[Bridgett]

Pat--I think most of the people I go to church with read my blog these days. At least the people I know and like. And the pastor. And so on. It is disconcerting. But then you alter your tone a bit and it's ok.

[crzjane]

I use the "d-con Ultra Set Covered Mousetrap". You don't see the dead mouse and don't have to touch it. Even an unsharpened crayon doggie can't be hurt by it. (At least I don't think they can.) They can be reused.
That pulled pork sounds really good. Have you tried the whole chicken with a bottle of barbecue sauce? The meat falls off the bone. Delicious!

[Jennifer]

I'm going to say Amen to the Moon Sand. That stuff is too messy. They should sell it in some sort of container that the kids can play on and then store the stuff in.

[Pooch]

The pulled pork recipe sounds delicious! I haven't made it that way, but will soon! Thanks!

:)

[Fríða]

hm, just wondering where you´re at, seems like a long time since you´ve blogged. hope you´re ok.
best wishes from Iceland
Frida

[deborah]

I just tagged you for a Christmas meme--not like you don't have anything else to do :)