Busy Week
6:42 a.m. - 2008-09-23


I started attending the group for women at church at the suggestion of Jane, and I like it so far. I thought it would be a small group with undue attention focused on my retiring self, but no, there are about 14 people so I can fade into the background. It is nice to be out meeting people. Of course, since my brother is well known and liked at the church, the fact that my nametag has my maiden name on it as my middle name wins me instant acceptance. The pastor's wife is in my group and had some very nice things to say about J. We meet in the main room all together and then split up into smaller groups. I can't believe that I am doing something social.

The spouse was supposed to take this week off as a vacation but the pressures of business overcame him, and he's not. He may take off Friday, but that will be all, so I will be sure to keep the cookie jar full all week to make it up to him. I was out of flour this week, which is unusual for me, since I have a big bin that holds 25 lbs of flour, and it doesn't usually get down to the very bottom. I went way out to the Winc0 to buy more flour, and I was pleased to see that they have a house brand of unbleached flour that is half the cost of the name brands. This means that I was paying about 30 cents a pound as opposed to the usual 51 cents. A giant box of Cherri0s was only $2.39 as opposed to the usual $5 at the regular grocery store. I like getting a big cart full of groceries and spending less than $40.

The February Lady sweater is galloping along. I make many mistakes trying to knit a lace pattern while watching TV, but since my stint as a knitting instructor, I can rip out little sections, dropping the stitches down many rows and knitting it back up again without ripping out any whole rows of stitches. I manage the lace pattern (sort of) by having markers for every repeat. That way I can tell right away if I have the wrong number of stitches in each repeat. I make the markers by buying some bright colored straws and cutting them into rings.

Abby came to stay over the weekend while the spouse and Melissa were out hiking at Big Trees. We made tortillas and taught Jellie, who came over to bake a cake with Ab, how to roll out tortillas. At one point I got tired and went away to knit, and when I came back there was a big stack of finished tortillas. Now that is just fabulous. I had finished up the strawberry flannel pajama top for Abby, and I had her try them on for fit. I don't know what the pattern people were thinking of, the top was just huge through the hips even though it was a young junior/teen size. I had to take them in a large amount totaling over 5" but ended up with a PJ top that looked very cute. Ab was pleased that now she had a set of top-to-toe strawberries, since I finished the PJ bottoms several months ago. She was also able to take home the Trekking socks I had finished for her. Now I just have to finish up the white knit top she brought home for alterations which has been sitting on the sewing machine for about 6 months.

Grandpa's birthday dinner was very nice. We were going to take them out to the restaurant they requested, but Suz kept calling the place for reservations and there was no answer. The EG's were just there having lunch 10 days ago, so it was a mystery. We assume that they went out of business in the sudden and secretive manner that restaurants use, here today and closed tomorrow. So instead, we took them out to the 0utb@ck. I ordered cheese fries for an appetizer and was pleased at how avidly the EG's dug into the cheese fries. After dinner, we went back to their place in the retirement community to eat the cake I had brought over. I had had a hard time getting the lid on the caketaker and had had to wedge it down scraping the sides of the cake. I just took extra whipped cream to patch it up. When I took the lid off, half the cake came with it and I was left holding the lid over a poor beheaded lower cake section. I gave the lid a shake, and the top half fell down back onto the cake with perfect accuracy not even disturbing the top frosting with the shaved white chocolate trim. I just needed to smooth out the sides, didn't even need the extra cream. The cake looked pretty great if I say so myself. But most important, the EG's loved it. So, Happy 86th Birthday Grandpa!