Tuesday is for Housework

Today has been a busy day. With S's friend coming over this afternoon I wanted to make sure the house was in order. Also, it just needed a cleaning. I cleaned all three bathrooms and ran the vacuum through the house. I also mopped the kitchen floor. Yeah, our visitor was only 5 years old, but her mom was coming to get her and I wanted the house to look presentable.

I also reorganized a few of my kitchen cabinets. I recently got an electric kettle and found that it was on one side of my kitchen (by the sink) and all my teas were on the other side, which just didn't make sense. I turned the cabinet above the coffee machine/kettle into a "coffee/tea station" and moved my baking things to the cabinet right behind where I do my mixing/'prep work for baking. I thought for sure I would go to the wrong cabinets today but actually I didn't, which tells me that things were in the wrong place before.

I did quite a bit baking today. I made a batch of mini blueberry muffins for S and her friend (okay, I may have eaten a few). I also tried out something new for me - yeast rolls. In the past I've made yeast-based bread, but that was usually in my bread machine. But S's friend's mom shared a 30 minute yeast roll recipe with me. The recipe can be found here. For my first time making them, they came out almost right. I think I didn't knead the dough enough before I let it rise the final time. I had to end up baking them an extra 5 minutes, probably because they were kind of dense. S was the only one who didn't like them. I think if they were lighter and fluffier she would have liked them more. I'll keep trying until I get them right because they were good.

I think I mentioned that I ran out of yarn making my GoT cowl. I had posted about it in a discussion thread on Ravelry. Yesterday evening I received a private message from the designer apologizing for the shortage of yarn and offering to send me another skein so that I could finish the pattern as written. That meant a lot to me, that she would offer to get me more yarn. I declined because my cowl is already done and honestly, I like the way it turned out. Mine is unique. :-) I thanked her for the offer and told her that I appreciated that she was willing to make things write. Good people do exist in this world.

I finished up a different cowl recently. I used Handmaiden's Sea Three yarn, which is a blend of silk and seacell, which is made from seaweed. It is very soft and should be warm in the winter. I just discovered that this yarn is discontinued, so I'm glad I was able to make something I like with it. I still have enough left to make a hat or a pair of mitts. Of course as I was taking this picture I discovered I managed to cross some cables in the wrong direction, but you won't be able to tell that when I'm wearing it. Also, I hid those mistakes when I took the picture.

The lighting in this picture isn't the best - the yarn is actually a little more purple than it looks here. I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow if there is some sun. It's suppose to be cold (8C/48F) and rainy tomorrow.

I am working on a pair of gloves right now - you can never start preparing for winter too early around here. I'm also working on a new shawl I'm making with 100% eri silk yarn from Belfast Mini Mills. Now that it's June, Belfast Mini Mills is open every day. I may have to make a trip out there in the next day or two to see what they have for this season. I'll do my best not to buy any yarn...no promises though!

Book Talk

Today started out a little bit exciting. Nothing like getting woken up at 6:00 by the 5 year old with an upset tummy. I decided to keep her home from school today because no one wants to deal with that at school. The bathroom is down a long hallway from her classroom, so there would have been clothes being changed or a call home for me to come get her. I saved myself the trouble by keeping her home.

Of course, I had planned to go to the doctor today. It is still cold here but at least it doesn't feel like the Arctic winds are going to blow me down the street. I decided to put off the doctor until tomorrow when the hubby decided he was going to work from home today. So I was able to head off to the doctor after all. Of course the other thing I was going to do today was clean out the playroom but that is impossible to do while a child is home. Everything suddenly becomes their favorite toy and nothing gets done. I did manage to get motivated enough yesterday to clean out and organize the 5 year old's room. The 9 year old's room and the playroom will have to wait until Thursday and Friday now. Although there is snow in the forecast for Friday...eep.

I am glad that I took my book with me to the doctor's offices since they told me to be back around 9:15 and I didn't see the doctor until almost 10. And of course once I actually saw the doctor, it was only for about 5 minutes. Once he confirmed that there were no changes to my Rx, he wrote up the new one and sent me on my way. All that waiting for maybe 5 minutes. Pfft. At least I won't have to go back for that for a year now. Maybe by then I'll have a family doctor.

While I was waiting I was reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I watched the series on TV over the summer and decided to read the book because I wanted to find out what happened after the last episode. After watching the TV show I figured that book would have some fairly explicit sex scenes,. I was surprised to find that it wasn't actually the bodice-ripper style story I expected. Just when things between the main characters get going, she pretty much does the book version of 'fade to black' (not always though). This doesn't bother me - it actually wouldn't have bothered me if she had put detailed sex scenes in it either. It just surprised me because it was a more PG-13 version when the TV show would have been an R. Since I'm only on the first book I don't know if she gets more explicit in the other books. I do plan on reading the other books in the series because I want to find out what happens with Claire, Jamie, and Frank. I just hope there is enough variety in the books so I don't lose interest in them.

That happened to me with the Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood books (and TV show). I found the books turned into a lot of silliness with the same basic plot over and over. I was just trying to figure out where I stopped  reading that series and I can't figure it out. And looking at the list of books, I have no desire to go back and finish the series. Maybe one day I will, but for now there are other things I'd like to read first.

When I'm finished with Outlander I will have to decide if I'm going to read the next book in the series or maybe read a book I got an email about  - The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle. It's the first book in The Origin Mystery series. Reading the description intrigued me, I just read that it is being developed into a movie. Since it's in development I probably have time to read both the second Outlander book as well as The Atlantis Gene before the movie comes out.

I would love to spend the rest of the afternoon curled up reading but I have a feeling the 5 year old won't allow me to do that. I expect I will be helping her complete a mosaic picture after she's finished watching one of her favorite TV shows. See you tomorrow!