Spring Break

is here for the boys, not for me. The Collar and I get to sleep in a bit though.

Whenever they are home, I wind up doing a lot of things to be in ear shot, but not necessarily present. (They fight less without a witness.)

So I made a loaf of g/f bread from a Bob's Red Mill mix. It's not bad.
I also made g/f granola (it's pretty much not a recipe yet) because I'm tired of hot cereal. Granola isn't exactly picturesque.
Since it's spring break, we've been seeing signs of spring.
Strawberries from California:violets:and the magnolia is blooming.

Views from a Ride

I took my camera with me on my ride today. (No worries--I was not riding when I took the pictures. It was pretty handy though as a way to let my asthma meds start working.)



I am enjoying riding out here. There are hills (oh, there are hills!) and flat, and beautiful views. So far, no dogs lying in wait at the top of climbs. This ride was especially challenging, because one of the hills is quite long. It was also *very* windy which made the climb tough. Halfway up, I hopped off, took a drink, and started walking to give my poor lungs a chance to absorb my meds. (I walked about 1/2 mile.) Then I hopped back on, rode down, and came back through some vineyards.

It's fantastic riding here.

Happy Spring!

I've been been immersed in cycling stuff this week. The bike race is coming (only a few weeks away now) and I've been working on the edits for what we refer to as the "tour bible". The bible is the race booklet, with all the USA Cycling required information, with additions of things like where to eat, where to stay, maps and the like. It's been really interesting to do, and I've (mostly) enjoyed it.

It's also been warm enough and dry enough to go out for rides. The picture above is after my ride today: 21.8 miles (slow, but almost 2 mph faster than Tuesday!). Tuesday's ride was 15.5 miles. Now that spring is here, I'll be able to get out on the bike more. It makes me happy! (Yes, my hair is sticking up out of my helmet.)

I'll probably be writing more about cycling in the next few months. So, yeah, blah, blah, blah, knitting, blah, blah blah, cycling. Now you know what to expect.

Belated Monday Photos

Monday was a pretty nice day. There was some sunshine, and then there was both. So we had a rainbow. (I know, the pics aren't the best, but they are pretty nice.)
So it was quite appropriate we had a pot of gold meatloaf! (It was a really good meatloaf, too.)

New Oven

replacing the old oven.

Here it is:

It matches our floor, which is black and white blocks.

It works. See?I made gluten free "Irish soda bread", which is in quotes, because while it is a bready substance and it tastes really good, I don't think it's very soda-bread like. Actually, I can't really remember what it tastes like. The Collar says it doesn't taste like soda bread either. If I add streusel, it would be a coffee cake. If I add molasses and ginger, it would be gingerbread.Tomorrow I'll have some with tea.

Redo

What used to be:

is now:
Later we'll have a new one and I can stop carrying heavy things up and down the stairs. I know, it was a cool oven. But it's not actually from the house's era--it's a 1950's oven and the house is the 30's. Our other appliances are all modern. There is only one place to buy parts for this oven, and it needs them. Since Ann and Bill offered us one that they found at an auction, we went ahead and accepted.

Maybe we'll have pie for dinner, if it's ready. It is Pi Day after all.

Embossed Leaves

Another finished object:Pictures in the late afternoon sun in our back yard. It's really nice out there right now. Maybe soon I'll be wearing capri pants and no jacket nice!


Pattern: Embossed Leaves by Mona Schmidt (from Favorite Socks)
Yarn: Claudia's handpainted sock yarn in Jungle colorway.
Needles: Size 2 US
I mostly knit this as written. I'd never had a twisted rib cuff before, but it was easy and I like it. The socks are a wee bit loose, but that's okay. I did knit the heel flap as written, but then I did the gusset in the usual way. The toe I knit in the usual way too. I like the green quite a lot.

Next up are a few more pairs of fingerless gloves/mittens. I'll have so much time next week, right?

Security Objects

Game Boy wears his old Knucks just about every day. (He lost them once for a week, and nearly freaked out on us.) I made these for him in October, and they haven't been off of his hands long enough to even wash them. (He wears them to play trumpet, to walk to school, to work/play on the computer, to sleep.)

They look like this.
And this.

And this.
Now he has these. I'm amazed, because they look so similar, even though I didn't try to make them match.
The first pair has been repaired (sort of) and is now in the dryer. The new pair he wore to school. We can have one pair in the wash, and one pair on his hands. Yeah!

Sick Day

I have a nasty cold, and Wiz has a sinus infection, so we stayed home today. Both of us pretty much hung out and watched tv. Well, I knitted some too.

This morning at 9:00 am I started out with this:
At 12:30 we had spider knuck!At 4:30 I had these:At 5:00 the Wiz had this:
Now Wiz has his own pair of Knucks. Game Boy wants another pair (which he'll get, because I really, really want to wash his pair that he wears nearly every day). The Collar wants a pair for cool days when he wants to go birding. They are incredibly fast, even when my head hurts from a nasty cold.

These were knit using Ornaghifilati Merino Kind yarn on size US 2.5 (3mm) needles. There's enough left for at least one more Knuck, so if (when) he loses one, I can knit him a third one. Both he and Game Boy went with me to Knitochet to pick out yarn for themselves and for the Collar. No embroidery for me--he wanted his name, but it's either too many letters or too few, depending on how you look at it.

And now I'm ready for bed.