Pup-peroni Pizza

Absolute proof that we spoil our dogs way to much.  Tonight we decided to make pizza for dinner.  The boys love pizza night as they get to eat my pizza crust.  They also love pupperoni sticks.  Every now and then we’ll buy them a bag, and we happen to have a bag right now.  So today, when planning our dinner, we got the crazy idea of making the boys their own pup-peroni pizza. 

After chopping the pup-peroni pieces into bite size pieces, then you must place them on a crust, with suace made from straight tomatoe pieces and beef stock made espeically for dogs.

A very small amount of cheese, and the pup-peroni goes on the pizza.

Then it is baked for about 6 minutes on the pizza stone. 

The best part for the dogs, is the eating of course.

the hard part is getting a picture of the boys actually eating the pizza, because it doesn’t take long.  But they are really enjoying pizza night tonight!

Have a good evening, and a great work week.

In Honor of Agnes and Christy

Thank you both so much for contributing to teh Walk to Defeat ALS.  I met Christy for lunch today and delivered her my thank you gift, a copy of Suss Cousins Knitting for Your Home.  It has some neat patterns in it, I think she’ll at least like looking at, if not making.  I am attempting to convert her to a full-blown knitter, we worked together and she just was so sick of me talking about knitting she gave it a try herself!

Agnes, I’m pulling together a yarny gift for you, so could you please e-mail me your address so I can mail out your yarny prize. 

For several years I’ve watched and loved seeing Agnes knit the Great American Aran Afghan, and several other similar type projects.  I finally couldn’t take it any longer and broke down and bought the pattern, as well as the Great Northern American Afghan.  I already owned the one she’s currently knitting up, however I’ve never knit it.

“Its Bedtime Right”

So I decided I’d frog my Diamonds & Lace afghan I’ve been occassionally working on for Nick and I, and start the Great American Aran Afghan.  I think I’m just procrastinating the bedspread as I know there is no way I’ll be done with it my July, 2010.   I really should work on my sister’s afghan too, but I’m just taking a little time right now for me.

I’ve been working so hard on my body, by the way 16 pounds down, that I need to have a little treat for myself.

Django is always waiting to go to bed.  At night, around 7:30 p.m., he heads to the bed and waits there for us.  He loves bedtime.  We think the poor guy must have been tied up outside when he was a puppy, because he sure loves his household comforts.  Well that and when we put him on the lead in the back yard, he acts like he was born on it, knowing exactly what to do, and not to pull on it, etc.

Well back to the knitting!

Plans Never Go as Planned

Why is it that plans never work out as one intends?   So I was supposed to take tomorrow off and become reacquainted with my spinning wheel, but instead I got sick over last weekend with a cold, had to miss Monday of work because I had a fever, and decided I didn’t want to take any more time just to get reacquainted with my wheel.  But alas, all was not lost, last weekend after I cleaned up my wheel, I couldn’t resist and started spinning, and have done a little each day since.  And then, I decided another fun project, while I was avoiding knitting the bedspread, was to start making myself a Dr. Who scarf with my homespun.  So I hunted down my previously spun yarn from the same batches of roving and started the scarf.  And I finished up two bobbins of single plies, and I plied the batches together last night.  So the yarn in the spokes of the wheel are my newly spun yarn.  I say this is a Dr. Who scarf because I intend to make it over 20 feet long.  I’m using a color sample bundle of roving I purchased ages ago from Paridise Fibers and plying it with some nice cream.  The effect kind of reminds me of fruit stripe gum.  I should have taken a closer pictre of the yarn, but alas I didn’t.  I always envision taking this gorgeous artistic photos.  I never do.

I attempted, not so well, in this picture to show you how Django often sleeps, with all his paws together in a pile.  And usually his ears are pointed directly up when he’s relaxed and when he’s awake they flop over.  He is backward boy.  Well its time to get back to the Dr. Who scarf, while I avoid for one more day the bedspread.

Time to Get Reaquainted

I have a day and an hour and a half I need to take before the end of June, for vacation time.  I can’t really go anywhere, so I didn’t know what I’d do.  I figured I’d better actually take the time off, as I work so much overtime taking time off sometimes seems like the absolute luxury.  Then I received my most recent issue of Spin Off.  I must admit, I haven’t spun yarn in probably 2 years.  well, it as at least been over a year.  I was flipping through the magazine, when I realized, that is exactly what my day of luxury should be, I day I get reaquainted with my wheel.

So that is exactly what I’m going to do.  This weekend Nick will be off “jamming” with his buddy Joe.   So I’m going to do several things: 

1. Go Clearance Shopping at Kohl’s, because I have a coupon for an extra 30% off of whatever I buy, and I need to buy some new work pants.  And I need a pair of tennis shoes and brown sandals.
2. Clean out my closet.
3. Knit
4. Prepare my spinning wheel and fiber for spinning extravaganza.

Perfect Rythmn

While we were setting up Nick’s kit at our friends’ house, their little girl, had to help out.  She has perfect rythmn!  We didn’t notice it until later, but after the set-up Nick and his friend were jamming, this little one picked up one of NIck’s other percussion intruments, and we could hear her playing it in the background, she was in perfect synch with Nick and her dad.  She’s not quite 3!  A musician in the making no doubt.

Basil The Tunneler

 

Last but not least a picture of my Basil.  He loves to hide in blankets and tunnel through them.  For some odd reason this is fun, we had to finally put a grate down in the bottom of his cage, as he was going under the paper and tunnelling through it, and then shredding the paper and throwing it outside of his cage. 

So now he just gets to tunnel in blankets.

Alert: Announcement of Yarn Prize

I said when I restarted this blog that I wasn’t going to do this, but I just can’t help myself.  Its for a good cause.  My office, Schlichter Bogard & Denton, is going to participate in the Walk to Defeat ALS here in St. Louis on June 27, 2009.  (ALS is commonly referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”).  For information on ALS, please visit http://www.alsa.org. According to their website, someone battling ALS needs over $200,000 year just to cover expenses. 

I’ve decided to participate in the walk with my office to help raise some money.  So if you’d like to sponsor me for the walk, please go to http://web.alsa.org/goto/rebekahfrei. 

Now I also just happen to need to get rid of some yarn that is cluttering up my house, so for any donation your name will given a number and a random number generator will choose people for prizes. 

For every 10 donations of any size, there will 1 yarn prize.  So when 20 people donate, there will be 2 prizes, etc. etc. 

And if you can’t donate, which in these economic times that is understandable, if you mention and link to my effort on your blog, I’ll consider that a donation, just let me know about it. 

Seriously Sleepy

Abner says he appreciates any and all support you offer.  Anything to get mommy out of the house for a while, and that annoying camera with her so he can sleep. And do the disgusting eye roll back in the head move.

So, please, please, please help me out!  And then don’t forget to let me know you did.

I promise lovely yarny prizes!  Winners will be drawn the week after June 27.

Not One Stitch

The long weekend came and went with not one stitch knit!  The Thursday prior to the long weekend, I acquired a very long and tedious project at work that had to be done by Tuesday, so the entire long weekend, well 16 hours of it, was consumed by that project.  At least it was done on the back patio of my in-laws house and not stock in an office building in downtown St. Louis.  So now, in the small amount of time I have each evening watching the tellie, I knit a few stitches on the bedspread.  My sister’s afghan awaits its turn, which at the rate I’m going won’t be for several more weeks.  But since she just (monday) celebrated her 24th anniversary (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY KAT AND TER), I still have a year and will make the deadline.

Django the Car Rider

I didn’t even take hardly a picture this weekend, oh well there was this funny one of Django riding in the car on the way to the grandparents.  Who needs kids when you have a dog that sits like one.  If only I could get him to wear a seatbelt!

Hope your week is going well!

Back to Knitting

This blog will now resume its normal knitting content.  I have decided not to bore you with my constant obsessive behavior on weight gain, loss, activity, etc.  And will now bore people on that subject over at http://pathtohealthy-rebekah.blogspot.com/. 

Regarding knitting there hasn’t been a whole lot done, this new active lifestyle has caused me to to have little time relaxing, which means little time knitting.  But this coming weekend I’ll have ample time, we are heading to Nick’s parents to visit.  Which means much more time sitting outside, watching the dogs play and working on my sister’s afghan.  Since Nick’s folks don’t know about the bedspread for them, I’ll have to take the afghan even though I haven’t finished the 24 rows of the bedspread.

But at least my sister won’t have to wait 5 years after the actual anniversary for the present. Her gift is coming along quite nicely. I’ll take some pictures of it this weekend. 

I must say I do have another motivator for my weight loss, and then I promise I won’t bore you with any more, but as soon as I am thin and healthy I’m knitting myself a gorgeous fair isle, maybe Mary Tudor, or something else as lovely with gorgeous expensive yarn!  And then I’ll have to stay thin so I can wear it for the next 40 years.

Grandad and the Boys

I love this picture of the dogs with my dad.  They love when anyone sits on their little couch so that they can look out the window and still be by someone.  Plus they always have to see what is going on in the great world beyond their little house.

They will be very happy to visit their other grandparents this weekend, as they have a large fenced in yard and the boys have constant access to a large place to run and play.  I’m sure I’ll have lots of new pictures to share and who knows maybe a video or two.

Have a great day, I’m at home this afternoon, waiting for the furnace/air conditioning guy to come.  Our central air is broken and our furnace.  The furnace worked most of the winter, then we had a lovely warm spell and we turned the furnace off and it hasn’t worked since.  Normally Nick has been able to fix it himself when this happen, but this time its not giving up its secret.  I just hope they don’t tell us we have to replace it.  The air conditioner hasn’t worked since last September, but fortunately we haven’t needed it.  Its not that old, but the two systems tie in together, so hopefully it’ll get figured out and we’ll have our AC back, because we will need it soon no doubt.

The Path Ahead

We picked up our bikes on Saturday, so we rode 6 miles along the bike trail that comes to our small town.  Then on Sunday we rode 11 miles.  It was a beautiful weekend for bike riding, although a little windy, well a lot windy.  But it was nice and cool which was wonderful for our first trips back on bicycles.  We both feel great for having extra activity, and besides a little sore can’t wait for our next opportunity.  Hopefully tomorrow night after work.  Its nice having a trailhead so close.  The trial is 12.8 miles long from start to finish, but it’ll be a while before we are biking the entire path, a lot of it is uphill, at a slow grade, which I think is almost more difficult then going up a really large hill all at once, mostly because it takes a lot longer.  But that is good, it makes our hearts work a little harder.  That path connects with other paths, in theory you could ride over 100 miles without ever leaving a bike trail.  This fall we are going to try to be in good enough shape to take a long day trip and take a picnic.

Its a long path to getting healthy, but at least now we are on the road together.

From CooKoo Clock to Bicycle

Nick and I always plan way ahead for our annivesary, I’m not sure why but whenever May comes around we start thinking about it.  This year we decided we’d get ourselves a joint gift and had decided upon a cookoo clock.  Do you know how expensive those are? Well we went to one clock shop and came to a number of conclusions 1) you can’t buy a cookoo clock off the internet sight unseen, as we had seen several of the models on the internet and really liked them, but when we saw them in person we were not impressed at all; and 2) to purchase a clock we really really liked, we’d have to spend around $2,000!  Leaving the shop a little disheartened we went to Walmart to pick up some necessities of life, paper towels.  While wandering through the store we passed the bike rack.  We both stopped and looked.  And looked at each other and said bicycles.  So right then and there we decided that 1) instead of waiting till AUgust we’d purchase our anniversary present sooner then later, and 2) we’d purchase bicycles instead of a cookoo clock.  It would be a much, much better investment in our health.

My Cookoo Clock

Nick and I both need to lose a significant amount of weight, and we bth need to be more active.  And we do enjoy bike riding together, but our current bikes are in horrible condition.  So we started looking around at different bike shops, we went to 3 plus 5 “sports” stores.  We ended up buying a pair of Fuji Crosstown 2.0 Hybrid Bicycles (Hybrid as a cross between a mountain bike and a road bike).  We pick them up on Saturday. 

The down side is, our much more active lifestyle will mean much less time in front of the TV knitting.  Thus the in-laws bedspread, may now be a 45th wedding anniversary present.  BUt that is OKAY! I have to become more active, and we both really like bike riding, and we have great bike trails all around our county, one that comes practically to our door. 

Attack of the Wolf

We’ve also been getting the dogs out on the trails and walking them which they really enjoy.

Although our wolf dog, is looking a tad rabid in this picture! Which was actually taken in January, obviously.

So I’d better get back to dreaming about my new bike.

I Can’t Wait Syndrome

I find myself saying these words over and over again, but I never have anything to follow it up.  In the morning, literally within 5 minutes of waking up, I’m thinking to myself “I can’t wait.” I think this comes from too much anticipation of the next moment and not living in the moment enough.  I sometimes feel like I wish my life away.  I blame this on my parents.  Wait, wait, I’m not being a bad daughter but when we were in Alaska I noticed that my mom was always thinking of the next step, and sometimes losing out on the current activity.  For instance if we had just arrived back at the room to rest a little bit, mom was thinking about leaving to get dinner or picking up my niece.  This most likely comes from raising 3 children and always having to have everything planned out.  So really I’m not criticizing, I’m just realizing why I’m always in anticipation of something else.

My family also was always hours early to any event.  For instance if we had to be somewhere by 9:15 a.m., and it was a 45 minute drive, we would leave at 7:30 a.m.  Which meant growing up spending a lot of time in the car waiting.  I probably started my “I Can’t Wait Syndrome” there, sitting in the car, waiting to get out of it and being bored.

 

Beautiful Django

So I’ve decided that I need to concentrate on redirecting my brain away from this phrase.  That I need to live more in the moment and less on what may or may not happen in the future.  Purely in a literal life and knitting life conception, not in a spiritual aspect.    But I need to be content with what is happening now and not be so caught up in wishing my life away. 

With knitting I need to not worry about deadlines or dates, and just enjoy the prospect.  I find myself constantly crunching numbers mathematically to determine when I may finish a project. I’m going to focus on stopping that habit and simply enjoy the process.  That being said the bedspread on size US 1 needles, may be a 41st wedding anniversary present and not the 40th. But I’m okay with that. 

Fortunately my sister’s afghan for her 25th is going spledidly and will in fact be done for the 25th.  But then if it wasn’t, that would be okay too, after all we are still waiting on our wedding present.  hee hee.  My sister and brother-in-law were going to build us an entertainment system for our wedding present, we’ve been married 13 years this fall.  hee hee, but Kat really, we don’t need it and I’m just teasing you.  Maybe for my 25th anniversary, you can knit me an afghan.  Love you big sister.