Finny Knits

The tattoo I'd get on my ass if I could get a tattoo, which I can't.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:02:00 +0000

This is not the tattoo.

I like to brag about our neighbors because they are really the best ones a young ill-mannered couple could hope for and also because we spent some time with the worst neighbors a young couple could imagine back in the day and so I feel that we are due.

I'm sure you agree.

Also, these neighbors aren't racist assholes, so that helps.

Anyway, these awesome neighbors (who are different from the awesome neighbors who helped us schlep 3 cubic yards of dirt and mulch across the street and different still from the neighbors who gave us the best tomato cages in all the land) came by on Sunday with a surprise awesome gift.

They called this an "Apple-Warming Gift", as we have an apple tree, three years the junior of their apple tree, and ours has yet to produce a blossom.

Sure - it's only been in the ground for nary a year and we were assured that after a year of establishment we could hope for blossoms, but you know, the neighbors felt that an awesome surprise Apple-Warming Gift would help solidify our chances.

We're not too worried yet, because he's still in the 95% percentile for height, or whatever those measurements are that parents of human children use to rate their kids against other kids to decide if they're normal.

Guess what, folks - they're not! They're all backward! Aaahahah ahahhA HAHAHAH ahaha!

Kidding - I have no idea about these measurements and what they mean or don't mean about whether your child is a future idiot or will grow up to be a super scientist.

Anyway.

So, these nice neighbors just knocked on the door, just as normal as could be, and then proceeded to gift us the most amazing tool imaginable that I actually had imagined buying about a thousand times but could never rationalize because HELLO when am I going to need to peel, core and slice quite so many apples?

I should just tell you now that this amazing surprise gift was The Apple Machine.

Feel free to stand back to properly absorb its glory.

This is the most amazing and wonderful machine of which I am aware.

Seriously, now.

I even told Bubba that, had I somehow invented this machine before anyone else in 1864 (thank you, Google), I could immediately die and be happy and satisfied with my life because this thing is a work of pure genius and obviously something for which its inventor will be forever known, Mr David Harvey Goodell. Don't act like you don't have his name tattooed on your ass cheek because I know that you do.

And if you don't think so then I'll thank you to produce one single other invention that is more ingenius, clever, easy to use, easy to clean and so 100% god damned effective. Go ahead, try.

Here, let me save you the trouble - you're wrong. The Apple Machine is better.

I mean, obviously.

Perhaps I was so bowled over by The Apple Machine at this particular moment because as he stood there just handing this magic machine to me as though it was the most mundane thing in the whole wide world and he wasn't even sure we'd want it (WHATEVER GIVE IT!), I had a whole basket of apples just getting ready to up and die on me.

And you know I don't do waste. Noooooooo.

So, obviously, I thanked him profusely and asked on about his own The Apple Machine and the status of their 2009 Apple Crisis (their tree produces apples, on top of which some of their friends door ditched them a bushel of apples. Woe is them) and then he started to look worried, so I let him say his polite goodbyes and escape to the peace and tranquility and Finny-Free-ness of his own house.

Despite this man's utter and total niceness, I'm not sure he quite knows what to do with me and my cocktail tottering ways.

Anyway.

Upon his departure, I made haste to the kitchen - along the way grabbing all the apples I could carry and crying out to my Joy of Cooking book that it better gird its fucking loins because I was about to bake an apple pie for the first time in about five or so years and it was gonna be a good'un.

And, in case you can't tell, I've been rummaging around in my brain thanks to NaNoWriMo and it appears the drama and Crazy spilling out on those pages is now overflowing here. Sorry about that. Don't mind the mess.

Now, there are a few apple pie recipes in Joy, I believe they are distinguished with numbers like I and II and maybe even III, and I think I went with Apple Pie II, but I can't be certain. Basically, this is the recipe and it's unique (to my small world at least) because it calls for pre-cooking the filling rather than tossing up the apple chunks raw and throwing them and the crust in the oven for the first time together as a couple.

Seems sorta trashy doesn't it?

I thought so, so I went for the pre-cooking the filling method, which seemed more decent and restrained. And we all know how decent and restrained I am.

Shut-up, you whores, I am.

The important thing is that I got to prop up my beloved, stained copy of Joy and commence to coring, slicing and peeling of my apple pile in, like, two minutes flat, because the thing is nearly assembled and ready right there in the box.

Bless it - it doesn't even need to be plugged in. Which, obviously, since it was invented before people had two dozen three-pronged outlets in their kitchens. Or electricity in their houses. Or stilettos.

And don't you judge me - I need all of those outlets. For things. Important, electricity sucking things. Like giant food processors.

Whatever, I'm getting off track.

I'd be lying if I said this was the only picture I took of this process.

Basically, within five minutes of mounting this beauty to my countertop (also mercifully quick and effective), I had a bowl full of perfectly sliced, peeled and cored apples ready to pre-cook with some butter, sugar and cinnamon in the approved holy way.

Just look at that and try to tell me it's not amazing. JUST TRY IT, SUCKAH.

This went into the compost. To make my compost amazing.

And this went into the pie to make the pie amazing.

I think you see where this is all headed.

As though I have any fucking clue what approved holy ways really are.

And, to keep these lovers apart for just a skosh more time - to heighten the longing and desire, I can only assume - I was told by Joy to let the hot, sweet filling cool to room temp in a single layer on a sheet before pouring it into the bottom crust.

Yes, I believe I *have* heard of food porn before.

If that's not good old-fashioned proper etiquette, I just don't know what is.

Though, it's surely obvious that I have ZERO idea what proper etiquette might be. But you knew that.

Sadly, though, I didn't pay so much attention to the warning bells going off in my head as I wandered over to the sideboard to cheerfully (and naively) retrieve the apple pie crust cutter gifted to me by a certain awesome mama.

Looks pretty promising, though, doesn't it?

Now, mom, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the cuteness of this particular item, and while the cuteness has not waned for me, its effectiveness does not, how you say, put it up there in the ranks with The Apple Machine given its general ineffectiveness and ability to destroy a perfectly good pie dough.

I mean, it started off innocently enough - I was even so excited to use it that it was the third thing I grabbed after Joy and the apples - but sadly, it's true vision was not to be appreciated as I dutifully turned my perfect dough into a misshapen wad.

NOT TO FEAR, though - because it was salvageable. And some apples did make an appearance on the final product.

Just not in the way I'd originally envisioned.

And after it baked, it looked as cute and chaste as could be. For a whoring apple pie, that is.

COVER YOURSELF!

Now, sadly, Bubba and I are still at odds over whether to deliver a thick slice of this pie to our Apple-Warming neighbors or wait until I bake another apple-something just especially for them (which could happen soon since the farmshare says we're getting apples again this week).

We probably shouldn't be having this conversation while eating the pie from the dish with one fork and his germs spewing everywhere (he has a cold) because the thought of giving them this germ-soaked masterpiece would probably feel more like a slap in the face than a proper thank you.

So, that seals it, I bake them something anew and won't let Bubba breathe near it.

Done. No repenting necessary.

The final Final on the garden

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:13:00 +0000

[Don't want to read all through the Taming of the Tomatoes? Scroll to the bottom for final garden tallies. Loser.]

If I ever sincerely wondered whether four tomato plants may have been too many, this weekend I had it confirmed for me.

Four tomato plants is too many.

At least when it comes to Breaking Down the Garden time. Because this one woman, her trusty giant yard waste bin and composter can't really handle everything that gets dished out by four tomato plants.

Especially after going for a six mile run and realizing there are 800 bulbs ready to be planted.

Think I'm being a whiner?

This is what the TWO tomato plants looked like last year.

On the left, there.

Notice that they are strong growers. Recall that they produced a good amount of tomatoes. Remark on how they are staying confined to their one bed, there.

And now notice how this year's FOUR tomato plants look like nothing like that.

Because instead they look like this:

Crap.

Like big, green, scary tomato monsters intent on consuming their entire beds and spilling out onto the ground, searching for new acreage to absorb.

By last weekend, these plants had taken on a whole new life. Thanks to Fall That Thinks It's Summer But Then Thinks It's Winter, we had a big rainstorm, followed by a minor heat wave, followed by mild temperatures, followed by the tomato plants inquiring about a move to our neighbor's yard.

Those things even had the gall to put on new blossoms and make for the fence.

Don't get too close.

Well, after my recent pillaging of the tomatoes and the fast-approaching first frost date (11/1), I'd had these guys marked for destruction.

Hell if I was going to hold out for Miracle November Tomatoes knowing full well that frost would come and turn these plants to goo.

And cleaning out four gooey tomato monsters in the cool morning mist of a November Saturday? No, thank you.

However, the removing of these plants was almost more than I could handle. And it was certainly more than my yard waste bin could handle. Even with help from the composter and the wheel barrow and the ever-growing street pile.

I knew I was fucked when, in trimming back the plants so that I could just walk between the beds, I managed to fill the green bin to the brim.

It was empty when I started.

So, then I began tossing trimmings and eventually plants into the wheel barrow, thinking I'd just wheel that guy out to the street when I was done and VIOLA! I'd be finished.

Not so.

See, four trimmed tomato plants is more than one wheel barrow can handle. Even when it's piled up just so.

This was taller than me.

And by *just so* I mean that there was even strategic log cabin type piling strategies going on here so that they all didn't go careening off one side in a waterfall of greenery.

Sad.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the aftermath with the wheel barrow, but let's just say that it became top heavy and keeled over in an impressive display of giving-up-ness all over my freshly cleared bed.

Bubba had pity on me and cleared it all out to the street. I think he knew I was going to cry.

Anyway!

After all that whining and trimming and coaxing of tomato plantness into bins and composters and yard piles and wheel barrows, the beds looked good and the soil was intact.

Always a good sign.

Plus, I managed to haul away an extra and unexpected nine pounds of tomatoes (some green - for salsa) and a bag of basil.

Made a nice end of season batch of pasta with this.

And with the beds freshly turned, I jammed some garlic in the ground so that the dog would have something to uproot on Sunday when she went to bury her new fancy (gross) bone. Thanks, puppy.

Apparently my hand prints say, "Come! Dig here!" to the dog. I should clarify.

Then I got to do something I've wanted to do since the beginning of the season when I went off my nut and decided to track the garden's productivity.

I tallied the final numbers.

So, as my gift to you for hanging in for the whole season and this post full of my whiny bitchiness, here are the numbers for your gardeny gratification:

Sow cost: $91.34

Reap value: $1,221.68

Garden's net value: $1,130.34

Cost per pound: $0.33

Total pounds: 273.98

Poundage winner: Tomatoes @ 208.25 lbs

Poundage runner-up: Kentucky Green Beans @ 33.375 lbs

If you want to see how the other crops netted out, you can go look over at my dorky tracker. I look at it a lot and, if it were a real live thing, I'd probably spoon with it and call it naughty names. I love spreadsheets so much.

But what did I learn from all this? Well, I'll just go ahead and answer my own questions from long ago:

How much did it cost to grow?: See above. Not a lot.

How much did I save by growing it myself (rather than buying it at Whole Foods or similar kind of place)?: See above. A LOT.

Where did it all go?

Breakfasts, lunches and dinners and preserves.

Friends, neighbors, hair dressers, moms, coworkers and enthusiastic Pilates instructors.

In trades for lemons, limes, pomegranates, eggs, love.

Into the chesty.

Did we eat this stuff?

Beans, cucumbers, basil and tomatoes - YES. Though a lot of the tomatoes went to happy non-tomato growers.

Corn - sorta.

Should I grow it again?

Beans, cucumbers, basil and tomatoes - YES. Though we'll be going back to our two happy plants after this invasion.

Corn - NO. We couldn't eat it fast enough and it got starchy. Plus it takes up a ton of room, nukes the soil and costs a big fat nickel to buy at the farmstand when it's in season.

So, that's it for the summer garden. I feel that it was a resounding success and has satisfied my A/R desire for documented spreadsheeted evidence supporting my gardening obsessiveness. Also, now I know that I can skip the corn section in the seed catalogs and, instead, look for melon seeds so that we can, once and for all, determine whether it's worth it.

And because I practice the art of Shopping Then Forgetting and Adopting Then Forgetting, there will be a winter garden of sorts made up of the things I ordered and then forgot until they showed up at my door (fava beans, garlic) and things I adopted from winter garden growing friends and then forgot until I got an email that they were ready (leeks, purple kohlrabi, broccolini, lettuces, something else I can't remember).

So you know - I am not tracking a thing because, let's face it, I'll probably forget. Poor plants. They hardly stand a chance.

There's no orange in the matrix

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:21:00 +0000

Almost the Matrix Sweater

based on the Leaf Tshirt by Melissa LaBarre
Yarn: Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK in "Tape"
Needles: #5 24" circular needle, #5 10" circular needle, Tapestry needle
Raveled here

So, back when I asked you how y'all thought I should handle the sleeves on this thing, the majority vote was to leave them rolled.

So leave them rolled, I did.

Of course, because I'm ME and I'm apparently unable to determine how long sleeves should be even when I try on the sweater a million times before casting off (like, three times, but still, it seemed like a lot since it involved getting off the couch), I still think the sleeves are too short.

Because apparently I like my sleeves to drag the ground as I walk. Or I need them long enough to do this trick.

Either way, them sleeves remain rolled because, as it turns out, I cast-off in an unnaturally tight manner - a contradiction to my too-loose knitting style - and so, if I want, the sleeves will remain unrolled to the edge if I just straighten out the roll. And I need them to unroll as far as possible now that they're *just* a little too short.

Oh.

The problem with the length then becomes a question of how far I want the sleeves dangling off my shoulders.

Why, hello there shoulders...

Now, while I had fully anticipated always wearing this sweater over something - in the layering manner to which I've become accustomed - I sort of imagined it would still fit like this in the shoulder.

Except, apparently, when I went to try on the sweater to check for sleeve doneness (it's highly scientific, I assure you) I didn't properly adjust the shoulders and, as such, didn't do a proper measurement of sleeve doneness and ended up with too-short sleeves. I just feel like they should be longer. For my sleeve dragging lifestyle, I suppose.

The body length, however, is perfect. And having a rolled hem at the waist is also perfect because it can be allowed to roll skyward to enhance thy waist (or whatever it does that makes it look better this way when worn over a dress) or allowed to unroll almost completely over some jeans.

The important thing to note about the rolled hems and cuffs thing is that it more effectively achieves my desire for Matrix-like attire.

For some reason, clothes with raw edges and drab colors really attract me. Like, my sense of style has a doomsday fascination or something. Meanwhile, it appears my sense of style has an unhealthy attraction to orange at the same time, resulting in some unorthodox clothing pairings.

Orange silk and "Tape" cashmere knit go together, right?

I can't account for these inconsistencies, as my sense of style is something of a mouthy bitch and I don't question her motives often.

Getting too obscure? Yeah, well, I've written over 3,000 words for NaNoWriMo so far and it's only Day Two, so my focused energies have gone into the first two chapters of a story that has yet to make sense.

Yay!

At least now I have a finished object to keep me warm while I try to develop these obstinate characters.

In the event that you, too, need to wrap yourself in a self-knit while whining your way through 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, or just want to pretend you're in the matrix, here are my pattern notes for your perusal. Also, they're in Ravelry, but I don't want to be all exclusionary (really not sure if this how you use this word) to those in Ravelry, so I'm putting them here, too.

To promote fairness in the world. And also to self-promote. Because you know how I like to do that.

Almost the Matrix Sweater

based on the Leaf Tshirt by Melissa LaBarre
Yarn: Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK in "Tape"
Needles: #5 24" circular needle, #5 10" circular needle, Tapestry needle
Raveled here

Using the Leaf Tshirt pattern by Melissa LaBarre, I made the following adjustments to achieve a snugger fit and long sleeves:

Measure the width of your narrowest point (for me, this was my waist - 28). Take that number of inches and multiply by your stitch gauge (5 stitches = 1 inch). This is the number you cast on (142).

Knit in the round for one round and follow the pattern for the Leaf Tshirt, except DO NOT knit the Leaf pattern, and instead, just leave it out and DO NOT replace those stitches with knit stitches.

This will result in a smaller distance between arm increases on one side - this side of the sweater becomes the back of the sweater.

Following the Leaf Tshirt pattern through to the point where you have your sleeve holes of adequate size, transfer the sleeve stitches to stitch holders or scrap yarn. DO NOT CAST OFF.

Resume knitting the body section in the round, leaving the sleeve stitches on their holders, until the body is as long as you want it to be. If you’re leaving a rolled hem, knit the body long enough to accommodate some rolling. If you’re knitting a cuffed hem, knit to exact length, cast off and knit your cuff.

Once you’ve finished knitting the body, pick up the stitches of one sleeve with 10” circular needles in the same size as the body (in my case, #5), place marker at beginning of round, and knit in the round until you reach an inch above elbow length.

At one inch from the elbow:

K1,K2tog,knit to within 2 stitches of marker, SSK
Knit 1 round
K1,K2tog,knit to within 2 stitches of marker, SSK

Resume knitting in the round until you’re an inch below the elbow and follow the pattern above.

Knit until sleeves reach desired length, cast-off.

Repeat for other sleeve.

Weave in ends. Try it on. Call it a day.

Craft: along 2009 : October

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Hey Donk,

Its finally acting like fall here. Like, it's stopped being in the 80s and 90s (which probably sounds nice and cool to you) and instead it's in the 50s and 60s. I'll be honest, I was ready.

Not that the summer was a super hot one, but I think I was ready for a change - different clothes to wear, different shit to bitch about, different scenery on runs, different food to eat.

So, not surprisingly, I chose to hit up the creamy pumpkin pasta for my project this month because, to me, fall = pumpkin and hey, I happened to have made my own pumpkin puree which was taking up room in the chesty. And had I not skirted the sausage because of my too-lazy-to-go-to-the-storeness, it would have probably been really tasty. Sadly, my laziness won out and I had the pasta sans sausage which we all know is wrong. When there's an option to add sausage (or bacon or cheese or cream for that matter), one should always opt FOR it rather than for laziness, which never tastes as good.

Anyhoo, enough about my failed efforts - let's talk about someone's success - namely, laeroport's.

I mean, there's someone who knows her way around a recipe. It looks divine. Mostly because I'm sure there's sausage in there. What self-respecting Kansan (Bubba would be so proud) would opt out of sausage?

So! TEE DAH! You win, my friend. A fabulous surprise prize from yours truly. Just send the old addy to finnyknits AT gmail DOT com and I'll send it off in two shakes. Congrats!

And for November, well, I bet you're thinking I'll choose something holiday giftee since those fucking holidays are rolling back around again and don't we just all need to be acraftin' those gifts BUT NO - I refuse.

Who needs to do any holiday crafting when the perfect gift already exists at Amazon, anyway? (I jest people, obviously I'm *for* the crafting. Per the book's premise. Der.)

But still, I'm not going to take the path most traveled and dole out more predictability. We have too much of that in our lives already. I say Randomness Rules! and also, I have a lot of Tshirts and beets to dispatch.

What the fuck am I talking about?

Firstly, I vote for this sewing project where we recycle our sentimental Tshirts into something that we'll lovingly (and humorously wear).

Tshirt Memory Scarf

And secondly, I vote for this cooking project for any of us who:
A.) were brainy enough to plant beets
B.) have been storing up beets from their farmshare for months
C.) have an inexplicable number of beets lying around
D.) are willing to cook beets into something unexpected

Chocolate and Roasted Beet Pudding Cakes

Now, if you *must* make gifts, I'm sure the scarf (or any awesome creation from Tshirts) would make a lovely gift and I'm sure that these pudding cakes could be baked into sweet little ramekins for sharing with neighbors or coworkers.

BUT since I can already hear the whining, let's throw this one in there for good measure:

Zippy Wallet from Fabric Scraps

There. You happy now? Sheesh.

So, whether it's Tshirts, beets or fabric scraps that you decide on for the month (or all three - hey, you fuckers can be crazy!), I bid you all good luck. When I'll have a chance to do any of the above, I really don't know. Because from now until the tolling of the midnight hour on 11/30, I will be melting down my brain via NaNoWriMo.

It was nice knowing you.

xo
Finny

Not dressed as a vagina

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:00:00 +0000

So, despite all your fantastically creative suggestions on what I might be crafting for the dog as a costume, I didn't give in and somehow transform Jada's expertly (if I do say so myself) crafted Tootsie Roll costume into one of an anatomically correct vagina.

Maybe another year, Crazies.

For this year, however, Job 1 was rewearing the last and final (in the sense that I hadn't been able to rewear it yet) bridesmaid dress in my expansive collection.

As I've told you before, my Halloween Mission is always to use one of my bridesmaid dresses as part of a greater costume so that I can feel like I got my money's worth and so that I can be completely uncomfortable for another day of my life.

Well, that last one is sort of an accepted side-effect of wearing the dresses, but charming nonetheless. At least I don't have to wear the shoes. Because that would be unbearable.

FYI: Dye-to-match shoes are many things, including: ugly, tacky, uncomfortable and Evil To The Core. So you know.

And also, so you know, (because I like to keep you informed of all the minutiae in my life) my sister blessed us with flip-flops as footwear to accompany the orange dresses, so at least at that wedding my feet were comfortable as all get out. The rest of me, well, it suffered from the aggressive boning in the bust of this orange beast, but I endured.

Moving on.

Do you see this boning action? Wow. That sounds awful.

Because I've learned to love Bubba's assessment of our costume theme ("The candy that's left at Thanksgiving because it's crap.") better than my mine ("Classic Halloween Treats"), I'm sort of going with that for our debut at the work Halloween bonanza. I feel it's more amusing and will better explain away any untoward behavior Jada might exhibit while, say, squatting in her costume.

We'll see if she'll even go to the bathroom with this getup on, because she gets all wigged out when I put the raincoat on her and refuses to pee or look me in the eye, so I suspect that her bathroom-going parts will be on strike until I remove the offending costume.

Fun topic!

Sitting and squatting are different. She sits like a fiend. Costume or no.

So, yeah, that's about all I'm prepared to share with regard to Halloween, vaginas, bridesmaid dresses, handmaking dog costumes and just Shame in general.

And since NaNoWriMo starts tonight, you can begin expecting regularly scheduled meltdowns that will last throughout the month of November.

Oh the drama of squash.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:44:00 +0000

Dear Donk,

Remember those randomly occurring pumpkins from my 2008 garden?

NO?? Pffffffft!

Just kidding, I barely do either. Going along with my theme of garden forgetfulness and all.

Well, even though it looked a lot like I let that volunteer plant go crazy and take half a raised bed and then its babies sat and decorated my sideboard for a few months and sat out on the front porch in an out-of-season-decor way holding on a loose brick before bringing them all in and roasting them and pureeing them and freezing them in our chesty for no good reason -- I did not.

Did you get all that?

Basically, all of that effort (of which there was precious little aside from the processing part at the end) didn't go for nothing because TEE DAH I made something with some of the puree and that something was this month's Craft: along challenge - creamy pumpkin pasta.

But before we get to the meaningful reason of why you'd come to read this post, let me bore you with the minutia of processing volunteer pumpkins and share with you a shockingly common discussion topic in our household.

That being: What the fuck are we doing with XYZ thing and why is it sitting out?

See, there are two big controversies at play in this particular instance. One - we don't have a lot of space in our pea sized house, and, Two - Bubba hates seasonal decor. Especially when it's out of its season.

And, in this particular instance, I had six smallish to mediumish pumpkins sitting out on our not-huge porch and it was the middle of February - long past the harvesty seasonal times that might call for pumpkiny decor.

I knew that my time to dispatch the pumpkins had come, but I let them hang out there on the porch anyway, because there was a loose brick fragment I needed to keep in place and balancing six pumpkins on it was the fix I was ready to provide at time.

(Later I would employ the magic of Gorilla Glue and then even later still (now) we'd be employing the magic of a Real Live Contractor - but that's a story for another day)

Anyway, one day Bubba strode into our house, fresh from a rainy trip to the hardware store, and declared that it was high time for the pumpkins to go. What with us being closer to the current year's Halloween than the previous year's and all.

I agreed and told him that I had been planning to roast them and puree them anyway so I should just do that right now, then. I did not register any raised eyebrows at my declaration, but I assume there were a few. Even if they happened when I wasn't looking. And even if I was one of the ones raising an eyebrow.

Basically, the theory of roasting pumpkins and processing them into puree had crossed my mind, but the whole thing seemed so labor intensive for an end product that I could easily just go get five minutes away at TJ's, that I'd sort of started coming to terms with composting the pumpkins when their numbers were up.

Suddenly, though, I was compelled to make good on this gardening venture and see it through to fruition, even though that fruition was only theoretical and beholden to no man.

Oh well, you know how I am about this whole "to fruition" thing.

So, with a rainy day ahead of me and, apparently, nothing better to do in the whole wide world than reduce a sinkful of pumpkins down to a freezer bag of puree, I got started.

Hello, fuckers.

Folks - let me tell you - despite the fact that I will use this puree and it does taste as fabulous as pumpkin puree can taste - this is a process I will forgo in the future in lieu of some fine canned pumpkin from TJ's because WOW this took forever and produced very little.

Which is why I haven't told you about it for now. Because I didn't want you getting the idea that my life was so small and pointless that I'd spend half a day making pumpkin puree because the process is obviously so labor intensive that only psychopaths would be interested.

I get self-conscious, what can I say.

However, if you're a psychopath and want to get puree from your pumpkins, you can follow this process. Or, if you just like to see how I tortured myself one rainy day this past February, you can read along and quietly snicker to yourself or start dialing the local loony bin.

Hey, sometimes we all do pointless shit.

Witness ye, Pointless Shit.

Let's start with the roasting. Cover a rimmed baking sheet with foil, heat your oven to 400 and top your pumpkins. After which, scoop the inner crap out (If you're an irretrievable psycho, you can rinse those seeds and make plans to toast them, but I didn't because that's too far even for me) and cut them into wedges or halves or whatever shapes make them all fit on one baking sheet because LORD KNOWS you're not going through this twice.

I don't take two trips from the car with groceries and I'm SURE AS HELL not taking two trips through the oven for pumpkin puree. No sir.

Let the pumpkin roast in the oven until a fork can easily pierce the skin and it feels soft inside. Warning: this takes forever.

Remove the pumpkins from the oven wearing two oven mitts and a back brace because WOW they're fucking heavy.

Let them cool on the stovetop for a million years or until you can manage to cradle the pieces in one potholder-covered hand while scooping out the flesh with a spoon in your other hand.

Admire how the remnant skin looks like something from an old Friday the 13th movie. Move on.

Place a strainer over a bowl and plop all your cooked pumpkin in the strainer. With the back of a big spoon (and then your hand because you feel like the spoon isn't doing it fast enough) press the pumpkin so that the liquid drains out into the bowl below.

Do this until you have a nice smooth consistency in the strainer. Then scoop it all out into a clean new bowl and have at it with the immersion blender to make it super smooth.

Once you're done with all that mess, amaze yourself by fitting six pumpkin's worth of puree and half a day's work into ONE gallon sized Ziploc bag. Pat the puree flat in the bag (after sealing it) and, using your finger, "break" the puree inside the bag into four individual squares. These perforations will let you thaw and use smaller amounts later because who in the whole wide world is going to need a gallon's worth of pumpkin puree at once?

No one, that's who.

I kinda didn't think this would work, but it totally does.

Warning: You'll feel like you're wasting your life.

Then throw this carefully compartmentalized pumpkin puree into the freezer and freeze it flat. Then, when Bubba buys you a chest freezer for your birthday, put it in there *knowing* full well you'll never use it but because you're a sentimentalist when it comes to your own wasted time and efforts, store it in there anyway and then try not to look at it when you go to the chesty to store all your tomatoes.

The guilt is ongoing.

Ten months later, surprise yourself by going freezer diving (totally dangerous, I was nearly killed by a frozen tomato avalanche) to retrieve the forgotten bag of pumpkin puree to make FINALLY TEE DAH the creamy pumpkin pasta of this month's Craft: along challenge.

Death-defying pumpkin

PHEW. That was a long time coming.

After retrieving the bag and marveling at your frontierswomanness easily break off a brick of pumpkin, slide it into an inferior zippie bag (I don't know why these little ones suck, but they do, the plastic is too thin) and let it float in the small part of the sink in warm water for about ten minutes, or until it's thawed. Since you pat it real flat in the bag, it thaws fast.

Put the rest back in the freezer, then.

Now, if you made it through all that and you still want to make this creamy pumpkin pasta, let me advise you not to skip the sausage.

I did and the results were a tad bland. I didn't have anything other than spicy sausage at home, so I skipped it altogether and I suspect that was a mistake and the spiciness would have been AOK if I'd been willing to go out on a limb, which I was not because I was using The Precious Pumpkin Puree of Yore and didn't want to befoul it with some not-explicitly-included-in-the-recipe ingredients.

In this case, excluding the sausage should be considered a not-explicitly-included-in-the-recipe ingredient - so do what you must to procure it.

Aside from aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall that though, the recipe was simple, quick and provided a good base onto which I could load a nice big pile of fresh broccoli from the farmshare.

And, lawdy, if I don't love me some broccoli freshly steamed in lemon juice and sprinkled with sea salt.

This is a new experimental view of cooking.

Whaddya think?

Notice the broccoli off to the side, there? After this photo, I just put it on top.

So, yeah, that's the story of how I finally used some of this puree to make something and then was too lazy to go to the store for sweet Italian sausage. Sometimes I can be such an asshole.

Good thing I had that awesome broccoli. And good thing I have another labor intensive pureeing project in my future because I guess I just didn't get enough of that the first time around.

Happy crafting, doll.

Finny

Gather 'round, whores and bitches. [PRIZES]

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Wow - apparently y'all are bigger fans of sewing books than you are of homemade pickles. Who would have guessed?

OK, well, I probably would have if I'd thought of it before now. Which I hadn't. Because that's a weird thing to think about. Even for me.

NOT IMPORTANT!

What is important is announcing the winners. Because I know that's why all you whores are back today.

Do you like how I keep calling you whores and bitches? Where do I get off?

Anyway, whores...

The proud and SUPER DOUBLE LUCKY winner of the soon-to-be-available (WTF, Storey Publishing? I thought the book release was yesterday.) One-Yard Wonders book is Betsy.

And the proud and SUPER EXTRA DOUBLE LUCKY winner (because this calendar is already available for shipment per Amazon right now) of the already available Sewing: 2010 Day-to-Day Calendar is Carla.

Congrats whores and bitches! Now send me your mailing addresses (and full names, unless you want your shit mailed to Apples and Onions Betsy, which is fine by me but whatever) to finnyknits AT gmail DOT com so I can ship you your shit.

OK. I'll stop calling you whores and bitches now. It hardly seems nice. Given you're winners and all.

The rest of you though? You're on the bubble.

KIDDING!

I'm very punchy this morning. I think I'm just excited that Bubba's coming home from his trip to Cambodia today. Yay! No more single dog momming it around town. *Throws handfuls of dog kibble in the air*

Tomorrow I'll be back to boring you with the exciting world of pumpkin puree-making (no, for reals) and meadow grass-growing (again, for reals. Thanks for the reminder, Dena!), but for today you can all bask in the glow of prize awarding.

Even if you didn't win a prize. Because, you know, you could still go enter yourself in the Storey Publishing contest for fabric. Unless you live out of the country. In which case you're a little SOL, but that's not my fault, so let's just agree to be mad at these anti-Non-US contest-havers and go on with our lives.

For the record - I ship internationally. So, if you ever win a prize from Finny and you live somewhere far far away not in the US - I will send you your prize and so there.

Just so you know. I love all you whores. US and non.

I feel this is a good time to end this post.

Oh wait - HI JANA! So random, but Jana and I used to work together and it was really fun to see her picture right there in the comments, so I had to say hi. I'm like that. Also - your hair looks cute - it's dark - I like it muchly.

Contests + Prizes! Also known as shameless self-promotion.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:00:00 +0000

You may not know this about me, but I'm totally not modest at all.

HA! You totally did know that.

Anyway, since that's all out in the open and you know what a whorish self-promoter I am already, we can go forth with the news without any shame.

Or, just, less shame. Still swearing though! Always with the swearing.

Guess who's got a pattern in the new One Yard Wonders book?

ME, bitches!

And, like, a bunch of other super talented and probably way more modest people, too, PLUS the fabulous Ms. Junie Moon who has FIVE FUCKING PATTERNS (such a good thing I love her, otherwise can you imagine the smack I'd talk right now?) in there for you all to gape at and drool over.

The beauty of this book is its stash-busting powers, if you ask me, since all these wantable things can be made with just one paltry yard of fabric that you know you have just lying around in a big Tupperware in the closet not getting used, but I'll let you decide for yourselves what the beauty of this book really is. And if it just happens to be the photographs of my pattern that you find especially beautiful, well, I am prepared to accept that.

And if you are super fucking excited for the release of this book like I am (or you are just vaguely excited but have some single yards of fabric you'd like to dispatch - which is also fine whatever), leave me a comment today (10/28/09) and I'll send the winner (picked by the random name chooser thingee) a copy of the new book YAY!

Phew - said that all in one breath there.

And, if you want to hedge your bets (which, I would, because I'm that way), you can also go to the publisher's website and enter to win a yard of fabric a month for a year. If you manage to win both things, then, well, you're a lucky little fucker and I don't know why you're still working full-time because you could obviously just be entering contests for a living.

ANYWAY.

If you're still here after all my yelling, swearing and breathless self-whoring, and you want to win something ELSE - I should tell you that I also have a pattern in the Sewing: 2010 Day-to-Day Calendar. I believe mine falls somewhere at the beginning of July.

And if you don't like *my* pattern (which, what what's wrong with you?), odds are you'll probably find at least one other pattern in there because there are, like, more than a hundred. Yes, that means that some patterns cover more than one day, but let's not get hung up on technicalities right now.

If you want to throw your hat into the ring for either of these deals, leave a comment like, "I want shit with your name in it." or something to that effect, and I'll let the random name chooser thingee do the rest.

Do all this comment-leaving today, 10/28, and I'll announce winners tomorrow, on Thursday, 10/29. That way, if you don't win (sorry, losers), you can still go buy a copy of this book while it's still hot from the pressroom or wherever they hatch these things.

Because you know there's nothing like a warm craft book on a cold day. Or something.

OK - that's all the self-promoting I will do today. Promise.

Remember my garden? Yeah, I just did, too.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:18:00 +0000

Not that long ago I planted the fava beans, as is my now second year tradition, and right after that, I forgot that I had a garden for the most part.

I've been out there twice to pick tomatoes, but beyond that, the back garden has gone into its winter phase, which is to say that it's now Jada's spa (read: toilet) and home to the Apple Tree That Doesn't Grow.

So, imagine my excitement this morning when I went out to check on my kumquats to find that HEY! OVER HERE! the fava beans were all growing and shit.

We're all standing here at attention and everything, woman.

Thankfully I have automatic irrigation out there, otherwise who knows what shape they'd be in right now (dried, probably) and boy would I be sad that I actually went along with this moon phase nonsense in the first place just to let them fail because of my own negligence. And you know I'd be all blaming the moon phase or whatever.

Stupid moon phases make plants grow worse! I'd be saying, but whatever.

I wonder how many other theories I've tested poorly just to determine in my own pea brain that they're faulty when the faulty is ME? Eh. Hard to tell.

Anyway, the beans are alive, getting taller by the day, apparently, and making the Money Chicken nervous. He tends to get lost in the greenery every summer and now he'll get the same treatment in the fall and winter.

And why is he called the Money Chicken? No idea. That's what Bubba calls him and since he had that name before I started calling him, "Hey you fucking asshole, stop cutting my hands when I move you!", it has stuck.

We compromise, Bubba and I.

The Money Chicken looks on nervously.

And, in case you were interested in the progress of the kumquats, the original reason I dragged my lazy rear out to the garden in the first place, I can assure you that they're doing nothing and look the same as last time we did this.

I could have just posted the same photo as before, but I had already hauled the camera with me, so here you go: Kumquats, a still life.

I'll be impressed when they produce enough for me to eat in more than one sitting. This isn't even a challenge.

And since there's precious little fall color around here, so that I have to go stealing it from friends' Facebook updates (Hi Freiberg, Germany - your fall looks nice!), I was really sort of happy to see that the hard-won yarrow (I had to HUNT THIS SHIT DOWN - it was unreasonable) has grown in to the new landscaping nicely and is blooming with abandon.

I'm worth it.

And then we've always got the nasturtium. I never realized I'd like these flowers so much, but they bloom forever, are super sturdy in a vase and will take abuse like none other. Seriously, I ripped out this whole bed a few weeks ago and TEE DAH, the nasturtiums are blooming again.

Nice one, fellas.

And, to keep with the Forgot all about the garden! Whoops! theme, I got three packages in the mail that reminded me that I should stop opening emails from High Country Gardens and Burpee. So, you know, I now have to figure out when I'll be planting garlic sets, Siskiyou gaura and hey fun! almost 800 wildflower bulbs.

I'm sure I'll be back soon with an update on how my hamstrings won't allow me to move from a prone position.

A really long explanation for my dog's Halloween costume

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Firstly, I'm afraid that some of you need to seek out the greater resources of Google Images to refresh your memory on what a vagina does and does not look like. But, if you don't want searches for "what does a real vagina look like?" clogging the annals of your browser's history (do you like how I worked in "annals" there? I'm laughing at my own jokes right now.), let me tip you off by saying that it does not at all look like the photos you see on this blog.

Lest you think I've taken my picture taking too far.

And I know that you're just being your witty self, Decca, and that I totally laughed out loud into my laptop (whilst spraying tea hither and yon) when I saw that your guess for Jada's costume was haHAha - a vagina.

Also I've stored this away as an idea for future Halloween costumes. For the dog. Because I'm obviously an abusive pet owner with a strange sense of humor.

OK - on to the dog's actual costume then...

Vagina!

Just kidding. Sorry, too funny to resist.

For many of you (Hi geniuses!) this wasn't a hard costume to guess because even though I thought those clues were shitty, they apparently were not OR you all have imaginative minds that can conjure up costumes in which crazy people might dress their dogs so that they will match an orange bridesmaid dress.

You people lead bizarre lives, you know that? I mean, that's just insanity! Who matches dog's outfits to bridesmaid dresses?

Oh right. Me.

Anyway, Jada is going as a Tootsie Roll, which I hope you find as amusing as I do.

Jada, personally, finds it to be a delicious idea.

And how did I think up this masterpiece of animal abuse? Well, here's the story.

Didn't you want the story in addition to the dog photos? Sure you did. Here we go.

So, I was knitting the #1 sleeve of my sweater-in-progress when my mind wandered off to Should I Dress Up For Halloween Land. And in this land I wasn't sitting well with the idea of not dressing up.

Why?

Because, at my office, we treat Halloween like it's all the holidays plus a rollicking carnival rolled into one, when judged by the enthusiasm of the festivities and the widespread participation of the employees.

Everyone dresses up. Or so it seems. I mean, there are a lot of people that just look like a freak every day, so you can't really tell if that's a costume or if they are just wearing their weekend drag outfit, but for the most part, people dress up, make merry, enter their dogs/kids/selves/teams in costume contests, eat a lot of food shaped like spiders and drink suspiciously-colored beverages.

And to not participate would feel weird. Like being the only vegetarian at Oktoberfest or something.

So, this was weighing on me when I decided that I should definitely dress up, but if I was going to dress up, I needed to wear one of my bridesmaid dresses in order to get another wear out of something that was, in most cases, otherwise unwearable.

And before any of you lovely friends of mine who honored me with the title of bridesmaid in your wedding get all "Well, pfffffff! If she didn't like the dress, she should have said something!" or "I had to wear a black dress in your wedding HOW UGLY" or whatever, let me just say that I happily wore your dress to your wedding and no matter how many times you say, "It's so cute you can totally wear it again!", it's still not true.

I just don't lead a life where I can wear a two-toned orange satin dress or a tea-length pink dress with sheer overlay or a floor-length sea foam number with corset or a gold halter dress with train or a red wrapped-bodice gown bestudded with rhinestones. I just don't. And you should be glad, because if I did, we might have never crossed paths and become the great friends we are today.

OK? We all feel better now? Good. And feel free to reuse your hideous black dress from my wedding as a trash bag. No hard feelings.

Back to the issue at hand - my costume. See, while the pink, red, gold and sea foam dresses weren't that difficult to work into costumes (Stepford Wife, Evil Tooth Fairy, The Drunk Bridesmaid, Emmy Award, costume for my "Wear a Bridesmaid Dress to a Bridal Shower" party), the orange dress (Hi Chelle! Love you!) was more of a challenge.

Last year I was thinking of wearing the dress and going as Lisa Simpson until I realized that Lisa's dress is red rather than orange. Boo. Then Bubba and I hatched the idea of the Evil Tooth Fairy and that went better with the pink dress, so off I went to haul it out of the spare bedroom closet for a second Halloween go around (that's three uses right there! WOO! Thanks Lin!).

We batted around ideas for the orange dress, but they were all fruity or stupid or not amusing enough to motivate me to pull together other pieces to make into a costume. Things like, "Halloween Fairy", "Autumn", "Pumpkin Lady", "Tanning Booth Fatality". You can see why I was left uninspired.

Until this sleeve-knitting moment when I started thinking about orange things other than pumpkins that have to do with Halloween. Not surprisingly, my mind immediately went to candy. And what is the most classic of all Halloween candy? Candy corns.

Not because they're delicious, mind you, but because they've just been around forever and I think we keep handing their legacy down through the generations because we're each afraid to be the one who finally goes, "You know. These aren't good. We should just stop making them and instead focus our efforts on making bigger Reese's peanut butter cups." Because that, friends, is a real Halloween candy. And I think the peanut butter inside is vaguely orange, right?

Anyway, aside from the fact that candy corns aren't all that good, they are still inextricably Halloween-ish and, in great part, orange in color. One might even say that they are one of the classic Halloween treats. Right up there with popcorn balls, wax lips, Smarties and TEE DAH! Tootsie Rolls.

And, say it along with me, wouldn't it be cute (stupid, retarded) if I went as a candy corn and Jada went as a Tootsie Roll?

We could be, like, (and this is where Bubba's opinion and mine diverge) Classic Halloween Treats! Since, you know, we're such treats to begin with.

Bubba thought we could be, "The candy that's still leftover at Thanksgiving because it's crap.", but I found that to be slightly less inspiring and more of a mouthful, so we decided to go with my idea instead. Not that I'm going to be creating name tags or anything, but if we need a title for the Group Costume Contest (oh yes, I'm *this* big of a loser right now), then mine will fit better on the sign-up sheet. I think.

I'll feel better about myself anyway.

After this unfortunate decision on the naming rights of our project, Bubba's input sort of stopped until Jada was presented in the various phases of her costume development. This was so that he could tell me how skilled I was at making candy-shaped outfits for our dog.

Because, of course, first I had to make the body and make sure it fit before moving on to more decorative aspects like the ruffled collar/wrapper, stunning red stripes and authentic Tootsie Roll lettering, and who better to judge the fit of a dog's costume than the man who was busy dialing the local loony bin to see if they offered a pick-up service for deranged seamstresses.

It's hard to tell from the photo (and her sad face), but her tail is wagging very happily in all these shots.

See how her tail looks blurry? Yes - that's joy.

You can actually see the blurry tail in this picture. I promise - authentic happiness.

Despite his objection to costuming the dog, Bubba did agree that the costume creating went well and that our dog looked as much like a Tootsie Roll as was possible given her fur, legs, size and general dog-ness.

As for my candy corn costume, well, there's an orange bridesmaid dress involved, but beyond that, I haven't put together enough of it to model it for you, but I will. And to hold you over until that glorious moment arrives, you can enjoy looking at my new yellow shoes that I'll probably wear to work after Halloween prompting people to wonder what other Halloween costume items I've worked in to my regular outfit rotation.

What? You didn't think I was going to buy shoes I couldn't rewear did you? That'd be crazy.

None of those bridesmaid dresses, though, that's for sure.

Let's guess some more because that was fun.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:26:00 +0000

Ah, you know my shame.

And it's not the shame of a Christmas tree skirt, a Snuggie (formal or otherwise), an outfit for a concrete bird or yard gnome (I'm now frightened of the Midwest), an outfit for a choir boy or any person of the cloth (yeah - I think the church has a Shoot on Sight order on me), a giant dog doo bag, toilet seat cover (yeesh, those things freak me out) or a pirate shirt.

And while "Halloween costume for a friend's child" is a close guess (nice, Kris), CLP and Nutsy Coco were right on the money.

I'm making, or rather have made, a Halloween costume for Jada.

Feel free to think mean things about me or judge me if you're a big fat Judger, because I've gone over to The Other Side of pet ownership by creating an item of clothing for my dog.

I KNOW - it's retarded - BUT she comes to work with me and at work we love Halloween so much it's like everyone here is seven years old and since I'll be dressing up for Halloween and, of course, bringing her to work with me, I thought she could dress up in a coordinating (not matching - *coordinating*) costume so that we could (brace yourself, this is where it gets more shameful) enter the Group Costume contest, or at least I could enter her in the Pet Costume contest because we have one and it's funny.

Of course, until now I considered the Pet Costume contest to be ridiculous and retarded and oh how sad that pug is dressed as a lobster and it doesn't make any sense, but when I thought up my own costume in a moment of bridesmaid dress reuse brilliance, a coordinating costume for Jada fell right into place.

Sound absurd? Oh, it is. I'll assure you of that.

How absurd though? Well, let's guess...

Using the shitty clue of the above collage as guidance (and yesterday's, too, if you want), please feel free to guess at the costume I created out of scraps in my stash for my, until this year, uncostumed dog.

And yes, these tightly cropped photos were taken as she modeled this costume for Bubba and I, her tail wagging all the while.

Sure, I lured her from the comfort of her enormo doggie bed with handfuls of treats before I festooned her with this Halloween finery, so maybe that's why she was so super cheerful, but I daresay she pranced the catwalk (dogwalk? no matter) for Bubba and I and appeared to not be bothered by the bizarre new nightly rituals taking shape in our house.

Before now, the most "dressed" this dog has gotten is when it's raining and we torture her with a doggie rain coat. This sounds stupid, too, just like a Halloween costume, but I am not lying when I say that she takes five seconds to dry off after a walk with the doggie rain coat and that is a lot shorter (hours shorter) than when we dry her off after a no-raincoat walk.

For a short haired dog, she's awfully absorbent.

Anywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay - enough about my poor abused dog, who is, like, the best sport ever.

You all feel free to guess at Jada's costume, which is ready but for just a final top stitch, and if you're real good and want to go out on a limb, go ahead and guess at both of our costumes using the following consistently shitty clues:

1.The bridesmaid dress I'm reusing this year is orange.

2. Our costumes go together thematically, but do not match. Which is obvious given that her costume doesn't contain any orange. Hey! Another shitty clue.

3. Our costumes only share one color: white.

4. Both of our costumes, combined, will only cost me a total of $24.99, as all of the materials/bits/pieces/details were sourced from around the house except for a new pair of shoes for moi because HELLO I don't have any shoes in *this mystery color* yet.

Not helpful? If you can guess Jada's costume, I'll tell you what the theme is and I bet you'll guess our Costume Shame pretty quickly.

I will, however, not be telling you what Bubba's calling our costume theme, because it makes me feel sad and like I wish I'd have thought through the implications of our theme a little better so that I could avoid adopting one with such unfortunate associations.

Yeah, I'm sure that's not super helpful.

Start guessing!

Shameful mystery project

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:52:00 +0000

I would come right out and tell you what this shameful mystery project of mine is, so that we could all wallow in the shame together and so that you could maybe tell me that you, too, have completed similarly shameful projects that are also mysteries because I don't know of them which means you've not told Finny of your shameful ways (shame!), but I thought it might be more fun to let you guess what it is that I'm working on that is so shameful that even though I've been confronted with similar suggestions in the past, I've always ignored them because I found them to be, well, shameful.

And that was probably the longest and most grammatically horrifying sentence I (or maybe anyone else) has ever written. Sheesh. Slap me.

Anyway, my point is not to scare you with my shameful writing but rather to give you some shitty clues (including the not helpful photo collage) so that you can guess what shameful project I'm working on using the following materials:

(This is shitty clue #1) brown Kona cotton left over from a recent zippered pouch project, white muslin left over from some random projects I don't recall, red fleece left over from the scarves I made two Christmases ago, adhesive Velcro left over from a recent project during which I determined that adhesive Velcro was never to be used again for anything I planned to wear or use more than once.

Shitty clue #2: Just because I find this to be a shameful project, there are manyMANY people out there who think these types of projects are adorable, hilarious, necessary for survival and so on. So, you know, it's not like I'm making a fleece and Velcro dildo here or anything. Which might be painful rather than shameful, but let's move on.

Shitty clue #3: The final product of this shameful project isn't for me. Yes. That is correct. I'm making shameful things for others because that's the kind of evil giver that I am. Be my friend?

Shitty clue #4: I don't know. See - that's a pretty shitty clue.

I went home from work last night with the premise for this shameful project just acookin' away in my mind, but had to temper the shameful inspiration with a condition. The condition was that I could only make this thing if I could source all the materials from stock on hand in Finny's Closet Stash of Horrors.

Part of me *knew* I didn't have everything I needed, so I think my secret inner self thought that it was saving me from my evil outer self by making this condition with my whatever self so that I wouldn't go home and create this abomination, but as it turns out, having that many selves bouncing around in one's head means that there's not enough room in there to recall exactly what one has on hand in the Closet Stash of Horrors and WHOOPSY I did have everything I needed.

It also means that one's head is Crazy.

Oh.

I guess I *will* make this shameful thing that will have Bubba rolling his eyes at me for the foreseeable future, even though he agreed that, so far, it was being executed expertly and that my skillz were sharp for such shameful applications.

Some people can build houses, I can craft shameful things. We aren't all dealt an even hand, friends. Sorry to tell you.

So, I set out to start this shameful thing last night, after we'd finished dinner and during the Monday Night Massacre known as the Broncos play the Chargers. Oh, L.T., what has happened?

Thankfully, I had The Shame to distract me. And, ironically, while crafting The Shame from scratch and without a real pattern (shitty clue #5), I realized I was having one of those rare and blessed sewing moments where everything I sew does not turn to shit.

I'm not going to go as far as saying that my sewing turned to gold, because this is The Shame we're talking about here, but the usual events that mark my Everything I Sew Turns to Shit moments were mercifully missing.

So, you know, the thread didn't fly out of the needle every other stitch, my bobbin didn't start balling itself up in a big nasty temper tantrum, I didn't cut on the wrong fold or sew something inside out or, like, sew my sleeve down to the table.

I felt, at one point, like I should pull some of my other WIPs out of the pile and put my good sewing juju to work on unshameful projects, but alas, I was shoulder deep in red fleece and making muslin ruffles using that handy trick I learned from Amy Butler when I made that tunic, so I forged ahead - wasting my Everything I Sew Does NOT Turn to Shit time making The Shame.

I'm sure this will come back to haunt me when I'm making that jacket from Chic & Simple Sewing, but for now I'm just grateful that cutting up semi-big swaths of stash fabric (shitty clue #6) for a final project that, while shameful, will not be useless or a horribly executed waste of time or trash can fodder.

Tonight I hope to get on to the final details of this shameful business, which will turn its Shame level up to 10. And for those of you who haven't had to turn a knob on a radio/stereo/receiver in this lifetime because you're younger than I am and have only had audio equipment with touchwheels or buttons, I have two things to say to you:

1. Fuck you

2. In the olden days there were big knobs on stereo receivers that went from 0 - 10 (or 30 or 40 or whatever depending on the power of your particular device) and "turning it up to 10", for us kids, was, like, the most extreme way to express something. We also said "rad" a lot and "hella", but that's another story for another day.

Also, I still say, "rad" a lot.

Also, if "turning it up to 10" wasn't extreme enough to express the radness of something, like, say, a TV show or song on the radio, another popular phrase which we (Bubba and I) still use frequently today, was "break off the knob!"

As in, "This radio station is so rad, you should just break off the knob!" Usually this was followed by the DJ exclaiming the "Hundred thousand watts of music power!" or some such nonsense, but since this is a lesson in Shameful Crafting and not in Finny's An Old Lady, let's just focus on you entering your guesses in the Guess The Shameful Project Contest.

Go.

Running is the anti-Snoopy

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:06:00 +0000

In an effort to stave off any more guilt, I went back out for a run this weekend so that I could say that my Post-Race Break Week was just a little more than a week, but not TWO weeks because that would be ridiculous.

It would have also been fabulous, luxurious, relaxing, productive and a lot of other really great things, but the thing I was most focused on was Fatness.

Because when weighing the pros and cons of going for a shortish-long run all the pros (see above) were outweighed by the very heavy con (Wow. Awful pun.) - Fatness.

Even though, during an impromptu dinner date night with Bubba on Friday (Fun! We went out with three dimensional people! I wore jewelry!), I admitted that since my last race, I've lost 4 pounds. Even though there's no way that can be anything other than 4 pounds of muscle since HELLO look at these oysters on the half shell spread out before me - it's not like I've been eating low cal during Post-Race times.

That would be insanity.

Anyway and also - I had a wedding to go to over the weekend and wanted to wear my new and never-yet-seen Supah Tight dress with my sparkly Wedding Going Shoes (I can't find any other occasion to wear them. Due to the sparkliness.) and wow is that one dress where a Lunch Snoopy isn't welcome.

Thank you to my good friend, Kiesha, for that apt naming convention.

Given the tightness of the dress and the likelihood of a Post-Race Break Week of Oysters and Other Assorted Naughtiness Snoopy, a run was definitely in order.

So, run I did.

I went out for a six miler at the not so early hour of around 7am and it was fine. A little humid out for my tastes and there was that pesky sun ball again and wow there sure are a lot of cars on the road at this hour, but the run itself was, like, pretty nice.

Especially since it was only six miles and it was acting like Fall around our neighborhood this weekend, so I got to crunch leaves with my feet, appreciate pumpkin vines crawling out from under people's fences and think mean things about those fuckers who already have Christmas decorations edging their Jack-o-Lanterns off the porch.

I think I was out for around an hour, since I did my usual 6 mile route, but since I didn't wear my Garmin (OH THE FREEDOM OF RUNNING FOR THE HELL OF IT RATHER THAN FOR TRAINING) I didn't get any exact times or elevation charts or splits or fanciness like that.

I can say, though, that when I put on my Supah Tight (but still appropriate for a wedding because I brought a wrap, OK) dress, there was no Snoopy to be seen. Yay. The run did its job.

Of course, after having lunch, cocktails, appetizers, dinner and a hundred drinks, I'm sure I looked like Snoopy after Thanksgiving Dinner, but I have to assume that everyone else was drunk enough by then to let such details pass before their eyes without recognition or memory.

Plus, it's not like I was the only one who had dinner and those bacon wrapped scallops, so I'm sure there were other Snoopies to see. Just saying.

And since the run went so well and I will have to make my way through a 5K next month and because I'm going to Palm Springs this weekend instead of putting myself through the Silicon Valley half marathon like my neighbor is, I'm going to go back to my weekly morning short runs in an effort to maybe best my 5K time on Thanksgiving.

Because lord knows I can't go a week without a new annoying goal.

Witness me melting the hell down.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:23:00 +0000

I've ignored a lot of laptop stickers.

I've gazed past Tshirts and pretended to be paying attention to traffic when faced with window clings.

I've conducted my blog-following life in Reader and so have been widely ignorant of web badges of all types.

In fact, I've made a practice of being outwardly ignorant about all these blogging and webby monikers and acronyms.

NaNoBloMo? What is this thing you speak of? Surely *I* don't know. Sounds sort of erotic, if you ask me.

NaNoWriMo? Is this something made up by Apple? I see product placement all over this.

365 Days? OK. I realize that's not an acronym, but what does it mean?

I'll tell you what ALL of these mean, folks, WORK.

Hard, busy, slaving, soul-crushing, self-doubting, finger sweating, anxiety-inducing, sleep-sucking, creativity-sponging, daily time-rationing WORK.

And because I have finished the training and running of two half marathons already this year and have only the hehe I'm not training for that 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving upon which to set my goal-driven sights and apparently need something personally and mostly uselessly stressful in my life, I finally gave in and admitted that I knew the meaning of one of these nerdy acronyms.

And by "gave in" I mean, I stopped ignoring emails from close friends encouraging me to take part in said acronymic event, stopped searching my calendar *to the bone* for somethinganything that would keep me legitimately tied up for the month of November and unblocked the websites in my browser that had been hiding behind the firewall as though they were full of porno and I was my own eight year old kid.

Which makes no sense. And also I didn't do that last one because, can you even do that?

Anyway, what I'm saying is that I held out a really, really long time and feigned ignorance until I was weak and impressionable and finishing up my second week of the glorious Post-Race Break Week with just a little bit of guilt wandering in and out of my goal-free mind when I finally decided to stop being such a fucking pussy and just sign up already.

Finger too tired to click? Eyes too worn out to look right ----> over -----> there ---->?

NaNoWriMo.

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month.

Finally. After three years of pretending I didn't know what it was. Pretending that people on the Internets were all crazy and who has time like this and what would I write about and oh please as though I can work, run, sleep, blog, eat, garden, have Thanksgiving aaaaaaaaaannd write 50,000 words in a month. Please, now. Don't say crazy things.

Well, the crazy is out of the bag for you all to see. I've succumbed to peer pressure for the whateverTH time in my life and, rather than trying a new gateway drug or going under the bleachers with a football player (sadly - never happened), will be torturing myself to the tune of 50,000 words in November with the expressed written intent of being a "winner". Which means I actually write something with 50,000 legitimate words in it.

The prize? I think there's some sort of web badge. And, hey, I'll have 50,000 of my own words to keep me warm at night when Bubba's out of town. And, uh, I can scramble them all up Lorem Ipsum style and print them onto fabric at Spoonflower and then make myself a straightjacket?

Yeah, so there's not really a prize.

Unless you've thought that one day you'd maybe if you get a good idea or have a life-changing experience or an epiphany or witness something unbelievable write a novel and then TEE DAH! have managed to turn 31 without writing more than what one would consider readable squat and could really use written proof that you're not a total lost cause.

THEN - that is the prize. Proof that you're not a lost cause. Good enough for me.

Also, then, I maybe won't sign up for any more long distance races this year because you know how I get.

So, what this means is that my posts in November may cover topics like the merits of quiet Mac keyboards vs super clacky ThinkPad ones, the maximum recommended daily dosage of Excedrin when combined with black tea and those so-good-they're-fucked-up truffles from TJ's, whether any of you know how to train dogs to type, if you know where I can find a fuel belt with a laptop attachment and whether there's an app for NaNoWriMo and whether it's worth trading in my Blackberry to get an iPhone so I can use it.

It probably won't mean I'll give up blogging, though, even though it seems like one couldn't possibly average 1,800 words a day PLUS blog PLUS work PLUS whine like a snively bitch, but I'm here to tell you that I think I can.

Mostly because my snivley bitchitude is pretty strong. And I believe that it can fortify me in times of stress, much like some runners gain strength from the adrenaline of other runners in a race (not me, I cry inside instead). And also because you well know that I can't bear public shaming and this is pretty public when the counter is right there (or will be) for everyone to see and judge.

JUDGERS!

Now, what happens to my 50,000 word digital fish wrap come December 1? Dunno. I guess we'll just have to see if I live through the experience and have any hair left. Why is hair important?

When is hair NOT important?

I don't know why I feel so strongly about that last part.

Wow. I just realized how poorly this might go. Yay for December.

Boss Lady

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:59:00 +0000

Last weekend I went out to the backyard with the intention of showing the tomatoes who was boss.

And wouldn't you know that there were some dissenting opinions, so that showing has continued into this week.

Meaning that there were so many fucking tomatoes on those plants that I'll be showing them who's boss all week as I freeze/cook/puree/slice/chop/boil/toss them.

Thankfully, at the end of this week, I fully intend to have Boss Lady status - at least as far as the tomatoes are concerned. My status with the other members of the household (yeah, tomatoes are pretty much members of the house now, what with their reserved space in the cupboard and all) is up in the air, I'm sure, as Rocket has informed me that I'm "on the bubble" since she knows her Pelt Removal appointment is fast approaching.

Anyway.

In order to be The Boss of the Tomatoes in an appealing and satisfying way to more than just moi, I decided that I'd just work tomatoes into every single day of our weekly dinner menu so that Bubba could appreciate Boss Man status among the tomatoes, too.

Also, he is good to have around in food surplus situations because he is a boy and therefore can eat impressive quantities of food, even though he keeps up a super svelt frame. The fact that he keeps ratcheting back to the skinner holes on his belt whilst he hoovers up all the leftovers and snacks and always has dessert is just something I'm not going to cover right now because it friggen irks me.

HOW ARE THESE THINGS POSSIBLE? And, how come they don't happen to me?

Moving on...

To first give you an idea of the amount of bossiness I have to force on these plants, let me tell you that during my Saturday morning harvest, I walked away with 32 lbs of tomatoes. I really have to update the tracker with the recent harvests because they've been big ones and I think we may be approaching the 200 lb mark with tomato harvests this year.

In this case, it was more than my cardboard TJ's flat could handle, so I had to call the old broken bucket off the bench.

Put me in, coach!

And in case you can't really appreciate the magnitude of this harvest based on the angle of this photo, this is how much room they took up in my sink as I rinsed them. Which is to say, ALL of the room.

The tomatoes are two and three deep in there. Yeowch.

So, to go about handling all 32 lbs here, I thought first that I'd just freeze them all. Or, maybe, I'd can half and freeze half. Or maybe I'd have a canning-A-THON and can them all. And then rent out one of those POD things for storage.

But then I realized that I'm stupid.

I mean, all winter we make do with homecanned and frozen tomatoes, all the while longing for the coming summer's harvests of fresh tomatoes so that we can have things that you can't really have with canned or frozen tomatoes. Like, say, tomato salad and tomato pie and tomato sandwiches and basically anything you need a fresh tomato to achieve.

You can't be thawing out a frozen tomato to slice up for a salad because that is just nasty and weird.

So, DUH, I finally wrote up a menu of favorite fresh tomato dishes, parceled out the number of tomatoes I'd need to fulfill them and then processed (ie. cut out the stem holes) and froze the rest into gallon sized bags to feed the chesty.

That's eight gallons of tomatoes, there. Yah. Anyone up for chili?

It's funny how the chesty is nowhere near capacity. This thing is fucking scary.

I'm afraid to start stacking stuff in there because it'll get lost and will have to be hauled out with a crane someday.

So far, the menu's working as planned. We started the Tour de Tomato with the "Use While Fresh" basket looking like this:

And last night, after three tomato-heavy dinners, it looked like this:

And in case you're tired of me talking about all these tomato things rather than telling you what we've been doing with all these tomato things, here's the menu.

Sunday night: Tomato Pesto Pie (sans sausage because the store is so far away)

And rather than making a pie PIE, I made individual pie pockets. Well, you'd have to have really big pockets for these, but the crust forms something of a pocket, so just go with me, here.

If you like time-lapse photography, check this shit out - the tomato version:

Slice the dough > Add pesto > Add tomatoes > Add cheese > Add pesto > Add tomato > Cover/Crimp > Bake > Slice > EATYUM

When I make it again, I'll just make it the normal way.

Monday night: Creamy Tomato Soup

This didn't turn out as creamy as promised (by the recipe) because I pussed out and used 2% milk rather than cream but before you get all USE CREAM YOU RETARD! I just want to say that this was due to laziness (I had 2% in the fridge and the cream was all the way at the far away store - see "Sunday night: Tomato Pesto Pie") rather than Fear of Fatness and had there been cream in my fridge I so would have used it.

But, as it turns out, my Fear of Fatness makes the likelihood of having cream in the fridge so slim that I'd advise that you not hold out hope. We'll have to, instead, hope that one day my laziness subsides.

Still good enough for Bubba to eat a gallon of it for lunch.

Tuesday night: Ratatouille with sausage

This is an old standby recipe for those times when I have a crisper full of farmshare and nowhere to turn.

This time I spiced it up with jalapeno sausage from good ol' TJ's and piled on a lot more parsley than you see in this photo. Because I'm self-conscious of my over-parsleying ways, OK.

DON'T YOU JUDGE ME.

Judgers.

I served Bubba's over rice, but this is mine - 100% ratatouille

As for tonight and tomorrow and the day after (and after and after...), we'll be having BBQ brisket and beans courtesy of Chesty and a loverly tomato salad. Tomorrow I think I'm making this tomato bruschetta again and Friday we're having pizza.

And, with any fucking luck, we'll hit the weekend with an empty basket on the counter and HEY just in time to refill it with the ripe ones from the garden because OH MY HELL I went out there this morning and there's more.

Imagine if I'd planted SIX tomato plants? We'd be moving into a POD right now just to give them room.

And when did I become so obsessed with PODS? Weird, that.

Craft FAIL | Knitting SUCCESS

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:56:00 +0000

So, 'member (Bubba hates that) when I was all, "Hey, look at my amazing thing called Corks!"?

And I thought I was so smart for using my old corks to hold my stitches on my knitting?

Yeah, you remember. It was one in a long string of super modest moments. I'm so humble.

Anyway, I reveled in the discovery like a professional reveler. I mean, I was always giving myself a mental high five every time I took out my knitting (which has been pretty often given the cooling off of the weather) because I'm such a smartie that I managed to reuse two of my five billion corks in a useful way and, at the same time, had avoided losing stitches to the evil knitting gnome who lives in my knitting bag and likes to yank my project from its needles as it sits innocently by the couch.

These were precious moments, folks, when I felt smart about myself for five minutes.

Anyway, in my typical Queen of Forcing It fashion, I took my smartie-pantsness too far yesterday as I tried to set aside my knitting so I could focus my anger on the 49ers as they insisted on allowing the Falcons to remove their heads in a bloodbath to the tune of 45-10. And in the process of this "setting aside" I thought I had an amazing idea.

One that would keep the sleeves of my project from coming off their stupid double pointed needles.

One that would use the existing awesome cork stitch holders in a new and awesome way.

And that idea was to take the three points on one end of the project and jam them into the sides of one cork and then take the three points on the other end of the project and jam those into the sides of the other cork thus creating a virtually impenetrable fortress of safety for my stitches from the evil bag gnome.

Do you get what I'm saying here?

Well, if you don't, don't worry - I'm about to show you why this is an awful idea meanwhile you will probably see what I was going for.

It would have been great, I tells ya.

Yeah, so, had this worked and my amazing Hulk-like strength had not burst forth from my ripped guns, I would have had three needles covered on both ends with two corks. Real fancy good use of two old corks, I thought.

But, instead, I had three needles covered on both ends with two corks and then YAY broken in the middle to form a soul-crushing little tent-like thing.

YAY.

Because, of course, bamboo needles are made of bamboo and not, say, steel or some other not-super-breakable material, and so when you go applying force from both ends and then twisting even the tiniest bit, well, they snap like my ankles before a cold pre-dawn run.

These stitches are now living on a too-long circular needle. It irks me.

And the sound is nearly as sickening. I swear it to you.

Anyway, the FAIL here is easy to see, because DUH, there are the broken needles right there, but thankfully this was paired with a Knitting SUCCESS otherwise someone other than a certain SF tight end might have had their head removed. By moi. GRRR.

The knitting success, which maybe you already guessed at on your side of the computer screen, was the fact that this bastardized sweater pattern is totally working out because I've moved onto the sleeves!

Which I totally wouldn't have done if I'd tried it on only to find out that it fit like some other piece of crap that I knit in the past or maybe a new horrible incarnation of horseshit knitting.

I have never let myself dream that I could knit a fitted garment, but there you go.

So, yes, the body of the sweater fits perfectly, which is a huge and surprising success, and now all I need to do is knit the sleeves while contemplating whether to finish the hem and cuffs off like I did on Bubba's sweater.

I can't decide. You decide! What do you think: Do I ...

Leave the bottom hem and sleeve cuffs au natural so that they roll (see above photo)?
Use that fancy technique I learned from Knitting without Tears (Swears) where the edges turn all nice and neatly?

Keep in mind that the neckline will be the Au Natural Rolling way because the fancy turning technique is not going to work up there given the giant neckline. So you know.

I haven't been able to decide because I've been too busy ordering more yarn (What? You need more yarn to turn a Tshirt into a long-sleeved sweater? Oh. Right.), replacement DPNs and Addi Turbos in even more sizes.

Because, even though I've had a love/hate relationship with these guys in the past, I'm currently in the Love camp because they make this mind-numbing sleeve knitting process just OH SO MUCH faster.

Really. They do. I believe that's why they call them "Turbo".

Anyway.

That's about it for the trials and tribulations of my small knitting while watching football and breaking shit lifestyle. I hope to be back with a fully executed Perfect-For-Me sweater of my own bastardized design soon.

And I will share the pattern changes I made so maybe you, too, can knit one of these things if you so desire, and without the ritualistic snapping of nice needles.

*Sigh*

Night gardening

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:28:00 +0000

"Hey! As long as you use hand tools!"

Says my super bright neighbor (one of the shitty ones) when Bubba joked that with our new yard projects we'd be working long hours, potentially straying into Night Gardening, if it got too busy.

She doesn't live on the same planet as we do, this insane neighbor of ours.

BUT - I did end up following the moon phases for the first time in all of my gardening life by planting the fava beans this past weekend in accordance with the First Full Moon of October rule handed over to me by the nice neighbors.

The same ones who grew fava beans double the size of mine last year. And the ones who had tomatoes so big they started moving their stuff into my yard.

So, when they said that they always plant theirs with the first full moon of October, I listened. And made mental mind list notes. And then promptly forgot about it because that is my way.

Also, I had a race coming up and it was eating my whole mind. You remember.

Anyway, last Saturday, as I was Relaxing and Doing Nothing, as instructed by the race handbook and everyone I knew, Nice Neighbor reminded me that "Hey! Tonight is a full moon! Better plant those favas!" in that voice that tells me that he thinks his wife is crazy for holding on to this Italian tradition from the old country even though he wouldn't dare go against it.

I mean, he doesn't want to risk shrimpy favas does he? No. I dare say he does not. Even though he doesn't like them. But - I do believe he likes peace and quiet and if the favas come out shrimpy, Nice Neighbor Wife will be anything but quiet.

Let me assure you of that. Wow.

So, with all that said, I went out and planted fava beans during a break from Relaxing and Doing Nothing because YAY planting fava beans is about as close to Doing Nothing as gardening can get.

And, please make note that I did this planting during the bright sun of day time and not during the dark hours of night - even though it would have been fun to do that just to fuck with the shitty neighbors. I might have even run the sod cutter just to see if I could get her to come screaming from her house. That'd been funny.

Really, now - night gardening? Stoppit.

Before fava beans

After fava beans

See what I mean? It's like nothing happened. Because almost nothing did. I just took a dozen or so seeds and pushed them through the soil beneath the composting corn husks. And then I walked away. Feeling triumphant and timely. And still relaxed.

Now, who knows what's going on under all that corn detritus, but I do hope it's the early germination of all of my fava beans. That'd be great. It'd be super great if they also got big and tall like my neighbors' did last year so that I can stop feeling like a tard for planting things when the moon tells me to.

I just can't have someone else telling me what to do. I don't enjoy that.

But while the favas do whatever it is they're going to do (GET HUGE, DAMN YOU), I'm going to be taking down another bed this weekend while I contemplate what the eff to do about the tomatoes that live on. And on and on and on.

So, like, say goodbye to the green bean tepee, since I've pretty much let the remaining beans turn to rattles on the vine (shaking the tepee makes the creepiest rattle sound now - it freaks out the dog) and, even though it's being stupid and putting out more blossoms, it's high time for this bitch to come down.

Quit showing off, beans. No one is impressed.

Plus, it's ugly.

Ugliness.

Now, I was planning to do garlic or onions or some kind of winter-type vegetable in this bed, but I've frankly lost my inspiration. And while I have some fun things planned for the spring garden, I can't seem to get my brain excited to prepare beds now for a winter crop of whatever.

SO - probably no winter Adopt a Crop, unless inspiration strikes and/or I go to the nursery and onion sets start jumping into my basket. It could happen.

Or maybe I'll just plant all the beds with fava beans and then witness the horror on my other neighbors' faces when I turn them under before the beans can be picked and eaten. You should have seen when I did it this year. I thought one of them was going to brain me with a shovel.

ANYHOO - the tomatoes. The tomatoes are a problem. In a way.

We're like a bunch of red-headed stepchildren. Just more delicious.

See, I planted four plants this year. Which is exactly double what I planted the last few years. And what I imagined would prevent us from having the tomato lull in the season that we experienced last year due to the fact that Bubba and I are expert tomato eaters and can handle two full tomato plants like we're total fucking professionals.

Well, as it turns out, we're only professionals when it comes to handling two plants. Four plants is a bit much. Even for us. And we eat a lot of tomatoes. And I give a lot away. And I've been stocking our chest freezer on a regular basis with bags full. And I've canned around 6 quarts. And I've made and frozen sauce.

AND YET STILL - there are the plants, taunting me. Waving their overgrown branches at me with their flirty little new blooms in October of all times. Ripening more fruit every day as though it's the middle of August and I've got time to just go to town canning and freezing them every five minutes.

So, the other day, during a moment of Tomato Fatigue, I made a BBT (bacon, basil, tomato) sandwich on challah (because nothing says Terrific Jew like bacon on challah) and had a chat with the tomato plants.

At least it wasn't THIS sandwich. Now THAT was naughty.

"Here me now, plants...", I scolded.

"You will be coming down in a few short weeks. Before the frost can come and turn you into goo. And in these few short weeks, I expect you do to your best to ripen all of those green marbles into something edible otherwise next spring....NEXT SPRING...do you know what will happen? I will only plant two of you fuckers and you don't want THAT to happen."

You can totally see them quaking in their beds.

And, yes, I realize that this rant makes no sense. Because I'm talking to plants. Because these plants are annuals and it's not like they'd be coming back anyway. Because plants don't respond to threats from crazy people. And so on.

Just for the record, I still go on these rants anyway. Makes me feel like *I* am the boss of somebody for once.

All it really means, though, is that while doubling the number of tomato plants sounded like a keen and dandy idea, it was just as ridiculous as I'd imagined it could be. So, next year, only two plants.

Or maybe three. And a tomatillo. Oh who knows.

Thankfully, all I'll have to contend with soon are hopefully lots of kumquats, which are growing mightily thankyouverymuch, and Meyer lemons. From which I can make the Most Hated Dessert of All Time (if you're me) for Bubba because he deserves it for picking up my drunk ass in the city a few weekends ago after an evening of girl-ish debauchery.

Nice man, that Bubba.

I feel like this kumquat is big. But I might just be a proud mama.

I think lemons are the slowest growing of all fruits. Given this is how this same lemon looked three months ago.

Wow. This sort of turned into a gardening update and all I wanted to tell you was that one of my neighbors is totally mental. Huh. Funny, that.

2:25:08

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:40:00 +0000

Yes, you read that right, that is not a PR.

That is also not a 2:TEENS:00 time.

What that is, however, is the second half marathon time in one year.

And a watermark over my chest because I'm not paying $80 for 5 digital photos, thankyouverymuch.

So, you know, I could sit here and be all Woe is me I didn't get a PR during my second half marathon of the year and WOE I didn't make it into the 2:TEENS even though I kept up a 2:15 pace until mile 5 when my thirst took over all my other senses and led me by the ear from water station to water station, but I'm not all that woeful.

Because - for one - I killed my goal. I ran two half marathons in a year.

And - for two - now I can do something NEW.

I can go out into Nature and run around on NEW trails I've never run on before. I can see NEW things like wild animals (although, please no mountain lions) and farm animals (goats - I'm coming for you) and animals like squirrels that will make any runs with my sidekick, Jada, really fucking interesting.

I can try out NEW gear like running shoes with weird tread and socks that cover my ankles. I can try out NEW features on my Garmin like the compass and the mapping that will tell me how to get back to my favorite routes even when I'm not on roads carefully mapped by Google.

Ahhhhhhhhh - I love NEW.

And because most everything about yesterday's race was not NEW, I will spare you the mile by mile details because it was basically just like last year's race of the same name except with the following refreshing, surprising and horrible differences, respectively:

1. No old dudes in American flag shorts

Now, the lack of American flag shorts wearers was not a difference that I missed. I mean, I really don't need the blow to the ego of some 70 year old beer gut chugging past me at mile 9 just as I'm working up my big internal "You can do it" speech. It's just not that motivating to watch all that red, white and blue hustle by as you dig deep down and try to muster all your energy to push on.

See - no American flags in sight. How can this be?

However, I suppose it's possible that there were American flag shorts wearers and I've managed, somehow, to move my ass up in the crowd just far enough so that they don't pass me at my lowest moment. Perhaps. Or perhaps their shorts were in the wash and they instead wore their Elvis costumes.

2. I managed to see my next door neighbor on my way to my corral even though there were 12,000 other people there

Another Mystery in Racing was the moment when I was approaching Corral 8 (just like all 3 years I've run this race - see, the same), felt a tap on the elbow and turned to find my neighbor, a man who recently dusted me on a training run even though he was nursing a sore ankle, there to smile and wish me well and stagger off to Corral, like 4, or something. He's a very nice man, who's always very encouraging and camaraderie-ish about the running, otherwise I'd say something snarky even though I'm not sure what that would be because he is just that nice.

But I should note here that our (mine and Bubba's) ability to find friends in large crowds (over 5,000 people is our specialty) is starting to border on Super Hero-like. Seriously. Three years in a row, we managed to bump into our two close friends before AIDS Walk SF (25,000+ people) without any pre-arranged meeting place or even knowing we were all going. I managed to run into a good friend and my "It's your fault I'm running" buddy at the Turkey Trot (6,000+ people) a few years back while just standing around with the dog. I had a chance encounter with my cousin at a race we were both participating in (granted, only about 1,000 people, but still)- which doesn't sound all that chance except that my ability to recognize faces or do any other cognitive activities while running is pretty lousy.

And now this - my neighborly neighbor just right there and Hey! Have a great race! even though there is, like, a 1 in 24,000 chance that I'd even see him.

I do hope this is the early development stage of our Super Hero Friend Finding Powers because that'd be excellent. Make finding each other on the mountain in Steamboat a lot easier, too.

3. Two people died during the race

What's not excellent, though, is that two people died during the race yesterday. I'm not going to go into details or get all religious-y on you because I'm not the news and I'm not religious, but I will say that it breaks my heart.

I always imagine, when we're crowding into our corrals before the race, that we're all there filled with similar emotions and anxieties and excitement and expectations. We're all fiddling with iPods and watches and doing stretches where there's no room to stretch. We're all looking around at other people's pace bands and funny shirts and trying to make small talk when in our heads we're all just thinking "PR PR PR".

And it makes me feel better, when I'm all wacked out with the Pre-Race Crazies, that in a couple hours we'll all be crossing the finish line and getting our orange wedges while some nice volunteer wraps sacks of ice around our aching knees and we admire the newly earned medals hanging around our necks.

It just never occurred to me that all of those folks who started the race wouldn't finish the race. That this race would be the last thing they did.

Makes me sad is all.

And hopeful that they said the same goopy goodbyes and good lucks that Bubba and I do before races and that they felt the satisfaction of competing in a race for which they'd long prepared. And, in the end, they'll still get their medal. If not an orange wedge and a good ice pack. One without holes that's tied tight and doesn't leak down your leg when you start walking to the car.

I'll just hope for that because that's what I know how to do.

And before this race recap turns into a big sad sob-fest, let me tell you that I have signed up for another race.

Go ahead - laugh if you must.

And feel free to point at the screen and go, "FINNY LIES!", because I know I just said I was going to do something NEW and this race, the aforementioned Turkey Trot, is not NEW, but I've assumed since the last Trot that I'd do this Trot again and I kinda like the tradition of Trotting before The Thanksgiving of Many Desserts, because of the minuscule amount of guilt it removes (about 300 big calories - whoopy) and because it means I can have race fries before Thanksgiving dinner on the way to my folks'.

Yesterday's Race Fries + Bonus cheeseburger! I think I know why I'm not "streamlining".

Hi mom! I eat fries on my way to Thanksgiving at your house! Forgive me! I'll bring a green vegetable!

I should say though that the course of this year's Trot is "Brand New" and, I believe, removes the oh so treacherous freeway on-ramp that had us gaining, like, 70 feet, or something, so I guess that covers off the NEW requirement. And as long as they really prepare for the nearly 10,000 people they're expecting and it's not a total shitfest like it was in '07, I'll keep up this tradition even if I make the switch to trail running the rest of the time.

But if I get slammed by even one stroller - be it single or double-wide - I'm done. No more trotting with idiots who think that the 9 minute pace sign really says, "Hey, smush all your strollers in here because who wants to stand waaaaaaaaaaaay back there by the Strollers and Families sign".

Turkey Trot people - take note.

And that is all the running I've got to talk about.

Commence Post-Race Break Week.

Let's talk about hair instead of running.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:41:00 +0000

People, I'm about to come clean here about my hair style.

And by hair "style" I mean that up until a week ago, I'd had the same "style" since pretty much the 8th grade.

We're talking straight, armpit length blondish-brown hay masquerading as hair. There weren't any bangs. No curls, or even the possibility of curls. And, until about a year ago, no layers either.

I could have taken this photo any time in the last decade and it would have looked the same.
Thankfully my sister is adorable.

I felt that my big contribution to Hair Style was the fact that I dutifully kept up my highlights and didn't have a mess of split ends.

Thankfully, about a year ago, my very patient and hopeful stylist gently coaxed me into letting her cut a few layers around my face (but promised they wouldn't be bangs! I hate bangs! Bubba hates bangs! NO BANGS!) and I did love that very much.

Because I felt like suddenly I had a Hair Style. Which, really, I didn't. I had straight hay hair with some hardly noticeable layers in the front. Sorta swinging around, giving my hair some "movement", as she would say.

Bless her, she's so generous with my cautious hair-cutting soul. "Look at all the movement!" she'd say, to convince me I'd taken a courageous step away from my puritanical hair styling ways.

*Sigh* I can be such a fragile flower. About my hair anyway.

Well, about a month ago, my Hair Life changed forever.

I was waiting out in front of the Pilates studio, chatting with one of the dudes in my class (oh yes, dudes take this class, because it is hard, y'all!) when my friend tapped me on the shoulder. Of course I turned around, because that's what you do when someone taps your shoulder, and TEE DAH! there she stood with a new haircut.

And that, "What do you think!?" look on her face.

And then I frightened her with my response. Which went something like, "HOLY SHIT! I love it! I will HAVE IT!"

And then, because she's a girl and we never believe what other girls say, she clearly thought I was just being nice and didn't actually really super love her haircut, which I absolutely did, and she spent the rest of class doing her leg circles without looking me directly in the eye.

Not that you can be looking people in the eye while lying down on a Reformer, but still. Avoidance and fear were in the air.

And you know why my reaction was so...um...sincere? Not because I was all happy for her finding her Hair Perfection (come now, when am I ever that sweet and nice?) but because, I thought to myself, *I* could do that haircut.

Yes, because I'm very self-involved. That is right. I mean, I was happy for her, too, but mostly I was happy to have found someone who discovered my own Hair Perfection without me having to go out on a scary limb and do it myself.

Yes, I'm also lazy and a scaredy cat. I'm OK with this.

ANYWAY.

I thought I could do this haircut and not even maybe look like a total Jack-o-Lantern and maybe, because it's so style-y, I could even use fancy things in it like mousse or whatever. And OH! I could stop being the Girl With Hair From the 8th Grade! That'd be super great! And maybe I'd look like a grown-up instead of an 8th grader in 4 inch heels, which is something you don't really want to look like at work, and when I go out with the three dimensional people I might actually not look an Amish girl on Rumspringa.

My mind ran wild, is what I'm trying to say.

And then, later, my nice friend let me take pictures of her hair from all angles even though I'm sure she was trying to find the secret trap door in her cube to escape from me and my scariness.

I'm sure she was hoping that I'd forget about her haircut and just go back to my stylist and get my same highlight touch-ups and one inch trim (NO BANGS!) because, as my boss put it, it might be a little creepy if we both had the same haircut at the same time, but sad for her, I totally went for it.

Because of Peer Pressure.

Because I mentioned to, like, two people that I was thinking of getting an actual Hair Style cut into my haystack and WHOA the reaction was like if I'd said I was thinking of getting a full-body tattoo or a porn star boob job or something dramatic like that.

People were all, "Do it! Do it! Do it!" and suddenly I remembered that I can be very impressionable as though I'm back in the 8th grade and all the cool kids were doing something.

Thankfully now I'm a little more aware of this character flaw in myself and am able to limit my giving-in to things like haircuts and "just one more cocktail?" rather than things that get me suspended from school. Yay for that.

SO.

When I went to my regularly scheduled Just Touch Up The Highlights and Take Off an Inch hair appointment, I felt I needed to steady my stylist before I shocked the shit out of her.

So, I warned her.

"Liz. Steady yourself. I brought a picture."

"What?"

"Of a haircut."

"WHAT?"

"For me."

"WHAT? NOWAY! YES! LET ME SEE IT! YES! THIS WILL WORK! SIT DOWN! LET'S DO THIS!"

"Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy..."

Then it was my turn to be afraid because I do believe she started to drool a little bit. Like her little girl (and she's not all older than me or anything) was growing up and getting a training bra for her hair or something.

Thankfully, though, she is a pro and after touching up the highlights (hey, I can't do away with everything, now) she proceeded to expertly cut into my hair the first step of my progressive hair style.

That's right, friends, this is a Hair Evolution. In six weeks, it will be re-cut in a more dramatic way, sort of, and look different! Sort of.

OK, so the only real reason why it's the way it is now rather than the way it will be in six weeks is because I still needed to be able to pull it into a decent ponytail for the race.

That's this Sunday. And we're not talking about it because I think I've psyched myself out to the point where now I feel like I'm coming down with some sort of icky cootie.

SO LET'S TALK ABOUT MY HAIR INSTEAD.

Yes. These photos are creepy because my laptop took them.
This is, what Liz calls, "Kicked under".

This is what she calls, "Kicked out" and I call "Yay! Let's play with Paste in our hair!"

Anyway, it's a little longer in back than it will be when she gets her hands on it again, but essentially, this is the style. And I call this style - Lots of Layers. And shorter. And it can be kicked out or kicked under or all messy or whatever.

OK, that's not a proper name for a style, but do hairdos even have names? I don't think so.

The important thing is that it's shorter, it's different, it's more fun and YAY I get to use mousse and Paste (which sounds gross, but is actually quite fun) and I use way less shampoo and it takes a big 10 minutes to blow dry instead of 20 and YAY it still ponytails like a champ.

My ponytail is so small! Like a sprout!

OK. I don't think I can talk about my hair anymore. But it was a good diversion so that I didn't talk about running. Thank you for bearing with me.

Sunday SUNDAY Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:53:00 +0000

All I can really think about now is the fact that my #2 half marathon of the year is this Sunday and what if I puss out and don't hit my pre-announced goal of 2:TEENS:00.

Which I announced while clearly still riding the high of PRing in a race with hills.

I thought I'd FOR SURE run a slower race in Seattle than I did last year in San Jose for the simple fact that Seattle has hills and San Jose just has lame bands and a freeway overpass. But then, there I was, running along UP and down hills, along the lake (with the HOLY SHIT! A bald eagle!) and through the tunnel (hot, stinky, not as fun as I thought it would be) and down the freeway on-ramp (fun! Like being on the approach path to Sea-Tac.) and HOLY SHIT! (again) I swooped into the finish line in 2:23:57, which was a cool 14 seconds faster than my last half marathon and also my all-time half marathon PR.

So, obviously I immediately believed that I could become Super Woman in my second half marathon of the year all because there aren't any hills.

I think I might have even said something about "Maybe I should get a trainer" which totally didn't happen because I hear trainers tell you what to do and I DO NOT like to be told what to do.

I also didn't do the other things I secretly and quietly thought to myself I might do like lose five pounds (for streamlining benefits) or train up to 14 miles so that 13.1 wouldn't seem so bad. Kinda going off that feeling I had at the Mermaid 10K this year where I was trained up to 9 miles and felt great running 6.

Nope. I basically followed the same training regimen I always have for these halfs and now the paranoia is setting in about whether I did enough, felt strong enough, am going to shame myself publicly, be able to peel off and try trail running if I don't make my time, etc.

It's a noisy annoying place inside my head right now, friends, be glad you live elsewhere.

Thankfully, though, I have two new factors going into this race that I didn't have before. And I think these things hold some promise of making a positive difference with my time.

I now have my Garmin. So it can tell me when my pace is sucking ass and motivate me to hurry my shit up OR ELSE. I wish it said that on the watch face. "Hurry your shit up. OR ELSE." That'd be motivating. Hey, Garmin people, I have a feature request for you...
I discovered a new store of energy into which I can tap only during my most desperate moments. That store is called, "Let's do this, already."

See, during my last long run, in which I covered about 12 miles, I was so done with running at mile 11 that I got annoyed with how slow I was going. I remember thinking, "Shit. If we're just going to wobble along at this shameful slow pace, we're NEVER going to be done. And I want to be done." And so, I dug down and just forced my legs to take longer strides, my feet to make full heel-to-toe contact with the pavement and my arms to stay parallel to my body in the way my Pilates instructor recommended because it allegedly is more streamliney and therefore makes you faster.

I also forced my shoulders back, chin up and in-through-the-nose-out-through-the-mouth breathing to happen so that I had all of my faculties about me to force my woeful corpse to move as fast as I possibly could through that last mile.

And I do believe it went by faster. And I didn't die or throw up in front of my neighbors.

So, there's that. My big great hope for PRing in this race is a bossy GPS watch and my own lack of self-preservation. Also, I cut my hair, so maybe that will help. I did cut off a lot of it, so who knows.

Those are strategies I don't read a lot about on Runner's World. Of course, I also don't read a lot about people PRing with half marathon times in the 2 hour range since I like to torture myself reading the blogs of runners who run 6 minute miles and set their predicted half marathon finish at 1:29, so it's not like I seek out information relevant to my own slow ass.

But, according to MarathonGuide.com, where I can still create my own old-school-but-still-handy pace bracelet, I'll need to keep up a 10:41 mile pace in order to hit my target. Which isn't all that impressive, but still pretty impossible sounding given my best half marathon pace to date was 10:59.

And all this worrying isn't going to do me a damn bit of good because despite all of it, time is still passing and the race is getting closer and closer and my moment of truth will soon be upon me.

I guess the only thing to do is to sit back, enjoy Taper Week and hope that my training wasn't all for naught. If I have to tap into my "Let's just do this, already." stores at mile 4, then that's just what I have to do.

Next step in sucking less

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:29:00 +0000

Although, according to the dog, we definitely suck MORE.

When last we saw my front yard, it was looking like I'd taken to planting sod while drinking my 13th cocktail because WHOOPSY the lawn had been flipped over.

Thankfully, I meant to do that. And, thankfully, I rarely drink 13 cocktails in one sitting because - yarf.

The next thing to do, once the grass plugs showed up, was to tarp, mulch and plant the yard with the new less water sucking meadow grass and wildflowers.

And while that may all fit nice and neatly into one little sentence there, the process was nothing quite so little. Or nice. Especially when you consider how fucking hot it was in NorCal this past weekend. And if you consider that I first ran six miles (yay! Short taper distance!) and afterward I had a bachelorette party (not mine obviously) waiting for me.

I knew the exhaustion was going to be extreme. Which is why I was sort of hoping that High Country Gardens, the folks from whom I purchased my 210 (!) grass plugs, would have lame shipping practices that would result in the plugs not showing up until Monday. So that I could spend Saturday preparing for a night of binge drinking by methodically lining my stomach with mashed potatoes, dinner rolls or something equally absorbent.

But no. They're reliable over there at HCG, and when you say, "I want my stuff to ship on 9/21." It arrives the Friday of that week, just in time to be planted on the weekend and before it can totally die in the box because you're too busy working or taking the dog to the beach to do serious work like planting a meadow in your front yard like you would be if it showed up on the Monday you were secretly hoping for.

You understand - I'm lazy and I procrastinate. I was hoping their shipping methods would support these character flaws of mine. But they did not. Which, in hind sight, is a good thing since this time it would have meant a big box of dead grass and a bunch of money down the toi.

Anyway. Enough about my laziness.

Inspired by Knittah's recent comments, I'm going to press on in a sort of How To-sy way. And I'll try to add helpful nuggets in there as we go, but if I miss something, leave a comment and I'll try to answer your question if I know the answer. Which I might not.

And on that note, of not knowing everything (shhh! don't tell!), I also don't know everything about planting a xeric meadow, even though this series of posts may lead you to believe that I do, what with the numbered lists and all, but let me make it clear that I've never done this before and don't know if it'll take so just know that I'm not saying this is The Way to do this, but rather just the way *I* am doing this, so follow my How-To at your own risk. Personally, I'm optimistic about the results.

Anyway!

To introduce some sort of meaning to my How-To, you'll recall that steps 1 (cut up the sod) and 2 (flip it over) were covered in a previous post in which Bubba was nearly swallowed whole by a sod cutter.

For Step 3, then: Tarp the yard

I'd say "weedblock" or "Weedblock" or "landscape fabric" or whatever, other than "tarp", here, but the fact is that you can use most tarp-like materials to perform the function of blocking out weeds and you don't need me telling you which brand or type of material to use. Also, I'm not a shill for these products and merchants I mention and I don't want you thinking I am and then being all pissed when your "Weedblock" gets a tear just because you stepped on it when it was stretched tight and now you have to cover that hole with more tear-happy "Weedblock".

Not that this has necessarily happened to me. One hundred times.

Anyway - the point here is that once you've cut the sod and turned it over so that the decomposing grass can provide a nice compost for your new plugs, you should still tarp it to keep other weeds from invading your meadow and choking out your precious meadow grass plugs. Because I hear that this can happen. And I don't want any part of it.

Also know that when I say, "you", I mean "me", but it always comes out that way.

Step 4: Get some mulch and then go for a run while Bubba unloads it onto the tarp.

This came from Mountain View Garden Center and is just thin gorilla hair mulch.

Technically, you can be a good wife and unload it from the back of the truck because he was so nice to go pick it up during the week, which involved him shoveling it into the bed of the truck while wearing his nice work clothes and shoes, but you don't have to is what I'm saying.

You can just go for your run and then come home and rake it out, making sure that he makes note of how you just ran six miles and are totally awesome for immediately putting on your work clothes and getting down to business.

And, I will say this about Bubba, he's always the first to give me credit for doing anything remotely helpful. In fact, sometimes I think he may give me *too* much credit, but let's not go spreading that around.

Step 5: Water the mulch

We've capped the sprinklers, so are using this hose stand sprinkler thingee in the mean time. It's fine.

Now, this step, and the future ones where I tell you to water things, may seem counter-intuitive to the whole "suck less water" idea, but to get these guys established, I'm told that they will need to be watered at the outset. For root establishment and what not, so just do it and then hope to hell that they do establish and grow because if they don't we'll all look a little stupid for ignoring blatant instructions.

For now though, just water the mulch. This will help it mat together and be less fluffy so that when you go to plant, you don't have to wade through quite as much mulch to get down to the tarp and dirt. Plus, less will end up in your nose and I know you'll appreciate this as much as I do.

I do not enjoy mulch splinters in my nostrils.

Step 6: Distribute the grass plugs

Go ahead and say they're "SO CUTE!" because everyone else did.

Now, if this were, say, six years ago and I was still in that phase of my life where I didn't think two minutes ahead into the future, I would have just sat down at one corner of the yard with the box of plugs and started planting away. And not until I'd gotten, say, 3/4 of the yard planted would I realize that WHOOPSY I'd been planting the plugs too close together and SHITSHITSHIT had run out of plugs altogether.

Then there'd be some pretty elaborate swearing and either some mad cap unplanting and replanting or a race to the internet to order more plugs.

Thankfully, this is not six years ago and instead of engaging in that back-in-the-day-of-Finny madness I instead thought five minutes into the future (see mom, I AM growing up) and took one flat of plugs at a time (each flat has 70 plugs) and started dropping them at random but evenly dispersed intervals beginning at the far corner.

And don't you just know that the side of the yard at which I started was much more densely populated with tiny grassy plugs than the side of the yard at which I finished. And then all I had to do was grab a few from one side and toss them over to the other side in a way that was still random but less congested so we wouldn't have any unseemly bald spots in the event that the grass actually grew in right.

WOO! I learned from past mistakes! I'm growing as a person!

Step 7: Make dip

Not Hidden Valley, but still good.

Don't be ashamed if, at this point, you'd rather go inside and make some ranch dip and sit on the porch eating it with a big bag of potato chips, because I was right there with you. All this prep work is monotonous and, with all your neighbors standing around watching you organize fluffy grass poofs in your front yard, one can get a little self-conscious and feel like retreating into a big bowl of Leave Me Alone With My Craziness, but stay with me.

This dip is for the plugs. I hear it helps keep the plugs from drying out when you plant them and helps them establish sooner so that you don't have to wait forever and a day for your meadow to prove to your neighbors that you're not a total hippie loon.

This dip is a creepy thing though, let it be known. I added the recommended 1 ounce of dip to the recommended 4-5 gallons of water in my super old ass bucket with the broken handle grip and watched in grotesque amazement as this shit congealed into a spooky mass of dirty Jell-O.

Note that the dirt was already in the bucket and I don't believe it hurt anything.

Step 8: Scratch the plugs

Now, I forgot to take a photo of this process, but let me describe it to you.

See, each plug is like a tiny plant you might buy at the nursery. So when you take it out of the tray, it's got a mat of roots at the base, just like you'd find on your average 4" petunia seedling.

What you want to do here (and thanks to my garden savvy neighbor for reminding us of the crucial importance of this step) is "scratch" or cut the base of this mat off and "scratch" or slice down the sides of the root ball so that you have an open frayed end on your seedling - still holding onto some soil - but not all bound up in there with no hope to grow.

You can do this on all your plugs ahead of time to save a step at planting time, or, if you're like me, you can enlist the help of your Scratch Happy husband to do this while you start planting so that all the plugs are scratched by the time you reach them with your trowel with the intention of dipping and planting them.

We found that a standard box cutter worked really well for this. Just don't try to catch a flight afterward, ifyaknowwhatImean.

Step 9: Commence to planting

With your dip all jiggly and waiting (PORNO GARDENING ALERT), grab your pointiest trowel and get to work, already.

Goes like this:

Dig a hole
UPDATE: punching through the landscape fabric with your pointy trowel and planting the plug in the soil below.

Dip the plug

Plant the plug

Bubba and I did that 210 times in the course of about two hours. It was monotonous and it was blazing hot outside and the neighbors kept coming over with their kids to tell us how we could be doing it better, but in the end it got done and Bubba and I still speak to each other even though I had to make a sudden escape to the backyard when the neighborhood boy began telling me how we should be watering our "lawn" and wouldn't be satisfied with the explanation that this wasn't going to need to be watered for much longer but thanks for your help, buddy, and hey isn't your dad calling you?

I'll say it now, I have no patience for children and I have a really hard time hiding it. I'm sorry you had to learn about it this way.

Step 10: Survey your greatness while watering your new future meadow

Like I said before, there is watering involved in this process even though the desired end result is no watering at all.

So, now that your plugs are tucked into their own individual holes with goopy greatness covering their tender roots, you must water. And water good.

And if you know what song is going through my head right now because of that last statement, I'm glad you and I can be crazy together.

By this time it was mighty hot and I was jealous of the grass playing in the sprinklers.

Anyway, we watered (or, to be honest, Bubba watered while he shooed me off to the shower because he knew I felt nasty and really wanted to shower but was feeling guilty leaving him to water my future meadow) each individual plant and the overall future meadow until it was pretty well soaked and then, in the evening (and each with a cocktail) we did it again.

And then on Sunday, when I was in a hot rage thanks to Brett Favre and his old man football antics (RETIRE ALREADY DAMN YOU), we went out and watered again if only so that Bubba could introduce some comic relief into my life by surreptitiously watering my shoes/feet/legs/hair while pretending to water the future meadow.

He knows when I need a laugh and WOW did I need a laugh at that point. And no drinks because YAY I was hungover from the aforementioned bachelorette party and was nursing a swift little headache.

Freshly watered and ready to grow. Or so I hope.

Step 11: Wait and meanwhile order some bulbs

My plan is to randomly plant some wildflower bulbs in and amongst this meadow grass so that maybe one day it will look something like a mini meadow out there, so while this stuff decides whether it's going to live or die, I ordered a lot of wildflower bulbs.

Because shopping is the best medicine when you're worried that your big gardening bet isn't going to pay off and you might have just made a very public ass of yourself, so better to cover it with flowers.

I got some wildflower bulbs and I'm happy to say that I have managed to create a big old project for myself to dread because when these many bags of bulbs arrive I will be out in that yard for many hours getting them all planted.

But that's OK. It will give me time to talk to each seedling and remind them that they should grow big and strong and not make me look like a loser. Even though I will then look like a big freak for talking to my plants.

Take the good with the bad, I guess.

Totally inappropriate-for-the-weather meal [RECIPE]

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:35:00 +0000

I'm so contrary sometimes.

I start knitting when it gets hot, I pull out my flip-flops when it's cold, I run in the rain and sew when it's sunny.

It's like my inner project master is playing a prank on me, all the time.

Whatever. I guess I can't expect my inner anything to make any more sense than my outer anything given how absurd she is.

You get what I'm saying.

Well, in true Inner Idiot fashion, I decided to debut my Baked Potato Soup recipe yesterday when it was, TEE DAH, 91 degrees outside.

Which means it's also 91 degrees inside because YAY we don't have A/C. Or proper insulation. Or a fan in the kitchen.

No, what we had was an oven and stove top running full-bore and some nice healthy boob sweat.

Did I mention we also had a hangover, complete with headache and belly churning? Well, we had that, too. It was super good fun.

Actually, the soup had to happen because The Hangover wanted it, so I had no choice. Kinda like when pregnant ladies *have to have* something because The Baby wants it? Yeah, like that. Except meaner. I imagine, anyway. Never having been a pregnant lady, I can't be 100% on this. Moving on.

I have been sort of mulling the idea for this soup ever since I had a similar type soup at work and thought, "You know. This soup would be way better if they had used chicken stock instead of water as the base. And it wouldn't even make it fatty or anything. Unlike the cream I really want to use."

And yesterday, when my stomach was crying out to be coated with something starchy and absorbent, I decided I'd hatch my version of Baked Potato Soup. Even though I was already sweating just from lying on the couch and screaming obscenities at Brett Favre as though he'd just murdered a close family member of mine.

I will just say this, that man should have retired by now and, after yesterday's performance, I'm not sure he ever will and THAT bothers me on a deep and profound level. But that's all I'm going to say. Also, go Niners. BUT THAT'S ALL.

Perhaps my rage was making my stomach churn rather than the dozen G&Ts I had on Saturday night? Perhaps.

Or perhaps I just wanted potato soup because that's, like, the stupidest thing to want when it's so effin hot outside. That said, this soup came out well and I imagine I'll enjoy it a lot more when I'm not sweating into the bowl because Real Fall has finally arrived and not this Fake Fall with its 90 degree temps.

I'm just saying that someone should tell Fall that they're doing it wrong. Here, at least. Maybe it's Real Fall where you are. In which case, you might like eating this soup while wearing a sweater, maybe, and watching leaves turn red and yellow or doing something appropriately fall-like.

Baked Potato Soup

Recipe by Finny
How do you like that?

Ingredients

4 medium to large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

32 oz chicken broth, or enough to cover the potatoes in the pot

4 slices thick cut bacon, roasted and chopped

Shredded cheddar cheese

Chopped green onions

Salt

Fresh ground black pepper

To make

In a large stock pot, bring chicken broth to a boil and add potatoes. Make sure that the broth covers the potatoes in the pot and, if not, add water or more chicken broth until it does.

Boil potatoes for about 15 minutes or until they're easily smushed with the back of the ratty ladle that came from Bubba's bachelor pad.

Drain about half the liquid from the pot KEEPING THE POTATOES IN THE POT until you can see the tops of the potato chunks peeping out.

Using an immersion blender, puree the potatoes and chicken broth until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Thin to your preferred consistency with more chicken broth if you want to be a pansy like that.

OR, if your mama didn't hand you down her old immersion blender and all you have is a regular old blender, blend the potatoes and chicken broth in batches until you have a consistency to your liking.

Also, don't try asking my mom for hand-outs. I've called dibs on all the good stuff already.

After that, you really only need to dress it up to your liking. Me? I had already had a BLT for lunch, so wasn't feeling like I should really be dosing myself with more bacon, but I had a little. I did, however, feel like I needed a lot of onions, so on they went, with some cheese and a lot more pepper.

If you're Bubba though, you fill your bowl to within two inches of the rim and then fill the remaining space with the rest of the bacon and a pile of cheese. I wish I'd taken a photo of his soup. It just looked like a bowl of shredded cheddar.

We are the classiest.

And then, because it's 90+ degrees in your kitchen and house, you take this very winter-like dish out to the backyard and serve it with a tomato-heavy salad so that you don't spontaneously combust from the heat radiating from within.

And in case you didn't already know this, and I'm not sure how you would because I don't usually tell people because it makes me seem insane, I'm pretty paranoid about flies on my food. So I have a bunch of these food cover things that go immediately over any plates that go outside.

Just so you know. And don't think I'm the kind of crazy person that serves food under a silver dome or something like in those fancy restaurants. I'm just the kind of crazy person that finds flies repulsive.

That's all, then.

And you didn't think I'd really do it.

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:22:00 +0000

I was going to wait until I pulled the garden completely to give you a "Hey, guess how much I've harvested?" update, but the numbers I was waiting for came in and I can't wait for all that.

Especially given that the tomatoes are still producing and I don't want to wait to share the exciting news (it is for me, OK) until I after I pull the garden, but also I don't have the heart to tell them it's time to go to bed for the winter because they'll be all "Come on, mom! Five more minutes?!" and I'll have to get all I'm the boss of you on them and, well, this makes no sense.

ANYWAY.

The numbers I was waiting to say were:

1. I've harvested more than Bubba's body weight in vegetables

AND

2. I've harvested more than my body weight in tomatoes

I'm happy to say that we've got both, and with enough overage so that I'm not actually sharing my body weight with you on the Real Live Internet for everyone to see because I'm totally not doing that. I feel like it's enough that you've seen my melons.

But I will say that, so far this season, I've harvested more than 217 pounds of vegetables - which is far and away more than Bubba's body weight - and 152 pounds of tomatoes - far enough away from my body weight.

And, more importantly, this extreme vegetable harvest weight means I've reaped far FAR and away more than I sowed in this garden in the first place.

Which was the point. Remember?

Specifically, I sowed $91.34 into the garden at the beginning of the season by buying things like a new soil test kit, some seedling plants, seeds, irrigation replacement parts, water and so on. And I've reaped (and remember, this is only "so far" because the tomatoes are still producing. Freaks.) $940.50 in harvests - with the garden's net value at $849.16.

If you want to get down to cost per pound (and don't we all love analyzing data to the point of mental numbness? I know I do.), I can say that this garden has cost me $.42/lb to grow.

DUDES.

That's a lot of vegetables.

A lot of vegetables that I didn't have to buy from Whole Foods or a farmer's market or *GASP* Safeway.

A lot of vegetables that were grown without chemicals or pesticides or other forms of evil other than the grody EVIL chard that was a big component of the compost. And that is also pretty cheap. Especially when you consider that going to Whole Foods or a farmer's market would have set me back a whole lot more than $.42/lb for any of the vegetables I grew except maybe corn.

Corn is really fucking cheap, I noticed. Like, "Get 10 ears for $10!" cheap. That's ridiculous. I'm not growing corn anymore.

In season cherries, though? PRICEY as all get out. Like, $6.99/lb for local, organic Bing cherries. So worth it. That tree is going to be our new retirement plan.

Not really.

Anyway, I'll do a real final recap of the garden's harvest value when the garden is actually done putting forth tomatoes (don't hold your breath), but I thought you'd like to know that if I had wanted to build a life-sized Finny statue from tomatoes, I could have done it and then some.

I'll just let that image simmer in your mind for a while. Enjoy.

We suck less all the time

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:38:00 +0000

We got to play with a new yard toy this weekend and, while it looked like a pain in the ass (Bubba wrestled with it while I performed other equally important tasks, uh huh), it sure did get the job done.

And the job was? (Said like on Family Feud when they go, "Survey says!...")

Ripping out the lawns.

Because I think lawns are mostly stupid and have spent the last four years in this house slowly whittling away at Bubba's Midwestern affection for The Ultimate Lawn by quietly removing a bit here and there until TEE DAH they'll be gone and replaced with something that doesn't suck so much muthereffin water and time.

Not to mention who the hell wants to mow and trim all that grass? Not Jada, and she's the one who uses it the most, which would normally land her in the "If you want it, you take care of it" category, except she's a dog and without opposable thumbs, is going to have a hard time getting the mower pull-started.

Whatever.

She's actually the main reason we are even going to have grass left at all. Because she loves it so visibly and enthusiastically that, with the lawns currently missing, she's taken to rolling on our neighbors' lawns as we are out on our walks.

Here she is being a Lady in the middle of our soccer playing.

I know they think that she's going to pee on them (or take a massive dump - given the way their eyes bulge out from their living room windows) but all she does is nose dive into the grass, roll around a lot, sit up and pant appreciatively and move on to the next lawn.

No massive dumps in sight.

And I will not be made to feel bad for messing up somebody's carefully mowed criss-cross pattern because my dog rolled it away. Perhaps if she took a big steamer and then I didn't pick it up - OK - but messing up a mowed pattern in grass is no reason to yell.

Just saying.

ANYWAY.

Last weekend, after I put in my miles on the streets, Bubba and I put in our miles behind this beast of a sod cutter.

And really, by the looks of this video, you can see who was really putting in the cutting miles and it was not me. No, I am too puny and weak to tame this sod cutting beast of a hellhound, so Bubba was left to throw his 170 lbs against its awkward and bulky frame and wrestle it through our yards, cutting up rolls of dried out sod as it went.

My glamorous job (and really the only one I was physically able to do given my two hours on the road) was rolling up the sod after he cut it. Glamor! Aching hamstrings! Glamor some more!

Before: A lovely dog-friendly WATER SUCKING lawn.

After: An ugly ass soon-to-be-improved dirt hole.

I'm so glad we did this.

The plan is, now that the back lawn is out, to let Bubba take out all of his pent up rage on the lingering Bermuda grass and then maybe make something attractive grow in its place and for the enjoyment of the dog.

I'm leaving him to his madness as I have work to do in the front.

See, my first step in banishing the lawn came a few years ago when we cut the corners off the thing and planted some trees and those grassy shrubs you see there.

And I will admit those pumpkins, while cute, stayed out a tad too long until Bubba noticed they were out of season which might have been in February sometime.

Before: Something we had to mow and water all the time.

After: Something that has explaining to people that, Yes, we know that sod goes grass side up.

So, the next step in Bye Bye Sucker Lawn was to cut up the sod, till the soil beneath, flip the sod over and TEE DAH plant a low water meadow where the lawn used to be. Like a lumpy meadow with some bulbs and wildflowers like you might expect to find in a forest clearing or in front of a house inhabited by people who don't want to mow or water anymore but still want a pleasing front yard.

And in case you are confused by the photo and think that is the meadow of which I speak - don't worry, it's not. No, that comes next.

We'll cover it with landscape fabric and gorilla hair and then I'll summon all my hamstring strength (hamstrength? I don't know about that one.) and plant 100+ Blue Grama grass plugs out there to commence the growing of my future meadow.

And then you know what I'll do with the front yard? OH NOTHING THANK YOU SO MUCH.

That's right. It'll be on its very own to just grow and be and live without me or the sprinklers having to water it all that much because it will be fall and then winter when the rains come and by the time spring rolls around it'll be established and won't even need that first spring mowing WOW.

That's awesome.

And all this will be happening right next to my Also No Water Required sidewalk patch full of self-seeding $.99 wildflower landscaping.

I guess I'll just have to sit here and think about what we'll do with all the water and money and time we'll be saving since the front part of the house will be pretty independent of all those things.

Perhaps I need to put another vegetable bed in the garden?

KIDDING, BUBBA! Bubba?

Oktoberfeasting

noreply@blogger.com (FinnyKnits) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:09:00 +0000

I feel like I'm sober enough, and have digested enough, to finally discuss our Oktoberfestivities.

Firstly, and of great importance, there was the pre-Oktoberfest German Lunch Date with my dear friend and genuine Germaness, Elkit.

She has been my chaperon into the world of authentic German cuisine and I will tell you what, this gal pal of mine knows her way around a cut of meat. And twist of pretzel. And slice of strudel. And brine of pickle.

Plus, she teaches me totally irrelevant words to present to the nice women at Esther's where they are so sweet and of such good humor (though I was told Germans weren't allowed to have a sense of humor - lies!) that they giggle, give Elke a smirk and then graciously retrieve whatever six items I'm pointing at when I tell them I want three scheibenwischer and three arschgeweigh.

Real words, too. Look 'em up.

Pretzel is just "Bretzel". Handy, that.

I would have taken a photo of the spinach and cheese strudel and green salad (seriously, an awesome salad) that I ate for lunch on our pre-Oktoberfest lunch date, but I was so consumed with love and devotion for this plate when it arrived that I shoved it down my gullet faster than I could say, glockenspiel. Which, incidentally, is the other word I know in German, and is in no way relevant to food or our circumstances.

Anyway, after our lunch of a thousand Käse Brezels (this was my new word for that day), we headed over to Dittmer's German Butchery and Land of Mammoth Dog Bones to procure our OktoberFEAST. See, cuz, we weren't just going to put some brats on the grill, crack open some cans of Coor's Light and call the driveway a beer garden.

OH NO.

This is Sydney.
He thought Andy was a sheep. There was much subsequent herding around the keg.

No, this was going to be a Munich cum California-style Oktoberfest where we only strayed from the traditional Oktoberfest food traditions by putting the various meats on a grill rather than in a bath of beer.

Course 1: Many brats.

Other than that - it was going to be fairly legit. And our friend Mike helped us down this road to obscene pork consumption quite stealthily. Especially when Elke just told him to "Do whatever you want. You know what I like."

Elke apparently likes meat in all forms. Particularly bratted, smoked and sliced.

Well, OK, but that meant that suddenly we had a handful of purportedly delicious small sausages, some weisswurst (which is a white sausage made, I believe, from veal), some big sausages from elsewhere (they were conducting business in German and clearly my grasp of the language is not a strong one), some slices of Leberkäs which translates to "liver cheese" even though there's not liver OR cheese in it but instead looks like spam and a stack of smoked pork chops the deliciousness of which I had never fully understood.

Slices of Leberkäs looking like toast on the grill.

Leberkäs - or as we took to calling it, Curly German Spam.

What I'm trying to tell you is that we had a lot of meat right there and then I bought some dog bones for the dogs who would be OktoberFEASTing with us and HOLY were they also bigger than anything I'd ever imagined could come from a real animal. One observant commenter suggested they may be courtesy of a hobbling mastodon and I can't honestly rule that out. Big, people, they were BIG.

Adelaide was up to the task of taming this beast. I heard her bitch slap it before she started chewing.

And so the dogs behaved for five minutes so that we could eat with all of our might.

Jada whispers sweet nothings to this bone. Her battle strategy is a strange one.

Now, of course, I have said nothing yet of the beer. And the beer was a crucial, if not monumental, element of the event. The monumentalness coming from the fact that our host, being of sound mind and Oktoberfest planning ability, booked a keg (yes, for 8 people, we likey to drink beers) of Spaten Oktoberfest in advance to ensure the consistent German authenticity of the day.

Well, boo. He showed up to get the keg and NAUGHTY they'd sold our keg of Oktoberfest to some other super lucky and SUPER SNEAKY Oktoberfester. Jerks.

WHAT THE F TO DO?

Well, if you're me, you go ahead and lose your shit at the manager and then demand things like free beer, newborn child naming rights and a free kick to the crotch for the one found responsible, but if you're our host (and let's hope you are because my methods aren't always super effective) you calmly suggest that they might instead regain your love, devotion and future patronage by giving you a keg of whatever the hell else you desire at the price of, say, Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Thankfully it still tasted like Spaten.

Which they did. So, we spent our day guiding various grilled German delicacies down our throats with the assistance of a good deal of Spaten. The regular old good kind that, I hear, is still acceptable to drink at Oktoberfest even if it's not the actual Oktoberfest variety. And since it was available for the low low price of cat piss (PBR), there happened to be a second run to Dittmer's for additional meat because what if we run out of bratwurst?

You might not think 8 people can eat all these brats and go back for pork chops, but you would be wrong.

THE HORROR.

Also, let it be known that there was also a fine, fine Kartoffelsalat (potato salad - see, I'm learning some words, here.) handmade by our resident Germaness, a tomato cucumber salad, a few varieties of pickles courtesy of moi, a tower of freshly baked pretzels, a dozen kinds of mustard and beer. Plus, some beer. And then some meat. And beer meat. You see where I'm going with this.

Kartoffelsalat. Say it with me.

Gurke.

And all this was had and enjoyed in the relaxing atmosphere of our hosts' backyard, under the canopy of a blessedly large umbrella which shielded us from the preposterous early fall heat wave beating down on our town. The dogs were able to frolic and herd (Aussies are so herd-y!) and chew their big ass bones. The people were free to make grotesque monsters of themselves as they ate enough meat and drank enough beer for two dozen normal people.

Three of the eight Festers readying their bellies. Prost!

The pretzel was bigger than my dog.

I feel our beer garden was fairly authentic in this regard.

And for anyone worried about the calorie consumption for the day (though I'm not sure why you would be but it gives me a chance to reassure myself), I'll have you know that I did my 12 mile training run that morning and cooled down by doing about five hours of yard work with Bubba in which we removed both front and back lawns.

So, by the time we arrived at Oktoberfeasting, we had probably, together, burned around 7 million calories. I imagine. It's a ballpark guess.

And I have a newfound love for Oktoberfest because the food can be, and should be, really really good.