Low energy doings

I've had la gripa (a cold) for the past week so I've been pretty fuzzy-headed, not up to thinking in a straight line. I've been saving what little energy I've got for the necessary chores: water the plants, feed the dogs, cook dinner.

But I'm starting to feel the lack of being "in the conversation" with other people, and perhaps my family is wondering whether I dropped off the map, so here's a quick update on what's been happening here at Casa Dulce the past week.

KNITTING. I've been doing the "Follow your Arrow" knit-along that Ginny told us about, but I paused at the end of the 3rd clue because I wanted to see whether I should try to increase the size of the shawl in section 4, or whether section (clue) 5 would offer a version for those of us who like LARGE shawls. So instead I started working on an afghan for the daybed on the terraza upstairs (shown in the photo above).

READING. As I mentioned last week, I'm kind of startled at how many markers I've put in the book I've been reading, "An Unexciting Life". So until I can work some of them out of a job by putting down my thoughts on blog posts, I don't want to continue with that book. Instead, I've been reading our priest's doctoral thesis which I had asked him for. The topic is spiritual direction for those who are experiencing suffering, and it's really a great read. Even though it's in spanish, he writes very clearly and I'm having no problem following what he says.

I also just downloaded a book on sayings of the Desert Mothers, including those of Syncletica, who I wrote about last week.

COOKING. We just cut down a large bunch of plantains from one of our plants, so I decided to cook some of them while they were still green. Plantains (and bananas) are weird - they only ripen once they've been cut down.

And green (unripe) plantains are used in cooking as a carbohydrate. There are numerous recipes for green plantains, and the one that I tried this week is called "aranitas" (little spiders):


But by the evenings my mind has been so spaced out that I can't focus on reading, so I've been watching:
1. videos from Franciscan University on various subjects
2. Wimp (this is the ultimate feel-good source of short videos on random subjects)
3. Bored Shorts (these are addictive!)

And finally, here are some photos of the little house across the road that we bought, and the current state of the remodel that we're doing on it. We added a third room, which will be another bedroom. The guys are currently putting up rafters of pine logs, which is typical for old ranch houses around here.
BEFORE:

CURRENT:

NEW ROOM (on the other side of the house):

And that's all she wrote! (for today, anyway).

Week ending - 14 de julio

I've come to the realization that although I want to participate in group linkups (it's a way of building community, after all), several of the ones that are most popular to don't fit me. I really like {pretty, happy, funny, real} at Like Mother, Like Daughter but the things I have to share don't always fit well enough into that framework. And with many linkups I feel a little lost in the crowd when there are over 50 participants. So I was really happy to find the link that Wanda at Reinventing Mother created to memorialize and reflect on our weekends and I decided that I'll be joining her Week Ending linkup. However, she's taking a break this week so there's no linkup, but I wanted to share what we did this weekend anyway.


Saturdays tend to be our "out and about"days. Sometimes we go to the city near us, sometimes we go on little excursions, and sometimes we just go to the vivero (nursery). This weekend we did the latter and came back with some real finds.


These are called corona de cristo (in English we call them crown of thorns). These two are varieties I'd never seen before, one with pink flowers and one with large pinky yellow flowers.

I was stunned to find crocosmia at the vivero. I haven't seen it around here at all and it's one of my favorite flowers! The owner of the nursery didn't even know what they were!

On Friday the Pirate had returned from one of his excursions with a new type of fruit that neither of us had ever seen or heard of before: the mamey (also known as the sapote). He tried some and decided that it wasn't something he liked. I tried some and was astounded to find out that it tastes just like canned pumpkin. The color and the texture are the same as well. Since I had 3 large mameys that weren't going to be eaten as fruit I decided to find some pumpkin bar recipes that I could use them in. They were going to rot soon so I had to use them all up at once, which meant that I would have to bake far more sweet stuff than we have had in the house for a long time.


I ended up making 2 types of "pumpkin"(mamey)bars, both of which turned out more like cake or brownies than what I was expecting. I got the recipes here and here. They both tasted great - just like pumpkin brownies - but if I try the recipes again I might just leave out the flour (I used rice flour both times) since the mamey seems to provide sufficient body by itself (like what peanut butter does in the 3-ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe).

I added pecans and chocolate chips to the recipe. I wanted to put dates in it - I think they would have gone well - but I didn't have any.

What I spent the most amount of time on this weekend was knitting. I'm working on a shrug which I want to finish this week because I want to start on another project, so I spent probably 5 hours working on it this weekend. This is one of those projects that seems to knit quickly but the piece doesn't seem to progress at all. I measured it on Friday evening and it was 24" long. After knitting what should have been 4" of rows I measured it again and it was 26" long. I knitted 4 more inches of rows and it was 29" long. And yes, I checked the gauge and this estimate is based on the actual gauge of the piece! Ah well, that's what I get for wanting to complete the piece by a particular date rather than letting it lead me in the pacing.

{p,h,f,r} Hand Made

I'm joining the folks at Like Mother, Like Daughter for {pretty, happy, funny real} with a focus on things that the Pirate and I have made, and how they turned out.

{pretty}
At our last home I had a separate studio where I did all my fiber projects - knitting, crocheting, and what I called "nature weavings". I've had my works in various shows, but not the one below, which is my favorite of all. It used to hang in the hallway of our old house, but now it's on the wall right above my treadle sewing machine. It's one of the first things I see every morning. The yarn is actually more colorful than the closeup photo shows.


{happy}
When we moved down here to Mexico I didn't think there would be any point in bringing any of the sweaters that I had knit over the years, but I did bring one that I had knit long ago with a nubbly cotton yarn. I love that yarn and I didn't want to consign this sweater to a plastic tub in our storage unit, so down it came with me. It has been hanging quietly in the closet for the past 4 years, but the reason it's hanging on a chair in my bedroom is that I just wore it. Yes, after a couple of days of warm, sunny weather, the fog is bag and I'm wearing long-sleeved knits all day, PLUS sweaters when we go out in the evening. I'm sure glad I brought that sweater down here!


{funny}
I've been begging the Pirate to smoke some cheese for me (in his smoker), so the day that I asked him to smoke some chicken legs and potatoes for dinner - I had already partly cooked them - he decided to throw in some monterey jack cheese as well. As you can see, the right amount of time for chicken and potatoes is definitely TOO LONG for cheese, which melted down onto the chicken. Actually the "mistake" turned out pretty tasty!


{real}
When our oldest granddaughter was staying with us for a couple of months earlier this year I bought some yarn for her to have a knitting project. She found a pattern for a clapotis shawl and started it, but didn't get very far into it. I told her that I'd finish the shawl for her birthday, so last week I picked up the project and knitted it to the halfway point (it's a triangular shawl). However, when I started to decrease stitches to make the triangle I realized that the pattern had a major flaw in it (at least for the type of yarn that was being used) and I wouldn't be able to continue. Happily I had bought WAY too much of that yarn because the color is so lovely - actually a deep brownish burgundy - so I started the shawl again with a new ball of yarn and a change in how stitches were added and subtracted. This is the original piece, which I'm about to rip out so I can use the yarn in the new version (rather than using up more new balls of yarn).

{p,h,f,r} vol. 8 - sewing and knitting

I got inspired by Auntie Leila's beautiful shawl that she made for Deirdre and decided to do a post that shows a couple of the things I've been working on now that they're finished.

{pretty}

This used to be a pair of white pants. I ripped out the inseam, reshaped it, and sewed it into a skirt - by hand. Then I dyed it. It has a really neat triangular section at the waist (the pants came like that) which is very flattering to the figure.

I love hand sewing, including darning. I got into it when I was reading Little House on the Prairie to the boys when they were small, and the description of Mary sewing by hand inspired me to try it. I've made a lot of clothes by hand, including a very complicated, tailored suit, and do a lot of my "repurposing"-type sewing by hand.

{happy}


I'm FINALLY DONE with this project! I got a little too creative and used 5 (FIVE!) different yarns for the front of this shrug, with strands of two different yarns at all times, in different combinations so it wouldn't be too stripy. Bad move! It wasn't hard to knit...it just took forever because I had to keep changing the yarn combinations, AND at the same time I had decided not to use a regular stitch pattern but basically wing it so the texture would be nubbly without any obvious repetition. Oy! What was I thinking? Anyway, it's over now (although I may make a different tie) and I haven't sworn off knitting or anything so I'm happy.


{funny}
I always have a hard time coming up with something funny, probably because I don't have any littles in the house who are a source of unending amusement. We do have 2 dogs who are amusing to us, but I don't want to bore you with dog pictures every week, so this part is always a stretch for me. So this week I'll tell you a funny story instead. I went to music practice with my husband last night - he's in the group that does the music for the main mass on Sundays. Down here that means two guitars (my husband plays lead), a keyboard, primarily to do rhythm, and six female voices, none of them trained, all of them altos with small ranges. They practiced for 1.5 hours last night, doing songs that they have done literally hundreds of times before and it was chaos! People sang off-key, they couldn't remember how the melodies went, the group leader (the other guitarist) couldn't remember what key the singers were able to sing in. The entire rehearsal was like that, and apparently it's always like that. They didn't bother to work out the glitches; they'd just go on to the next song. The amazing thing is, when it's time to actually play during mass, they always sound great - confident, strong, and on-key. Well, hey, I guess if it works there's no reason to sweat the details, eh?

{real}

This is my sewing machine. A long, long, time ago in a land far away I used to have an electric sewing machine. Then we moved to the country and homesteaded and I got a treadle, which I loved! However I still had my electric machine and my best friend had no machine, so I gave her the treadle (since she also didn't have electricity). Then eventually my electric machine died and I didn't bother to replace it because I was into sewing things by hand. But I really wanted a treadle machine again!

After many years we found one in a junk store and bought it. It was in great condition and also had the original manual! The first thing I sewed on it was matching aprons and prairie bonnets for my 4 forest grandchildren, who LOVE the Little House books. They literally wore those aprons until they wore out. Since then, although I still sew most of my clothes by hand, I use the treadle for other projects - pillows, curtains, etc. I'm about to start on a big quilting project so I'll be using the machine a lot in the near future.

For more pretty, happy, funny and real things, hie thyself over to Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{p,h,f,r}, vol. 6

It's Thursday! {pretty}{happy}{funny}{real} time with Leila and her beautiful daughters. How much do I love Like Mother,Like Daughter? LOTS!) Thanks, Leila, for inspiring so many of us in so many ways!


{pretty}

We generally have flowers blooming all year around down here (mostly bougainvilleas and hibiscus), but some of the desert plants have recently bloomed. Here's my favorite - an aloe. Most aloes in the States seem to have red flowers, so this one surprised me the first time it bloomed. I love that warm yellow with a hint of orange.

{happy}

The Pirate did some clever work on the lower shelves of the bookcase he made so I can use them for yarn and fabric. This is what I see every morning when I wake up - all of them sources of deep satisfaction. My home altar, my books on prayer and Church teachings, my yarn, my fabric; what more could a person want? I know, more yarn!

{funny}


This is a metal gate that is used to lock up the entrance to a local cafe when it's closed. I love how they attached halves of coke cans to it and put plants in each one. Creative, pretty, and it cost nothing!

{real}

I've been working on knitting a shrug since last November. This is the sum total of what I've accomplished so far: 1 front piece measuring 8" by 16" and the other front piece which is smaller because I haven't finished it yet. This is probably the longest I've taken to knit anything, and it's the simplest pattern you could possible work with (3 rectangles!). The problem is, I decided to use multiple yarns AND not follow a specific stitch pattern (I wanted it to look really nubbly). This doesn't increase the difficulty, but it does slow the entire process down because I can never simply knit a row - I always have to be looking at what I'm doing to decide on the fly whether to make the next stitch a knit or a purl. AGGHHH! So of course I've found any number of excuses to put this project aside and work on other things (right now I'm sewing a bag for clothespins). But I've decided I must get this completed in the next couple of weeks because I can't stand to see it silently accusing me every time I sit down. Besides, it's finally getting warm enough to wear a shrug over a cami.