Sunday Summary

Here it is Sunday night and I have a few items to report. 

Sally and I went to the NYS Fair in Syracuse this morning. I was scheduled to demonstrate spinning in the Wool Center from 10 AM-2 PM. I was joined by 5 other spinners, all members of the Baldwinsville Spinning Guild and all very pleasant. Being a spinner at the fair was similar to being an animal in a cage at the zoo.
We spinners were all sitting behind a low white fence and people would come into the Wool Center and stop to watch us and maybe take a photo. Parents would bend down to quietly explain to their children what we were doing. Some people asked questions and others told us about their attempts to spin. The Wool Center was right across from the sheep barn so we could hear the sheep baaing in the background and children were better able to make the connection between the fleece that they saw on the sheep and what we were spinning. It was a good experience and I would do it again next year. Sally toured the fair while I was spinning and when my spinning time was up, we went around together so I could see some of the sights. Unfortunately, my tolerance for large, slow moving crowds is about zero, and shortly after we started touring, I was ready to leave. Thank goodness Sally had time to see the fair without me, because I was not into dealing with the mass of humanity. I did manage to tour the cow barn and Dairy Building where the butter sculpture is housed.

Hopefully Sally is glad she went~if not, I guess she won't volunteer to go with me next year!

Jim had a great time at his Men's Weekend at a friend's camp on the water at the eastern end of Lake Ontario (not officially part of the Thousand Islands, as previously reported). He had some success with the fishing and I give you this photo of a 5.5 lb. pike he caught on Saturday. Jim also reports that he was put in charge of grilling the steak and vegetables on Saturday night. Is there anything more manly that being the Grillmeister on a Men's Weekend?!

Jim stopped at Corey's apartment on Friday night and provides us with this photo of the new ping pong table in his 3rd floor apartment!

Here is a photo of me modeling my new hat to wear to the RIT hockey games. I just love it and have already started another one only this one is in SU colors, blue and orange. 

Tucker sent us a photo of him in Mesa Verde NP at a ruin that is not open to the general public. Fortunately Tucker has a friend who works there and the friend was able to take Tucker to this site.
 

Yesterday I put up another peck of peaches. These are going to be so tasty in the middle of the winter!

Did anyone watch the PBS preview of the National Park series by  Ken Burns last week? The series starts later in September and looks like it is going to be great. Check your local listings, you won't want to miss it! Of course, the shows may be on during one of PBS's pledge drives, but that is money well-spent.

Tomorrow is my last official day of summer vacation. I have teacher days at school on Tuesday and Wednesday. But I have no complaints about the past 8 weeks~ I have some wonderful memories. If you wonder what we did this past summer, just look back through my blog.

Hope all is well.

August 28, 2009

Sometimes the hardest part of putting together a post for this blog is coming up with a title. I guess I am a little desperate~I went with the date!

You may remember that while traveling to Idaho,  Sweden and Finland I was knitting on a pair of socks. I finished them very shortly after getting back from Scandinavia, and keep forgetting to show you. So here are 2 photos. For all you knitters, they were knit from the toe-up with a gusset heel. The lace pattern was easy to memorize so I didn't need look at the pattern except when I was turning the heel. Instead of knitting with 5 dpns, I used 2-24" circulars. It worked well, and I never dropped a needle! The yarn is a Lorna's Laces yarn, in very light pastels of pink, yellow and white. I am very pleased with them.

You may notice in the first photo that there is an antennae on the floor behind my feet. We got this antennae to be ready for the TV switch to digital. Unfortunately we seem to be in a black hole for TV reception. Sometimes we can get some of the network channels, and others are always a struggle. Channel 8 is one we mostly do not get. I am feeling really lucky because the Yankees are playing on Channel 13 tonight and I was able to find the "sweet spot" for the antennae so I can watch the game. It can be very frustrating at times (that is, both the Yankees and our TV reception). Anyone else out there with worse reception since the digital switch? I know that there is a solution to this reception problem, but Jim is not ready to pay for TV yet!

Speaking of Jim, he is in the Thousand Islands this weekend with a couple of his runner friends for a weekend of fishing, running, drinking beer and telling lies! I hope he has a good time!

On his way to the islands, Jim stopped in Syracuse to see Corey and to deliver some homemade canned peaches. Corey and his roommate, Brocks, bought a ping-pong table for their apartment so Jim played a couple of games before continuing his journey. Sounds like it was fun!

I've been into school a few times this week and am making good progress towards the first day of school. The custodians stripped and re-sealed my gym floor and it looks amazing. It is so shiny that it looks wet! I may try to take a photo of it, but it may be too shiny!

Tomorrow is another "Peaches" day. I bought another peck of peaches at the Farmer's Market yesterday and after laying out on our basement floor for 48 hours, I think they will be just right for canning tomorrow.

I've got a quick knitting project that I have almost finished. It is a hat for me that has 3 rounds of knitted piping in it and when completed, I will pleat up one side, pushing the piping rows together and attaching a decorative button. It is cute. The main color of the hat is brown with orange piping and this will be my hat to wear to the RIT hockey games as orange and brown are their school colors. Using the rest of the orange yarn, I may make another hat with the main color being blue, so I can wear this hat to SU games! I'll show you a photo when the first hat is all done.

On Sunday I will be going to the New York State Fair in Syracuse to be a volunteer in the Wool Building. I will be demonstrating how to spin yarn. Sally will be coming along with me and I am looking forward to this chance to spin. I'm just hoping that I can answer any questions that people may ask. 

I guess that is all for now.

Hope all is well. 

Peaches

Today I canned peaches! I haven't done this for, as Jim put it, a couple of decades, at least! I bought a peck of peaches at the Farmer's Market on Saturday, thinking I might try to can them. They were smelling really ripe this morning, so it was time to find the canning pot and supplies. After a little bit of digging the pot turned up in the back, bottom corner of the sport's closet and lots of canning jars were in the cupboards under the stairs to the basement. I just needed to buy some new sealing lids because the rubber seal part had dried out on the ones I had. 

I did some internet research for tips and procedures for safe canning of peaches and then I jumped right in.

Here are the peaches from the peck basket that I bought (minus 3 that were really bad near the bottom of the basket).
I collected all my supplies.
And started peeling and slicing peaches. The woman at the stand where I bought the peaches told me that these were free-stone peaches, but they were not. I had intended to only cut the peaches in half before putting them in jars, but because they were not free-stone, I had to slice them up. Here  is a photo of my first 7 pint jars in the canning pot.
And here is the finished product~12 pints and 2 quarts! I hope they are delicious!

And now a photo not related to canning. The sun was coming into the kitchen windows early this morning and I liked the way the shadow of the screen was on the petals of the flowers.
Hope all is well.

Sunday Summary

Jeannie has been in town through this weekend to help Grandma and Grandpa settle into their new home after the move on Thursday. It has been fun to spend some time with her.

On Friday I went into school for the first time this summer. I was greeted by 3 big boxes of new equipment stacked on my desk. I had been expecting this and figured I'd spend an hour or two opening and putting away that new stuff. It was good to see some other staff people and hear about their summers. 

I had to be home from school on Friday by 1 PM because a photographer from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle was coming to our house to take a photo of me and my spinning wheel. This was a follow-up to the journalist from the paper who did an interview with me on Wednesday. The paper wanted to do an article for the Our Towns section on someone who was going to the State Fair to do something specific. Through a series of people who knew that I was going to the State Fair to be a volunteer spinner in the Wool Building, my name was given to the writer and he called and interviewed me on Tuesday. The next day he came to our house to ask some more questions and to see me in action. And now the photographer has been here and took lots of pictures. I am spinning at the Fair on Sunday, Aug. 30th and the article is supposed to be in the paper on Sept. 2nd. I will put a link to the article in the blog if it happens. I am looking forward to my time at the Fair, and am hoping that I can answer any questions that people may have. 

Friday night, Jim, Jeannie, Grandma and I went to the movies to see "Julie and Julia." This movie features 2 parellel stories, one about Julia Child and the other about a young women who write a blog about cooking her way through Julia's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The movie was excellent~ we all laughed out loud many times.

Saturday was a work around the house day. Jim scraped and primed some of the trim on the house. I pulled weeds and trimmed bushes. I also made a blueberry cobbler. We went out to dinner, at Lento's, with Bob, Sally and Jeannie. We had a good meal at this restaurant that features local, organic, sustainable food. We came back to our house after dinner for a cobbler dessert.

Today we went to church and then did more household chores. I spent about 2 hours filing papers and cleaning out one of our filing cabinets. Not real exciting work, but a chore that I am glad to have done. Jeannie wanted a Ponty's pizza, so she ordered one and brought it over here to share with us. Later, we introduced her to Lugia's Ice Cream!
Jeannie drives back to Tennesse tomorrow and we will miss her. She made the move for Grandma and Grandpa go so smoothly and because she stayed in the new apartment for a few days, was able to help her parents settle into their new surroundings. We are very appreciative of all she did. Thanks Jeannie!

This is the last full week of summer vacation for me. I may try to can some peaches. They are soooo delicious this year. 

Happy Birthday to my brother, Bob! Hope you had a great day!

Hope all is well.