'Bootleg' Girl Scout Cookies

Middle of last week, somebody posted that his granddaughter would be at the North Texas Irish Festival's Volunteer meeting on Sunday, selling Girl Scout Cookies.  I generally send a few boxes to the troops, or whatever is the group's local charity (some donate to soup kitchens or shelters), and the friends with whom I was staying asked for a box of Thin Mints®.

However, when I got to the ballroom at the hotel where the meeting was occurring, the cookies were being packed up and removed.  I was disappointed, thinking I missed the timeslot when the girl could be there, or sales weren't allowed during the meeting proper.  No, it turned out the hotel didn't want the sales onsite.  So, her grandfather announced at the start of the meeting, they would take orders during the meeting, and you could pick up from the vehicle in the parking lot after the meeting.  Yup, in the best Irish manner, a workaround was created, and we all joked about our bootleg Girl Scout cookies for the rest of the morning.

The rest of the weekend was fun:  Two plays, a new pizza place, tacos (different meal), visiting with friends.  I got some rest, and decided to skip the Yoga Boot Camp on Monday because it began at 5:00am locally and I am not that dedicated.

I did get knitting done, of course:

The scarf on the right was knitted on Saturday, and a bit at the meeting on Sunday.  It's just garter stitch of a handdyed acrylic skein I bought at the last DFW Fiber Fest.  The other is the Ghost Ranch Cowl done in Whimzee Stitches DK Deluxe "Maxed Dallas", their 2022 show colourway.  Very yummy yarn, and I won't keep it because there's more pink in the colourway than I like, but somebody should enjoy it.  I made a hat from the yarn and will re-do it in the same stitch pattern.  In the photo I was still working on the (remainder of the) first skein, and now I am well into the second, and it's moving nicely.

Baking Breakfast Cookies.

A quick post walking through something I baked for breakfast yesterday.  Usually my breakfast is some kind of cereal (oatmeal or a packet type) with fruit (dried in the porridge, fresh with the other, unless it's Raisin Bran) and yoghurt if it's the packet type because that is dry.  Sometimes orange or blended juice if I am eating Weetabix or Shredded wheat.  Once in a while I do a pastry thing, or a sandwich, depending upon what's in the house and my timing.

My friend Jodie posted a link to a recipe for Banana Blueberry Breakfast Cookies, which looked easy and interesting.  I thought I'd make some and see.  Since it's not blueberry season, I rehydrated some of the dried ones I use in my porridge.

Sunday night I took a banana out of the freezer (actually, a whole bag and then separated one when it was half-thawed, and put the rest back) to thaw, instead of buying a fresh banana.  Why waste a fresh banana in baking?  I wanted to do a half-batch because I don't need a dozen.  So these are my ingredients:

The banana looks brown and liquidy because that
is what happens when you freeze and thaw them.
The maple syrup is from a cousin's maple trees.

I didn't do an in-progress photo because it didn't look like much, since everything was fairly brown.  Also, I am not a content creator so I don't remember to take photos at every point and put a lot of natter about the recipe into my posts.  I made six cookies, and since I had a small spoonful of mini chocolate chips, one has very few blueberries and a bunch of chips on top.

They baked for the full time, and didn't get overly golden, but were firm.  I tried one as soon as it was cool enough to do so and it tasted mostly of banana.  Maybe I will try again during fresh blueberries season, but I think these would be fine without the blueberries.  Or maybe try chopped strawberries if you like that combination, or some other fruit that is compatible.

I also ate several slices of dried persimmon from Andy's Orchard.

Today I ate another one, curious to see how the overnight rest might affect the taste.  It was much softer, probably because it was in a closed container and the blueberries and banana held moisture that made the cookies softer.  The banana is less pronounced today, with the vanilla and cinnamon making themselves known.  It's still not something I'm overly excited about, but maybe it's me.

Cupcakes and Hats

I did a bit of baking this week; miniature King Cakes to take to a club meeting:

Yes, blue is not a traditional Mardi Gras colour, but I added
it as it's one of the club colours, and I figured most wouldn't
know anyway since a lot of them seem to come from New York.

I've decided that if I do these again (IF!) I will not make one long piece to cut into smaller pieces, as filling leaked out in the baking.  I'd forgotten to account for it.  Next time (NEXT?) I will cut individual pieces to fill and roll and twist, so they should stay sealed.  The end result was very tasty, even if the paper cases stuck a bit in places.

Next month the club is viewing a documentary about The Automat (those were before my time, but my father went to one while on a Boy Scout trip to New York and told me about it) and I signed up to make Rice Pudding.  They want people to bring Automat-themed desserts and I hoped for peach pie as I have a lot of peaches in the freezer from the summer, or cocoanut cream pie which I love, but the only options were apple (which I cannot make as well as my mother, by a long shot), blueberry, or chocolate cream.  So rice pudding it will be!  I found a recipe online that is allegedly from Horn & Hardart, so will make that one.

No progress on the sweater, as I switched to a community project for which I am the putting-together person.  I need to add borders to all the squares that came in and then sew together and put on the final border.  At least one square has gone missing in the mail, but it's high time I did my part so I've started.  I will have to re-do at least one square as there are too many border stitches and it is rippling, but I'll go back to it after I have a number more done and a better idea of how many stitches I need on each side.

I did work on a couple idiot projects, one of the inevitable garter stitch scarves, and a hat of the long-discontinued Lion Brand yarn Keppi that I mostly made during the club meeting.  The yarn moves from one colour or type to another so a very plain project looks interesting.  Each ball came with a pompon and instructions for making hats of all diameters, but you were supposed to use all the yarn for each hat, so the ones for smaller heads were more like a stocking cap and those for larger heads closer to a beanie.  I did a larger size.  And then, needing another no-attention item, I made another:

Clearly another hat is going to happen.

I finished my second library challenge book.  This time I selected "a title that has been on your TBR list the longest".  It's a little difficult to figure out which are the longest items on my To Be Read list, but I have a facsimile copy of Alice's Adventures Under Ground that I thought would probably qualify.  It was interesting to read the history that was added as introductory material, and then the manuscript itself.

I think the next book may be from the library, but it's bitterly cold today and I don't feel the need to hurry and get it.  I was going to do some preparatory lookups of the booklists they have as suggestions but the QR codes on the pamphlet aren't working, so I'll see if they have lists onsite.

Progress and Possibilities.

I meant to post this last weekend, and for some reason didn't.  This is the Caledonian Cardigan at the end of the first skein - almost finished Row 25:

Yarn is a one-off colourway by Forbidden Fiber.

I wound the second and am progressing, now at Row 27.

I spent some time today (meaning, last Sunday) looking at possible patterns for a set of yarn I received as a Hannukah Advent - and yes, "Advent" is Christian and really doesn't apply, but in the yarny world it has come to mean a set of small gifts you get and open each day of a holiday.  So there are ones for Christmas that run either four (for the four Sundays of Advent) or twenty-four (for the days in December leading up to Christmas) or twelve (for the days December 26th through January 6th = Epiphany), and a few years ago some dyers decided to make them for Channukah also.  So I took a chance on one where Nomadic Knits collaborated with Olive and Two Ewes.

The theme was a tea party (there is also one for Christmas), and the box was filled with wrapped items numbered 1 through 8, plus some bags of tea and a tea bag holder, and information cards.

I worried a bit when I opened the first bag to find a pink skein, as it's my least favourite colour, but the others work together nicely and the set includes a full-sized skein for Day 8:

  

The stitch markers just fit into the little jar; I had to get tweezers to pull them out.  One has a bead to denote "start of round" or any other time you need a special marker.

So I spent a bit of time today looking for a pattern.  The site has a list of suggestions but most don't use the whole set.  I found one I like, but I think it needs more contrast.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It is a week later, and I am through the second skein of the Caledonian Cardigan, well into the body:

I have to decide whether I am OK with the yarn colours stacking the way they have done, or if I need to frog and see whether integrating a second skein will break it up more as it was on the yoke.  I may decide after seeing how the sleeves work out.  Now that the second skein is done, I am going to do those, and then all the remaining yarn can be the body.

I've finished the first library challenge book, "Read a Novel in Translation".  Since I started on Science Fiction Day, I selected Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.  Very interesting to see what he got right given it was almost a century before space travel.

I am being wimpy in the mornings and not going for a walk until the temperature is out of the 30's(F), which means I often get a walk in the afternoon, if work allows and it's not storming.  When I lived up north, anything above freezing was worth a walk, and here I'm no longer that brave.  Or desperate to get out into the wintry sun.

It's a lot worse in many places, with NFL playoff games postponed and people joking about bringing in their brass monkeys and that the temperatures will drop from negative to imaginary numbers.  I always hope and pray that everybody who needs shelter in such bitterness will find it.

Twelve days of "The 12 Days".

I kept stumbling across versions of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and wondered whether I could find one for every day between Boxing Day and Twelfth Night, similar to how some people post a carol a day for the 24 days prior to Christmas, or my Hannukah series.

As I collected, I found more than twelve.  These are the versions I posted:

The First Day:  Pentatonix

The Second Day:  The Choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle

The Third Day:  The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge  (that is rehearsal; this is a performance)

The Fourth Day:  Little Action Kids (I love their turtledoves!)

The Fifth Day:  Exeter University Singers

The Sixth Day:  The King's Singers and The Tabernacle Choir

The Seventh Day:  Angel City Chorale

The Eighth Day:  A purely instrumental version by Rory Hoffman

The Ninth Day:  Tenebrae Choir

The Tenth Day:  Young People's Chorus of NYC

The Eleventh Day:  A doubleheader of fun ones from Straight No Chaser and these guys.

The Twelfth Day:  A short one.

Also, if you total up everything that arrives (some people dispute whether you send the previous day's items again, or just the ones for that day, but I like maths), your true love receives:

• 12 Drummers Drumming
• 22 Pipers Piping
• 30 Lords a-Leaping
• 36 Ladies Dancing
• 40 Maids a-Milking (plus presumably their cows or goats)
• 42 each of Swans a-Swimming and Geese a-Laying
• 40 Gold Rings
• 36 Calling Birds
• 30 French Hens
• 22 Turtledoves
• 12 Partridges in Pear Trees

No wonder so many people like Frederick Silver's "The 12 Days AFTER Christmas"!
And "12 Days of Christmas - A correspondence by John Julius Norwich".

This year, the cost of all those items would be $46,729.86, without shipping.

Alan Sherman updated the song in the 1950's or 1960's.

I chose an appropriate bar of soap to use during the Twelve Days of Christmas:

As I have started.

Just for the record, I finished my first book of 2024 this morning:

Yes, it's a slim one, but I thought I'd follow on last year's and select a self-improvement book as the first one to read.  This is a keeper, although I probably won't follow all his instructions.

I also finished the first knitting project:

  

I started the hat during the online New Year's Eve party I attended, thinking that with bulky yarn and fat needles, I might have it done by midnight.  But I wanted to do something more interesting than just a plain beanie, so between trying the stitch and restarting (twice) because it was too big, I didn't get it done.  The beehive stitch required more focus than I could manage during the Rose Bowl yesterday, so I finished this morning.

Since I had just one ball of the yarn, I wanted to try to use up every inch, or as close as I could get.  After running in the ends, I have 5.25 inches remaining.  I think I managed it well.

This morning I went to the public library because the January bulletin said they were starting an Adult Reading Challenge today.  You pick up a list of challenges and then read a book - library or otherwise - for each one, or as many as you can finish by the time the challenge ends on March 31st.  Because it was a work day I just took the pamphlet and read it when I got home.  The topics include "Banned Book", "A Title From a Library Display", "Pick a Book Solely For Its Cover", "A Title That Has Won An Award Within the Last 10 Years", "A Book Recommended by a Blog, Website, or App", and "Read or Re-read a Book From Your Favorite Author".  I can think of a few that would qualify for two or three categories - but I've already read them!

Because it's Science Fiction Day, I wanted to start something in the genre.  However, all my books by favourite authors are still packed.  Then I saw the "Read a Novel in Translation" challenge, and remembered that I hadn't read the Jules Verne assignment from my "Emergence of Science Fiction" class, because it arrived after that session.  Perfect!

[Science Fiction Day is on January 2nd because that was the birthday of famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov on January 2, 1920 in Petrovichi, Russia. His family emigrated to the USA when he was quite small and he became a Boston University professor of biochemistry, although he is best known for his works of science fiction, his book about the Bible, and his popular science books.  I might select one of those for the "Non-Fiction Title About Science", category.]

You get prizes for each three challenges you complete.  I wonder whether you can accomplish it by reading a single book that could fall into multiple categories, but I am going to try to only have one category per book.  And if I accomplish this, I'll also have met my Goodreads challenge number for the year!

As I mean to go on.

I didn't get the 100th item done in 2023 - I decided a hat might be quick, but because I was partly following a pattern and partly adapting it to a ball of bulky yarn I had on hand, it wasn't.  Gauge is always an issue.

Without entirely expecting it to be quite as much as it was, 2023 was a year when, to quote Rainer Maria Rilke, "we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been."  I am still not happy about moving, although it's clearly good for me to be physically closer to my parents so I am trying to make the best of it.  I've joined a couple fiber groups and may join a historical fiction reading group; the current book is based upon fact, which is the kind I enjoy, but the meeting is the same evening and time as one of the fiber groups, and I have my priorities.  I wasn't sure I could obtain and read the book in time, and given my history for reading on deadline, I really didn't want the pressure just now.

If what you do on the first day sets the year ahead, mine will include yoga (I have done a class each morning of the holiday weekend, and I don't usually do one on Monday, but since it's a day off work, I slipped in the early class), reading, knitting and crocheting and other fiber arts stuff, walks, and spending time with family.

My resolutions for 2024

Reading:  No surprise, I know.  I am again going to tell Goodreads that I will read 12 books, since that is an easy goal.  I've seen people who read well over that, but at least three admit to using audiobooks and I prefer to count the ones I read on paper.  I still haven't adapted to using a screen reader, probably because I work all day at a computer and my eyes like the change.  If I accomplish twelve books read by midyear, I will increase my goal.

Cooking:  Again, I am going to commit to cooking or baking something historical once per month.  Instead of limiting my options to the YouTube channels I follow, I am going to opt also to cook from my old cookbooks and collections of historical recipes.  So I might end up with a year of cooking recipes from the channels, and I might mix things up.   I'll try to follow a channel recipe at least six times, roughly every other month.

Knitting/Crocheting/Crafting:  I have a few plans here:

1. Finish at least two more UFOs.  Including that shawl, when I locate it.
2. Get my spinning wheel repaired, if I cannot figure it out myself.  I've already asked a couple local people who said they will help.
3. Make at least six things for me.  A tall order, since I am so accustomed to making things for others.  A pair of socks or mittens will count as one item, but if I make a hat and matching mittens, that will be two items, not one set.  My rules.

I've already started one item, while watching Michigan win (I didn't get far because it was a tense game towards the end, and I started winding the yarn during the first quarter):

 

And this: