Why is it already half-way past August?

Yesterday afternoon, a friend told me that she couldn't believe how I have been surviving this summer.  In May, I was asked to take over managing the contract work for a different customer.  I've been doing it for our account with United Technologies; now they wanted me to do the same for Estee Lauder.  This came right after we finished signing a MAJOR extension of the contract with UTC, and there was a lot of work to be done on transition.  At the same time, the ELC account had signed a MAJOR extension, and there was a lot of work to be done there.  The person who had been in my role at the ELC account suddenly announced that for medical reasons she was retiring - and she went out on medical leave for the last two weeks!  Knowledge transfer?  Not so much.  Given that my predecessor at the UTC account had been gone for a year before I stepped into the role, I think they are starting a pattern of me going to accounts that are in a mess.
The ELC account is located in New York.  While the HQ is in Manhattan (and I've commuted there before, on a daily basis, for eight months, so no problem) the IT offices are on Long Island.  There is no convenient way to commute, even by ferry.  So it has involved driving there, although thankfully not on a daily basis!  I go, I stay, I come home.

However, at first they were going to have me MOVE there.  Yes, on top of all the work chaos, I was told to immediately sell my condo and move.  I pointed out that in this market, that was impossible without taking a huge loss - and what about the massive increase in living costs on Long Island?  I was told they didn't realize I wasn't just a renter.  Luckily, the person to whom I'd be reporting (UTC is Aerospace & Defense, ELC is Consumer & Manufacturing) backed me.  So did the person above him, the leadership of the account - and it turned out the person to whom I face-off at ELC not only lives in Florida, but was told that he would not be allowed to commute weekly to LI as he had done for the previous two years.  So there was no need for me to be on LI most of the time anyway.

However, there were a couple-three months of high stress while this all started to settle.  I still support both accounts, although last week they interviewed a couple people that they think can replace me on the old account.  I've given them a hard date of October 1st to do so, after which I hope to have an office either at home or some other location in the area.  I'll go to LI twice a month at most, on the weeks my counterpart is there.  And it's becoming an open secret that he and his team have been given their deadlines to wrap up things.  He already shares the role with someone in the UK, with whom I have done more of the work lately.  So I might not be interacting with anybody in LI at all, which makes going there even less of a requirement.  Many of the leadership of the account work remotely; the previous executive lives near Austin, TX, and the new one lives near Pittsburgh.  They commute into Long Island, but not every week, and on the weeks anybody comes in it's just Tuesday-Thursday.

So.

The downside to all this is that between the extra work and the commuting, I've had less time to knit.  I also have missed a number of the boxes from my CSA and my foodwriting column is woefully behind.  My social life is much reduced, I do try to get to one or two things on weekends.  And my eating has been far too catch-as-can, I've missed going to my usual Farmer's Market on the weekend and my jamming and canning is way behind for the summer.

However, in the last few weeks things have started to turn around.  Apparently the fact that I have been successful in getting the account's contracting role into shape no matter where I'm located has been a factor.  With the adjustment to twice-a-month travel, I can plan to do things on my weeks in town.  It un-crunches my weekend because I don't have to get everything done in two days.  Yesterday I helped a friend paint her livingroom in advance of the tea party we are co-hostessing next Sunday.  I get to make some of the goodies - because I am in town!  I finally turned the last corner on the baby blanket I had just started last month, and I might work on it diligently for a while today while watching Cary Grant on TCM.  I have work to do - but there will be time for that later today.  And I need to get back to exercising so I am in shape for our trip to New Zealand at the end of October.  I joined something called Dish Rag Tag because it sounds like fun, I can use some quick-gratification portable knitting, and I hope we're done by then.

Knits for Babies!

I've been meaning to post, and I've been busy, so it hasn't happened. I run the newsletter AND website AND Facebook page for the CSA to which I belong, which means a LOT of posting and writing weekly. Work is having me move to support a different customer, which means wrapping up things I have done for the current/past customer, waaaay more commuting to Long Island ('scuse me, "Lon GAISland") than I planned, and an ongoing disagreement about whether I would be moving to LI or just occasionally roost in a hotel there.

Meanwhile, I have gotten some knitting and crocheting done. The plans to keep knitting for me, or finish FOs, have gone kinda sideways because I suddenly needed to make a bunch of baby things. I did knit a shawl for myself while on the family trip out west (oh, yeah, I should blog about that, shouldn't I? GREAT photos) out of Bernat's Handicrafter Cotton in a "Summer of Love" shade that isn't on their website. It has white, orange, and purple in it, and I just made a simple shawl until the yarn ran out. Love it! I'll get a picture one of these days.

Most of what I have done is for babies. There seems to be a rash of them and I'm having fun with various patterns. First done was this one, for a young man named Nathan Josiah:

I used the pattern for Evelyn's No-Sew Blankie but in Joann's Sensations Rainbow Classic yarn instead of handspun. Because big sister Judith was getting a baby boy doll at the same time, I used some of the remaining yarn to make a similar appropriately-sized blankie for her doll:

Then I went back to finishing a crocheted blanket my mother asked me to make for a friend of hers who was going to be a grandmother again. I'd made blankets when her twin grandsons were born, and the boys LOVE the blankets. After hearing all the stories, I have no problem with making a blanket for the new baby. I had to put it aside when I found out that Nathan was due at the end of June, not the end of July as I'd mis-remembered. This blanket used two baby-coloured yarns (they aren't sure of the gender) and part of the Circles to Squares Afghan pattern:While on a trip back to Dallas to see friends, and a friend's play (which was TERRIFIC!), I whipped up a quick Father's Day gift for a friend of mine who was surprised to learn that he is committing parenthood again. I'd been wishing that someone would have a girl baby because I found two really cute patterns, one for booties made of a sparkly yarn to look like ruby slippers, and the other for a hat. Since Kari will be born in Kansas, ruby slippers seem the perfect gift!And here's the current project, using the vendor's pattern and the correct yarn, and it's coming along. Not as quickly as I would like, as I haven't as much knitting time as I would like, but it's growing steadily. My grandmother (who is one of the people who taught me to knit and now is having issues with fine needlework) asked if I would help make something special for the coming grandbaby of some dear friends of hers back in Hawai'i. I think this will do, don't you?

I have been baking my own bread, from starter that I've gently nursed. Today's loaf contains a splash of (real, of course) maple syrup as the sugar part of the recipe and while it doesn't add a noticeable taste, my starter seems to love it. The warm kitchen probably helped. I have a few veggies from the last CSA delivery that I was able to collect (my share partners get to divide mine into theirs on the weeks I am on LI) and roasted the root ones while the bread was in the oven, to avoid heating the kitchen any more than necessary.

Dessert tonight is vanilla gelato with fresh blueberries, and fresh cherries that I picked up at a local Farmer's Market last Sunday and left in the 'fridge while I was gone. I shop there because my CSA doesn't deliver fruit, and I love the peaches, cherries, and so on. Last weekend they had four types of cherries on sale - I bought three of them! Along with pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, apricots, and some yummy Italian ice that was perfect to savor while listening to the band that performed. Every week there's some new performer, and the Italian ice stand brings different flavours. See you there?

Ending Pantry for the SNAP Challenge

My week was over last weekend, but I've been busy and didn't have time to post. Here is what I was left with in the pantry:
If I were a bigger person, or bigger eater (which might make me a bigger person!), there would probably be less left. I meant to put the nine cents I had left at the end of the week in the pantry photo, but forgot. I'll post the chart of what I spent as soon as I remember to convert it to a JPEG. I was VERY lucky with sales last week, this week I could not have gotten most of the items at the price I paid, although I found a loaf of bread for 93 cents. It was "10/$10", according to a sticker on the loaf, but it was on the old-baked-goods rack at one grocery.

The pink item in front is my last egg, one of the hard-boiled ones. You can't see, the peanut butter jar is about half empty. I put the macaroni into a measuring cup so that you can see how much is left, because it didn't show in the box. I was surprised that I didn't eat all the greens, but not completely surprised I didn't eat the chickpeas. I love them, but mostly in soups (and I had a bean soup already that week) or curried, and I had no way to make a curry. Too many ingredients were not in my SNAP pantry.

In addition to my starting pantry, I was able to buy some cabbage for a St. Patrick's Day meal, and also two oranges that I found on the hurt produce rack. Such a treat! I really, really wanted some fruit by midweek. I carefully parceled those out, one each on two different days.

Here is what I made for St. Patrick's Day:

Stuffed cabbage. I chopped potatoes and the other half of my onion, and all the cabbage I wasn't using to roll, sauteed them in a bit of oil, then added half a box of kale. I also shredded in a bunch of cheddar cheese. Then I blanched the big outer leaves to soften them, and put a bit of filling on each, and rolled them. I ended up with five rolls. I pureed a can of tomatoes and that's the sauce. Not exactly traditional Irish, but with the cabbage and potatoes and lots of green, it would do.

When I went to get the cabbage (on sale, of course), none of the heads were small enough to fit into my remaining budget. Then I noticed that the bin had a lot of loose leaves. So I grabbed as much of those as I thought I would need, and weighed them. A bit under a pound. This gave me enough leftover money to buy the oranges.

The other half of the kale, and some un-chopped tomatoes, helped to make a red-green-white dish for St. Joseph's Day later that week:

Pasta, and a bit of white cheddar shredded on top.

Some of the other things I ate included the mac-n-cheese I mentioned in an earlier post, made with milk and cheese and macaroni and not much else, because that's what was in the pantry:

I forgot to take a picture before I ate some. I like it when there are crusty edges, and because this was on the thin side there was a lot of crust, not too much soft middle.

On the weekend, I treated myself to french toast. The end of the bread was getting dry, and it's a good thing to do with dry bread. I still had some of the milk, and a couple of fresh eggs, which made the dipping batter. I added a bit of cinnamon because I didn't have sugar or anything sweetening, and of course no jam or honey for on top or in the batter:
It was pretty good. I mixed the remaining milk-egg mixture with the last bits of milk and some water and a handful of rice, and turned it into rice pudding. It would have been nicer with raisins (IMHO!) but was OK.

If I were going ahead with a second week, I wouldn't need to buy a few things, which helps. But with the basic item's I'd bought now at a higher price, the pantry might have remained as scanty as it was the first week. And Congress is talking about reducing SNAP even further........

Things I have knit recently

I've been doing some charity knitting, but being reasonable with myself about it.

These two scarves plus hat (the hat is one of my portable projects that I worked on at DFW Fiber Fest) went to Mittens for Akkol:
OK, I had the green scarf "in stock" having knit it for a charity that then decided they wanted washable yarns. It's knit from Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride. The brown one is leftover plotulopi from the sweater I entered in last year's Berlin Fair, and the hat is a ball of Gedifra "Ombretta" (hence the blue-and-green shading). I just doodled the patterns on the brown scarf and the hat, which has a tidy and stretchy overall cable design.

Speaking of DFW Fiber Fest, I took these to donate to their charity collection:

The darker hat (a really soft boucle in maroon with flecks of other colours) was made for someone undergoing chemo, who then didn't need it. And the others were from some fun yarn I found and wanted to make into something for a child.

If you missed it, here is the picture of my knitted and crocheted items from the Berlin Fair:Yes, everything took a ribbon, seconds and thirds. The two extra ribbons on the sweater are for my baked items. Obviously, those didn't get returned after the fair!

I made a number of scarves for Scarves from the Heart, for a special event they did at the end of April:

Various yarns, including some old ones from the stash (the springtime one at the bottom and the two on the left), Paton's Lace in "Sachet" (which I keep thinking of as "Pansies"), and two new ones in the Joann's house line "Sensations". A lot of people loved the citrus-stripes one, and I enjoyed working with it.

And if scarves look tedious (although the different yarns and patterns helped me stay interested), think about a blanket:

I used a lot of sock yarn held triple, mostly to get rid of a surprising quantity of sock yarn I found while sorting the stash. Border includes an oddball of solid wool and was crocheted because I was tired of knitting. The blanket and these vests went off to Afghans for Afghans, for their latest campaign:

The bottom one is actually orange, not pink. Two solids in Paton's Wool, doubled for the ribbing, and then single with a strand of Knitpicks' "Essentials" - again an ancient and discontinued yarn from the stash. The brown one with red accents was part of an abandoned sweater that I frogged and reworked.

And for those who think I need to be knitting for myself: Technically, it's crocheting. A small shawl for me to wear around my office. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill's ARIEL in a colourway called "Misty Moor." The yarn is discontinued and who knows how long it's been in the stash? I do like the result. Started it at DFW Fiber Fest, finished last weekend at my grandmother's.

SNAP - finishing the challenge

I wrote this post a couple weeks ago, and Blogger ate it. Haven't had time to re-do but with the wrap up session on Monday night I thought I should get it done. I took a photo of what I had left food-wise to compare to the opening pantry:

You see that I put the last macaroni into a cup, because it would not show if it was sill in the box. The peanut butter jar is about half empty. I had nine cents left and meant to put them into the picture but forgot.

Not showing are the cabbage leaves and oranges I bought midweek. I wanted to do something that was appropriate for St. Patrick's Day, but a full head of cabbage was outside my budget, even on sale. Then I noticed a lot of loose leaves in the bin, and grabbed a double handful. I microwave-softened the bigger leaves, chopped the smaller ones and sauteed them with some chopped onion, added half the box of kale and some chopped potatoes and a bit of shredded cheese. This stuffing I rolled in the leaves, and put them into a casserole with some pureed tomatoes as a sauce:

It was pretty tasty. For St. Joseph's Day, the last day of my challenge, I made a dish in the colours of the Italian flag, with diced tomatoes, the other half of the kale, and macaroni. There is a touch of white cheddar shredded on top, and it made two portions:

I've talked about the mac-&-cheese I made, and the french toast I had at the end of the week and here are pictures of them:

I did have food left at the end; if I were a bigger person I probably would have eaten everything in the pantry. Having the can of chickpeas and rice and lentils left makes a start for the next week, which would be a help because many of the things I bought on sale the first week were not on sale the second, and I would not be able to get as many items.

This is a picture of what I spent for the week:And this is one day's comparison of what I usually eat against the SNAP budget, and what a colleague who ate out for all three meals would spend. The supper was at an unusually expensive place, if supper had been at a more moderately-priced place, the differential would not be as dramatic:

If it is hard to see, on my usual day I would spend about $8.98, and my colleague spent on this day $58.23. Quite a difference from the $3.00 on SNAP! I am going to take copies of the two charts to tomorrow night's wrap-up event. It will be interesting hearing from people about their experiences.

Things I did this past weekend

I have a friend who does "Movie Mondays" on her blog, and since I saw two movies (planned three, missed one because I got out of work too late) I thought about writing about it, then I realized I did some more interesting things this weekend, so here it is. A post without an agenda, for the most part. And not many pictures!

The movie I missed was "The General," which was being shown with piano accompaniment. I love classic movies, I like silent films, and it's fun to see them with live music. I've gone to "Metropolis" at Real Art Ways twice, where they have The Alloy Orchestra offering music and it's fascinating and fun.

Saturday started out semi-routine with physical therapy (usually I do yoga, but not until the knee improves) and then my Torah class, after which I went to Cinema Classics for "Strangers on a Train." I hadn't seen it before and it was typical fast-moving, tense Hitchcock. We all liked it. I couldn't go for lunch with the others afterwards because I had to get to the office and see how things were going on the deal we're trying to close - and which should at this stage be in proofreading, but of course, it's not........

Saturday night I went to SWAN DAY CT, which is a celebration of women artists. It was great, crowded, noisy, supportive.........I bought some jewelry, clothes, and artwork. I'm taking the picture to my office, it's bright and will add some colour to the dull walls. A friend was showing her photography and I told her I want to buy two prints for my office also. She didn't believe me, it's the first time she's shown her work, but I'm serious!

Sunday morning, I slept in. :) Then I worked in my stash storage, having decided it was high time to have another round of sales on eBay. Every time I mention this I get a suggestion from someone that I should use space bags and other things for added storage, but my idea is to weed out items that I am very sure I will not use, and send them to people who want to use them.

Another movie followed: "Jews and Baseball." OK, I am a baseball nut. I freely admit it! I played as a kid (who didn't?) and follow my beloved Cubbies through everything. They had two cinemas showing the movie (it's part of a film festival) and both were PACKED. Fun!

Afterwards, home, and back on the computer for work. Watched some of my usual Sunday night TV shows - "Chopped All-Stars" especially. Was very happy that the hot Aarón Sánchez won his round. But I am torn between him and Nate Appleman for the ultimate winner. I'll have to tune in next week - hopefully I'll be back in time from the foodie adventure my friend Judy has scheduled.

A Day with Tibetan Monks

About a month ago, a local church hosted a group of monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India. The monks, exiled from Tibet, are on a tour to help raise funds for the monastery by sharing information about their faith and Tibetan culture and traditions. I visited when a friend's art gallery hosted the monks in the past, where they created one of their spectacular mandalas. On this tour, the monks did that at some locations, but at the church they answered questions and held workshops where we could make prayer flags, create our own mandala designs, and otherwise gain a deeper understanding of their faith. The afternoon began with a soup lunch that was very good. The same dough was used to make dumplings in the soup and rolls on the side. The monks cooked it for us as part of their ministry. Then we had opening ceremony and Q&A, while the main room was set up for projects. When we went back, we could learn how to use the tools to make sand mandalas: You scoop sand into the metal cones and rub one against another to control the flow. While some of the designs we tried were traditional, we mostly went free-form. This is the part of a mandala that I made, with people working on their designs in other areas:

These mandalas are on very non-traditional brown paper, so to make the cleanup easier when it is time to return the sand to the earth. Usually they put it into a moving body of water, but there was no stream or river near enough to the church. You'll see the ceremony further down.

We also made prayer flags that were strung around the room. The monks would help us with designs and names if we asked, but most people did free-form ones.

The lady in white was one of the organizers of the event. These are mine:

You could buy a string of preprinted prayer flags and many other items, such as bags (of course I did!) and prayer beads. If you bought beads, the head monk would bless them and you:

At the end of the afternoon, we danced (something a local group does, begun in the 1960's, and not a Tibetan Buddism activity, but the monks were very nice about participating) and then the monks conducted a thank-you ceremony and the closing prayers:

They swept up the sand and we followed them outside where they prayed that the energy in the sand would help to heal the world:

I found a couple other writeups of the day, including one that has me in the background of one of his photos.