Admittedly, I finally got my transit pass, which makes me insanely, insanely happy. I was losing hope that I would ever get it.

But, I've had two motorvehicles die on me in 6 days. I'm feeling a little superstitious at this point.

I was running out to Tigard to see a friend on Sunday when my clutch failed on Hwy 26. I got up the Sylvan hill, and up the Sylvan exit, and then the car stopped and refused to go any further.

Two days and a lot of money later, I had a car with a new clutch... that still isn't running right. I wish I had a mechanic that I could trust.

Today, I had thought I would be meeting my friend downtown ... but she wanted to meet at her house (not convenient to public transit). Okay, so I jumped on the scooter. We were going to get breakfast at a wildly popular place, and then go to the Farmer's Market, go to her favorite chocolate shop, REI, and then our favorite restaurant for some good yiddish soul food.

But first, I had to stop at the ATM about 15 blocks away.

And when I tried to start the scooter again, no such luck.

I had a big hill to walk the scooter up, and then of course, the rest of the way home. It took an hour and a half.

It was notable that black folks were the only ones to stop and see how I was doing, or if I needed help. I saw lots of people while I pushed the damn 350# scooter home, the vast majority of them white, but I had one woman commiserate and offer her phone; two guys on bicycles stop and ask how I was doing and if they could help; and a clutch of women on a house stoop commiserated, offered the phone, and offered to help.

Two of my neighbors (also african-american) scolded me for not calling them (if only I had had their numbers with me!).

Obviously I need a new plan of action. I'm going to:

1. get on a towing plan (AAA or BetterWorld)
2. get a new cellphone where I can actually hear the person I'm talking to

And right now I'm going to take a nap, because I'm exhausted!

This is based on Guilty Carnivore's Vietnamese Chicken Slaw, which I'm guessing is based on the Spicy Cabbage & Chicken Salad in Andrea Nguyen's Into The Vietnamese Kitchen.

Salad Components

1 head green cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, shredded
(instead of cabbage & carrots, I use prepared coleslaw and broccoli slaw mixes)
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped coarsely
24 leaves spearmint
12 purple perilla leaves (these are available at a Viet grocery -- if you can't get them, just add another 12 leaves of mint)

Dressing

2 cloves of garlic, forced through a garlic press
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
Juice of two small limes (or one big lime)
3 tablespoons sugar
a dash of salt
1 and 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 thai bird chilies, minced
1 and 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon garlic chili sauce or siracha

Garnish

Handful of roasted peanuts (no skins)

First make the dressing, combining the ingredients above and giving it a taste to be sure it is as you like it. I used a Korean hot sesame oil, which just about blew my head off, so I skipped the hot peppers and hot sauce completely (and added more rice vinegar, lime & fish sauce). If you don't care for spicy hot, skip the hot stuff, and reduce the sugar to a teaspoon or less, tasting for seasoning.

If you want to be super traditional, chop the garlic & peppers, and then use a mortar & pestle to pound and mash them. The smell that come off them when they're pasty is so superior to my quick version, and it really doesn't take that much longer.

Now, to the salad. Chiffonade your herbs, and put them in a large bowl. Add cabbage & salad (or slaw mix), and toss thoroughly. Just before eating, add the dressing and toss to mix well. The salad may wilt a little -- that's no problem. Now taste it for balance of sour, sweet, salty & spicy, and transfer to a serving plate leaving any excess dressing behind. Garnish with roasted peanuts.

Now, I do think about meat and dairy all the time. I think several types of thoughts:
- gosh, I feel better since I'm not eating that
and
- gosh, that tastes so good, I hope I'll get to eat it again.
I always think that meat and dairy are going to taste better. No, they taste different, but not better. In fact, I have to say that I've felt a bit let down with each bit of meat or dairy I've had.

I remember feeling this way after the 6 week vegan detox last year, that this stuff was okay, but not the great fantastic thing that I had been expecting. So why do I keep going back for more?

For the most part, it's a social thing. Though today I just broke down and I have no excuses other than that I thought it would taste crazy good. And really, not so much.

++++++
Yesterday was fun. My sweetie had to work so I stayed home and got domestic. I made no-knead bread, veggie stock, and then red lentil soup; I washed clothes and did other unromantic things which made me feel all swell inside.

And to my great shock, I am continuing to lose weight very slowly. This weekend, I ate pretty much whatever I wanted, I got vegan cookies and desserts, I ate chocolate. And still lost weight. I spent most of the weekend on the couch, just lying around. And still lost weight. It's crazy.

I'm not consistently hitting 10,000 steps a day, but I'm getting closer. And while I manage to forget my weight about a half-hour after I get off the scale, I'm still left with the sense that either I'm losing, I'm maintaining, or I'm gaining.

For the most part, it's been losing. I'm trying to keep to the Michael Pollan plan (eat food... not too much... mostly plants). In spite of several evening events this week, in spite of a beer and some cassoulet, in spite of a day where I barely ate any plants at all, I am very slowly losing. I mean, slowly. And that's exactly how I want it.
....
Not surprisingly, I've had some interesting walks. One day, I walked to the MAX (about 20 minutes), got off at the grocery store, loaded up my bags, and then repeated the process home. I learned that I'm not crazy about carrying groceries for any distance.

Another day, I planned to walk to my favorite cafe in town, about 4.5 miles. But once I got outside, it was raining, and then it was snowing, and then this didn't seem to be such a great idea. So again, I walked to the MAX and took it part of the way there, and then walked through the neighborhood. It still took me a while, and by the time I got to the MAX, my socks were already socked. Thank g-d they were wool, so they were still warm. Not long after I got off MAX, my pants and shoes were soaked too. But it was still a good walk, and a fairly long one, the sort that made me very blissfully tired.
.....
The other night I went to a fantastic potluck with Julia Child as the theme. We had all read Child's My Life in France, and our hostess made the most fabulous cassoulet. I struggled for days trying to think of something vegan to make that would appeal to the other guests, and also something that would not require an entire day of cooking.

It was quite a relief to come across the Salade Composee from The French Chef Cookbook, which is just marinated veggies & beans on top of salad greens. In spite of that, it was quite elegant.

Salade Composee

for the vinaigrette

1-2 Tablespoons wine vinegar or lemon juice
a smidge of salt
fresh ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon dijon or dry mustard
6-8 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

for the salad

a can of borlotti beans, rinsed & drained (you can use any kind)
raw zucchini sliced
raw mushrooms sliced
salad greens
cherry tomatoes
nicoise olives
fingerling or banana potatoes, chopped into bitesized pieces
parsley

1. cook the fingerling potatoes in salted water for about 10 minutes, or until tender
2. create the vinaigrette by placing all the ingredients in a bowl, and whisking until combined
3. marinate beans, zucchini, mushrooms and potatoes in vinaigrette for 20-30 minutes
4. dress the greens lightly and arrange on a planter. Mound the food items in their own pyramids. Sprinkle a little more vinaigrette and chopped parsley on top

Obviously, the idea is to make a nice salad with what you have on hand. I think marinating asparagus and green beans, and then grilling would be an excellent addition. If I were still eating fish, I'd add a good European tuna packed in olive oil. Easter egg radishes would be pretty, and grilled zucchini or carrot slices would be nice, too.

But most of the time, I come home from work, and we impromptu decide what we're going to eat. This isn't the best of all possible worlds as we're invariably both hungry, which leads us to eating canned soup and fake meat sandwiches.

So I actually did some research on what we could make in that sort of instance, and came up with Jacque Pepin's Cold Black Bean Soup. It being winter, I warmed it up a little.

Black Bean Soup

a large can of black beans
olive oil
hot sauce
several cloves of garlic
salt
veggie broth
cilantro
lime
avocado

1. puree part or all of the black beans with some olive oil
2. add hot sauce, garlic and salt to taste
3. add enough broth to make it creamy
4. heat and serve, garnished with chopped cilantro & chunked avocado. A squirt of lime really brings it to life.

adding salsa is another variant that is very good.

My local yarn shop has gotten slipper bottoms in, so I can begin making slippers for everyone I know once I finish said baby blanket.

And the embers armwarmers are excruciatingly close to done. I just need to spend a little bit more time on them.

I'm planning to start going through my stash and dunging it out. Stuff with labels I may try to sell, stuff without I'll probably donate. I'm ridiculously excited about this... It's part of my decluttering effort, which is moving glacially slowly. But, it's moving.

This morning, I went to make myself a blended salad, which usually looks like a smoothie from the raspberries and strawberries in it. But I forgot, conveniently, that I am not supposed to be eating any seeds, which raspberries and strawberries have in spades. So I think I pulled the majority of them out, but who knows?

Anyways, the result was that my blended salad was light green in color—not something I want to take out in public with me. I need to find some way to color and flavor these now that I can't eat berries temporarily. I wonder how wildly expensive berry juices are?

+++
My sweetie is losing a lot of weight, and lately, his blood sugar has been in the ideal range. This is exciting stuff. I've been seeing other signs of him being in better health as well.

Me, if I'm losing, it's going very very slowly. Very not dramatic. But I'm interested in trying to improve my own health as well.

I'm eating almost vegan at home. The almost is the occasional package of ramen and putting butter blend on my slices of homemade bread. I'm still eating a couple meals out a week, and eating whatever I want when I do.

I've been wearing the pedometer religiously, but not so good about getting 10,000 steps in a day. Today I will make it. I will! Yesterday I danced while washing dishes and baking bread but I still came in with a lousy step count. Grumble.

++++
The biggest news in my kitchen has been baking almost no-knead bread. The hype is true -- it's easy, and it's tasty.

I've been using the Cooks Illustrated recipe, which includes some vinegar and beer for flavor. I started with the all-white flour loaf, which was really a bread I'd be happy to buy. Yesterday, I made the whole wheat loaf, which was even better.

The way this stuff works is:
one, dump all your ingredients in a bowl. Stir with a spatula to combine. This may take all of five minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place for 8-18 hours.
two, roll your sticky dough out onto a floured surface and give it about 10 to 15 kneads. Plop it on a sprayed sheet of parchment and let sit for 2 hours.
three, about an hour and a half later, put your dutch oven and lid in the oven and let it heat up at 500 degrees.
four, when it's time to bake the bread, just transfer the dough on parchment to the dutch oven, leaving the parchment beneath. If you like something on the crust, add it now, and take a sharp knife and cut the dough's top. Now, put on the lid and let bake at 425 for a half hour.
five, take off the lid, put in the temp probe, and give it 15-20 more minutes, until the outside of the bread is a deep brown, and the inside is 210 degrees. Let the bread cool on a rack, and leave the house for 2 hours.
six, come back and enjoy. Your house will smell good and everything tastes better with with fresh bread.

I have never been able to bake bread outside of a bread machine, so having made two perfect loaves in two weeks just makes me feel like I've worked some kind of magic.

We moseyed through downtown and the PSU campus to 12th & College, climbing the first hill over the freeway. There at 12th & College is a public staircase, one of many in Portland. A couple of guys in much better shape than us mentioned that it had 179 steps. Luckily for us, there were landings perhaps every 50 steps or so.

The staircase was so step that I couldn't look down towards the city from the landings -- and I'm not usually scared of heights.

It was a great walk. Once we were up the stairs, we were on Cardinell, and we walked back down the hill and back into the city. Just like that.

4 small yukon gold potatoes
2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4-inch dice
2 celery ribs, cut into 1/4-inch dice
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1/4 medium onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound lentilles du Puy (French green lentils), picked over and rinsed (about 2 cups)
8 cups weak veggie broth

Peel potatoes and cut into 1/4-inch dice. In a 5- to 6-quart heavy kettle cook potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, and onion in butter over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until onion is softened, about 4 minutes. Add lentils, broth, and salt and pepper to taste and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes, or until vegetables are tender and soup is thickened. Serve soup garnished with parsley.

I was really pleased with how this turned out. It's very basic, mid-western if you will, but really yummy.

This week has been a mixed bag exercise-wise. I've worn the pedometer every day and only made it to about 8200 steps each day. 'Course, I haven't calibrated the pedometer, but to me that's now the point.

I did ride my bike one day. Riding into work was glorious. Riding home was a chore. I need to figure out what tools I need to adjust the seat and handlebars.

I went to the Portland Knitters Guild meeting last night. Great group. I'm looking forward to going back.

There is something just delightful about buying food that's good for you. It's so damn virtuous. Of course, it would be more virtuous if I had a pot of bean soup on the stove right now, but one battle at a time.

I ordered two new pedometers for myself and my sweetie -- those arrived today. Tomorrow, our giant copy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food (2000 recipes!) and Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs. Our ducks are getting ready to line up.

Yesterday I went out with K & R to the Oregon Coast. It was a typical winter day, ie, grey, rainy, icky. We got all soaked through, and then drove to Seaside and did it again. By the time we hit the road to come back to town, the rain had turned to snow, and the mountains passes became icky, and then, near Elsie, all traffic ground to a complete and total stop. And stayed at a stop for well over an hour.

The snow was gorgeous, outlining the tiny limbs on the giant trees, but boy it was making a mess of the roads.

We made it back to town without incident, but not without noticing that all of the vehicles that had spun out and spun off the road were 4 by 4s.

Tonight, we had a soup based on a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis,
Hearty Tomato Soup with Lemon and Rosemary

When I was ETLing, I really hated tomatoes, and I know why now. One, I was eating them unsalted, and well, they're sweeter with a little salt. Also, they do need some sugar, and carrots work great for that.

I haven't made a lot of changes to the version we made beyond veganizing (olive oil rather than butter, veg broth rather than chicken, and ix nay on the creme fraiche) and pureeing the onion and 1.5 of the carrots.

We both liked the soup a lot but I think it could be improved by adding more garlic and more beans (what isn't improved by more garlic or beans, I ask you), and I think garnishing the soup with a smidge of lemon olive oil might be nice.

Hearty Tomato Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, pureed
2 carrots, most pureed, the rest sliced thin
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 15-ounce can cannellini (white) beans, drained and rinsed
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
3 cups veggie broth
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of fresh rosemary, plus 1 teaspoon, minced
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Zest of one lemon, minced

In a large soup pot, melt the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrots, and garlic and cook until tender, about 4 minutes. Add the beans, tomatoes, broth, bay leaf, 1 teaspoon rosemary, and red pepper flakes. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, covered. Season with salt and pepper.

To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and dollop each bowl with the minced lemon zest and rosemary. Serve immediately.

I'm going to doctor the leftovers up, and I'll report back here on what worked (and didn't).

Happy New Years!

POSTSCRIPT
On reheating, we added another 15oz can of cannellini... and on serving, I added a couple drops of Lemon-Olive Oil. The result was like a cannellini stew, and I love the splash of brightness the lemon oil gives. I give this a big thumbs up.

Likewise, I'm not entirely sure when I started my own online journal, called chezxx diary, but I'm guessing it was probably 1997. It seemed like there was a large community of journalers. That's funny when you think about it; there were maybe 100 or 200 nationwide who were journalling, compared to the gazillions of blogs out there now.

One of the first journalers I met in real life, and the few I kept in good touch with, was Anita Rowland. Anita started journalling in 1997, and just about everyone who journalled or blogged in the early days has a story about how encouraging she was, how positive, how generous.

Unlike a lot of us who journalled, Anita was not shy. She was outgoing, and she really wanted to share: community, resources, information.

I wasn't close to Anita, but we read each others journals, and would see each other a couple of times a year. I was lucky enough to have her stay with me twice or three times when she was down for a swing dancing event, and she was such a lovely guest. I didn't think anything about it at the time; that was just Anita, you know?

She even seemed amused when the cops pulled her over a block away from my house when she had forgotten which house I lived in. Unlike many of friends, she didn't seem afraid of my neighborhood, or think that my house sucked, and if she thought the house was dirty, she sure didn't let on in any way.

Getting to hang out with Anita was such a pleasure. I once went to a very small SciFi convention on her recommendation, and I felt totally taken care of. She'd introduce me around, and let me know that sessions that would be really good.

Sadly, when I stopped journalling, I lost touch with Anita. But when I came back in 2004, Anita found me again, and we began leaving each other comments. Soon, she was in my flickr feed, and more recently, my twitter feed.

Her twits and posts have been coming less frequently, and I've been a bit worried about her. I knew that she had been fighting ovarian cancer off and on since 2003, and I knew her prognosis wasn't good. Last friday, I checked her twitters and her blog, and I tried to find the link to her husband's blog (but couldn't).

On Monday, I was chatting with my boss when I remembered her stories of the Santa Rampage, and I told him about it, and her. She died less than an hour later in a Seattle hospital.

Jack Bell (her husband) has posted a beautiful memorial to her, and if you knew her, or were touched by her, leave him a comment.

My sweetie and I transferred my battery-powered lights from one of the townies to the Oma last weekend, and I was looking so very forward to riding my bike. Then I got slammed with the flu, and bike-commuting, as well as leaving the house or getting out of my jammies, was not an option.

But this morning, I had a wonderful, life-affirming ride into work. I learned that my hub-generated back light works, but not my front (Todd, I know I opened it by mistake, and I hope you can wave your magic wand and make it right again).

I woke up at 3:30 and was wide awake. So I got up. Within about a half hour, sweetie was up too. By 5am, we were talking about breakfast. So we went driving around looking for a place to get breakfast. I figured that Hot Cake House would be open (wrong), so after touring much of North and NE Portland, we ended up at My Father's Place when they opened at 6. We sat and read the ad circulars and then ate some underwhelming breakfast -- all in all, it was great.

Then we got home and went back to bed. I've been up for a couple hours now and we've putzed around. I've been doing some light cleaning along with some internet surfing; sweetie has given birdy its first bath and been doing some internet surfing. Right now I feel more relaxed than I can remember feeling in quite a while.

We have no commitments today. We do have some food to cook, but none of the crazy over-achiever stuff that usually marks my holidays (though honestly, I love the overachieving cooking). Food will get cooked when it's time. I'm hoping to do a fair amount of knitting and cleaning, and to haul the Omabike into the living room where I can work on it in the comfort of a heated, well lit space.

***
Since the time changed, I've haven't been riding my bike. Mostly, it's been about simple logistics -- I don't know how to turn on my generator powered lights. It's probably really simple, but I just haven't figured it out.

Yesterday, we were going to have a short day at work, and I realized as I was getting ready that I could ride my bike if I want. Suddenly, I was flooded with irrational happiness, and even though I had a huge deadline to meet at work, I couldn't get the grin off my face.

So I go out to the shed, and check the tires. One is soft; one is all but flat. Ugh. So I get out the pump and I get the front tire, with its schrader valve, right about right. Then I go to the back tire, with its non-schrader valve, and immediate let all the rest of the air out. And I can't seem to get any air in.

This just about reduces me to tears. I thought about riding one of the townies, but I was having a temper tantrum in my mind. I wanted to ride the Oma. Damn it!

So I got to work and was just obsessed with the issue. I thought the valve was a presta, so I looked that up and read all the stuff about it online and just felt like crying again. Damn it, I had tried filling the tube the way they described.

I finally got to work on my deadline and that made me a bit more serene.

After work, I stopped at my bike shop, Clever Cycles. I hadn't been in the shop since they had expanded onto Hawthorne, and it is gorgeous. The front room is full of gorgeous natural fiber clothing for bicycling -- no spandex, indeed nothing sillily jocky -- and bike bags and baskets (this doesn't show all of what they have from Basil, but it will give you an idea. They also carry some other lines of bags). The back room is still citybikes and bakfiets and folders, and other beautiful accessories for your bike, like beautiful handmade bakfiets cushions.

I have a real bag/purse problem. I love a nice reasonably priced purse, and when I got serious about incorporating bicycling into more of my life, I got really annoyed by how ugly the pannier bags are, and how tiny the baskets are. If I have one of my Queen Bee satchels (eg what they call their Trucker bags), it won't fit into my basket.

Of course, what can you do? I have an ugly double pannier which annoys me everytime I look at it.

Anyways, Clever Cycles has beautiful wire and wicker baskets. They have gorgeous panniers in so many colors. And they have purses that work as a single pannier. I of course bought one (it was cheap, cheap, I tell you), and I am most likely going to go in and buy another, as well as a large wire basket on Friday.

I told my tale of presta valve woe to Dean, one of the owners, and Todd ran over and brought me a Woods Pump Connection Schrader Adaptor, which I can just screw on and pump the tire as per usual. Who knew: the valve was actually a Woods, so following the Presta directions would have just resulted in more frustration.

Then, I ran over to the scooter shop and picked up my scooter. Yay!!

Anyways, lazy day ahead. Yay!!

About 6 weeks ago, I innocently upgraded the software that runs this and my other blogs, and whoops, managed immediately to break commenting and search functions. This still isn't entirely fixed right now, though as far as I'm aware, the problems remain in the big "daily" blog.

When I had done the upgrade, I had about 40 indexes and probably around 100 categories. At this point, I'm down to 20 indexes and probably around 75-80 categories. This stuff is so amazingly time-consuming, you would not believe.

I've also been clutterbusting, thinning out clothing, redoing my tiny closet so only clothes that fit are in it, redoing my drawers so they are organized, and generally trying to make home a better place to hang out.

I am still bike commuting some, though not as much as I'd like. I need to address lighting on the new bike, and figure out how to quickly turn that off and on.

The rest of the commutes, I'm on the bus, and I've been trying to add more walking to the bus commute.

The weird thing, and unpleasant, is that I feel really really out of shape. The bike ride home is still arduous, and isn't getting any easier. I feel completely winded from walking a couple of blocks, or climbing a flight of stairs. I don't like this a bit, and I don't know what's going on, because I'm still being fairly active. Oh well, I'm keeping on keeping on.

Anyways, you've slogged through this boooooring entry, I must reward you. You will enjoy this, and then it will be stuck in your head, and you can blame ME! Mwah-haha-ha-haha-ha!

So I excitedly check out There’s more to it than recycling, and there's nothing about cats. Damn it.

Here at Athenaville, we have three indoor-only cats, four catboxes and damn, a lot of issues around cat littler. The stuff doesn't biodegrade!

I'd really like an alternative that doesn't involve letting the cats outside. We have one cat who leaves editorial statements about the litter when it doesn't meet her high standards. So when I think of feline pine or other products like that, I fear for how many editorials I'll have to endure.

I did learn recently, however, that Charles Mingus -- who wrote a book on cat toilet training, called the Charles Mingus CAT-alog for Toilet Training Your Cat -- shredded his own newspaper for cat litter.

Dear g-ds, what did our grandparents use? (Oh yeah, they prolly didn't have cats in the house)

Right now I'm not riding my bike and it's driving me nuts. About three weeks ago now, I was riding the Oma to meet up with Sweetie for dinner, and I was thinking about dinner and not about the road surface, or the fact that there were old rails set into the road. You know what happened next. I managed to bruise, well, just about all of me.

At this point, my calf and foot are still swollen, but the calf is looking less and less purple as it drains into my foot :). The knee was very tender for awhile, but it seems to be getting better.

Unfortunately, this summer, I've had a few cases of heat stress (or quite possibly, heat exhaustion), so I don't dare ride when the temps are going to be scorching. So this means that I haven't been getting my favorite part of the working day in, which wears on me too.

Jeff asks about the scooter: I still have my blue Kymco Grand Vista 250, and I still love it, though I'll love it more once I get the right-side mirror replaced and my speedometer fixed. Someone backed into my scoot when it was parked maybe a month ago or 5 weeks, and so while I have the insurance settlement, I'm still waiting on the parts to come into the shop.

And to be honest, I haven't been riding that so much either, since hitting any sort of bump made my knee (the one with a bit, ahem, of road rash from the other day) really hurt. I actually had to drive my car the other day, and you know how I feel about that. The poor thing is 15 years old, and only the dirt is holding it together.

So anyways, I'm hoping that the heat will let up and my knee will heal and my life can go back to how it was when I was a carefree two-wheeler 24/7. Because otherwise, this is bumming me out.

On the knitting front, I am close to the end of the Summer Shawlette. Or at least, I'm close to the end of the ball of cashmere, so I'll have to switch out to Sea Silk. Oh, sadness. I'm loving it, it's gorgeous, and I'll be very sad when it's over. I just started to read Yarn Harlot: the secret life of a knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and it's just the shot of hilarity that I'm needing right now.