Last night I made the Berry-Oatmeal bars from the newest Cooking Light magazine. I used Trader Joe's mixed berries instead of cherries and regualar oats instead of quick-oats. They were yummy and gone in 24 hours. I took them to work and they were enjoyed.

Here are the wooly baby pants I knit. I've given them to my pregnant knitting friend Suzanne. I love how the color makes them seem old-fashioned. They are quite timeless and simple. I hope they fit and are enjoyed at some point. They were fun to make. It took a bit less than one skein of Cascade 220.

I haven't posted about the chickens lately. This photo is a week old. The ladies are now smart enough to head up their ladder every night and sleep in their house. They seem to like to all pile up right in the doorway though, so we figure, if they really were cold, they'd get away from the door. They seem pretty happy, I gave them a bunch of carrot tops.
Speaking of carrots, I harvested some from the garden, they are till pretty stubby, they are a pain to wash up. I seem to like to grow things better than to take care to eat them. I grew a bunch of flat leaf parsley this summer with the intention of making chimichurri, but still haven't gotten around to it.

This past weekend we went sailing. It was pretty chilly, but once we got the right clothes on, it was perfect. Especially with the blue skies.

We ended the weekend with a super hot sauna and I slept great.

I've finished a pair of baby longies. They are really cute, but I'm just not sure if I made them long enough since the pattern (link on Ravelry) is made for someone who has a baby.

I make a second loaf of the bread from the starter I have. It had a very nice texture. I think it could use a bit more flavor, I think the next loaf will get a sprinkle of kosher salt as I shape it. This one was baked on an aluminum pizza pan with cornmeal on the bottom. The last one was on parchment paper. As is sat to rise, the parchment got damp, but I don't this it affected the end result.

The bread turned out well, we'll taste it tonight. It's not a 5 minute process of course, I think in order to eat it with dinner, you have to get it going at least 2 hours prior, still it's only 5 min of work practically. It's just time management is important to getting it to work out. But that is doable, if I were to be home at 4PM. It also could be cooked if I got up a bit earlier in the morning. There was a casualty in the process. I don't have my baking stone yet, so I decided to use my ceramic lasagna pan. It way have offered the properties of the stone to the baking process, but halfway through cooking, the pan split in two. It was a good pan, being super easy to clean after lasagna. But now I have an excuse to someday get the blue Le Creuset pan to match my other kitchen pieces. I've wanted a deeper lasagna pan anyway.
This one was "olive bread" - I added kalamata olives to it. The bread is more of a simple white so the olived don't go seamlessly with the taste, but it worked.

Finally a finished project! This one was started in December 2005. I knit them while I was in Australia, then screwed up on the flight home and took a VERY long break. Mom's birthday approached this year and I finished them in time! I doubt I wil knit another pair of stranded socks like this for a very long time. Right now, simple projects are on my radar.

I've started by bread sponge tonight. I got the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and am going to see if it's going to work for me. We don't eat a lot of bread, but I like baking and the smell of cooking bread, so I might end up giving loafs away at work too. I am also waiting for my baking stone to arrive. I realized today that my wedding gift order from August was cancelled (they didn't tell me) and had to be re-vived. Darn Macy's!

Whole Foods coupon $5 off a $25 purchase. Expires 10/22/08.

What did you do tonight?

We realized that Stella has fleas and she got to get her first bath! Let's hope her skin heals up from all the bites. I wish I had realized what her scabby back was all about. Maybe I have a problem with denial sometimes. She did really great during the bath. Lots of sad meows, but not too much struggling. This was never a problem before, but since February, she's been using the cat-door to go outside to the yard and I guess it was bound to happen.

I've been all into sock knitting again. The smooth tiny stockinette stitches of a simple sock. Perfect for zoning out.

I got a new sock yarn from Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs. I am looking forward to trying it on a sock pattern I've had queued up on Ravelry, Master Coriolis. I want to use all the yarn up, so toe up is ideal for this.