Like White on Rice

Hello Dear Readers,

This weekend was the first one in a while where I didn't have to work either day at the sewing shop.  Instead, I made a long time dream of mine into a reality, painting the hallways and living room!!

We spent Saturday taping copies of the trashy paper Metro all along the base boards, washing the walls with sugar soap and painting the edges and trim with a brush.

Saturday came the fun part of actually laying on the white, acrylic paint.  Gone are the tire marks, gone are the weird scratches in the wall at hip height (?) gone are the randomly placed hooks and most of the nasty water stain from that leak.......

Yup, it was a true team effort as Chris, Patrick, Calvin and I all pitched in at varying stages and abilities.  There was a two for one sale at the B&Q (Home Depot for my American readers) so we have 20 liters of paint, enough probably to do the kitchen, bathroom and office as well, maybe even a little bit of our room.   That will have to wait a while because I think we are all painted out right now, but how wonderful it looks!

Friday night I went with some girlfriends from knitting and Chris and my brother to see the opening of Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the museum.   It is totally worth a go, and I know I'm going back a few more times on my lunch break, some of them you can hardly believe are real.

On the bus ride back I finished up this cheeky monkey, a pattern I got for free when at Michaels picking up some much needed ribbon for Cat's wedding.  I'm going to visit my good friends Molly and George this Friday-Sunday and I thought this would be a good gift for their baby Katelyn.

Here he is admiring the whiter than white wall near my brother's room - I think I'll go on the stairs now, sniff paint fumes and admire the snowy whiteness.....

More from Cambridge next weekend!

Cheerio!

Cat Lindon Got Married..... and I helped!

Hello Dear Readers!

Greetings from London!  The flight back was ok, I managed to rest my eyes a bit before landing, hopping in a cab, dumping my stuff and cycling to work!  I also am working at the sewing shop all weekend so there is no rest for the wicked.

Speaking of work, here is a picture of the sweat shop my sister was operating before the wedding.  Here we are assembling boxes, cutting paper to put in them, filling them with wedding M&M's and tieing them up with ribbon!  Well, SOME of us did, Patrick is dj'ing in the back there.  What did we do before Spotify?

It was all worth it though, the wedding was splendid, and Cat and I were knock outs!

There was lots of food, dancing and general merry making (open bar!).  Cat and Jeff make a lovely couple, don't you think!

I also had a great time hanging out with both sides of my family (The Baums on my mother's side and my dad's brother and sister and their families).  There was also a girl there who was a friend of the girlfriend of a friend of the best man (got it?).  Turns out though, she works for the company who has the contract my dad's company is taking over, though she didn't know that the Cat of Cat and Jeff's wedding that she was going to was Cat Lindon.  She sees him every Wednesday, apparently, small world!

My aunt gave me a splendid quilt in blues and purples which is currently gracing my bed as it gets chillier in London, though still unreasonably warm.  In exchange I gave her this lovely Ice Queen I made out of the lilac cashmere my friend Lucy brought back from China.

Just her color too!  You can see my Greek flashcards just under her elbow on the left, didn't have too much time for knitting and studying but I wasn't too far behind when I went to class Thursday night, so I seem to have made out ok.  We also took a family trip to Walden pond, one of my favorite spots in Mass.  Sigh, so hard to come back, but nice to be home.

Off to relax with Chris, we hardly go to see each other this busy week!

Cheers!

Somebody's Getting Married!

Hello Dear Readers!


Greetings from Boston!  I'm here for my big sister's wedding which was this past Sunday. I'll do a bit of a bigger post on it when I get home and download my own pictures, but here is a sneak preview of the big day:

Me and the Best Man Eli (pronounced L E, as in Elliot) walking down the aisle

Cat and Jeff, just after the ceremony, she's so happy!!

And of course, obligatory photo of my dad, boyfriend, and brothers acting stupid......

It was a great day, we had amazing non-October weather well into the high 20's, full sun and not a cloud in the sky. The whole thing ended with Jeff grabbing the mike and leading us all to sing along to Life is a Highway. 

Revenge of Mothra

Hello Dear Readers,
Well I had a pretty nice reverse staycation (went to work, but stayed in a different place) at my friend's place in Ealing. It's quite a bit different than Putney, more of a little town feeling in some ways. There is a lovely park with an old house that used to be Sir John Sloane's country house. It also has a nice mall and a good little organic grocery store. We also discovered a Cypriot restaurant with a lot of, shall we call it character? Big portions and bigger personalities on the owners/staff. It is certainly a place I'd visit again on a nice Saturday or Sunday for shopping and general wandering about. The kitties were good too, but a bit insistent in the mornings with their meowing. I really enjoyed having my own space for two weeks, listening to BBC radio 4 in the mornings with breakfast, enjoying Lucy's vast collection of teapots and catching up on knitting and tv watching. Yesterday we had an amazing event at the Natural History Museum, it was a "Science Uncovered" Friday night, with bars, jars, and life on mars at the theme.

There were scientists on soap boxes talking about controversial subjects, a science bar where you could have a drink and a chat with a "real scientist", and plenty of tables set up by different departments to talk to the public about what they do. There were also a bunch of tours, and I gave 3 of the area where I work, the Cryptogamic herbairum. It was so much fun, I was hyped up all night with excitement, though I crashed and burned when I finally got home (to Putney for the first time in two weeks).

Here are some photos of me taken by Chris who came on the last tour. I had a good time, and people were asking a lot of questions which is usually a sign they were engaged and enjoyed it. Hopefully I'm around next year to do the same thing!

I spent the rest of the weekend working on various projects that were percolating in my brain while I was away. One was to do more spinning, mix it up a bit, but unfortunately I found this little guy in a stash of fiber. AHHHHH, MOTH!! Certainly that's a four letter word in this house. I popped the offending wool in the freezer, and I think it's just isolated to this one section of un-spun wool since it was open, in my room and probably smelled irresistible to the moths since it still has some lanolin. Oh well, at least it's still spin-able, though I'm going to start organizing my other stash into zip lock bags.... I did tons of other knitting, and got some amazing yarn from my friend who I was cat sitting for, but I'll save that for next weekend's post as it's already Monday.

Cheerio!

Same old Same old

Hello Dear Readers,

Not too much going on here across the pond, we had a "Bank Holiday" weekend last weekend (Monday off) and due to some pain in my arm caused by working on the computer in an anxious fashion, I spent most of the weekend working my way through Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5...... I was so sore I didn't even knit all weekend (except for about 30 min with my toes, I just needed a little fix) and I didn't do any typing or computer work (hence no blog). I'm all better this week, I think I just needed severe rest and a few yoga classes to work it out.

I had finished a lot of knitting projects a few weeks ago, but didn't get a chance to photograph them until today.
I've also been helping my sister out with some wedding stuff (like which M&M's I liked best for the favors), and whipped up this little bolero to go over my smoking hot bridesmaid's dress should it turn chilly. I also have a more substantial sweater if the weather is really bad, or it may be balmy and hot, who knows?
Yesterday morning Patsquash and some friends cycled down to Brighton (55 miles, or 75 if you can't read a map). I got up at 6am to make them some banana muffins, used up the last of my imported from the USA Bisquick to make pancakes, fresh squeezed orange juice, the works. It's so nice to cook for a bunch of athletes who will eat just about anything, and lots of it! Here they are trying to figure out how to use the new bike pump.......who needs an instruction manual?

I also went to a Crafternoon with some friends from my Tuesday knitting group in Hammersmith. They are an amazing and diverse group of ladies, I'm so lucky to have found them, and so soon after I got here! Before some of you get too excited, the guys aren't knitters, they are just SO's along for the good conversation and to hold on to yarn hanks for winding. Tom and Lucy are in the back, winding some yarn, they are headed to China next week and Chris and I are cat sitting for them. I told Lucy, "You had me at one bedroom apartment!" It will be a nice stay-cation for Chris and I and give us a chance to explore a slightly different part of London, as well as pretend that we have our own place for a while. I plan on listening to loud music and leaving dishes in the sink overnight, heaven!!

Germany trip, part zwei.

Hello Dear Readers,

Finally all recovered from that cold I picked up on my trip, though it was a long slog. I felt well enough to jog into work yesterday to pick up my bike (I bussed it home Friday) and it felt really good to be up and active again.

When we last left our intrepid travelers, we were in the charming city of Rotenburg, home of a huge number of Christmas stores and specializing in large chunks of sizzling ham served in frying pans...... after gorging ourselves on these specialties, we soldiered on to the charming forest town of Freiburg. This was a true road trip, about 5 hours in the car, me resting for the first half, then enjoying a joyride down the Autobahn! God it felt good to be behind the wheel again, although having Reverse in the wrong place on the gear shift made for some interesting driving, and I may have whipped a doughnut the wrong way in a city traffic circle...... .
If you don't know what that means, you probably live somewhere where whipping doughnuts is either not feasible, illegal or both. I think it's a rural thing.......except apparently in Freiburg. We got in late and tired, so just had a brief jaunt around the place scouting for food and a large Munster. I'm sure we found it, but it's hard to describe, except for large, dark and gothic. We collapsed into bed to prepare for a day of hiking.
We took a stunning gondola ride up and up and up and up into the mountain. It was Chris's first time on a gondola and he was so excited, it made the whole thing worth it. At the chilly top we took a few moments for hot chocolate and Black Forest Chocolate Cake or Schwartzwalder Kirschkuchen. MMMMMM getting all that energy for the hike down.
It started out cold and overcast, but the views were stunning, huge trees, well maintained trails, and thank's to Amy's finely honed map and trail reading skills we didn't even get lost, and made it all the way to the bottom, sore but happy.

After such a big day of hiking, we were ready to head to another impossibly quaint and gorgous town in Bavaria, Treiburg, home of the famous black forest cuckoo clocks. It is also famous for being home to one of the largest waterfalls in Germany, even visited by Hemmingway.
Some kind tourists took our photo at the falls, it was such a great trip, the conversation and company were second to none. I forget how much being around Skippies makes me laugh, it's such good exercise for my abs and my soul I'm sure! See, we are laughing here, thinking about fanny packs, whipping doughnuts and milkshakes.........
I even got in one of my favorite hiking activities as we explored the falls, knitting hiking socks WHILE HIKING! These are my Tyrolean socks from Interweave 2007 (thanks for the magazine Jennifer!!). The Tyrolean region is in Austria, but hey, close enough! We walked around Treiburg enjoying the cuckoo clocks and wooden carvings, then drove up to see one of the two world's largest cuckoo clocks. We got there just after 1, so had to wait 3o min for it to go off but it was pretty neat.
Not the right time, but hey, you can't have everything in a giant cuckoo clock you can live in!

Yeah, now after all that I just have one question to ask myself. Great European vacation? or Greatest European Vacation!! I miss you already Amy, hope you are having a good hike in CA, and you arn't suffering too much from the cold I may have given you.....

Germany

Hello Dear Readers,

Well what a whirlwind trip I had! There is so much to tell I'm going to break it into multiple posts. Friday Chris and I trekked up north to the London Stanstead airport. We got a flight to Frankfort and drove a rental (an Opal!) to Heidelberg where my friend Amy was just finishing up attending a conference. The next day we drove the mostly scenic route, with some autobahn driving to Wurtzburg, my old home town!

The first and most important stop on the trip for me was to see my old house (above). The grounds had changed a bit, but I still recognized the old playground and the street. Thanks to Amy's intrepid-ness we went into my old building which was being renovated. They had added a few walls and redecorated, but my old room was still there with the same window and ancient radiator. It was very nostalgic, and I could probably have hung out there all day, but we pressed on to enjoy the beautiful city.


Old buildings, churches and palaces, and Wurtzburg isn't even that big of a town! We explored the markplatz on the first day and the next we hiked up to the Marionburg castle (in the background above), with a lovely winding descent into the vineyards. We ate lunch at the most exquisite and quaint wine house in the world, and headed up to Rothenburg, midevial quaint walled tourist town.

I remembered traveling there as a kid, and especially remember the neat clock building (the salmon colored one here) that has two windows that open showing a gentleman and a man drinking beer when the clock chimes. The other big memory I have of the town is the amazing Kathe Woflheart christmas shop.
And the medieval wall upon which you can walk around the entire old city.
It was so scenic, so picturesque, and so peaceful. I felt a real sense of familiarity with things and places, the items for sale at the shops that were so much a part of my childhood, like the ubiquitous wooden Christmas pyramids and cuckoo clocks. I could imagine my parents there 25 years ago, playing the tourist just as I was and buying those things that I would later grow up with and take for granted. It was a great pleasure to see them in their natural habitat, though I probably won't have a home of my own to populated with such things for many years to come.

We finished off most evenings with hearty German meals (I for one am glad to be back in the land of fiber, but it was nice to take a dietary vacation too.) I sampled local wines and Chris tried to do a beer and meat tour, not too difficult considering that's mostly what was on offer!

Giant hunks of meat served all on their own seems to be a restaurant staple there. And the beer, always the beer.

Next week, Freiburg, Triburg, and my nasty chest cold that knocked me down, but I still kept on trucking through my beloved Germany!