Jacquie's Journal

Bits and Bobs

The deck is coming along very well.  Yesterday we bought the surface boards and finished screwing together the frame.  I will post pictures when all the foundation is hidden and there are just the nice bits on show.  Next we intend to do some railings and build a pergola on top.  We will plant nice stuff round it.  I am thinking things that smell really nice, like honeysuckle or Jasmine (or will that attract too many stingy and bitey things) and maybe a grape vine on the pergola.  Because it gets so cold in the winter and dry in the summer one has to be careful what one chooses to plant.

Edward will be back from Scout camp tomorrow.  He called yesterday and said he was having a good time.  He is Senior Patrol Leader so he gets to make all the big decisions and boss everyone around.  Let's hope he is doing it in a nice way!  When he gets home the first thing I am sure he will need is a long hot shower.  Apart from an inbuilt aversion to hot water, the bathing facitlities at camp leave a lot to be desired.  Then he will no doubt want to catch up on the computer games and TV he has been deprived of all week.  I am looking forward to having him home!

On the knitting front, I am knitting another secret project so can't say much about it.  I have already changed my mind about the pattern because the first one, although lovely, did not showcase the yarn at it's best.

I need to do an extra row of crochet around my Vogue to stop the armholes and collar from rolling, then I will model it by popular request.  I think I will make that a project for this evening.

My poor Lotus Blossom Tank is not being worked on at all.  I am a bit scared about it now after all the problems others are having (see the Knitalong) with gauge and sizing.

I have signed up for a Secret Summer Santa on the Angel Yarns forum, which should be fun. 

I am also sewing another secret project that is coming along well, if a little slowly - the recipient is around too much for me to work on it for very long at a time, but it has to be done soon.

Diet-wise, I am not doing too badly.  I have lost 3lbs so far, and have not eaten any chocolate or had any syrupy coffees, or cakes in nearly two weeks, and haven't even really missed them.  Holly, my diet-buddy, was on vacation this week so we had a sub for Power Bar and couldn't compare notes.  This evening we did eat out but we just had very simply cooked halibut, salad, and a small portion of ice cream.  My biggest sin was a glass of very nice New Zealand Cabernet Sauvignon.  It reminded me of Elderflower Presse that we used to enjoy in England but haven't seen here.  I have been to water aerobics twice and power bar twice so far this week.

The Deckalogue

Gary has had this week off, while Edward is away at Scout camp.  We were going to go away but decided it would be irresponsible in case there was a problem and he needed us.  So we decided to build a pergola (this post was going to be called "Pergatory") on the new bit of garden.  On Monday we went to Home Depot and bought stuff to make said pergola, but when we looked again at where we thought it should go with the bits of wood in place we decided the site wasn't suitable after all and decided to build a deck instead in a completely different part of the yard - a bare bit that is crying out for some kind of attention and where we can sit and admire the view with the enormous metal pole they put up last year (don't get us started on that) obscured by a much prettier tree.

We have never built a deck before.  We are great at planning stuff but not good at execution.  Two days in and we are still basically planning.  We have had books out of the library, looked it up on the Internet, visited Home Depot, and sat in Barnes and Noble with pencil and paper.  (BTW our library books set off the sensors at B&N on the way in, so when I was at the checkout, buying Simply Knitting - the one with the knitting bag - I warned the cashier that we would be setting them off again on our way out - I think I have discovered a new way of getting away with shoplifting.)

It all seems way too complicated, just getting everything level and square to start with.  When frost heave, building codes, cutting wood accurately, and digging holes in our tree root infested ground is thrown into the mix it just seems completely impossible.  In the end we settled for a floating deck foundation design on specially designed concrete piers that positively discourages any digging and is not of any interest to local inspectors, and today we will really start for real.

In the meantime here are the 10 commandments for deck building, or the Deckalogue:

1)Lowes!  Thou shalt have no other gods (except maybe Home Depot).  The 0% interest and no payments til January plan shall see to that

2)Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain, but words for bodily functions and parts are OK and sometimes very necessary.

3)Thou shalt observe the sabbath, by visiting the temples of Lowes and Home Depot

4)Honour thy father and mother and wonder why DH did not inherit even one of his Dad's handy genes (he could whip up a whole Italian garden with pergola and pond from a couple of railway sleepers and a few bricks he found in a skip).

5)Thou shalt not kill, however frustrating it gets when DH just won't stop with the displacement activities.  Screaming and shouting like a banshee and fishmonger's wife combined, followed by vigorous sulking doesn't really do it either.

6)Thou shalt not commit adultery, even when the guy next door has a magnificent deck (that's deck)  and is perfectly willing to trade skills.

7) Thou shalt not steal even when thou only needs a wheelbarrow full of gravel and the council have conveniently left a big heap of it just down the road.

8) Thou shalt not proceed without the proper permits and thou shalt work to the current building codes or thy neighbour might tell on thee.

9) Thy shalt not covet thy neighbour's husband, however good a handyman he is.

10) Thou shalt not desire thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or his deck.

Happy Birthday Mia!

Happy Birthday Mia!  Five years old today!  It just doesn't seem possible that all that time has gone by since we welcomed you into the world.  I hope you have a lovely day! 

This is Mia's Ambigram cushion cover and Secret Project Number 5.

It was great fun picking out little girl fabrics, much less challenging than teenage boy ones, I have to say.  That's not because little girls are any less discerning, just that there was more choice in the quilting store.  I hope Mia likes it.

Edward and I went to see The Lakehouse yesterday.  The time thing totally did not make sense, but then it couldn't be real anyway.  I enjoyed it - it fitted my good movie criteria.  Only a one hanky movie.  It was in a theatre with reserved seating which was nice as we didn't have to rush to get there early.  Looking forward to Pirates of the Caribbean Dead man's chest and Superman Returns.  Scoop could be quite interesting too.

Cosmic Ordering

My sister told me about Cosmic Ordering so I thought I would give it a try.  I placed my order on this form on Tuesday.

One of my items was that I will lose 20lbs by the end of the summer.

On Wednesday we went to our Power Bar class.  We have a new teacher, Holly, and Gary and I were the only two in the class.  Halfway through the class Holly suddenly, and out of the blue said, "I am going to lose 20lbs this summer".  I went all spluttery midway through a plie squat and said "So am I!"  So we are going to support each other and compare notes each week. 

It looks like it works! 

I will report my progress here too, but I am not going into detail like I did before.  I have not had any chocolate, syrupy coffee, or cakes this week and I have lost 2lbs so far.  I have been trying to drink more water and not eat within 3 hours of going to bed (a tip I picked up from Oprah's Boot Camp) which is when I ate chocolate almost exclusively anyway.

My goal is to lose 10lbs before we go away in July and then the rest by the end of August.

It seems so much easier to diet in the summer when eating salad and fruit is actually quite appealing.

I finished my Vogue top.  It has been washed and blocked and took an age to dry.

I am quite pleased with it.  I love the ribbing.   Here is a close up.

The collar seems quite big - I feel a bit like Elvis or the Wicked Step Mother in Snow White. And the sleeves are a bit rolly and gapey, but I think another row of crochet will sort that out OK. 

The Snuggle Sack

Here is Charlie's new Snuggle Sack .  It is a custom made quilted fleecy open ended sleeping bag with her name embroidered on it.

	First investigations
	Come and look in here
	Nice and cosy!

She likes it!

Secret Project Number 4 Revealed

Secret Project Number 4 was Matthew's ambigram cushion cover.

If you look carefully it says Matthew and if you turn it round it still says Matthew.  My sister's children have very 'ambigrammable' names!  It is done in red hand-dyed fabric with a hint of black, and the charcoal grey fabric with black dots on that I also used for Edward's cushion.  I debated whether to quilt the concentric circles that the M/W's are part of, but decided I would not be able to do them neatly enough so I didn't.  I enjoy patchwork and applique, but sadly quilting is not in my repertoire of skills.  Perhaps I should rename this category "Everything but Quilting" as there isn't actually any quilting in it.

Happy Fathers' Day

Happy Fathers' Day to everyone to whom it applies! Gary got some nice gifts from the kids, a hat, some white T-shirts for squash and working out, and a laser level - the only thing stopping him from building a deck/pergola/gazebo in the garden.

We did our traditional Sunday thing and went to the movies at lunch time.  We saw Nacho Libre with Jack Black from the creators of "Napoleon Dynamite".   It was hilarious, quite a few LOL moments, some "ouch!" moments, one or two "ewww!" moments and the odd "awww!" moment.  It was a "one hankie" movie, near the end when... well you'll see for yourself. 

We only just got to the cinema in time, but we got our favourite seats and got our lunch just in time for the beginning of the movie.

After the movie we went to play Frisbee golf at a local park.  Lucy and Edward went earlier in the week for the first time and said it was fun.  They even bought the proper frisbee golf discs and will only look more professional when they get the proper frisbee golf bags to put them in.  I was rubbish at it.   I throw like the very pinkest frilliest fluffiest girl.  Having to carry the water, bowl and poop bags for Charlie at the same time didn't help.  After the fourth hole Gary lost his frisbee - a 2004 England UEFA cup commemorative frisbee, I might add, that is probably worth a fortune, or may be one day - in the trees and we could not find it.  We decided then that it was really too hot and anyway Lucy needed to get back to go out, so we left.

Gary, Edward, and I went to Costco to get a few things and, as it was Father's day, we treated ourselves to their dipped ice cream bars.  At least two other couples got them too after seeing us with them - we should have been paid for promoting them so well. 

Gary booked flights to Orange County, California, this morning using our sky miles.  It's just Gary, Edward and I going.  Another plug for Costco - they are selling a package of six days worth of passes for Southern California parks - 3 days at Disneyland, 1 at Sea World, 1 at Universal Studios and 1 at either San Diego Zoo or San Diego Wild Animal Park all for $174 per person.  So we got some of those and now we just have to get a car and our accommodation sorted out and we'll be set.  I am looking forward to it

We will be finishing the day with a barbecue in the garden, and then we will watch Footballers' Wives.

I was bitten half to death by mosquitos today, please send anti-West Nile thoughts my way.

Summer TV

Nothing much been happening lately, so I will tell you what I will be watching on the telly for the next few weeks while we wait for all the good stuff (Lost, Desperate Housewives, House, Prison Break, Big Love, Grey's Anatomy etc) to come back

On BBC America there is a new (to US) series of Footballers' Wives (series three in which Tanya has a baby).  We somehow managed to miss the first episode when the babies were born, so we will have to catch that on the second go round. 

On Network TV we are well into the new series of "So You Think You can Dance"  This year there seems to be a good group - no obvious sympathy vote guy or girl. 

"Hell's Kitchen" started this week with Gordon Ramsey at his whiny, yelling, cussing best.  We get a double dose of Ramsey on BBC America with "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares".

"Windfall" begins tonight about a group of friends who win the lottery.  And another BBC America offering starting tonight is "Waterloo Road", another school drama.  I hope these two will be worth watching.

I know I should be outside enjoying the summer, but generally it is too hot to be out too long and there are all those pesky insects and the threat of West Nile Disease, and besides my hands get too sweaty to knit out there.  We do hope to get over the road to the Racquet Club pool as often as possible.  We will be losing it soon so we should make the most of it while we still can.

PS I have just seen that "Meerkat Manor" starts tomorrow on Animal Planet.  Meerkats are one of my very favouritest animals so I will definitelybe watching that.

Look What I Got!

Look what I got from my One Skein Secret Pal!

It is hand-dyed Tess "Super Socks and Baby" and the colours are a glorious royal blue and turquoise.  I don't think the monitor does the colours justice.  I don't know any babies anymore - they keep growing into big kids, so I will have to use it to knit my first pair of socks.  It's about time I took the plunge into the world of heel turns, gussets, and toe grafting!

She has also been an enabler in my other addiction by sending me a book of Su Doku puzzles.  I just don't know what it is about those innocent looking little grids that just compels one to fill them in - the more difficult the better - but whatever it is, it works every time!

Thank you so much Secret Pal!  You made my day!

Other stuff:   The dog we found was safely returned to her family yesterday.  She was more difficult to photograph than Charlie, she would not sit still.

Over the weekend we did some more to the new bit of garden.  I designated a rockery area and we removed the bark chippings and replaced them with pea gravel and we planted some rockery plants (sedums, sempervivums, thrift, etc).  And we planted some more plants in the rest of the area.  We found a nursery doing perennials 30% off and we got some lillies, penstemons, and some ice plants.  There is still a lot to do, but our imaginations are way ahead of our own physical skills and budget!

Yesterday I went to Water Aerobics for the first time this summer.  Andrea, who quit the Power Bar classes, was teaching so of course it was fun and hard work at the same time.  The water was freezing at first, and I am such a wuss at getting into cold water, but we soon warmed up.  It's amazing what a good work out being in the water is.  I plan to go twice a week through the summer.  Then the club will probably close and we still don't know what we will do then. 

Stash Enhancement eXercise

This arrived for Lucy today:

It's Tahki Donegal Tweed Homespun in color 880.  It has come out pretty close to its real life colour on my monitor - hope it's good on yours too.  She is going to knit a jacket from the latest Cast on magazine.  It has a zipper which will be a first for both of us!

I bought this today at the Unravelled Sheep in Sandy.  Lovely shop, with lovely ladies who were very helpful.  This was not at all what I went in to get, but I just fell in love with the colors.  It is Koigu KPPPM Dye Code P319.  What it's for a is a bit of a secret, and not even I know exactly yet.

It came in this cute little bag: