Mom's Macaroni and Cheese

Here's the recipe:

8 ounce package of Elbow Macaroni
1 pound shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
One 15 ounce can Evaporated Milk
Can refilled with regular milk
One Egg, slightly beaten
Black Pepper to taste

Cook macaroni according to package directions. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a two quart casserole. Reserve a handful of cheese for topping. Mix both milks, egg, and black pepper. Stir in the majority of cheese. Add drained macaroni. Stir gently. Pour into a two quart casserole. Top with reserved cheese. Bake until browning and bubbly -- or as Mama told me "'til it's right on top." YUM!

No Early Morning Fair Isle

I've been chastised by Dawn for not posting to my blog in more than a week. I have just the thing to talk about tonight: If you are not a morning person, you should not knit fair isle early in the morning. This morning I awoke at my customary 6am for Sunday. I use the time from 6 to 7 to eat breakfast and study my Sunday School lesson. Well, last night I had prepared my Sunday School lesson and got everything set up for my breakfast. So, at 6:30 I was done with both and engrossed in an X-Files rerun on TNT. I thought to myself, I think I'll knit a row on Daddy's vest. Well, half way through this purl row of 102 stitches, I realized I was carrying the yarn on the RIGHT SIDE of the knitting. AKKKKKK!!!!!! So I had to pass at least 50 stitches back to the left hand needle and lift the carries over. When I got back to around stitch 5 where all this started, then I had to pass all the stitches back to the right hand needle now that I had corrected my error. Then I finished the row. No more fair isle in the early hours. I'm not cut out for it.



Our news started this week. It's more work for me and my boss than anyone had thought it would be. Anyone. Including the General Manager who's having to pay me overtime to do it. Nobody is happy about that.



We had a nice dinner tonight at church. It was sort of a Thanksgiving potluck. I brought my macaroni and cheese. Well, Mom's Macaroni and Cheese. I love it and other people seem to, too. There was enough left in the bowl when I got home for me to scrape out one serving for me to have later. Good. The bad thing about this dinner is that I have to go have blood work done tomorrow (I had my annual physical on Friday and Dr. Lois orders routine blood work every year) and I'm scared of what the results might be after my pig out. Oink Oink.



My PMF finished his training at his new job and passed with flying colors. Yea!! I knew he would, but he was all,"I might not have a job after this test Friday." Oh, ye of little faith. I'm excited for him.



Oh, again with the knitting: Since we last spoke I made a hat for little Jenna, a church friend:


I'd seen her that Wednesday when it was chilly out and said to her mom, "That baby needs a hat." So last Saturday night, I made her one. It turned out cute, but anything is cute on her. Just look at her. It's unusual that she's not smiling. Usually she keeps a big smile on her face. I think the flash scared her.


And I made a scarf for me Monday night. I showed up at my knitting group with five skeins of pink yarn, my size 50 needles, and a plan. I held the five yarns -- Glittalic, Silverlash, Carmen (from Paton's), Bernat Bling Bling, and Red Heart Symphony -- all together, cast on just five stitches, and just knit. In two minutes it was four inches long.In an hour Beth made me hold it up because she thought it was long enough that I should stop. She was right. It's right around 99". Lacey got real excited and said, "I'm going home and diving into my yarn stash and finding some yarn I can make one of those scarves with!" It's really pretty, too.

I got a great reaction when I wore it out twice last week.

Next, I'm casting on for the Voodoo Wrist Warmers from knitty.com. I'm modifying it to add a thumb. I sought out the advice of three people on ravelry who had made them and added the thumb and they told me how they did it. I think I've got it.

Here's my Thanksgiving plan: Wednesday after work, drive four hours to Daddy's house. Assemble Pineapple Casserole. Get up Thursday morning, cook Pineapple Casserole while I get ready. Drive two hours to Augusta to my cousin David's house where we're having Thanksgiving this year. Enjoy the family time. Take pictures. Eat. (Good thing the blood work's not next week!) Knit. Maybe take the Dell along in case David has some wireless - hmmmm. Drive back two hours back to Anderson. Enjoy Friday with Daddy. He loves going to mall and watching the crowds the day after Thanksgiving. Saturday, Dawn comes to Anderson and we check out the new yarn store in town! Yea! Sunday Daddy and I will probably do some more family visiting. Monday I drive back in time for SnB. Tuesday, back to work. Whew!

I've got to do laundry tomorrow around knitting group so that I can pack on Tuesday and get out of town on time Wednesday. I hate hurrying. I'll try not to go another week without a post. I blame ravelry. I'm obsessed. I joined the Ravelholics group.

Another Week Gone

Okay. I'm feeling better. Still a little stuffy, coughy, and sore throaty, but way better than last week.

I've been lost in ravelry tonight. I found a new group for fans of the show "Good Eats". I just love Alton Brown. He's smart, funny, and so much fun to watch. He makes some good tv.

We had a busy week at work, not crazy busy like it has been, but busy none the less. Yesterday they started installing a new phone system. I'm going to have a direct line!! Woo-Hoo!! Actually we all are. Our new news starts Monday. We're launching our new website next week. (Here's our old site. It's pretty bad. Go look now and by next weekend, it'll be totally different. So if you're reading this after November 15, that link will take you to our new site.) Lots of things going on at the tv station.

I'm going to sleep late tomorrow and then work on Daddy's vest while I watch Game Day. Clemson plays on ESPN2 at noon. I'm supposed to do something fun with the PMF tomorrow. We'll see if he feels like coming to town.

The weather is cooling off and I like it!

Knitting Immortality, Part II

If you're on the Lion Brand newsletter list, you might know that they have a new podcast. It's cool; no fancy equipment required, you just go to the website and push play.

Anyway, it debuted a couple of weeks ago. In that one, they asked the listeners to let them know what inspires them. I posted a comment on their blog (same link as the podcast). Well, today I found they had episode two up. So I'm listening, I'm looking at stuff on ravelry, checking my email, when about 30 minutes in, I hear my name and then they quote me. I had to pause it and call Dawn, because I had to tell somebody.

I shelled out $40 at the doctor today. Fluid in the ear. Explains the dizziness. Haven't had that since I was 24 and got my tonsils out. I've got some strong antibiotics ($30) and I'm planning on going to work tomorrow. I also have a wedding to run sound for this weekend. I need something to eat now. My appetite's back. OK.

Go listen to the podcast. Wait for my quote.

Sneeze Sneeze, Cough Cough

Okay, last week when the PMF was particularly stressed over the training classes at his new job, I promised him we would go to Atlanta on Saturday for a fun day. Late in the week I felt the sinus trouble coming, but would not break my promise. I didn't tell him I was starting to feel bad. Instead, I fortified myself with OTC pharmaceuticals and headed to the ATL. We played miniature golf, ate at a new (for us) restaurant, shopped, went to the cool arcade (Jillian's) at Discover Mills, and then headed for home. By then the OTC pharms were wearing off and I was starting to feel pretty bad. I reloaded on the drugs at a BK drive-thru in Newnan. At that point my cover was blown and he knew I was feeling pretty bad. I dropped him off and headed home to find I had a 99.2 degree temperature -- and that's with two Aleve in me for 90 minutes. I took two Tylenol and went to bed around 10:30. I woke up at 2:30am in a sweat when the fever broke. I didn't make it to church Sunday. They have a rule about not being around the kids when you've had a fever within 24 hours. I sat in my pajamas on the couch and watched a "Heroes" marathon on G4. I didn't even feel like knitting. GASP! Dawn called and was surprised to find me home at 2pm and I told her I was sick. She called back later to check on me, still concerned. When she caught me on ravelry around 7pm, she knew I was going to be okay. I went to work today, but I was pretty mopey. I went to knitting tonight, but left early. I'm going to keep taking my meds and hope I can get better without shelling out $40 to Dr. Lois.

I've fallen and I can't get up.

I've fallen into a pit called ravelry, and there's no escape. It's crazy. I sit at my desk and look at handknits and read people's knitting stories and look at all the pretty yarn. Here's the really crazy part: I'm not getting the knitting done that I want to do. It's insane! Knitting is not a spectator sport! I'm putting myself on Ravelry restriction. I need a life!

Dawn and I have been on the phone doing some long distance ravelry-ing. You find a lot more stuff when you work as a team.

Swatch

I did the swatch last night for Daddy's Christmas vest. It's pretty, isn't it? I'm really happy with how it turned out. Even happier that the gauge matched the required gauge on my first try. This is what it's going to look like:I was telling Dawn about the swatch and she wanted to see the back, so this one is for Dawn:
Pattern is from Knitter's Magazine, Fall 2007, page 80. It's called Canyon Ridge and I've added it to Ravelry. I'm knitting it in Wool-Ease.

I have to go get ready to go run audio at a wedding. Yes, another one.

Have a good weekend.

Holly did a bad, bad thing.

I went to Micheal's today to get a size 6 circular needle I needed for Daddy's vest. There hanging above the clearance yarn was a sign, "Manager's Special: Clearance Yarn 4 for $1". Uh Oh!
That's four skeins of Bling Bling in Carberet Crimson.

Four skeins of CiCi in Parade.

And four skeins of Carmen in Violet.

I figure I'll use it up on Christmas presents. I hope. But remember, I only spent $3 on ALL THAT YARN!

My blog buddy, Holly (her blog is Knit on My Cat - over there -->), is supposed to have had her baby today. I haven't heard anything. I hope all went well.

Today just drug by at work. I thought it was 12:30, and it was 11:00. I thought it was 3pm, but it was 1:30. A long, long day. But buying all that yarn sure cheered me up!

Finishitis, Part II

All those Fun Fur pics from last week. . . well, there were two more skeins that were in the process of becoming a scarf some months ago. Last night, with everything else finished and the yarn for Daddy's vest en route, I picked it up and started knitting. You see, my Internet service at home was down and I had two hours of recorded Monday night TV to watch. One hour of it was "Heroes", which requires me to sit on my exercise ball so I can read the subtitles when they talk in Japanese or Spanish. So there I sat on the exercise ball, big knitting needles (US17) in hand, two skeins of Fun Fur in the floor. It's much longer now than it was before.

It gives me something to do until the yarn I ordered from Lion Brand for Daddy's vest arrives. (There was no medium or light brown Woolease in Columbus. I looked everywhere except the Buena Vista Road WalMart, which actually has a decent selection of yarn. I forgot that I meant to go there and went ahead and ordered.) I also ordered a pattern that I have always loved of theirs called the April in Paris Cardigan. I've just always liked it and always thought that the day I placed an order from the catalog I would order the pattern. So, yea! It's coming, too. According to UPS, it all left Secaucus, New Jersey, last night at 1:37am, but it's not showing up in Atlanta yet. Hmmmm.

There were 15 two-year-olds in Sunday School Sunday. Whew! It was great!

Have a great week, everybody! I'm going to go knit some Fun Fur!!