Body of Osterdalen is cast on!

A provisional cast-on, 278 stitches around.
A ten row hem, a purl turning row, and Dale of Norway Osterdalen has the beginning of a body.

I like to knit the name of the recipient and the date into the hem.







Here's the sock yarn I picked up yesterday.
Classic Elite Alpaca Sox - 60% alpaca, 20% merino wool, 20% nylon in the baby blues colorway. (I have another skein in the Emeralds colorway stashed away.)

Time to cast on another pair of carry around socks!

Shiny little blue zircons

No school today - President's day!

We had a girls day out. Girl of the House got her ears pierced. Or perhaps, I should say, re-pierced. They'd been pierced in kindergarten, but due to lack of interest, she let them grow shut. She chose the blue zircons - what Claire's passes off as the December birthstone.

We each got a new pair of shoes. (I will be ready for this new job!)

We did one geocache. We were thinking about a few more, but the windchill was sub-zero.

So we went to see Enchanted. We both enjoyed the movie. (But isn't $11.50 for two matinee tickets an obscene price? And then, add popcorn and an icee to it - we walked out with 75 cents change from a twenty - YIKES!)

We went to JoAnn's and got buttons, embroidery floss, and sewing thread for our crafts. GotH wants to make a few button bracelets. We stopped at Half-Price Books and left with five books. We hit PetSmart for Chip-puppy food and visited with the rabbits, gerbils, ferrets, mice, rats, guinea pigs, snakes and lizards. Gotta see 'em all!

We hit Knitter's Palette and I got some sock yarn. I was looking for some washable wool, but nothing quite suited. We went to Penzey's Spices for Cajun spice mix for the jambalaya we want to make.

Then we stopped at Leeann Chin, and brought supper home. Yay Leeann Chin!!

Sunday, Paul and I got out and finished placing our three part geocache in the Carleton Arboretum. We though it had been appropriately placed last weekend, but when we went to publish it, the second stage was too close to another cache. We hiked out and moved it. It was a nice enough morning, we saw many skiers and hikers. We felt a bit stealthy, trying not to be observed.

However, we weren't as stealthy as the beaver who's been eating up the trees down by the river. This looked to be fresh beaver dinner. We also saw one sneaky deer, hunkered down in the tall grass, pretending he was invisible.













When we came home and made brunch, this deer decided to join us. She walked right up to the bird feeder outside the kitchen window and started to snack on the sunflower seeds. This feeder is about eight feet from the house.


Baby Surprise Jacket continues. Not too much more to knit!

100th Geocache

We had company in the front yard and driveway this morning. There were a total of five of these beauties.







Girl of the House had her summer soccer tryouts at Shattuck/St. Marys school today. While she was there, Paul and I grabbed a few caches in Faribault.








When she was finished, we hit Dairy Queen for a fun treat. Then we headed back to the Cannon River Wilderness Park for our 100th cache. It was only right that she should be with us for our milestone find.

We started geocaching on Mother's day 2007. One hundred caches in nine months makes us happy!




I went shopping with my own personal shopper (a co-worker of taste with an honest voice) last evening. I now have at least one week of clothing to wear for my new job. And a nice solid base to grow on.

So, there wasn't much knitting. But the Baby Surprise Jacket did grow a bit on Thursday evening. Let's see how much we like the yellow stripe, eh?

How much SALT do we possess?

I went to make some lentil soup for supper last night. Going through the cupboard, a sudden question arose. "Holy cow, how much salt DO we have?"

I pulled it all out to have a look.

Yes, we have six kinds of salt in our cupboard! And that doesn't include the salt grinder on the table.

Rock salt for the grinder, kosher salt for cooking, the old classic Morton's salt (dated as opened in 2004 - does salt go bad?), iodized sea salt, canning and pickling salt, and finally the salt grinder brought in from the camper for the winter. Yikes!

So we had some yummy lentil soup with smoked sausage for supper and waited for the big snowstorm they promised was coming.

And waited, and waited... The big snow storm went to the North and South of us. We got about a half inch.




See, I TOLD you there wasn't going to be any more snow for us!


The Baby Surprise Jacket grew a bit more.







I guess I'm postponing casting on for the body of Osterdalen.

Let's try this again...

So - the handspun superwash was going to become the Babies & Bears sweater.

I LOVE the Babies & Bears. Fun and fast to knit.








I knitted away, pleased with the look and feel of the yarn.

However, it was going to be HUGE!





So I started over.

Now, it's trying to become a Baby Surprise Jacket, another fun and fast baby sweater.

So far, so good...