What to Knit

Like many other knitters I struggle with what to knit next. There is just so much lovely yarn. So many good causes for those in need. There are projects for family and friends. Of course there is Project Gratitude for our wonderful service members. Also the feeling that if I just come up with the right thing sales in my Art Fire Studio would take off, by the way the link is http://www.tinyurl.com/handmadebysheri . There are also a lot of patterns that I would like to make for myself.

I know that I should not feel guilty for knitting for myself, but I always seem to be the last on my list of projects to start or finish. I would like to know how other people deal with this dilemma. Please leave your comments below. The winner will be picked by a random number generator on October 15, 2010. Oh yes the prize will be some one of a kind stitch markers.

Thank you for your input. I look forward to your solutions. Have a great weekend and enjoy your families.

Five Guys Burgers & Fries

I had a late lunch at Five Guys Burgers and Fries at 2802 N. Campbell Avenue today. Just in case you are wondering the cross street is Glenn.  This is a very easy to find sorta of fast food restaurant.

When I arrived the line to place my order was lined with peanut oil, peanuts to snack on while you wait and lots of bags of fresh potatoes. The menu was very basic and everything is cooked to order so it will take a while after you place your order to get your food but it will be very hot off the grill and hot out of the fryer.

I ordered the regular hamburger with lettuce, tomatoes, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, mustard, ketchup and pickles. I also ordered a small order of french fries. Since I had my drink glass with me and I don't drink anything with high fructose corn syrup I asked if I could add some ice to my tea and they said that was fine. Lunch with tax came to $8.16. They also sold bottled water which is very nice.

Since the music was very, very loud and the restaurant was crowded even at 1 pm I opted to take my food outside and sit in the shade. The outdoor seating is very comfortable and there was a nice breeze, so the feel like temperature was probably about mid 90's even though it was over 100 at 1 pm.

They placed the burger at the bottom of the bag buried under in my opinion was a very large order of fries which made it hard to get to the very massive hamburger under the pile of fries. There was so much stuffing in the hamburger that I opted to eat it burrito style with the wrapping around the burger. Everything was fresh and tasty on the burger, but next time I will order the small burger. The burger was so large that I opted to skip my afternoon snack today. The hamburger was just so wonderful that now I know why at 1 pm there was a line almost out the door for burgers.

I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember when McDonald's used to use freshly peeled  and sliced potatoes in their french fries back in the 1960's ; but, I have to tell you that these fries are one step better. Not only are the potatoes fresh they leave the skin on and fry them in peanut oil. With a little bit of salt they did not even need the ketchup. The small order of french fries dwarfed the very large hamburger. They were so hot and fresh out of the fryer that I had to let them cool down a bit before I could eat them. They were cooked to perfection with just the right amount of crisp outside and soft cooked to perfection inside. By the way they are also good cold from the fridge which is good because the order was so massive. I did take about half of the fries home.

I would eat here again and plan to take John and Teri here. The one and only down side was the high volume of the music. But I do plan on eating outside again.  I would not take Eric here unless the volume of the music dropped by 50% or more. I have been to concerts that were not as loud as the restaurant was today.

So to recap. The food and restaurant were excellent. The music was way too loud.

*This is not a paid review. The opinions in this review are my own. I paid for my own lunch.

The New Cable Works

I let John use my camera cable for the greater good and was very nervous about using the new one he got for me. The good news it that the cable appears to work just as well as the old one.  So without further ado here are some of the new pictures of my knitting.


Barbara is our Guilds Chairwoman for Project Gratitude. She is modeling 4 out of the six scarfs I have made for members of the military this year.

Barbara M. With 4 of My Project Gratitude scarfs.

Have A great Evening and enjoy your families.



4 hats for Charity , 1 Project Gratitude Scarf, 1 Charity scarf.



The Snow Birds Have Arrived

Well it is that time of year again when we get our lovely snow birds. Most I have to say are pretty nice and lovely to have around. They give our local economy a boost which is great in the midst of a recession. Yes I know the recession has been declared over but in my humble opinion we are still in the midst of it.

But there are a few my northern neighbors are probably glad some of their neighbors are gone for a while. Take for instance the ones that feel that they must decide what belongs in my shopping cart. No you do not get to decide what I feed my family or publicly lecture me on what I have in my cart. Or how much I buy.

We don't get to many of these each year but please remember that Tucson is not the wild west we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million people in Pima County. This means that we would really appreciate it if you do drive while you are here please have a drivers license and insurance. We do seem to get a few accidents every year in which an unlicensed driver or one with a revoked license careens into another car and comes up with the same old story: "I thought that this was the wild west and anything goes, you really don't need a drivers license or insurance to drive here".

This goes with creative driving also. Right turns from the left hand turn bays are generally frowned upon. This also applies to left turns from the right hand lane. We really don't mind if you want to drive 25 miles per hour under the speed limit but please do so from the slow lane, you know the one on the right hand side of the road. Not the fast lane on the left side of the road. A lot of people who live here year round have things to do and places to be.

Please feel free to take hikes in our many local National parks; but, please know your limits and bring plenty of water and a cell phone when you go out. Also do not hike alone and by all means let some one know when you will be back. I just hate watching the helicopters circling the Santa Catalina's looking for a lost or injured hiker.

Please feel free to visit all our museums and take part in the pelortha of winter actives after all this is why you came here. So you would not be snowed in all winter; but please don't laugh at us when we start serving soup when the temperature drops below 100 or we are bundled in our winter clothes when it hits the 70's. After all you did decide to skip summer which is the best time of the year in Tucson.

Enjoy your visit to Tucson tell your friends about the great weather and people. Enjoy our plays, musicals and other forms entertainment while in Tucson.

Please remember that we expect you to be on good behavior. We try to be a very polite city so it is expected that you open doors for mothers with strollers or people in wheelchairs. Please remember to wear your sun screen, burns are no fun and take away from play time.

So enjoy your time in the sun and play nicely. By all means invite your families for a break from the snow.  The more the merrier.

My Week.

I have neglected my blog this week. I plead sick child as an excuse. Eric got sick Friday and was not able to go to school until Wednesday. As usual the days were long but he is feeling better and that's all that matters. This was on humdinger of a cold. It started off as a very runny nose followed by the requisite cough with a twist of projectile eyrping just to spice things up a bit. We were able to keep it out of his chest and for that I am grateful.  It is my sincere wish that this bug passes over your houses.

Yesterday I played hooky all day starting with knitting at Starbucks followed by an hour walk around the Tucson Mall and a little shopping. It was a wonderful idea to play hooky yesterday as today Eric's cold caught up with me. I don't mind being tired and the runny nose but the spinning head is another thing.

I have been doing a lot of knitting this week trying to finish UFOs but my attention span is short and I keep jumping from one project to the next without finishing anything.  I have spent over 10 hours knitting this week but as of yet have failed to add anything to my finishing basket.

It is time for another quick nap before we start Eric's routine for the night. Have a great weekend and enjoy your families.

Life's Unexpected Lessons

Power failures are never fun, but at least if they happen in the middle of the night you would think that every one would sleep through it. Well last night the power went out a little after 10 pm and it woke Eric up. Not only did the battery back up on the computer start to beep but Eric became very fussy.

It took me about 30 minutes to figure out how to turn off the power interrupt alarm.  However in the dark it was hard to figure out and I was turning it every which way to find the button that was on the front with the bell. I plan on putting a bright sticker on the front for the next time it happens.

After calling the power company and finding we were not in the main area of the power outage and sending the report in the nice automated voice said it would be about 4 hours before power was restored. So on to the cranky Eric.

I tried to explain to Eric that the power was not necessary to sleep. That his kangaroo had enough power to last until the power went back on. That the house was nice and quiet enough to sleep. I also explained that Tucson Electric Power would get everything working by morning before he had to go to school.

I held his hand, rocked him the best I could, held him but nothing seemed to work. At around 2 am the power came back on and he went straight to sleep. The worst part of the whole 4 hours is that everything I had cast on my knitting needles was in dark colored yarn, which I am sure you know is not great to knit with in moonlit rooms.

But this also got me thinking why I could not get Eric to sleep in the almost total quiet while John slept through the whole thing. After mulling it over for quiet a while it dawned on me that with no sight and relying totally on his hearing the hums of the motors and other electric gadgets were his "visual" world. As we rely on sight he relies on his hearing to give him the most accurate assessment of his surroundings. Even being safe in bed without the ambient noise that we tune out his world was turned upside down.

Eric did stay home today not because of the lost sleep but because we are dealing with the cold de jour and the eyrping that seems to go along with it. Now it is time to go do  a little cleaning before the nurse leaves for the day.

Have a nice evening and enjoy your families.

t-sac

I like to use loose teas sometimes but I hate to clean up the mess of the tea leaves in the filter. Not to mention the mess it leaves in the sink during clean up. Or the small bits of tea that escape the plastic filter in the tea pot and land in my tea cup. If you like small floaters of tea leaves in your tea you can stop reading right here.

OK so I decided to try the t-sac's that Teri left at home when she went away to law school. She bought the size 1 filters which are designed for a single cup of tea. I found that each bag can comfortably hold 1 tablespoon of tea, so I use 2 bags for a 4 cup pot of tea. They work very well at containing the tea leaves and I could not tell the difference in the flavor of the tea. Best of all there were no floaters left in the tea. Clear tea at last for loose leaf tea. Did I mention that the clean up was very easy.

For the environmentalist they are chlorine free and compostable/recyclable according to the package. They come in 4 sizes with size 1 meant for a single cup of tea to size 4 designed for 12 cups of tea. The price is nominal. The ease of use is great including a very fast clean up.

*Disclaimer: I did not buy the t-sac's, my daughter left them at home when she went to school. This is not a paid review. The opinions are my own. If you decide to use the link to order the t-sac's Amazon will pay me a nominal advertising fee.