Not dead yet, either

I've been at Site for most of this week: a 504 mile round trip. My little Toy car will hit 151,000 miles by the time it gets serviced next week. (BTW, Mr Snarky, the Toy is a Seat Arosa, the cheaper, LBYM cousin of the VW Lupo . Same car, different badge, fewer inclusive options and no central locking/electric windows.)

What was really surprising about visiting Site is how easy it was to forget that 3 weeks ago, I'd just had surgery into a major body cavity. Everyone kept asking me how I was feeling and, since I've picked up Jan's croup, I thought they meant it because my cough would give a barking dog a run for it's money. (I even have the loud, inspiratory wheeze.) They all knew about my operation - it was me who'd forgotten.

Am I glad I my gall bladder out? Absolutely. Have I suffered for it? No. Am I sick of feeling ill? Yes.

- Pam

PS: If I could only get rid of this chest, I'd feel wonderful.

It's official

It's official. Whilst I can knit and watch TV, drive and listen to the radio or cook and listen to the radio, I cannot REPEAT cannot read and do anything else. Nor can I surf the Internet and watch TV. Or write a report and pay attention to anything else that is going on.

Therefore, apparently, I cannot multi-task.

Am I the only one?

- Pam

A show was attended

Last Saturday, I had my first big day out since the operation: the Knit and Stitch Show at Alexandra Palace. I took the tube up to Wood Green and met my Best Buddy At (former) Work ("BBAW") at 10.30am. We were a sorry pair: me - weak, pale and with the odd pain from my wounds; BBAW - unable to use her left hand for much at all since damaging the tendons in her wrist several weeks ago. This was a Girls' Day Out for two women who had been house bound and gone stir-crazy!

We hadn't booked classes; we hadn't even purchased our tickets in advance. We just wandered the stalls, chatting to the stall holders and fondling the merchandise. (And buying some.) Unlike last year, when I had a shopping list of patterns I wanted to knit, I was woefully unprepared. I've purchased quite a bit of yarn in the last year, so didn't have anything on my wish list.

Here are my spoils:-



The ram came from a stall selling New Zealand yarns. He bleats. I bought him for DH - after all, if I was coming home with a load of wool, he might as well have something to play with.

Amongst other stalls, I visited the lovely ladies at Get Knitted, the only UK shop I know that stock any American yarns. I came away with an invitation to visit their shop (on the A4 between Bath and Bristol - our side of Bristol, about an hour and a half away), and some pretty pinky sock yarn.

I picked up 7 skeins of some lovely grey DK alpaca from UK Alpacas. It was marked down to half price at £4.95 per 100g skein. That'll be enough for a cardigan for me with some left over. Also purchased a skein of their charcoal grey alpaca sock yarn for a pair of socks for DH. (Appears black in the picture.)

And from the Wensleydale Sheepshop stand, I purchased 600g of their DK yarn in a divine shade of blue. It was this blue yarn that attracted me to their stall last year when I came away with the wool for the snowflake sweater. I'm not sure what I'll make yet.

A very nice lady selling knitting machines promised me to mail me two more latch hooks, like this one below. They form the bed of the knitting machine, but their value to me is that they are the best tool I've ever found for picking up dropped stitches (say, if you've made a mistake two rows below and drop down to correct it). The one below I "borrowed" from my mum over 20 years ago.



Some things were too lovely to not handle, even if I didn't buy them afterwards. Even now, I can't believe how close I was to buying sock-weight quiviut from a Danish stall. It was so light and soft! The £37 for a 50g skein is what finally put me off. That and BBAW acting as my conscience. Yarn lust can be very strong.

It is hard not to underestimate the importance of the Knit & Stitch Show for the UK knitting underworld (knitters are very much a hidden underclass). For many stall holders, these shows are their only window to the outside world - there were stalls from artisan wool growers and spinners, as well as small yarn shops, craft shops and embroidery designers. For knitters, it is often their only chance to find specialist yarns or, indeed, any yarn that isn't made by the companies behind Sirdar and Rowan. Ditto for embroiderers. Craft/yarn shops just don't exist like they used to - there might be one in a 50 mile radius.

- Pam (who knitted socks on the way up and back)



PS: DH loved "Derek" the ram...

Mushroom Duxelles

Here is the "Mushroom Duxelles" recipe I promised in my Mushroom Ragout post. It's a type of mushroom pate, very dark and rich. The first time I made it was when I did my big mushroom cookup - word of warning: this uses a shed-load of mushrooms for not much pate. You could easily double the quantities for a dinner party starter.

You will need a food processor.

Mushroom Duxelles

Makes just over 1 cup of pate.

Ingredients

350g Mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
15g dried mushrooms (ceps/porcini, wild mushrooms or whatever you have)
50ml red wine/sherry/marsala
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon
5 or 6 grinds of black pepper


Method

1. First, soak the dried mushrooms: put them in a small container, pour over sufficient boiling water to cover and set aside for at least 20 minutes. (Meanwhile, prepare the other mushrooms.)
2. Drain the dried mushrooms through a sieve (I use a coffee filter), saving the soaking liquid. The sieve collects any grit.
3. Lightly chop the dried mushrooms.
4. In the food processor, combine the sliced mushrooms, dried mushrooms and tarragon. Grind over the black pepper. Process in 5 second bursts until the mushrooms are finely chopped.
5. Pour the mushroom mixture into a saucepan. Pour over the wine and soaking liquid. Add the soy sauce. Heat gently until the mushrooms begin to water, then stir fry over a high heat until all the water is evaporated.
6. Spoon into small ramekin dishes and allow to cool. Serve with crackers or melba toast, or use as a sandwich filling.

- Pam

Milestone

My beloved Toy car passed another milestone on Wednesday: 150,000 miles in 6 years 11 months.



Only 12 of those miles were driven before Toy became mine. The nickname comes from my remark to the delivery man from the dealership: "You've brought me a new toy to play with". And it stuck. Here is a side view of one of Toy's relatives. You can understand why he's "The Toy".


Although I'm his regular driver, Toy gets driven by DH most weekends. He's also been driven by my sister on her explorations of Scotland and my friend Stephanie.

Excluding DH, Toy is my favourite travelling companion. Our regular daily commute has never been less than 25 miles each way; at one stage we did regular day trips to Worcester, Birmingham and Bristol (242 miles, 240 miles and 220 miles return respectively). For most of those, it's just been me, Toy and the radio (usually LBC) or books on tape/CD (mainly Terry Pratchett). We've listened to cricket matches and football games, classical concerts and rock CDs.

There have been trips to Scotland, day trips to France, and mad dashes to West Wales. That awful drive to hospital following the ambulance when my FIL died.

For a long time, there was a nose print in the middle of the back window from Sammy-dog, when we took him out to play. That was when I realised the back windows didn't open (it hadn't occured to me, since I rarely carry passengers in the back). Sammy slept with his head on my seat belt and his nose out the driver's window on the way home, half choking me.

There was that nightmare drive on the M25 in January 2003, when it snowed and the roads hadn't been gritted. We'd stayed late at work, so there wasn't too much traffic, but I'd had to chisel the snow out of wing mirror housings as well as scrape off 6 inches of snow. (I wish I'd had a camera that day.) That was the day we hit ice 500 metres from home and, at 5 miles/hour, drifted into the middle of an empty intersection. We were lucky, other roads closed and some were trapped in their cars.

Sure Toy's had the odd "digestive problem" recently and there is an on-going problem with the cowling around the gear selectors (it has one bolt holding it in place which gets lose about once every 20,000 miles making gear changing difficult), but I'm hoping to post the 200,000 mile photo some day.

Thanks Toy!

- Pam

First day back at work

and I'm shattered. I felt faint a few times, suffered nausea at the same time and considered throwing up on one of the auditors. If he hadn't caught me, I'd have gone home before 3pm.

Returned to chaos, 103 emails in my work inbox and an "I'm glad you are back" from several of the Site staff. Of my colleagues in the office, well... Excluding my boss, only the girl I sit next to spoke to me for hours until my mate from Project Accounting popped round to see if I was in. Even the finance team at my client were nicer to me than the women I sit with.

- Pam (eventually left 45 minutes early, when I couldn't keep my eyes open)

Mushroom ragout

It's been a busy evening in the PipneyJane household. Yesterday, DH and I did our main supermarket shop for the month and scored 1.5kg of mushrooms for 28p! Result!

They were in the "Reduced Price" aisle, so needed to be cooked relatively quickly. We already had mushrooms in the fridge, but I can't look a cheap mushroom in the mouth; this evening, I turned my kitchen into a mushroom processing factory. First, I cleaned and sliced 2kg of mushrooms (as I said, we already had some). Then I divided them up and started cooking.

I chopped 5 onions, crushed 6 cloves of garlic, added 800g of mushrooms and made base. That should make 4 or 5 containers for the freezer (it's still cooling, so I haven't dished it up yet). Another 350g of mushrooms went towards making "Mushroom Duxelles", a type of pate (recipe later).

The balance of the mushrooms went towards making Mushroom Ragout. This recipe is based on one from Sue Kreitzman which was published in a Sainsbury Supermarket cookbook. I haven't seen the cookbook for at least 3 years, couldn't find it when I looked, so cooked this from memory. It makes 2 pints, for a total of 14 WW points. I usually freeze half for later.

This works well as a sauce over pasta (I use tagliatelli), as a filling for a vegetarian lasagne or as the basis for a quick, creamy mushroom risotto.

Mushroom Ragout

makes 2 pints or approximately 8 servings

Ingredients

Olive oil spray
1 onion, chopped
750g mushrooms, sliced
20g dried porcini mushrooms
1 x 400g/14oz can evaporated semi-skimmed milk (skimmed would be better, but I can't get it)
300ml/1/2 pint skimmed milk
30ml/2 tablespoons brandy
1 heaped tablespoon dried mustard
25g corn flour
25g/1oz freshly grated parmesan cheese
Pepper in a grinder

Method

1. Start by preparing the dried mushrooms. Put them into a bowl, cover with hot water (approximately 100ml/4 fl oz) and set aside. They will need approximately 15 minutes to reconstitute.
2. Spray a large saucepan or wok with the olive oil spray and heat.
3. Gently fry the onions until soft.
4. Stir in the fresh mushrooms (yes, all of them), pour over the brandy, add a splash of water and gently fry the mushrooms until they make water. Turn up the heat and reduce the mushroom water by approximately two thirds.
5. Drain the dried mushrooms through a sieve, collecting the liquid in a measuring jug. (I use a coffee filter for this - it catches any grit.) Chop these mushrooms and add them to the saucepan. Measure the mushroom liquid and top it up to 300ml/half a pint with the skimmed milk.
6. In a small bowl, combine the dried mustard, corn flour and sufficient of the milk/mushroom liquid mix to make a paste. Stir it into the balance of the milk mixture. Ensure it is well combined.
7. Add the milk mixture and evaporated milk to the mushrooms in the pan. Stir well. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
8. Just before serving, stir in the parmesan cheese and grind over some pepper. Once the cheese has been added, don't reboil the sauce as it may curdle.
   

- Pam

Train crashes waiting to happen

I found an article via Boston Gal's Open Wallet and read it with an increasing sense of frustration. It's an article about three well-paid families in middle America. It's Money Magazine's Life and Debt in Suburbia. I'll just quote a few bits, focusing on the last couple covered:-

Like middle-class families everywhere, the Mendells, Steins and Wrights judged their own financial health by how they thought their neighbors were doing. How wrong they were....

When Ernest and Miriam Wright traded in their downtown Philadelphia row house for a four-bedroom on Willow Lane 2½ years ago, they hoped to swap city life for a suburban idyll. No more urban anonymity and late-night howls from the drinkers at the bar next door.

And there was a bonus: The bigger house in the burbs actually cost less than their home in Philly (though they did take out a larger mortgage to pay for it), giving the Wrights a $100,000 cash cushion.

But the price of fitting into their new neighborhood has turned out to be a lot higher than the Wrights bargained for. With a bigger mortgage and higher property taxes, they're spending nearly $1,000 more a month on housing than they did in the city.

Then there are the incidentals of life on Willow Lane. Landscaping cost $1,500. Remodeling the 20-year-old kitchen cost $25,000. They've upgraded to a Subaru Outback from a Volkswagen Jetta.

And next year they'll spend $13,000 to send Jillian to kindergarten at a private school in the more exclusive part of town - even though the town's highly rated public schools are a major draw for Wallingford....

the Wrights, who make a combined $85,000 a year, are coming up a few hundred dollars short every month, sometimes nearly a thousand....

In two years, the Wrights have blown through $60,000 of the money they banked from the sale of the house in Philly ($40,000 is left) and have $7,000 in balances on their credit cards.

Don't you want to shake them and yell, "What planet are you on?". It's obvious they don't have a budget or any idea of where their money is going. OK, the Wrights are still saving for their retirements, but for how much longer? How much longer will they afford to live their affluenza lifestyle?

The advice I'd give them is simple:

1. Budget. Draw up a budget based on the one existing income alone. Include childcare and travel expenses for when the wife returns to work, college funds for the kids, debt repayment, investments both inside and outside retirement vehicles, maintenance of an emergency fund, any home renovations they plan to have.
   
2. Wife's career. When Mrs Wright gets a job, keep to this existing budget and use her income for additional debt repayment, investing and college funds for the kids.
3. Children's education. Ditch the private school. It is unnecessary - they have excellent local schools - and costs them more than just the school fees; the "keeping up with the Jones' " lifestyle it engenders will kill their finances.
4. Cars. Start saving now for their next vehicle. They should keep their existing vehicle for as long as possible, but should plan for it to need extensive work within 5 years. They don't need two cars now, so shouldn't buy another.
   

None of the couples in the article can see the wood for the phantom trees. They think they can spend their way to wealth, without realising that they're just digging themselves into a pit. A bit of foresight and delayed gratification will give them strong financial futures and the opportunity to fulfil their dreams.

- Pam

So that was in me

I had my gall bladder out last Monday (1st). I'm only just starting to feel really human about it all. If you are squeamish, you might want to skip this post.

What can I say about getting your gall bladder removed? Well, the first part of the day made me feel a bit like a turkey voting for Christmas: on the one hand, you're really not looking forward to the pain afterwards; on the other hand, the earlier in the day they do it, the longer your recovery time before they kick you out. As it was, I was second on the list. That gave me enough time to roll some leftover sock yarn into a couple of balls, cast on and knit about 5 rows. I also read for about an hour (knitting gave me too much time to think). My book-shaped distraction: London 1945 by Maureen Waller.

I'm the typical ex-nurse: I know too much and ask all the strangest questions. I was asking the anaesthetist about the anaesthetic drugs they use these days when he knocked me out (pancuronium is off the menu, suxamethonium is saved for emergencies). I never did get to ask if he was going to use thiopentone first. [pout!] Oh, and Hamilton's anaesthetic machines appear to have disappeared (we used them at RMH and, 10 years later, they were one of my audit clients - how's that for a coincidence).

I have hazy memories about the immediate post-op period. Yes, I was in Recovery with lots of other patients. Yes, they did 15 minute obs like we used to. Although they use machines more (I had a pulse oxymeter on my toe and probably an electronic BP machine). My throat hurt like hell and I could only grunt when the anaesthetist told me he was giving me more pain killers and some Maxalon for any nausea. A specimen jar was tucked into my right hand with "you might want to hold onto those" and they took me back to the ward. I slept for the next 4 hours.

I woke up to find DH at the foot of my bed. He'd popped in on his way home from work because he hadn't received the call to come and collect me. My first response was to thrust the specimen jar in his direction and whisper "Here you are. You wanted them." (Whenever the topic had come up, DH had wanted to see my gallstones.)



We were both surprised there were so many and that they were so large.

They gave me pain-killers to take home as well as a couple of dressings. The pain-killers were a complete disappointment: Voltarol and paracetamol. Neither of them came close to touching the shoulder pain, which was excruciating (and is the main side effect of keyhole surgery - the CO2 they use to pump up your belly irritates your diaphram = pain). I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in agony. Thursday was better, but not brilliant, and on Friday I didn't need painkillers.

DH took my specimen jar full of gallstones into work and, being a typical engineer, dissected one:-

FWIW, a 5p piece is 18mm in diameter.




DH reports that the outside is hard, whilst the inside is crumbly.

- Pam (I married a science geek)

Parsnip and Lemon Soup

It's Tuesday, so it must be recipe day.

(Yes, I know, I haven't done one for ages. Call me slack or something. But "Recipe Tuesday" is now back and raring to go.)

About 3 weeks ago, the farm shop started selling this year's parsnip crop. I bought a kilo (2lb), planning to make the Parsnip and Cashew Nut Roast from the Weight Watchers' cookbook, Cook, Eat, Enjoy. My flat refusal to pay £6/kilo for cashews at the supermarket and inability to organise myself to go for a wander "down Southall" to the Asian shops to buy cashews at half that price, meant that the parsnips grew old and wizened in the fridge. They were looking very ropey when I dug them out of the veggie draw yesterday and decided to make soup.

(It was either make soup or bin them. The Frugalista in me insisted on the former option. As it was, about half the quantity of leathery old parsnips ended up in the bin.)

I like vegetable based soups for all sorts of reasons: they're an easy way of getting some of my "five a day"; they're usually cheap; they are low in WW points; and, for a former vegetable hater (me), they offer a great way to disguise or alter the taste of a not-much-liked vegetable and make it appealing.

This is another Weight Watchers' recipe, this time from their Pure Points cookbook. The whole quantity of soup costs 8 WW points. The recipe originally said "serves 4", but the soup is rather thick - you could easily water it down a bit further. Also, don't be alarmed at the cumin; it adds something to the flavour, but you won't taste it in the final soup. The lemon isn't particularly noticeable either, what it does is neutralise the bitterness of the parsnips.

Ingredients

500g (1lb) Parsnips, peeled and sliced
1 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Grated rind of 1 lemon*
750 ml vegetable stock (I use 2 teaspoons of Marigold brand stock powder for this)
300ml skimmed milk
Olive oil spray
salt and pepper

Method

1. Spray a large saucepan with the oil spray and heat. When the oil is hot, stir in the onion. Turn the flame under the pot to low, cover and leave for approximately 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. (I do this then prepare the parsnips and the lemon.)
2. When the onion is soft, stir in the parsnips then sprinkle over the cumin. Fry for approximately one minute, stirring all the time, or until the aroma rises.
3. Pour over the stock, stir and bring it to the boil. Cover and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until the parsnip is soft and mushable.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and either transfer the contents to a blender/liquidizer/food processor or use a wand whisk to blend the contents until smooth.
5. Return the soup to the pot. Stir in the milk and the lemon rind. Season with salt and pepper. Reheat but DO NOT boil (the milk may curdle due to the lemon).
   

If you don't eat it immediately, this will thicken on standing. It seems to freeze well (I haven't defrosted any yet, but it didn't split or anything when I froze it).

- Pam

* I store grated lemon rind in an ice cube tray in the freezer. Whenever we use lemons, I'll grate the rind and pack it into the tray. I think half a lemon gives one cube of rind. Stop grating when the yellow bit disappears - you don't want the bitter white pith.

A nice dilema we have here....

OK, I have a problem with my latest sock and I need your input. To do the foot, I need to swap to a different yarn, since I only have 30 grams of the fancy stuff. (This is part of my using-up-the-leftovers program, designed to cut down the number of "I can't make anything with this" balls in my stash.)

The problem: I think this sock would look best with a white gusset and foot (I'll do the toes in the fancy stuff). Opal, who made this yarn, don't do white. These two balls are my closest options - the one on the left is honey-coloured and more orangey-beige in the flesh; the one on the right is more blue, not far off teal.

Have a closeup.

Neither of them work, do they?

On the Angel Yarns website from where I purchased them, both appear much paler. I've used the honey-coloured one on my "prom socks"; I have another half-used sock yarn that will go with the blue.

Can anyone suggest a suitable white I can use? It needs to knit to a tension of 36 stitches and 28 rows over 10cm/4 inches using 2.5mm needles.

- Pam (off to try other websites)

Thanks everyone

Thanks everyone for the best wishes on my wedding anniversary. DH loved the card and loved what I wrote on the blog (yes, he reads it too).

Also, thanks to Pachouly for the RSS feed details for Ravelry. I'll visit there later and try it out.

And finally, thanks everyone for the kind words about DH's uncle. We're now going to Canada in November, since I won't be able to fly for a month after my operation. (O-day is 9 days and counting.)

- Pam

Gone shopping

It's been quite a week. We were on holiday from Thursday to Tuesday and I'm just catching up.

Thursday and Friday nights, we spent at a friend's house in Kent. The three of us went to France on Friday for a shopping trip. (Doesn't that sound posey? "Oh, I'm just going to France to do my shopping!" But remember how small distances are in Europe. France is only 100 miles from our house.) Our main targets: wine, food and some clothes for me.

Friday, we took Le Shuttle through the Channel Tunnel: quick, cost-effective and efficient, and to my mind a damn sight better than taking the ferry. (No seasickness!) You drive into the train, park up, switch off, put your feet up and less than half an hour later, you're driving out of the train on the other side of the Channel. Our destination, the big shopping mall called Cite Europe, is a 5 minute drive from the Tunnel exit - you can see it as you drive out. Before we went there, though, we drove down the coast to Le Touquet for lunch.

Le Touquet is also known as Paris Plage, "Paris by the sea". It is an Edwardian resort town, which I think I first read about in an Agatha Christie novel. A very wealthy resort town with posh shops (I saw a Max Mara boutique and a Sonia Rykiel one) and probably the most stylish school uniforms I have ever seen. I seriously thought a group of school children were employees of one of the posh hotels until we got close to them. Their uniforms are gorgeous!

Anyway, after lunch we went back to Cite Europe and some serious shopping. Our local supermarket, Tesco, has a shop there that only sells wine, beers and spirits. You get the ease of shopping in English coupled with French prices (lets just say that most of the wine is 1/3 of the price it is in England). Plus they give you points, just as they do in the UK. So we stocked up. Rather a lot. 48 bottles of wine. Including 6 bottles of sparkling red. Plus 2 bottles of Rose Cordial (smells like roses tastes like roses, pretty pink, too). That'll keep us going for a long while.

A quick whiz through the bag shops - the French do handbags/purses that convert to back-packs but I couldn't find one this time - and on to one of my favourite boutiques, Un Jour Ailleurs. Maybe it's the clothes (very elegant, very French), maybe it's the customer service (they style you and accessorise your outfits), but I love shopping there. In four visits, I've purchased three outfits: two suits for me and the clothes my sister wore to give me away at my wedding. The link is to their latest catalogue.

This time, I purchased a suit (jacket, two pairs of trousers), a contrasting sweater (that picks out the colour from the stripe in the suit) and a silk scarf that ties it all together. It's this one, from pages 36/37 of their catalogue.


The sweater I purchased is the one the blond is wearing: cotton, fitted with the emphasis on the shoulders. It's the same pink as the sweater that was on the Summer 2007 cover of Interweave Knits.

Our final stop was Carrefour, the French supermarket chain which forms the second largest retailer in the world. Targets: olive oil, rapeseed oil (Canola), coffee, coffee filters, chestnut puree, cheese and charcouterie. Without considering the exchange rates, all of those things cost less than half the price in Euros than they do in GBP. Some day, in the depth of winter, I'm going to load up the car with cool bags, drive over and do an entire month's shop there just to compare. (OK, it'll only be worth it if I can get a cheap crossing on Le Shuttle.)

If you ever live in Europe, go to Carrefour to buy your cookware. You know the cast iron dutch oven that you've been eyeing up in Williams Sonoma? Current price $200. Well, I purchased an almost identical one, Carrefour own-brand for €35.

- Pam (If I don't post this now, it'll never get up on the web)

Four Years

Today is my wedding anniversary. Four years ago, I married the love of my life. How can I describe what he means to me without getting slushy and embarrassing the poor guy? Well, I probably can't. DH is wonderful. I love him more than I can say. He is my best friend, my Darling Lover, my life-mate.

We've been together nearly 9 years. I was in the process of leaving Dumbo, when DH's flatmate brought him along to our work Christmas Party. For the entire previous year, I'd wondered who this guy was. I'd never seen him, but I'd heard so much about him. Every time there was a work "do" (and we were a very social mob), I'd leave around 9.30 to get home, come in on Monday and hear "You should have stayed M... and G.... turned up just after you left." The only time I did stay, M... brought along his other flatmate instead!

The rest, as they say, is history. Our first date was the night before Christmas Eve, our second between Christmas and New Year. Within 3 weeks we were inseparable. Less than a month later, DH came with me to see a lawyer about my divorce (was that lawyer confused by us!). By the time the ink dried on my divorce decree, we were living together.

Happy anniversary Lover!

- Pam

PS: Here is the card I made him:

Ravelry

Yes, I'm finally on Ravelry. Joined last night. I'm PipneyJane over there, too.

One question for the more computer literate of you out there: how do I get the RSS Feed from my blog to appear on Ravelry? How do I find the link to upload?

(Yes, I know, it's a huge joke that my colleagues at work think I'm a geek - the office computer wizard. I am a self-taught amateur, who only knows the things she needs to use in certain programs. Sure, I can assemble a computer, upload software and write v-lookups in Excel, but only because I've had to.)

- Pam