I hope everyone is having a wonderful 4th of July.  Franklin Habit has a wonderful post for today (and I have to admit, his comment re: comments made me giggle).

We (Dave, me, Rigel) met Tina for a run this morning.  So many people out already at 8 a.m., walking their dogs, running, biking, setting up for beach volleyball tournaments.  The LA Tri Club 8 a.m. Manhattan Beach ocean swim was on — we could see some people out swimming.  It’s June gloom-y, but it was lovely to be out.  A little girl in a stroller was thoroughly entranced by Rigel — her mom was fine with Rigel coming up to her for a petting.  I love seeing kids who are so excited about dogs, and comfortable with them.

We’re planning an otherwise quiet day — grilling some chicken from the Farmer’s Market for a late lunch, potato salad, fresh fruit salad (we got some wonderful nectarines and blueberries yesterday), drinking some pink wine.

Knitting-wise, I’m going to try to get Zylphia done to the armholes and one sleeve at least started today.

I started a group on Ravelry for my designs.  I was a bit worried about doing so — what if no one joined???  But people have, yay!  I’m hoping to get some KALs going and to post some techniques links and tutorials there (will have here on the blog as well).

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Probably the most exciting thing that happened this week was Rigel breaking a window.

The squirrel that sometimes sits in our pine tree was there, chittering at Rigel.  Rigel got so excited he lunged at the window with both front paws and BROKE THE WINDOW.  He didn’t go through it, and he didn’t cut his paws, though he was startled.

Dave (with help from me) took out the rest of the broken glass (with the VARMINT chittering at Dave all the while), took apart the window (old aluminum slider window, the fixed window was the broken one, but you have to take out the slider window first to take out the fixed window), and took it to a local glass store.  They cut the glass and re-assembled the aluminum frame & gasket around it, and Dave and I reinstalled the  windows.  Apparently the old glass was thinner than it was supposed to be, which I’m sure contributed to it breaking when hit just so.

So…the new window is fine, Rigel is fine, the darned squirrel (which is now referred to by a variety of obscene names) is fine.  Dave was fine for the whole process.  I was a bit of a basket case.

The second most exciting thing…I got a loom!  It’s an antique high castle four harness loom.  Its previous owner just wanted to find it a home.  We’re going to set it up in the cat room (the bedroom/library where the cats stay during the daytime so they don’t use Rigel’s dog door and go outside;  they are indoor-only cats).  Pics to follow.

So….I made soup with some leftover bread (which Dave had made the day before, bread machine — a cliche wedding gift that we really have used over the past 9 (9!!!) years) and the tomatoes. I did choose to add a can of tomato paste.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Garlic
• A lot of ripe tomatoes
• About 1/3 of a 2# loaf of bread
• 1 can of tomato paste
• Salt
• Pepper
• Water

Basically toss everything together.  I didn’t measure anything.  Not fancy but tasty, and we’ve had it for 2 lunches so far, and have enough for one more.

Dave & I & Rigel went running this a.m.  I’m really, really wanting to get in the habit of running every other day, no matter how slowly.  We did what I consider the ‘normal’ route:  parking at the Police Station, running down Pier Ave, then up the Strand (the concrete running/walking/biking path adjacent to the beach) to the ‘steps’ (literally where there are steps that go up from the Hermosa Beach Strand to the Manhattan Beach Strand (which is divided into 2 paths, one nominally for cyclists, the other for walkers/runners)) and back.  It’s about a 5k, so it’s a reasonable distance.  Dave’s now off for the summer, so we should run together.

Knitting news:

Pippin got frogged a second time.

I’ve nearly finished the second Josephine mitten, a lovely beaded fingerless mitten that should be coming out in the Gifts issue of Knitcircus.  I couldn’t bear to touch Pippin again this weekend, and Josephine was on my list of to-do’s, as well as being something absolutely different.  I just have the thumb & blocking left to do, then the mitts will be mailed.

And….today I received the first packet of yarn from the Sanguine Gryphon — the Eidos for Zylphia and the lace for Emily.  I’ve been swatching all afternoon and am delighted to say I’m able to use a US4 for Zylphia (as opposed to a US2 or US3).  I’ll be casting on tonight or tomorrow.

I just picked 31 tomatoes off the Cherokee Purple plant.   I’m amazed at how prolific this thing is.  We’re not doing anything special to it.  Shoot, we’re not even watering it really.

There’s only so much caprese salad you can eat.

Perhaps I should try gazpacho or something similar….any ideas?

…but it’s sort of tasty.

I think my rennet tablets aren’t working.  I have made mozzarella in the past (successfully) but this time the curds just wouldn’t form.  I finally ended up cooking the milk mixture like my ricotta recipe says, trying to salvage something, and ended up with this:

Here it is, hanging in the cheese cloth, draining:

And more tomatoes (the reason I was trying to make mozzarella — for a caprese salad):

I don’t know where the last week went.

(Well, I do;  it was spent either sitting on the couch knitting or in front of the computer working on charts, schematics, and spreadsheets.)

Work continues on the vest (and that’s all I’m saying regarding it). Don’t forget to enter the contest here!

The test knitting is almost complete on the Twisted Mitts, so I expect to have those published on Ravelry & Patternfish either this weekend or early next week.  I don’t think I’ve said much (or anything) about these;  they’re full mittens, sized for men, meant as sort of a small primer on twisted stitches.  The inner cuff is ribbed.  I knit these with the Black Water Abbey sport in Indigo.

Garden:  picked 16(!) (granted, many of them small) Cherokee Purple tomatoes this morning.  Did you know someone did a website just for this variety?  I’m sure my neighbors think I’m nuts if they don’t already — I ended up stretching out on my neighbor’s driveway to look up into our plant, seeking ripe tomatoes (found some that way, too!).  Grilled hamburgers with tomatoes for lunch tomorrow (I’ll make some buns)….tomato & mozzarella salad (I think I may try making mozzarella again, it’s pretty easy)….