We’ve had a string of good days around here… a beautiful addition to the family in Baby V (Mom is on her way to California right now to meet her new grandbaby!) and then I also got good news from work yesterday.  After many months of doing the work, I got promoted to a new manager position.  Still lots of records and archives and papers and boxes, but with a shiny new title!

It was a call for a happy celebration.  Vegan style.

Pumpkin pie with a pistachio/graham crust, whipped cream, maple coulis and pomegranate seeds… ooh, the delight!  All thanks to the local vegan eatery, Great Sage!  Oh, you know I love to bake and cook, but I also enjoy when others bake and cook for me

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In my last post, I mentioned the box of goodies that I sent off to California for Mimi and for Baby V.   I included the Komb blanket, the cardigans, a little hat, and some various things I picked up for lil’ niece.  Realizing that I was not able to finish Mimi’s cardigan by V’s birth, I whipped up a quick hat for my sister.  Spreading the handknit love to the mommy as well as the baby!  … and since Mimi is way over there, and I am way over here, you get me modeling the hat… hopefully I will have photos of her wearing it soon. 

Pattern:  Root Vegetable from Knit One, Embellish Too [book] by Cosy
Yarn: Handspun Merino/Angora blend from MDSW ’09,
Needles: Size US 9

I embellished the hat with about 15 small turquoise buttons.  They are randomly placed around the hat – it turned out quite cute!  Mimi told me she really liked it, and I hope it keeps her nice and warm. 

Ready for Socktoberfest tomorrow?  Nearly 1100 people are in the group on Ravelry!

As I was packing up the surprise goodies for Mimi’s baby shower (well, she knew about them, she just didn’t know they were going to be at the shower her friends threw for her!)  I thought about when Baby V would be joining us…

Little did I know that the little peanut would be joining us the day *after* the shower!  She is the early bird – two and a half weeks early! 

Wee little baby! She’s even doing a little fist pump with her hand!

She was 5 lbs 12 oz, and everyone is very happy and healthy! Just talked to Mimi on the phone and I even got to hear a “coo” from Baby V!  So exciting

Can’t wait to start my baby sock parade this week with the beginning of Socktoberfest on Wednesday!

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Resurrection day
Hexagon panopoly
Blankie for baby

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Komb Hexagon Blanket
Pattern: Komb, Berroco book #249 (Keltic)
Yarn: Jojoland Rhythm in M01 and M20
Needles: size US 7

Okay, maybe it was never *dead* enough to warrant a “resurrection”, but it was definitely forgotten and put away out of sight… and all it needed was a resurfacing and a little attention before it had a whole new life and new purpose. 

Started in December 2007, it was intended as a wedding gift for a friend.  Luckily, I anticipated how long this might take to complete, so we got her and her new husband a regular wedding gift as well…  It became clear early on that this was not going to be an enjoyable knit… I tried to practice all of my mindfulness and happy thoughts, but at the end of the day, it just wasn’t pleasant.  Perhaps it was the picking up stitches or the weaving in ends… the yarn was fun because it was a complete mixed bag – I never knew what I was going to get. 

I pulled it out last fall and winter and did a few more hexagons and then remembered why I had stuck it in the closet in the first place… and it went back in, about 1/3 of the way finished.  The blanket calls for 60 hexagons of a larger gauge, and I have 30 here, but I was planning to make 90 for a full afghan. 

The it occured to me that my knitting life would be much happier if I were to just “call it” with the hexagons and repurpose the blanket for a certain new baby in my life – my niece due next month! 

Hexagon blanket will now go to Baby V!  The fun bright colors seem perfect for a baby, and I thought the shape of it would be great for a stroller or car seat blanket. 

The yarn amazed me with each new ball – it is a nice light worsted weight wool – with so much variation.  I only used 2 colorways of the yarn!  Would you have guessed that?  The borders are a blue/taupe/tan mixture, while the hexagons themselves are pink, purple, green, and yellows.  Because I was planning a much bigger project, I have a decent amount left for some other fun things; it seems like a great yarn for winter accessories.  Mitts and a hat, perhaps?

I feel much happier knowing that this knit is no longer hanging over my head, and that it will keep my new niece all cozy.

…This post is going to sound like an infomercial…

I just can’t help it.

I made this WHOLE meal (excluding the lettuce, olives, and tomato) using one appliance!

…and what would that appliance be?

Meet the Vita-Mix.

When our old blender finally kicked the bucket, I had hopes that we could get this one.  Every one that I know who has one loves (like LOVES) theirs.  It’s wonderful for smoothies, which I drink every morning, and for a host of other things… since getting the Vita-Mix, we have made:  pesto from garden-fresh basil, all of the items on the plate shown above (potato spinach soup – cooked IN the blender in 7 minutes!, whole grain bread – even ground our own whole wheat flour!, and zesty tomato salad dressing), cinnamon rolls, apple spice cake, strawberry sorbet, about 20 green smoothies (spinach, kale, wheat grass + fruits and veggies), hummus, coffee… and a handful of other things that I am sure I am forgetting.  (I would be happy to share some recipes, but I am not entirely sure how they would translate without the machine itself… I guess it could be an experiment…)

Apple Spice Cake

Simply put, it is amazing.  You do pay for the amazingness of it, but considering that it is about 5 appliances in one, I felt like it was justified.  Luckily, Kris agreed with me.  He likes to cook as much as I do.  And since you make every thing right in the mixer, you know each ingredient going in.   So, it is ideal for vegans or for people with food allergies.  We got two canisters for ours – a wet and a dry – the wet is used the most for the soups, dressings, and obviously the smoothies, but the dry is essentially a bread maker… it mixes and kneads the dough pretty effortlessly, and as mentioned before, you can make all of your own flours.  We made whole wheat, rye, and buckwheat flour, as well as flaxseed meal.  If you have gluten sensitivity, it is perfect for making your own chickpea or soy flours with raw beans.  I am planning to try this very soon.   Also planning to make a whole batch of my own nut-butters and nut milks.  I *love* almond and macadamia butter, and use it often in smoothies, but I often balk at the price of the nut butters at the market.  I use almond milk everyday for smoothies and in place of regular milk.  Making my own is the key! 

It’s so interesting to me how supposedly “restricting” my diet to vegetables (I don’t see it as restriction in any way though!) has awakened this intense love of cooking.  For me, I see it as the same creative platform as knitting or sewing, or any other craft or art.

I have been lucky this summer to come upon some of the best fiction that I have read in years.  Like blow-me-away fiction.  Like “I had no idea what I was getting in to when I cracked that cover” fiction.  Here’s the two most recent additions, both read in August, but so worthy of mention here…

The Sparrow / Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

Since these books were published in the late 1990s, I had the opportunity to read them in succession without a long anticipating wait in between… for this reason, the books will undoubtedly be one story in my mind, with unclear lines where one stopped and the other started. 

My preface statement is – I have never read a “science fiction” genre book.  When I picked the first book up at the library, and it had the little yellow binding sticker with the “SCI-FI” and a little rocket ship, I marveled at it.  First time for everything, eh?  Especially when I hear such rave reviews from some friends over on GoodReads (particularly Mick and Stephanie), I wanted to try it out.  I have read my share of dystopian novels, but those are a sub-genre in and of itself. 

 One of the most profoundly moving books I have read in years – the only other one that comes to mind of this magnitude was As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg (yet, it was historical fiction, not sci-fi). This book was so well done; my first foray in to anything resembling science fiction, and it was so worth it. I am definitely glad I stuck with it – I usually give a book 50 pages, and it was around that time when I finally began to understand what was happening. I was impatient for the story to get moving, and once it did, I couldn’t put it down… when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. [My full GoodReads review]
 

The book has two time periods and two settings – the near future here on Earth, and the light years that pass as a small group travels to the newly discovered inhabitated planet of Rahkat. Reading the book, and experiencing this new genre brought on a realization: I like seeing and observing situations where a disparate group of people come together. Yeah, okay, that sounds a little funny, but I think it might be a common thread to some other literature I have read. I like it when an author brings people together in a book who might never otherwise meet… for instance, the primary character in this book is a Puerto Rican Jesuit priest/linguist. He is a genius with the spoken word and can learn new languages like *that*. Entering the mix: an older married couple – the husband is into aeronautics, and the wife is an ER trauma physician – an “indentured servant” intellectual, a hilarious and gawky physicist… see what I mean? Pour in to the mix a heavy dose of social contract and existential philosophy and religious duty… and lots of drama and human interest.

Well, early in the book, you learn what happens on their mission. And the remainder of the book, and the sequel are spent figuring out WHY it happened and how it will be remembered. At times it can be heartbreakingly sad, but a small glimmer of hope remains. The second book introduces a group of new characters, many of them inhabitants of Rahkat, and is full of religious allusions. It is intriguing and beautiful, and you can’t help but contemplate some of the major questions that the book raises. 

Reading a book like this, published 13 years ago and completely unknown to me before this summer, makes me wonder what other gems are out there…

***

…and now for something completely different… but no less amazing…

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

I was not prepared to be so blown away by this book. I hadn’t heard much about it, and the synopsis on the cover of the book does not accurately describe how *real* it is. Putting together a review is challenging, because so many of the words that come to my mind are hard to work in to comprehensive sentences: gut-wrenching, awe-inspiring, incredibly raw, heartbreaking, life-affirming, inspirational. It’s like a study in opposites.

The book is told from several perspectives and revolves around a Dominican family and their life in the DR and in New Jersey after immigration. The main characters are Oscar, his sister Lola, their mother Beli, their grandmother “La Inca”, and a friend Yunior.

Diaz’s narrative voice was so clear, so unique. I had not experienced writing like this before, and it really surprised me. Although it was a work of fiction, I felt like I learned so much about the DR, specifically the years in the first half of the 20th-century under Trujillo’s dictatorship. The story spans decades and interweaves these deep mystical themes (the curse on the family) with some very funny and light-hearted moments (exchanges between Oscar and Lola / Oscar and Yunior). [My full GoodReads review here]
 

Most of all, this book really made me want to learn Spanish. There *is* a lot of Spanish in this book (that is a common criticism of the book), and there are no translations, but it is not a hinderance. With context, it is pretty clear what many of the phrases mean, or at least the gist of them. One other note on the language: this is a harsh reality book – there is a lot of explicit language and quite a few violent and sexual situations. They undoubtedly add to the richness and the beautiful drama of the book, and I would not take any of them out. If you are particularly sensitive to these things, you may not have the same experience with this book.

This book prompted me to read more about Dominican history, and I came across a movie, based on true events, about life in the DR during the dictatorship of Trujillo, In the Time of Butterflies. The movie is in English, and the story that it tells – about the sisters – is even referenced in Oscar Wao, as it was a major event that lead to revolution in the country.

Díaz’s writing is brilliant. Lots of literary, historical, and pop culture references, seamlessly interwoven with this understanding of human relationships and their intricacies and complexities. His characters have such depth and emotions – you learn so much about them and their feelings, that they seem completely real.  And maybe they are… this amalgamation of people in the author’s mind.

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The rapid/rabid reading pace is already beginning to slow down a bit.  I am still keeping up on some audiobooks, but with work, yoga, and the new fall television line-up starting, there are some things competing for my attention.  The good news about that is that more knitting will take place!