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September 1st, 2010 8:13 pm
School started for some of the younger kids today, and I once again encountered a school bus sitting on the street outside my house. Maybe it’s because the kids are young, or maybe there are just so many of them, but our neighborhood school bus stays in one spot for quite a while. One of its stops is at a T intersection, and it likes to sit there with its yellow flashers on for a few minutes. Every time I pass it I wonder if I’m breaking the law.
Well, the WI DOT had a relevant question of the month last year that more or less answers my question: http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/news/law/previous-laws.htm#september2009
I grew up out in the country without sidewalks, so when buses stopped, they always used their red top lights – and there is no doubt in my mind that that means stop (even when the bus is on an exit from a major highway like another bus I usually encounter on my way to work). Likewise, if the stop sign is out, I know I have to stop. The red lights and the stop sign only don’t mean stop if there’s a median. But when the bus is just sitting there, sometimes picking up or dropping off kids, but sometimes killing time with its yellow flashers on, what do I do? Apparently, pass with caution. The only thing I can’t do is turn right in front of it. That shouldn’t be a problem.
I’m relieved, especially since so many of my neighbors were out video taping junior’s first trip to school this morning. If I had done something wrong, they’d all have it on video!
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August 9th, 2010 8:02 pm
We were (or maybe I should say “I was”) a little overzealous with the tomatoes this year. I kind of didn’t expect them to do as well as they did. I have 4 Early Girl plants, 4 Roma plants, and 4 Supersteak plants. All of them are cranking out tomatoes. So what am I going to do with them all? Well – I’ll give them away if I can. But I’m also going to eat them. I don’t have plans to can, but maybe I’ll freeze some sauce. Meanwhile we’re having salad with tomatoes, tomato salad, bruschetta, and tomato tart.
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July 25th, 2010 7:50 pm
I started this insane 12 days of Christmas cross stitch in March. I don’t think there’s any way I’m going to complete this by Christmas, or do 3 sets! Eesh.
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July 25th, 2010 7:16 pm
After I set up the Bernina, I decided to do a few simple sewing projects. I started by recovering all of the pillows in our living room with a 5-yard bundle I got at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago and a couple of yards of coordinating fabric I picked up at JoAnn.
Next I tackled the Margaret Sling Bag from Oh, Fransson!. I cut the strap on mine 50″ long and kept the middle and ends the same size as the pattern. I had to cut mine in two pieces and seam it because of the length. I was still able to do it with less fabric than specified in the pattern.
Recently, I saw some Christmas fabric I really loved. I couldn’t think of what I would do with it, but then I remembered how much I love the pillow cases my mom made for me and Brian (astronomy and circuits). I bought 2 yards of the main print, 1 yard of the cuff print, and 1/2 yard of trim fabric. That was more than enough to make two pillow cases with these instructions. I cut the cuff fabric incorrectly and ended up with an extra seam. I’m also not sure if I totally understand how to handle the corners of the French seams, but so what – there are a couple of tiny spots on the inside that might ravel. Overall I’m very happy.
Next I’m hoping to continue working on the Stars of Avon quilt I started several years ago and stalled on.
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July 25th, 2010 3:38 pm
I have an abundance of tomatoes. The early girls are still going strong. The romas are ripening full steam, and the Supersteaks are just starting to ripen. I have to stay on top of the situation and pick the tomatoes just as they turn orange or the ground squirrels will eat my tomatoes. The squirrels seem to like them when they’re orange-red, but not when they’re still orange-green. Every couple of days I go out to pick more tomatoes:
I’m trying to work tomatoes into our dinners this week: bruschetta, tomatoes on burgers, BLTs. I’ll probably make another batch of the yummy macaroni salad with hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, and onion that I made last week with the first of the tomatoes.
I’ve also been wanting to try another custard-style ice cream. As I posted about earlier, I have been wondering why my ice cream leaves a chalky coating on the spoon and coats the inside of my mouth. High butterfat, apparently. I found a recipe for chocolate custard using half and half as the only dairy, so I decided to give that a try. So far, so good. Out of the machine it does not have the coating, so we’ll see what it does after it freezes for a while. It DOES taste strongly of cocoa powder, which is the majority of the chocolate in this ice cream. It’s good, but I’m still searching for my favorite chocolate ice cream recipe.
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July 19th, 2010 11:10 pm
After dinner tonight, I suddenly realized that I have no time to do anything this week. I have two rehearsals for a musical, hopefully concerts on the square, and then it will be Friday. There is no time in the evenings to make pasta salad or chocolate ice cream or go for a walk or water my garden. I’m going to be hard pressed to stay on top of the tomato situation before the ground squirrels eat them all.
I did a little violin practice this evening and went up to bed, but then realized there’s no way in hell I’m going to get up early to accomplish anything. I’m MUCH better off just doing it now. So I let Brian sleep and I went downstairs to make pasta salad with those yummy tomatoes I picked this weekend. I’m also catching up on some email and planning some other music-related stuff. I needed to make the pasta salad so I can eat it for the next few days while I’m too busy to cook any meals and before the tomatoes went bad.
I think this is a good plan. I am not a morning person at all. Every morning is a struggle. I think it’s always been that way (unless I take Excedrin for a headache right before bed. That seems to help me wake up somehow.)
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July 6th, 2010 10:20 pm
I inherited a wonderful sewing machine from my mom. I look forward to using it on some quilting projects. To begin with, I’ve just been sewing to get used to it. I have learned a few things, and I thought I might post about them in case anyone out there is searching the web for help. I did a few searches of my own, and read the manual through a few times before figuring this stuff out.
- The hand presser foot raising/lowering lever is in the back of the machine. This is slightly different from the Elna I used to use, which had a presser foot lever that was on the right side of the needle and a little more visible. I had to call Mom about this – duh. I was trying to use the knee lever, but the knee lever won’t hold the foot up unless you keep it pressed (as far as I know).
- To go in reverse hold the “U turn” button down for a second or so until it beeps. Hold it down until it beeps again to go forward again.
- To get “needle stop up/down” hold down the needle up/down button for a second or so. It will NOT beep, but you will see the indicator on the screen switch the up or down carat next to the needle.
- If you find your machine skipping stitches when you are sewing on a quilt sandwich, you may need to drastically increase the pressure foot pressure using the dial on the left side of the machine. I am currently sewing through a fold in a purse that has multiple layers of fabric, interfacing, and interlining.
I think this is a very nice machine, but we are still getting to know eachother. The index in the manual is fairly useless unless you know EXACTLY the right words to search for. I’ve read the manual from cover to cover a few times by now, so I’m getting used to where to look for things, but I still have to internet search on some things. The needle up/down thing stumped me for a little while. I just figured out the presser foot pressure thing on my own (as far as I can tell the manual says nothing about increasing it for multiple layers of fabric or quilting).
I guess it is worth adding that I’m sewing with the walking foot, feed dogs up, not really quilting. I’m just sewing a very large sandwich of fabric, interfacing, and padding. I expect to be able to lower the presser foot pressure when I’m free motion quilting or this isn’t going to work very well.
It took a combination of increased presser foot pressure and increased top thread tension to get my sandwich looking good. I guess I’d advise anyone with problems to try rethreading the top thread and bottom thread, play with presser foot pressure, and play with top thread tension.
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July 4th, 2010 11:34 am
One thing that bothers me about the ice cream I make at home is that it covers the spoon and my mouth with a weird coating. I’ve been reading some forums to see if I can improve. Here’s a link to the most useful forum post I found on Chowhound.
- Find recipes with less heavy cream (more half and half), and possibly fewer egg yolks
- Churn for less time, 10-20 minutes max, pouring into freezer container when it is still milkshake texture (contrary to what I might believe)
- Cook custard bases to 175 max, immediately cool, and keep stirring until cool
When I made honey ginger ice cream a few days ago I didn’t know how far to cook the custard. “Until it coats a spoon” has always struck me as the stupidest instruction ever – but maybe if you’re a REAL cook you know what that means. I will be interested to try a custard ice cream again with a thermometer. The honey ginger ice cream was the first custard-based (French style) ice cream I’ve tried. The results were ok, but I hope I can eliminate the weird mouth coating thing.
I will also toss in the chopped candied ginger at the end if I ever make this recipe again. I used this recipe as my base, and substituted 1/2 (liquid) cup honey for the 3/4 cup sugar. I think I might use half honey and half sugar next time – the honey was a bit overpowering. I think the candied ginger lost its candied sugar exterior when I mixed it with the cold cream and hot custard mixture.
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June 9th, 2010 7:06 pm
I ran across an interesting article on the Sociological Images website about Outlet Mall locations.
…..as Ellen Ruppel Shell explains in Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. It turns out that being difficult to get to is, in fact, part of the appeal of outlet malls. The fact that they often require a drive of an hour or more signals to consumers that they must have really good deals. That’s the payoff for inconvenience — it’s harder and more time-consuming than going to your local mall, but in return you’re getting a great bargain. Right? Well…not really.
So that’s why the Huntley outlets are in the middle of nowhere, but can anyone explain why they’re harder to get to from the North instead of from the South? I guess us Wisconsinites need a more difficult challenge to feel like we’re getting a bargain!
This whole discussion makes me feel like a rat in a maze after the elusive cheese. I haven’t been to Huntley in years. I found (surprise, surprise) that the “bargains” are not worth the drive and not even worth a stop on my way to better things.
My family does go to the Johnson Creek Outlets probably once or twice a year, and sometimes the outlets in the Dells. I’d say I don’t expect spectacular bargains, but there is a better selection of clothing in my size than what I can find locally.
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May 26th, 2010 8:37 pm
Brian and I put in a 4×8′ raised garden bed in our back lawn for growing plants. Since our lawn is sloped, this required digging out a wedge of lawn, and the resulting bed is completely raised on one side and raised by only inches on the other. Digging sucked big time. I don’t ever want to do it again – and if there ever is a next time we will be renting some equipment to do it. We have solid clay for a back yard. It holds a lot of water and is very heavy. It doesn’t drain and it’s extremely hard when wet. When dry (only on top) it’s a crumbly mess. After we dug out the wedge of bad clay we put in some gravel and some 6×6 timbers to build the walls. We filled it with compost from the nearby county compost site.
I bought 12 tomato plants and a bunch of herbs. I’d say 1/3 of the bed is herbs and the rest is tomatoes. I have too many tomato plants! oops. I planted them all anyway, so we’ll see what happens. I made the mistake of planting 3 rows. The romas are in the middle, and I’m not sure how I’ll get to them. I also didn’t stagger the plants in the rows, so I may have a hard time getting to the romas.
After reading up on various methods to cage and stake tomatoes, I think I’m going to train them to single stems and stake them with fabric ties. Supposedly single stem means fewer tomatoes, but I think I may have more than I can handle anyway!
Salsa, bruschetta, tomato salad, BLTs, here I come!
Here’s a useful article on pruning tomatoes. I know most tomato plants I’ve seen have been about 4 feet tall – probably because of where I live. We’ll see how tall mine get. I hope that staking single stems will help them make the most of their limited horizontal space.
I bought a rosemary plant and I already have some chives – those are the only two perennials. I also bought flat parsley, cilantro, oregano, dill, and basil. I’m hoping to get a nice basil crop, but two years ago the Japanese beetles devoured my basil.
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