Getting back on track

With the picture taking and blogging. You may remember that I'm in the Nefarious Yarn Club by Cosmic Fibers Yarn, and this month when I opened the package there was this ever so cute bag made from button fabric. I must mention that I have signed up for the additional swag to go with the yarn. The swag has been really fun. I don't think I posted last month's goodies, now that I think about it. I'll attempt to remedy that soon.

Anyway, this month her nefarious character was the Other Mother from Coraline. There's nothing like evil pink yarn! I don't think you can see it very well, but Carrie also makes stitch markers every month using Shrinky Dink plastic. You can probably see it between the yarn and the bag if you embiggen the picture. (Yeah, blame Jebediah Springfield for my grammatical incorrectness, but I think embiggen is just a fun word.

On to other things. Yesterday Gale and I had planned to go see the knitted chickens at Knitch. We did go, with the addition of Alma, aka The Chicken Goddess. I always have fun when I go adventuring or shopping with Gale, but Alma added a whole new facet to it. One of the local Indian grocery stores, to be exact.

We had gone to lunch in a small plaza that had the Indian grocery store and a couple of Indian restaurants. Of course, we had gone there in search of lunch, but as you can see to your right, I also did a little shopping.

I've been wanting a pressure cooker for some time now, but (sorry Mom) my Mom instilled some odd fears in me as I was growing up. One of them was that pressure cookers are dangerous. Like you couldn't ever use one without it exploding. It would maim you, kill all your pets and blow the roof off the house. Needless to say, I was terrified of them for a very long time. (Fish bones too, but that's another story.)

However, Keith's mom used pressure cookers all the time. I've read recipes that give directions for using a pressure cooker, and I've been wanting to try one. When Keith's mom passed away, we got a couple of them, but they were older and missing parts. I didn't know enough to order the proper things online, so I've never used them.

Alma said that she uses hers all the time, showed me which one it was, and I bought the last one of that size that I could find. She also suggested a particular packet of sauce for cooking chicken and told me how this type of pressure cooker works. Apparently they build up a head of steam and release it all in a burst, causing the pot to whistle. The instructions on the back of the Butter Chicken Sauce say to cook your meal for 2 whistles. It just sounds so fun. Tomorrow night I'm going for it.

Why not tonight? you may ask. Easy, we've got lots of leftovers in the crockpot from yesterday, and I'm going to a baby shower tonight. Keith gets leftovers while I get Chinese food.

And finally, here is my sock in progress for Summer of Socks 2009. Yes, the yarn really is that bright. I'm not sure when I decided that the more obnoxious the sock yarn, the more fun it is to knit, but I'm enjoying this. It's Jitterbug in colorway Red Parrot. I've finished the heel flap and will be turning the heel later today.