Jam Is Gelled!

So, the grape jam is all jammed up! And so is the kitchen, but that's another story, didn't have time to clean up or was too tired, or NCIS was on the tube, take your pick, but the jam is done.
All jars sealed and this morning, just because, I flipped them over. I don't know why you do this, but they used to, so I do.
I haven't tried it yet, maybe tonight.

Just eyeballing the big bowl of picked grapes, I estimated 2 gallons of grapes, and complete with the added sugar, minus the skins and seeds I got 4 quarts and 3 pints. Pretty good.

Monday night (when I should have been jamming, but decided to go spinning instead), I went spinning. Not the riding the imaginary bike up and down imaginary hills kind of spinning, but the turning fibers into yarn variety. It's been awhile so I had to get tuned back in, but luckily, I have "J", the spinning extrordinaire instructor at my disposal, she got me going again. I had a nubby pink/blue/off white/brownish fiber that jumped out and attacked me while having early morning coffee in a very small Colorado Cafe. Go figure. I had to have it, you know how it is. It is spinning up into a very nice, trying to keep it a sport/sock ish weight, fiber, maybe a shawl will magically emerge from the bobbins full of this stuff.

Tonight Survivor starts, more knitting of the baby sweaters due in mid November, and maybe we'll get the bike that doesn't run taken over to the "bike that doesn't run so I'll fix it" guy.

Life is Good!

A Day Off

Well, kind of.

I took the day off to watch my 2 year old granddaughter. We had fun.

Apparantly Dora something or other is the new Sesame Street. I learned how to count to 7. I learned that Zebra starts with a Z, Elevator starts with an E and Bridge starts with a B. I could probably even draw a Z if I had to.

Yup, I good day!

I was going to can up some pumpkin for pies but I ended up on the floor playing "cow".

This is a complicated game. It involves, of course, a fairly large stuffed cow, and the life and times of it and it's buddies, which involve a zebra, more cows, and a chicken. These all live together in the toybox (well, ok, they live on the living room floor but we won't go into that). Oh, there's also a couple of fish and some duck decoys in the mix. They interact, they take naps, fight and play together, eat together, and have a fairly complex relationship. This I didn't realize. After this 15 minute game was done, we folded laundry. She's a very advanced 2 year old, but still with the attention span of such.

We had fun taking the high chair apart and discovering that it could be turned into a chair and table, and that she could then climb into and out of it by herself. And we ate "real people food", not this processed, packaged, cardboard crap they make for toddlers now. She ate and LOVED baked beans (have fun later with that one, Mom!), fried potatoes and onions were ok, but the fish I made. You'd have thought she had never eaten! She scarfed that down as fast as I could pull it apart and check for bones. Lots better than frozen mac and cheese!

This girl does not own a doll, but if it's furred, feathered, or finned, she's got a replica of it.

After her nap, she discovered my spinning wheel, which I was ironically, trying to use. She thought that was fun, and scattered all over trying to find things for me to feed into it to make pretty yarn. I was taking apart, strand by strand, a silvery piece of lame to spin in with the dark christmas green yarn I was making. This was fascinating, and soon she was on the floor pulling the fibers out and handing them to me. Made a pretty good assistant.

All in all it was a nice relaxing day, it was cold and rainy, so we were confined to the house, but I managed.

Still didn't get that pumpkin canned though, maybe tonight.....