Yee Haw

This week I had the pleasure of being treated to lunch at the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Museum. My whole department got to go at company expense because we've been working like crazy people and meeting our monthly deadlines in spite of being down one whole person for the last 2 months (plus some) at the same time as we picked up a massive acquisition and ran 1099's. The museum has a world class collection of western art, along with cowboy and rodeo memorabilia. Some years ago it had a major renovation which not only improved the galleries tremendously, but also added several meeting rooms in various sizes and kitchen facilities. A lot of fancy local functions and benefits are held here, but I did not know you could have lunch at the museum, and tea later in the afternoon. The menu includes a variety of salads and sandwiches, plus a nice buffet. We had the buffet, in the interests of having a fairly brief luncheon. I think I'll be back another time, maybe for a Sunday lunch. Shana was very interested in checking it out and we'll surely meet for lunch some time, if we don't get out there for the Sunday Brunch.

Today's adventures included a trip to Pets Mart with Roxy - too bad I didn't bring my camera along today. I shopped the cats up for adoption and Shana shopped the birds. Cats and birds are not on our shopping list due to allergies, but we do like to admire them and indulge in the fantasy. We both admired the variety of tiny dwarf hamsters they had, which are not really on the wish list for either of us in spite of being the cutest things ever. Roxy got a new squawky duck, some of her favorite food, and a bag of chews. It's her favorite store.

The rest of the day will be devoted to cooking - Aunt Rita is here and after church tomorrow we will be going to visit Shana's Aunt Anne. We will not be welcome without cookies! This time it will be Paula Deen's White Chocolate Chunkies . They are really easy to make and just yummy.

For the after church potluck tomorrow I am making a Banana Cake with Quick Caramel Icing from the Cake Mix Doctor. Shana is bringing some spicy glazed chicken legs and a pan of "overnight" chicken enchilada casserole. I'll also be shopping around the web this weekend and next week for some fun recipes to take to Denver for my annual family visit. While I am there I get to do some family cooking, which I don't do much of anymore, and Mom gets to eat someone else's cooking. It's only fair - when I was a kid I had free run of the kitchen at all skill levels. Mom should have some of the benefit of the resulting passable cooking skills. Who really knows how she lived through my early experiments! I do remember she pointed out to me that garlic salt was not a good addition to scrambled eggs, although in general I think she pretty much let me experiment at will.

My crafty efforts are still going into the same three projects, none of which are showing enough photogenic progress to warrant another picture. This would not be the case if I was working on one project at a time, but too bad. I'm not. I think tonight I'll get the gusset and part of the foot done on the second striped sock, and tomorrow evening maybe get the heel turned on the second Parting Ways sock. I'm not loving the heel flap on this one because it's patterned going both ways and I have to read every line. It's a six line repeat as it is, and for the heel that makes it a twelve line repeat. With no charts, so I can't just glance at it and get the sequence for the row. This seem a lot of work for a sock. I still think I'll make it again, and in a plain color which will highlight the pattern because it is very pretty, but I can't imagine ever getting to enjoy this heel. On the other hand, the Phoebe sweater has cable patterning down the sleeves and I think this is a valuable bit of experience for it, even though it is faux cabling. The Kimono Shawl does not look substantially different from the last picture. I think I've only added about three inches to it this week. It's slow, but so far I am not bored with it, and it is still good TV knitting. I keep wrapping it around my neck to see if I am at the halfway point yet. Have I started my sweater yet? No, I have not. This week I am going to check the needle size, pick up the ones I need if they are not already in the arsenal, and start swatching. I feel Fear of Project breathing down my neck, so I'd better get on with it before I lose my nerve. I definitely want to have this started before I leave for Denver.