And here’s the proof. Mt Hood from my window at work. It’s not easy to see it through the bare branches of the trees. But with the leaves gone I at least have a chance. In the summer, I can’t see it at all. Click on the pic to see a bigger version in a pop-up.

I knit about 6″ on Sock Scarf Two last night at Tangle knit night. Since I’m knitting both “socks” at the same time, that translates in to almost 12″ of actual scarf length. I think that about 2 or 3 more stripe repeats should do it. If I get myself in gear, I should be able to do that tonight.

I haven’t even thought about the traditional work team hand-made ornaments. ACK

I need to get in gear in more than one area!

#1 Son and his band are leaving next week for a whirlwind west coast tour. I’m not sure that I’m ready, as a mom, for that to happen. He’s unhappy with me because I’m not just overjoyed at their success. But I am overjoyed at their success. I’m not overjoyed at the thought of a bunch of kids on a long-distance road trip (covering Seattle to Bakersfield) in the dead of winter. I will be overjoyed when they get back.

I have to worry. I’m a mom. It’s my job.

Parents out there… back me up on this!

Other than that, no good reason for not writing in here more often. Just busy.

I’ve been getting home late, and I’ve been tired, I’ve been having endless “winter-driving why hauling a trailer on a long road trip and why it will make the estimated time from point A to point B longer than expected” discussions with the other member of my household. I haven’t even been knitting… much. Just a little. I’ve done about 20 more rounds on Sock Scarf 2. I’ll try to get a better picture up.

I’ve been having lots of fun snapping pics with my new camera — gotta try it out and make sure that everything works, y’know. I actually have a photo that proves that I can see Mt Hood from my window at work, now that the trees are gone. I’ll try to get that posted.

The unfinished objects remain, alas, unfinished. But I comfort myself with the knowledge that I am far outstripped in numbers of UFOs by the blogger at Curious George Knits. She has 19.

Life is such a study in contrasts, is it not?

There isn’t much knitting news from me, because there hasn’t been much knitting. I’ve managed to add about 10 rows to Sock Scarf Two over the last four days. That’s it. 10 rows.

In vaguely related news, I noticed that the new Knitty is out, and one of the patterns included is for a sock hat. I just may have to knit one of those to go with Sock Scarf Two.

And why have I not been knitting, you may ask? Therein lies a techie tale…

On Friday I upgraded some of the software on #1 Son’s computer, and I had a heck of a time reading anything on his monitor. After briefly wondering if my poor, old eyes were finally going completely blind, I realized that his monitor was finally giving up the ghost.

I bought that monitor about 12 years ago, or maybe more, from a store that will remain nameless to protect the idiots. It’s a 17″ NEC, and at that time it was quite bleeding edge and very expensive. As I recall the average street price was about $750 — a large sum for a CRT monitor. I wasn’t looking for that particular monitor, as it was well out of my price range. But I needed a monitor, and I needed one rather quickly. Nameless Store had quite a good selection, and I looked at a lot of monitors that were more in my range. But they were all smaller and didn’t have as many features. Knowing that the NEC was out of reach, even though it had no price tag on it, I still asked the sales guy about it.

Oh, that one. he said. Someone brought that back. It’s the only one we have. We don’t have a box for it, although we will of course honor the full warranty. I’ve got the software and the manual right here. Don’t know what the price is. Would $300 be acceptable?

Trying very hard to keep a straight face, I allowed that $300 sounded reasonable, gave the guy my money, wrapped the thing up in a blanket and loaded it in my car. It’s been serving me faithfully ever since, and was passed down to #1 Son about 6 years ago when I bought a new computer that came with a monitor. (Note that this was several computers ago. The ones we’re using now I built.)

So I’ve definitely gotten more than my money’s worth from #1 Son’s monitor, and from mine for that matter. But I could see that the time had come to bid the old NEC a fond farewell and buy a new monitor.

For me, that is. I may be altruistic in some things, but not technology. I get the stuff that rocks. #1 Son gets the hand-me-downs (which are always more than serviceable, so don’t assume he’s getting ripped off).

Saturday, after lunch with M, I went to the local Compusa in search of a monitor. I found a lovely Viewsonic 19″ LCD with 8ms video response time. And there was a Radeon X850 video card on sale that I dithered about, but in the end went for. And there was this 7.2 MP Casio Z750 camera the size of a deck of cards that also takes MPEG4 movies…

Yeah, it was not a cheap trip. Christmas came just a little early to the PI household. But I showed restraint. Even though I thought hard about it, I did not replace my dead CD burner. I can live with one DVD burner if I have to.

Saturday evening was spent with hardware. Click here for the blow-by-blow:

As far back as I can remember, my mother baked peppernuts at Christmas.

My mother came from a long line of Irish-American women who married Irish-American men. And, true to form, my father was also of Irish-American descent. My grandma (mamma’s mom) thought outside the envelope and fell in love with a German who had come from the “old country.” (I also married a man of German extract, but, unfortunately, not as happily as Grandma did.) Grandpa really loved the spicy little Christmas cookies that his family had made. And that is how a German Christmas cookie came to be a tradition in an Irish-American household.

I’ve seen many recipes for peppernuts, aka pfefferneuse, over the years, but none like the ones Grandma and Mama used to bake. Most recipes call for the cookies to be rolled in powdered sugar prior to baking or frosted afterwards. Mama would have none of that. No time she said when I asked. And, indeed, even sans sugar and frosting, these cookies are not quick to make.

Mama usually started in September. And she baked thousands of cookies. Thousands. All through the Christmas season there were little bowls of peppernuts scattered around the house. The cookie jar was always full of them. And, best of all (in my opinion) the fridge was full of chilling dough. I can still hear Mama to her resident cookie-dough-monster (me): “Leave my peppernut dough alone!” The cookies are so small that a dozen are barely a handful, and so crunchy and spicy that they will keep for a long time (if hidden from those who would otherwise eat them).

The dough for Peppernuts is very stiff. Grandma always mixed hers by hand (I think she kneaded it ), but Mama used a mixer. She burned several mixer out before I finally bought her a heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer one year for Christmas. The next year, Mama told me, “I love the mixer you gave me. Even peppernut dough hasn’t been able to kill it.”

Mama always included peppernuts in the Christmas boxes sent to far-flung relations. I can vividly remember the first Christmas that I was not able to come home for the holidays. Instead of using styrofoam peanuts as packing around the contents in my “Christmas box,” Mama used baggies full of peppernuts. She knew how to make home come to me when I was absent from it.

M has requested the peppernut recipe, and I have obliged. Follow the link to the recipe. Hopefully M will share! (Are you reading this, M?) If not, I may have to make a batch myself.

This (sucky) cell phone shot shows how far I am with Sock Scarf Two. I just turned the heels last night, and haven’t had much knitting time today. One thing about US#10-1/2 needles, it goes fast.

I’ve taken a different approach with this one than with Sock Scarf One. You will recall that One was knit from toe to toe — one “sock” being knit toe up and the other “sock” knit top down. In the middle where the two “socks” meet, I knit a round of purls, and then offset the ribbing so that it looks like they’re seamed together a little crookedly.

Sock Scarf Two is being knit just like socks, two at a time on double circs. When the socks are 1/2 as long as I’d like the total length of the scarf to be, I’ll graft them together.

One very nice thing about knitting long, multicolored tubes: the yarn ends don’t need to be woven in. Nobody will be able to see them.

In other news, the recent Homeland Security decision to allow airline passengers to carry small scissors has been criticized by some airline pilots, flight attendants and the families of 911 victims. It has been greeted with wild enthusiasm by knitters everywhere.