Shrimp on the Barbie

I think this has become my new favourite summer food... It's so simple and quick! The recipe I use was adapted from one I found on Allrecipes.com.

1.5 pounds raw shrimp
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp kosher salt
paprika (to taste)
white pepper (to taste)
bamboo skewers

Crush garlic and salt together, add in olive oil and spices to make a greasy paste (trust me, it is a lot more appetizing than it looks). Rinse shrimp and put in gallon ziploc bag. Scrape in paste, and moosh all over shrimp, seal bag and toss in refrigerator for a few hours. Start soaking the bamboo skewers at least 30 minutes before you plan to grill or they will catch on fire.

Take the shrimp out of the refrigerator and start to thread onto the skewers. Hold the shrimp in a backward 'C' shape and pierce it through the broadest part and the tail. My skewers are about 7" long and I can get 5 on each. Once the grill is hot, it will only take about 3 minutes on each side to cook them. I love how shrimp have a built-in doneness indicator - when they are raw they are weirdly translucent grey - when done, opaque and pinky-white. Enjoy!

I took some pictures of the garden while we were waiting for the grill to heat up. Here is my Sweet Basil:



That big leaf in the front is about the size of my palm. Here is the Lime Basil:



I foresee pesto on our dinner menu this week. Another one of my favourite summer meals. I make a really quick and simplified pesto - 4 cups basil leaves, 1/2 cup zesty fat free Kraft Italian dressing, 1/4 cup parmesan cheese. I put it in a container and liquefy it with my hand blender. You could probably add other stuff to this to zing it up, but I have to deal with a 6-year-old's palate.

Cherry tomatoes planted in the ground:



Cherry tomatoes growing in the basket:



The plant still isn't healthily green, but it is producing lots of fruit.

My eggplant has lots of flowers on it:



As does my acorn squash:



And look what I found hanging out in my cucumber plant:



I told you there was knitting going on. I finished this sock except for grafting the toe while catching a custom True Blood marathon on Demand (watching all the episodes I wanted to see again). These socks are definitely for me - no more sweet-talking me into giving them to someone else!

Gotta go - the new season of True Blood starts in 4 minutes!

Sigh...

It's been a louse-y couple of days.

Yeah, I spelled that correctly.

Help...

A Rose By Any Other Name

On Sunday we met Asami, Gara, and their boys at Buckley's Tavern Pajama Brunch - brunch is half price if you wear your jammies - and it was totally worth it to have Andrew go out in public in his Superman jammies. No pictures, however - I may have got him outside in the jammies, but he drew the line at the picture taking.

After brunch we headed out to the Brandywine Zoo and Josephine Gardens, where I found some beautiful roses. Unfortunately, with all of the rain we had last week, many of the roses were rotting on their stems, but I did find these ones relatively unscathed:







And as for knitting... I started something new last night... and it isn't a sock!

Gentle Prodding

My life has not been exciting of late. I have some big deadlines at work, the weather has been crappy, and I have been in a reading mood rather than a knitting mood... all things that contribute to a quiet blog.

Before I went to bed last night I checked my mail one last time and saw this missive from my Dad:

dear jo

i look at your blog everyday this week and i have memorized your latest post. get with the program

love dad

Okay, you know it's bad when your Dad feels the need to point out your paltry blogging...

Here, I'll try to distract you with some pictures from the garden!



Look what I have! As happy as I am to see the little tomatoes, I am a bit worried for the plant itself:



It's in the middle of our yard, it's getting full sun, and after the 4 days of rain we had this week, it's plenty hydrated, but it's turning yellow in spots and some branches are falling off. Does anyone know any tomato first aid?

My spaghetti squash has a bloom on it:



Weeds, too, apparently. That's what happens when it rains for nearly a week and we can't get out and pull things.

This is a cool one - I had to stand very still to get this picture:



It was cooler when I thought I was taking a picture of a bee... until Andrew pointed out this was a yellowjacket, not a honeybee.

And lastly, a late bloomer from my FIL's garden:



As I mentioned above, I have been in a reading mood lately - and in no particular order, here is what I have read in the last week or so:

* Succubus on Top by Richelle Mead
* A Touch Of Evil by C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp
* Night Huntress by Yasmine Galenorn
* Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
* The Devil's Due by Jenna Black

and last night I started reading:

* Demon Mistress by Yasmine Galenorn

And before anyone gets overly concerned about the titles, they are all urban fantasy - my preferred form of literary escapism. And trust me, I need a lot of escapism right now.

Blue Rocks Fireworks

or, more fun with the new camera. Tara asked me what kind of camera it is. Nothing terribly fancy - it's an Olympus FE-360 and it is a few steps up from my Nikon Coolpix. I know I could read through the manual (yawn...) but I much prefer, as with many other aspects of my life, to learn by just playing around with something.

Last night we went to the Wilmington Blue Rocks game versus the Myrtle Beach Pelicans with my father-in-law and brother-in-law. We joked that it was a good thing we brought the babysitter along - Willow absolutely adores her Uncle Stewart and she didn't want anything to do with us - she only wanted to play with Stewart. It was a pretty exciting game, too - the first inning lasted over 40 minutes and eleven runs were scored. In the end our home team won 8-6. It was a beautiful night for a game, too - it wasn't hot or humid, the sun set behind us so we didn't have the sun in our eyes, and best of all - I didn't get hit with a ball! (Trust me, as a person who was hit by a foul ball at at MLB game, any time you get out unscathed is a victory!)

We chose to go to this particular game because it was Fireworks Night! We don't live close to the stadium, but the fireworks are usually so loud and powerful that we can hear and feel them at our house (sometimes even see them as well in the distance). My camera has a fireworks setting and I was eager to use it. I have to say, though - in the end it was a lot more difficult than I was expecting. The camera told me it uses a slower shutter speed for this so I knew it wasn't going to be as easy as point and shoot and I would have to time these carefully.

You don't even want to know how many pictures I took to get a handful of half-decent ones...















And just to prove that all this playing and using special settings on the camera can mean absolutely nothing if the shot is right - with the same settings I turned to my left and snapped a shot of Willow:



Okay... keep playing.

Blame It On Memorial Day

It seems like I have been mixed up all week.



I started a new pair of socks! Hopefully these ones will be for me - they haven't told me otherwise yet. It's a variation on my stand by Ann Budd sock pattern done in 2 X 2 rib. The yarn is the Barefoot Spinner (who doesn't have a website) superwash sock yarn I bought at MDSW.

A weird thought about superwash - more than once while I was at MDSW I overheard people say they were apprehensive about buying superwash wool because they were worried it might felt. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that precisely what superwash wool is *not* supposed to do?

More "I Love My New Camera" Shots

And perhaps my favourite of the bunch:



Unfortunately, I missed most of the bloom time in my father-in-law's garden this year. The recent hot spell hasn't helped much, either - but I did manage to snap these pretties while during our cook-out yesterday.

Why, yes -

I am alive - thank you for asking.

Sorry - I have been incredibly busy at work. My lucky bum co-worker was whisked off on a surprise Caribbean cruise for her 50th birthday and I had to cover for her while she was away. Hint, hint - husbands...

I did manage to finish both pairs of socks I had been working on by Saturday night. Here are the Mandy socks:



They are too big for me, so I will be gifting them to someone, as soon as I make sure I have her mailing address (Ahem, Amy B. Cats).

Here are the Ampersand socks:



I love these socks, but I will be giving these to someone as well. They are beautiful, they fit - but I know someone who will really appreciate them. More on that later.

In the meantime, I discovered a cool feature on my new camera - super macro! Look what it does for the Ampersand socks:



Everyone, now - "Oooh..."

And my basil (which I started from seed, thank you very much) that desperately needs transplanting outside:



And my Christmas cactus, which not only have I managed to not kill, is sprouting new leaves:



I have a bad track record with houseplants...

Yay me!

24 Hours of Baseball and some WiPs

Whew! It's been a whirlwind of baseball around here!

Yesterday, Andrew, Willow, and I headed out to Frawley Stadium to see the Wilmington Blue Rocks play baseball.



This was Willow's first trip to a baseball game of any kind, and she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She saw a homerun, bases being stolen, and foul balls coming perilously close to us in the general admission seats. She got to eat a hot dog, have roasted peanuts and cracker jacks. I think it is safe to say that a baseball fan has been born.



I think she especially liked the theatricality (is that a word? If not, it is now!) of it all. The celery that came out and danced whenever a run was scored, the games between innings, people singing, the scoreboard lighting up and shooting water from the Mountain Dew bottle. Now I will just have to teach her how to play!

There was a fire up on the hill in Wilmington around the second inning mark:



For a while, people were more interested in watching the fire than the game in front of us. I can't say I blame them - I've never seen so many attempts to bunt in my life!

The baseball calvacade continued today when my work group had our yearly outing to a Phillies game. I *love* watching baseball in person - I played softball and fastball for so many years it just doesn't make sense to me when I watch it on TV - the perspective is all wrong.



Is Citizens Bank Park a lovely stadium? Our seats were in section 418 - I've never been up that high before. It wasn't bad - I mean, we were looking down the entire time, but we had a great view. Last year we were about 15 feet past third base and my view was obscured by the yellow foul line pole - I couldn't see the scoreboard at all. Personally, I much prefer being somewhere along the first base line.

There was an interesting starting act. I was really off in Lala-land. I had eaten my lunch, was wondering if it was going to rain or not when I looked down at the field and saw dogs... lots of dogs:



And a very chesty assistant. Ahem. The dogs did all sorts of cute an acrobatic tricks - it's too bad Willow wasn't there - she would have really enjoyed it.

The game was fun - it went into a tenth inning, but the Phillies ended up losing to the Dodgers 5-3. It was amusing to listen to my guy work friends - apparently they have an extensive fantasy league, so nearly every move on the field was mirroring something in their fantasy league. And they think knitting is time-consuming!

I did bring my knitting with me, and neither the security guard nor the cashier where I bought my food were surprised by it. The cashier asked me if I was working on a hat and I had to pull out my project to show her the sock in progress. I didn't knit at the park - my sole reason (ha-ha! pun intended!) for bringing it was the ride home. We have done this businessperson special a few times and I know we always get stuck in traffic on the way home.

So, without further ado, here are my two socks in progress. Both are second socks, and both will hopefully be finished by the weekend:



The pink sock on the left is the matching Mandy sock, and I need to find someone with feet larger than mine to give it to. I have 6.5/7 wide feet and they were just too long for me. And I am too lazy to rip them back and make them shorter. The pair on the right I am still up in the air on - I really like them and the pattern, but I think I may have a recipient in mind for those ones as well.

Last shot:



Lucky and his new friend - can you spot her?

I Love How Pansies Are Pretty All On Their Own

Lucky Shot

A few weeks ago, Bezzie wrote something about how there is a correlation between how far a cat stretches out and how hot it is. Well, it was hot yesterday. No - not mid-August humid hot, but after 11 straight days of cool rain, a day that hit the low 80s was a shock to the system.

Late in the afternoon I was folding clothes and watching episodes of No Reservations when Lucky jumped up at the other end of the sofa and sat like this:



I couldn't help myself - I started snickering and lucky (ha!) for me, my camera was right beside me.



"Why do you stare? I know I am beautiful."

WiP It Wednesday

There you go... a sock and a fifth? This Ampersand pattern knits up exceptionally fast (I think the sport weight yarn helps as well), so I hope to finish this pair soon so I can dig into something from my MDSW stash.



I forgot to include this yarn in my Rehoboth Beach post a few days back. There is a new yarn store in Rehoboth called Kitschy Stitch, in a very cute Cape Code house off of Rehoboth Avenue. If you are walking away from the beach on the right side of the street, Lake Avenue is the street where Starbucks is - turn left just before the Starbucks and it is the second or third house on your left. Allison was very nice and she chatted with Andrew (and while Willow pulled out *all* of her son's toys) while I searched for yarn. I will definitely stop here again on our next trip down to the beach.




And some non-knitting WiPs: the plants I haven't been able to transplant because the weather has been so wet and dreary lately:



While I was taking these pictures I was surprised to hear a lawnmower outside - it isn't raining at the moment, but this afternoon has been the only break in about 4 days of constant drizzle. The guy behind us was mowing his lawn - and can you see the massive machine he is straddling?!!? Someone has issues. That side of the street has long front yards and short backyards (ours is the opposite) - so his backyard can't be more than 20' X 40'.