Cruising the Inside Passage

The weather started off very foggy, but burned off by 8:30.  We went to the shopping talk and heard about some of the freebies given away at some of the stores in upcoming ports.  We ate again in the Windjammer.  After lunch, Cara went to take a salsa lesson with Cathy in tow and Robyn went to the library.

Later in the day, Nana and Cara had appointments at the spa.  Cara has been wanting to color her hair, so color it she did.  I think red suits her very well.

After dinner at out favorite restaurant, the Windjammer, we went to see the Broadway type show in the theater.  It was ok, but I was a little disappointed.  We were back in the room around 10:15.  It was still light outside although the sun had set.  It is strange to see so much light at this time of night and to again see it so early in the morning.   This is how it looks just after midnight.

Vancouver to the Inside Passage

I woke up and sat by the window this morning watching the seaplanes take off in the harbor. It is so fun to watch. I enjoyed the quiet while the girls were sleeping and soaked in the views from the window. It looked to be a glorious day.

We were able to board the ship after noon, so we gathered up our things and headed that way. We went through customs again, US this time, and answered questions about our health. No one wants to get sick on the trip and they want to keep that in check as well. Once on the ship, we headed over to the Windjammer restaurant to grab a bite. Everyone else was doing the same since the rooms were not ready yet. We found a table outside and got a kick out of the seagulls snagging food off of tables with food left behind. They were pretty bold about it.

The rooms were finally ready and we were excited to see where we were staying. Mom, Cathy and I stayed in a room and Cara and Robyn had an adjoining room. This is our room.

And this is the girls' room.

We left the dock at 4:45.  I love sitting out on the balcony and watching all of the sights.  The harbor was so full of life and we were part of it.

Heading Out to Sea

**Before the trip I put the ap "Trip Journal" on my phone. I was able to write about the trip here and hoped to be able to put it directly on the blog. It only uploads to Facebook, but at least I have a written account of the trip I can transfer to here**

Last summer, my mom, sister, Robyn, Cara and I were supposed to go on a cruise to Alaska as part of Rob's graduation present from mom. Unfortunately, cancer got in the way and the trip was postponed until now. I am so excited to go to Alaska, especially during the heat of the summer. Anywhere has to be cooler than it is here. We flew into Seattle since it was so much cheaper than flying into Vancouver. Poor Cara had a hard time on the flight getting a bit airsick.

We took a bus to take us into Vancouver. The weather in Seattle is drizzly and 58 degrees. Much better temperature wise. I met a great lady on the bus. She used to live in Vancouver and told me about some great yarn stores. As we moved closer to the border, the weather cleared and the scenery reminded me of Colorado.

We arrived and moved through customs without a hitch. I think the girls are thrilled to be in another country. Vancouver is beautiful. I hope we can see a little of it before we have to get on the boat. We are staying at the Fairmont Waterfront. We have a wonderful room facing the water. We ate at the hotel since everyone was tired from a long day and then crashed into bed.

Nominative Determinism

I ran across this phrase a couple of days ago and I had no idea what it was. I was reading a thread on Ravelry and they were talking about people who lived up to their names, like Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales or Anna Smashnova, an Israeli tennis player. What a cool phrase. Nominative Determinism (as defined by Wikipedia is "the theory that as person's name is given an influential role in reflecting key attributes of their job, profession, or general life. Pretty cool, huh. I believe in this theory. Kinda of like a self-fulfilling prophesy so to speak. I would like to think that I am a happy person somewhat because of my name. I didn't like my name when I was growing up. I was one of many Mary's. In class I was always Merry S. I envied my friends who had more unusual names like Suzanne or Carrie. They didn't have to have the dreaded initial after their name to distinguish them from the other multitudes of Suzannes or Carries. I wanted to be named Melissa. I don't know why. I just loved the name. As I got older, I began to love my name, especially the spelling. I am often asked if I am born around Christmas (I am not) or if I am merry (I would like to think I am). Anyway, it is something to think about, no?

This picture of Whiskers? Her name does not demonstrate the theory of Nominative Determinism. She just has them. I could not resist taking a picture of this pose and sharing it with you.

Sour Cream Enchiladas

I did find a recipe I wanted to try on Pinterest. It is called Sour Cream Enchiladas. I wasn't sure if Phillip would like them, but I had tried another recipe similar to this one a couple of years ago and could not find it again. This one looked good.

As I was putting the recipe together, Phillip let me know that he had bought fish yesterday when the girls and I were out watching the Return of the King (Director's Cut) at the theater (It was amazing- we saw all 3 director's cut versions). He said he would probably only eat one to give it at try. I could see that he was a bit skeptical about what I was making. Like with the muffins I made yesterday, I had too much of the filling and not enough tortillas. I just packed those puppies full. That made it a bit of a mess getting the enchiladas out of the pan (they fell apart), but who cared. They were fantastic! I could have just sat down in front of the TV with the bowl of filling and eaten to my heart's content. Phillip put two on his plate after he finished his fish. He loved them as well and wanted to get another. I was secretly hoping he wouldn't like them, so I could eat them all, but I am glad it is a recipe he likes and I will put it into the rotation. I had gotten so stagnant in my usual meals. It is good to bring some new blood so to speak.

I wish I could have gotten a better looking picture of the enchiladas. I see all of these lovely food photos and it makes me want to eat that photo sometimes. Honestly, it was all I could do to hurry and snap this pic before they were on the plate and gone.

Perfect Blueberry Muffins

I have joined yet another online site called, Pinterest. I am so in love with this site. Since I am a visual person, this site appeals to me like few do. It allows you to save or bookmark sites, tutorials, photos, etc. you find interesting into a bulletin board like view. I can easily see what recipes I want to try or can quickly find the tutorial for something I have saved. What is also fun about the site is you can see what other people have pinned and gather more things to save. One of the things I found was several recipes for blueberries. When I saw they were on sale at the grocery store, I was excited about trying one of my new found recipes. The one I ended up using was not one I found on Pinterest, but another one I had saved in an email a week or so earlier and had not pinned as of yet. It is called Perfect Blueberry Muffins.

I enjoy the recipes I find on Smitten Kitchen and this one is definitely a keeper. What appealed to me was that the muffin batter was more like a cookie dough. That kept the blueberries from sinking down in the batter and kept them throughout the muffin. The addition of the lemon zest is what sent it to heaven for me. I made two batches and the second batch had more lemon zest than the first. I loved that batch so much more and will do that again in the future. I also used way more blueberries in the recipe than called for. I will pull that back a bit next time as well. Still add in lots, but not so many.The lemon and the blueberry... perfect. I have been gobbling these down like crazy. I need to get me some more blueberries and bake them up again.

My link on Pinterest is http://pinterest.com/snipinfool. Have fun pinning :)

Hats for the Babies

My local yarn store (LYS), McNeedles, is offering a 15% off discount on yarn that is to be used to knit hats for preemies or into scarves for the troops. You know I love to knit me some hats and little hats go so quickly. I bought a skein of my favorite soft yarn, Berroco Comfort, and set out on my knitting quest.

I finished three hats out of the skein and wanted to make some more. I found some lovely variegated yarn at Hobby Lobby and knit a couple more out of that. The pattern I used, Roll Brimmed Hat for Preemies, was super simple and easy to remember. The hats were the perfect project to take with me to Orange Beach.

The Figs Have Arrived

There is usually much rejoicing from family and friends when the figs are ready. Gary puts in his order early. Kat and Eleanor are right behind him. Today, Phillip pronounced them ready to pick. His veggies are ramping up too. The cukes and maters are ready daily. He is thrilled. Let the harvesting begin!

Feeling the Need to Bake

Robyn talked me into getting a Tumblr account. I had been wrestling with how to keep track of sites that had stuff I wanted to remember like recipes, and knitting tips. Tumblr is perfect for that and I have put lots of stuff on there. I have been finding a lot of recipes using the iPad app, Zite. It is a magazine app that allows you to customize what you want to read about. You rate the articles and it will show you more of things you want to read. Anyway, I have been getting the itch to bake since I have found lots of recipes that look great. The funny thing is the first things I bake are not recipes I had saved on Tumblr. Those are to come, I guess.

Robyn has a good friend, Cyrus, who just celebrated his birthday. He is one of the boys I have adopted in my heart as my own. I don't have any sons, so I get to adopt the ones I want. Cyrus is up at Tech taking summer school classes. I wanted to send him some goodies to eat. He wanted sugar cookies. I found this recipe, Easy Sugar Cookies. They are good and easy. I hope he likes them.

The second recipe is Brown Butter, Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies. My next door neighbor, Eleanor made these a week or so ago and said they were yummy. I was intrigued. I knew they would be flat since the butter was melted. They were flat indeed. The recipe called for the bacon to be broken up into small pieces and mixed throughout the dough. I was worried that my "people" would not like the bacon in their cookies, so I only put a strip in the center.

You get the bacony flavor in a bite or two. I was so amused by the reaction to these cookies. No one will eat them except me. There are two ways to look at this. One, disappointment that I am the only one who likes them and two, excitement that I am the only one who likes them. I choose the latter...more for me! The bacon taste is not overwhelming. Just interesting in a good sort of way. They can fight over the rest of the sugar cookies while I take my time eating these babies. Eleanor said she made a couple of modifications to the recipe. Her's were not pancake like. I will get those and try these again down the road.

Link to my Tumblr account: This is Merry's Brain

My Baby Has a Birhtday

Happy birthday to my baby. She will always be my baby no matter how big she gets. I love you Cara.

Heading Home

Today is Fathers' Day and we are heading back home. We all had a wonderful time. We soaked up the sun and now it is time to head back to our everyday lives. The condo was great and would be a place to stay in time and time again.

Before we fully hit the road, we had to stop at Souvenir City for the traditional "shark mouth" picture. We have a photo here from each of our visits and everyone we know who comes here does too. How could anyone pass that up?

Dolphin Cruise

Today is Shelby's 20th birthday. We planned to take a dolphin cruise on the trip and Shelby loves dolphins. It made sense to take the trip on her birthday. It was a fun cruise. We saw lots of dolphins and other wildlife. The weather was nice, but hot. The breeze on the water helped with that.

We saw a boat pulling some crab nets and the dolphins were following them. They like to eat the fish that get caught in the nets. The guys on the boat were also feeding the dolphin from the boat which is a no no and against the law. It did allow us to see a lot of dolphin activity though.

We found another spot with dolphin activity. It was fun to watch them play.

Along the way we saw an Egret's nest and a Brown Pelican.

After the cruise, we went to eat lunch at Wintzell's Oyster House. It was very good. Dinner was at Franco's Italian Restaurant. It was excellent and all agreed it was the best of the trip. After dinner, we went home and celebrated Shelby's birthday with a brownie with 20 candles on it. I think she had a good birthday.

Our Summer Vacation Day 2

Day 2 of the trip brought more time in the lazy river, the pools and the beach. I am not a beach person, at all. I like to sit out of the balcony and enjoy the breeze, but the sand...no thanks. I am not much of a swimming person either, although I do enjoy a lazy river. This lazy river was way too shallow. It was 1 1/2 feel deep and my knees were dragging the bottom as I floated around hanging on to the tube. Phillip and the girls were eager to hit the beach. The condo was across the highway from the beach, so we drove up the road a bit to a beach just across the Florida state line. My plan was to drive into Pensacola and hit a big JoAnn's for some yarn I can't find locally. See we all were doing something we loved. Me = yarn. Them = beach. Win = win. I dropped them off and hit the road. The directions I had were not to best, but I found my spot and returned later to pick them up. There was some sun burn, because some people wanted to apply their own sunscreen, instead of letting me do it. I am not naming names. I don't have any beach pics yet. They are still on the water camera we bought and will posted later.

After lunch and a brief siesta, the girls and Phillip again hit the pools and lazy river. I hung out on the balcony and knit. Again, everyone was happy. We went to Jake's Grill for dinner. We used to eat there long ago, but was definitely not as good as we remembered. The restaurant was wiped out in Hurricane Ivan and was rebuilt. We also think it changed ownership as well and thus the difference in the menu, etc.

Heading to Orange Beach

It took a while to decide on where to take our summer family vacation. It was first St. Louis and then Atlanta. Phillip and I love baseball and we thought it would be fun to see a major league game. Both St. Louis and Atlanta gave us that option. As the trip got closer, both of us started thinking more about all that time in the car either of those places would give us. Neither of us were thrilled about that, so a third and final option was found. The beach. We used to go to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach every summer when the girls were younger. I don't remember why we stopped going. I found a condo rental on Trip Advisor. I was looking on there for info on St. Louis and Atlanta and saw they also had condo info as well. We found one that looked great at the Caribe Resort.

The condo had 3 three bedrooms, a couple of pools and a lazy river. The best part is that it had 3 bathrooms. The girls both invited a friend, Shelby for Robyn and Emma for Cara, and we were all set. We had lots of room and everyone got along great. We hit the lazy river first and later went to Rotolo's for pizza. It was an excellent beginning to the trip.

World Wide Knit in Public Day

Now I know everyone out there was celebrating this day right and left. It is an important day, right? The actual day is June 11th, but the local event was the next day. I passed the word on to those who might be interested in hanging out and knittin'. Kat planned to meet us there and I arrived with my entourage of Robyn, Cara, Meagan and Twix. We got to the Books a Million ten minutes after the start time and they already had a big group.

Kat had the prefect seat right in the middle of the action. I was a bit jealous as when they were setting up for the group (this event was cleared with the store weeks in advance), some crabby old men complained to the management about how we were taking too many tables over to one side (see them behind Cara). We were not bothering them and what was the difference between having the tables close to the group and having them spread throughout the small cafe area and working in small groups. Really they were all taken up by knitters who had bought something in the cafe and were knitting too.

When we arrived there was not 5 seats in the main grouping so we took two tables that were left off to the far side of the cafe. The store has lots of other chair groupings throughout the store for people to use. They received lots of dirty looks and one spell placed on them from what I heard.

Meagan and Twix are not knitters (yet) and were interested in learning. Robyn took Twix as a student and I took Meagan. Both of the girls did very well for their first time.

All in all they event was a success. We met lots of new people who shared a love of fiber, heard about some new yarns and stores to check out and best of all Robyn, Cara and I each won a door prize.

Just Ugh!

I finally got this *&%A*#$%^! yarn unraveled, washed, and re-skeined. What I didn't think of was that some coat hangers rust. I used the coat hangers as weights for when the yarn was drying to pull out some of the kinks from the unraveling. Just ugh!

Why didn't I think of that? Really Merry. Anyway, I have it all done and am thinking of a pattern to use that might hide the rust marks.

Does anyone have a good way to get rust out of fiber? Pretty please?

Sometimes You Just Want a Lap Dog

Last week I watched the puppies from next door. They are cute, sweet puppies and small enough you can let them sit in your lap or carry them around. After spending time with them, I sometimes wish I could shrink down my two babies so I could cuddle with them while watching TV or something similar.

I mentioned it to Phillip how I wish I could shrink my pups down. He said that we didn't need to shrink them and proceeded to pick up Skittles and put her on his lap. Robyn followed suit and Jasmine was a lap dog too. Poor Skittles was confused because she knew she was not supposed to be on the sofa. Looking at them on the sofa was a little different from what I imagined a lap dog to be, but hey it worked.

This is the Way We Wind and Wash the Yarn...

Wind and wash the yarn, wind and wash the yarn. This is the way we wind and wash the yarn, so early in the morning. I remember that children's song from way back, but I don't know if we washed or wound any yarn in the song. I started winding up the re-purposed yarn from the sweater. This chair back is 37 inches in circumference and works nicely. I can get a rough idea of how much yarn I was able to get out the back and a little of the front.

It turned out to be a lot more than I thought, about 460 yards. Still not worth the time and effort. Next up is the washing and drying.

I gave the yarn a good soak in my yarn soap, "Soak". Then I put it on hangers and hung other hangers from the bottom to try to straighten out some of the kinks from it being used before.

Something That Made Me Laugh

I was driving down the road today and saw this.

It says "Hauling Liquid Chicken". I wish I had a better picture. The tank was all nice, shiny and reflective. Do I want to know what liquid chicken is?

Sweater, You Will Not Defeat Me!

I had several ideas for the title of the post. "Kill Me Now!" was at the top of my list followed by "Don't Do This At Home", "What Was I Thinking?", and the ever popular "How Dumb Am I?". The one I chose fits it the best. Last night, Robyn and I started unraveling our sweaters. We talked of the grand plans we had for all of the wonderful yarn we would have when we were done. NOT. This was a big fail as far as I am concerned. It took forever to take apart the seams and begin the unraveling part. Robyn's yarn was so thin. It looked like several strands had been knitted together or it had been so loosely plied that it separated in the unraveling. I could not find the strand to start the process. I fiddled with it until Robyn declared "Uncle" to her sweater. I packed mine in as well, disappointed in the whole process. I had a back and two sides and no balls of yarn in sight.

Before I went to bed, I started thinking. What if I was trying to start the unraveling at the bind off edge instead of the cast on edge? I assumed that the sweater had been knit from the bottom up, not the shoulders down and I just kept on trying to get it to work. This morning I began anew. I am taking care of the puppies next door, so I brought my stuff over to work on while I sat out on their wonderful screened in porch. The puppies had lots of outside time and I found some reward. It was knit from the shoulders down and I was just spinning my wheels last night.

This is the unraveling in process. I started with the back which was an excellent idea. It gave me the most bang for my time spent and left me with quite a bit of yarn. The yarn itself has a metallic thread running through it, or so I thought. I think in reality it was two fibers knit together because the metallic part just is a mess when unraveled. It breaks and separates into two pieces. I will go back and take that stuff out. I thought it would be nice to have the metallic for a shawl or something, but it is way too much of a pain.

Here is all of the yarn from the back. Not bad really, but when you take into account how much time I have into this, then not so much. I started on one of the sides. There the yarn was not so great in that I had lots of little balls from the shaping of the neck, sleeves, and sides. I finally quit when I had 3 small sized balls worth saving(and those were the biggest of the balls) and decided it was not worth it to struggle with the sides. There were pockets lower down and that would have made even more chopped up yarn.

After I finish taking out all of the metallic junk, I will measure it, wash it, and re-skein the whole enchilada. Oh joy!