First the Not Green

Spanish Rice is something that my Mom used to make. The recipe I use today is very different than the one she used to make us as kids but it’s just as good. It’s also incredibly easy

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 16 ounce jar of Salsa
1/2 cup of cooked Black Beans
1/2 cup kernel corn
Soy Cheddar Cheese
optional - cubed tofu

Preheat oven to 350F
Mix everything together except the Cheese. Personally I don’t like the tofu in the mix but the Baby Creature of the house really likes it so I put it in there. Everything is all mixed up and placed into a casserole dish. Top with the cheese (if you are avoiding soy, you can use Mochi instead). Cover and bake until it starts to get bubbly - about 30-45 minutes. Uncover and put back in the oven to let the cheese crisp up a bit - 10 to 15 minutes.

This is also pretty good with tofutti sour cream instead of the cheese. But put the tofutti sour cream after you’re done cooking just before you serve the rice. My recipe serves 4 people or 2 really hungry people.

On to the GREEN
The yarn that was punishing me from yesterday is sweating it out in a plastic bag. I’m done with it, it’s found a new home and I’m through with it. I dyed a new batch of that color early Saturday just after posting and was able to start casting on Sunday morning.

But that’s not the whole story. If we skipped all day Saturday you would be missing my terrible plight of the finding of the green. I felt the strong need on Saturday to cast on green socks. I needed it. It was for some reason important. My little knit brain got obsessed with the idea of green socks.
I cast these on:

It’s self striping Regia yarn that I was going to do Stella’s Razor Edge socks with them. After knitting the garter band, and realizing green had yet to show up…. I got bored. I needed green and while this has a stripe of green, it just wasn’t enough…. MORE GREEN

I cast on the 2nd Vineyard sock:

It has green in it. I think it even has more green than the striped Regias. Still, I was pining away for the “Punish Me Green” socks. I needed those. I needed all green.

In my sadness for the green, I gave up. I finished one RPM sock in the wonderful Cherry Slush from Union Center It’s not green but I can forgive it.

It’s a pretty sock and it will go great with the shoes.

Exciting right?
We had snow all night but now it’s ice, not quite hail, but not quite sleet either. Just ice. I shoveled some of the driveway and it’s not exactly a chore that I treasure finishing. I have shipments from Thursday’s update going out and that means I need to get at least a decent path done by noon.

In between the shoveling I thought it would be a treat if I could knit. I read over at Chris’s Blog that there is a green sock knit along.
Ok, I knew there was a knit along but I never checked the rules. There aren’t really any rules except that the socks should be green. I know I shouldn’t be casting on yet another new project but I really wanted to knit green socks (I’m easily swayed).

This is my green yarn:

Obvioulsy the knit gods are punishing me for casting on yet another sock. I might have to burn the yarn in sacrifice to appease them.

My Mom and my Aunt Nancy are quilters. They have a business where they sell ready made quilts and designs for quilters to make their own quilts. Mostly they do craft and quilting shows in New England and some in Florida… but that’s not what I came here to talk about.

My Aunt Nancy mad eme a quilt. She was upset that the business wasn’t going to be named the Argyle Cow (Nancy, Argyle is spelled with a “Y”). Nancy wanted to make sure the cow was around in some aspect… The quilt:

Once the sign finds a good flat spot, instead of a wiggly 6 year old, I’ll take another better picture.

THANK YOU AUNT NANCY, it’s very cool!

I finished this:

Yes, this is all you can see of it. Check back in the fall.

So I started this:

This is the sample sweater for the Big Ball yarn in worsted weight. It will also be a sweater for my Mom because she’s awesome and deserves one.

Then I finished this:

River Rapid socks (free pattern from The Sock Bug)
I have no idea what the yarn is, it’s some commercial yarn and that’s all I know. It was old and languishing in my stash. Well, the yarn languished for a while then the sock did. I sure hope the giftee will like them.

So I started this:

“Cherry Slush” from Union Center Knits. I’m going to make RPM socks to get going with the Run Lola Run knit along.

I’m updating the shop later today. I’m going to try and have it done earlier than I have been lately, but there are no guarantees.

Brenda reminded of Scout’s Meme. I hadn’t participated yet because I figured everyone had seen the big tattoo and nothing else is really finished. Still, I’ll show the big one again and the one that is part of something bigger. Well, actually they both are part of something bigger if you think about it, but that’s more discussion for another day.

For Kayla my love

and so you can see the colors better

And my dear Min

These were two very special dogs and left a big hole in our family when the both passed on last year. I had made a posting last November when I got the Kayla tattoo finished off. You’ll noticed I used the same photo. I couldn’t seem to coordinate my limbs well enough to take a new picture last night. Min was just added a few weeks ago. I still get weepy missing them (like right now reading through the old postings and looking at the photos of them). If you want to read the posts about them you can read about Kayla and Min.

PS - I do believe I’m getting my comments - hooray. I don’t need to set up Haloscan just yet