I have not had much time for knitting this year, until the month of May really. I have not progressed too well on 5 skeins used per month, but I have not been adding many skeins either (unless it was for a specific project)

Per the card system, it appears that I have (usage total in parenthesis):
Jan: finished 3 skeins (-3)
Feb: finished 3 skeins (-6)
Mar: finished 1 skein (-7)
April: purchased 3 (-4)
May: purchased 6, finished 12 (-10)

so, averaging 2 skeins used per month... I can do better.  some of my projects this month include several cloths:

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Wow. again. Since my defense, my life has been wild.

I have a job. A real job.  So, I am moving.  Moving far outside my comfort zone.  I am cooking to use the ingredients in the cupboard, and this is what I made last weekend:

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Yesterday.
It was a great feeling when it was all over.
I have a little more work to do on the document (a document that could have 10,000 more changes and there would still be room for improvement)
But the defense was successful and my committee is happy.  so are my parents.  so am I.

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I have really been wanting granola... I found a bunch of recipes, but most are 1) in the oven and 2) say to be careful about the oven as granola can easily burn.  Well, then I remembered the crockpot lady http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ and her granola.  Easy, peasy.  Of course, I had to modify this... I could not find unsweetened coconut or flax seed at the store, so selected sweetened and wheat germ.  I had dried cranberries, whole almonds, pepitas and sunflower seeds in the freezer, I chopped all these up (except sunflower seeds as they are pretty small to start with) and stirred it all into the crock.  After about 2h15min, my granola was done, slightly over done.  But still very edible and yummy on yogurt.

granola 20090118 004

While the granola was cooking, I was busy making mini quiche:

Mini quiche 2009018

and savory muffins...

savory miffins 20090118 003

For the "muffins", the batter is too dry. 2c wheat flour and 1c all purpose flour call for, but I think more white flour would help.  I added some bacon bits and cheese to the last pan that went in the oven, so they are a bit more brown on top (top one in the photo has the extra cheese). 

These were cool muffin cups as they did not need to go into a muffin pan (could just cook on a flat sheet), however, the metal lining seemed to trap quiche liquid -- seemed like they would make the contents soggy if left over time.  I have more exploring to do.  Maybe those flexible silicone pans would help?

Needless to say, I have enough food for breakfast for this week :)  I did freeze some of all so as to have more later. 

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black eyed peas for Happy New Year

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Time flies when you are having fun (or just working hard...)
With today being the start of a new year, I thought I would take a look back at my progress last year...  One project in particular that I was mindful of was a goal of using yarn from my collection and trying not to purchase excess. In looking at my cards (I gave each yarn a card listing the skein details and I also note what projects the yarn was used for on the card) it seems that I have about 85 skeins remaining from the 122 I think I should have had at the beginning of 2008... I think I may have purchased 53 skeins during the year, and used 48. This means that I did not achieve my goal of reducing my stash significantly, unfortunately. It hurts my numbers that in January I purchased 32 skeins!! (for a sweater and a blanket project, neither of which were completed) I posted some of my numbers here on vox, and these numbers do not exactly match up to the cards I have, so some cards may be missing (and I did not get out all the yard to count...)

In looking at my cards and seeing the number of finished projects, I am proud of what I have accomplished. I averaged about 4 skeins a month usage (and there were several months where only one skein was used!!) My goal was to use about 5 skeins. For 2009, I will continue on this project of using yarn from my collection (standing at 132 skeins today) and hope to finish more of the projects that are waiting.  My knitting time was greatly reduced as for the six months I had a part time job (this also cut into my dissertation writing time, and this dissertation project must take priority!)

I have some photos to load of the christmas projects I completed, and lots of chores to do :)
Cheers!

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Go check out the website for your state.  Even if you don't think you should.  I did.  I was surprised to find something had been mailed to me 4 years after I moved from an address.  Sure, it is not much and it will take some effort (and 60-90 days) to get, but finding money (and money you did not know was coming!!) is always a good thing.

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What one trait do you wish more people around you displayed?
Submitted by Ross

Honesty.  The ability to tell the truth, without embellishment. 

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Gosh, it has been a long time since I checked in at Vox... I will do better, promise :)

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