She Cleans Up Well Enough

Although this seems like not-a-big-deal, I was very excited last week to order and receive a brand new fridge.

Isn't it shiny?! I am pretty low maintenance about appliances, in part because I tend to focus on energy efficiency which usually means fewer bells and whistles. I had said that we would not get a new fridge until we could afford to get a Sun Frost, a $3500 investment. And not likely to happen soon. But when we were confronted with 30+ eggs a day, and no room for the iced tea, let alone the vegetables we chow down in large quantity, something had to give. My plan was to buy a small used fridge for the garage for eggs. Well, plans are subject to change. The old fridge - not very old really, although it was here when we moved in it appeared fairly new - was very loud and had a bad habit involving dripping and the perpetual need for a bowl in the back to catch run-off from the freezer. Anyway, while on my new-used garage fridge quest I called Gene and explained that all the used fridges I could find were old enough to suck about ten times the energy of our current fridge. I told him how much new fridges cost, and we decided to change the plan. Buy new for the house, and move our old one to the garage for eggs. This pleased him well enough - the constant running and noise of the old one bugged him more than it did me. Well, the plan has now changed again! In my excitement to pick our a large shiny new metal thing for my kitchen, I failed to realize that I was procuring a fridge that was 2 cubic feet larger than ours. With just the two of us at home, our fridge use has declined. Upon moving this lovely new baby in we made a wonderful discovery. We can fit about 18 dozen eggs on the lower shelf. This means, for the time being anyway, there is no need to plug in the old one, now living in the garage! This makes my tree-hugging, energy-sipping soul SO happy! AND, after some research, it turns out that this new Energy Star rated fridge, even though it's bigger, will use about 40% LESS ENERGY than the old one did!
Over this holiday weekend we got to visit the farm where our beef comes from.Wheel View Farm hosted an open house and sale - which means we also probably came home with some beef.

This farm is so beautiful, I could sit all day and look out over their pastures, watching my future food on the hoof. We are so lucky to live in this valley.
After we visited Wheel View, we drove home through Leyden to avoid holiday traffic on route 2 (the "Mohawk Trail")and circumvent the Gas Engine Show in Bernardston. This show is an annual event that I used to take my kids to when they were small (and so was the show). It's a combination flea market and antique engine show. Living where we do now it is something we tend to avoid. For those who attend, I hope you have a wonderful time. it is a lot of fun to see the old engines, and prowl the flea market sales. I just prefer to stay clear of the traffic and chaos for those two days. FedEx delivered a package up here on Saturday morning and warned us not to go that way if we wanted to leave home. Seems he could not get off of route 91 for quite some time as traffic was backed up for a few miles leading to the Bernardston exit.
Last night we were carrying in the dishes from our little two person holiday picnic and the most horrible thing happened! I dropped my official wine cup!

Watching it fall was the saddest thing ever. I was carrying a huge pile of dishes, much to high for safety. Everything started to tip and Gene grabbed, and down it all came anyway, in spite of our best efforts. I have begged Malea to make me a new set. There is hope!
On Saturday I will attend the wedding of Meg's closest friend Maria. I decided that maybe a dress was in order. I have some, but none really appropriate for a June wedding. With this in mind I headed off and found two possibilities... this is dress #1:

And this is dress #3:

I don't need to show you #'s 2, 4 and 5, because I decided against them all pretty quickly. It took me a LONG time to choose between these two. I wandered around the store clutching them in my hot little hands, wondering if I could get away with buying 2 dresses when I never wear them after the event I buy them for. That is a thing which drives Gene crazy. I have tried to explain this bad habit to him, but I don't get very far. He has pants. He wears his pants over and over and over until they fall apart. Dress shirts; over and over. Ties, the same. But I digress. We were talking about ME! Although my hair needs to be spiffed up a bit, and a pedicure would not be amiss (thankfully you can't see that in the pictures) I think I clean up well enough. Guess which dress I bought? I'll tell you after the wedding! The important part is that for a few events in the next few months I will not look like a train wreck heading straight for "What Not to Wear"!
Stay tuned - in the second week of June we will begin the great 2011 Teach Yourself Visually Circular Knitting Blog Tour. We have a great line-up of hosts for this online event, and each stop along the way has been given a book to give away to luck readers! Some hosts are doing interviews, some reviews, and some a combination of both. Judging by the interviews I have done so far, this is shaping up to be a lot of fun, and informative as well.
Also, I just recently learned that I will be at TNNA's summer show in Columbus, Ohio signing books on Sunday June 12 at 2pm in the R&M booth. Come and find me and say hello! I will have samples from the book along for the ride as well. I'd love to see you!
AND, if you are in New York on June 16 at 6pm, I will be at Lion Brand Yarn Studio talking about the book. I'll have samples there as well, and will sign books and answer questions! If you'd like to attend, please RSVP to Lion Brand Yarn Studio at the link above.
But before that - the official kick-off signing and Q&A for Teach Yourself Visually Circular Knitting will be at Webs in Northampton, Massachusetts on June 9th at 6:30pm. Please register with Webs with the link above - we wouldn't want to run out of champagne ;) This event at Webs is probably the only one where I will have all of the garments and samples from the book along with me. You'd be amazed at how much space 16 projects, each knit in 2 yarns, plus swatches can take up in your luggage!
More soon - even some knitting!