I Bet You Thought....

With the holiday on Monday, I bet that you thought you were going to see pictures of a finished sweater, or sampler today or maybe a photo of our annual doughnut making results.  But, alas you would be sadly mistaken.

It seems to be the year of things wearing out around Chez Yarn Diet...the pump on the dishwasher, numerous pairs of socks that TOB has worn through and the heating element in my deep fryer.  Not that the heating element deciding that it wouldn't work is an insurmountable problem, before the world of self contained, programmable deep fryers I had an old fashioned one that you pour oil in, heat and pray it is the right temperature and that it doesn't boil over and set fire to your kitchen when you dump a load of wet potato slices in it!*  Actually, I still have it...

But, it is July in Ohio and the last thing I wanted to do was stand over a big pan of hot oil. 

So what did we do instead?

We stood over a hot pan of boiling fruit and sugar!

We stood in front of a hot oven watching home-made giant pretzels bake. (TOB referred to them as salt buns because they rose to the point that they lost their pretzel shape and looked something closer to cinnamon buns when they were done.)

We made hummus....and tabbouleh....and deviled eggs...

In short we trashed the kitchen.

I get to trash it again, my jelly didn't set, so even though red currants should have enough pectin in them to not need any more, I will be dumping all 7 pints of the first batch back into a pan and watching it bubble away while the jars sterilize in the new dishwasher.  (See, you knew that it wasn't just that I was tired of hand washing dishes!  I had to get a new one to sterilize jars for jams, jellies and whatever else we decide to put up this year.)  I think however, the half of the bushes we didn't pick can just be for the birds. I still have some jars of last years jelly in the basement!

Which is why I have no knitting progress to show you!

About the only progress I made was swatching and frogging...the same 100 yards or so of yarn over and over again trying to get a lace pattern just right!

~M

*I actually did that once, so I am extra careful now.  And yes, now that you ask, there are two fire extinguishers rated for oil fires in easy reach of my stove!