Town Day!

My nice mom came up yesterday to help me finish some remaining tasks, get packed and get off the farm. I went down to Charlotte, N.C., to collect her from the airport and, taking advantage of being in the big city, decided to go to a yarn store to indulge my new found love of knitting. I found Charlotte Yarn. Warm and welcoming, the walls were stacked high with the most beautiful yarns, just begging to be fondled. Fantastic hats, sweaters, shawls and scarves, knit by the staff, topped the displays. I was looking for price tags but unfortunately, none of the items were for sale.

A group of women were gathered in a cozy sitting area, knitting and chatting. My mom and I wandered around admiring the myriad colors and textures of yarn. The two workers asked if we needed anything and then left us alone. Once I had circumnavigated the room and narrowed down my selections I looked over and one of them quickly came to my assistance. I asked her advice and soon had my choices made. They gave me a free hat pattern, a hat being my next endeavor, and using an interesting apparatus, wound my yarn into balls. What a timesaver!

Walking into my very first yarn store, my previous yarn purchase having been made at Walmart, left me looking forward to finding a similar place in the Knoxville area where I can become one of those women in the knitting circle.

When I knew I was going to Charlotte, I asked my Twitter followers for lunch recommendations and @RhiBowman replied with Amelie’s French Bakery . What a find! Funky, eclectic décor, delicious soups, sandwiches and baked goods, we knew we’d come to the right place as soon as we walked in the door. We had a good lunch of spinach and asiago tartine, Portobello and onion tartine and a truly inspiring asparagus soup, the owner’s grandmother’s recipe. Thanks @RhiBowman, for the great suggestion. Twitter's an amazing thing, isn't it?

Longing sideways glances at my new yarn notwithstanding, I'm resisting the urge to knit. The packing begins!

Rumination on Shoes

We are all familiar with the old maxim, “clothes make the man”. If clothes make the man, do shoes make the woman? Do the shoes that you wear change the way that you feel about yourself on any given day?


I work from home and, in the winter, spend most of my time in bedroom slippers. It doesn’t matter what clothes you wear, there is nothing that makes you feel more slovenly than wearing bedroom slippers all day. I shuffle around the house in my slippers and I feel like an old, agoraphobic cat lady.



Winter or summer, it’s always wet here on the farm and frankly, with all the free-range poultry running around, there is a lot of bird poop to avoid! When I’m outside I always wear Wellies. Wearing my Wellies makes me feel like doing manual labor. I feel like I can do anything out there in my Wellies. They’re comfortable and when I slip them on, I’m ready to get to work!



Wearing clean, white tennis shoes makes me feel practical. I feel like running errands, cleaning house; organizing everything. In my sneakers I feel energized.

Flip flops, even cute ones, make me feel sloppy. When I have them on I constantly question whether they are age appropriate. I have several pairs in fun colors and patterns but unless I’m on the beach, I never feel quite right in them.


Dressy flats make me feel cute, as opposed to beautiful; perky and sometimes stylish.



High heels make me feel beautiful and confident. They make me feel powerful. I’m very comfortable in heels and have worn them frequently for a good part of my life. Lately my lifestyle hasn’t afforded me much opportunity for wearing heels and strangely enough, I think it’s affecting my self-esteem. I’m looking forward to moving into town and getting back up on my heels again!

How do different shoes affect the way you feel about yourself? Have you settled into what’s comfortable or do you mix it up?

Watching TV on the Computer?

I admit it, I’m a big television watcher. When I moved to the farm I made sure my DISH network would be up and running by the time I got here. When I arranged my phone service, the phone company offered to bundle my DISH service in with my phone service for a savings of $5 a month if I would sign a one year contract. I thought I’d be here that long and couldn’t see a downside so I signed up and then promptly forgot about the whole thing.

Fast forward to the present. I’m making arrangements to leave the farm after just over seven months and was calling around to cut off utilities and tie up loose ends. When I called the phone company they reminded me about my one year contract, which would cost $99 to break. Evidently there’s a loophole where you can assign responsibility over to the incoming resident. I contacted the farm owners and they agreed to take over the phone. The next step was to unbundle my DISH service and arrange to have it discontinued on my leave date. The phone company finished up with me and transferred me over to their DISH desk.

After arranging to have the television service discontinued on the 22nd and establishing where they were to send the box so I could ship my DVR back to them, I rang off, happy to have everything taken care of. A couple of days later the farm owner emailed to say he’d called the phone company and picked up the service. Another thing checked off my list! That evening I sat down to watch some TV and lo and behold, almost all my channels were gone! All I had left were shopping channels, pay-per-view channels and, interestingly, the STYLE network. I have nothing against the STYLE network but not 24/7!

I thought about calling the phone company and/or DISH and then realized that I have so few days left here, it really wasn’t worth the trouble. Although I’d been busily watching all the programs I had recorded on my DVR in preparation for returning it, I still had a few left. I also had about a dozen DVDs. My mom would be arriving in a few days and I knew we wouldn’t be watching so much television as I normally do so I felt like we would be okay for evening programming.

The only remaining problem was missing my shows! How could I miss the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy? What if I missed the latest heartbreak on Private Practice? How could I survive without knowing which designer got kicked off of Project Runway next? I’ll be at one of my sister’s houses in a couple of weeks so I called her and asked her to save those programs for me on her DVR. She had already erased this week’s episodes of some of my shows and she reminded me that many of them are available online.

I went straight to ABC’s website and watched full episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. What do you know?! It wasn’t bad at all. Then I remembered all those funny Hulu commercials and went over there. I was amazed at all the programming that is available. Now that I’m knitting in the evenings instead of playing on the computer it’s easy to watch TV on the computer instead. Yesterday evening I knit and watched several episodes of Caprica, a SYFY channel show I’d been meaning to check out.

I know a few people who only watch television on their computers and I never quite got it. Now I do! If I weren’t moving, I’d cancel my DISH anyway, hook a laptop up to my television and just watch that way. Whenever I’m in my own home again, I intend to do just that! What a great way to save some money.

Have you ever watched television on your computer? Have you cancelled your service in favor of watching on the computer? How is that working for you? What are the downsides? Obviously you need a high speed internet connection for it to be worthwhile, but I already have that. I’m impressed!

Braised Pork with Orange Sauce

If you've been following me for any time at all you know that, where cooking is concerned, simple is not my priority. But all I can think about these days is finishing what I still have to do here, getting packed up and leaving the farm. I'm so busy that simple is getting a lot more important where dinner is concerned. Braising is a good "set it and forget it" way to produce a delicious dinner. You could do this recipe in a big crockpot to make it even easier! Don't need quite this much food? This one's easy to halve.

6 lb pork butt
1 gallon orange juice
6oz ginger – sliced
15 cloves of garlic
8oz soy sauce
2 cinnamon sticks
2pc star anise
1 gallon chicken stock
1lb brown sugar
2 white onions
6oz vegetable oil
Salt & pepper to taste

In a large sauce pan sear seasoned pork on all sides. Meanwhile, add remaining ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil. Add pork and reduce to a simmer. Cook until pork is tender about 2 1/2 – 3 hours. Skim off the fat from the sauce. Slice Thinly.

Add a bag salad and some fruit and you've got a good, quick, healthy dinner!

Link Love 3.11.10

In the midst of my packing, moving and knitting frenzy I didn't have too much time to read but here are a few recommendations for you:

Souffle Bombay has a fantastic story. You have to read it. It's amazing what the universe gives back when we put ourselves out there! Do you cook with kids? You need to get her cookbook - Cooking With Pictures. What a great gift idea!

There's a nice guest post up over at My Super Charged Life called Simply Being Nice Will Help Your Business. I was so glad to see it!

Is this you? I know it's me. Women at Forty has a post by Esther Kane about Eating Things You Don't Want. She's not talking about forcing yourself to eat leafy green vegetables, she's talking about snacking. She's talking about unconscious eating. My biggest food issue by far!

I'm including Cat Tales for my two cat-loving sisters. You have to read this one, I think you can relate!

Weekly Wednesday 3.10.10

My Weekly Wednesday is up over at Make It From Scratch. It's about cooking skills and using your hands or using machines. Is it important to be able to do it by hand before you do it with a machine? Read the article and let me know what you think.

Cooking Skills - Hands vs. Machines

I've got a recipe for handmade mayonnaise over there too. Have you ever made your own mayonnaise? It makes you wonder how they can call the stuff in the jar at the grocery store by the same name!

The Zen of Knitting

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you know that I recently started knitting. I find it difficult to just sit in front of the television in the evening without doing something else at the same time. Normally I sit there with my laptop and read emails, play on Facebook, write blog posts or Google various things. I've been getting antsy lately and for some reason, just really wanted to knit. So I went out and bought some needles and some yarn, Googled "beginner knitting patterns" and I was off. I knit all that afternoon and into the evening. I picked it back up the next morning and literally knit all day, only stopping to eat. I forced myself not to pick it up the next day and get some work done instead. Every day since then I've had to fight against a strong urge to knit, allowing myself only to pick it up after dark. Throughout my life I've done a lot of the needle arts. Crocheting, needlepoint, cross stitch, embroidery, sewing, quilting, you name it I've done it. Now I can add knitting to that list.

No longer the baliwick of old ladies in rocking chairs, knitting has become hugely popular across the country these days with all ages and, surprisingly, genders. That's right, even men are knitting. Google the reason and you'll get everything from hard times to being influenced by celebrity knitters like Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe. There's just something about knitting. It's peaceful and calming. Knitting engages the hands and the mind. Time passes happily while knitting along and before you know it, hours have gone by.

I'm moving in just two short weeks and I don't have hours to spend knitting but I think that's why I'm doing it. I have so much to do that it's overwhelming me, making me just a little bit crazy. I have so much to do that I'm having a hard time getting started. Are you ever so overwhelmed by the amount you have to complete that you can't do anything? That's kind of how I feel right now. Knitting brings me some peace and calm in the very hectic place I inhabit at the moment. I have a yearning to be a spinster aunt in my tower rooms, rocking and knitting the day away and being content. Unfortunately no one in my family has a tower in which to install me and I think in reality I'd get pretty tired of it after awhile but that's where my head is these days!

Back in Texas I have a good girlfriend who is a big knitter. She lives a very hectic life, always running here and there, solving problems and dealing with family issues while at the same time trying to get her older home remodeled and livable. Sometimes she would be in residence and I wouldn’t see her all day. I’d ask her what she’d been doing and she’d say, sheepishly, that she’d been knitting.

If hard times have people knitting, I’m not so sure it’s because we can’t afford scarves and sweaters. Maybe it’s because hard times bring stress and knitting is a way to deal with that stress.

I've Googled knitting in Knoxville and find there are several good yarn shops in the area that sponsor various group knitting evenings so my new hobby may help me make some acquaintances once I get settled.

Unfortunately, ready or not, I'm out of here two weeks from yesterday so I've got to stop knitting and get busy.

Do you knit? I’d love to know what knitting means to you. Is it your port in the storm like it is becoming mine?