Your Weekly Dose

Hello Readers! It's Monday, and you know what that means... Yep, randomness. I wonder if I'll ever get back to having one topic posts. Although I guess I did do that one on check registers. But who cares about that?....

I have to start you off this morning with a picture of my boys reading their books. It was very cute. They would comment on each others pictures and talk about what they were reading. I'm especially happy with them because we had a very successful potty training weekend. And this morning they've already gone twice each. Very nice since I was just about on the edge of giving up after months and months of feeling like we weren't getting anywhere.

The shed continues. We got the roof shell up Saturday. All that's left now is the roof siding, the shingles, the door and the trim work. And this sucker is huge. 10'x12' is a lot of shed. Our neighbor had mentioned needing a permit for structures over 8 feet tall, so last night I looked it up on our local county site and sheds only need a permit if the floor is bigger than 120'. Phew! Just made it! That made us giggle.

You will not believe how much knitting I have gotten done in the last week. Plain ol' stockinette socks make for easy brainless knitting.

I started that sock last Sunday night. Yup. It's done. Pretty crazy huh? Just needs to be test fitted on the foot it's intended for. What makes it even more special is it is my first toe up sock. You can see the beginnings of it's twin right above it. And I realized - I LOVE toe up socks. No heel flaps (although you could if you wanted), no stitches to pick up, no grafting the toe. Just knit all the way up and bind off, with a short row heel in the middle.

I loved it so much that I cast on a sock for myself using my one singular skein of Regia self striping Jacquard. I'm not sure I have enough yarn for a whole long pair, so I'm going to make anklets. I've used the figure 8 cast on for each sock and although it's a little fiddly at first, it's very nice. The best part of toe up socks?

You can try them on as you go. It's awesome!

And now, a bushel of links. Over the last few weeks I've found a bunch of sites while perusing the internet that I have wanted to share with you all. Enjoy!

Food & Cooking
Still Tasty - Want to know if that open can of tomato sauce is still good to eat? If you'll die from eating those leftover scrambled eggs? This is where to find out! I've used this site a ton over the last 2 weeks.

Mexican Zucchini Casserole - My mom-in-love gave me a few zucchini last week, including a very giant one. I was originally going to shred and freeze it for future use in Z bread, but then this morning I got an email from Taste of Home with this recipe. Perfect! I think we'll have it for dinner tonight.

I found a really awesome way to menu plan while perusing the internet last night from Simple Mom. I'll be going through the rest of her website soon, it looks like a good place to frequent.


Home & Garden
Old Fashioned Living - This can go under food too, as they have lots of recipes. It's a nice site with a TON of articles of various things for living simply and old fashioned. I found it by looking for information on cilantro.

After attempting to find the time to create a few spreadsheets for y'all (all that knitting got in the way ;P), I was reminded of the website vertex42.com. He's got a TON of worksheets for just about everything you might want. Go check it out!

Knitting
Today's knitting links are all about socks!
Want to know how to do a figure 8 cast on for toe up socks? Take a looksy here, the figure 8 is in the middle.

Need to know how to work the short row heel? This is the tutorial I found, and it's awesome.

And of course, you need to bind off. Try Jeny's Suprisingly Stretchy Bind Off! It really is surprisingly stretchy. Amazingly so, actually. A perfect bind off for anything you need to be stretchy, not just sock tops!

Happy Monday! Also, Happy August! How did that happen?...