This is my current favorite thing to eat for breakfast. It’s SO good!

The bread is a quick bread made of egg, almond flour, baking powder and butter. I use silicone molds for the shape. Mix it, divide it into two molds, pop it in the microwave and cook for 1:40. Easy.

The egg thing is done in the same mold. Sautee bell pepper, onion, mushroom and sausage in a bit of butter. Whisk an egg in a bowl and add the veges. Mix. Scrape it into a mold and stick it in the microwave for 3 minutes. Assemble with a bit of mayo and a slice of tomato.

Update on the keto hot cocoa thing. I’ve streamlined the process and wanted to share.

Put 3/4 cup of your favorite granulated keto-safe sweetener into the bottom of your blender jar. Put 3/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder (I use Hershey’s Special Dark) on top the sweetener.

Cut open a Thai Kitchen Coconut Milk box. I use this brand because it has two ingredients, coconut and water. No sweeteners, no fillers . . . of course that makes it a little more difficult to deal with . . . you can’t shake it and mix it up. It just doesn’t work. When you look at the customer rating for this brand you’ll see it’s rated at ~3.5 stars. It can’t be because of the quality of the product, it has to be because you can’t mix the settled out solids into the liquids by shaking. I solve the problem by dumping it in a blender. Open the box by folding out the ears and flattening the ends. Hold it bottom end up and cut off a corner and pour some of it into a blender carafe, then cut the entire end off and dump liquid and solids into the carafe. Tilt the carafe and carefully dump the solids to avoid splashing the liquidy bits everywhere.
Stick the lid on and blend until fully mixed.

Pour into a quart jar, put a lid on and refrigerate. Don’t try and scrape the carafe clean. Add 2/3 of a cup of almond milk (JMPO, Walmart’s Great Value brand is the best I’ve tried). Scrape the sides down into the cocoa, put the lid on and blend.

Pour into a cup and microwave. Enjoy.

You now have cocoa mix that can be used hot or cold. 1/4 cup mix, 2/3-3/4 cup almond milk according to your taste. Fast, easy, hot or cold.

Don’t forget the MaxMallow Marshmallows if you need the extra oomph.

I’ve tried all sorts of sock patterns; Fleegal, Sockmatician (I joined his brioche kickstarter – an awesome knitter I was delighted to support), Cat Biori’s tomato heel, gusset, bigger gusset. If you’ve followed my blog over the years you already know this. I don’t have a single pair of socks that I’ve knitted and kept. They were all sent to my sister who has lower volume feet (same length). This is the FIRST sock design that’s shown promise for a truly comfortable fit. It’s dead easy to knit. No fuss, nothing difficult (assuming you’re comfortable with short rows) . . . and it was an easy and intuitive adjustment from the original pattern for my short high volume feet.

I have a horrible time getting shoes and socks that fit. I have insanely short feet with unbelievably high arches. I am not kidding, my foot is shorter in length than the measure around my foot at the arch. 9.5″ around, 8.25″ long. Manufacturers do not make shoes that fit feet like mine. The new barefoot movement has promise but even there the shoes that purport to be made for high volume feet don’t have enough volume.

So . . . socks. As you can guess, socks are also a problem. If they’re the right length they aren’t big enough around. If they are big enough around they hang off my toes.

I bought two patterns from Cita Steinmeier that hold great promise. They’re both knit the same way from the heel out but with different starts. The bit I don’t care for is the knitting of the heel section ends at an awkward angle where the leg and toe are destined to be knit. In addition, the edges traveled too far up the back of my leg and down the bottom of my foot toward the toe. (I did say insanely short feet with unbelievably high arches. When I had boots made they were judged to be 3FF (US), so . . . yeah . . . totally abnormal.)

So, the fix . . . I started by changing the caston. I did the classic thumb caston (3 stitches) followed by this setup worked in the round.
Round 1. K
Round 2. Inc every stitch
Round 3. K
Round 4. Inc every stitch knitting equally off onto 3 DPNs
Round 5. K

The original pattern calls for two increases per section every fourth row. I like one increase per section every other row. It’s the same number of increases, just distributed differently. After setup the rows alternate between a row knit without increases a row knit with increases. The increase rows alternate between one increase at the beginning of each of the two sections on each DPN or the end of each of the two sections on each DPN. In other words, one round has an increase at the start of each section, the next increase round has it at the end of each section. I know that seems confusing. Once it’s a work in progress it’s dead simple. Knit one round. Knit the next round with an increase at the start of each section. Knit one round. Knit the next round with an increase at the end of each section. Repeat.

When the work was about one inch from closing over the top of my arch I started doing short rows to level the work. The SRTs are separated by three stitches. Work the short row turn on the fourth stitch from the previous turn, stop working SRTs when the section marker is reached. Don’t work any short row turns on the arch portions.

I’m really happy with how this fits.

I think this will work for me. Thank you Cita Steinmeier for the pattern to start me off. (The fat ankle is the result of a horse/carriage accident. Totally my fault. The fat ankle thingy is permanent.)

I’ve made one pair of socks and they’re comfortable but a bit loose with wrinkles over the top of my instep. So . . . adjustments.

Because they’re a bit too big around I decreased the number of rows knitted before starting the short rows. From the original calculation of 18 rows I dropped to 17 which reduced the total rows by at least two, possibly as many as four. Fewer rows means fewer stitches which means fewer short row turns which means fewer total rows (SRTs + original rows). The original pattern doesn’t have short rows so if you’re embarking on this project and don’t understand what I did with short rows to level the ankle and toe opening, message me and I’ll draw you a picture.

Because the finished sock had wrinkles across the instep I stopped doing increases for the instep wedge at the start of the short rows. This was marvelously successful. It produced a shorter (from ankle to toe) instep which resulted in a better fit.

The result of fewer rows produced fewer short rows which produced fewer ankle and toe stitches and shorter instep run giving a better fit.

I hope life has been good for you. It’s been okay for us. We’re fostering a pair of Golden Retrievers. OMGosh they are DUMB. I will NEVER adopt a golden retriever to be an “us” dog. NEVER. They are not a breed whose personality I admire or could tolerate. They are STUPID. And the hand lick thing . . . yeah, that’s a hell of a NO. Other than that they’re pretty and friendly and love EVERYBODY, friend or foe. I did tell you they were stupid, didn’t I? Yeah, DUMB.
I got the bathrobe I was working on finished. It’s going to work just fine. It’s so stretchy my neck doesn’t complain when I put it on. I’m 2/3 done with the belt. Another “sit and knit” and I’ll be done.
And the bad news . . . our rescue kitty has reached the point in her life where her bladder control has failed. She sleeps on the bed and her bladder leaks. On our bed. Ugh. I’ve washed the bed clothes all the way to the mattress (treated with odor solve each time to mediate the problem). This whole thing makes me want to cry. I know she was old when we got her so this isn’t a horrible surprise. At this point she has to be an outside cat. She’s still getting her special food . . . baked chicken and canned tuna . . . and milk (probably not good for her) and that will have to be the “going forward” plan. I can’t wash all the bedclothes and treat the mattress every day. I just can’t. I wish it wasn’t winter. This would be so much easier to accept if it was spring or summer. It makes my heart ache.

We were out of bacon this morning. Grocery shopping is two days away. It’s time for desperate measures.

I made a shrimp frittata. SO good. Eggs, peppers, mushrooms, onion, shrimp, colby jack cheese, cream cheese, green onion garnish. SO good.

I build my own computer. I’ve done it since Lorr (48 this year) was a 2 year old. My first computer was a Heath/Zenith Z71, a kit where the parts came in little bags and had to be soldered onto the boards. I had a bad component which was replaced by the tech at H/Z and it booted right up. That’s back when floppy disks were 8″ across. Ancient times, right?
The case I’ve got now is a really awesome powder coated aluminum desktop (oriented flat=desktop instead of tall=tower) and I’ve had it for . . . 20 years? I keep it updated by swapping out parts at the beginning of each year. Last major update (<$800) was a bit of a squeeze but everything fits! This year I bought a new video card. I REALLY need a new vid card so I spent the $300 bucks and bought a good one with 12g of memory and 2 fans. Not top end (>$700) but it’ll work nicely for my purpose, a good middle ground between economy and function.
The video card came. Woot! Daisy (one of a pair of Goldens) LOVES tearing up plastic bags and cardboard anything. I look out the window and there she is, decimating the cardboard box. She hasn’t hurt the shrink wrapped box around the card but has completely decimated the outer cardboard box and the plastic bag the delivery guy put the package in . . . little bits all over the yard. NICE doggy (grr).
I unpack and admire my new board and read the quick installation guide. I get out my screw driver and flash light, open my case, uninstall my GTX 750 TI (old vid card) and . . . new card WILL NOT fit, the card is too long to fit in my legacy case.
So . . . I’ve spent two days researching new cases. They are all so BIG!! ENORMOUS. And they all have glass windows (gag) and lights (double-gag). I don’t need that! I really don’t! I don’t need to admire daily, I just need the thing to work. So I finally choose a case from the manufacturer of the case I’ve had for 20 years and love. It’s a mini-atx not really a tower but not a desktop thing with great air flow. It gets rave reviews from builders. And it’ll be here in five days.

Tonight’s dinner was fabulous! Does anyone else open the spice cupboard and throw in whatever looks like it will work? That was tonight’s dinner. I marinated the cubed pork in sesame oil, chili sauce, fish sauce, Italian seasoning, aged balsamic vinegar, merlot, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke. The veges where red, yellow and green bell peppers, carrot, yellow onion and cabbage. It was REALLY good.

I’ve started a new project, a sweater with vertical stripes. I’ve been pondering this project for a while and just happened to hit a sweet spot in yarn for the project.

I’ve had some chained bamboo with colors I love (instead of strands of thread spun into a yarn, it’s a strand of thread chained into yarn) . . . a solid and a variegated that has been in my stash forever, but I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I had one cake of each, not enough to do anything truly productive but way too nice to dump. It sat in my stash occasionally played with but never a star.

Then I started knitting with Hobbii’s Rainbow Bamboo (a lovely cotton/bamboo yarn). I bought sweater quantities of colors I really like, a graphite, a navy and a dark teal that perfectly matched the teal in the variegated chained bamboo. Trust me, this was not a deliberate choice but . . . score! Then I had some left over Universal Yarn’s Bamboo Pop “Sand” from another project (a shortie fade to wear over my day dress in the morning when it’s chilly). Like I said, kismet. The stars had aligned.

From there it was just a matter of figuring out what pattern would work with the quantities of yarn I had available. I’ve finally got a plan and it’s in the works. Woot! 16 stitches of background color (teal), four stitches of BP Sand, six stitches of the chained bamboo variegated, six stitches of the chained bamboo tan, repeat x 10).

I posted a brief sketch of my project on FB and alarmed/impressed/confused/wowed a bunch of knitters. Apparently this way of doing is a weird thing. I love sharing new stuff so it’s all good. Embrace the weird.