Have you ever had one of those food experiences which seem almost impossible to duplicate? I had one at a little restaurant in Hyannis, MA about four years ago. We stopped for breakfast and had the most delicious granola that I've ever tasted. This granola has haunted me since that day - it was that wonderful.

I find that most granola recipes are too spicy. But, while laying on the couch, recovering from a February cold, I spotted a nice simple recipe from the Barefoot Contessa (I left out all of the dried fruit and added raw pumpkin seeds and a little brown sugar). I've got a batch cooking in the oven right now (I burned the first batch). I'll let you know how it turns out - it's certainly beautiful to look at!

Given all of the pictures that I post of the dogs, you may be surprised that I also have two cats. My kitties are pretty camera shy - but what do you know - sweet Miss Frances decided to pose for me the other day. She's beautiful!

From this:

to these:

The Ravenheart roving made just a small skein of yarn and I was immensely curious about how it would knit up. I was surprised by the strip-i-ness, but by this point, I really shouldn't be. I like the mittens, but I think I would have preferred a more subtle shift of colors between the stripes. That's why the Lorna's Laces roving from yesterdays post will definitely be plied from three seperate bobbins (rather than navajo plying).

I want to know Adrian's secret - how to get "heathery" stripes in a two ply yarn?

I bought this yarn from one of my favorite ebay sellers, bizyhands. This is different than her usual yarn. The colors are muted and the wool is coarse, rustic and only lightly processed. I really like it. Maybe some more mittens or some gloves?

Cara asked me if I take the dog pictures with my camera set to color or black and white. I take them in color and then use my retouching program to heighten the lights and darks, then remove the color.

But, she got me thinking...about how I use the same old settings on my camera over and over again, and that I still haven't experimented with it as much as I'd like. I've been getting the urge to buy a new camera, but I feel like I can't justify an upgrade until I've tried every possible feature.

So, inspired, I tried the programmable B&W setting and a sepia setting. From my limited test (three pictures of Katy sleeping on her bed), I didn't really like the B&W setting, but kind of liked the picture taken on the sepia setting. Next time I'll try some outside shots and see if my results are any better.

Darn - I was going to announce that today was Fred Lynn's birthday. But unfortunately, my memory is failing me and as it turns out his birthday was February 3. I grew up with four brothers, so I was kind of a tomboy. In our house, Fred Lynn, #19, was The Man. Since I collected the baseball cards of some of my favorite players*, Fred Lynn's statistics were usually fresh in my mind. Whenever February rolls around, I still think, "Hey, it's going to be Fred Lynn's
birthday!"

*okay, so I wasn't a complete tomboy, I really only collected the cards of the cute players (for example, Cal Ripken, Jr.). I let my brothers keep the others.

Sockapalooza sock. Coming along!

This is Lorna's Laces wool roving in the colorway Tuscany. I've just begun spinning it. It's very nice wool to work with - well-prepared with beautiful colors. This one will definitely be worked into a three-ply. Progress reports to follow...

If this post shows up, it means that a miracle has occured and my cron job, which allows for future posting, actually worked.

Here is a cool illustration site. It has flash and music - and is worth every bit of noise and bandwidth!

I don't usually do these quizes, since often, the pages where they are hosted, are full of all kinds of crazy pop-ups and spyware. But this one was kind of a "have to". I knew my number would be high, but I didn't think it would be this high! Yikes. I need to get a life.

(note: I was concerned that perhaps I wasn't quite honest about some of my answers on the quiz. So, I took it again and shaved two points off of the score!)

I found the following movie meme through pinktalk. Although, I still have to do the real movie meme from Kerstin's tag.

01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. M
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
09. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Kill Bill Vol. 1
14. Donnie Darko
15. Spirited Away
16. Better Than Sex
17. Sleepy Hollow
18. Pirates of the Caribbean
19. The Eye
20. Requiem for a Dream
21. Dawn of the Dead
22. The Pillow Book
23. The Italian Job (original)
24. Goonies
25. Baseketball
26. Spiceworld
27. Army of Darkness
28. The Color Purple
29. The Saftey of Objects
30. Can't Hardly Wait
31. Mystic Pizza
32. Finding Nemo
33. Monsters Inc.
34. Circle of Friends
35. Mary Poppins
36. The Bourne Identity
37. Forrest Gump
38. A Clockwork Orange
39. Kindergarten Cop
40. On The Line
41. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
42. Final Destination
43. Sorority Boys
44. Urban Legend
45. Cheaper by the Dozen
46. The Crow
47. The Princess and the Warrior
48. Seabiscuit
49. Hard Core Logo
50. Phantom of the Paradise
51. Zardoz
52. Lost in Translation
53. American Beauty
54. Big Fish
55. Starship Troopers
56. Starship Troopers 2
57. The Lost Boys
58. All About Eve
59. Showgirls
60. Swept Away
61. Star Wars: A New Hope
62. Black Hawk Down
63. Elizabeth
64. The Shawshank Redemption
65. Four Weddings and a Funeral
66. The Sound of Music
67. Notting Hill
68. Scotland
69. Oxygen
70. The Ring
71. Shrunken Heads
72. Legend
73. About a Boy
74. Lilo and Stitch
75. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
76. Pitch Black
77. Maid in Manhattan
78. Willow
79. Secret Of Nimh
80. Throughly Modern Millie
81. The Cutting Edge
82. Anna and the King
83. The American President
84. Save The Last Dance
85. Grease
86. Dirty Dancing
87. Mad Love
88. Tomb Raider
89. 10 Things I Hate About You
90. Beyond Borders
91. Stigmata
92. Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban
93. Gossip
94. Blowdry
95. Igby Goes Down
96. The Hudsucker Proxy
97. Heathers
98. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
99. El Mariachi
100. Armageddon
101. Pearl Harbor
102. Ghost
103. Oceans 11
104. Fight Club
105. Sleepers
106. Pi
107. Bubble Boy
108. Jerry Maguire
109. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
110. Die Hard
111. The Never Ending Story
112. Peter Pan-the new version
113. Cinderella Story
114. Manchurian Candidate
115. The Bourne Supremacy (this is on here twice!)
116. Four Rooms
117. Lawrence Of Arabia
118. Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)
119. Vanilla Sky
120. The Mirror Has Two Faces
121. Jesus Christ Superstar
122. Napoleon Dynamite
123. Anchorman
124. Labyrinth
125. Angus
126. Loser
127. Garden State
128. The Big Lebowski
129. Death to Smoochy
130. American Movie
131. Alien v. Predator
132. Closer
133. Say Anything
134. Almost Famous
135. Kill Bill Volume 2
136. Django
137. The Good The Bad and the Ugly
138. Switchblade Sisters
139. Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS
140. Blast Off Girls
141. Maria Full of Grace
142. Mayor of the Sunset Strip
125. Xanadu
126. Friday Foster
127. Casa de los Babys
128. Hell Comes to Frogtown
129. Stone Reader
130. West Beruit
131. The Apple
132. Little Otik
133. Foxes
134. Aberdeen
135. Under the Sand
136. Stardust Memories
137. Orca
138. The Third Man
139. Akira
140. Wings of Desire
141. The Jerk
138. My Life as a Dog
142. The Tall Guy
143. Rosencrantz and Guidenstern are Dead
144. Prelude to a Kiss