At least we know the rain fly works!

We've been busy little bees the past couple of weeks! Besides working, we went hiking at Big Basin National Forest and liked it so much (all those redwoods!) that we decided to take our first camping trip there. Camping is something that we've been planning on for ages and kept putting off...for one thing, the initial investment is kinda high. Also, Tejas has only been camping once (with my folks and me) so he didn't want to do anything really strenuous or isolated--Big Basin was really good in this regard. So last week we headed off to REI and bought a little two-person tent, a little one-burner propane stove, and a cheap little propane lantern, and blew our target-giftcard-wedding-present on two sleeping bags (thanks, Aunt Jane!!). Fully equipped, we played hookey from the lab on Friday and got there just when check in started--so we got the best spot in the park! It was a "walk in" site, which meant that we carried all our stuff into the forest about 1/4 mile from where we parked--definitely worth it, in terms of isolation and splendor. The weather was lovely and overcast, and we had a great time cooking this and that on the fire. (No pics yet--Tejas took his film camera instead of the digital for fear of killing it. I inherited the "camera death" gene from my mom, who managed to ruin one every year at the beach.)

When we went to bed, we could hear some sort of animal walking around in the brush outside our tent, which freaked Tejas out a little. Then it started raining, and the animal went away. Tejas liked that, but I worried for a while about the tent flooding and whether we should dig a trench around it (we were halfway down a BIG hill) before realizing that it hadn't rained in at least three months. The soil could take a whole lot more water than a piddly little rain.

Anyhoo, it was wet. The next morning Tejas managed to get a fire going and we made a soggy sort of breakfast. I packed everything up (and let me tell you, the tent was pretty darn disgusting), we went for a 3 mile hike in lieu of the 11 mile one we'd been planning (we chickened out because we were soaked. or more accurately, I told Tejas no way was I marching around in dirty wet flannel pajamas and a sweatshirt for the rest of the day), and we headed back home right as the sun came out. All in all a lovely trip!

On the other hand, between camping and working, approximately zero housework has gotten done in the last two weeks. Couple this to Tejas' abhorence of a clean flat surface, and, well...the Hobbit Hole needs some tidying up. I should have done it yesterday but we went to India Cash & Carry and I was all enthused about cooking. I made Indian-style fried okra--it turned out good! I'm so surprised!--and stuffed eggplants--turned out less good, but Tejas liked it anyway--and meatball things in some sort of really heavily spiced sauce, from a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's autobiography--gross, but Tejas liked them too. Or said he did. (Smart boy.)

On the knitting front (pics coming soon)...I finished a pair of mittens for Afghans for Afghans, and knit a hat for them using the leftover yarn from my autumn hat (there was just exactly enough for an adult-sized hat. phew.), and finished the Marrakesh socks waaaaaay before their Christmas due date. Hurray! I don't usually do a whole lot of knitting with bulky yarns, but I have to say, mittens and hats and things go really fast when you do. Fun fun fun! And blasting out a couple of FOs also restores my gumption for knitting socks with skinny yarn on little toothpick needles, which sometimes suffers otherwise!

(I have a sad confession to make...a major part of my drive to finish things is currently being provided by Ravelry's stash feature. I really, really enjoy consigning balls of yarn to the "used up" pile--it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something in my yarn diet stash destruction. Of course, then I feel like I can't put balls of yarn in "used up" unless I really have used up every last inch. So I have to knit more!! Faster!!!)