Irrational [Constant] Knitting

Michael pointed out to me last night that it has been close to a month since my last post.

Forgive me.

Life has been, in a word: hectic.

My job at the bakery has sadly been dwindling down. My boss, who is quite pregnant with her second child, opted to focus on her family and close down the bakery. I am sad to lose the job. I really enjoyed working at this bakery in particular and loved stretching my baking muscles, so to speak. But honestly, the close comes at a good time for us and next year will be BUSY (with the possible purchase of a house?). So really, I'm not all that sad. And that's not to mention the fact that I can personally understand how draining on a family a restaurant business can be.

So

This dwindling of working time (I have been going in occasionally to bake off extra product or clean) has left me lots of time to sit, watch the Gilmore Girls series from the beginning, and KNIT! I Love it!

This is the current project: the irrational constant mittens.

The mitten pictured (the left mitten) is the π mitten (the symbol will be on the thumb, when it's finished) and the right mitten (to come) will feature the e constant (don't ask me what that constant is used for...).

I guess this is what happens to your knitting when you marry a math nerd. The colorwork has been a fun challenge at least!

I'll be sure to update the post when the mittens are complete.

Totally Random

 I honestly had no clue what this post was going to be about until I opened up my photo folder. I don't have time (or mind capacity) to write a thought-out post but still want to keep you all up to date on our adventures. 

So here, is my totally random blog post:

 I found this apron at World Market (the home goods version of Trader Joe's) and want it. Need it. Have to have it. It is my life motto at the moment and in the near future. It also made me giggle because it reminded me of a good friend from our time in France, Sarah and the sign that this came from.

 We bought a food processor! It is amazing!

And we went to a locally famous pumpkin/apple patch in Illinois. We had a great day in the sunshine and came back with lots of apples to make applesauce with. Which, still has yet to be made (3 weeks later). 

Life, please calm down so I can make my stinkin' applesauce!!!

TGIF!

It no longer only stands for "Thank God It's Friday", no my friends, on this day (which happens to be a Friday, I know) it stands for "Thank God It's Finished!

It = our dining room set

During my parents' visit back in April we went to the unfinished furniture store to pick out some chairs to match the farm table that my dad had helped my make back in PA.

 I loved the chairs that we came back with. They're not to big, not too small, and elegant but they're still simple enough to match the simple table.  They turned out to be a great "unemployment project", keeping me busy for weeks during the painting and staining process. 

 This was the resulting look. Don't ask me why but for the bit of time when I was finishing the table and chairs I developed a phobia of polyeurithain which explains the absense of any on the final product. I think my aversion may have been related to using it on a previous project prior to our move to France but I was hell-bent on keeping the farm table looking farm-ish. 

It only took a few months before I realized that this mindset is not practical for a soft-wood dining room table. Very soon the scratches and dents were taking over the table top, which really didn't bother me since it is a very "distressed" looking table top to begin with, but I didn't want to end up ruining my precious table. Thankfully, this decision coincided perfectly with the purchase of the 5th and 6th chair in the set (we had been saving up for a few months to complete the set) so over the past few weekends, we (but mostly Michael) have been working to get the furniture finally completed. 

 While I was at work Michael started by taking the seats back off the chairs, new and old, then priming the new chairs and paining the old in a fresh coat of semi-gloss black (stupid me had painted them flat before...it kind of went along with the no-poly-no-shiny thing from above but I'm learning lots about durability of paints lately). We also flipped the table so he could do a fresh coat of the semi-gloss on that as well. 

Then came the surprise!

 Blue chairs! On a walk one morning last weekend Michael made the tentative suggestion of painting his chair the french blue that we had used on my childhood stool. He thought I was going to laugh at the suggestion but in reality, I had been feeling that the simple black and stain look was a bit too plain for me so I agreed as long as the two end chairs could both be blue. In the end, I love the color and how they go so well with the paintings and other pieces of furniture in the room.

 Pep supervised and thankfully, never jumped on the table while it was drying.

Here's the final look complete with a shiny-topped table and blue chairs on the end. So, who wants to come over and test them out?