Mama's Growing Mangoes

My mother likes to grow things. Or perhaps I should say my mom likes to start things growing. My grandma, Mom's mom, could grow anything. If that woman spit on an acorn you'd have an ancient oak in under a week. My mother, on the other hand, has had issues with things growing. She tries. God bless her, she does try. Currently in the kitchen is a mango pit sitting in a shallow bowl of water trying to root. It may actually do so. She got the pineapple top to root. She gets lots of things to root. Then they just...kinda sit there.

It's not that Mom has no follow through, she does. She's been married to my dad for 47 years and y'all, that's some serious damn follow through.  She just has an immensely busy schedule and she doesn't seem to have time to plant the things she roots. For those of us that knit, crochet or craft in general, the pineapples, mangoes, celery and such are Mom's WiPs. Yes, yes now we hear the collective, "ah ha" happening. We all understand WiPs, or works in progress. We all have something in our lives that are our mangoes. For some knitters, it's socks. You know who you are. For some crocheters, it's that blasted afghan that never seems to get finished but you WILL, by God, get to it eventually.

I have my own mango. It's my Cathedral Rose Window afghan. I have it started, I just can't bring myself to go any further. I want to yell at it to go on without me. To save itself. But then I'd have bigger issues than WiPs if my afghans started dragging themselves toward the door in search of more dedicated people with hooks. Behold. My mango.

My problem isn't time. It's summer and I'm not in school so time is NOT an issue. Although, I have had a pretty active social life this summer. I have tan lines!! I went outside!! And even though I just got a job for the first time since 2006 (yay me! a job!!!), it's part time and still won't be much of an issue. No, my problem lies with all things shiny and new. I see a new pattern, or get new yarn or hell, get a crap load of free yarn and my mind goes insane with all the ideas and the needing to start things and make them happen now and oooo I wanna try THIS, and....well, you get the picture. After the granny square afghan from the last post, I liked the color play so much that I decided to do more color play and am currently in the middle of this one:

Once all the squares are sewn together, it will bee a black field with polka dots! i got to figure out how to turn circles into squares. I will radiate out in a pastel rainbow, ending with pink on the outside. In the second picture you can see the bag on the right full of polka dots waiting for black squares. Then....well, then I got two black garbage bags full of yarn. With some things that had already been made. There is so much variegated and solids that I normally wouldn't buy so my mind has gone INSANE. So many possibilities. I wanna sit in a room with nothing but ALL my yarn and figure out what I have and color sort and place together and holy crap there's so much yarn!!!

See my problem? Okay good. On the same page? Awesome.

So of course with all the new things, I now have more WiPs, cuz....yarn.

This is one I started yesterday. The flower squares were already made but there's LOTS of that yarn in all the colors.

I sewed all the squares together and worked 2 more rows of the white around them. now I am working on just making a solid blanket bottom for it in simple double crochet, and once it's long enough, I'm taking that pretty pale green and putting a scalloped edge on it. I'm hoping it will look like one of those old fashioned blankets with the hand made embroidery across the top. in my head it is gorgeous. it also makes me miss my grandma cuz y'all, she would have LOVED this. Hell, she might have claimed it for her own. 

So what are you working on?

Stalking shit again!

Check it, y'all. Blog 2.0 with a whole new lease on life. Now I won't feel guilty about not stalking knitters anymore. Yay!! Now I can stalk...everyone. Muahahahahaaa...


Okay, so I'm still crazy, this isn't news. What IS news is I'm going even more insane having taken the summer off from school. I'd like to say I haven't been posting because school has been kicking my ass, but I have a 4.0 that I haven't really had to struggle for. I'm not smart, but everyone else I have class with is slooooooow. Anyway, not here to put down my fellow classmates. Then why AM I here? So glad you asked! I'm here because there are times I find I want to post things that are not Facebook appropriate and I will think to myself, "dumbass, you have a blog," and then I feel all guilty for neglecting the blog and not stalking any knitters. FIXED!! Now I can stalk whatever new shiny has my fancy and nobody can tell me i can't post about it cuz...IT'S MY DAMN BLOG! 


 This means I can talk about school, or post recipes which I have threatened to do in the past (psst, semi recipe at the end. Well don't go look NOW! Rude...), or even post things I've made again cuz y'all, Stalker's been crafty again!! For those that don't have the dubious honor of following my crazy on Facebook, here's a pic of the latest afghan I recently finished:

 


Which totally matches my disco floor blog background and makes me strangely giddy.

Speaking of giddy, I'm all little miss dancey pants here lately. If I stand still too long, i start shakin mah booty.  If I hear any kind of music, booty shaking. Commercials? You guessed it. Booty. I'm hyper all the freaking time and I am blaming it on the treadmill from my fitness class last semester that I have actually found myself missing. A treadmill. I've missed it. Shoot me now.

Anywho, we can delve into more insanity later, for now, a semi recipe!

Crispy Oven Roasted Chicken a la Stalker


4 chicken breast quarters, leg quarters or 8 thighs
1 gallon size Ziploc bag
Kosher Salt
Ground pepper
Onion Powder
Garlic powder


24 hours before you plan to cook the chicken (yes, I said 24 hours. Trust me here.) place the chicken into the bag and fill it 3/4ths of the way full. Place in kosher salt, ground pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. I would LOVE to give you measurements, but I never measure when I cook. I can tell you that I thought I had put waaaaay too much ground pepper in there, but it was fine. place chicken in the refrigerator for 24 hours. I put mine in a large pot in the fridge cuz I simply don't trust those bags.

When you are ready to cook the chicken, pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Take the chicken out of the bag, rinsing each piece and patting it dry. Place the chicken on a roasting pan, or, if you're like me and not fancy, a foil lined cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle some Kosher salt onto the tops of the chicken. This helps the skin crisp up. Bake for approximately 1 hour, until skin is a crisp, golden brown. (internal temperature should be 165 degrees and the juices should run clear. please don't give yourself food poisoning.)

Enjoy!! If you try it, please tell me your thoughts on it.

Since I've been gone forever again, if you have questions for me or wish an update on something I may have forgotten, please just let me know in the comments. I really don't have anything to hide anymore since you people got to read about me needing to possibly cut scrunchies out of my hair.  Laters!