Bliss to Beef and Back Post

As you know if you've been here now and again, I am totally out of the knitting mode. Though I'm still trying to get myself interested in another pair of fingerless gloves I'm not having a lot of success. I am, however, tempted by crochet of late. Seems to go in streaks like this.

While surfing I've run across a few blogs that are tempting me. One in particular, Attic 24 is calling me, or maybe it's the author's picture of a bag full of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarn in a rainbow of colors...drool...love that yarn!

*Source: Attic 24

Lucy, the author, is a woman after my own heart. She seems to love color! Her photos of the last dahlias of the year made me just melt. The colors were so vivid, so intense. There's a review of the book "Cute and Easy Crochet" which has a number of tempting projects in it.

Problem I'm having lately is that I can't bring myself to spend money on anything. It's a result I'm sure of having come so close to living in my car at the beginning of the summer. I can't justify spending any money on anything. Even food.

Costco is the only place to get steaks in So Cal that don't taste like cardboard. I used to buy a pack of four fillet mignons, freeze them and enjoy one a month. In the last year or two my beef consumption as a whole has shrunken to almost zero. It's just so expensive...even the "cheap" cuts. I mean, chuck roast at $3.99 a pound on sale? Even my purchases of fish have shrunk due to increased prices. Salmon, $9.99 a pound? About all I can justify is chicken which is often pretty cheap at Stater Brothers.

Last Friday, Von's had beef short ribs on special for $5.49...yikes! They're half bone for heaven's sake! I've never made them, but have collected some mighty tasty sounding recipes for them. Even beef shanks, that horizontal cut of leg meat with the marrow bone in the middle, costs $3.99. Used to find them at a small family owned chain grocery nearby for $1.79 on sale, but that closed when the company consolidated.

All these cuts of meat used to be the cheap ones. I don't even look at steak. The segue this post has taken is all due to the arrival in the mail of the Tuesday grocery circulars. Once again, nothing really on sale.

*Source:  Attic 24

Okay, enough about the cost of everything. Back to happier things like rainbow colors and flowers. As I was saying before the day's mail so rudely interrupted me, Attic 24 is really a nice blog. Lucy has a wonderful explanation for how to do a ripple aphgan, accompanied by excellent photos.

May just have to look through my stash and see what I can come up with that would require very little in the way of purchases to make the ripple. On the other hand, my brain and level of concentration don't have a lot of staying power as of late. So maybe I'll think about it for a few days before diving in.

*Note:  normally I get an author's permission before using any photos, but after searching Lucy's blog I can't find an email, so hopefully she won't wig-out that I used a photo or two, the post was after all, about her blog and wonderful eye for color. You should stop and visit her in her 100 year old house in the UK!