I made this recipe up from looking at a bunch of Boston Baked Beans recipes.

1 lb navy beans, dried
8 cups water
1 onion minced
1/2 cup ketchup
3 tbs molasses
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp dried mustard
1 tsp vegan worcester sauce
3-4 dashes liquid smoke

Cook dried beans with 8 cups water in crock pot on high for 3-4 hours until soft. Drain approx. 1/2 the water off and reserve. Add onion, molasses, ketchup, salt, pepper, mustard, worchester sauce and liquid smoke, stir well. Turn crockpot down to low and simmer for 15-20 hours, adding water as needed, stir regularly.

Geist by Philippa Ballantine. I'm saving this for my after-defense orgy of relaxation.

Also on tap is Blameless by Gail Carriger, a massage and canceling my office hours so I only have to lecture next week.

I received the official notification pamphlet for my defense in the mail today...its posted around the university.



Personal info redacted since I posted this online...not real happy about it being posted at the university with my address and DOB, but not a whole lot I can do about it.

I also finally got a hold of the third professor who is writing my letters of recommendation (she wrote a few for me last year, but she left CUA to teach elsewhere over the summer and I had a hard time getting in contact with her to get a definite answer.) I guess this means tomorrow I will be putting together application packets rather than writing a lecture (thursday is a movie day, thank god, and monday's lecture is done already).

Today I had two things confirmed, that my defense will be on Nov. 17th at 2 pm and my committee agreed that I am ready to defend and my dissertation is acceptable.
The second was that I will be teaching intro. to US History to 1877 again in the spring semester. Now just to finish up my job applications for a permanent, tenure-track job in 2011-12 school year.

A couple weeks ago I bought a raw fleece at Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival. Its been sitting in the closet since then, waiting for me to finish up enough school work to start processing it. Its from a Romney cross sheep from Shepherd's Hey Farm in Comus, Maryland. The sheep's name is Bloom, and the fleece is a lovely grey-brown. I unrolled it (forgot to take a photo of what 7.5 lbs of fleece looks like spread out on my living room floor), divided into sections based on the quality of the fleece (fleece from some parts of the sheep is more desirable than others, ie. fleece from the sides is softer and nice than fleece from the shoulders or "britch"). I wound up with one bag of less desirable britch, and 5 bags of nicer quality wool from the rest of the sheep.

My intention is to leave a little bit of the lanolin in this wool so it will not break when it is combed.

( Photos of the washing process behind the cut )
It will take a day or two to dry, if I can get it out in the sun tomorrow morning, maybe less. If its mostly dry by tomorrow, I will wash a second bag then.

Bailey


Bailey and Jamieson

This is what I am currently spinning:

Its alpaca blended with firestar. I was given the alpaca by a coworker from the lab job, it was a very nice gift, but the giver didn't know anything about fiber and the bumps were full of neps and vm. A friend from my knitting group carded it for me and added some firestar to make it sparkly. Its much nicer to spin, but not something I would buy for myself I think.
This is my last spinning project, which is the nicest stuff I have spun so far. Its a mohair-cormo blend, and spun worsted so it has just a hint of a halo. Its sooo soft and snuggly, its going to make a gorgeous shawl (I've got about 400 yds of it).

Got to write the conclusion this weekend, but at least I have words and structure laid out for each chapter of the entire damn dissertation done.

I just picked up Grommit because he was coughing and needed a squirt of lax (he's shedding a little), and he has a huge, hard lump under one armpit that was not there earlier this week. I guess I need to call the vet in the morning and get him in ASAP, it doesn't seem to be adhered and its under his arm, so hopefully it can be removed entirely and is only in that one lymphnode.