Is My Daughter Crazy?

Here she is with her youngest daughter, who just started kindergarten.  Doesn't LOOK crazy, does she?

But, in spite of having four kids:

Hi best grandchildren ever!

One Black Lab:

Hi Feebee!

One hedgehog:

Hi Wembley!

And one hermit crab (which dH and I have NEVER seen, in all our visits, and which I think might not actually exist---hence no photo),

she just texted to say that she and the kids are on the way to the animal shelter to pick out, not one, but TWO kittens!

So yes, she might be crazy, but since I love kittens and cats and dogs, she could only be crazy in a GOOD way.  

And now I have to visit so that I can play wid da cay-uuute widdle kitties.

Update:

Meet Lucy and Milo!!!

Sailboat and Sunset Over Malibu

Um.....Maybe Try Harder?

A Poem:

Hey.

From LA.

When Will I Learn?

From Interweave magazine/Winter 2014

I have started working on this State Fair sweater for my older daughter. (Shh...) I decided to knit a sleeve first so that I could use it as a gauge swatch.  Good plan, right?

Right. Except that I forgot about using it to check my gauge until I measured to begin the bind offs for the armhole portion and then it was TOO LATE.  My gauge is too large, and the sleeve so far is 3" longer than it should be. The cuff is cabled, and gaw-jus, if I say so myself, and I do, so just folding the cuff back is not a good solution to the problem, and really, a bespoke sweater should actually fit!

So now I have to rip back to the cuff and start again, making the increases closer together. It will work out ok (as long as I make both sleeves according to the new rate of increase) so I guess I don't mind.

I just wish I had remembered to measure way sooner....

They Ain't Purty

You all know by now that I use a lot of Pioneer Woman's recipes. Generally, they turn out pretty well, but now I'm starting to suspect that she uses a professional chef to cook and a professional photographer to take the pictures for her blog.

Case in point---her Mini Blueberry Galettes:

Pioneer Woman's photo

My mini blueberry galettes:

Or maybe I'm just not a good pastry maker.

But they did taste great.

Neanderthals Are Us! Are We! Whichever...

Seriously!

My daughter sent me the link to her DNA test results on 23andMe and the information is much more complicated and broad than the information I received through Ancestry.com. Either that or I just don't understand much about genetics. (Pretty likely)  

According to 23andMe, all humans beings outside of Africa have between 1% and 4% Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthals were concentrated in  Western Asia and Europe, especially northern Europe, and most heavily in what is now Finland.

From 23andMe.com

About 35,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens from East Africa migrated northward into what is now Europe and Scandinavia, where they came into contact with and bred with married Neanderthals. The Neanderthals went extinct 30,000 years ago, and then during an ice age 20,000 years ago, surviving Homo sapiens were able to migrate to every continent on the planet except for Antarctica. Ta Dah! So that's how we are partly cave people.  

from 23andMe.com

In addition to learning that she has 2.7% Neanderthal DNA, my daughter also learned about her haplogroup. I don't really understand that well enough to explain it, but this is what her results show:

From 23andMe.com

from 23andMe.com

She is part of haplogroup W.

And her ancestry might include the DNA matching DNA from these countries.

from 23andMe.com

DNA matching that of people in Ireland, UK and the Netherlands makes sense and is more specific information than what I received from Ancestry.com. I knew I had ancestors from Holland, so this matches what I knew. What Pakistan and northern India have to do with our ancestry is a mystery to me.  

Kind of fun! Even though I'm not sure what some of it means.

?

I'm not sure what to make of this:

We are going out to LA to visit our younger daughter in a few weeks. We asked her to find a beach hotel for a couple of days after we stay with her, and she posted the above on FB. 


What does "not too nice" mean?

Fortunately her friends have come up with several suggestions for us to check out. We'll make sure we don't pick something too nice.  

Hmmmm....

These are the results of my Ancestry.com genetic testing:

No surprises, except for the 26% Scandinavian DNA. I had thought it was a good bit less than that.

No mention of Neanderthal. No mention of Denisovans. There was a lot of information in the e-mailed results about the areas of the world listed, and I learned that through the centuries, through the millennia, countries' borders and names changed so that to say that someone is from Norway, for example, doesn't really mean anything. They are from that geographical area, but who knows what country, if any, it might have been so long ago that there is no written history.

However, my daughter used a kit from 23andMe and her results in terms of countries do not list Scandinavia at all, which can't be possible. I was there when she was born so I do know that she is my daughter.  But her test does say that she has 2.7% Neanderthal genetic material, as does the average 23andMe user.  

None of us has any of the Neanderthal characteristics listed and since the average user of this test has the same 2.7% genetic material, I think that perhaps the test isn't all that accurate. And I doubt that Ancestry.com's test is particularly useful except for people who have no idea where their ancestors came from.  

Anyway, it was fun, sort of, to see the results, even though I don't really think either my daughter or I learned anything all that surprising.  

Anyone tempted to try the testing should be forewarned that the tests do not require just a cheek swab; they require spit, lots and lots of spit, and it's kind of gross.

No-

Baxter is in no way responsible for the end of the yarn in this picture.

The end is the END of the first skein of yarn I'm using for the Nuvem.  

YAY!!!

Only 800 yards to go.....