Author Archives: Brenda Bell

It’s Party Time!

Posted on by

Pampered Chef Party, that is.

First up… Feeding America is a domestic hunger relief organization that helps provide hungry families with the food they need through a huge network of food banks across the country. The keyword here is “domestic”, folks. Now that summer is here, we have an untold number of kids who aren’t getting the benefit of the discounted breakfasts and lunches provided when school’s in session.

So The Pampered Chef has teamed up with Feeding America to make their summer a happier and healthier one by donating a portion of their trivet sales during the month of June.

Then, there’s the rest of the show… loads of cooks tools and fabulous stuff for everyday and entertaining pleasure for both indoors and patio.

So come join the party! Have fun!

Shoe Size Chart

Posted on by

I’ve been meaning to put this together for a while now. These sizes were collected from various sites around the Internet.

International Shoe Sizes (9 - 9 3/8 in, 22.8 - 23.8 cm)

SystemGenderSize Chart
Europe3535 1/23637
U.K.Men's33 1/244 1/2
Women's2 1/233 1/24
AustraliaMen's33 1/244 1/2
Women's3 1/244 1/25
US & CanadaMen's3 1/244 1/25
Women's55 1/266 1/2
Inches99 1/89 1/49 3/8
Centimeters22.823.123.523.8

International Shoe Sizes (9 1/2 - 9 7/8 in, 24.1 - 25.1 cm)

SystemGenderSize Chart
Europe37 1/23838 1/239
U.K.Men's55 1/266 1/2
Women's4 1/255 1/26
AustraliaMen's55 1/266 1/2
Women's5 1/266 1/27
US & CanadaMen's5 1/266 1/27
Women's77 1/288 1/2
Inches9 1/29 5/89 3/49 7/8
Centimeters24.124.524.825.1

International Shoe Sizes (10 - 10 1/2 in, 25.4 - 26.7 cm)

SystemGenderSize Chart
Europe40414243
U.K.Men's77 1/288 1/2
Women's6 1/277 1/28
AustraliaMen's77 1/288 1/2
Women's7 1/288 1/29
US & CanadaMen's7 1/288 1/29
Women's99 1/21010 1/2
Inches1010 1/810 1/410 1/2
Centimeters25.425.72626.7

International Shoe Sizes (10 3/4 - 11 1/2 in, 27.3 - 29.2 cm)

SystemGenderSize Chart
Europe444546 1/248 1/2
U.K.Men's10111213 1/2
Women's9 1/210 1/211 1/213
AustraliaMen's10111213 1/2
Women's10 1/211 1/212 1/214
US & CanadaMen's10 1/211 1/212 1/214
Women's12131415 1/2
Inches10 3/41111 1/411 1/2
Centimeters27.327.928.629.2

Eunice Adams August 4, 1924 – March 11, 2015

Posted on by

Eunice Adams

Gone From My Sight
by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, “There, she is gone.”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me — not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone,”
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
And that is dying…

Eunice A. Adams, quietly slipped away March 11, 2015, after a brief illness with her family at her side. She is now soaring with Eagles. Born August 4, 1924, she lived a long, beautiful life of 90 years.

She was a Proud member of the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe all her life. Her father, Jasper, was the Chief 50+ years. She served as Secretary of the tribe for many years. She was retired from Norshipco after 28 years. Her joy was being a Wife to Moses, and Mother to her son, James S. “Jimmy” Adams. She then became the BEST Grandma to her grandchildren: Aaron, Jason, Jesse and Hunter. She had 3 great grandchildren: Donovan, Samantha and Whitney.

She spent many years in her volunteer work and clubs such as the Alpha Iota Sorority, and the Pilot Club. She was a member of The Chesapeake General Auxiliary. She was voted Woman of Chesapeake in 1988.

She was predeceased by her parents, Jasper and Molly Adams; her husband, Moses and all of her siblings.

She leaves behind her son, Jimmy and his wife Karen; all of her grandchildren, great grandchildren and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and neighbors whom she dearly loved. Family was a very important part of Eunice’s life. If there was a family get-together, you know you’d find Eunice in the middle. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Upper Mattaponi Culture Center.

Visitation will be held at Hollomon-Brown Funeral Home, Indian River Chapel from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 14, 2015, and at B.W. White Funeral Home, Aylette, VA from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, 2015. Funeral service will be held at Indian View Baptist Church in King William, VA at 1 p.m. on Monday, March 16, 2015. Condolences may be offered to the family at http://www.hollomon-brown.com/obituary?id=1490413.

Machine Knit Sock Heel – Cat Bordhi Style

Posted on by

In my quest to knit the perfect sock heel on a knitting machine, I stumbled on Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel. If you aren’t familiar with this type of heel or you’re simply interested in learning how to do this on your knitting machine, I’d suggest watching Cat’s video first.

Even if you don’t know how to hand knit, Cat does an excellent job of explaining what causes the gaps in a short row heel… and that’s the key to learning how to eliminate the gaps.

Intrigued? Here’s how you can knit a modified version of the Sweet Tomato Heel on a knitting machine, regardless of whether you knit your socks cuff-down or toe-up.

These instructions assume the heel will be knit on the main bed.

When knitting circular, the ribber knits right to left and the main bed knits left to right.

If you’re knitting your heel on the ribber or your carriages will knit in the opposite direction, you’ll need to flip these instructions around.

Preparing to knit the first wedge

  1. Begin by knitting up to the point where the heel begins.
  2. Knit on the ribber right to left and stop. Your carriage is on the left. This is where each wedge will begin.
  3. Set your ribber carriage to slip in both directions.
  4. Set your main carriage to knit and hold in both directions. Needles in HP will not knit.
If you’re knitting circular on a double-bed machine or knitting machine with ribber, the last carriage pass before starting your heel will always be on the bed opposite the heel. If the heel is knit on the main bed, the last circular pass must be on the ribber. If the heel is knit on the ribber, the last circular pass must be on the main bed.

If you’re knitting a seamed sock without a ribber, it doesn’t matter which side you start on. Just be sure to start each wedge from the same side.

Knitting the first wedge

  1. Set the ribber carriage to slip in both directions.
  2. Set the main carriage to knit and hold in both directions.
  3. Row 1
    • Pull the edge needle opposite the carriage (right) to hold.
    • Knit 1 row left to right.
    • Manually wrap the held needle.
    • Manually knit the next WP needle, pull it to hold and pull the yarn taut to tighten up the wrap.
  4. Row 2
    • Pull the edge needle opposite the carriage (left) to hold.
    • Knit 1 row right to left.
    • Repeat steps 3 and 4 on the left side — exactly the same way you did it on the right side.
  5. Now repeat rows 1 and 2 until the center 1/3 of your stitches remain in WP and your carriage is on the left.
  6. Push the held needles on the right to UWP.
  7. Knit 1 row left to right. Note that it may be a little harder to knit the needles in UWP because of the snug wraps.
  8. For circular socks with ribber:
    1. Use a transfer tool to carefully move the held stitches on the left to WP. Note that it may be a little harder to manipulate the stitches because of the snug wraps.
    2. Set the main carriage to slip in both directions.
    3. Set the ribber carriage to knit right to left.
    4. Knit 1 row right to left on the ribber.
    5. Pull the main bed needles left of 0 to UWP. Remember that these needles still contain the wraps and may be harder to knit. Pulling these needles back to UWP with the stitches behind the latches will help the stitches knit cleanly.
  9. For flat socks without ribber:
    1. Push the held needles on the left to UWP.
    2. Knit 1 row right to left.

One wedge is complete. Your carriage is on the left where it’s ready to knit another wedge or resume circular knitting.

Usually, you’ll want to knit 3 wedges for a nice round heel. You may find you need more or less to achieve a good fit. You can add or remove a 1/2 wedge by leaving more needles in WP.

You may find that the wedges create a slightly snugger heel. This may make the ankle stitches pull. To make the sock a little looser around the ankle, increase the number of stitches every 2 to 4 rows leading up to the heel and decrease back to the original number of stitches after you complete the heel.

Bloody Caesar

Posted on by

I’ll take one of these over a Bloody Mary any day of the year.

The Vodka

1 liter good vodka
2 cups grated horseradish
1/2 cup black peppercorns

Pour the vodka in a large jug, add the horseradish and peppercorns and shake it up. Let it sit for 10-12 hours, but give it a shake every couple of hours. When it’s done, strain it through a coffee filter and pour it back in the bottle. Don’t worry about the color… that just means it’s absorbed all that horseradish and pepper.

The Mixer

48 ounce bottle of tomato juice
3 8 ounce bottles of clam juice
1 tablespoon Montreal Steak seasoning
1/4 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

Pour it all in a jug and shake it. Refrigerate for several hours until it’s good and cold.

The Drink

Fill a glass with ice. Give the mixer a good shake. Add the spicy vodka and mixer to the glass according to your tastes — 1 part vodka to 3 parts mixer works well. Stir and garnish with a celery stick or wedge of lime.

Managing dot-qmail files

Posted on by

I’ve been using qmail as my MTA for as long as I can remember. The feature I like most is being able to have one-off email addresses I can use across the web that can easily be disabled if I start getting spammed.

For folks who aren’t familiar with qmail, that means I can set up a prefix foo with the extension – and have email sent to foo-anytext@mydomain.com without having to reconfigure the server every time I want to create a new temporary email address.

At some point, that address will start getting spam. The bonus is that by using an extension that identifies the site where I used it, I immediately know where the leak started. When the spam shows up, I create a dot-qmail file to bounce email to that address. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a lot of dot-qmail files, so I’ve started using soft-links to manage them. On my server, I set up three dot-qmail files for my account:

.qmail-default controls normal delivery:

./Maildir/

.qmail-bounce will bounce an email:

|/var/qmail/bin/bouncesaying 'Mail is no longer accepted at this address.'

.qmail-bounce-and-deliver will bounce an email as far as the sender is concerned, but the email will still be delivered. This gives me time to slowly retire an email address that may still occasionally receive legitimate email:

|/var/qmail/bin/bouncesaying 'Mail is no longer accepted at this address.'

Once these three files are configured, I can immediately toggle delivery for a specific email address with a single command:

ln -s .qmail-bounce .qmail-anytext