My office here at Loopy Central is on the ground floor and there is a nice big window (two actually) to keep me sufficiently distracted, when need be. Right next door to us is a Montessori school, so it’s fun to watch the kids when they’re outside playing (or riding ponies and having a carnival, or going for a ride in the 8-seater cart.) 
But I also get to see people from this building, talking on the phone. I guess they feel that if they walk out the building and down to the corner (which is where my office is), it’s “away” from people and they can talk in private. Do they think that these windows are just for show? Don’t they realize that someone is in here? I can hear whole conversations! (Well, usually I vacate the office and find something to do for a bit. I have no desire to hear whole conversations.) Frequently they’ll even lean up against the glass as they talk. I have been so tempted to give a big knock on the glass, but I think it would give them a heart attack. (Ok – I wouldn’t really do that. Really.) It just cracks me up that my windows seem to be the ideal phone place. Maybe I should tape a little sign to the window. 🙂
I’m glad you all have had fun snapping up the Cherry Tree Hill Select yarn! We have more on the way. I also wanted to let you know what will be going up next week (besides the Wollmeise). We’ll have: Indie Dyer, Opal, New Colinette Jitterbug colors, Jade Sapphire Silk/Cashmere laceweight, Spritely Goods Sidhe, Fleece Artist 2/6, Hazel Knits, more Spindle City, Kertzer On Your Toes Bamboo/Nylon (no wool in there), Lorna’s Laces (including lots more of Franklin’s Panopticon), Noro Silk Garden, and Cashmere Scarf Kits from Jade Sapphire. (Whew!) In-house for the week after that (so far – but you know there will be more): The Sanguine Gryphon and Enchanted Knoll Farms yarn and roving. We also have several other cool things in the works for later this summer and fall – you know we’re always working on something for you!
Today’s recipe is one from my German grandmother and was always a favorite whenever we went there for dinner. These biscuits are wonderful. The only time I’ve tasted any that came close to tasting as good were from the Bill Knapps restaurants in Michigan. (Hey – those of you from Michigan – do you still have Bill Knapps up there?)
Grandma’s Biscuits
2 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
5 Tbl. shortening
1 cup milk
Sift dry ingredients together and then cut in the shortening. Add milk and mix well. Knead the dough for about a minute. Roll out to 1/2″ thick and cut into biscuit shapes. Brush tops with a bit of milk and bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes. Enjoy with butter and honey!
That’s all for today. Knitting Daughter and I are on a mission to do a little shopping this afternoon and then meet up with WH for dinner. The rest of my weekend? A little work and some more knitting. Right now I’m working on a sock out of Spirit Trail Fiberworks Turkish Stone (I so love this color) and will also do a few more rounds on my Gust scarf for our KAL. (How are your KAL projects coming along?) Then of course there are a few more yarns all caked up and waiting in the wings. I just never run out of things I want to knit up.
So leave a comment and let me know what you see outside YOUR window. My favorite thing to see in the window is Zoe, when she comes to Loopy to visit for the day. Here she is, totally enjoying the sunshine and humoring me during the photo-taking. She just loves it here. She was with us at Loopy every day when it was in our house for the first year, so she still feels a bit of ownership, I think. You know cats – they think they own everything.
Sheri anotherreasontolikerainydays-noonestandsoutsidemywindow
I think you need to put Loopy in the window with a sign that says “Loopy see’s you and hears everything”.
From my window (which looks out to my driveway), I often see various neighborhood cats coming & going. The funniest thing is it’s as if they each trace each others exact steps. It seems, there’s an invisible path that only they know about.
Of course, since last week I ordered my 1st skein of Noro Kureyon Sock yarn from the Loopy Ewe, now your going to have Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. Oh well, I’m using the Kuryeon for a Lace Ribbon Scarf, so I can still justify buying Silk Garden for socks. For me, it’s always about the justifying:-).
We just moved to NY from VT 5-6 weeks ago. VT was pretty but here I see more wildlife than ever before. The back yarn is a good size-once in awhile we have deer wandering through(and I DO mean wandering-in VT they would run like the devil when they saw a human) Here they look at you like “what do YOU want?” The cutest thing is a mother turkey who lives somewhere out back. There are other turkeys I see but the mother with her little babies walking behind her are so fun to watch. My dog and two cats are fascinated. BTW maybe you should put a sign on your window “No loitering OR cell phones” 🙂
I’m jealous! Neither my office nor my lab have windows. I basically work in a cave. I have no idea what the weather is like or even if it’s light or dark out. I guess it’s so that they can keep the grad students undistracted 🙂
We always called those biscuits Baking Powder Biscuits – my mom made them when we were little for strawberry shortcake (or whenever, really). They are my favorites too!
Wollmeise next week! Well it is my 50th birthday next week. I’m keeping that on the down low – no celebrations but lots of chocolate – and maybe some luck in the sneakup! Here’s hoping.
My window…usually just deer, sometimes one of our cats, or turkeys, and occasionally the neighbors dog will wander over!
My office window? Well, the view is so spectacular that I have to keep my back to it. There’s a small harbor, filled with lots of pretty wooden sailboats, then a small island called Babson. Sometimes the passenger schooners stop there to have a lobster picnic. Beyond that is a larger island called Deer Isle, and beyond that is a hilly island called Isle au Haut (“high island”). Directly below my window is a pretty field that is filled with nesting bobolinks in the summer and wild turkeys in the winter (and occasionally a red fox or a black bear).
That’s why I can’t face my window – I’d get nothing done!
I work in an ER. We don’t have windows. None at all. Sometimes a whole shift goes by and we don’t know if it’s summer or winter. We have to ask the patients and their families what is going on outside. If there were windows, we would probably just sit there and stare………..:(
Hmm…I can’t see anything out the window right now ’cause it’s dark but I know there’s GRASS POLLEN out there because I’m sitting here with a pile of tissues.
OK Sheri – I *would* tape a note to the window “Psst – Loopy just wanted you to know that she can hear ALL of your phone conversation when you stand next to her office window and talk on your cell phone.” If you have to leave your office to not hear conversations, then I think it’s fair to let the person talking to their divorce lawyer, tax attorney, illicit lover, or the pharmacist about their STD prescription, etc. know that the conversation isn’t exactly, um, private. 😉
From my window I see a mass of trees with the lower hills of the Apennines beyond; closer to the house we have squirrels chasing each other along the power lines, magpies squabbling, doves fluttering, and the occasional sparrow smacking into the window (which makes no sense at all since the glass is NOT so clean as to be invisible!). Yeah, some days aren’t very productive, wonder why?
Thanks for sharing the recipe, Sheri, those biscuits sound delicious!
I suspect that cellphone reception just happens to be very good right outside your window. Maybe you do need a sign out there, although I’d be tempted to rap on the window and try to startle them into moving to another location!
You know cats, if it smells like me it’s mine and if it doesn’t smell like me I’ll rub on it till it does so it is mine, too.
I have a couple of hummingbird feeders outside my backwindow and it’s fun to see those little guys fight over their lunch and they are not quiet either. Much better than somebodies phone conversation. I would SO knock on the window and make them jump. Or put a big smiley on it, just for distraction.
Out side my window are mostly trees. Yes, it is nice, but birds can get a little noisy. I just got my yarn for the KAL, I was going to use it for a gift, but I love the color so much (went to Loopy to get it, and their was one skein where the color was a little different), I am going to make something for me! As for me, I would have to knock on the window at least once!
I work from home (for now), so I get to see the courtyard of the apartment complex, with lots of trees , small chirpy birds in said trees, and people walking to and from the light rail station down the hill or taking their dogs (and one cat on a leash) out for exercise and fresh air. On the other side of the apartment, there’s a parochial school, so I always know when it’s time for recess!
We moved to Boise Idaho last year and my husband fell in love with the mesas which surround the city. So, we are living on one. Right now, I am looking out at the Owehee mountains in the distance and a hawk flying near by ready to pick up breakfast near my birdfeeders.
Being in a valley surrounded by mountains, the sunsets are incredible!
Try some grated cheese and pepper in those biscuits for dinner some time!
Out my window today I see squirrels and birds and trees. I feel so lucky to have such a nice view!
I would so be bugging those people who stand out there on their phones.
Right now, it is raining at my place, so I’m seeing the rain clean ours and the neighbors’ trucks. It’s not been too bad out noise-wise, it’s too wet for the animals and the neighbor boys. But usually, you can hear the boys out playing in the street and birds singing up a storm (I think we even had an injured cat or rabbit under our window the other day).
The place I really loved to look out the window was at Ivy Tech on the top floor. I can look out one side of the building and look over I.U. East and the rest of the campus. On the other side was interstate 70 and I could watch the cars whiz by (that might be me being bored in classes). I’m going to miss those view now that I have graduated from there.
I don’t have a window in my office, but I do have my office all to myself so it’s worth it. Honestly, I don’t think that people would see the note, if they looked at the window, they would see you working and move along.
You should put a small radio in your window, facing the glass and play some music. Nothing obnoxious, just what you’d listen to every day. If it’s thin enough for you to hear them, they will hear the music.
If you didn’t want to have music on all the time, you could sneak out when you see someone and pretend to have just come into your office and turned on the radio.
We don’t want anyone interfering with you getting work done. 🙂
I’ve been working from home this summer, and my favorite things to watch outside my window are the deer (one about a year old, who’s gotten really brave…coming within about 5 feet of the window) and the groundhogs. There’s a whole family of groundhogs out there, and they are really cute! The only downside is that these lovely creatures have prevented me from putting plants on my patio, because I think the plants would be eaten as quickly as the grass out there!
I can see the big tree in our front yard that the birds that live in the hole in it wish the squirrels would leave them alone. I also see various cars driving by, mommas walking their babys in strollers, a grandpa on his bike going to and from the grocery store with his little grandson on the back, (of course he’s wearing a helmut), a man jogging along the street, sometimes a police car will park just down the street from our house to try to catch the speeders driving by.
I think it’s so funny whoever stands in front of your window has no idea you are there. There were a couple of previous responses that I liked: All of a sudden, raise the mini-blinds or a sign with “Loopy can see and hear you!” hahaha…
Yes, Bill Knapps has been gone for a few years here in Michigan, but I was just informed last week their yummy chocolate cakes are for sale in one of the local grocery stores! yumm…and your biscuits look real yummy!! 🙂
Biscuits with butter and honey. You’re making me drool.
My view is the Amsterdam harbour! it’s great!
There are no windows in our office. Which is ironic, since the building is actually ALL WINDOW in the front. If I go to the coutner and crane my neck, I can see through the door to the outside.
I’m supposed to be making Seascape with my Blue Lagoon DC for the knit a long. But, in all honesty, I don’t have the attention span for that. I think I may have to switch to the ribbon scarf on Knitty. It’s wavy. It’s still sort of keeping with the theme.
I don’t know if anyone else answered you in regards to Bill Knapps because I didn’t read the previous 73 or 74 posts, but (sigh) …no..Bill Knapps is no more. Seems to me it was some corporate screw up by “re-inventing” Bill Knapps. Big HUGE mistake. (Think New Coke). I guess people stayed away in droves from the “new” Bill Knapps and when corporate tried going back to the way things always were, it was too late. They had lost most of their customer base and ended up closing a couple of years ago. Not only were the biscuits awesome, but their chocolate cake was sooo yummy too! The restaurant buildings are still standing there, but vacant, and when I pass one I get wistful.
What I’m looking out my window at is frieghters!!! I live on an island about 25 miles south of Detroit called Grosse Ile. Out my front window is the Detroit River and Amhurstberg, Ontario is on the other side. Its a major shipping channel for all the frieghters passing through to ports north like Duluth or Chicago, or south to Cleveland or even the Atlantic Ocean. Its interesting seeing all the different kinds of huge freighters and guessing what they are carrying. Some are full and some are empty. It’s a great view as I sit on my front porch knitting. 🙂
I am a semi-retired person, so I’m home most of the time. I like to look outside my living room window at the local nature. On any given day I will see birds in the birdbath or on the feeder, and frequently there’ll be a Moose or deer.
Outside my window I can see a doe with her twin fawns standing in the wooded area behind my house. And Sun! after all the rain, there is wonderful Sunshine!
Put up the window blind and give them a friendly wave! After a few times of that I bet they find another place to linger. Doncha wonder what they are saying…???
From the window at work, I can look across a pretty little park to Frenchman Bay, which is on the Atlantic. When cruise ships are in town (yesterday it was the Grandeur of the Seas), they moor right in my line of sight. Beautiful!
Outside my window I saw a hummingbird today! I’m also encouraging all my new plants to keep getting bigger!
Sorry to see that Bill Knapp’s is no more=( We ate there every Christmas Eve with my grandparents and every birthday there (you got a free birthday cake – at least when I was a kid).
I’m in the basement at work so I have a window that’s way up – so I can see leaves which is kind of nice!
well I don’t have a REAL window. But if you consider the glass separating me in the lab from the hallway outside the lab, I see people from work walking back and forth. BUUUT it is less distracting than being upstairs in an open office.
Just got back in town and catching up…
I have a cubie in my office (no window for me) – but my cube is right next to the executive board room and payroll – both doors open towards my open cube – so I get to hear execs standing in the hall (do they really think its private???) carrying on conversations, and people coming in and out of payroll – ALL day long. I have to put on my noise cancelling headphones if I want to get anything done….
Aside from the bland, back side of Monticello Mountain… I’m getting ready to blog the photos of our lush flower/garden bed just outside my window. Hubby dug up the old dirt last winter and put down new topsoil early this spring, and EVERYTHING is happy!
Thanks for the biscuit recipe, looks good!
I currently see leafy green trees and a clear blue sky outside my window. Looks hot to me, I think I’ll stay inside. 🙂
Wooohoo what a familiar place for me. Once upon a time I set on fire there in the ashtray. Miss it – you and this place – not the ashtray.
Please Sheri start a try and knock on the window! I would do it! I couldn´t resist!
Forgot something.
My daily viewis a cornfield and a little street (way- small way) and all farmers who crossing the street with their tractors give me a wve with their hands. Funny, there are some farmers I don´t know.
Bill Knapp’s was my first serving job in 1981. I loved Bill Knapp’s–went with the company to Florida to open resaturants and had a huge love for their food while pregnant. I too miss their biscuits, homemade soups, and pies/cakes. It is very sad to see the indepently owned restaurants struggling. I am a huge fan of the independent, the non-franchise restuarants that feature homemade items, and the support of the local business owner. I work/manage a restuarant that has been open for over 30 years. They have the counter w/bar stools, the only thing that’s missing is the visable pie case!
At work my window faces the waiting room of the doctor’s office. I see little children playing with blocks and books. There are teenagers with funny hairdo’s and tats. Some are middle-aged people that don’t feel well. Then there are the old folks helping each other make it in out of the parking lot. I always am thankful for my own good health and my ability to come in to work where I help in the front office. (And I have a nice long lunch time so I can sit and knit for a while!)
My window at work faces a gas station as well as a very busy street with beautiful trees lining the street. My work place is on the second floor. The traffic and the activities at the gas station provide some great entertainment.
Great biscuits can be had at Knott’s Berry Farm Chicken Restaurant in Buena Park, CA.
My office overlooks a courtyard that is used as a play yard for the nursery school. They are off for the summer, but during the school year it can be lots of fun seeing bubbles float past my window and hear the kids laughing and playing.
Outside my window at work I see the state capitol. I live in Austin, TX and I work downtown in one of the many law offices. It’s Friday and the day is gorgeous!
I’m slowly working on my Gust scarf KAL and am enjoying the color of the yarn.
Thanks for the biscuit receipe — very similar to the ones my Mom made for us when we were growing up — nothing like homemade biscuits!
I just made these biscuits this past weekend – DELISH and super simple! Thanks for sharing your recipes!!