Craft & Clutter

Christmas Magic

2011-12-24T21:15:00.000-06:00

Happy babies are the best gift. My little Santa Baby enjoying her first Christmas.

Four Months Old!

2011-10-22T17:59:00.000-05:00

At four months:

She is starting to laugh, we can't get her to do it consistently – I think she finds us amusing, but not always funny. She rolls from side to side like a little turtle on its shell. And she has rolled over once, from back to front and then back again, but it hasn't happened again since. She babbles all the time, not just coos. Tummy time is getting a lot easier – her arms are getting stronger so she's able to lift her head higher and longer. The drool has just been pouring out of her mouth and she chomps on her hands constantly. She grabs for and holds all her toys without prompting by mom or dad. Her high chair is now set up, so she sits at the table like a big girl for dinner instead of on the table in her bouncer. We celebrated our 6th anniversary as family with a day trip to Hannibal, MO. She is still wearing 0-3 month clothing except for footy sleepers, we had to move up to 3-6 month because she's gotten so long. When she cries, she now cries real tears – it's heartbreaking to see tears stream from her eyes. She's a champion sleeper – at daycare she takes a 2-3 hour nap each afternoon and at home she sleeps at night from around 7:30pm to 6:45am with me waking her at 11 to eat for a half hour.

Lil' Pumpkin

2011-10-11T21:16:00.000-05:00

The temperatures may have been the in the mid-80s this past week, but that did not stop me from knitting Colbie a little pumpkin hat for the fall (those fall-like temperatures have got to be right around the corner, right?).

Knitting for babies is way better when you actually have a baby!

No more trying to find something the size of a baby head to model the hats. Nope! I have an actual, real, incredibly adorable baby to model.

Three Months Old!

2011-09-16T22:29:00.001-05:00

At three months:

She has pretty brown eyes and smiles all the time. She coos and babbles. She's discovered her thumb and loves to suck it, especially in her sleep. She yells at us in her sleep when she's hungry instead of just screaming. She has 6 little friends at daycare where she likes to watch them, though sometimes they'll babble back and forth at each other. Her neck is very strong, but tummy time is still a struggle (though she pretty much just yells throughout it, instead of screaming). She make eye contact with and then bats at specific toys on her bouncer seat or play gym. She REALLY likes mama's orange & white patterned pillowcase. She has giggled one time (that we know of) a week or so ago when dada was getting her ready for a bath and she had a mega poopy diaper that surprised dada. Her daycare teachers think she will be the first to flip over, she's coming so close. She loves to look at the baby in the mirror. Bath time is fun because mama lets her "swim" in the water -- she floats on her back & kick, kick, kicks! Most of the time she'd rather look at Nibbler than mama or dada. But every day when dada gets home and she hears his voice, she smiles big. Her favorite stories are by Dr Seuss and read by dada. She's starting to sleep for 3-4 hours straight at night and loves to sleep in in the morning, just like mama. Every person that meets her can't believe what a happy, good spirited baby she is -- we're very lucky to have her.

Simple Saturday: Burgers & Fries

2011-09-10T22:30:00.000-05:00

Kristi, MrsShoo & I made a pilgrimage today an hour and a half away to experience the phenomenon Ththat is Five Guys Burgers & Fries. There's not much I love more than a juicy burger & fries and when you throw a stop to a yarn shop in there, I'll definitely road trip for food.

Though the fries were highly touted, I must say the burger was divine. The only thing that could have made it better was a thick chocolate shake.

Two Months Old!

2011-08-16T20:48:00.002-05:00

My baby's already two months old! I can't believe how much she's grown in so little time.
(I'll be taking monthly photos of Colbie for her first two years.)

#apieformikey

2011-08-13T19:16:00.003-05:00

I’ve never read Jennifer’s blog, let alone met her or her family, but word gets around the blogosphere lightening fast.

My heart breaks when I catch glimpses of what happened. How her twitter stream went from happy countdown to vacation to bam!

“He’s gone. And my heart is shattered in a million pieces.”

I can’t even bring myself to watch the video clip she posted a few days later of her daughter dancing with her father. Especially as I watched my own Mikey dance with our new daughter two nights ago trying to pacify Colbie just a bit as I prepared to feed her.

Even though I wasn't able to whip a Creamy Peanut Butter Pie up yesterday on the day his life was being celebrated, I made sure to tell my Mike just how much I love him and he means to me while we were out at our first family dinner in a restaurant commemorating my first full week back at work. Then today Colbie and I set to work making pie.

In honor of her Mikey.

...And in honor of mine.

Creamy Peanut Butter Pie (gently adapted from In Jennie's Kitchen)

Serves approximately 8

- 8 ounces of oreos
- 4 Tbs butter, melted
- 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
-1 cup heavy cream
- 8 ounces neufatchel cheese
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup confectioner sugar
- 1 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
- Hershey's syrup to garnish

Crust:
- Pulse oreos in food processor to a fine crumb.
- Combine melted butter and crumbs in a bowl and mix well until butter coats all crumb.
- Press mixture into the bottom and 1 inch up the side of a 9-inch springform pan.
- Melt chocolate in microwave (start with a minute, stir, and heat more if needed).
- Pour chocolate on top of crust and spread to edges.
- Refrigerate crust until ready to add filling.

Filling:
- Beat heavy cream in chilled bowl until stiff peaks form. Transfer whipped cream to a smaller bowl and refrigerate until needed.
- In same bowl, beat neufachatel cheese and peanut butter on medium until light & fluffy.
- Reduce speed and slowly add in confectioners sugar.
- Add sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice.
- Increase speed back to medium and beat until filling is smooth.
- Stir in 1/3 of the whipped cream with a spatula.
- Fold in remaining whipped cream.
- Pour filling into crust pan and drizzle with Hershey's Syrup.
- Place pie in refrigerator overnight or in freezer for a couple hours to firm up before serving.

**************

The strength of the blogging community and the power of social media is amazing. The amount of support shown to Jennifer and her girls is overwhelming.

CNN post | pies around the blogosphere | #apieformikey | heartfelt tribute movie

Masochistic Mondays: Reboot

2011-08-08T20:56:00.002-05:00

Seven weeks postpartum. Determined to get moving again.

My whole pregnancy I said it was my goal to participate in the Women's Biathlon come September like I did last year.

I even had Mike on board with the idea. Plotting ways to get me away from the baby long enough to train. And promising to buy me a road bike as a post-pregnancy, "way-to-go!" gift.

Little did I know how much birth hurt.

So here I am 7 weeks postpartum and just getting the doctor's OK to resume "normal activity" – just in time for me to return to work full-time and a mere 7 weeks out from the planned 20k (10.4 miles) bike and 5k (3.1 miles) run.

That's 7 weeks to go from 5 months of completely sedentary pregnant lifestyle to biking and running several miles in the span of about 2 hours – with an additional 30 lbs on my frame from where I was last year for the event.

But still I haven't given up on the thought of participating in this event. It's non-competitive, so I have that going for me. And I figure if I can stand to be on a bike for 20k, then I'm good to go because if worse comes to worse, I can walk the 5k with many of the other participants.

So Friday Mike, Colbie and I headed out to Scheels, the new mega sporting goods store in town, to hook me up with some appropriate cycling gear to go with the new bike Mike found me on Craigslist – padded butt shorts, cycling jersey & a more aerodynamic helmet than my Target special.

Turns out the new mega store didn't have what we were looking for or if they did it was out of my price point, so we ended up at the local bike shop, Biketek.

Local business pulled through again, folks. Everything I wanted (for the price I wanted, which was an added bonus).

Newly outfitted, I headed out to one of the local trails Saturday evening to test out the bike for the first time. I'm happy to report I made it over 9.5 miles with only sporadic discomfort. I was slow as molasses, but relatively pain-free, so I think the biathlon will be in my near future as things can only get better.

Now to get my running act in gear…

2010: The Year of the Dishcloth

2011-08-02T22:35:00.003-05:00

A little blast from the past for you today as I don't want to inundate you with ALL BABY, ALL THE TIME (though the reality is that Colbie and Colbie-related things will be showing up here quite a bit as I don't have much time for anything else – how do those mommy bloggers do it?!).

Last year one of my resolutions (in an attempt to unclutter our house a bit) was to use up all of my stashed cotton yarn. I had a habit of buying Sugar N Cream when it was on sale for 99 cents a skein and I thought a color was pretty. Needless to say I ended up with more than enough single skeins of color which isn't very practical project-wise as there's not a ton I could make with one skein of 100% cotton yarn times 10.

So I started the year off determined to knit all that cotton (plus all my cotton-ease – which is cotton blended with acrylic) into dishcloths that I could then gift at Christmas to those family members that insisted we NOT give them presents, but could not even think about not giving them some sort of token while we were celebrating the holidays with them. I ended up creating little gift sets of 3 cloths and a bar of handmade soap that I bought on etsy, and they appeared to go over well as I've found hand knit dishcloths was the best dishrags!

And though it was nearly impossible to become bored knitting dishcloths – they're so small that you finish them quick and there are thousands of free patterns so you never have to do the same one – I will admit that by Christmas I was sick of them. And of course, wouldn't you know it, I still had to finish two cloths before our final Christmas celebration. Thankfully we had a bunch of driving to do, the only crappy thing is my photos of the last couple turned out bad because I was snapping pictures in route to the final holiday get together (see row 2, picture 3 & 4). Surprisingly I'm actually a little sad that I don't have a project going on like this this year.

***********

2010: The Year of the Dishcloth Fun Facts

Favorite Pattern: Circle Cloth pattern (row 1, pic 4)
Yes, row 2, pic 1 says "Your Mom" – a little tribute to my knit night friends with the sense of humor of 13-year-old boys.
7 patterns were designed by one person, Kris Knits, many of which were part of her monthly Mystery Dishcloth Pattern series. Sadly she had to stop creating them due to some personal reasons.
I actually ended up knitting the same pattern twice on two occasions. Once on purpose, the other on accident.
Row 4, pic 4 is the Dharma Initiative logo from LOST, I designed the pattern to commemorate the ending of the show and then offered the pattern for donations to my Relay of Life team (this was the pattern I knit twice on purpose).
I actually knit the cloth pictured in row 1, pic 2 while participating in Relay for Life. I knit all but 8 rows while walking around the track all night – all in all I walked 10 miles (I wore my GPS watch) and only messed up once (this is the pattern, Waffle Knit Dishcloth, I knit twice on accident).

Sugar Overload

2011-07-30T21:06:00.003-05:00

Nothing better than giving a 6 year old rice krispy treats covered in peanut butter, assorted candies and then drizzled with semisweet chocolate.

At least he earned it by helping whip these up – Brown Eyed Baker's Peanut Butter Cup Rice Krispy Treats, slightly modified with the addition of M&M's.

Lucky for his mom, he's spending the night with Grams, Pop & his aunt and uncle.

*****
Even though I had my one-on-one time with Bray making these while everyone else was napping, Mike got a little taste of what life would be like if we had two kids while I took a nap and he juggled getting Colbie to sleep and making Bray some lunch. I'm hoping that little experience buys me a few years before Mike starts bugging me for another baby.

Little Miss Sunrise

2011-07-27T15:45:00.000-05:00

When I first found out I was pregnant, there was nothing I wanted to do more than knit something for my baby. But the worry wart in me, just couldn't bring myself to start a project. I didn't want to jinx it.

So I waited.

In that time I surfed ravelry constantly favoriting baby patterns like they were going out of style.

But still I waited.

As the weeks went by and I became more comfortable with the pregnancy, I realized I might as well continue waiting until I had my anatomy scan – the sonogram at 20 weeks where they can determine the baby's gender – that way I could knit something appropriate for either a boy or a girl rather than a generic blanket or something of that sort.

So when my anatomy scan came (at 21 weeks instead of 20, oh, it was excruciating waiting that extra week), and we saw that we were having a girl, I immediately knew what I was going to knit for her. I wanted to knit a dress for her first photo, the ones the hospital takes and posts on its website. And it wasn't any of the hundreds of things I spent the last couple months oogling over, but a pattern (the Little Sister Dress - ravelry link) that I first favorited in July 2009 and have been waiting for the perfect baby to knit it for.

I'd finally found my perfect baby.

I had the perfect yarn as well, some beautiful hand dyed bamboo in a gorgeous orange/pink colorway that I picked up in Taos, NM on our road trip last summer. Granted it was currently on the needles, knit almost completely as a shrug for myself, but I was pretty sure I didn't have enough yarn to finish.

So I frogged the shrug and tried to finish another project that I was in the middle of (which I ended up never finishing), and then I finally allowed myself to make something for my dear little Colbie when I was at 30 weeks pregnant. (Yes, she was already Colbie – we'd decided that in the week or so prior to the anatomy scan.) (And yes, it took until 30 weeks for me to really feel like I wouldn't be jinxing the pregnancy by knitting something for the baby, what can I say, I'm very superstitious.)

All hopes of having it finished prior to her June 22 due date went out the window almost immediately when it took me a handful of tries to obtain the proper gauge (the pattern calls for size 2.5 needles, I worked mine on triple zeros), but I went on strong for a couple weeks determined to make it happen.

Then I remembered a little thing.

We hadn't even started to put the nursery together and it was already May and I had grand plans for handmade stuff in there too.

Needless to say, this little dress got put on the back burner for weeks. Mike and I shopped for an outfit for her to wear for her first picture and life went on. And then someone decided to come a week early, so even if I had managed to stay on top of the knitting, it would have been fruitless.

Here we are 6 weeks after Colbie was born and I've finally finished the "dress". I say "dress" because I ended up not having enough yarn to make it a dress, so currently it's a tunic length sweater. And it fits her 6 week old body perfectly…sadly. I was really hoping to make the newborn dress and then transition it into a sweater as she got bigger.

My knit night friends have assured me that with blocking the bamboo will get drapier, so I still have a little hope that she'll be able to wear it longer than this week. This hot, hot, hot week where wearing a sweater, even a short sleeved, non-wool sweater, is ridiculous.

Perhaps I should start shopping for a shadow box frame already. As I've already determined that this will be a little piece of art, that I'll force Colbie to have hanging in her room until she moves out.

Or as Mrs Shoo suggested, I can frog it and knit something else for her with the yarn (that will NOT be happening!).

What a Difference a Year Makes.

2011-07-25T20:45:00.001-05:00

Mike and I in Rocky Mountain National Park: July 2010

About a year ago, Mike and I were taking a quiet hike through Rocky Mountain National Park, our third vacation in about five years of marriage.

We took in the views, ran scared from tiny marmots and enjoyed the cool afternoon rain.

That's when we decided to have Colbie.

I've been home from work with her for the last five weeks, and though it's been exhausting at time, I've loved every minute of bonding with my little girl. It's still a little hard to believe I carried this for months.

Colbie during her first full day on earth: July 17, 2011
She's adorable, isn't she?! I think this is my favorite memory from her first few days. All her visitors and figuring out how to eat just wore her out.

I'm pretty sure we'll keep her.

It also was just over a year ago that I came to this space saying I needed a little break. There have been a handful of posts since, but I've basically ignored this blog in favor of running, tweeting, crafting and…growing a baby.

Now, I think it's the perfect time to renew this blog, in part to track my experience as a new mom but also to get back to my roots – my trials and tribulations with fitness, my love of cooking & making stuff.

At one month old (a little more than a week ago), trying to find the perfect location to take monthly photos of her. She looks like a baby doll.

I'll show you some of the things I've made for Colbie in the coming days. So I hope you won't hold my absence against me and follow along.

2nd Annual BYOP

2010-11-01T20:18:00.003-05:00

Things have been rather intense around here the past couple months, with layoff notice warnings & actual layoffs (one for each of us), the subsequent worries about making ends meet, trying to figure out how the heck to run a freelance and then new jobs lined up (yes, one for each of us), but one thing was clear even when it looked like we would both be out of work at the same time…

The show must go on and the annual BYOP Carving Party would happen. Even if we had to ask our friends to not only bring their own pumpkins, but to bring food as well.

Luckily, our luck shifted rather quickly. Mike was able to line up a new job a mere 4 days after being laid off (yet somehow I don't think he was able to enjoy his month of unemployment one bit). And I – well mine took a bit longer, about a month and a half after finding out my full time job would finished come the beginning of November, I was offered a new position at a company that (fingers crossed) will have a bit more stability.

Because of the shift in luck, we were able to treat our friends this weekend to fabulous fall evening, complete with pumpkin carving, food and silly costumes (though I must give a shout out to the De Wildes for providing a yummy pumpkin soup & a couple others who brought some sweets).

Since this year's festivities took place so close to Halloween, we left it up to our guests on whether they wanted to come in costume or not. We had everything from Babe-raham Lincoln to Where's Waldo to Lindsay Lohan.

I've been wanting to dress up as Coraline since last year. I was able to find the perfect rain slicker shortly after Halloween last year, so with my rain boots and some sprayed blue hair I was able to pull it off. Though I wasn't the most recognizable obviously since I was asked multiple times if I was the Morton salt girl - ha!

Mike surprised me the morning of the party, while I was cooking the day away, when he said he wanted to go to the party as the Fantastic Mr Fox. Now when we first saw the movie last year, I immediately thought he should dress up as him and even said I'd make him the costume. Nearly a year went by and no mention of it, not even when I spoke of my costume plans. But not wanting to snuff out the flicker of enthusiasm that matched my own, I said I would make it work - that I could make him a bandit cap to wear with a corduroy blazer & pants he already owned. I still have nearly an entire bolt of orange fur fabric from four years ago, so to Mike's amazement I was even able to give him little fox ears so he didn't look entirely like a burglar. If only he had told me the night before when I went to the costume store, I could have gotten him a fox nose to make the costume perfect.

It was a mellow evening that involved devouring buffalo chicken dip, Bugle crack (caramelized Bugles) and candy corn cupcakes. But it's definitely the kind of evening that suits me, and I'm already starting to think about next year.

Masochistic Mondays (on a Sunday): One Year Later

2010-08-15T11:50:00.003-05:00

A comparison: July 26, 2009 vs August 14, 2010

I finally got around to taking some "one year later" shots in my exercise clothes and I thought I'd share the progress I've made. It's been slow progress, but progress none the less.

Here I am just over a year later from starting my healthiness journey. I've dropped almost 20 pounds. I had to adjust my starting weight because I use the Wii Fit and in the beginning I was convinced my clothes were adding 2lbs - so I used the -2 setting. I did an experiment immediately after being weighed at the doctor, turns out they didn't. So I bit the bullet and have now officially recognized that I weighed 190lbs! Yikes!

Though I would have loved to be one of those glory cases, you know the ones where the person is able to lose like 100lbs in a year and keep it off, I'm not. I still have a ways to go before I reach my goal weight, but really I've only made a few lifestyles changes, none of which involved drastically changing my diet or going on one of those crazy fad diets.

Besides the number on the scale, I have been working on just becoming healthier in general as well. I'm now more conscious of the food I eat, and in the last couple months even more so. Soda is almost completely gone from my diet. I can count the number of times on one hand I've had one since mid-December. Processed foods rarely make an appearance in our meals (though I must say I will never give up the recently discovered MorningStar Veggie Burgers, yum, yum). I'm consuming fruits at a record rate thanks to the addition of a fruit bowl on our dining room table filled with apples, peaches & oranges. My water consumption is most likely up to recommended levels again, though I'm not 100% sure because I just drink out of a big cup at work and don't track the ounces via a Nalgene anymore, all I do know is I pee A LOT these days.

But perhaps the biggest accomplishment is…

I now run.

Shocking, I know, but I run at least 3 days a week and on average 3 miles at a time. I can run 4 miles without walking, though it's tough. I've participated in a 5k and a 2-mile event (yes I finished both), and actually am getting ready to run a 10k next weekend! Isn't that crazy?! Only a month and a half after running in my first 5k, I will be running in a 10k. My goals are a bit more lax, but I know I can run the majority of the race and finish in a reasonable time. Besides running, I also bike a couple times a week (though according to Mike, I really need to work on getting my speed up there) and am signed up to participate (note how I don't say compete…I'm not delusional, I know I have NO CHANCE of ever placing in these events) in the local Women's Biathlon in mid-September – 20k bike & 5k run.

All these things are shocking to me. Had you asked me at the beginning of last July if I had ever thought I'd be able to run 3.1 miles straight, I would have said "Hell No! Are you crazy!" If you had even mentioned a 10k or a biathlon, I probably would have rolled my eyes and not even answered you.

I'm not the fastest runner, or the strongest cyclist, but you know what…I'm out there doing it. I'm making an effort. I'm making progress nearly every time I go out there. I'm not giving up. And more importantly, I'm making becoming healthy a priority. I wake up at ungodly hours to get in a 4 mile run with a friend before work (I used to be the one to roll out of bed 30 minutes before I had to leave for work). I squeeze in a bike ride in the time I have between getting home from work and going to my weekly craft group meeting. I ride my bike to work carrying a laptop across my back (though I must admit the riding to work thing has died out as of late with the extremely hot weather we've been having). Yes, the dishes may be stacking up in our sink to comically large proportions and the house might need a good vacuuming, but for now that's ok.

And I did it!

2010-07-12T21:03:00.005-05:00

After a few years of "talking" about it (ok, not really talking but it did appear on my 101 in 1001 list and subsuquent New Year's resolution lists), and almost a year of running, I finally took the plunge and ran my FIRST EVER 5k event on the Fourth of July - the Firecracker 5000 in Peoria.

Exciting, I know! Nerve-wrecking as well (see my apprehension here). But I did it, which is awesome.

Now I know I'm not the fastest, actually let me rephrase that… I know I'm really slow, but I accomplished all my goals and Mike's as well in this race.

Goal #1: Finish race by running the entire 5k course - Check!
Goal #2: Don't come in last - Check!
Goal #3 (aka Mike's goal): Finish in under 40 min - Check!

Though I started running at the end of last July (and it lasted until the beginning of November), I only started to get pretty serious about it this spring after I tried to start the Couch to 5k program again in February. I've been running the 5k distance pretty regularly since mid-May, so really this wasn't a giant physical breakthrough, it was more of a mental one. Showing myself that I really can do it. And though my 39 minute 5k was my personal best (PR came earlier in the week before the race when I clocked in at 38:05 one morning with Mike - after choking a couple days earlier during his attempt to get me in at 40min), I was so happy with the result.

When the race started (and I took off like a jack rabbit - unintentionally - according to Mike), I was totally overwhelmed. I wanted to step onto the sidewalk, sit down and start bawling. And though my breathing was nearing hyperventilation, I took to heart what Coach (aka Mike) told me and really focused on taking deep even breaths. Before the first mile was even complete, I had calmed down and spent a lot of time trying to not to focus on ALL the people flooding past me.

Seriously I felt like I was running at least a 15 minute mile and I was convinced that if I turned around, I would see that I was quickly becoming one of the last runners on the road. I was shocked when I came to the first mile clock and realized I was running an 11 minute mile (I NEVER run an 11 minute first mile, I'm usually lucky if I can hit 12:30). That worried me a bit, and I knew if I tried to continue at that pace, though the prospect of a 33 min time was tempting, I would end up needing to walk and for my first 5k that was not something I wanted to do. I wanted to prove that I could run the entire thing, gosh darn it!

So I tried to slow myself down, though I wasn't really successful until after my second mile (I hit mile 2 at around 24 minutes) - around the time I finally saw Mike on the course. Silly him, was panicking because he thought he was at the 1.5 mile mark and was freaking out that I hadn't passed him yet, little did he know (until he started jogging next to me and I told him) I was at the 2.5 mile mark. By this time I was really dragging and even though I knew the finish was so close and that I should push it, I wasn't really successful in doing so - though it sure felt like it while I was running. Looking at the photos from the last quarter mile or so are kind of embarrassing because it seriously looks like I'm walking. I swear I wasn't - I'm just not a very good runner, haha!

According to Mike, I was neck & neck with another girl coming up on the finish line and she kept trying to edge me out, but I'm pretty sure I succeeded in beating her (I can't ask Mike for sure because he's at a work thing, doh). I have no recollection of this at all. All I know is I was singing along to my ipod trying to get myself to just forget how hard I was having to work and to just push myself to cross the finish line.

Thanks to my trusty Garmin Forerunner, I was able to know my real time for the race (39 minutes) because though I was wearing a chip so therefore have an official time (39:26, I believe), the race coordinators didn't have us cross the chip pads to start the race, only to finish.

After getting my chip clipped, I grabbed some Gatorade and water and sat down to wait for the official times to be posted. As you can see by my last photo, I was really, really sweaty after running. Though the morning seemed like it was going to be awesomely pleasant (then again it was 5am when we left), it was actually pretty warm out that morning on the river and it didn't help one bit that we were on pavement and in the sun the entire time.

For some reason, earlier in the week, I got it in my head that I absolutely needed to have a Dunkin Donut pink frosted donut after the race, so Mike indulged me - though it wasn't nearly as yummy as I remembered (I swear, they had changed the recipe since I was a little kid!). Then we headed to Mike's parents' to have a lunch BBQ and wash up, and then headed to my college roommate's to visit and continue our 4th of July tradition of getting together (this year with a baby added to the mix!).

Oh! How could I forget, of course my first race couldn't go off without a hitch. As I stood in line for the port-a-potty shortly before race time, I hear my name (and ONLY my name) being called over the PA. Luckily the nice women behind me let Mike hold my place (because I REALLY had to go), as I ran to the PA person. Turns out the registration lady forgot to mark my bib number on my registration form - the form I forced her to take because though I paid online, I was emailed and told I needed a paper form for legal reasons, but she didn't think that was necessary - so it was nothing I did wrong, but it was still embarrassing. Thankfully it was also quick, so I was able to get back to my spot in the port-a-potty line before my turn was up because as I mentioned earlier, I REALLY had to go.

If you want to see a little video Mike put together to commemorate my first 5k, click here to watch it on YouTube. If you couldn't tell, we just got a video camera and Mike is obsessed (which has compounded in the past few days since we also got a new MacBook Pro that can handle the video editing way better than the netbook could).

Need a Break...

2010-06-26T16:00:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed I've been a bit MIA around here. Let's just call this an extended coffee break. The past few months I've really been concentrating on getting active, running a few days a week and biking a couple others. Combine that with a full time job and well...some things get neglected - cooking, grocery shopping, keeping a tidy house, reading, blogging - hmm, that sounds like pretty much everything besides work, running & sleeping, ha!

Then to top things off, a couple weeks ago during one the nightly storms we seem to be having lately, we lost power & that fried my imac where I edit pics and store all the images (via external hard drive). Hopefully the power cord is only fried & not the actual computer. So until things equalize around these parts, I'll probably be MIA a bit more.

Until next time!

To Wipe the Tears...

2010-05-22T18:58:00.003-05:00

It's the big weekend...LOST is officially ending tomorrow night and ABC has turned it into a weekend event - heaven, right?

In preparation for this momentous television event, I worked up a dishcloth pattern featuring the Dharma Initiative logo. I mean, I'm sure those in Dharmaville had something just like this to wash their dirty dishes, we just haven't seen it yet on the show. Though now that I think about it, it will probably be one of the questions we don't get answered.

I know I just recently said I don't typically do this kind of thing in this space, but later this summer (June 19, in fact) I will be participating in our local American Cancer Society's Relay for Life event. I typically stay way from doing fundraising events - basically because I have a difficult time asking people for money, but this year a friend, who is a cancer survivor, asked if I would join her team. And this year, I felt compelled to get over my issues and support my friend as well as my grandfather and uncle who have both been undergoing cancer treatments after being diagnosed early this year.

So as an incentive to donate, I'm offering this Dharma Dishcloth free with any donation! Please visit my Relay for Life donation page (for donations $10 and up) or donate via Paypal (for smaller amounts - on June 19th, 2010, I'll make one big donation on the behalf of my crafty friends on the interwebs) and give as much as you can to help fight cancer, honor a loved one lost or support someone you know who is fighting cancer or is a survivor.

You can visit the Ravelry page for the pattern for download instructions (there are also the instructions for donating too so all the info is in one spot). Or if you don't have access to Ravelry, please feel free to email me at craftnclutter {at} gmail {dot} com after you donate and I'll send it your way.

I really appreciate any donations you can make, and I look forward to seeing some other Dharma Dishcloths pop up around the web and on Ravelry - it will probably come in handy to wipe away the tears as the final credits roll tomorrow night (so you better buckle down and get this knit during the 2-hour recap before the finale - haha).

Friday Sweet Friday: Dulce De Leche Cookies

2010-05-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

Adding some sweet latin flair to kick off your weekend with Dulce de Leche sandwich cookies. A nice accompaniment to fajita night at a friend's last weekend. Though they were good, I'm pretty sure no one appreciated me unloading ALL the extras on them. And seriously this recipe makes a lot of cookie, even when sandwiched up.

I must also warn, you'd be wise to heed the recipe's advice of buying a jar of dulce de leche. I tried to make my own and even after an hour, I still couldn't obtain that beautiful caramely color. I even went back to the store the next day in hopes of buying a jar before I had to make my sandwiches…no luck, at my local store, but hopefully you will have some at yours.

If you don't, technically you can make your own dulce de leche with nothing more than a can of sweetened condensed milk, a pot of water and some time.

Just pop a couple holes in the top of your unopened can (wrapper removed), place in a pot and fill with water up to about an inch away from the top of the can. Bring the water to a boil and then simmer for a heckuva long time until you get a nice caramely color. Let it cool and dig in (though you may want to google it, see if you can get a more precise time frame because trust, you'll get anxious).

2010-05-13T22:17:00.003-05:00

And the 4th Blogiversary rolls around. That's commitment, huh? I've been blogging in this same location for nearly as long as I've been married.

Just wanted to pop in quick to commemorate the occasion…and ask for a kick in the butt for not making myself one of these banners yet! Seriously, ever since I made the first one (for Halloween) in our condo, I think, "oh I should make us one of our own," and here it is over three years later and I still haven't.

Maybe for next year's birthday.

Thanks for sticking with me, and here's to more good food, great craft and fabulous adventures!

WIP Wednesday: Mystery Project

2010-05-12T21:19:00.002-05:00

Working on a little somethin' somethin' of my own design. Hopefully I'll finish it sooner rather than later, as it's a bit time sensitive. But wow, charting your own patterns takes time.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 41

2010-05-10T06:36:00.004-05:00

The Stats (as of May 10, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 176.6 lbs

So much for "A Post A Day In May," huh? I had a good streak going. Even thought about how I still needed to blog when we got back from a friend's house for dinner last night, then got engrossed in a documentary right before bedtime.

As I sit here munching on a small bowl of popcorn for breakfast (it's pretty much cereal, right? Minus the sugar), I thought I'd post early today and tell you all about my super active weekend. It was the most active weekend I have had in almost forever and it was great. Though vegging out on the couch with knitting and movies can be relaxing and mostly what I crave on weekends, I have now seen that doing fun, exercise-type stuff can be just as relaxing.

The weekend started Friday evening with an invitation to enjoy Fajita Night at a friend's house. This time of year, Mike is super busy at work and not home very much so I planned on going stag but I felt kind of guilty leaving Nibbler all night after she had been home alone all day, so instead of heading out on my scheduled run, I decided my time would better be spent taking Nibs on a nice long walk at the park. Despite being dog owners for two years now, we are very dependent on our backyard, so Nibbler doesn't get walked nearly as often as she deserves (I've decided to change that because it's not right, she needs more exercise). After an hour walk around the empty park, smelling all the smells and meeting a couple of new dogs and their talkative owner, we headed home and Nibbler got her dinner and conked out on her side exhausted. I then rushed off to dinner for some yummy fajitas. Yum, yum. I brought some Dulce de Leche Sandwich cookies for dessert to kind of stay in theme. Also delicious, but neither are really diet friendly. Though I didn't really limit myself on the fajitas, I did watch the cookie consumption, so at least I put in some effort.

Saturday, I started the morning off by taking Nibbler on the long route around the park. When we came back from the 2.75 mile walk, we found Nibbler fast asleep (he never naps!), so we snuggled on the couch, tired from our walk until he woke because we had some plans with friends to go on the interurban trail. The guys were going to ride 30 miles and the girls were going to do the 17 mile route, and then we were going to end at Sonic (which is right by where the trial starts) to satisfy my weeklong Sonic burger craving. Well, nature didn't really want to cooperate. It was chilly and W-I-N-D-Y! Everyone else bailed out, but Mike and I still headed out. We ended up riding only 10 miles because someone didn't dress appropriately (and he scoffed at me when I put on a stocking cap, ha!). But I still deemed the ride worthy of Sonic. I must say I would totally ride 10 miles for a Sonic cheeseburger, fries and a strawberry shake any day. Actually I would ride 17 miles for it! According to my Garmin, I burned 464 calories during the ride. (I wear the heart rate monitor in conjunction with it, so I can pretty much trust that right? Or is it only using time/distance averages based on my height & weight?) And according to my calculation from the Sonic website, my dinner was 1460 calories. So I probably should be eating Sonic every time I ride, but it's way better than eating it having not taken a long ride, right?

I must say, even with the extreme wind, the ride wasn't bad, so much so that we even went again on Sunday with the group. After starting the morning again with a walk in the park with Nibbler, I rode with my friend, mrsshoo, at a nice pace (nice pace = we can talk, prob around 10mph average) the whole 17 mile round trip. We actually almost made it to the halfway point before the guys caught up from their extended route, so we weren't going too slow. It was a beautiful day, so I'm so glad I decided to go along and not head to the Y for weight training and my weekly timed mile. It would have been ashame to waste the day inside. As per the original plan, we ended this ride at Sonic as well - but only for ice cream.

I am really pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the group bike outing. Despite not vegging on the couch all weekend, I had a fabulous weekend and look forward to having more active weekends like this.

Simple Saturday: Exhaustion

2010-05-08T20:03:00.003-05:00

A busy, busy day has us wiped out completely. Seriously, it's 8pm and I am contemplating heading upstairs to bed and maybe a little reading, but most likely just straight to sleep.

After a night of interrupted sleep (thanks to my dear Nibbler and her licking), Nibbler and I went for another walk in Washington Park. This time around the whole park loop and back to the house which is about 2.75 miles. When we got back home, back was fast asleep...for 2 hours! He never naps in the middle of the day. Nibbler and I just kind of chilled on the couch in our extremely COLD house and shortly after Mike got up, I drifted off for a brief cat nap snuggled with the pup while listening to podcasts.

Then Mike and I were off for a bike ride on the interurban trail. It was going to be a group ride, but the super windy conditions and brisk temps deterred our riding mates. Apparently a Sonic cheeseburger was not a big motivator for them. I've really been craving Sonic this week, so I set up this ride - it was supposed to be 17 miles, we only did 10 - to get my Sonic burger, fries and a strawberry shake. No guilt, yay! According to my Garmin and HRM, I burned 460ish calories on said ride. And according to the Sonic website, I ate approximately 1460 calories. Obviously it wasn't an even exchange, but the ride put a dent in it. I'm not entirely sure I should trust my Garmin calorie count, does anyone know? I'm wearing a heart rate monitor with it, so it should be more accurate than just using a time/distance standard, right?

Now I'm all (hot) showered and in my pjs, and I'm ready for bed. Currently Nibs is fast asleep next to me on the couch, all curled in a ball, and it looks so good. This is one of the only times I wish we had a tv in our bedroom. I could get all cozy in bed and fall asleep to Everybody Loves Raymond. I was trying to work on creating a knitting pattern (which I plan on providing as a freebie here, fingers crossed, at the end of the month), but it's taking some effort and concentration and I'm just not feeling up to it right now.

Friday, Sweet Friday: the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

2010-05-07T08:00:00.002-05:00

Well, you know what sucks?

When you find a recipe online, make it a month and a half ago, neglect to blog about it for that long and then try to blog about it, only to find out you have NO IDEA where the recipe came from.

But then, in a moment of clarity, you remember it was in one of those "magazines" that come in your paper once a month and are able to find a link online. That my friends is awesome, especially when that clarity comes when you really should be in bed, instead of pre-blogging because you really, really want to maintain posting every day in May.

Without any further ado, I present to you Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting (pictured sans frosting).

Go forth and enjoy – the weekend is almost here.

Let's Go Fly a Kite…

2010-05-06T21:28:00.003-05:00

While home for Easter (yes, I know, it was over a month ago), Mike & I, along with my mom, sister and Bray took the mini kites I picked up out for a fly. As luck would have it, it was probably too windy to fly kites, but that didn't stop us from tromping to the park a few blocks away for some tree-free kite-flying space.

Now I thought I was going to be the cool aunt who buys her nephew the awesome dragon kite, especially after finding out he had just seen, and I quote, "Dreamwork's How to Train Your Dragon" (yes, that is exactly how my 5 year old nephew referred to the movie - superb marketing anyone?). Well, it turns out that the dragon kite flies like crap, or should I say, does an excellent job of hover a couple inches off the ground before divebombing. On the plus side, the adorable little owl kite I picked up for myself (hmm, perhaps I should have picked up the turtle or fish instead of the dragon for Bray) was rockin' the airstream as well as a mini kite on an extremely windy day can be expected…until a certain 5 year old let go, and it flew right across the street into a neighbor's tree.

Needless to say, we didn't last very long in the park before heading home. There's only so many times even a 5 year old will "go run out there to the kite and hold it as high as you can while Uncle Mike tries to get it in the air."

But as it has been longer than I can remember since I flew a kite, it was fun nonetheless. And makes me think we should get a kite and find a clear field on of these days.

Easter 2010
(and yes, I'm in a dress…voluntarily, it was my little Easter surprise for everyone :-D )
(and I'd like to add that I am not the shortest in the family, by a long shot. As photographer, I had to run to get in the picture and to make sure I was in the frame I stood behind Mike - and was in extremely flat, practically pieces of cardboard, sandals)

WIP Wednesday: Owls Sweater Beginnings

2010-05-05T20:07:00.002-05:00

My first adult-sized full sweater has been started -the Owls Sweater. It only took 6 gauge swatches to get started. 5 to realize the yarn I dropped serious cash on wouldn't fly, and then a trip to the yarn store a few towns over to drop even more cash on additional giant hanks so I could double strand the yarn.

The goal is to finish this in time to enter into the state fair.

Tour de Cure

2010-05-03T19:41:00.003-05:00

As I begin my journey into running, Mike has begun a journey of his own. He's finally, after years of talking about it, has started long distance cycling. Initially he was planning on training this spring and summer for a century ride in the fall, but then an opportunity for another long ride came up in June.

So currently Mike is working toward a 50 mile ride in Grafton, IL as part of the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure. I know I don't typically do this kind of thing in this space, but if you're so inclined and would like to support a good cause, Mike is trying to raise $150 for ADA. If you'd like to make any sort of donation, we'd both greatly appreciate it - donate here!

Hopefully Mike doesn't get too upset that I'm posting a picture of a doll bike (I WANT this cruiser!) and not a picture of his own Black Beauty. It's just the American Girl bike is a little more me, and after all even though I'm plugging him in this post, truly I can't not make it about me. ;)

Good luck dear! You'll do great!

Masochistic Mondays: Week 40

2010-05-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

The Stats (as of May 3, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 176.8 lbs

You may have noticed I was MIA last week during my regularly scheduled check-in time. Well...I was feeling ashamed. After finally breaking through my plateau two weeks ago (and maintaining for a week), I rebounded back to the dreaded plateau after an indulgent date night. It took some serious awareness to get back out of the plateau (every time I type that I hear that dun dun dunnnn in my head), but I'm hoping to keep the awareness heightened.

Mike has started coming on a run with me during the week, kind of like a coach. He was a runner (having finished 2 marathons), so he gives me tips. Things like relax. Keep your head up. Set goals. Stop worrying about how far you have left to go, etc. Though I complain and struggle more when I run with him, he is helping. Each time we run a slightly longer route, I struggle, I say I can't, we end up walking some of it, but then you know what? The next run I end up being able to run the entire route. My latest accomplishment being running 2.5 miles straight. That's right...without stopping to walk! Sure, I am not the fastest, but I ran the whole thing. At this rate, I might actually be up to a 5k in a few weeks.

According to Mike, once I start being able to run farther at a time, it will be easier to drop some pounds with the running. So I probably won't turn to improving my speed right after reaching the 5k length. I'd like to know I can run further than 5k before I sign up for a 5k race. I guess I should start looking into one to sign up for this summer. As motivation, you know.

I'll sign off for now, I've got a run to get in before making dinner and I'd like to watch How I Met Your Mother as well, so if I don't hurry up making dinner could cut into the show for yet another week.

Sunday Night Dinner: Deep Dish Pizza

2010-05-02T21:05:00.002-05:00

A wonderful way to end a rather productive Sunday. Homemade onion, spinach & feta deep dish pizza with mozzarella stuffed crust (recipe minus the mozzarella stuffed crust found here). So worth the effort. And made even better that today's dough has been my best dough in awhile - I think letting the yeast stick for much longer than the recommended 15 minutes and not loading it up with too much flour made it great to work with and great to eat.

After a day filled with planning, shopping, gardening, cleaning, laundry, dishes, baking and running (as well a quick bike ride to get ice cream), I very much look forward to a few minutes of knitting my sweater and then winding down with a chapter or so in my book. Yes, you read that right, I am reading again.

A Post A Day In May: Year 3 Starts

2010-05-01T22:58:00.004-05:00

March Mystery KAL Dishcloth

In an effort to finally get back into a blogging groove, I'm attempting to do my annual "A Post A Day In May" challenge. I'm not sure if the official challenge still occurs, but May's kinda my month, so why not keep it going.

Hopefully this will help me get back into using my camera more regularly and more importantly, taking the photos off and editing them more than twice a month.

I have a few ideas for weekly "features' to make it a bit easier to post, so we'll see how it works. This year is a bit different the past couple, as my new job has my daily schedule off from what it had been, I don't have as much time for recreational internet usage, and then there's the whole being active thing. Exercising like 5 days a week also eats up my already limited time (and I won't mention my husband who has commandeered the netbook, leaving me with the super slow imac - just kidding honey).

Mario Dishcloth

I'm still hard at work making dishcloths. I believe I'm up to 7 for the year, not a ton, but a good start. I figure I need at least 8 more to at least do a limited version of the gifts I wanted to put together for Christmas this year. If I get more done, then more people will have the gift packs bestowed to them.

The funny thing is I actually finished another one, that I had been picking up on and off for about a month in between clues for the March KAL. Just as I was getting ready to bind off, I held it up and sadly realized I had repeated a row so my picture was split in half. One half facing the proper way and the other half upside down.

You're probably wondering how I didn't notice earlier. But I had made a push one day to finish it and just was work, work, working. Sad, but true. I ended up frogging it completely. I'll reknit it eventually.

February Mystery KAL Dishcloth

...eventually. But I've moved on for now.

I'm tackling my first full sweater! I'm hoping to have it complete for the state fair in August. I don't expect to place or anything, but hoping the pattern itself will draw some attention. It would be especially fun if I could get a pair of fair isle mittens knit in time as well - in a fun pattern. I guess I'm just hoping to spice things up in the competition. I learned last year when picking up my entry that the entrants are typically older women with very traditional styles, so it would be fun to see something atypical and maybe encouraging others in the younger age brackets to enter things. Fisherman sweaters aren't a requirement, so can do like anything with knitting.

Friday, Sweet Friday: the Grapefruit Cake

2010-04-30T08:11:00.002-05:00

A little sweetness to help you make that last push through until the weekend, a little Grapefruit Cake drizzled with Grapefruit Glaze.

Though I never would have thought to make a grapefruit flavored cake, granted I don't think about cake much, this was a sticky, sweet surprise.

Plus a wonderful way to use a few grapefruits that had been sitting in my fridge without a second glance their way (I always due that, I get on a "special" fruit kick so I stock up and then I lose wind one or two servings in).

A perfect little daydream to get you through the last workday. Enjoy!

Just in Time...

2010-04-23T21:50:00.003-05:00

New season. New haircut. New hat?

Knitting sure has taken over my life. When I'm not working or exercising, I'm pretty much knitting. Housework is neglected (sorry mom). And I don't do things I used to do ALL the time. I haven't finished a book yet this year. So sad. Up until this year, I would read at least 2 books a month. Fiction, nonfiction. Classics, chick-lit, legal mysteries, biographies. Anything. And now, I can barely pick up a book, let alone read and finished one.

Despite losing my ability to complete even the shortest book, I at least have a small bounty of things to show for it. Loads of dishcloths (ok, not loads, but maybe 6 or so), some mittens that live a state away, slippers, and now a new hat to go with my Gay Paree City Scarf.

And hopefully soon, I will be starting on my first full sweater! The yarn has been bought (thanks to a special car trip to a yarn store into a neighboring town), I'm just waiting to finish up a couple small works-in-progress and then it's time cast-on. So it may just turn out that I don't end up finishing a single book this year.

Perhaps you could suggest some that I just won't be able to resist?

Cookbook Challenge: March/April 2010

2010-04-20T08:17:00.001-05:00

How to Eat Supper #34: Coriander-Orange-Scented Red Lentil Soup

Doh, didn't keep up with my plan for writing a blurb about each recipe after cooking it. Now it's probably been over a month since I made this and all I can remember is it was good. I must really get better at uploading photos from my camera.

Basically I love soup, and I would be hard-pressed to find one that I did not enjoy. This lentil soup has a interesting combination of orange and coriander, which was enjoyable, but also a bit overwhelming in the sense that I wasn't able to enjoy it the next day. Definitely a one meal sort of soup. Luckily I have a husband that will eat the same leftovers for a few day. (thanks hun!)

How to Eat Supper #35: Pan-Browned Scallops on a Bed of Bacon & Brussel Sprouts

I tried to give brussel sprouts a second chance and I thought that I may have enjoyed them as I popped the first caramelized halves in my mouth. But I wasn't able to get through my half of the brussel sprouts. Even the bacon couldn't get me through them! I know, how is that even possible, bacon makes everything better. Lesson learned, brussel sprouts will always need to be an accent for my meals, never a main part.

How to Eat Supper #36: Cheater's Homemade Broth

I'm not sure whipping up this homemade broth was really worth the effort, especially when I was using it in a "cream" soup that was heavily flavored with curry. I may try using this base again if I were going to make a chicken noodle soup or something with similar simple flavors. But for more intense soups, I'll be sticking with my box of chicken broth.

How to Eat Supper #37: Curried Cauliflower Soup

I am always tempted by cream based soups, mostly because I dream of recreating Panera's cream of broccoli soup at home. As nearly every cream soup I make at home contains little to no cream, I'm always disappointed. This ended up being another one of those soups where I was ok eating it one night, but couldn't bring myself to eat the leftovers.

How to Eat Supper #38: Crisp Brick-Fried Chicken with Rosemary & Whole Garlic Cloves

I hate dealing with whole birds. Alton Brown makes dismantling a bird look super easy, but I can never get it apart with a struggle. Another thing I have a problem with when dealing with birds - getting it to brown nicely. I think I'm at around a 50/50 success rate. Definitely not good enough for me.

The crazy thing about this chicken is that it was cooked on the stovetop! Thank goodness for the cast iron skillet I bought a few years ago. And considering this was cooked with a bunch of whole garlic cloves, it was a winner in my book. Oh my, slow cooked garlic...so good! I probably ate more garlic cloves than chicken, haha. Yummy!

How to Eat Supper #39: Simple Garden-in-a-Pot Soup

Definitely the best broth based soup in the book. Maybe only second to cream of corn soup for best in the book. This soup was so good that we made it again a week later...double batch. I didn't think I would like it much because it has cabbage in it, but hey, what do you know, stewed cabbage is pretty yummy. Though I know Mike doesn't like to eat soup in the summer, he may have to put up with it when we have an abundance of vegetables this summer. Seriously you can throw anything in, and it just makes it even more delicious.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 38

2010-04-19T19:21:00.004-05:00

The Stats (as of April 19, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 176.1 lbs

Sorry, blogosphere, I've been gone a long time, huh?

Work kinda consumed me for a few weeks, then we went on a mini-vacation and then it took some time just to get back in the swing of things. Though our house is a disaster still, it is slowly regaining semblance of a house of order. And as I've kicked myself into gear the last week, getting back on track with eating right and exercising.

You may have noticed that there's been a down shift in weight from the last time. This is a relatively new development, with the downward trend starting last week after a rather gluttonous 4 day weekend in NYC.

I'm very happy to finally be out of the 178-180 swing I was in for MONTHS. I just hope I can continue to make progress.

In other exciting news, tomorrow I will be the owner of a Garmin Forerunner 305. I (guiltily) skipped my run today, but I plan to make it up tomorrow by taking the new Garmin out for a spin before craft group. I find the gadgets very motivating - currently I'm using a Nike+ with my ipod, but after nearly 9 months, I'm starting to get frustrated with the sketchiness. I'll have a really good streak of using it and then always, ALWAYS, the day that I really feel like I made progress and I want to compare, it decides not to track my mileage. Frustrating. But hopefully the new Garmin will clear that for me.

Masochistic Mondays: week 34

2010-03-22T23:00:00.001-05:00

The Stats (as of March 22, 2010)
Starting weight: 188 lbs
Current weight: 178.4 lbs

Because of the late hour, we're doing this bullet point style.

- enjoyed 2 beautiful outdoor runs last week

- been success jn going to the Y (or running in the neighborhood 6 days a week for the past several weeks

- did well tracking my food until this weekend, just didn't think about it & that continued on to today

- forgot to turn my Nike + on during my timed mile run on Sunday until .25 miles in, contemplated running 1.25 miles total...but I didn't

-very glad to see I'm back to the 10 lbs lost mark, hoping to keep up momentum but will need to track food to do so

- really really really need to work on drinking more water, for something that used to come so easy, this is proving very difficult

- there is a mini can of soda in my fridge mocking me (Mike's friend left it here Sunday after their fantasy baseball draft)

- got smoked on the indoor track today by a three year old

Let Me Brag a Minute...

2010-03-16T22:31:00.004-05:00

The proof is in the photos.

Two fair isle mittens knit, complete with thumbs. Though tempting to leave as baby-like hand socks, I pushed through and got those thumbs a home of their own. And most importantly, they fit!

Though there are a few minor issues in the final product, I hope they are happily received. It's a bummer I finished them right at the end of winter, but knowing the midwest weather, A Small Fox should probably get at least one chance to wear them before they need to be put away for next fall.

Actually though, I'm surprised they only took a month and a half to finish. Sometimes I can barely get a dishcloth done in that amount of time.

And if I learned one thing from this challenge (yes, a challenge - I jumped at the chance to knit for A Small Fox, despite never having knit full mittens, let alone fair isle!), it is that I am in love with fair isle knitting. It is definitely my kind of knitting.

I love needing to focus on what I'd doing. And the reward of seeing it build before my eyes is so motivating. It seems when I am knitting projects like this and charted dishcloths, I tend to make less mistakes (that is of course if I'm not at craft group watching LOST, but that's another story because I was able to knit perfectly fine in a dim room while watching the Godfather 2 and actually keep my eyes on the screen almost constantly). I guess that's probably because I can very clearly see a mistake I make, and can therefore fix it almost immediately.

Now I'm not saying these mitts were without problem. As I was nearing the end I twice needed to rip out several rows in the same night. Funny story - the first time, I was holding them by a DPN with only a couple stitches on it, and what happened, well of course they slipped off completely. But stupid me immediately grabbed them to keep from falling...by the live yarn end. Yikes! Stitches undone galore and as I tried to repick them up, I dropped a stitch, therefore needing to tear back a few rows to get everything right.

But all in all, I feel like I do better when working on projects like this.

So in the past few weeks my Ravelry queue has been filling up with fair isle patterns. More mittens than I could possibly wear. Sweaters (scarily knit up in fingering weight yarn). Pillows. I'm anxious to pick my next project, but then again I'm conflicted because I'm really hesitant to buy new yarn right now. I so want to stick with my goal of clearing out my stash, so fair isle knitting might be put off for awhile until A - the yarn stash decreases more and B - I get the balls to knit a sweater out of fingering weight.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 33

2010-03-15T21:00:00.002-05:00

The Stats (as of March 15, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.9 lbs

Though it looks like a gain, I'm totally counting this as a loss. After last week's craft night (full of taco dip, buffalo chicken dip and brownies), I definitely went up a pound or so after weigh in. Then I spent the rest of the week working on getting back to where I started the week at.

I didn't quite get there, but it's gosh darn close.

This weekend also brought a revelation.

Despite being at the Y 6 days a week for about a month, doing cardio and weight training and seeing NO results, I realized the difference between this round of Couch to 5King and the last this fall is I was tracking what I was eating. And though I thought I was doing a pretty good job watching what I've been eating, I obviously have not. Too much snacking at the new job with the delicious popcorn shop just around the corner and way too many lunches out now that I can't go home for the hour.

I've made some excuses in the past couple months that I couldn't track what I was eating because I wasn't privvy to the office wifi, allowing me to access my SparkPeople app on my ipod. I've finally owned up to it and have made the SparkPeople website one of my home pages at work. Now it's always up and when I eat lunch at work or have a snack, it's right there for me to add the food. At home, I'll continue to use my ipod app. Granted, I've only been back to seriously tracking for two days now, but I'm determined to make this work. I want all that effort I'm putting in at the Y to actually pay off in more ways than just fitness.

Yes, I'm shallow. But I need that number on the scale to go down, down, down.

I do have happy news regarding my running. During Sunday's timed mile run, I ran a personal best mile (well at least since I've been using the Nike+). Woot woot! And ran the entire mile already in my training schedule. And shaved 30 seconds off the last timed mile. Progress, awesome!

Simple Saturday (on Friday)

2010-03-12T21:24:00.003-06:00

After two days of being prepared for the forecasted rainy weather and being blessed with beautiful high 60 degree weather, I opted not to where the new boots today. And what happened?

It rained all day.

Happy things that made the week go by:

- adorable whale rain boots

- a crapload of new magazines that have been taunting me

- finishing a big knitting project

- a snuggly pup that cuddles me back to sleep in the morning

Masochistic Mondays: Week 32

2010-03-08T08:06:00.002-06:00

The Stats (as of March 8, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.7 lbs

After going to the gym 11 days in a row, I had to finally put an end to that streak. I had plans on making a visit both days this weekend, but spring cleaning was a bit more intense than I even though. I mean, it took me ALL day Saturday to clean the kitchen! And I didn't even finish everything I wanted to, underneath the stove top still needs scrubbing and the pantry could use organizing. I just couldn't spend another day in the kitchen yesterday, plus we ended up needing to go up to Mike's parents' house for several hours to spend some time with his visiting uncle (so no gym visit yesterday either, we had to leave right when the Y opened at noon).

I very much look forward to the day when 4-6 days a week at the gym starts to pay off.

Hopefully soon.

But I'm pretty sure the ice cream cake (oreo crumbs, ice cream, hot fudge, cool whip and caramel topping) I had 2 servings of last night at dinner won't help that day come any sooner.

Since I didn't get to the gym this weekend, I also didn't get a timed mile run in, which is a bit of a bummer, but I guess it also help me avoid some disappointment.

Cleanin' Up

2010-03-05T22:21:00.001-06:00

Kris Knits' St Patrick's Day Dishcloth

I started the year on a major dishcloth-making kick. I probably the first month and a half I made four (I probably could have made them faster but the fourth was part of a KAL and there were some major delays in clue-posting). Not only were the dishcloths extremely satisfying quick knits, they were great ways to bust through about a quarter of my stashed cotton, and as it would turn out very useful in the near future.

This weekend, in attempt to try and push Spring a little faster into existence, Mike and I have declared it The Big Spring Cleaning Weekend.

It's much needed.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I will for the sake of honesty. In the two and a half years we've lived in our house, we've never deep cleaned it. And scarily, I don't think we've "done" the windows at all, ACK, I know!

Chinese Waves Dishcloth

So this weekend was marked a few weeks ago as THE WEEKEND.

We tackle the house.

Mike, being Mike, drew up detailed task lists for both of us (I absolutely despise him giving me tasks! I'm the one who is supposed to be giving "Honey Do" lists, not him!), and it seems I've been given the monster rooms.

You know, the rooms with the most stuff. And I only have half a day each to complete them. He's ambitious, what can I say. Well-meaning, but certainly not realistic. It could take me the entire weekend to tackle all the deep cleaning in the kitchen alone.

I'm pretty sure we have very different ideas on what "deep cleaning" means. I'm thinking that involves pulling everything out of the fridge & freezer, scrubbing it out, purging the old stuff, organizing it back in, taking everything out of the cabinets & pantry, wiping them down, reorganizing the places that weren't working, among all the normal stuff like scrubbing counters, sweeping, mopping floors.

Oh! And did I mention I spilled 16oz of fruit punch tonight. Luckily it was in the kitchen and before I did my massive cleaning. But the front of my oven is stained red and the floor is a sticky combination of fruit punch, dog saliva and dog hair.

Pleasant, I know.

But this is life.

Kris Knits' Be My Dishcloth

Instead of getting the head start I thought I would tonight (hey, I did dust my cookbook shelves which were caked in greasy dust...and managed to drop my beautiful Nigella Lawson's "How to Become a Domestic Goddess" cookbook with PMS 871 metallic gold ink into Nibbler's full water bowl), I decided it was a good time to blog.

I never claimed to be logical.

I blame the cup of hot chocolate at 9:30pm for the lack of #1 tiredness & #2 focus.

.Kris Knits' January KAL Mystery Dishcloth (psst, it's a snowman)

I must also note that I don't actually plan on using any of these dishcloths in our cleaning binge this weekend. That way when one of my family members receives one of these come Christmas, they aren't a little grossed out that I gifted them a hand knit, used dishcloth.

My plan is to continue to add to the pile of dishcloths throughout the year. Kill two birds with one stone. Use up my stashed cotton (part of my 2010: The Year to Finish It Up) and have useful, handmade things to give out to family members as Christmas gifts. So dear family, if you read this now, act surprised up December, ok? Sure it may be weird to receive a shamrocked dishcloth on Christmas Day instead of St Patrick's Day, but know they were made with love and are just as handy as something that would be seasonally appropriate come December. It's not that I don't love you enough to make something to match your decor, I just think you'll have a better chance of actually using them to wash your dirty dishes if you're not TOO in love with it.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 31

2010-03-01T08:10:00.000-06:00

The Stats (as of March 1, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.5 lbs

Still going strong on the Couch to 5K bandwagon. Two weeks completed. I start week three tonight. Yesterday I did my timed mile run of the week and was pleasantly surprised. First, out of the 21 laps that makes a mile I was able to run 19 of them (a one lap improvement from last week). Second, I clocked in at a 12:02 mile. I know, you're probably saying, Sarah that's not too great. But it's improvement. Even in my time of peak physical activity, playing multiple sports throughout the year, I only averaged probably 10:30 mile. So the fact that I'm getting close to that again even when I work at a computer 8.5 hours a day and rarely get my butt moving is awesome. Especially since my C25K days are giving me 16-17 minute mile averages - I just have to keep telling myself that the 5 minute warm up & cool down really drags the average. It's hard to not let that get discouraging though, which is why I've started doing the timed mile runs. Even though that means I'm running 4 days a week, it's acting as a motivator to get me through the 3 days of program training each week.

Yesterday's mile was about a minute and a half quicker than the Sunday before's. I was pushing myself to keep a steady pace, and it showed. Mike said if I keep shaving off a minute each week, I'll be the fastest on the track in no time. My response was, I will be happy if I can maintain the 12 min mile for a few weeks and then start shaving time off. I just don't want to regress. I do enough of that on the scale, I don't need the additional blow.

In addition to C25K and the timed mile, I've also added a couple days of weight training into my schedule. That means I'm at the Y six days a week, though, but I figure if I keep up the momentum while it's fresh and exciting, I'll have a better chance of making it a habit. Thursday (which is an off day from C25K) was my first day adding weights into the routine. I thought I'd do some cardio on the elliptical and then use the weight machines a bit. Ugh, what a mistake. I forgot how difficult the elliptical can be! It was like it was my first day ever doing exercise. Needless to say, I didn't stick it out very long (more like I couldn't stick it out), but I'm proud of myself for not giving up on being at the gym all together that night and used a few of the weight machines just to try and get myself reacquainted with them. Saturday was my first REAL day of weight training. I did the entire circuit of 13 machines (3 reps of 10 on each), working both my upper & lower body as well as my core, in about an hour. I was worried I hadn't pushed myself hard enough, even though I was have difficulty at times, but come yesterday morning I knew I had not gone easy on myself - which I guess isn't too hard when you have next to no muscles to begin with. But OMG, it took me an hour (combined with the extreme coziness) to get out of bed. Though my butt was slightly sore, my arms were killing me. Mike was loving it, because I couldn't stop laughing from the pain. And he had to help me get dressed for our breakfast "date" with friends because I didn't have full mobility of my arms. Yes, I'm pathetic. And yes, it was hilarious. My abs got an additional workout from all the laughing I did.

Now that I seem to the this exercise thing under control, I really need to figure out this food and water thing. I'm not drinking nearly enough water, I know that. But I'm not sure how to get myself back in the habit - there was a time in my life where I was drinking several 32oz bottles of water a day, no problem. Now I struggle to finish 16oz. Sigh. I know, it's not good. And don't get me started about eating. I horrible. I know I should be watching my portions. I know I should be learning to listen to my body as it will tell me when it's hungry and when it's full, but I have this Berlin Wall in my brain that is just not coming down. Take Thursday for instance. After work I went to the Y and then grocery shopping, I came home with so much crap, the worst offender being the OREO Cakester snacks. Ugh. Two tiny, slightly bigger than a real Oreo, sandwich cakes = 250 calories. I had 2 that first night, but was very strict the rest of the week and only allowed myself one a day (which is still too many, I know). And then came yesterday. We went out with friends for breakfast, had a delicious and filling plate of stuffed french toast with sausage links. Wasn't completely stuffed, but was definitely full. Went to the Y to do my mile run and ride the exercise bike while Mike played racketball, came home, showered and then ate a leftover sloppy joe because it was after lunchtime. That was the only reason. I was definitely not hungry. Actually I was still full from breakfast several hours earlier, and yet I still ate the sandwich which proceed to make me feel ill later in the night and not want to make the yummy dinner I had planned (scallops with back & brussel sprouts) & had me contemplating breaking my streak of 81 days soda-free to get a 7up to make my tummy feel better. (wow, long run-on. sorry.)

So that's where I stand. Making progress in some areas. Not making progress in others. Like a teeter totter.

Oh! Saturday night we had another set of friends over to enjoy the massive chili dinner Mike prepared, and my friend mentioned to me that our town has a 5k that she heard of and thought of me - the Fat Ass 5k. Instead of water tents, there are beer, ice cream, donut & corn dog tents along the 5k route. I was seriously considering making this my first 5k (um, unlimited ice cream & donuts will get me almost every time), until I hunted down the price...$50! That includes race entry, tee shirt & entrance into the street party. Now I love ice cream, but I'm not sure I can justify that. Plus being my first 5k, I'll probably want to die after finishing & ice cream will be the last thing on my mind.

Cookbook Challenge: The Massive Recap

2010-02-23T21:38:00.004-06:00

Well geez! I've fallen so behind, that I'm not sure with my current blogging habits it would ever be possible for me to catch up. I swear, I'll try to do better, but for now I've just gotta put this all out there so it's not hanging over my head taunting me.

So let me begin my massive recap of all the cookbook challenges that have been going on here the past month or so (and yes, I'm going to cheat and add one last photo, probably tomorrow because it's sitting on my camera & it's late & I'm too lazy to boot up the ole iMac at this hour for one measly photo).

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How to Eat Supper #24: Tomato-Cheddar-Packed Turkey Burgers

I admit I ended up using ground beef because Aldi was out of ground turkey on my shopping day. I'm not sure what the difference would really be except maybe my version had a bit more flavor thanks to the fat. Delicious anyways, and if I remember correctly (please don't hold me to this it's been at least a month since I made these) have a bit of a kick.

How to Eat Supper #25: Lemon Garlic Roast Salmon on New Potatoes

Nothing too special here, but at least an alternate way to prepare the fish. Which will come in handy since I'm trying to incorporate a fish main course once a week into our meal plan. Just remind me next time to cook the frozen salmon filets longer. As I don't cook fish often, and the recipe was written for fresh fish, we ended up digging in while the center of the fish was still not opaque. I had my suspicions, so avoided the center of my smaller filet. Mike trusts that anything I give him is good & prepared properly, so he ate his entire large filet and ended up with an upset stomach...sorry dear. Live & learn, right? Love ya!

How to Eat Supper #26: Belgian Beer Bar Tartine

Now I have always avoided radishes, so I was pretty sure I would not like these very simple open-faced sandwiches, but whether it was a faulty memory or because radishes aren't in season or something, I was surprised that the radishes weren't as bad as I thought. They were very mild, so I'm assuming they weren't at their peak. But I think that ended up being a good way to introduce them back into my palate. Sure, this sandwich doesn't look like much, but it was surprisingly filling (and delicious - I ended up eating it was dinner and then lunch & dinner the next day) those Belgians sure do know their stuff when it comes to bar food.

How to Eat Supper #27: Crispy Tortilla Eggs with Avocado & Lime

Ever since starting this cookbook challenge, I've been eating eggs way more often than I ever did (granted I still stay away from the yolks most of the time). In addition to the occasional scrambled eggs or hard-boiled egg whites for breakfast, it's nice to get some options for incorporating eggs into dinner. They're cheap and hearty, and when prepared like this make an awesome variation on the at-home-mexican fare. Something that's not tacos or our typical mushroom blackbean quesadillas is welcoming (seriously we had been eating those quesadillas once a week for probably at least 6 months). And even more impressive is that after giving avocado another shot (I think this was shot #3 at liking avocado), I didn't mind it at all in this dish! So avocado, you shall get another chance at winning me over.

How to Eat Supper #28: Scandinavian Spiced Meatballs with Caramelized Apples

First let me say that you can't even tell there are apples in these meatballs' sauce. Number two, it must be revealed that these meatballs contained prunes. Number three, does anyone know what I can do with the majority of a jar of prunes??? Despite these "issues," the meatballs were pretty good, kinda like a non-creamy version of swedish meatballs. But in the future, I will not be including the prunes. They didn't really add anything, besides a random chunk or two in each meatball. And seriously, prune ideas, please! I'm trying my darnedest not to waste a lot of food, which means I'll need to figure out what in the hell to do with them so the can be consumed. As you can probably tell from the fact that I'm doing this cookbook challenge, there's not much cooking-wise I'm not willing to try.

How to Eat Supper #29-31: Oven Crisped Pork, Peppers, and Greens with Turkish Almond Sauce and Whole Wheat Couscous

The night I made this meal using three recipes from the cookbook, I also managed to knock out a 4th which I have already shared (the Jam Tart). I was on a roll to say the least. Though I must admit, my couscous was a bit under cooked - I'm learning grains are not my friends. The only weird thing about this meal was the sauce and that was only because it had chunks of almond in it, so it appeared to be creamy and then all the sudden BAM! you have chunkiness. I'm so glad I tackled this set of recipes because it helped make me realized how good, hearty and simple a piece of meat and a baking dish of roasted vegetables can be. As I am very much a recipe follower (I like to try new things - foods, techniques, etc), it is not often that I just throw some things into a crockpot in the morning or into a roasting pan at night. But after making this, I couldn't remember way that was. When you do, you end up with a homecooked meals reminiscent of those growing up. Meat, vegetables, an entire meal. I've gotten in the habit of making a dish instead of a meal, so sometimes dinner is lacking those all important vegetables or we end up eating two servings worth of entree because there is no side. But since making this, the past couple weeks have each included a roasting pan dinner which ended up being a great way to use up the bags of potatoes and sweet potatoes I bought.

How to Eat Supper #33: Black Pepper Honey Steak

This final recipe is from only last week and I wasn't super impressed. Nothing special here, just a little extra bit of caramelization thanks to the honey, but even then my steaks looked rather bland. As we don't eat steak (or even red meat for the matter) very much, it's not that huge of a deal. Plus it probably didn't help that I most likely overcooked the steaks - perhaps the pepper/honey coating would shine on a properly cooked steak.

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So that brings me up to date on my cookbook challenge, as you can see I'm just over 1/3 of the way through all the recipes in the book (total of 95). And though I thought this major recap of several meals was just a cop out and an admit to finally get caught up on my backlog of photos, I actually kind of enjoyed this format. Writing about the meals became easier when I didn't have the pressure of dedicating an entire post to just one. So perhaps a monthly recap of the cookbook challenge will suit me more, I'll just have to write my blurbs after cooking them, so I don't forget (I can dream, right? that I'll actually stay on top of that - ha!).

Masochistic Mondays: Week 30

2010-02-22T21:16:00.003-06:00

The Stats (as on February 22, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.5 lbs

I have come to the conclusion that I am the world's slowest runner.

After restarting Couch to 5K last Monday, I've been sticking with it and even threw in an additional run on Sunday (a timed mile run). My previous 4 days on the indoor mini track at the Y have been relatively non-congested. Sure, a couple days there was another runner or two using the track (except for Thursday when a running group met there for training forcing me to run a treadmill for the first time ever) or a Zumba class going on in the center of the track, but today the track was a-hoppin'. As it wasn't super crowded, I decided to stick it out (I enjoy watching the Zumba class while I run, it's entertaining) and do week 2, day 1 on the track. And well, I learned that I am slow. Very very slow. People passing me left & right, it's almost embarrassing, but then I tell myself at least I'm making an effort and someone has to be the slowest. Right? Granted, it would be nice if the slowest one on the track was 80 years old or extremely obese, but it's not - it's me (though I must note, neither of those options were using the track, so I wasn't getting passed by a 90 year old or anything).

Despite starting to exercise again, you'll note that my weight has fluctuated again. This month has been so out of the ordinary for us, as we have been eating out a lot. Whether it's getting together with friends, going out for a special dinner or being on the road, we've just ended up not eating dinner at home very much. And since starting my new job, I've been eating lunch out much more often as well. It's a habit I need to break pronto. And hopefully with this past weekend out of the way (and a trip to see my ill grandfather 6 hours north - there & back in about 28hrs total), we can get back to our norm and hopefully being able to monitor what goes in, in addition to the exercise, I'll begin to push through this plateau.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 29

2010-02-15T20:30:00.002-06:00

The Stats (as of February 15, 2009)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 178.4 lbs

So though the Whittle Your Middle isn't going that great, I find it incredibly discouraging that I have zero core muscles. I know, if I kept with it, I'd start to gain those muscles, but it just stinks that I can't hold a plank position for more than 30 seconds.

I do have progress to report, though.

In the middle of last week, Mike and I designed to renew our membership to the YMCA so we can both work on getting active and fit. After a busy Valentine's Day weekend, I made my first return trip to the Y this morning on my day off. Talk about major victory, right? I started Couch to 5K again. Day 1, week 1 under my belt. Despite not running for over 3 months, I didn't die!

2010-02-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

Despite not really being evident here as of late, I have been crafting up a storm (I believe I'm up to 5 completed projects and 2 works-in-progress for the year, not that I'm counting).

A few weeks ago, right after committing to knitting Fair Isle Totoro mittens for A Small Fox, in typical Sarah fashion, I went out, bought the yarn for the new project, got home and promptly decided I needed to knit a surprise baby hat for my college roommate's newborn daughter.

Why my brain works like that I do not know. It's just something I've learned to live with. At least I was getting something done because if I try to fight it, nothing (and I mean, NOTHING) gets done (that includes housework).

At least this time, I didn't choose a big procrastination project. Just a tiny little baby hat that I've had my eye on for months. I'm so happy I finally jumped in and did it because though I swore off hats for a while in December, having zero pressure to do this one made it a breeze. No problems. Yay! And it knit up quick, but you know what was even quicker than knitting it? The USPS. I sent it out standard 1st class mail on a Saturday afternoon and by Monday evening I was seeing picture of my adorable teal hat on an adorable baby girl.

I think the Aviatrix will become a go-to baby gift (that and the Saartje Bootees).

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The Aviatrix is actually being modeled by my childhood baby doll, Rosie (wow, mom dropping off all those boxes of toys came in handy!). If you saw Rosie without this adorable hat you would think that I was a very bad child, but actually it was my sister who was the bad one. You see, Rosie belonged to her well before I was even a glimmer in my parents' eyes. And it was my sister that took scissors poor little Rosie's head. So Rosie has wildly chopped hair, but after searching around for what kind of doll she really is, I think I'm partial to the chopped look as opposed to the 70s bob I think she originally came with - from what I can tell she's a 1975 Vogue Hug-a-Bye Baby (life-size and she used to cry) - she's just a little bit hardcore. ;)

Let me tell you what a pain it was to search for information on this doll. All I had to go on was the copyright imprint on the neck (1975 Vogue) and that brought up only one result that was feasibly her (the rest were tiny little dolls). I also tried searching by the information on her pajamas, but it turns out those belonged to another doll, a World of Wonders Pamela doll, who I guess was a little like Teddy Ruxpin, but I have no recollection of her at all.

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PS I'm still not done with that Teal yarn. Despite making an adult size hat and a baby hat, I still have more left. When it's not going into a dishcloth, this yarn I'm trying to destash sure does take a long time to use up! Any ideas what I can do with 1/4 - 1/3 of a skein of teal acrylic (it's surprisingly soft) and 1/2 - 2/3 of a skein of guacamole colored yarn (same stuff as the teal - see here for the color). I've been tempted to do a scrap yarn blanket, but I don't think I have enough scrap yarn in non-clashing colors. Hmm, maybe I should just do it. It can be a hodge podge of colors & fibers, just adding to it when I have those partial skeins. Ugh! I just don't know. Does anyone have experience working a bunch of different weights & fibers together into a blanket or something?

Masochistic Mondays: Week 28

2010-02-08T21:27:00.001-06:00

The Stats (as of February 8, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 180.4 lbs

Slowly creeping back. Not a good thing. Perhaps I should start modifying the Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe to be less caloric, that way next time I lure people to one of my parties with it and have plenty of it leftover, I don't gain quite as much weight from feasting on it for a couple days.

So we're getting to that part of winter where cabin fever sets in. Where both Mike and I long to escape the windy, cold, sleety, dark days of the Midwest. And where we realize that we've taken the hibernation thing a little too seriously and don't need to pack on any more extra pounds. For the past few weeks there's been talk of joining a gym, and though we've looked into the other options, I think we're set on going back to the YMCA. It's only about a mile from our house, so a nice bike ride when the weather nicens up and it's on our way home from work. All the other options would have us driving past our house after work when we're already tired to get to the gym. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Add to that that one option was basically just treadmills & bikes and the other option would cost nearly $100 a month for both of us, the Y became a clear choice. Sure, it's not as fancy as the other places, but for the amount of money it's got some pretty good equipment & facility options - not to mention classes included. And now that I've dug out my membership card from a nearly two year hibernation, I think the plan is for us to re-sign up tomorrow after work.

That means I better get a new padlock, as I can't for the life of me remember the combination of my original.

In addition to the prospect of having a gym membership again, I've decided to try my hand (or shall I say abs) at Oh She Glows' Whittle My Middle challenge. My motivation match-up partner (via Priorfat Girl) brought it to my attention, um, in December, and here I am finally starting. I know, queen of procrastination here. Anyways, I gave day one a shot tonight and all I can say is, I'm pretty sure I have no core muscles. Out of an approximately 6 minute long workout, I'd be stretching it if I said I made it a minute and a half. It was frustrating and nearly impossible, but I'm going to try and stick with it. Though instead of some of the stability ball exercises listed, I think I'm going to see what the DVD that came with my ball has to offer. Not because I'm hoping they're easier, but because I have a little core strengthen ball and not a big ball necessary to do the things shown on the video.

And though I can't commit to full disclosure (maybe when I make some physical progress I'll show you the before picture of me in little running shorts and a sports bra, but not today, no siree, not today), I will share my rather rough estimate of measurements (someone stole my measuring tape! so I went old school with ribbon, a marker and a 30" ruler, not the most precise method, but will have to do). Perhaps if I find my tape soon, I will rerecord the measurements and edit these.

Smallest Part of Waist: 33.5"

Widest Part of Waist: 38.75"

Hips (largest part of bottom half): 42.25"

lost...

2010-02-07T13:00:00.000-06:00

I frickin' made caramel.

Wow, when you're trying to catch up on a backlog of things (blog posts/tasks/emails/etc), where do you start first? Do you start at the most recent and work backwards? Do you start at the beginning and just continue to add the heap of things to do, slowly making your way towards the present? Do you just wipe the slate clean, and vow to keep on top of things?

This is exactly the dilemma I find myself in. Giant backlogs of potential blog posts and emails. As I may have mentioned, since changing jobs and buying a netbook (which resulted in the desktop being turned on maybe once a week), I have found it difficult to find my groove in recreational internet usage. Mike has main control of the netbook, as I have an ipod touch (which isn't super conducive to typing much more than a 140 character tweet), and I don't have the freedom at work of having my own private office - so I'm not comfortable taking a quick break to read a blog or two before getting back to work. And since I have found it difficult to find my groove, though really this should be a good thing as I was too tied to the computer in that past, things like email correspondence and blog posting have become almost non-existent. Awful, I know. Especially since I don't get that many emails, I feel awful that I just can't seem to get my act together. Seriously. There are only like 3 emails that I need to write. Why can't I just do it?!

Instead, I sit here writing about how I'm so behind.

Claire's Peanut Butter & Boar Cookies - a pregnant castaway's dream

(Peanut Butter and Bacon Cookies - omg is all that can be said)

But I do need to catch up on blogging too, so I guess that starts now.

Now I bet you wonder how I'm connecting the title of the this post (lost...) with what I've been talking about (lost opportunities to keep up with my internet obligations - haha ha, ok this might be a stretch) and what I'm showing (food), well folks, it all comes around.

I'm starting the catch up game with some of the goodies I made for Tuesday when my craft group (there's 4 of us now and maybe a 5th who came for the first time this week) came over to craft and watch the LOST season 6 premiere at our house. Luckily the group will placate me and come over to the house to watch LOST instead of meeting at Panera on Tuesday nights. As we don't have a DVR, it's really my only choice lest I need to only experience LOST the day after online. And frankly, I'm not willing to do that after sinking 5 years into the show.

To make the experience enjoyable, and hopefully lure them back week after week until the season is complete, I went a bit gung ho on the snacks for the night. Buffalo Chicken Dip (guaranteed crowd pleaser) and Peanut Butter & Bacon cookies were the big winners of night. I can hear you already saying "Sarah, seriously? Peanut Butter & Bacon cookies? That is not right." I hear ya, and I understand the hesitation. It sounds wrong, but I was intrigued Tuesday morning when I saw mention of the recipe while browsing my blogroll before climbing out of bed. I was concerned about the amount of food I had (I needed enough to say "party") and I thought I could work them into my LOST theme (if only in my head, I called my chicken dip - Mr Cluck's Buffalo Chicken Dip - for those not-as-die-hard-fans, Mr Cluck's is the fast food place Hurley works at before he wins the lottery). Luckily the recipe is very simple, seriously only 5 ingredients, so it was easy to pull them together after work in the couple hours before my friends arrived. I was a bit skeptical, but didn't have a chance to try them out before everyone arrived, so it was up to the guests to let me know how they turned out.

The first person brave enough to try was actually a doctor, which I find incredibly amusing, and oh my, did they get a raving review. So much so that nearly everyone rushed to get one of their own. The salty/sweet mix is pretty great - we're just late jumping on the bandwagon, that Elvis sure did know what he was talking about.

The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper - Rustic Shortbread Jam Tart

recipe #32 in the cookbook challenge

In addition to the Chicken Dip and PB&B cookies (and the chocolate cake & crab rangoon that Jen & Sarah provided), I also knocked out another Cookbook Challenge recipe (30 some recipes down, 60 some remaining) but as I thought might happen, the Jam Shortbread tart wasn't really LOST-fare. Too risky to try to eat while handling yarn, but at least Mike had a week's worth of breakfast, right? I mean, it was jam, flour, butter & maybe some sugar, so it couldn't be too far off from being toast with jam.

I also made caramel crunch corn (aka Dharma Caramel Corn) from a Martha Stewart Living scan I found on my old ipod on slow afternoon at work. This was perhaps my biggest victory because the night before I MADE CARAMEL! Holy crap. No one is as impressed with this as I am. Granted, caramel is only water & sugar (and then some butter added so it'll go over the popcorn), but I don't think normal people know that. They just weren't impressed with the feat (I told everyone...Mike, people at work, etc). But come on, people! They charge like 50 cents for a little bite-sized piece at the candy store, trust me, I know, I'm a huge caramel fan. It doesn't come cheap. And I made it myself! In a pot on my stove. And it tasted awesome. I foresee some homemade holiday caramels in my future.

Hopefully I didn't set expectations too high for future Tuesday night craft group, but this was an Occasion. From now on, I promise to not tempt with weekly pans of oh-so-bad-for-you Buffalo Chicken Dip, but I can't guarantee that I won't provide a dessert for those who wish to partake.

WIP Saturday - Fair Isle Beginnings

2010-02-06T12:11:00.003-06:00

Have you been wondering what the heck I've been up to lately? I know the blog has been pretty sparse. And when I do post it seems to be about two contradictory thing, food and weight loss. Well, despite not quite having a grasp on how to fit recreational internet usage into my new schedule (ok, well it's not too new as I've been at the new job for two months now), especially since the new job coincided with getting a netbook (which Mike has a majority stake in) and us not having the imac on hardly at all, I have been hard at work since the beginning of the year. Knit, knit, knitting away.

The past couple weeks I have been tackling...wait for it....Fair Isle knitting. Scary, I know, but so AWESOME! I'm loving it. It really feeds my need for concentrating on the knitting process. I love patterns that require me to really pay attention to what's going on, it helps me remain focused and I think I make less mistakes.

Several weeks ago, I saw a plea on Twitter from Small Fox asking if someone wanted to do a trade for these Totoro mittens and as I'm almost nearly always up for a challenge, I jumped on the opportunity. Now just to decide what I want in exchange, I didn't want to get my hopes up on getting one of Small Fox's creations before I knew that I really could do these mittens - but now that I'm over halfway through the first mitt, I'm confident that they will turn out, so I better get thinking.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 27

2010-02-01T22:18:00.001-06:00

The Stats (as of February 1, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 178.4 lbs

Cookbook Challenge: How to Eat Supper #23

2010-01-28T19:52:00.002-06:00

The Splendid Table's Three-Pea Toss

Wow, I'm realizing it's tough to write about these meals from How to Eat Supper weeks after actually cooking them. Ever since getting the netbook, we don't have the iMac on which is where my external hard drive and Photoshop is. I actually sat down a couple days ago to empty off the memory card in the DSLR and I realized I had only emptied it one other time this month! I gotta make a better effort at making blogging a priority, which includes keeping up with the photos I take. Hmm, maybe I'll make February a post a day month - just because I love a challenge. ;)

Masochistic Mondays: Week 26

2010-01-25T21:27:00.001-06:00

The Stats (as of January 25, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 177.0 lbs

Cookbook Challenge: How to Eat Supper #22

2010-01-20T22:52:00.000-06:00

The Splendid Table's Refried Beans with Cinnamon and Clove

What can one really say about refried beans?

I admit, despite growing up with a Mexican grandfather, I was never a fan even though my sister and all my cousins LOVE my grandma's refried beans. It's actually been so long since I've had grandma's beans that I can't accurately tell you what they taste like, so I won't even try. What I can tell you is my perception of refried beans...bland, greasy, beany.

When I went to college, I discovered a new way to eat refried beans courtesy of Pepe's Mexican Grill - loaded with cheese and sour cream (and from a giant can, I assume). Cheese makes everything better, right? Right! Since I learned this little trick, canned beans have been actually making an appearance in our house - always cooked up with a load of salsa and topped with cheese & sour cream - not like every week, but we have them when I really feel like having Mexican (aka American Mexican).

Well, these mushed up kidney beans are a different story. They take effort to make (can you say mashing with a fork...ugh, I get so frustrated that I finally break out my meat cleaver to smoosh them). But then again anything other than opening up a can into a pot is effort. And besides actually taking some effort to make, these smell and taste wonderful! Full of cinnamon and cloves. Sounds weird, I know, but it's good and wasn't as strange with a side of Spanish rice as I initially thought it would be when I began smelling the wonderful cinnamon fill up my kitchen. Perhaps those people in Cincinnati really do know what they're doing with that crazy Cincinnati chili.

I think the next step with these beans will be finding a main dish to accompany them. I'm a bit stumped as of now, so if you have any ideas let me know. Perhaps I should track down the Rick Bayless cookbook that this recipe is based off of, I bet he'd have the answer.

And as you can see, I couldn't resist topping them with just a tad cheese & sour cream. ;)

2010: The Year of Finishing Begins

2010-01-19T17:31:00.003-06:00

Here it is over halfway through the first month of the year and I'm just getting around to sharing a project I finished on January 1st or 2nd! Yikes. Maybe 2011 should be the year of timeliness.

So I ended 2009 by whipping up a draft stopper for our front door using the leftover fabric from Braydon's stuffed animal carrier and well, there was plenty more fabric and corn cob (even after my first ill-attempt which resulted in a tube so small it got stuck under our basement door and Mike couldn't get in the house).

I did what any good crafter would do, and I started the new year off by making a more complex version of the first. This time the door in question was our basement door in our kitchen which leads to the side entrance which we use almost exclusively. We live in an older house that has had some upgrades to it, so the small, old door has a bit of a gap at the bottom which surely lets more cold air into the main house than we'd like to think.

So learning from my first ill-attempt (see parentheses above), I decided that the only way a draft stopper would work on such a heavily used door was: #1 if the tube was significantly larger than the uneven gap, and #2 had tubes on both sides of the door that were in some way connected.

Mike didn't see how I was going to accomplish this, but I had a plan. Being a frequent craft/home blog reader for several years now, I knew I had seen someone tackle this same problem before (not martha, it turns out). So I sent my mind to work and devised my own way to use what we had on hand, took a few measurements and was off to the sewing room.

Lined again with the hideous brown & pink flower fabric I somehow ended up with several yards of, I made an approximately 8 inches wide by 2 feet long sock. I marked the center and measured out the width of my door from there. Then I sewed the sock into thirds (the long way) and filled my outer two thirds with corn cob and then sewed the open end closed across all 3 thirds.

Wah Lah! I had a draft stopper that easily slip under the gap of the door and covers it on both sides. The door can easily be opened and closed from both sides without losing the functionality of the draft stopper - which is perfect for the main door of the house, it is used all day, instead of only when we're home. And surprisingly Nibbler doesn't find it tempting, despite loving popcorn and gobbling up all the corn cob I spilled with trying to fill this thing alone. Hopefully one day she doesn't get bored enough to tear into it just for the fun of it.

I still have enough fabric and corn cob for at least another stopper, so perhaps I'll make one and put it on etsy or something, that way I can truly "finish it up" because the only other thing I can think of to use the corn cob is tas "brown" matter in my compost bin.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 25

2010-01-18T18:04:00.001-06:00

The Stats (as of January 18, 2009)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.0 lbs

Mike's insurance plan through work changed for the new year, so we now have a bit more hoops to jump through. You know, the typical stuff, like doctor changes (and let me tell you, boy, has the selection of doctors gone down), but then also financial hoops as well. We now have to participate in a fitness incentive program where we have to do a number of things during the year lest we be penalized monetarily. But if we do complete the tasks, we get monetary rewards each quarter.

The first task for the year was to have biometric testing done and find out our glucose & cholesterol levels, so while at my annual exam a couple Thursdays ago, I talked the doctor into the ordering the lab work so I wouldn't have to schedule yet another doctor's visit in January while still very new at my place of employment (in addition to the annual exam, I also had my first dentist appointment in longer than I'd like to share - happy to report, cavity-free for almost 28 years). So the next morning after fasting for 12 hours and while the majority of my office was home-bound because of snow (a definite advantage/disadvantage to living a mile & a half from work) I made a stop back at the doctor's office before heading in to have the blood drawn for my testing.

I was happy to find out nearly immediately that my BP is normal (though not the lows I was clocking in during college) and my glucose as well was normal. I had always wondered if I suffered from some sort of glycemic disorder as I'm often fatigued and I had that spell in college where I dropped a lot of weight very quickly and without effort, but I think the concern was basically a case of "web-md"-itis as none of the "symptoms" were ever prevalent enough for me to drawn them to a doctor's attention.

It did take about a week to find out the results of the cholesterol testing, and they for the most part came back in the "normal" range...that is all except for my bad cholesterol level, which is high, but not high enough to cause concern yet. Just a doctor's recommendation to watch what I eat and work on losing weight.

So now I perhaps have the kick start I needed to get back on track with my work to becoming healthier. It would be nice to be able to go back to the doctor in a year and have them note a difference.

On a different note, I'm officially 40 days without soda. And though there have been a couple times where I was like, "wow, a root beer would be really great right now," it hasn't been that tough. Granted I wasn't a big soda drinker to begin with, but every small step counts towards the overall goal, right?

Cookbook Challenge: How to Eat Supper #20 & 21

2010-01-17T11:37:00.002-06:00

The Splendid Table's Chicken Curry with Gentle Spices

Though I'd like to think of myself as an adventurous eater, but in all reality, I am not. I stick to cuisine from the western world and even then it's from the well-known genres. Sure I'll try things that are a bit out of the ordinary within those subsets, but I have a tough time branching out consistently because I am an awful orderer.

That's why this cookbook challenge has been so good for me.

Not only does it help guide the meal planning week-to-week, so I don't get stuck in the same pasta on Tuesday, pizza on Thursday, etc habit I think we are all subject to fall into. But it also makes me try things I probably wouldn't get around to trying. You see, Mike and I don't go out to eat a lot so when we do, it's kind of a special occasion. Therefore I'm hesitant to choose a dish out of a certain comfort zone because I don't want to end up wasting money.

So though I "like" Chinese food, I don't stray too far from the eggroll, crab rangoon, sweet & sour chicken, pork fried rice, sesame chicken range. It took me a couple years of living here (where Thai places are more prevalent than a good chinese place) to realize that pad thai is pretty good. And now I'm working on sushi, we've been once and I wasn't wowed, but I'll give it another shot, not necessarily soon, but eventually in the somewhat near future.

The Splendid Table's Crossover Spice Blend

Needless to say, until about two weeks ago, I had not ventured into the realm of Indian food. Though I'm sure homemade Indian food is not necessarily the best introduction to the cuisine, it was a start.

The evening started out with making a spice blend. According to How To Eat Supper, it can work well with a variety of cuisines, including Indian, Mexican, etc. My guess is it replaces the use of curry powder, but I'm not quite sure what kind of comparison it is having not had curry powder before. I can tell you this curry was not nearly as spicy as I thought it would be (but then again I think my only experience with curry has come from watching Along Came Polly - so it's not very extensive).

All in all, I was pretty happy with the results. My only disappointment came in my curry was that it was not as smooth looking as the photo in the cookbook, and not nearly orange enough. Mine was very yellow and I can't quite see where the orange color would come into play to fix that. But really the color doesn't affect the taste, now does it, so it doesn't really matter. Oh, and how can I forget...the biggest disappointment of the entire meal was that the rice I made to put the curry on was horribly undercooked. I had attempted to use the "dumbed-down" rice recipe in the book, but instead of using a long-grain rice, I used what I had, which was an instant brown rice. Let me give you this tip, don't try to prepare instant rice like you would normal rice because you'll end up with insanely crunchy rice which is gross.

Cookbook Challenge: How to Eat Supper #19

2010-01-14T21:54:00.002-06:00

The Splendid Table's Cheese-Gilded Linguine with Smoky Tomatoes

Sooo...

I have quite a backlog of food posts and craft posts. Since I don't think I can commit to blogging every day, I think my choices are either to dump everything in one post or just forget it. Hmm, I'll have to think about it.

Anyways back to the food.

I've been a busy bee in this new year. As I've declared 2010 the year of finishing things, I've not only been destashing my yarn stash by making dishcloths and decluttering random spots in our house, but have also been flying through recipes in my cookbook challenge.

Let's see, it's the 14th and I've made 6 recipes. You'd think at that rate I'd almost be done, but I'm not.

In my quest to eat less processed food, I spent part of the summer experimenting in making my own pasta sauce and wasn't really successful when I tried to wing it. Bland, flavorless, mealy. Little did I know that the answer to my pasta sauce quandry was right in this little book of mine...twice. You may recall back in August when I took some leftover tomato soup made from How to Eat Supper and made a delicious pasta sauce. Well, this is a nice counter to that. Where the soup based sauce was rich and slightly creamy, this is chunky with a kick from some red pepper flakes.

Both ends of the spectrum covered, and I'm not sure whether I'll try my had at perfecting my homemade sauce any further. I mean, why bother...someone else worked it out for me ;)

Now to decide which will grace my first version of homemade pasta using my new Kitchenaid pasta attachments that I plan to make this weekend.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 24

2010-01-11T08:12:00.002-06:00

The Stats (as of January 11, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 178.1 lbs

Almost back to my lowest point so far. That's a relief. It's so much easier to continue when I see the weight lost is 10 pounds rather than 7 or 8 or even 9. Now I need to get as serious about this as I was when I started. More activity and tracking what I consume is really essential, I just can't seem to get back into it.

In other news, I went to the doctor last week and then came home and weighed in on my wii fit...and the wii fit is accurate! How awesome is that. NO more wondering how off my weight really is from what I see on screen each Monday.

No, We Did Not Stage This Picture.

2010-01-06T21:32:00.002-06:00

I've taken to wearing the robe Mike got me the Christmas we were going to move down here almost constantly. We keep the house at a moderate 68, but since it's an old house I'm pretty sure it's only 68 in the dining room where the thermostat is. I've been pulling the robe on each morning and each evening immediately upon returning from work since about November. It's cozy. It keeps me from complaining (too much) about being cold. It makes me feel at home.

As much as I've been enjoying my robe lately, I decided that Mike might actually enjoy one of his own, though he never expressed any interest in one. I found an excellent deal for a mid-length fleece robe and slippers at Old Navy before Christmas and scooped them up in a flash. And I must say, one of my gifts has never gone over as well as this robe (and consequently slippers). Mike, who had been a dig-in-the-laundry-to-find-that-old-baggy-fleece-sweatshirt kind of guy, has taken to the way of the robe like a fish in water. He even said it was the best gift he never knew he wanted. (Yay, I'm not very good at giving gifts, so this is a total victory for me) He gets into his robe after work even before I do!

Well, now that we're a family of robe wearers and Nibbler thinks she is just as human as we are, she had to get in on the action too.

No, I'm not one of THOSE people, who bought my dog a Snuggie. We're old-school in this house, and don't tend to spend money when we can find an equivalent at home.

If you've met Nibbler, you're probably thinking this is a stage picture with one of bribing her with treats and holding her still, but really this is the real Nibbler. The Nibbler behind the excitement of meeting you or of finally seeing you again. The Nibbler that jumps up and makes you think that we need the Dog Whisperer. This is the real Nibbler.

The sweet, cuddly puppy, who will just lay next to her mom or dad on the couch for hours at a time. Who will quietly follow her mom around the house, curling into a ball at her feet when her mom settles in at the sewing machine or computer or sits next to the stove (in between peek up at the counter) waiting for some sort of food scrap to be dropped while dinner is being made.

Now you might be saying, well Nibbler certainly Nibbler didn't put the blanket on herself. And, well yes, you would be correct. You see Nibbler has what seems to be a chronic staph infection that causes her to be very itchy. And to ease the itch Nibbler scratches her face on the rugs (not that big of a deal) and she schnarfs (as we call it when she bites at herself because that's the noise she makes when she does it) her belly. There's no getting around this. We've done several rounds of antibiotics (but it always comes back), we've tried telling her No, startling her, yelling at her to stop in desperation. Nothing gets her to stop when she's really itchy. Nothing except covering to access to the area - like covering her with a blanket, pillow, bag of yarn...

So that's how Nibbler was caught in a robe of her own. This picture was actually taken on the day after Christmas. We had just gotten back from being out of town and the house was freezing as we had turned down the heat because we were going to gone for several days. So we were all very cold, and since her mom and dad were all snuggly in their robes, Nibbler wanted in on the action and actually walked around like this for a while. And as I sit here typing, she's curled up on the couch next to me wrapped up in her blanket, keeping my feet warm.

Cookbook Challenge: How to Eat Supper #18

2010-01-05T21:30:00.002-06:00

The Splendid Table's Plump Ginger Caramel Shrimp

In the past month, I have eaten more ginger than I think I have in my entire life. And what I've found is I'm not a huge fan, especially when ginger is a major player in the dish. It's not gross. It's just lately my dishes have been ginger-heavy, and I think I'm more of a ginger accent kind of gal.

Needless to say, it's tough to mess up shrimp. And it's awesome to have shrimp prepared a different way because I don't know about you, but sometimes I get stuck in a food rut. Either we end up eating pasta every Tuesday for a couple months or shrimp gets prepared by being sauteed in some olive oil and garlic.

But the cookbook challenge is good like that, pushing me out of my comfort zone. Expanding my horizons and all that jazz.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 23

2010-01-04T18:54:00.002-06:00

The Stats (as of January 4, 2010)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.2 lbs

I definitely ate more during my week off for New Year's than for Christmas. A little strange, but true. I found myself feeling slightly sick from eating too much on multiple occasions. Not a great feeling.

In Which I Finish.

2010-01-02T23:37:00.004-06:00

Project #50 in '50 in 2009 Challenge' - Front Door Draft Stopper

Ahhh, look at that!

50 projects completed in 2009, how's that for following through?

I'm not sure how I got the idea for making a draft stopper for our front door, but it came to me and it was the perfect last project of the year. Easy, which was essential considering I only had a couple day left in the month.

I actually made another one today (a bit more complicated because it stops up both sides of the door, to use on our basement door that we use as our main entrance), which jump started my mission for 2010 - "2010: The Year of Finishing Things," which includes finishing up my various stashes (and by finishing up, I mean destashing).

So instead of trying to complete 50 projects this new year, I'm just going to focus on getting things done, crafty or otherwise. Rather than share my personal New Year's Resolutions (I've been sharing a bit too much here lately ::cough cough weekly weight updates cough cough::), I've decided to outline the things I want to get done...at least so far. I'm sure the list will just grow longer & longer as the year goes on. Hopefully I'll be successful in knocking things off as well.

- knit a winter hat to coordinate with my french yarn scarf

- use my italian yarn to knit mittens

- my May One for Me, One for You quilt square

- my June One for Me, One for You quilt square

- my July One for Me, One for You quilt square

- both August One for Me, One for You quilt square

- put together, bind & quilt my One for Me, One for You quilt

- finish the AFI Top 100 films (so close, so very very close)

- finish cataloging my PEZ collection on Flickr

- declutter the house (got a great start, just need to finish up the basement & lightly go through the rest of the house)

- deplete yarn stash to fit in my wicker laundry basket with room to spare

- deplete fabric stash

- update my inspiration books completely

- transfer our favorite recipes onto cards

- complete the sock monkey blanket

Big list so far, huh?

We'll Always Have Paris.

2010-01-01T23:26:00.003-06:00

Project #49 in '50 in 2009 Challenge' - Gay Paree City Scarf

My big souvenir while in Paris this fall was yarn. I figured it was the perfect momento, it's pretty, it triggers the memory, it's not some little trinket to clutter up the house and it gives me something to do. That's like 4 positive aspects, so it must be an awesome souvenir, right?

In a somewhat nightmare trip to Le Bonne Marche, I picked out two different yarns this bulky Bouton d'Or (French yarn to remind me of the fun we had in Paris) and a fingering weight Phildar Lambswool (in purple that reminds me of the time we spent wandering the streets of Rome and Venice).

Though I don't typically stray from the worsted and sport weights, I was drawn to the bulky Bouton d'Or for it's beautiful mix of oranges and purples, so I had to pick it up. It ended up being a bonus that it feels really great.

It has taken a few months to finally get the time to make something for myself using the yarn, but I've been thinking about digging in since returning. I mean, I even bought a new nice winter coat to showcase the scarf I planned on making with it.

The coat is another story, but just let me say that I LOVE my new cream wool funnel neck coat. As I walk around downtown, amongst the sea of black and dark gray coats, I feel a million times happier than those people look.

So anyways, as December wound down and all my Christmas presents were wrapped up, I got to work (perfect timing with all the car time we had for the holiday). I used the Windy City scarf pattern from Stitch N Bitch knowing I was most likely going to have a short scarf as I only had three balls. With the keyhole, it would be sure to stay wrapped around my neck even if it was short.

In the end, I would have loved for it to be just a tad bit longer or had the keyhole positioned slightly further up so my ends would be even, but with a little finagling, I can make it look that way.

Now I just have to get on those mitts I have planned for the "Italian" souvenir yarn and make myself a new hat that won't horribly clash with the scarf. Hopefully those can be finished before the winter ends. Hmm, maybe I should make the hat first. Ugh, what am I saying? I can't believe I'm even contemplating knitting another hat so soon. I went to the "fancy" yarn store yesterday to pick out yarn to coordinate, so all I need to figure out is a pattern. And despite my record with hats as of late, I'm thinking I could pump out a hat faster than flip-top mitts (which I plan on knitting 2-at-a-time on circulars, just got a book on how to do socks that way so I'm hoping mitts can work the same way) so at least I would get use out of them and not have to wear my little snowboarded skullcap anymore which really takes away from the pretty cream wool coat. I'm ok with keeping the black glow-in-the-dark skeleton gloves for the time being, but the hat I'd like to change. I've been a bit spoiled with my bubble yum pink button-tab so far this winter. It's not so tight that is gives me hat hair, so I don't feel the need to pull my hair into a pony-tail when I take it off.

I guess only time will tell wear the new year takes me, right? ;)

Cookbook Challenge: How to Eat Supper #17

2009-12-30T19:26:00.002-06:00

The Splendid Table's 21st Century Macaroni & Cheese

Who doesn't love macaroni & cheese, right?

The problem with making homemade mac & cheese is it can turn out kinda bland and white. I've made a few versions of different mac & cheese, and I think the How To Eat Supper version might be the best. It has a bit of a kick (thanks to a shake of red pepper) and maintains a cheesy (aka orangey) look.

And actually it tasted better the next day reheated, like the flavors and cheese melded more. The only thing I might do in the future (because yes, I think this will enter the meal rotation) is add cauliflower which is something one of the healthier versions I've used before had. It's unexpected, but doesn't really changed the taste, and a great way to get a serving or two of vegetables into a carbohydrate-heavy meal.

For the Kiddies.

2009-12-29T08:15:00.000-06:00

Project #44 in '50 in 2009 Challenge' - Activity Satchel

I admit it, I am one of those aunts (godmothers, adults in general).

I will try my darnedest not to give you the overly commercialized, plastic toys that you crave for your birthday or Christmas if you are a kid in my life.

As a kid in my life, you can expect books. When not books, handmade toys. When I can't find an appropriate book for the occasion or don't have time to make a handmade toy, you will most likely get some sort of activity to do - like an age-appropriate craft or a coloring books with crayons or if you're luckily a board game.

I can't say I'll keep this up when I eventually have children, but I like to think I will. That my home won't be overrun with brightly colored, breakable, plastic toys. And until then, I'll inflicted the wee ones in my life with my ideals.

Project #45 in '50 in 2009 Challenge' - Rodney & Chomps Stuffed Buddy Carrier

This Christmas I only crafted two gifts for the little kids in our lives (only our nephew, Braydon and Mike's cousin's daughter were lucky enough to make the list this year). The first being what I dub an "Activity Satchel" for a tiny little, princess-obsessed two-year-old who would be joining us for Christmas Eve dinner out at a restaurant. I figured she wouldn't be as quiet as she had been in the previous two years, so what better gift than one that could be put to use right away. This satchel is a simplified version of the Travel Activity Tote I made Bray a couple years ago, this time with only a pocket for a pad of paper on one side and 8 crayon pockets & a peg people pocket on the other. A simple loop handle fit for a small hand. And that was it. Compact enough to fit in mom's purse, but packed with an hour or so of continuous fun.

Happily, it was well received. She was able to rip it open almost immediately upon us entering the house and as the paper came out, little cries of "Crraaayoonnns!" were exclaimed and then she proceeded to go through at least 10 pieces of paper in the few minutes before we left the house. Luckily the restaurant table was covered in white paper so she didn't end up blowing through the entire pad in the one night.

A rather bad photo showing the special Chomps compartment.

The second gift I whipped up was for dear little Bray, who asked me before Thanksgiving if I could make him a special carrier to hold his two best buddies, Rodney the reindeer and Chomps the alligator. According to my sister, they had been out and Bray said, "Mommy, I miss Rodney & Chomps. I wish I could bring them with us." So Aunt Sarah got the call. At Thanksgiving, I took Bray to the fabric store to pick out any fabric he wanted for his bag. On the way there I was asking him what his favorite color was and if he had a favorite pattern (like stripes or polka dots) and he rambled on like only a soon-to-be-5-year-old can. Then as we started to walking through the aisle, we came across a large, dark blue striped home dec fabric and Bray exclaimed, "that's it Aunt Sarah, exactly the fabric I was telling you about!" Sadly I wasn't able to get the bag, which is of my complete own design, done in time for his birthday, but I needed to get his mom her hats and then time just slipped away until it was the weekend before Christmas and I realized it was now or never.

So last weekend I got to work whilst Harry Potter movies played in the background. It only took 3 HP movies to complete (#2, 3 & 4 for those who are interested - #1 was used in making the Activity Satchel), but it was completed in plenty of time to give at Christmas.

This bag was quite a doozy to work on. First my measurements of the stuffed animals were off, way off. As I cut out all the fabric needed for the outside and full lining, and then started to sew it together, I realized that I had an enormous bag on my hands. Like too big for even my body, let alone a 5 year old, so I had to much adjustments after having the entire outer bag sewed up. I'll just say it involved cutting off several inches of height and then sewing the side width in half. Second, I had a very specific vision for how I wanted the bag to work. It would resemble a tote bag with a long messenger bag style handle, but then it would have a side opening on the bottom appropriate for a long horizontal stuffed animal to sit and then a shorter inner lining that would act as a seat for our long time bud, Rodney. Since Chomps is an alligator, and I just so happened to have fishy fabric, I decided that Chomps needed a water based environment. The bag was lined in a watery blue and then I created a heavy interfacing base wrapped in fishy fabric that not only acts as food for Chomps, but also as structure for the bag.

In all the Christmas excitement, the bag didn't get nearly as much awe as it deserved. How can I compete with Bakugan & a real flying helicopter?! It was tough to get a picture of the little monster wearing it with his buddies stowed away. Though it didn't receive the Christmas glory, knowing how much Bray loves his Rodney & Chomps, it should get plenty of use. And that's what really matters. :)

Bray modeling his carrier (again) before heading out on Christmas Eve.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 22

2009-12-28T07:57:00.000-06:00

The Stats (as of December 28, 2009)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 177.9 lbs

Now that's surprising. I've felt like I've been hungry constantly and therefore eating all the time. I need to work on hydrating better when I'm at home.

The Easy Way.

2009-12-27T15:43:00.002-06:00

Project #46 in '50 in 2009 Challenge' - Set of 5 Super Chunky Christmas Cookie Mix in a Jar

I admit, I took the easy way out this year.

Instead of devoting a weekend to baking Christmas cookies to give out as gifts, I took inspiration directly from Rachel Ray Magazine and layered the ingredients in pretty jars and made my friends & family do the work.

I like to think I'm giving those friends and family members a chance to make cookies at their leisure because if they're anything like me, they come home from every event with a package of more cookies than they should be eating.

Plus they get an awesome jar!

I should send a shout out to the cashier at Hobby Lobby for considering the 3 I bought there as "decorative glass" and giving them to me for 50% off.

Project #47 in '50 in 2009 Challenge' - Set of 8 Felt Christmas Bows

You can kind of get a sense of my wrapping scheme this year as well by looking at the line of jars. I wrapped the majority of our gifts in brown kraft paper (until I ran out the night before we left and had to run to the grocery store and grab the cheapest non-blatant Christmas paper available) and wrapped a few strands of deep red yarn around instead of a ribbon. Simple, crafty, and very much the vibe I wish to give off at Christmas. Then a lucky few received a handcrafted felt Christmas bow in a deep forest green.

I saw a blog post by Twig & Thistle earlier in the month taking a tutorial by How About Orange for making package bows out of magazines and using felt instead, and I thought it would be an elegant way to finishing my simple packages. I had grand plans of making one for every package we were giving out, but alas, I started only on Monday night and then forgot to pick up more sheets of the craft felt sheets when I ran to Michaels on Tuesday before craft group. Oops.

I ended up topping each of the cookie mix jars with a bow and then placing one on a package for my mom, sister & mother-in-law figuring they would most likely actually reuse them which was the intended dual purpose.

They're super easy to make, especially assembly-line-style, plus they gave me an excuse to break out the hot glue gun which doesn't get much use around these parts. I'm thinking I might use some of my stashed craft felt to make some more. None of my colors are really Christmasy though, so I'm not sure how much use I would get out of them. They might actually become clutter in a different form. Maybe I'll just put that idea on the bottom of the list and if I need something to do, the idea will be there.

No, I Can't Buy You a Dishwasher.

2009-12-26T18:55:00.002-06:00

Project #43 in '50 in 2009 Challenge'- Homer Simpson Dishcloth

Several weeks ago when I asked my brother-in-law what he would like for Christmas, his response was a dishwasher. I told him, surely you know I can't buy you a dishwasher, but I did get an idea of what I could give him - my most favorite cleaning device ever - a pot scraper* (like seen on the left of the second image in this post).

So I didn't end up only giving him a small 89 cent piece of plastic for Christmas (ok, plus the magazine subscription he requested), I decided to knit him up a couple of dishcloths to make a nearly complete dishwashing system.

Plus it would give me a chance to use some of my cotton stash as I've decided 2010 will be the year of finishing things (including my stash of yarn & fabric - I've finally realized that I will almost buy new materials for a new project), so why not give myself a bit of a head start.

I really enjoy doing patterns like this Homer Simpson dishcloth because with every row changing, it holds my attention and I don't tend to space out and make mistakes. Weird, I know.

I started with one of my mid-size balls of left over cotton, thinking I could surely get an entire dishcloth out of it. But as you can see, that didn't happen! Man, my eye for estimation is going out the window. And the funny thing is it happened again with the next color. A good thing for the stash busting though.

Project #48 in "50 in 2009 Challenge" - Chinese Waves Dishcloth

And since one dishcloth certainly could not be enough, I had to make him a second. Actually, I would have preferred that there had been a third as well, but considering I was knitting the Chinese Waves the morning of the day we left, I just didn't have enough time. You may notice that it's a bit squatter than what you may normally see with a dishcloth. That's because I decided I needed to have it done before we left so I could work on the last two projects of the year during our drives, so I could actually make it to 50 this year. It's probably easier to handle as well. I mean, it is only a dishcloth. There are no real size requirements.

The Chinese Waves pattern confused me a bit. You were only given four rows of the pattern, but when I went to repeat the 3rd row (the 4th was just a straight knit), it messed up the look of the pattern. I must have messed something up, but I couldn't figure out what I did wrong, so from there on out I just repeated rows 1 & 2 until it was large enough to stop. I say, oh well, it's only a dishcloth to be used on gross, dirty dishes. It doesn't need to be perfect.

I see a lot more dishcloths in my future. As I mentioned before 2010 will be my year for finishing things (so no '50 in 2010' - I need a break from the stress of trying to make it to the magic number). Though I'd like to say I'm going to clear out the yarn stash I have, I know it's not practical, I'm just not that fast of a knitter. But I do think I can clear out the stash of cotton I have, so it is very possible that everyone will be getting dishcloths next Christmas. Though then again, maybe all my cotton won't yield as much as I think it will.

We shall see. We shall see.

*I can't remember if I've touted the amazingness of this cheap piece of plastic before. We got ours at Ace Hardware, seriously 89 cents. Gets all the burned on crap off without having to use sponges or copper scrubbies, and you just throw it into the utensil basket to clean it right up. Copper scrubbies are great, but can get disgusting really fast, making me want to toss them before they were fully used. I cannot recommend the pot scraper enough, a much more environmentally-conscious method for cleaning dishes (I also find I don't need to use as much running water to rinse & scrap as I did to rinse & scrub). And hey, some hand knit dishcloths don't hurt either - I find them to be much more effective than store bought ones.

And Then There Were None.

2009-12-23T21:38:00.003-06:00

Project #42 in '50 in 2009 Challenge' - Teal Foliage Redeux

I'm happy to say 2009: The Year of Hats has come to a close.

Thank goodness.

As much as I'd like to say that it will be a very long time before I knit another hat, I know that I'll be knitting myself one in the new year to coordinate with my French Yarn scarf, since the Bubble Yum Button Tab clashes horribly.

But for now I am done.

And since I sent this off a couple weeks ago, I have been hard at work crafting away for Christmas. My personal Christmas crafting load has been light this year, but has kept me quite busy - even up until this morning before we headed up north for the holiday.

The funny thing about this Foliage hat is it works up wonderfully when you pay attention, keep count and do gauge. I used the same yarn as my first attempt, but this time I did gauge swatches until I reached the right results. I ended up having to go down 3 needle sizes - yikes, no wonder the last hat was so big! Knowing that it was easy to gain and lose stitches, I kept count every patterned row (which is every other row)and didn't mess up...until the last five rows or so. Ugh, I was so pissed, but I was able to go back and fix the mistake when a problem did arise.

I was doing so well, but December was quickly slipping away and I hadn't started any of my own handmade gifts, so I was getting impatient. The end was so near and I was determined to finish on craft group night. I was quickly binding off, trying to finish before Panera closed for the night. I finished up leaving the last couple stitches on the needles (thankfully) to weave in the ends at home, and headed out. Upon getting home, I tried to put the hat on and was crushed. I couldn't even get it on my head. Hoping it was just my big head, I ran to get my StyroHead, but alas no luck. Another lesson learned. Remember to bind off in pattern (in this case K1,P1), not only will it look more cohesive, you won't negate all the work you've done (in my case, I made a ribbed band to add stretch and then completely negated it with a tight bind off). As I noted, thankfully I had not finished binding off. I still had a couple stitches on the needles so it was easier for me to undo my bind off and then redo it properly. Once it was completed a second time, it fit like a dream. Despite being a nightmare (haha).

Hopefully it's well received.

My sister asked how much she owed me for knitting all these hats, and I gave her a price per hat but couldn't just give her a total...because I couldn't remember how many hats she actually ended up with since I've knitted, ripped out, reknit, etc. I think she ended up with 6 hats, but I've probably knit up at least 18 hats fully. A little scary, if you think about it. I usually recommend that new knitters start with a hat, but after the year I've had with hats, I may have to come up with a new recommendation.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 21

2009-12-21T17:28:00.002-06:00

The Stats (as of December 21, 2009)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.0 lbs

We've hit that time of year where there are not enough hours in a day.

Though the past couple weeks have not been productive in the fitness & healthiness arena, and I've contemplated not even posting an update on Mondays, I've decided that although things aren't progressing NOW, the sure way to make sure things digress would be to stop posting. Though I don't have any real updates the last few weeks, I will have updates again, but only if I'm held accountable.

So though things may be pretty sparse around these parts on Mondays for the next week or so (and several weeks prior), I'll still be posting - if only The Stats. Because once I don't post, the whole thing will surely fly out the window.

And we don't want that, do we?

Cookbook Challenge: How to Eat Supper #16

2009-12-19T22:34:00.002-06:00

The Splendid Table's Broccoli Casserole

In an attempt to start getting back into a normal routine, the past week I've been pushing myself to get back to things like cooking and daily cleaning. With the start of the new job and trying to get adjusted things became crazy on the home front. Dishes piled up, cluttered messes were everywhere, we were eating off the same giant meal for a week.

But now things are getting back to normal. I'm tackling messes 30 minutes at a time, and dinner one recipe at a time.

As I tackle more and more recipes from How To Eat Supper, I realize that not all recipes are winners. They might suit some people, but just because I like a cookbook doesn't mean I'm going to like all the recipes. I'm glad I've committed to trying them all though. I've found that some recipes that I would have never thought to try are ones we turn out to really love.

And it's funny that the opposite can also happen. This broccoli casserole was definitely on the to try list.I mean you can't go wrong with broccoli casserole...I thought. This version uses bread, not rice. There's also sugar in it, weird I know.

Sweet and bready (eggy bread, not my favorite) = we will not be trying this again. It's good to know, plus kinda fun to know that my cookbook had real notations to guide me (or other family) in the future. Like an heirloom in the making.

Christmas Balls: a tutorial

2009-12-17T22:03:00.005-06:00

Project #41 in '50 in 2009 Challenge'

When I started my new job three weeks ago, half my first day was spent making decorations for the office. Fun, huh? I ended up making 4 of these ornaments in the few hours we worked on them in various Christmasy colors. And then we hung them in our front windows looking out onto the plaza.

These are really elegant ornaments when finished, especially when hung at varying heights. But boy were they a little tough to figure out. Kudos to our Project Manager (and her mother) for figuring out the construction for a tiny picture off the internet.

To make one for yourself, you'll need:

- pretty paper

- approx 3" circle punch

- glue sticks

- a card stock equilateral triangle template (where all the points will touch all the edge of your circle)

- hole punch

- ribbon

1. Punch out 20 circles in various coordinating patterns

2. With the pattern side up, place your triangle template on the first circle and fold the "flaps" on each side of the triangle.

3. Repeat for the remaining 19 circles.

4. Take 5 folded circles and start gluing together (remember pattern side out). You will want all to be glued in the same direction - you'll be creating a 5-sided cone (it will kind of look like a yarmulke, especially if you're drinking mimosas).

5. Create another 5-sided cone with the next five folded circles.

6. Take one of your cones and turn it upside down. Start gluing another 5 folded circles onto the top flaps.When completed, you will have a dish with 5 crown-like points.

7. Repeat step 6 with your second 5-sided cone.

8. Your two "crown" piece can now be interlocked together - points into valleys (like monster teeth you draw when your little) - so glue the remaining flaps to adhere your two "crowns" together.

9. You now have a festive Christmas ball! Punch a small hole in one flap and attach your ribbon and hang in your windows or from your mantel.

PS: I thought I should add, I can't guarantee that this ball is one of mine. We all used the same types of papers and in doing 4, I did many of the available colors schemes that other co-workers did as well.

Masochistic Mondays: Week 20

2009-12-14T20:34:00.002-06:00

The Stats (as of December 14, 2009)

Starting Weight: 188 lbs

Current Weight: 179.0 lbs

So more backslide. But more resolve as well.

I've decided to go off the soda (hopefully it will go as well as it did when I was soda-free for 2+ years). Doing well on that, nearly a week now.

And the big news...we now own an exercise bike! Last week Mike found one listed on Craigslist for $30 and since he saw it minutes after it was listed, he was the first to contact the seller. This weekend we finally got the mess in the basement cleared enough that we could place it in front of the tv. Last night, I actually rode it for 54 minutes while watching Julie & Julia. It was chilly, and my legs were jello-y when I decided to get out of the basement.

So though it's not an optimum level of physical exertion, I'll continue moving this winter - yay! I'm actually kinda excited to designate some tv shows to watch while using the bike.

1st Annual Small Fox Ornament Swap: The Loot

2009-12-13T19:06:00.003-06:00

What a wonderful way to start the weekend! With a box full of ornamenty goodness. These babies went straight on the tree, as I'd been waiting to finish the decorating until I got them. I can't tell you how pleased I am with the experience. Though my fingertips are begging me never to touch another straight pin again, having Small Fox collect all the ornaments and then send out combination sets worked so well. I feel like I got some awesome stuff, and didn't fret at all about someone flaking. And though I thought the flickr group might prove discouraging, it was fun to see what everyone was making and make a secret little wish list of what I hoped to get (bonus! I got three that I've had my eye on!). I'm already looking forward to next year - if Small Fox is feeling up to it (I can only imagine what her house looked like with boxes of 10 ornaments from 30+ people!).