springtime in my yard

in the springtime, one of my favorite things to do is take slow walks through my little yard with the camera and a pair of scissors so i can make little bee bottle bouquets. before my house was a rental property, it used to be the home of a little old woman who liked to garden, and we now get to reap the rewards she left for us. there are things that bloom in the yard all year long, and i try my best to keep them going. not that i have a CLUE what i am doing! anyway, i have pretty much stolen the hippie's camera--i have it in my purse always, and i take pictures with it ALL THE TIME. here are some of the photographs i took last week. and if you want, you can check out the whole set, which is a work in progress and has some pics from back in january as well. flowers make me happy. i am so grateful to the unknown little lady who obviously loved this small plot of land so much and who left me with such a wealth of colors and textures and scents.

alone

i don't get a whole lot of time to myself really. tonight i am alone, and there are so many different things i need and want to do with myself that i am almost immobilized. i am tired, run-down, and emotional lately--there's just been a lot going on. i am still in deep mourning for my lost house, for the friends and families of two people i knew who passed away last week, for my many friends who have received sweeping disapointments and bad news over the last month. and i guess, when i am alone, those things have a tendancy to float to the top a little bit. i don't even think this is a bad thing really--just a fact about how and when i deal with grief and sadness. i do it best alone. and at night. and tonight, i think i just give in. i will be like paul atreides with his litany against fear, only mine will be against sadness: i will let it pass over me and through me, and when it is gone, only i will remain.

my friends are good to me

tulips

the sam, she sent me some tulips today. they were waiting for me in a box when i came in to work this morning, and they are BEAUTIFUL. there's no reason for it other than my somewhat crappy week, which makes it the best kind of gift there is. i love the sam. the sam loves me. life, it ain't so bad, when it comes right down to it. even if i AM still sad for my house and all the people i know who have gotten Bad News this week. i am thinking good thoughts for you guys. and apparently, you are thinking good thoughts for me too, so thanks people. and thanks, samanta!!! you brightened my whole day.

adventures in cooking

ginger peanut sauce

i love to cook. i know i have probably said that before, but every once in a while, i just have a positive cooking moment that reinforces it. last night, i did NOT feel like cooking, but i had bought stuff to make for dinner, and i didn't want to just end up throwing it away. so i manned up, washed all the dishes, aand got dinner ready. i was going to make some chicken in this bottled ginger peanut sauce i got from a southern season. so i got it all in the pan, opened the bottle, and the sauce tasted like absolute crap! after a debate with myself over what to do next, i decided to just make my own. with, you know--my zen. so i got out everything i could think of that would go, and i whipped together a FABULOUS sauce. it had peanut butter, honey, ginger oil, tamari, sambal oelek, chili oil, garlic, and a little white pepper. don't even ask me how much of what i put in it--i have no idea. i just started mixing stuff and tasting. and then i put it on some boneless chicken breasts, cauliflower, and baby carrots, covered the pan, and baked it for like 40 minutes. then i added some chopped scallions at the end. delish. made me feel like a chef for a few minutes. :)

and in another small victory, i just turned down a wonderful-looking fresh doughnut that one of my evil co-workers just offered to me. go me.

retreat

i was telling the hippie this morning, and then i was telling meredith (because i tend to repeat myself) about how i deperately wish i had the fuck-you money so i could just walk out of life for about 6 months and just focus on myself. you know what i mean? just go live at a spa where i could work with a personal trainer to get in shape, eat healthy food that someone else made for me, read, knit, write, swim, paint, have a spa treatment every day, sleep. god, the bliss of that. then at work, i came across this picture from a resort where my boss will be staying in a couple of weeks, which just made the dream more real. and since i'm fantasizing, let's go ahead and make it a spa resort at a beautiful beach somewhere warm and sunny. and let's bring along the people i love. i think i need some kind of spiritual reset button or something. i am feeling kind of blah and stagnant.

this is a pipe dream, of course. so, back here in reality, i am resolving to do something small for myself every day. for example, yesterday i took about an hour and a half and went to the mall all by myself. i strolled. i didn't hurry. i wasn't really after anything specific. i bought a new rug for my kitchen. i bought some hand lotion for my office. i bought a philisophy skin care starter kit to try to get my skin to stop being so tired and splotchy looking. and i even used it. baby steps to a happier jackie. if you guys have any tips on having getting my attitude readjusted, i would love to hear them.

or maybe not...

on the way out the door to sign papers committing us to buying the house on friday night, the hippie received some rather unfortunate news regarding his company. let's just say that some new shit has come to light. some Bad Shit. some shit that makes buying a house right now a not-so-intelligent gamble. so. in the single most disappointing experience of my adult life, we let the house go. blah.

and i know rationally that this decision is the only one we can really make. and i am grateful as hell that we found out the Bad Shit now, when there was still a way to unbind ourselves from buying rather than in a month, when we would have been closing. and i know that in two months, we will likely start over and end up buying something. and who knows--maybe we will find something we love even more. but dude! it just sucks when you have expended such a tremendous amount of emotional energy making the decision to buy, to move, to make your life work in a new place. and then, when everything seemed to be ok, let yourself get excited about it. i guess i feel like the proverbial rug has been pulled from beneath my feet.

so thanks for the congratulations you folks sent my way. and wish me happy thoughts as i adjust to this new decision to stay put for a few more months. i think i am going to go buy a new couch to console myself.

taking the plunge

our new house

if you are wondering where i have been and why i haven't been blogging--well--this is why. i have been looking at houses and reserching houses pretty much nonstop for the past two weeks. and now, it looks like we are buying this house, which i LOVE! it's a bittersweet decision to tell you the truth--we are leaving downtown raleigh and heading into the sprawl. when we moved into our current 'hood, we thought we would buy something there in a couple of years. but alas, the face of the market changed too drastically. so--the sprawl it is. resistance is futile.

all that said, however, i ADORE this house. i love the neighborhood it's in. there are many builders in this place, and the restrictions are not so tight that people can't individualize their homes. there's a purple house, a turquiose house, and just about every color of the rainbow. some look victorian, some craftsman style (like ours), and many other styles as well. the people are out walking. there are dogs and kids and a pool. and we are only a mile from jenn and harry, who we drive out to see at least a few times a week already. plus, we know a lot of other people in this area, too. so there you go--this is the best thing for us right now. and who knows--maybe someday we will come back downtown. but for right now--these closets are just too big to say no to!

other things i love? the wide front porch with its blue beadboard ceiling and ceiling fan, the screened in back porch, the fabulous merbau floors, the plantation shutters on all the first floor windows, the maple cabinets in the kitchen, the garden bathtub, the view of the lane out the kitchen window, the laundry room (i swear, it's my favorite room in the house), the little japanese plum tree that's blooming in the front yard, and the fact that the house looks tiny from the street, but really isn't.

keep your fingers crossed for us that everything goes smoothly and we get to close on time! if all goes well--we will be in this house by may.

click here for pictures (which i stole from the realtor's and builder's sites).

various annoyances

today is pi day, and i forgot to wear my pi shirt. how annoying is that?! in fact, today has been pretty annoying all around. it's no fun to make a bunch of doctor's appointments, not get called back by our realtor, and to take my car in for a simple oil change and tire rotation, only to be told that really--i should go ahead and do $600 worth of work to it. blah. the good news is that my tax refund will cover the whole cost of our plane tickets to europe. the bad news is that this car is going to eat all my new-clothes-for-europe money. blah again.

oh, today is also the official date for steak and blowjob day, but that's not when we celebrate it. we celebrated it on march 26th the first year we were together, and we refuse to change. i don't have a special shirt for that, but if i did--i would probably forget to wear it. information i should perhaps not be sharing with the internet, but it's too late now. heh.

update: type-A personality wins

my taxes are done. now i can go to bed. :)

once a week blogger

this is what i have suddenly become. life has been insanely busy, and i am behind on both the reading and the writing of blogs. in the past week i have bought some plane tickets to europe, bought some ferry tickets to get to an island off the coast of sweden, bought some more pane tickets to fly around within europe, talked to the hippie's sister about hotels and trains and stuff, looked at some houses that we thought about buying, been to the gym once, bled like a stuck pig, had dinner with my friend tom (twice!), cooked out with harry and jenn, gone home to rutherfordton to see my mama and daddy, poked through a boatload of art galleries, gone to dinner with my friends eric and kylie, shopeed for, found, and wrapped a present for g's 3rd birthday (and no, i CAN'T believe she's already three!!!), bought tax software, procrastinated doing taxes, knitted a tiny bit, gone to the grocery store, cooked and cleaned the kitchen a few times, developed a hive, talked on the phone, and done a boatload of real estate research. and yet i sit here, quiet for a moment, with a kitty sleeping on my lap, wondering why i am tired. i feel like i am not being productive. wonder why i have a hive? lol. my W-2 is sitting here in front of me, just waiting, and i know i will look at it before i give it up and go read. damn that whole type-A thing to hell anyway.

jenn and i have a spa day scheduled for this weekend, and i CANNOT WAIT! i need a break, people. this weekend is all about DOWN TIME. once i get the bathroom clean...

le clapotis, n. m., lapping: the act of winding around or swathing

this may well bore you to tears, but this post is really mostly for me, so i can remember the experience of whipping out this clapotis in 16 days for the knitting olympics and how hard it was! i also want to remind myself that i CAN meet a goal i give myself if i really try, even when it's a big HUGE challenge for me. and man--do i LOVE my clapotis!!!

pattern: clapotis, from knitty.com
variations: added one increase set and thus, one decrease set (and if i had it to do over, i would add at least one more straight set as well--i had about 60 yards of yarn left over)
yarn: ~2.6 skeins of a.l. de sauveterre's estelle (100% cashmere, sportweight)
color: orion
needles: US size 6 lantern moon 14-inch rosewood needles
timeline:

• august 25, 2005: order yarn
• august 31: yarn arrives
• february 02, 2006: join knitting olympics
• february 03: form team clapotis
• february 04: wind yarn
• february 09: knit swatch for gauge/size; frog swatch
• february 10: clapotis started during televising of opening ceremonies
• february 11: some progress in increase rows, photos taken
• february 13: knit and frog 2.6 sets of increase rows because of stupid mistake
• february 16: meet knitting group, finish increase rows, drop one stitch!
• february 17-18 moderate progress
• february 19-20: stalled--too much going on, friends visiting, etc.
• february 21: knitted for 3 hours with jenn, made mistake, pulled out all progress. blah.
• february 22: dance class--behind on knitting
• february 23: hippie's game night--watched all of the extended verion of the two towers and most of the return of the king while knitting. at end of day, through 7.6 sets of straight rows.
• february 24: no knitting, went dancing instead
• february 25:
  8:39am: made tea, put in the rest of the return of the king, ate half a bowl of cereal, started knitting
  10:07am: made oatmeal and more tea, put in lost dvd, kept knitting
  1:38pm: made hippie go for pizza, stopped knitting long enough to eat some, still knitting
  2:30-ish pm: hippie goes to back room to work on computer, so i break from lost and put in some other dvd--i have no idea what
  3:40pm: take short break for girlscout cookies and milk
  8:50-ish pm: hippie runs out for chinese food, more lost
  somewhere around midnight: hippie goes to bed, put in end of pride and prejudice (the A&E one)


• february 26:
  12:40-ish am: make tea, put in sense and sensibility dvd
  2:32am: finish straight rows, take photos, move from couch to chair in effort to minimize back pain
  3-something am: movie ends, get up and walk around a minute, make more tea, eat some girl scout cookies, and put in ever after dvd
  5:something am: take involuntary nap in middle of purl row, sleep for about an hour and 40 minutes holding knitting in hands
  7-ish am: wake with violent start
  7:13am: make tea, start knitting on the couch again, back up ever after dvd to where it was when i passed out
  8:24am: make tea, eat some cereal, keep knitting
  10:10am: wake up hippie, make coffee for him and tea for me, tell him he's on his own for breakfast since i have to knit
  noon-ish: eat some leftovers for lunch. things at this point are kind of a blur. i just keep knitting and knitting, knowing in my heart i am not going to make the 2pm deadline for gold. blah.
  2pm: write blog post about failure
  2:07pm: keep knitting--i am determined to finish today
  3-ish pm: take shower, let hot water run on hands for about 20 minutes
  3:30-ish pm: put in pirates of the carribean dvd, beg hippie to go get milk so i can eat the rest of the girlscout cookies
  3:57 pm: last of the girlscout cookies, milk, more tea, become bored with dvd, move to comfy velvet bedroom chair and opt to talk on the phone with meredith instead--thank god for headsets
  7-something pm: nearly give up, decide to go out to dinner with the hippie instead of knitting any more, even though i am almost through decrease rows
  8:00pm: closing ceremonies come on tv in the restaurant, filling me with new determination--pay for dinner and run home to finish up
  8:39pm: decrease rows complete
  just after 9pm: finished! hands go completely numb while inraveling last dropped stitch
• february 27th: take photos, blog about completion, but failure to achieve gold


• february 28th: receive comments on blog post saying gold is deserved since casted on in televising of opening and bound off in televising of closing--email yarn harlot to ask her for a judge's ruling--yarn harlot grants gold medal! yay!!!!!
• february 29th: gold medal received

much thanks to the hippie, yarn harlot, and team clapotis, for all the support! and thanks to my kitties for keeping me company through the whole thing. i can't believe it's taken me all week to get around to posting this! click here for the complete set of photos. :)

on grits...

as a follow-up to my recent post on shrimp and grits, a bit of unsolicited advice on the subject of grits: the difference between good and bad grits is as dramatic as the difference between minute rice and sticky white japanese sushi rice--there is NO comparison! NONE!!! so, get you some good, coarse stoneground grits from a small mill. yellow or white makes no difference at all to me, but some people prefer one over the other.

i highly recommend the grits from from the old guilford mill. two of my favorite Southern restaurants are crook's corner in chapel hill, nc, whose chef and founder was the late, fabulous, bill neal (from whom came the shrimp and grits recipe i lately posted) and the hominy grill in charleston, sc, whose chef, robert stehling, was trained by bill neal. both restaurants order their grits from this mill. you can also buy grits from both restaurants, but it's all the same.

here's another note--robert stehling went directly from working under bill neal at crook's to working for david page and barbara shinn at home in new york. he apparently taught david page and barbara shinn the art of canning, which enabled them to sell their homemade ketchup, for which they are now famous. all these interconnections! home was my hands down favorite restaurant when i lived in NYC, and the cookbook they released, recipes from home, is now one of my favorite cookbooks--it contains THE chocolate pudding recipe of all time, as well as the best roasted chicken, apple pie, and pumpkin pie recipes i have ever found. i can't recommend it enough.

i am cashmere, but then--you people already knew that, right?

You are Cashmere.
You are sophisticated and luxe. You can often be found in high-end boutiques and hobnobbing with the upper crust. You are one of the beautiful people and you don't let anyone
forget it!

What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

i am not at all sure that i am buying that whole "beautiful people" bit, but i do love the idea of being something soft, luxurious, and high quality. and since i am knitting my little fingers off with some beautiful cashmere right now, it seemes appropriate. :)

shrimp and grits, part deux

i know i have talked about shrimp and grits a lot on here, and many, many people have emailed me to ask for the recipe. so--without further ado, i am just posting the thing. this is my favorite of dozens of shrimp and grits recipes floating around out there. it's mostly bill neal's, with a couple of little variations. i highly recommend making some biscuits to go with this. anyway--here you go, people (and rita):

first prepare grits--use good stone ground coarse grits--it makes all the dfference. well--that and lots of cheese. :)

1 c grits
4 c water, milk, or chicken broth
2-3 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 c grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan
pinch nutmeg
pinch cayenne pepper
pinch white pepper

in a med saucepan, bring water (or milk or chicken broth or combination thereof) to a boil, stir in grits, turn heat to low, and simmer for at least 20 minutes, adding more liquid as necessary. remove grits from heat, and stir in remaining ingredients until well blended and smooth. cover and reseerve.

now for the shrimp:

1 pound fresh shrimp, cleaned, peeled, and deveined
6 slices bacon, diced
peanut oil
2 c sliced mushrooms
1 c finely sliced scallions
1 garlic clove, peeled
4 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper, to taste
hot sauce (optional)

saute bacon in a lage skillet until the edges are brown but bacon is not yet crisp. remove bacon with slotted spoon and reserve. add enough peanut oil to pan dripngs to create a 1/8-inch layer of fat and heat on med-high. when oil is very hot, add the shrimp in an even layer. as the shrimp start to color, add the mushrooms and saute for about 4 minutes. stir in scallions and then add garlic through a press and cook for about one more minute. stir in the reserved bacon. last, add the lemon juice and parsley. remove from heat, and season to taste with salt, pepper and hot sauce if desired.

divide the grits among 4 plates. spoon the shrimp over the grits and serve immediately.

um...oops...

dkny sneakers

i accidentally bought some shoes at lunch today. it started innocently enough--i went to lunch with my friend sonya at this fabulous indian place near these outlet shops (mistake #1). and over lunch, we were talking about her wedding shoes. then after, because of traffic, we cut through the parking lot of the outlet shops (mistake #2). and since we were RIGHT THERE, we decided to run into the saks 5th avenue outlet to check for wedding shoes (mistake #3). we didn't find jack for wedding shoes, but sonya spotted these lovelies and basically forced me to buy them! ok--that last part was a lie. she DID spot them, but when i put them on my feet and they were more comfy than my new bunny slippers, and cute to boot--well--what could i do?

i'm not dead, i'm knitting

we had friends in over the weekend, and it was awesome, but left little time for blog maintenance. and as a result of the weekend frivolity, i am now WAY behind on my olympic knitting. i am head down, nose to the grindstone (or knitting pattern, if you will) until saturday at the earliest. my pesky job is of course, cutting into the knitting time. i don't even know why exactly, but it's really important to me that i finish. i think maybe it's just been a long time since i challenged myself or somehting. anyway--i am knitting. think good thoughts for me. i'll be back as soon as i can!

sweet lies

ah...valentines day...

the hippie and i have a valentine's day tradition: cheap mexican and a buck-fifty movie. it's cheap and awesome, and it was also our first date. (except that time, we also printed out some academic papers at the NCSU library--w00t!) we don't generally do a lot of gifting or anything, and that's rationally very ok with me. of course, it's also hard not to get sucked into the whole valentine's day manufactured expectations thing. and reall--who doesn't want flowers and chocolates and all that shit? i ALWAYS want that stuff. and jewelry. and shoes. but i digress... anyway, over dinner last night, the hippie asks me if our friends jenn and harry are doing anything special, and i go one to extol harry's virtues for getting jenn a spa package and for being smart enough to come to me and get advice on where to go and what to get for her. and the hippie--he looks and me very seriously and he says, "that bastard." and i am all--why is harry a bastard?--i think it's great! the hippie goes on to explain that it's a guy faux pas, that harry should have told him what he was doing so that he (the hippie) would not look bad, and that if he had known, he would have gotten me something similar so that jenn and i could go together. and i think this is funny, so i say to him, "where's MY spa package, bitch!?" which he thinks is hilarious. but of course the whole time, the joke's on me. post movie (just friends, by the way, with ryan reynolds, is totally HILARIOUS), we get home, and just as i am about to fall asleep, he hands me my spa package. he rocks.

i hope he chews on it and drags it around with him for years, too

i talked to my friend alyce last night for about 5 minutes in the car while i was driving from place to place--the way i talk to most of my friends lately. and she gave me such a nice gift: she told me that the baby blanket i made for her baby, adam, is his favorite thing in the whole wide world. at day care, they call it his "miracle blanket" and they credit it with good naps and all around happiness in the notes they send to her about his day. she said when she gives it to him, he laughs and kicks his legs. this, my friends, is what i want for my knitted gifts. use. happiness. love. this happened to me once before with my friend aimee's first child, who loved the quilt i made for him so much that he almost loved it to death. it was almost a rag by the time they talked him into giving it up. i still keep the picture she sent me of him all rolled up in it like a burrito, sleeping. it still chokes me up. and he called me "green blanket lady" till he was 5 years old. i am ready to be adam's yellow blanket lady as long as he will have me. and hopefully the blankets i am working on now will get half as much love.

weekend knitting

clapotis day 1.5

so knitting in a sports bar is hard. well--let me ammend that. it wouldn't have been hard if we had been able to go to playmakers where i had planned to go. playmakers is nice and big and has great wings and very little smoke. it has HUGE TVs, and they are really nice about showing what people ask for. it's my favorite sports bar in the area. however, it was PACKED. so we shifted fire to this other place (woody's) that was darker, smokier, and where the waitress was not only rude, but it turns out that she also overcharged us--she gave herself a nice little 40% tip. grrrr. i knitted in spite of all this, but it wasn't quite the experience i was hoping for. but anyway.

started the clapotis, ripped it out again after about an hour and a half because i was doing something stupid, started it again and got about back to where i had been when i ripped it by the time we left the bar. saturday i wanted to knit all day, but there were errands and laundry and all that domestic stuff to deal with as well. it was one of those days when everything seemed to take longer than i thought it would. same with sunday. but i did get some knitting done--i am nearly through the increase rows on the clapotis, and about to move on to the straight rows where i get to start dropping stitches, which kind of scares the crap out of me. but so far, i am loving this thing! and i am loving watching the progress of the people on the team clapotis page as well--i have some major yarn envy! and man, i think i am a slow knitter, too--some of these guys are almost done with the thing!

oh, and i have to mention the bizarreness of the olympics opening ceremonies as well. i couldn't hear the sound, but i heard it as all 80s pop music, which is weird enough. but what a strange post-modern mix of stuff that thing was! what was with those flaming helmet things on those ice skaters? weird, man--totally surreal.

anyway--here's to getting through all the straight rows on this clapotis by the upcoming weekend.

ready, set, knit!

clapotis swatch

ok--i actually knitted a test swatch for my clapotis. i NEVER knit test swatches, as i hate doing that with every fiber of my being. but since i am using a different weight yarn than the pattern calls for, i figured i better test the fabric weight to make sure i chose the right needles for it. i am using my fabulous rosewood needles for the first time to make this thing (i bought them in the fall while shopping with meredith), and i am now sure of my sizing and of what variations i am going to make to the pattern--i am just antsy as hell to GET STARTED!!! but i can't cast on before 2pm--them's the rules. so tonight, i will be knitting in a sports bar while watching hockey and the olympics. should make that whole wing eating experience interesting. many friends will be coming along for the fun, but only i will be knitting. i obviously need more local knitting people.

by the way, more than 30 people have joined the knit-along i set up for this thing, and 3649 people are signed up for the knitting olympics. and since i am a total geek, i am ridiculously excited about it!

just another day

daffodil bud

it's actually gotten colder around here, probably to spite me for bragging about all the signs of spring the other day. but this morning, as i walked out of the house bundled up in the hippie's cashmere scarf and my big black coat, my eye was captured by these little bits of color all along the side of my front yard. (i use the word yard here very loosely, as it's actually a big dirt patch with a few sprigs of grass growing on it--but i digress...) my daffodils are about to burst open! yay! i adore daffodils and spring when my whole yard blooms. i actually made myself late for work today by stopping to take this picture, and i really think it was worth it. i even snapped a picture or two of my beautiful pansies, too.

bunny slippers

in other news, i ordered these completely frivolous and silly bunny slippers--for ME!!! they are sold by the little company in napa valley called the oakville grocery company, and i have wanted them for about 4 years. every time i have tried to order them, and every time the hippie has tried, they have been backordered. BUT NOT TODAY! yay for silly and wonderful fuzzy bunny slippers to keep my tootsies warm! bunny slippers make me happy.

it's amazing the things that console me when i am PMS-ing like a mad fiend...

perhaps i am a tad gung-ho

i set up a new blog for all the people in the knitting olympics who are making a clapotis. i swear, i thought i was the last person on the internet to knit one of these things, but it turns out there are lots and lots of us. so why not? i even made this somewhat crappy button, but hey--it's my first button, and the only software i have installed to work with is microsoft paint--ew! if i can get around to installing photoshop, maybe i will make a better one. do i go too far??? anyway, i'm hoping this will be a great way to get to know some of these folks and expand my online community. so yay for new people! i also joined the north carolina team, but their buttons are kind of gigantor, so i'm not adding it to the sidebar yet. i'm just going to post everywhere. :)

reading: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

A Breath of Snow and Ashes, by Diana Gabaldon

diana gabaldon is one of my favorite writers of all time, although i am not one of her jamie-obsessed crazy fans^*. this book is the latest installment in her outlander series. these books are enormous and meaty and fabulous, without exception, and if you have not read them, you should go buy them this minute and hop to it RIGHT NOW! normally, when i get a new book from her, all bets are off--i do nothing but read for days and days, stopping only to eat, pee, and move from the couch to the bed and then back to the couch. however, this one wasn't like that for me. i don't know if it's because of the holidays falling in the middle of my reading time or what, but this time, i didn't put aside all the other stuff i was reading to focus on the new book. all that said--it's still pretty great.

things with some of the not-claire-and-jamie characters in a breath of snow and ashes have developed to the point that this could almost be separate books. she is following so many lives, and in such great detail, that it can get a little choppy at times. it feels more like a series of short stories than one big novel. i am afraid that if i sound too critical, then you will get the impression that i didn't like the book, which is definitely NOT the case. however, i am just trying to say that it's pretty different from her earlier books. things are taking a long time to develop. the war is coming, and you can feel that. but unlike the battle of culloden, which was an explosion of activity and intrigue, the real action of the revolutionary war is creeping up on the characters. further, the characters have developed very full lives aside from preparation for upcoming events. there's a lot of attention paid to the day-to-day lives and activities of the characters as 18th century settlers in the appalacian mountains. it's fascinating! but it's facinating in a very different way than the facsination we had in her earlier books with witch trials and prisons and rape and battles and french courts and cross-atlantic journeys and treason and voodoo rituals and pirates and so forth. this book feels quieter, even with its murder and intrigue.

and while i am talking about diana gabaldon, can i just say that i wish they would choose a cover type and STICK WITH IT! they started publishing her books with these god-awful romance novel style covers, by which both she and her fans were appalled. however, there was at least a solid marketing reason behind that decision. then, when the fiery cross was published, they released the older books with these awesome, tasteful covers--just a simple solid color with a single symbolic element on it. i thought they had gotten it right! but now, a breath of snow and ashes has come out with a metallic silver cover! the snowflake on the front is all well and good, the STYLE of the thing is right, but what's with that whole metallic thing? ew, delacourte press people. ew.

* no offence intended to the fans of diana gabaldon at the ladies of lallybroch site! i love her as much as anyone, however, there are a FEW people who post things on that site who are bona fide crazy-in-love with jamie fraser, who, i am forced to point out, is a FICTIONAL CHARACTER. that's all i'm sayin'.

knitting olympics

i have joined the knitting olympics over at yarn harlot. apparently, so have over 2500 other online knitters. but how cool is this? the idea is to cast something on during the opening ceremonies of the winter olympics on february 10th. then you have to be finished with it when the olympics end on the 26th. 16 days for this working girl to knit a whole beast of a project! i am saving my clapotis for it, as are about 20 other knitters on stephanie's list, so far. my gorgeous yarn has been hand wound and is waiting patiently for me to take it up and get it onto the new rosewood needles that both the hippie and samson keep stealing. i don't know about you, but i work best with a deadline and a bit of pressure, so i am hoping that will motivate me to get the clapotis done in the middle of all the baby knitting in my queue. if i get my gold medal on the 27th, you guys will be the first to know!

tastes like spring

apricot blossoms

this morning i almost just stayed in bed. it was dreary and grey outside, and i was just exhausted from my uber-busy weekend. but i slogged out of bed, made a fabulous breakfast of french toast and grapefruit, and headed out to work. the minute i stepped outside, the lovliest smell wafted my way--tom and janie's (our neighbors) apricot tree is blooming! it's way too early, and i am just praying that the frost doesn't get it, but my god the smell! such a lightening of the spirit just to breathe it in. it makes me long for spring and my yard full of blossoms.

in other news, this weekend was PACKED with activity. i spent saturday morning lifting about 4k 35-pound beaded and embroidered wedding dresses over the head of my friend sonya. the good news is that she found the most BEAUTIFUL dress that looks fabulous on her and is totally the perfect color of light champagne-gold. gorgeous. the bad news is how fucking tiring that was! i actually hurt my finger from zipping things up and down! don't get me wrong, it was fun, too! but man--i came home and took a long hot shower and slept for almost two hours. maybe i am just a wimp. hard to say...

we also went out saturday night with eric and kylie--i got to have some lychee martinis at the bamboo club--my favortie thing about that restaurant, and then we stayed up too late playing games with them. sunday, it was on to lucy's 4th birthday party. sadly, i forgot the camera. otherwise, you would be getting a treat, my friends. the hippie played about 700 games of ring around the rosie with lucy and her tiny girlfriends. he's getting famous for that among the younger set. honestly, i love him for being such a good sport about it. he's the bomb!

cat steals yarn

in still other news, i have an important announcement to make: SAMSON IS A VERY BAD CAT. i know this is shocking to those of you who have met samson and thought him to be the very best of all things Cat. however, the evidence is mounting against him. he coughed up a hairball on the corner of my white duvet cover this weekend. he bit his brother AND his sister. he raced around the apartment like a madman, followed by a lot of sleeping instead of doing his chores--lazy bastard. and worst of all--he stole the hippie's bunny leg. observe this photographic proof. note the expensive ball of yarn in the floor, the crooked Ear of Evil on the cat, and most importantly, the expensive rosewood knitting needle with actual knitting barely still on it. where's the other needle, you wonder? it was under the couch, right where needles do NOT belong.

salsa dancing cancelled due to snow in milan

yes, i'm actually serious about that. my poor boss is stuck in italy where it's snowed two and a half feet already and is still snowing. all the airports are closed, and the trains aren't running. so i was at work a bit later than expected tying to find him a way home sometime this weekend. working till after 8pm means not going salsa dancing at 9. i'm damned tired, people. why i am blogging and not sleeping is anyone's guess.

by the way, that image was stolen from caltech--i've been reading a lot about snowflakes lately--they're awesome.

you are not allowed to call me "hon" if you are 10 years younger than me

i'm just sayin'.

apparently i suck at the tango

SO not us doing the tango

last night, the hippie and i started our second dance class. in the first one, we learned the basic steps of six dances: foxtrot, swing, rhumba, cha cha, waltz, and tango. we missed two classes, which means we missed the whole tango. now, we are in the second level class, where we are going to be learning more advanced steps in the same six dances. last night's class was great, lots of review and lots of dancing. and it's nice that this class is almost entirely comprised of our favorite people from the first class. but man--that tango! she went over the basic steps for it, and no one remembered it well AT ALL. and dude--i really suck at it! so bad! it's supposed to be this seductive dance that says--i love you, but i hate you--come back to me so i can thrust you away! but MY tango is more like i am saying--shit! don't drop me! i am hanging on for dear life over here! help! where did all these feet come from!?? surely this will get better!

we are planning to go hit a salsa club with our instructors and some people from our class on friday night. that'll be interesting, especially since we don't know how to salsa yet--thank god for the club's free lesson! i'll let you know how it goes.

things on my mind

thinking about knitting. why do i love it so much? i think it's because it's creative and has a product to show at the end that is actually useful. i think it's because it's one of those things that's easy to do, but not so easy to do well, so it keeps challenging me. plus i like giving gifts, and hand-knitted things make great ones. like all my hobbies, i just wish i had more time to give to it.

thinking about all these babies everyone keeps having. we are up to 5 so far this year. i have mixed feeling on the whole thing. so happy for my friends and the hippie's friends who are starting families. more than a little jealous. happy to have an excuse to make baby things, which i love. what's cuter than baby things???

thinking about my hate of the working out and how much harder it seems to get with each passing day i don't do it. i feel weak, and i hate it. yet, where is my motivation to do it? i think it's buried somewhere in self-consciousness. i wish i could just walk out of my life for 6 months, spend all that time alone with nothing but exercise equipment and fresh vegetables, come back all svelte and healthy. blah.

thinking about blogs. thinking about blogs that win awards and become nationally recognized. what is it that makes people read them? are we all voyeuristic at heart? is it like watching reality TV, only actually real? i know what makes me write, but sometimes i am not sure what makes me read. maybe it's just a need to connect, even if remotely. one thing's for sure--these blog things are addictive. even the person who keeps telling me my blog is boring continues to read--maybe he's hoping for more...

thinking about the next big thing. what am i going to do with myself next? i have books to read to help me figure it out, but i keep procrastinating reading them. what's THAT all about? this job? it's ok and all, but my brain is starting to atrophy. i was drawing little vegetables this weekend, missing my textile design job so much that it was actually hard to breathe for a second. i miss doing work i felt was valuable. i really gotta look into getting back into some of that.

anyway. it's kind of a blah day for no real reason at all. maybe it's because i feel like thse shoes don't go with these pants i'm wearing. *sigh*

my first sweater

eggplant sweater in progress

my little eggplant hat has inspired me to make a matching sweater. i figure, it's a good idea to make a baby-sized sweater before you jump into a me-sized one anyway, and it's something that i put on my list of things to accomplish this year. so on saturday, i went to the yarn store in search of a rolled neck baby sweater that was made top-down, preferrably in one piece, using worsted weight yarn. et voilá--what you see here is what i found. it's from knitting pure & simple, and it's called (very creatively, i might add), baby pullover #214. i am now a sleeve and a half away from having a finished baby sweater to my credit. (guess what i did all weekend?) i think i am going to embroider a little row of vegetables around the bottom of this thing just to push it over the edge into so-cute-i-can't-stand-it territory. and folks--i gotta say--this sweater thing? it's addictive! i mean it--i think i may be hooked on garment manufacturing for a long time. i may even be ready for this--i'll keep you posted!

moral dilemma solved by kenneth cole getting their shit together for once--sort of

ok--so they charged me for two pairs of shoes now. and i have two pairs. one will be going back to th evil corporation, accompanied by a very nasty letter. (sorry sam!!!) what an enormous pain in the ass that i now have to go to the post office to return shoes I NEVER ORDERED IN THE FIRST PLACE! and what an enormous pain in the ass that i will now have to deal with them taking forever to return my money for said shoes. they are taking up valuable yarn bucks with that hold on my cashola. those bitches are really lucky i love their shoes so much, or i may never have ordered any more of them ever again. UGH!

yay! i'm knitting again!

eggplant

i admit it: christmas kind of burned me out on knitting. so much that i haven't even posted pics of the plethora of christmas gifts i made and gave this year. i also took two whole weeks off from knitting, more time than i have taken since i learned how to do it. now, however, i am getting back into the swing of things. i started this little hat on tuesday and finished it last night. and i LOVE IT!!! look how cute it is from the top, too! it's a pattern called kid's fruit cap from ann norling, and it was VERY quick and easy. the yarn is a beautiful worsted weight wool/alpaca/mohair blend called julia (from goddess yarns--my favorite baby hat yarn! given that we know 5 people having babies this year, you can bet i will be making a few more of these! i chose the pattern because a) it's cute, b) i wanted to make something quick to get back into the rhythm of things, c) i am SICK TO DEATH of making scarves, d) i wanted to force myself to use double pointed needles, and e) i wanted to try something with two colors. this cutie filled all these needs. now i am all fired up to get going on about 50 other projects! maybe tonight i will wind the yarn for my clapotis. or maybe i will start a baby sweater to match this little hat. the possibilities are endless! yay for knitting again!!!

ps--the DPNs? they weren't so bad. tell me again why i have been dreading using them so much???

pps--the two color thing? it's easy peasy. however, this is also NOT intarsia--talk to me again when i get around to trying THAT!

moral dilemma

kenneth cole high profile

so last week, i ordered these shoes from kenneth cole. aren't they FABULOUS??! totally frivoulous purchase, shoes i don't remotely need but just WANT. so anyway--i went onto the website and tried to order them, and got a bunch of error messages. so i tried again an hour later, and got a bunch more errors. finally, i just called and ordered them over the phone. i asked the guy i talked to to make sure they had not charged me for the shoes already and to just start over. all seemed well. but then, i looked at my bank account and noticed that they charged me three times. i called back and said--hey assholes--you charged me three times--take two of these off here. so they removed ALL the charges. so i called back and told them, but they still never charged me. today, i got two pairs of shoes in the mail. *sigh* so now what do i do? do i waste 4 hours trying to straighten this out, or do i just send the extra shoes to the sam instead?

aside: maybe i should just keep my mouth shut and hang onto everything as revenge for the Painted Heel Incident i had with them a couple of years ago for which they refused to compensate me. that one left me angry, as i paid almost two hundred smacks for a pair of strappy black sandals, and the paint wore off the heel to reveal the cheap white plastic heel underneath the very first time i wore them. their customer service department refused to do anything at all about it, so i finally just colored them with a sharpie.

stupid kenneth cole.

secret date night => good weekend

symphony - view from the lower balcony

this was the view from our seats at the symphony this past saturday night. i took the hippie out on a secret date, and it was just divine! we went to dinner at the bloomsbury bistro, a place we have been talking about trying for a very, very long time, and it was FABULOUS. a bit pricier than our beloved frazier's, but also the only place we have been to lately that is on par with it. really wonderful food: we shared an excellent started plate with sunflower pumpkin bread, country-style paté, a mission fig and blackberry chutney, and a potted rabbit crostini, and then i had rabbit wrapped in priciutto with braised pears and a wild rice risotto with english peas and sweet potatoes, while the hippie had a stuffed pork loin chop with crawfish and garlic cheese grits. i think he would have been happy with just the crawfish and grits part.

last week, i got an email newsletter from the north carolina symphony, from which i learned that they were having a concert this weekend called big band blast with guest conductor jeff tyzik, and i immediately got tickets. it was just wonderful--all these great old songs from the duke ellington band, the count basie orchestra, doc severinsen, and the like. things you just never hear performed live anymore! the hardest part was not getting up and dancing in the aisles. and bonus--the hippie LOVED IT!!! so i am calling my secret date a resounding sucess.

the only dark spot was a hellacious onset of cramps, mid-symphony, that kept us from going out for a post-performance martini as originally planned. still--it was a wonderful evening out. the hippie and i haven't had a good date night in a while--we were overdue. :)

then sunday, we actually scored a bonus date. harry and jenn traded babysitting with a friend of ours, and then invited us along on THEIR date night. after errand running (yay target!!!) and spending a little quality time in one of our favortie local coffee shops, we went with jenn and harry to see aeon flux at the buck-fifty theater, and then to dinner at porter's--always a favorite. this movie didn't get the greatest reviews, but it's right up our alley--the four of us really enjoyed it!

add in that i was motivated to clean and straighten up the house, and that i completed the grocery store shopping necessary for healthy eating during the week, and i am declaring this weekend one of the best i have had in a long while, cramps notwithstanding.

day one of plan a bust

oops--posted this on the wrong blog--i moved the original post over to southern fried fat where it belongs. my idiocy is just more evidence of what a crappy day yesterday was!!!

small miracles

as i have driven into work this week, i have been listening to the radio in the car, which i don't actually do all that often. the radio mostly sucks, especially in the morning when the goofy DJs who never play music and only talk are on. however, this week i have been turning it on for some reason--don't ask me why... anyway--each morning, i have heard one song that has stood out from the noise--one song that i adore and never tire of and alsmost never hear on the radio--old songs, and great ones. monday, it was dragula, by rob zombie--it's a miracle i didn't get a speeding ticket! tuesday it was sweet jane, the cowboy junkies version, which is really the ony version you really ever need as it RULES! wednesday, it was new year's day, by U2, which is my 100% favorite song by them and has been since way longer ago than i really feel like thinking about right now. and then wednesday in the car, i called the hippie to tell him about my good music fortunes over the week. and i said to him, "if i hear sweet emotion by aerosmith tomorrow on the way into work, i will know something's up." and people--guess what i heard on the way in this morning?! yes--that's right. clearly, i am blessed or something.

reading: The Stupidest Angel

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, Version 2.0, by Christopher Moore

in a word, hilarious. i read this quickly over the holidays, and i even restrained myself from reading the whole thing aloud to the hippie, who now has custody of the book. this is the story of the arch-angel raziel, who is sent to grant a child's christmas wish, but bolluxes the whole thing, as dumb blonde angels are wont to do. throw in a cast of insane (some literally) characters, and really--i could not stop laughing. and not just giggling, i am talking about spitting tea all over the book funny here, people. i love christopher moore's sense of humor, and have greatly enjoyed most of his other books. he is irreverent and amusing as hell while still being somewhat thought-provoking, and anyone who can pull all of THAT off get a good-writer vote from me. this book is set in a fictional california village called pine cove, sharing location and/or characters with many of his other books: lamb (my favorite!), practical demonkeeping, the lust lizard of melancholy cove, and island of the sequined love nun. a couple of these have fallen through the cracks of my book radar, but i will definitely be picking them up. my two cents? thumbs way up!

in other news:

gorgeous pink roses

the hippie gave me these beautiful vivid pink roses for no reason at all on saturday. i love him! :)

today is my friend aimee's birthday--she's spending it at disney world with her hubby and two fabulous little boys. happy birthday, aimee!!!

my african violet is blooming. again!!!

my friend kerstin started a blog. it's called meandering aimlessly go read it RIGHT NOW.

my washing machine drain is clogged, and it's flooding my basement every time i wash clothes, and apparently the plumber they sent is a moron since he could not fix it in 3 hours of jerking off in my basement while i worked upstairs onthe couch. this is annoying the crap out of me.

also annoyed that the landlord was supposed to come look at this on saturday, but has instead, fled the face of the earth. grrrrrrrr.

i am tired of being out of town on weekends. i refuse to go anywhere till the end of january.

less than 6 weeks till the sam, the steve, and the steve's bride-to-be come to visit. YAY!

makin' plans to go to europe. whoo hoo!!!

still knitting, but have been slow since the holidays. a tiny bit burned out.

startin' to get caught up...slowly...surely...

happy new year! (yes, i do know i'm late!)

yeah i know. i took FOREVER to get our new year's pictures downloaded, edited, and uploaded. EVERYONE and THEIR MOTHER is after me about it. so y'all can relax now! flaurella, tell W4D to chill out--miss toes is back on the scene. :)

happy new year from us!

so. we rang in the new year with the pseudo-in-laws at the ramada in in altoona, pennsylvania. not my first choice of venue, but still--it was WAY better than expected, probably because of the fabulous company! well--that and the fact that we brought a lot of our own alcohol. that helped. anway--it was a buffet and a DJ and a cash bar till 2am. the DJ gave us a bit of a scare by being called "starship enterprises," which caused a minor panic over whether or not our new year's party was going to be star trek themed. however, his name had nothing to do with anything, as far as i could tell. he was an 80s and 90s era DJ with no vanilla ice and no funky cold medina. LAME. but man, my hippie's family loves to dance!!! so we cut that dance floor to pieces in spite of the not-so-fabulous tune selection.

babytinis

the other travesty of the evening was that those bitches were serving martinis in PLASTIC CUPS! i'm sorry, but for $174 a couple, some glassware would not only have been greatly appreciated, but was also fucking DESERVED! denise and i were forced to consume our martinis out of the tiny baby martini glasses they gave us as party favors. babytinis will still apparently get the job done if how quickly i passed out at the end of the evening was any indication. i guess it IS kind of like doing shots all night, come to think of it...

this new year's, i also learned about some food traditions. i remember something my grandmother used to vaguely reference about eating pork on new year's, but my family never bothered with this. now i know--if you are from PA, you are supposed to have roasted pork and saurkraut. if you are from The South, apparently it's hoppin' john, collard greens, and cornbread. i am apparently not as good a Sothern womanas i thought--i had to look up what hoppin' john IS! but no worries--next year--i am ON IT!

more blogging to come soon--i promise.
oh, and here's the link to all the new year's pictures.

the word is out

christmas books, a sampling

christmas was good, and it's not over yet. we will be having second christmas in pennsylvania with the hippie's family this coming weekend. yay for more presents! :) i generally like giving presents even more than getting them, but i have to say--this year's haul has been pretty good. aparently, the word about my hobbies has gotten out. i have been officially labeled both a cook and a knitter. i am amazed at the wealth of cookbooks and knitting books i have received so far. this picture shows just a sampling of some of what people have given to me, and i LOVE IT. so many new things to try! oh, and that knife on top? GLORIOUS! i intend to chop the world.

so we spent christmas with friends and family, like most people. christmas eve belongs to jenn and harry and gabriella and various members of their family. i made an italian feast again this year: an antipasti platter with mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, sopresatta, and marinated fresh mozerella, bruchetta with tomato basil sauce, 3-cheese tortellini with fresh alfredo sauce and pruciutto, baked asparags with parmesan and butter, roasted herb-crusted lamb, and homemade eclairs (a la mary). it was pretty damned fine, if i do say so myself.

we got up at the ass-crack of dawn on sunday to drive to my parents' house for the day. and it was actually unusually pleasant to see the family this go 'round. well, except for some loud and annoying comments from my aunt who appeared out of nowhere after we had already eaten and opened presents. she gave my mother a gift, and then proceeded to tell her that it was really the free thing that came with the much nicer gift that she had purchased for my cousin. she loudly informed my nieces that i am always flat broke because i like to "live high." she gave me a ton of grief for not driving 3 hours to go visit her at her house, and then informed me that she and my uncle had dinner last week not 3 miles from our house, but she could not be bothered to call. makes that invite to her home sound mighty sincere. anyway--a bit of a dark spot in an otherwise pleasant day.

the day after christmas, we got to see good friends again--the physics group gets together for dinner every year over the holidays, and it's alays so nice to see everyone. i even got a little extra time to poke around with meredith this year, which is always fabulous. we spent a little money, and then i took her home to her family's house where there happened to be many leftover christmas cookies--always a treat.

this week, i am enjoying a few days off. i just spent a bit of time in the park with emily and shane, followed by a fabulous lunch. it's a glorious day outside--about 60 degrees and sunny. i am filled with dread at the prospect of going to the mall this afternoon, but it's a must as i need to find something to wear to the new year's party we will be attending this weekend in pennsylvania. wish me luck, both with the parking and in finding something wonderful to wear with my fabulous silver shoes!

christmas eve eve eve at the bucks

christmas at the bucks

last night emily and i met at starbucks for tea, knitting, and our gift exchange. i beat her there, so i put my stuff and her presents on the super-comfy velvet chairs (score!) and got in line to order some tea and my first cranberry bliss bar of the season. the fact that i have not already consumed 17 of these is something of a christmas miracle as i fucking LOVE THEM. but i digress... so i have laid claim, and am ordering when this ENORMOUS woman with her ENORMOUS sense of entitlement comes in and MOVES MY STUFF. actually picks up emily's gift and moves it so she can sit her ass down in MY comfy velvet chair. people, this is simply NOT DONE. starbucks ettiquette rule number 106 is as follows: #106 -- DO NOT MOVE OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF OFF THE COMFY VELVET CHAIRS. i will freely admit that i had a few thoughts in her direction that were NOT in the christmas spirit. but i am over it. really.

meanwhile, today is better. i am listening to some charlie brown christmas music (purchased at the bucks last night), and actually getting ready to split as soon as the blogging is done. i will go home and try my hand at making mary's eclairs and wrap about 10M gifts. i may need a cocktail or two to get through it. oh, and the hippie and i are reading christopher moore's book, the stupidest angel: a heartwarming tale of christmas terror, version 2.0 that is so far, an absolute scream. here's the first sentence:

christmas crept into pine cove like a creeping christmas thing, dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe.

don't you wanna just keep reading now?

busy, busy, busy...

panther attacks

the holidays are just busy--it's hard to blog when there's travel and social-ness and sickness to contend with. and knitting--oh god the knitting!!! but lest i digress onto that topic, let me give a little update RIGHT NOW. over the past coule of weeks, i met some new kitties--eric and kylie acquired sibling kittens, panther and treat. i spent eric's birthday playing with their beautiful feisty selves. mostly, panther just wanted to eat the camera.

this past weekend we made a little trip up to maryland to see mary and go to her fabulous christmas party, which is always great fun. it's one of the traditions the hippie and i are propagating together, and definitely one of our favorite parts of christmas. did i take pictures? no--of course not. actually, i had more fun in the party prep than the actual party--i got a nasty headache about half-way through the evening, which made it a bit quieter for me than for most of the guests. still--there was good conversation to be had, which is mostly all i need. i also greatly enjoyed spending time with mary's kitty, nikki, who is apparently quite capable of opening doors in order to hop into bed with any guests who happen to be sleeping in HER bed. she's awfully sweet, though.

on the way home from mary's, we stopped off to see the hippie's friends, greg and heather, and to meet their baby, dylan, who is a tiny carbon of his father--ie, a tank. a cute adorable tank, but a tank none the less. oh yeah, and we went to ikea this weekend--YAY!!! LOVE the ikea. every time i go there, i spend too much money, but also get one tiny step closer to actual organization--it's awesome.

knitting helpers

oh, and did i mention that i have been knitting? i took on more projects for christmas than are humanly possible, which shocks no one who knows me. honestly i am amazed at how many of them i have actually gotten through. i had to back off on the last three things, and i am still going stong on a few more bits and pieces. my own cats are, of course, a huge help. as you can see--they work really hard helping me knit all day, and then they just collapse in a heap--the poor babies are so tired!!! i actually got more knitting done than expected this week, as i ended up sick as a dog and velcroed to the couch all day on tuesday. this is just NOT a good time of year to be sick!!! but worry not--i am getting better by leaps and bounds for once--thank GOD!!! the christmas, it is LOOMING now, and i am running behind. however, i know i am not alone this time of year, so hey--i am not stressing--what gets done will be enoough, and what doesn't--eh--i'll live...

g with rudolph

and last, but so not least, if this picture (or any picture of gabriella, for that matter) doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, then your evil cold heart has no cockles of which to speak, my friend. i swear, gabriella gets cuter every day. i saw her at lunch today, and she was dragging her big stuffed rudolph around by the neck--so funny i had to snap it with my phone. earlier today, she had a little christmas party at school where her father sent me a cute pic of her in her santa hat, too. adorable. anyway--enough babble from me for now--the grocery store is waiting...

pang

when i lived in new york, one of my favorite things was walking home from work in the wintertime, especially during the christmas season. it was just beautiful, up 5th avenue and around the park--all the lights and the people and the decorations, the windows all done up for the holidays, the angels with their trumpets at rockerfeller center, the ice skaters--all of it. it was the only time of year when the tourists didn't annoy me. and it was cold cold cold, and i would bundle up in my black coat and all the winter accessories i bought in italy, and i would walk the fifty-seven blocks home in my fabulously stylish boots and be perfectly comfortable. and since then, every christmas, i have pangs of desire to take that walk again. there is just nowhere in raleigh that feels like that. the only place here with the requisite crush of people and all the decorations is the mall, and i am sorry, but it absolutely pales in comparison.

tonight it's dark early, and i can see a couple of stars out the window from my office, and i am filled with longing for new york and a long walk home out in the cold under the lights of the big city.

festive

christmas flowers


alstromeria

i love to have fresh flowers for christmas. who am i kidding--i just love having fresh flowers, period. anyway--for christmas this year i chose some lovely red and while alstromeria and bright red gerbera daisies for the kitchen and some green ireland bells to put in a tall red vase in the living room. of course, i forgot to photograph everything, but as you can see--the kitchen flowers are fabulous. i recently learned that alstromeria is actually the same thing as a peruvian lily. who knew? i also googled "alstromeria" just out of curiosity, and lo and behold--the fist link was to my beloved flaurella's flickr photos of HER alstromeria. how cool is that???

and speaking of flaurella, she asked in her comments on the last post that i post my recipe for black and mahogany rice. i have to admit, there's not much recipe to it--i just use really good rice from lundberg family farms. they have this great blend of black and mahogany field rice that i buy--it's excellent, cooks up easily, and has a strong nuttly flavor. it's perfectly good just steamed with water, but for company, i make it with chicken broth and throw in a few sprigs of thyme while it's cooking. when it's done, i toss it with crimini mushrooms sauteed in good olive oil and a little white wine. it's YUM. when preparing this rice, be careful not to overcook it--it can get mushy if kept on the heat too long.

the dinner on friday came off well--i even managed to get the flowers arranged and the table linens ironed before everyone arrived. and i think all the guests had a good time. it was good to meet spend some time with the hippie's boss and his wife, and harry and jenn are always a pleasure. our friend eric is always a joy to feed--as a bachelor, he is always blown away by home cooking and eats himself senseless--it's a GREAT compliment and definitely makes me feel like all that work is worth it. gabriella was in rare form and spent all night dancing, singing at the top of her lungs, or acting like a kitty. she also made the hippie show her every picture in the dungeons & dragons monster manual and name all the monsters. she's no sissy--she has always loved her monsters.

in other news, i managed to knit a christmas present and a half this weekend--i am cookin' with gas! :)

that 50s housewife thing rearing its ugly head again

what is it with me? i somehow think i can pull off so many things that are just insane! i ALWAYS think i have more time than i really have, and once in a while it just catches up to me. tonight i will be serving a 4-course dinner to seven people, one of whom i have never met. last night i made chocolate pudding and roasted butternut squash soup and some maple butter, did a load and a half of laundry, straightened the house up some, and failed to wrap a single christmas present. tonight i will roast two chickens, make some fabulous black and mahogony rice with fresh thyme, and sautee some fresh asparagus with crimini mushrooms in a fine olive oil with just some simple salt and pepper. i have a cheese course to serve with our homemade cranberry wine. i am crazy. i have been working my butt off all day so i can get out of here before 4pm, and lo and behold! i am going to make it! now i just have to stop for fresh breah, run home and get the laundry out of the dryer, move the bins of hristmas stuff to the basement, turn on all the christmas lights, dust the bookshelves, and get cookin'! and you know--i will pull this off. i always manage. but sometimes i look at the schedule i have given myself and i am just amazed that my blood pressure doesn't shoot through the roof and kill me this very instant. why do i feel like i have to be a 50s housewife when i have a day job? am i the only one with this problem??? i have till 7:30 to get ready, people--wish me luck!

gettin' our christmas on

wreath the first

the decorating has begun. the hippie and i spent most of last weekend immersed in preparations for the holidays. saturday we cleaned (step one), and then went to the farmer's market to visit the crazy bee people and my favorite flower lady. she makes these beautiful wreaths every year, and i LOVE them! this one has boxwood, dried peppers, bittersweet, magnolia leaves, and cedar. it will dry to a beautiful golden color and last for nearly a year. we bought another one for our garishly painted entryway--the entryway has pink walls and kelly green doors, so putting something red out there is a frightening prospect at best. we got a wreath with boxwood and dried pink and purple lisianthus. of course, i forgot to take a picture, so you guys don't get to see it. oops!

christmas decorating, phase one


samson, basking

after the farmer's market, we drove all over hell and half of georgia to find our christmas tree, and it's GORGEOUS! last year, we got our tree late and ended up with this charlie brown tree, which we both loved. but this year, although being on the ball has cost us more, the tree is so pretty and symmetric--i love it! the problem was that by the time we got it, brought it home, and set it up, we were both exhausted. so we built a fire and watched some movies while knitting. knitting is my life till after the holidays. as you can see, samson enjoyed the fire quite some. i thought he might actually climb in, but he settled for staring at it for about two hours.

christmas tree 2006

sunday was nothing but spending money. I went to about a million stores and gave all my money to those people in exchange for wrapping paper, ribbon, presents, and all that crap i always end up getting at target that i don't really need but can't resist. what is it about target??? now i am ramen-noodle broke till my next payday. *sigh* anyway--after that madness, we ordered some take-out and decorated the tree, which looks pretty good (much better than this bad, washed-out picture shows) in spite of a minor disaster involving an unfortunate interaction between the vacuum cleaner and the plug attached to two-thirds of the lights that are on the tree, but now woefully dark. i thought the hippie might hurl the entire thing into the trash, but he recovered, thank goodness. i am loving the paperwhite lights on this tree. i scored them last january at smith & hawken's after-christmas sale for a tiny ortion of their current price--excellent!

now i need to start wrapping presents. i still have miles to go...

where have i been, you ask? well...

pumpkin pie, in progress

it's been a busy couple of weeks! the week before thanksgiving, i was busy as a bee making things. things like this pumpkin pie. things like this would take me FAR less time if i could resist martha-stewart-ing them up like i do. i have these teeny cookie cutters, and i LOVE using them for pie crusts like this one. i was so into making this that i got the hippie to take some pictures of the process. he, being red-blooded and male and all that, took advantage of my request and took a few extra pictures pointed down my shirt at my cleavage (such as it is). i will NOT be posting those on the internet. anyway, since last i posted, i have gone through quite a few pumpkin and apple pies. still need to get on the perfecting of my pecan pie skilz.

wire things for the porch

i also made a boatload of wire things, packed them up, and shipped them off to my friend jenn for the opening of her new gallery/shop, the porch. she was planning this artists' reception, but there were just too many conflict to pull that off. i think she'll probably do it in the spring, which is OK by me--it's a better time to make a trip down to cape hatteras anyway. here's hoping she sells a boatload of stuff for christmas!

wendy

we went home to my parents' house for thanksgiving, as we do every year. t-day is the major holiday for my family--i could skip christmas with them WAY easier than i could thanksgiving. i made all my requisite dishes, and got in some good hanging out time with my mom and the rest of my crazy family. one of the highlights of the day was getting to hold the two week old puppies that my brother's girlfriend brought over. SO CUTE!!! the puppies were so glossy and black they were hard to get good pictures of, but i tried anyway. and i took a picture of their mama, too. and i LOVE this picture of my youngest niece, wendy. she's almost five, and as smug and obnoxious as she could possibly be. this is the only picture i have ever seen of her that actually captures that, and it makes me laugh every time i see it.

we also caught the new harry potter movie--we went to see it at the IMAX theater, which was cool, but in my opinion, not quite worth the extra 4 bucks. the movie was pretty great, although i still do not understand why they don't just have these movies in two parts or make them extra long to fit in everything that's important to the story. or at the very least, release extended versions on DVD like LOTR did. it's not like anyone is going to complain about TOO MUCH harry potter! all in all though--it's great, and you should see it if you haven't already. they did a fabulous job on the dragons, and i adore the weasley twins! i liked it well enough to go again last night with my friend emily, to a normal theater this time. which would have been cooler were it not a) the ghetto theater, b)more than a little filthy and smelly, and c) FREEZING. em asked me to knit her a nose cozy during the film, but while i did have some yarn on me, i couldn't see to knit a damned thing. that harry potter--he's pretty dark, man.

and i have also watched the entire first season of desperate housewives. i am filled with depression that i have run out, but thank GOD, because it was eating my whole life!

so yeah--throw in all the other stuff like dance class, regular social stuff, and all the boring yet endless domestic details like laundry and cooking, and i have been running around like mad and have had no time to post anything in AGES. all is well though. the holidays are in full swing. i spent my lunch hour(s) today shopping and actually managed to get something i know for a fact my parents will love. i am knitting presents up a storm, and tomorrow we are going to the farmers' market to get our christmas tree, a ritual i adore! my christmas list is so anal and thorough that store clerks' jaws drop open at the sight of it, and i can't wait for all the mayhem that the next month will bring. oh, and the presents, too! hopefully i will find more time to post in the midst of all that mess.

oh, and by the way, this post is dedicated to flaurella who posted a concerned comment today since i hadn't posted in so damned long. it's awfully nice to be missed by the internet. :)