You're kidding me.

Hello all. Am taking a break from my very important projects to write a little bloggity blog. I don't have any Project Runway DVDs to keep me company this time so I have a little Taylor Swift radio playing on Pandora. Yes. Country. I am definitely not ashamed to say that no matter how much indie music I listen to, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Tim McGraw. It's just a fact. Unsubscribe if you will.

So anyway, on to the projects. They're not actually all that important...that's just what I keep telling myself in my head so that I actually finish them. The one I finished tonight is a quilt top that I started when I was pregnant with Z-cakes. Yes, you read correctly. I started the project about two years ago. What? Like you finish every single thing you ever start?

The pattern came from this book and it seemed easy enough when I started it. I took my time picking up fabrics when they were affordable, cutting a little here and there, and planning to sew the whole thing together during the few days of maternity leave I would have before the baby was born.

The quilt top was shelved after I realized that there would be no sitting at a sewing machine without paying for it with severely swollen legs and ankles. At that point in time I was absorbing moisture from the atmosphere...so even an hour at the sewing machine was not in the cards for me. I put the quilt in my "in progress" craft pockets and vowed that I would finish it when the craziness of having a new baby had died down.

Apparently that craziness died down about three days ago. Either that, or my aunt is the new owner of a long arm quilting machine and I promised her I would have a quilt top ready by Thanksgiving for her to practice on. One of those two things made me pull the quilt out again.

I pulled the strips out three days ago, so excited about the fact that all I would have to do was sew a few straight lines and ta-dah! quilt top. I laid the strips out to decide how they should be arranged and realized something terrible....

I hated it.

No, seriously you guys, I don't like the quilt. The colors. The colors are awful! Did pregnancy distort my ability to see color? What was I thinking? And for some reason, the strips were not going together without horrible weird patterns forming or without having two of the same fabric pieces together. I had to unpick things that I had sewn TWO YEARS AGO on a quilt that I CAN BARELY STAND TO LOOK AT.

Ugh.

I was so disgusted that I had to walk away from the quilt and decide what to do next. I couldn't very well just toss the thing out could I? I had spent time and money on that thing and it had been taking up space in my craft room for TWO YEARS. Yes, I had to finish sewing the blanket. I came down to the basement tonight, unpicked a few unruly squares, and sewed the blasted thing together.

And I still don't like it.

N8tr0n thinks that I'll like it more when it has been quilted and bound. I think it's doubtful.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

For reals...

I finally registered.

I finally registered for the Turkey Trot. It's a 5k race on Thanksgiving morning in Twin Falls, Idaho. ((Shivers)). I would feel a lot better about this upcoming race if I had actually gotten out of bed this morning to run as I had planned. However, I have no recollection of my alarm ever going off before 6:30 AM. None whatsoever.

I have to say the thing I am most looking forward to is running this race with my sweet friend Erica. She's the best race partner a girl could ask for. And I know from experience.

This is a picture of us after our first race together in 2006. I haven't run an actual race since, so I'm happy that Erica will be by my side again for this one. Feel free to wish us luck. Though I'm sure I'll be needing it more than she does.

See you soon Erica!

That reminds me of a story...

N8tr0n and I ate this for dinner a couple of nights ago and it was fantastic. And that is coming from someone who only marginally likes tofu.* I love Brussels sprouts though, and I always have fun filling my grocery bag with the perfect sprouts for a dish (it's weird I know). Sometimes I forget why I actually need the Brussels sprouts because I'm so caught up in picking out the nice ones, and I end up with way more than I actually needed in my bag. That very thing happened to me the other day and it reminded me of a story:

The first year we lived in Colorado we decided to host Thanksgiving at our house with my in-laws. All of them. As in, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother/sister-in law, and brother-in-law. I knew we would need a lot of food and I was prepared. I waited to buy most of the produce until the day before everybody came so that it would be fresh. I walked over to the beautiful pile of green beans and filled my bag. Then I moved on to the sweet potatoes. However, a quick glance over my shoulder revealed a man filling his grocery sack with twice as many green beans as I had! Maybe even three times? I wondered how many people he could possibly be having over for Thanksgiving dinner at his house. Did I need more green beans? Surely I had underestimated. I lost all confidence in my people to food proportioning abilities. Once the man was gone, I zoomed back over to the green beans and filled my bag until it was heaping.

We had way too many green beans.

I think it was so funny that it never once occurred to me that the dude may have had absolutely no idea what he was doing. I assumed he had carefully planned (as I thought I had), and had figured out that he actually needed five pounds of beans. But for all I knew, he could have just been a husband who had been sent to the grocery store at the last minute to get "some" green beans. He may have been playing it safe and was buying enough produce to feed a crowd of twenty a main course meal of green bean casserole. He could have been like my dad that time he went to the grocery store to buy lettuce.

Which reminds me of a story...

My dad is the kind of guy who likes to have cash in his wallet. Something those of us in the debit card era rarely have the satisfaction of experiencing. One day he was sent to the grocery store to get some lettuce but he was running low on funds. He checked his wallet and hoped that the $5.00 he had would be enough. When he got to the grocery store he was shocked...."What! You mean to tell me that some poor [sap]** out in North Carolina is slaving away growing lettuce and he's not even going to get a doller per head?" I love that about my dad. Always thinking about the source. What else would you expect from a cattle grower/farmer? It is just a good thing he wasn't in charge of the grocery shopping...who knows what the man would have paid for a gallon of milk!

Which reminds me of a story....

No, actually it doesn't. That's all the stories I have for today. I'm saving the rest for later. Now I'm off to work on some very important projects that I have to finish before we leave for Idaho. If you need me, I'll be at my sewing machine. Which is next to the table covered with scrapbook materials, and behind the basket of laundry, and next to the bucket of sensory beans, and under the giant stack of fabric. I'll be there. And if you never hear from me again...avenge my death.

* N8tr0n really likes tofu and I'm not opposed to eating it...but I'm running out ideas and recipes. Any of you have good tofu recipes/methods for use? I would really REALLY appreciate it if you sent them my way.

**edited

plans postponed

I had a big list of Things I Was Going To Do Today in addition to my daily household chores. But then I noticed that Z-cakes seemed a little sleepy, a little sad, and a little cranky...not at all her usual self. I've decided to abandon my plans (at least for now) in favor of making sure my baby cakes is comfy.

She also seems to have more pen on her face than usual. Hmmnn....

weekending & knitting

It'a done! My ruffly scarf is off the sticks, pressed, blocked, and wrapped around my now toasty warm neck.

I love it.

I love it as much as I knew I would. It is the perfect length for wearing around all day. For those of you who were wondering, the yarn is Malabrigo Sock. It is smooth, soft, and basically fabulous. If you've never worked with fingering weight yarn before I think this would be a great yarn to start with...although it is certainly not the cheapest.

I spent a good portion of my weekend on Ravelry trying to decide what to knit next. I get a bit anxious if the time between knitting projects spans too long when I have the urge to knit. It's like when I'm about to finish a book and I get antsy about what I'm going to read next...like the limitless number of options stops me in my tracks. Of course my knitting options are not limitless as I need to make something with yarn I already have in my stash. I'm thinking about some fingerless gloves for friends, but what I really want to knit is the "Just enough ruffles scarf" that is on Ravelry. Michelle has a picture of it here (it's the third one down in pink). To be honest, the name is what hooked me in the first place. "Just enough" of anything sounds about perfect don't you think?

Anyway, to keep my fingers busy I knit up another Meathead hat for a friend in Idaho. For some strange reason I had trouble with the tension so, even though I finished it in one night, I was unhappy with the finished product and frogged the entire thing. The sticks and yarn are now sitting in the corner thinking about what they've done for a while. In the meantime, I've got some baby booties "on the sticks" for a friend whose baby cakes will arrive in February. Brrr...those toesies will need some soft wool.

I'm thinking about putting together a post about knitting resources that I enjoy. Any interest?

We spent the rest of our weekend "hunkering down" as I like to say. We had a nice snow storm on Saturday night and church was cancelled on Sunday. I made a delicious pie from the other dessert cookbook that I've been dying to tell you about (it will happen soon I promise) and we had dinner with friends on both Saturday and Sunday night. The perfect weekend, no?

Happy Monday everyone.

The post about lemons

N8tr0n's mother's side of the family owns a citrus/avocado nursery in Fallbrook, CA. I know. So cool right? Every time I buy lemons at the grocery store I have daydreams about all the relatives in CA just wandering out to the backyard to grab a couple of ripe lemons off of the tree. Whether or not lemons are in season at that time does not enter into my daydream. Nor does the amount of manual labor and hard work that it takes to actually run a nursery. It's a daydream.

Alas, I do not have a lemon tree here in Colorado. Even if I did I can guarantee you that I would kill the thing dead (RIP four or five jade plants my MIL has gifted to me). As I pick around the piles at Sunflower, I try not to think too much about how much better my lemons would be if they had come directly from Gramma Jo.

I know...poor me. However, the fact that my lemons aren't shipped directly from Fallbrook doesn't make me love them any less. I adore a good lemon. (I would eat them straight more often if I could keep myself from visualizing the enamel on my teeth disintegrating.) So many foods are improved with just a squirt of lemon. Lemons can also make it smell like you've just cleaned your entire house. So when I'm wandering around Costco sans baby (!) and I walk past the gigantic bag of bright yellow citrus, I can rarely resist buying a bag. I end up picking up some every couple of months and juicing them is only the beginning. Here are a few of the things I suggest for utilizing a bag of lemons:

:: After the lemons are juiced, I freeze all of it in 2 tablespoon portions. I noticed that amount is what most of my recipes call for, and they are easy to break in half if I need an odd number of tablespoons.

:: I zest four or five of the lemons. Half of that I freeze as is so that I can use it in recipes for later. The other half I mix with sugar to preserve for desserts.

:: I microwave some of the peels in a bowl full of water for 3-5 minutes. It helps loosen up any microwave grime and deodorizes too.

:: I boil some of the peels...pour the water down the sink and run the garbage disposal for a few seconds to clean and deodorize.

:: I dip half of a lemon in course salt and give my wooden cutting board a good scrub. I usually treat them with food grade oil after that.

:: I bake something lemon-y (of course!) . Something like the Lemon Lemon Loaf from a new favorite cookbook that I've been dying to tell you all about. It was all I could do to actually put the loaves into the oven as I was busy eating the batter.

:: (This one isn't about the lemons) The microplane pictured above is one of my all time favorite kitchen tools. Seriously, it is fan-freakin'-tastic. It is a must-have in the kitchen if you want to use a lot of lemon zest, like to use fresh Parmesan cheese, grate nutmeg, whatever. Get one.

I would love to hear more lemon tips. Please do send them my way.

Oh and, happy weekend everyone.

I just can't wait

I usually try to keep my holiday celebrating within its respective month. Therefore, no sparklers until July, no Halloween candy until October, and no Christmas music until AT LEAST after Thanksgiving. I usually don't think about decorating my house for holidays until the appropriate month either but....the blogs. The blogs you guys! They are MAKING ME think about Christmas decorating way before I'm ready!

I'm really loving wreaths right now. Am thinking about covering the walls of my tiny house with them.

Clockwise from top left:

Tinsel Wreath via Red Velvet Art

Paper Wreath via the red thread

Book Page Wreath via Living with Lindsay

Gumdrop Wreath via Posie Gets Cozy

DIY Grosgrain Ribbon Wreath via iDiY

Felted Sweater Wreath via Wise Craft

The thing I love most about all of these wreaths is that I can make them with things that I already own. Yessssss! I knew that kitschy tinsel would come in handy someday.

I certainly won't be hanging any of these up until December; however, some of them may or may not be in the works in my basement at this very moment.