Dainty Kitty

A Crochet Catch Up

I didn't mean to just disappear before the holidays but that last week was insanely busy.  And this week I've wavered between being busy and just plain lazy.  But I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

I was super lucky and got and iPod (named Anton Mesmer because Mesmer is one of my very favorite Rickman movies) Classic for Christmas (I am so behind - seriously, I'm still on dial up).  Of course it had to have cozy made for it as soon as I got home.

Wishes

Happy Holidays, my friends!

Think Green. Ending Junk Mail

I've been slowly chipping away at one item on my 101 in 1001 list -

36. Cancel all catalogs – especially those that arrive for past tenants

I didn't realize just how many catalogs show up in my mailbox until I started really paying attention.  I bought my dad a subscription to a guitar magazine last Christmas and you wouldn't believe the guitar and audio junk mail I receive - the fact that these people can sell our addresses when we've paid them money for goods is really disgusting.  So as I receive them I've been hopping on websites to cancel subscriptions and so far it's been fairly easy.  I am, with a little sadness, canceling the one I get from Godiva as soon as I finish this post.  Although, really, how fun is it to look at chocolate? 

Oddly enough, Martha Stewart's January issue of Living contains an article about ridding yourself of just the junk mail I'm talking about - and then some.   I've been wondering how to get rid of those Valpack coupons that come in the blue envelope as I've never used a single coupon.  Thanks to Martha I learned that they can be canceled by filling out this form.   You can also stop credit card offers and cancel specific catalogs you receive which I wish I could use but a lot of the catalogs that end up in my mailbox are addressed to past tenants so I'll have to continue to cancel them one at a time.   Wait, wait, wait - I just went to that site to cancel the Godiva catalog and found out something Martha failed to mention.  There's a hefty fee ($15.95) to cancel at least that particular mailing!  I'll just cancel through their website thank you very much. 

And I guess you could say I'm being environmentally friendly because I keep every issue of Living...only after I no longer exist might they end up in a landfill although I'm pretty sure my children will be environmentally savvy and they'll be recycled.  :-)   

Now I'm going to make up a dish of vanilla ice cream with Candy Cane Joe-Joe's crumbles (they're already sold out!  I only got one extra box!) and watch Before Sunset (I watched Before Sunrise this morning).

Wherever you are, I hope you're safe and warm - it's messy and soon to be icy here in Dayton, Ohio....      

Christmas Meltdown

<rant>

I had a little Christmas meltdown last night.  There's just too much to do - especially since we're going to Norfolk, Virginia to visit my brother for the holidays this year.  When my dad called last night to let me know that dinner with his mom and her husband is Friday at six - just an hour after the children's holiday party starts at my office - I just lost it.  I cried.  And I was in such a great mood before that phone call.  I'd gotten my hair done and I was well on my way to getting a little housework done.

Between finding time for two Christmases, making stuff and shoping for Christmas, two office Christmas parties and deadlines here at the office...it's too much in two weeks.  Why in the world my company decided to have an incredibly important deadline on the last business day before a holiday is beyond me.  And my office also decided to have out grown up party the night before said deadline, the Thursday before the holiday.  I think office Christmas parties should to take place in late November - right after the Thanksgiving holiday - or early December.  I heard on the news today that one company decided to skip the annual party and gave everyone the day off instead.  Brilliant!  Sure, it's fun to get drunk with your coworkers but, when time is tight, I'd much rather have the day off to get things done and polish off the evening with my own adult beverage, thank you very much. 

I did manage to get a lot done after said meltdown. 

Last night was actually spent sewing which is something I haven't done in a long time.  I cut out the pieces for the Zakka Owl Style Pennant (which I'd bought material for yesterday, thank goodness, because now it has to be finished by tomorrow night), sewed up the little owls and stitched letters on their bellies (and managed to get fusible webbing all over my iron because the directions were terribly unclear and I've never used it before).  I should be able to finish it up any machine sewing tonight after dinner (if I'm not drunk, which sounds so good right now) so that I can do the buttons and beaks while watching NBC Christmas goodness tomorrow night. 

Have I mentioned that I've had a tick in my left eyelid for about two weeks?  Well, I have.  I feel like it's never going to go away.  Someone said it was due to lack of calcium.  I thought ticks like that were due to stress.  That makes more sense anyway. 

</end rant>

Chullo In a Day

Yesterday I decided I would NOT be done in by the Chullo.  I spent the entire day watching a bad movie (Enduring Love - Daniel Craig may be hot but this movie?  Not so much) and several episodes of Medium Season One and Knitting with a capital K. 

Shortly after ten-thirty last night, I finished the braids, steamed it just a tad and took a photo.

I was going to wait to post about it until I could get a better photo of it. Eventually there will be a Chullo Part Two with all of the messy details that haven't been bitched about in past posts but for now - I defeated the bastard.  So there. 

There Really is a Point to All of This

When I cook, my meals usually consist of one dish.  There's a very simple reason for this.  Two reasons, actually.  One, I feel like cooking a full meal for myself is just silly and two, I have a lot of trouble making sure everything comes out at least remotely close to the same time.  This was reiterated in my mind when I made Sicilian spaghetti last night.

I turned on the oven, started the pasta water and washed some dishes.  Then I diced up the garlic (I never use enough - next time I'm just going to cut up the whole head) and didn't start the oil until I was finished because the water wasn't even close to boiling.  I even took a little break at this point and sat on the couch to watch a little tv.  I was trying, really.   

Back to the kitchen to heat up a generous amount of olive oil in a large skillet.  I rinsed the shrimp for several minutes to thaw them out.  Then I roasted the garlic a little too much.  I need to use even more olive oil next time.  Jake taught me how to make this and his garlic always turned out perfect - I'm still learning.  I put the garlic and oil in a little bowl and heated a bit more oil in which to cook the shrimp.  The water was nearly boiling so I threw in the fusilli pasta and then spent some time with the shrimp.  When they were pretty and pink, I tossed them in a dish with the garlic and oil and then checked the label on the garlic bread.  Thirty minutes?  No, no, no - I've made this bread before - it didn't taken that long!  Argh.  I sat down to drink to watch a little more tv.

A few minutes later, I checked the garlic bread label one more time and found that I was reading the directions for soft bread.  Crunchy bread only takes eight to ten minutes and higher heat.  I very obviously have problems with written directions.  I turned the heat up, rinsed the pasta and poured it in with the shrimp along with a bit of reserved pasta water which I managed to slosh on the floor.  Then I looked at the spaghetti and realized something vital was missing.  I didn't remember this dish looking so plain....

Now, I've wanted to make this dish since Thanksgiving but there's been an asparagus drought in Dayton, Ohio.  I usually buy it from Trader Joe's but when I found that they were out I checked a couple of other places...empty shelves.  Friday night I finally found it at Joe's again, thank goodness.

I forgot about the asparagus. 

I threw some more water on the stove to heat, put the garlic bread in even though the oven wasn't ready and chopped up the asparagus.

All in all, it was pretty close.  The spaghetti was ready about ten minutes before the bread which wasn't my worst but still...it's a skill I might never master.  Along with reading directions.  That's a very recent development, though. 

It Was Twenty-Seven Years Ago Today

John Lennon
October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980

Hospitality & The Hat

I was playing around with Picnick, making a new Ravelry avatar, earlier today.  I had to hurry off to lunch so I didn't get to make it quite as snowy as I would've liked - I'll have to resnowflake it later. 

I  was feeling good/happy enough to get out and about last night. Thankfully, my fairly newly found Ravelry friend, dharma (okay, so can I use your real name now, too?) opened her home to me for a few much needed out and about hours.  Good company and affectionate animals - just what the doctor ordered to sweep out the last of that grumpiness.

There's just something so comforting about sitting in someone's kitchen, chatting while they cook.  First she made scones - which we sampled with homemade strawberry jelly egads they were good - and, after a bit of knitting to go with our constant chatter, she made potato leek soup.  The smell!  Heavenly.  It was still clinging to my clothes when I got home.   

My parents did a lot of socializing at home or in the homes of others when I was growing up so it's something that I've always loved.  Getting together can be so simple yet so much fun.  And much needed!

Here's where the evening took a turn for the worse.  I was nearly finished with the chullo by the time I got home.  I knitted a few more rows and, after trying it on and checking it out in the hall mirror, I took another look at the pattern.  The pattern I had read wrong.  Bad wrong.  The pattern reads, "Continue knitting in stockinette stitch, until the hat measures 6 inches.  (Measure from the 32 stitches, the front of the hat, between the ear flaps to the needles).  Knit any pattern within the 6 inches."  At some point I really did read the whole pattern in one sitting...but, while knitting, I concentrate on each step as it comes along.  My brain read it as basically, "Knit in stockinette for six inches then knit pattern for six inches" which didn't seem right at the time but who am I to question a pattern?  I am a total dope.  So I took the whole thing apart.  It's gone.  This time around it'll go much faster, I think.  I mean, I've screwed up the parts that are screw up-able - I should be fine now.  This also means I only needed one skein of the camel.   Ah well, Lion Brand has several absolutely adorable holiday amigurumi patterns on their site - that camel color will make a nice reindeer, I think. 

I thought I was finished with this entry but I went to set the categories and discovered that I wasn't.  I had to add a new category: friends.  It's hard to believe that I have no circle of friends to speak of - I've just lost so many friends over the past two years.  Me - the social butterfly.  I think my goal for the beginning of the year is to reach out to some of those lost friends.  Maybe.  I'm leery of it for several legitimate reasons.  When is loosing touch something that just happens due to the business of everyday life and when is it a genuine break up?   Could there be a couple of people who were relieved to loose touch, even after all these years?  I don't know.  And I'm not the same person I was even just a year ago.  Right now I'm thankful for coworkers who must see something different in me because suddenly double dates are brought up when they never were before and for Ravelry and knitting groups that I need to get out to more often. 

Okay, now it's finished.  I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Better Today

After lounging until seven, falling asleep until nine and trying to go back to sleep until nine-thirty...I got up and cleaned the apartment.  I'm sure Betty, my downstairs neighbor, loved that I started laundry in my clunking washer at ten p.m. but you'll have that.  I try not to do laungry after eight but it just had to be done.  I needed black knee socks and clean nylons. 

And waking up to a pot of coffee and a clean kitchen certainly did wonders for my mood.  Now if I could only drag myself out of bed early enough to enjoy a cup of coffee while seated, rather than rushing from room to room, I'd probably be in a good mood nearly every day.     

First Snow Funk

Our first snowfall of the year.  Two to three inches - just enough to make the trip to work a white knuckle experience.  I slid into the curb at one point but was smart enough to avoid the giant hill.  It's beautiful but people seem to forget how to drive at the first sign of snow. 

I am in a terrible funk, though, and have been for several days.  I'm tired (and went to bed last night at nine if you can believe that) and incredibly cranky.  Usually my kind of cranky is like Brady Bunch Cranky - barely visable - but I've gotten a couple of remarks so I know that it's out there waving its arms and jumping up and down.  "I'm a bitch!  I'm a bitch!" 

I haven't done any housework and I do little other than sitting on the couch with my knitting and a cat while watching a movie. 

It's a little bit of PMS, a little bit of the sun withdrawal.  I've got to go home tonight and force myself to attack the giant pile of laundry and other things - no couch for me.