lovely

good news bad news

Visuals window at school

BAD

I clearly cannot discipline myself to write a blog post daily or even take a photo daily.

GOOD

I still bake my own bread every week.

I have only had maybe 3 diet sodas in the new year.

I am still working out, and I made no health related resolutions!  HA!

As a distraction technique, I have posted the photo above.  This is the current display window I made with my visuals students.  Pretty nifty, huh?  There are many other notable events of the last two weeks.  Maybe I will download my camera and post a few of them.

Or not?

scratch

Today I make chickpeas from scratch.  Dried beans will, hopefully, become happy usable little fellows for hummus, salad toppers, and to throw into dinner soups and sautees.

Other things I have made from scratch in the last few months...

1. bread! challah, no knead wheat, soda, cardamon, and several quick breads.
2. pizza dough.
3. scones.
4. gnocchi.
5. sweet potato oven fries.
6. divinty fudge.
7. rice milk.
8. greek yogurt.
9. pasta sauce.
10. whole roaster chicken and gravy.  this last one is only impressive because i made it for someone else (I don't eat animals) for Thanksgiving.  I learned this Turkey day that many people I know just go out and buy their holiday turkey or ham.  Too weird to me!

Of course I still make my own jams. yum.

i want one

 I lieu of a photo, we have some video I did not take...

Watch the full episode. See more Antiques Roadshow.

tkpk at night

excessive gravity

i tried to lose three things today:

1. these mittens, one of my favourite handknit pair. yes!  both of them!

2.one of the new earrings rW gave me for christmas...  the same earring lept out of my ear the day he gave it to me!

3. five dollars.  cash is squirrelly.

still knitting

lest this become a place about everything that takes time away from my former savior hobby...

i am still knitting.  i still start projects when i don't need to (sweater at right made of wool and stainless steel) and i can't resist a good new knitting book for the holidays.

i have knit less since i took the full time teaching job about 7 months ago.  i miss the knitting, but i am also not as stressed out about time and money so the activity is less necessary to keep me from being a basket-case.

knitters joke, but it is true!  it is cheaper than therapy.

easter is late this year

April 24th.
yep, that is the day these eggs are supposed to be consumed.  that is 15 weeks from now.  I will have completed an entire quarter teaching (which does not even start until next Monday, mind you), gone on break, and come back to a new quarter before this candy is meant to be eaten.

and yet they are in my local CVS right this second having an identity crisis.

what you can't see in this picture is that I am standing in front of a rack of valentine's day candy and behind the shelf of eggs and peeps there is a display of christmas stuff CVS is still trying to clearance out.

people long to be young.  not me.  if i were a kid today i would be baffled.

nom nom nom

I don't do specific New year's resolutions.  I just try to decide what I want to do more of, less of, and something new I may want to try and leave it at that.  Less disappointment that way if I don't manage.

I love to cook, and I decided it is time to expand my repertoire so I can really put processed foods in their place--off my plate.  In that spirit, I tried three new recipies today.

Pictured we have, six-seed soda bread, which is my first soda bread.  (I started baking breads in the fall.)

I also made smashed peas with ricotta, which is much better than it sounds and not very smashed at all.  Also, I picked up some French lentils at the co-op and made a delicious peasant dish, basic french lentils.  They are accurately named becaus the preparation is basic, but they taste very very good!

first knit

twins = knitting x 2

DC was supposed to have all of this snow on the 26th of December that never came.  All i got to show for it was some extra time in Ohio and these little hats.

(Only complaining a little, really.)

It appears to be the fate of the wee hats to live a fly-by-the-seat life.  I snapped this picture on a metro bicycle rack before shoving them into n envelope bound for Cleveland.

Best thing I saw today that I could not get a picture of?

An ad posted offering "Guitar Hero Lessons".  Slips were missing from the phone number tear sheet.

zombie flamingo sighting

my neighborhood is awesome

I took a walk up to town in our spring-like weather conditions today and came across these fellows.  I wish I had been the clever soul who thought this up.

new year's nap

What else should one do January 1st?