Random Snapshots

One sock down + Outfit remix

I finished the first Spring Forward sock yesterday and made a little progress on the second.  The yarn is a little darker than it shows in this picture.

I was able to make it to knit night last night.  It was really good to get out and catch up with everyone.  I even got a little knitting done.  :) 

I worked on my Rusted Root - started the shaping under the bust.  I'm hoping to finish up the shaping tonight and snap a photo. 

Speaking of going to knit night...I remixed my work outfit into a casual night outfit last night.  I've been making an effort to mix up my outfits lately using the current pieces in my closet.  I'm such a creature of habit.  I tend to wear the same outfits over and over instead of having fun and trying to create new ones.  That's definitely something that I'm working on changing.

Here's my easy day to night remix:

Day: Sweater - Forever 21, Tank - Old Navy, Black Pants - NY&Co, Peep Toe Wedges - MaxStudio, Earrings - Bitten

Night: Sweater - Forever 21, Tank - Old Navy, Jeans - Ann Taylor Loft, Peep Toes - Bandolino, Earrings - Bitten

Those blue peep toes are quickly becoming my favorite pair of shoes.  They have the perfect little kitten heel and are very comfortable. 

And lastly, since this is turning out to be a random post I'll share my happy lunch from yesterday.

Yesterday morning I was running late (what else is new) so my cutie husband made my lunch.  I was craving a PB&J and he even let me use his Wonder Bread sandwich holder.  This lunch just made me happy when I opened it up.  :)   

Special Sweet Swap

It's Special Swap time again!

The theme for this swap was *sweets* - packages filled with sweets, goodies, candy-colored yarn, etc.  I'm almost finished packing my partner's package and it's been really fun to shop for.

Awesome-swapper Kathy sent my package a couple weeks ago and it was so fun to dig into!

2 skeins of gorgeous sock yarn.  Blue Moon STR (this colorway was actually on my wishlist!) & some Regia - I love the tiny stripes this yarn makes.  Love them both!!!

Some yummy, gummy (my favorite!) candy!  I actually wolfed down some of it before I took these pics - haha!  And how awesome are those vintage clip-on earrings?  I cannot wait to wear them.  I adore vintage jewelry.

This candy cracks me up!  A gummy candy lunch bag - so cute.

And these gum drop stitch markers are delicious, aren't they?!  Such a cute idea - love them.

Thank you for an amazing Sweet swap package Kathy - I love it all!       

Family size?

This past Friday night Adam and I wanted to get calzones from Papa Murphy's for dinner.  We've had pizza there before, but never calzones.  They had a regular size and a family size.  We figured the regular size was for one person and the family size would feed two or maybe three - it was only $1 more than the regular.  So we decided to split the calzone and have some salad as well.

Well...they weren't kidding when they said "family size" and they certainly weren't talking about a family of two:

Have you ever seen such an enormous calzone?  I mean, honestly!?  I couldn't help, but share it here.  I've had many a calzone before and nothing has been more than a 1/4 of this monster.

They take a family size pizza and fold it in half.  It must have weighed 10lbs.  We were cracking up when we left with this thing.

We had this for dinner (and had to skip the salad) and for lunch the next day and still threw half of it out.  This could have fed a battalion of Marines for crying out loud!

Next time we'll definitely be splitting the regular size.  :)   

Christmas recap: Part II

Part II: Christmas Day (this is going to be a long one!)

We had a great Christmas Day.  Adam and I are still like little kids on Christmas.  Not sleeping the night before, getting up early and ripping into our gifts.  Adam says he didn't sleep on Christmas Eve - I usually don't either, but all the wine I drank put me to bed.  I didn't wake up that early either - again, the wine.  :)

Anyways, we finally got up and opened our gifts.  Had some cinnamon rolls and listened to Christmas music.  It was a really nice morning and really just the beginning of a great day.

I was really surprised by all of my gifts.  My two big gifts were a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet and a little Nikon s200 point & shoot camera.

I've been having fun with my Wacom already.  For those who don't know - it's a digital tablet that connects to your computer...useful in photo editing and all types of digital creation.  I really have no idea what I'm doing yet, but I'm learning.  I checked out several books from the library to help me out. 

I had no clue I was getting this.  I had mentioned before that I thought it would be fun to have one, but never thought Adam would really get it for me.  I was so surprised - I have a video to prove it that I may share in another post.  He didn't know, but I have been really wanting to learn more about Photoshop and now I have another excuse to do just that.

I was totally surprised with this gift too.  I've been wanting a small point & shoot to carry around in my purse forever.  Of course I have my dSLR, but don't always want to lug it around.  This thing is tiny and takes really great pictures.  Also, it's red with a red case - my favorite!  I think I'm most excited about the video feature on this thing though.  I took several videos on Christmas which really make me laugh when I watch them.  Maybe I'll share those in another post.  :)

I really surprised Adam this year too.  It's so hard to find something that he doesn't know is coming.  The past 3 years he's been really shocked which makes happy.

I got him a new air compressor for his airbrush, a nice model that he's been wanting and some other misc stuff like the Perfect Pushup and some stocking stuffers.

Allison & Rob came over around 2pm and hung out with us the rest of the day.  We ate lots of good food, played with our new toys, relaxed (recovery from the Eve) and watched a movie.  It was really great to just hang out all day with friends. 

Here are some pictures from the day:

The gifts under our tree on Christmas morning:

Some appetizers:

Adam took these when I was getting our food ready:

Stuffed hot peppers.  These are Adam's and my favorite.  We couldn't find the usual Hungarian Hots that we make them with so we tried Ancho Chilis and they turned out equally as good.  The recipe is here. 

Our little Christmas table.  Along with the peppers we had some nice caprese salad and Baked Penne w/ Roasted Vegetables a la Giada De Laurentiis.  The pasta was so good.  It was my first time making it and I will definitely make it again.

Family photo :)

Good times indeed!

Christmas recap: Part I

How was your Christmas?  Good?  I hope so...I know mine was.  :)

I haven't had a lot of time to post over the last several days so I thought I'd do a couple of Christmas recap posts.  I have lots of photos to share...of people, food and gifts. 

Part I: Christmas Eve

This year we spent Christmas Eve and Day with our friends, the Giffs.  It was a really nice change since the last 2 years we've spent both days alone here in WA.  We've always made the best of spending the holiday alone, but of course it's always better with family & friends.  Allison & Rob are also not from here, but decided to stick around for Christmas this year.  I'm glad they did - we all had a really great time.

Christmas Eve was mostly about drinking, eating, drinking and laughing.  No change for me - that's how my family spends Christmas Eve too.  :) 

Rob got really dressed up for the occassion, which was nice:

There was wine:

And good food:

And more wine:

Lots of presents:

(too much wine)

And overall...a really great time!

Thanks to the Giffs for hosting such a nice Christmas Eve!

Stay tuned for Part II.  :)

Cookie exchange

I hosted a little cookie exchange on Tuesday...I mentioned it earlier this week.  We did 1/2 dozen instead of 1 dozen since most of us didn't have a need for 11 dozen cookies.  :)

It went really well.  I had enough food, there were piles of cookies and of course many of us working on our knitting projects since everyone was from my knit group.  The cookies filled my little table - we even had to set some on the floor.

An exchanger sent me this photo - I don't have any of my own because my camera wasn't cooperating.

Look at all those cookies!  I've certainly had my fill this week and will be send the rest of mine with Adam on Monday to work.  I ended up with extras which is never good!

I had a relaxing, but productive day today.  It's been the first Saturday in months without obligations and I really needed it badly.  I got up early to knit and catch up on my DVR'd shows this morning while Adam slept in.  After a little bit of that I ran around doing the last of my Christmas shopping...that feels great!  When I came home I was able to pack all the boxes that are going home for Christmas and my special swapper's box.  We took them to UPS this afternoon and they are on their way.  :)  I also just addressed all my Christmas cards to mail on Monday.

I finished my Duet's Christmas socks a little bit ago and will share them this week.  I also have to photograph my Christmas decor and share...I love this time of year!

Cupcake fun

I made some cupcakes for Allison's birthday this past weekend.  They were really fun to make and I think I had more fun photographing them than eating them.  Seriously! 

I know cupcake decorating is really hip right now and I can see why.  You can spend hours trolling blogs for cute cupcake photos.   

I decided to make vanilla cake with peppermint cream cheese frosting.  I put a little peppermint candy on top too.  They turned out so good.

When I was at the store buying the ingredients I came across a $3 cookie/icing press.  I figured that it wouldn't work very well, but for $3 I wanted to try it anyways since I didn't previously have one.  Well...it worked pretty good!  I'm not sure how it would be as a cookie press, but I don't make cookies that often anyways.  It worked well enough with the icing and I was able to put big, pretty icing on - good enough for me!

Here is the photo overload...

There's a peek of one of my favorite Christmas decorations - my snowman teapot & cup.

Are you hungry yet?!  :)

Adding color

Aren't these bowls great?

My Mom bought these for me when she was here last month.  They're so bright and fun!  Made out of melamine with rubber rings on the bottom to keep them from moving around.  I've never had any large mixing bowls and I don't have a lot of serving bowls either so these are playing double duty.  They match my kitchen too and I love leaving them on the counter to add color.  I've been using that huge blue one to hold the mountain of fruit that's always in our house.  :)

Cooking day

Today was cooking day.  I went to the grocery store early this morning to get food for the football game and decided to make a morning out of cooking.  I figured it would be great to get some things cooked up for the week.  It will be great not to have to worry about dinner since I have so many other things going on.  If I could only be this organized all week.  :)

For the football game I made a garlic and rosemary pork loin on the grill with roasted root vegetables.  It was our turn for football Sunday.  Lucky Allison got to go to the game and Rob came over to watch it with us.  He and Adam raved about the dinner and I thought it turned out really good as well.  It was my first time making a pork loin and grilling it was super easy.  Roasted root vegetables are my specialty and were really good with the pork. 

While that was cooking I made my normal pot of sauce for the week, black bean soup, onion soup and hardboiled some eggs for the sauce and egg salad.  Everything turned out really well and it will certainly minimize my stress this week.  :)

We had a great visit with my Mom.  She was here last week, hence the reason that I've been blog-less for a little while.  It was really great to spend time with her since we only see each other about once a year these days.  I think we had a great mix of sight-seeing and relaxing at home.  Of course I wish the visit could have been longer, but I'm thankful for what we had!

Here's a little run-down of our week:

• Friday - spend the better part of the afternoon at Pike's Place Market.  We walked around and stopped at almost every booth.  I even found booths that I haven't seen before.  It's hard to stop everywhere when Adam's behind you pushing you out.  :)  Bought some good stuff and went out to dinner after Adam came home from work.

• Saturday - went down to the Seattle Center area.  We went to the Pacific Science Center which was really great.  Adam and I hadn't been there yet so it was fun to see it.  They had a great dinosaur exhibit going on.  We attempted to go up in the Space Needle, but the line was a couple of miles long as usual so we just walked around for a bit and then headed home for some pizza.

• Sunday - went to Allison & Robs for pumpkin carving, good food and football Sunday.  Had a great time carving, eating and watching (aside from the horrible showing by the 'hawks).

• Monday - woke up deathly ill!  I was so bummed.  Congestion from the weather hit me like a bus so most of the morning was spent hanging around here.  I felt a bit better in the afternoon so Mom and I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age.  It was really good and I was glad to see it with her.  We met Adam at home who also didn't feel well.  A pot of Mom's chicken soup did the trick!  :)
• Tuesday - Adam worked 1/2 day and then we headed over to the Space Needle again to give it another shot.  I'm so glad we went because it wasn't nearly as busy.  This means that we didn't have to wait and we got plenty of time to walk around and really look at everything.  Again, I found things that I'd never seen before because it was so packed last time we went.  Ended up being a great trip.  After that we went over to Pyramid Ale House for beer and food - it's a favorite of ours.

• Wednesday morning - Mom left  :(  Good news is that I'll see her again back home in less than a month.

I'm working on getting my photo albums together right now.  I'll post those when I'm finished.  :)

 

Farmer's Market Love

Yesterday (Saturday) morning we got up and went to the Farmer's Market in the next town over.  I've been wanting to go for a few weeks now, but we usually reserve our weekend mornings for sleeping in late unless we have something planned.  Really late...like teenager late.  (Yes, Denise, I know that the early bird gets the worm!)

Anyways, we got up and decided to head over there.  It was smaller than I thought it would be with just a few booths, but we did score some a couple of good things.  We bought these organic cherries that have to be the biggest cherries I've ever seen.  Of course they cost an arm and a leg because they were organic (I still don't understand that, but whatever!).  The good news is that they're the best cherries we've ever tasted and we'll be going back next week for more.  I cannot stop eating them!  We also bought some delicious nectarines, but the cherries are getting the love in this post.

The other thing we bought was a beautiful bunch of flowers.  You can go to any market in and around Seattle and find the most beautiful flowers you've ever seen.  I buy a bunch every time we're at a market (which isn't very often) and I always take a photo.  These ones really match our newly painted rooms and furniture.

After walking around we headed to the next block over which has a great outdoor mall/square type of place.  They have fountains, cobblestone walks and a big outdoor fireplace.  We tried a new restaurant for lunch that was amazing and then I hit Ann Taylor for some amazing deals.  It was definitely a great Saturday!

Today after grocery shopping we came home to a house without power.  I still don't have any idea why it went out on this beautiful, sunny day.  Since I am an online student I started to freak a bit because I usually reserve Sundays for homework.  I decided that if it didn't come on by 4pm then I would head over to Starbucks and write my paper there.  Thankfully it came on around 3:30pm and I was able to get my work finished.  We're pretty tech-addicted here and always dread the power outages.

During the outage I decided to start reading a new book that a friend let me borrow.  Once I started, I could not put it down.  In a couple hours flat I made it half way through the book and I'll probably read until I fall asleep tonight.  It is so good that I feel confident in recommending it just half way through.

It is a memoir of the author's life and it's hard to put down.  The part that I've read so far is about her childhood and it's almost unbelievable.  It makes me cringe to read about the things this woman endured.  I am very anxious to finish and hope that the next couple of days bring me some reading time.

That's all I've got for tonight.  I'm off to go watch Entourage and Flight of the Conchords (funniest show ever made) with the boy.  Enjoy your week!