almost done

The teen's Christmas sweater, that is. The knitting is FINALLY complete, and aside from one glaring mistake that I think I can acceptably fix with some minor weaving, I'm very happy with it. Now, I just have to sew in the sleeves (I'll have to Google how to do it b/c I have a copy of the pattern without the making up instructions) and get the ribbon for the trim. She saw it laying out and loves it. I'll be posting a finished picture soon!

Of course, I didn't do nearly what I wanted to do this weekend. As usual, when teen is grounded, I feel some sort of responsibility for keeping her semi-occupied while she's out of the social scene. So we watched Auntie Mame Friday night (well, I watched and she fell asleep - but then she finished it Sat and loooved it), then I took her running errands Saturday, we all had dinner and hung out Saturday night, and I pinned Bella's doll outfit pattern this morning so she could cut it out. I was exhausted both nights and fell asleep early, and most of my leisure time was taken up with working on the sweater. Now I'm ready to just veg a little - think Brad and I are going to watch a movie. Looking forward to teen being out of town later this week - hoping that next weekend, my days will really be mine.

if i put it here in writing,

maybe I'll do it, right? Right? Okay, I guess my track record isn't that great, but here's what I want to get started/done this weekend:

• food shopping
• fabric store for felt, fleece
• start on Bella's doll outfit
• start on felt ornaments
• work on more rings from Gram's earrings
• write
• Italian
• Sunday dinner - make pasta?

Nothing like being really over ambitious. I'm thinking I'll be around a bunch of the weekend, though, since Lauren's grounded and Brad will be at the mobile conference.

my eyes! my eyes!

I spent a little bit of time tonight trying on spring clothes in preparation for our upcoming trip to the Keys. Can I just say... ick. Late winter bod. Sucks getting older. I eat and drink about the same as I always have, and I still exercise a bunch, but I just can't keep weight off like I could when I was younger. I know I'll lose more this summer when I switch to walking outside, train for the marathon, and get on my bike regularly! But that doesn't help for the trip that's 10 days away. This isn't going to be a bikini year, I'll tell you that much. I'm still looking forward to it, though. I'm more than ready for a week of sun and warmth and NO SNOW.

Friday-Saturday

 We're kind of had our normal Friday night on Saturday night this weekend - drinks and dinner at home, most of the evening spent on our laptops, surfing favorite sites while listening to music.

I made what's become a favorite dinner - a rice dish with chorizo, spinach, and chickpeas. We saw a similar recipe once, but we changed things around to make it our own, and Brad's been thinking about it on and off ever since. The teen is a fan of neither chorizo nor chickpeas, so I haven't made it since the first time, but tonight, we knew she wouldn't bet eating dinner with us, so I figured it was time.

Most of the flavor from this dish comes from the chorizo, so make sure you're using one you really like. We frequent two local butchers/markets that make their own, and they're each fantastic in their own way. It's a pretty quick dinner, too - the veggie/chorizo saute is made while the rice is cooking, so you're looking at less than 30 minutes.

Rice with Chorizo, Spinach, and Chickpeas

1 cup jasmine rice
vegetable oil
1 small yellow onion
1 large garlic clove, finely minced
1/2 lb. fresh chorizo (I got mine from Clancey's), removed from casing and crumbled
8 oz fresh spinach, chopped
1 14-16 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Cook jasmine rice according to directions. While rice is cooking, pour about a tablespoon of oil into a large skillet or 3 qt. saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onion, and chorizo, and cook, stirring often to break up chorizo pieces, until the onions are soft and the chorizo is browned, about 8 minutes. Lower the heat a bit, and add the spinach, stirring occasionally until the spinach is wilted. Add the chickpeas and stir. Cook until the chickpeas are warmed through. Add salt to taste (how much salt you need will depend on how salty your chorizo is).

Stir in cooked rice, mix well, and check for seasoning. Serve immediately.

another fantastic dinner

at the Corner Table. We went last Friday night and loved one of the dishes so much that we had to go back last night to get it again. Of course, as luck would have it, when we arrived and Scott asked what brought us back so soon, we found out that they'd just sold out of the dish we wanted - a deep fried egg over duck confit and microgreens. At first we thought he was teasing us, but sadly, he wasn't.

Not that it mattered that much. We were there with our friend Jay and sat at the bar, where we chatted with staff and pored over the menu, trying to make our decisions. I talked my semi-adventurous husband into trying beef tongue tacos with beans - he liked them, but I loved them. I've always been slightly afraid of beef tongue, but these tiny two-bite tacos were delicious. I had potato/mushroom pierogies that were tasty, and Jay had rabbit sausage that was, frankly, amazing. It was served with braised cabbage that really gave the dish a zing. I liked his starter the best. Scott was doing a tasting dinner at the chef's table in the kitchen, and he sent us out a sample of one of their courses: roasted glazed ribs. A crispy, savory surprise. Then another surprise shortly before our entrees arrived: deep fried eggs! In another iteration, but fantastic nonetheless: crazy, soft-boiled, lightly breaded, and deep fried egg over braised beef with hollandaise and a red wine reduction. We still managed to eat our entrees. Mine was a homemade pasta tossed with smoked trout and capers in a lemon butter sauce. Salty, smoky, bright - I don't think I left anything in the bowl. And a shared pot de creme to finish off the experience.

We could barely walk out of there, and now Brad and I have food hangover in a big way today. I can only imagine what Jay feels like. He's a mostly vegetarian who ate rabbit sausage, ribs, deep fried egg over beef, then a beef burger topped with short ribs - holy meatfest, Batman!!

Thank you, Scott and company, for another memorable meal and for the surprise extras. We really appreciated it!!

book in a day....

That's what happened today. Room, by Emma Donoghue. It was on a ton of best of 2010 lists, and I have to say, the praise was well-deserved. The plot was creative, disturbing, arresting. I opened it when I sat down on the bus to work this morning, and I just finished it about 20 minutes ago. It dominated my day, and it was completly worth it.

one of those nights

Feeling completely non-productive. I'm at the point with the sweater where I have to start sewing, and I'm not in the mood. At all. I want a night of vegging out in front of the tv, but there's nothing on (nothing new), and desperate as I feel, I'm not desperate enough to watch Real Housewives. Maybe it's time to break out the video games and make a big cosmo...

heaven

We've been teenless since noon yesterday. She's at the DECA competition, staying in downtown Minneapolis at the Hyatt. I think that things are going pretty well, if you can base it on her texts.

I'm loving the quiet. We have semi-quiet evenings when she's around, but the kid's a talker, and she's not that great at entertaining herself, so there are many nights when reading a book or writing anything or working on a project are next to impossible with all of the interruptions. I adore her, but I look forward to being an empty nester.

Especially now that Brad's going to be working downtown! Woo hoo! We're already planning after work happy hours and nights where we stay downtown for dinner and carpooling and scootering and... hopefully, he won't always be onsite at clients' offices.

All of the pieces of her sweater are finally done. Maybe tomorrow I'll start piecing it together. Not really looking forward to sewing it up - it's such fine yarn, I'm afraid that you'll see too many stitches and mistakes. I'll just have to go slowly....

proud

Tomorrow, my husband is going to get a job offer for what is currently his dream job. He put himself out there, networked, and talked his way into this company. They had no plans to hire him - he just made them see that they need him. It's so not his way to step out of his comfort zone and sell himself that way, but it paid off. I'm terribly proud of him.

productive evening... no, really...

I'm finding out this week how much I depend on having that time at lunch to workout. The training class has been eating into my walking time, and I get and stay busy enough once I get home that I can't count on workout time.

That said, I didn't spend my night aimlessly bouncing from task to task or website to tv. I spent a big chunk of time relearning/teaching pre-calculus to the teen (tag teaming with Brad), and then after dinner, I did some reading and some knitting. Did I miss the workout? Yes, but there are only a couple more days of this training class. Am I happy about what got accomplished tonight? Yes! (for a change)

whole lot of stitching going on

I'm almost finished with the little Golden Girls cross stitch project that I'm doing for Shelley's birthday. Looks like I'll be done almost a week ahead of time - that's unheard of for me! The pattern doesn't call for outlining the finished pattern, but I'm doing that. Otherwise, a couple of the ladies get lost, their colors are so pastel.

I've got the house to myself tomorrow night. Brad will be in Duluth on an overnight ski trip, and teen is spending the night at Grandma's. Hooray! All nighter of video games and dozing in the big chair....

soooo not in the mood

I want to be, but I'm not. I had such a terrible week at work last week, and I'm afraid it's going to spill into this week and poison it, too. It took me the entire holiday weekend to get over it (and let me say, I think it was the brunch at Cafe Twenty Eight that finally made me smile again), and I'm trying very, very hard today, but I feel like I'm slipping a little. I think I'll finish this (small! and only!) glass of wine, head upstairs with a book, and wait in bed for my husband to come home from darts. With any luck, I'll still be awake when he gets home...

spring, and a girl's thoughts turn to....

.... vegetables. All it took was two days of February thaw, and suddenly, I've got CSAs on my mind. I left off last season with a promise of a half share from Loon, but I'm a greedy, greedy girl, and I told them that really what I wanted was a full share. They never replied, and I saw today that Driftless is taking orders, so I emailed Loon to find out if there's a full or half reserved for me. If it's just a half, then I have to decide if I want to also do a Driftless half and just hope that the two farms wind up doing their half shares on alternate weeks or if I want to say thanks but no thanks to Loon and go with Driftless this year.

sapping the life out of me

Yep, that's what my job's doing these days. I've been bored there for months and months and months, but this last week or so is just putting me over the top. It's been seriously painful. I can't even describe how tedious. But how old is this getting? How often will you have to read that I hate my job? How many more days/weeks/months/years will I simply settle? How many bottles of wine will I have to consume to try to forget?

girls' night

Brad had a user-group meeting tonight, so teen and I were on our own for dinner. After MUCH debate, I remembered the Chatterbox Pub, and seeing how teen was in the mood for chicken tenders (CHICKEN TENDERS. STILL. AT SIXTEEN. I have failed as a parent...), it seemed like the perfect spot. And it was fun. We actually pulled out a card game to play, which I'm sure surprised the hell out of her, since I seldom want to play games. They weren't at all busy, so we weren't there for long, but we had a nice time. And now she's found another place where she and her friends should be able to hang out.

sunday night already?

Another weekend where I didn't get done nearly as much as I wanted to. I can't complain about the amount of knitting I got done, though. I finished up two more pieces of the sweater - I just have one sleeve left, and then I'll be ready to make it up. Today I remembered that I want to do a cross stitch project for Shelley's birthday, and now htat's just around the corner - March 6th. I have time to do it, but I really want to finish the sweater first. We'll see.

Today was a beautiful day, with full-on February thaw, but I couldn't get Brad to even go for a walk.  He and Lauren went to run some errands (for Valentine's Day tomorrow, I believe), and he came home in kind of a crappy mood. He should've stuck to our agreement - cards at the most, out to dinner later. But it's sweet that he wanted to do something else. The first few years that we were together, we did terribly romantic things for Valentine's Day. And I loved it. But honestly, it's a lot of pressure to keep trying to top yourself, and I don't need him to do that. He shows me every day that he loves me - I don't need any surprise on Valentine's Day to tell me.

three down, two to go.

Pieces of the teen's sweater, that is.

gah.

That just about sums up how I'm feeling tonight. I have days where I can almost hear myself aging, and I just want to turn back the clock and start over. There's so much I still want to do, and I'm just wasting away my days at another job I don't love, coming home too mentally depleted to do anything except surf the web and half-heartedly watch tv. I guess that I should consider it a small win that I've been doing this almost every day since the start of the new year, but I haven't made it public, I haven't quite figured out my voice yet, I haven't even decided the direction I want to take it.

What do I want to do this weekend? Food shopping, eating out, knitting, Italian, reading, writing, adding to the blog, perhaps some time with jewelry... we'll see what I actually get to.

notorious

Teen wound up staying home from school today. By the time I got home from work, she was heavily wallowing in the misery of a terrible, terrible cold. Sometimes she's the world's biggest drama queen, and I had to talk her down a little. She doesn't get sick very often, and it's like the end of the world when she does. Worse. Than. A. Man. She told us at 6:30 she was going up to bed, but Brad wouldn't let her. He was afraid that she'd wake up again at 9 and not be able to fall asleep again. To keep her up, I put on another one of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" movies - Notorious. Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman. A classic. I think it's in my top 10 all-time favorite movies. I was about teen's age when I started getting into old movies, and it seemed like she really liked this one.

I actually finished another piece of the sweater and got a smidge done on the third. I should be able to finish that tomorrow night, and then I just have to knit the short sleeves and assemble it (including knitting the neckband). Don't think I'll be able to finish it this weekend, but I'm getting there. She may still be able to wear it while it's cold! Then I can move onto the next project, which will either be Bella's Christmas sweater for next year or one of the purses that Jess showed me.

valentines

We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day, but I do love doing a little something for the kids. And the teen likes (with a little prodding) doing something for her grandparents. So tonight, we busted out the craft materials and made cards. Teen's were all lovely, with lots of glitter and loving sentiments. I did the ones for the kids and had fun with it. I'll mail them - I can still remember how much fun it is when you're little to actually get something in the mail, and an envelope with some candy and a big heart valentine should be a big hit.

I'm tempted to one for the teen, too. We'll see how she reacts to the ones for the kids - I made them after she went to bed. She went up early again tonight - she's definitely fighting some kind of cold. She was better for a couple of days, but today, her sore throat is back, and she was coughing before bed. Hopefully, another good night's sleep will help.

quiet evening

Brad is out at darts, and I spent the evening watching "Gaslight" (Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman - I loooove her) and working on Lauren's sweater. I got a lot done, but I had to put it down when the pattern started requiring too much counting. Too sleepy and engrossed in movie to keep count. So instead, I finished the vanilla bean/bourbon/candied pecan ice cream. And it was fabulous. I'm absolutely making it again when my dad comes to visit next. He's going to love it.

babe

Do I ever love me some Children's Theatre. Last night, I took Bella to see Babe. It was fantastic. Dean Holt was the lead, and I've been loving him since we started taking Lauren, probably ten years ago. His face is so expressive, and he's a master of physical comedy - the kids always laugh uproariously at his antics. Bella loved this one, probably because she vaguely knew the story. She's definitely fascinated with the sets and how they do things. Last night, she was wondering about how they make the same set look like day/night, so I tried to explain lighting to her a little. She also loved that there was audience participation in this play - the first thing she said when it was over was, "I liked how we got to do stuff, too."

Not much crafting going on these last few days. Some knitting here and there, but not very much. Tonight, after we got home from dinner/bowling with Jack/Jena, I paged through the knitting book I have from the library. It's due back on Monday, and I wanted to see what, if anything, I wanted to glean from it before I return it. There's a chapter on cables that interests me, so I might try to take notes on that. I'd like to make the purse that Jess was showing me, and it's got cables, which I haven't tried yet. The purse seems like a fairly easy project and a good way to jump into cables.

Coming up in this next week, though, my creative goal is to start taking more photos and begin uploading them to the blog...

teenaged girls suck

Teen is going through a bit of drama at school. She made a social mistake, and she's paying for it. There's a major Mean Girl mentality these days, more I think than when I was in school. I'm not blind - I'm fairly certain that the teen is sometimes a mean girl herself, and now she's on the receiving end. I'd love to be able to step in and somehow make things better for her, but I can't. And she's already fairly fragile - I hate seeing her ostracized like this. I know it will blow over, and probably pretty quickly, but it's still painful to watch her struggle through it. What I'd really like to do is bitch slap one of the girls and have a serious, honest talk with two others, but again, I can't. It's going to be a rough weekend here, I think.

might be time to shit or get off the pot

Today at work, my boss told me that our upcoming web services project is going to need 24/7 support for the client and that I'm on the support team. Granted, when I looked at the list, my name isn't at the top, and I could only be called for one scenario (unlike a couple of my coworkers who are at the top of the lists for each of the scenarios), but it just gives me a bad feeling. And sure, it's unlikely that anyone would answer, "Why, yes, I'd LOVE to do that!" but it would've been nice to have been asked. When I signed on for this job there was no hint that I'd be working outside of normal hours, let alone dealing with the possibility of getting a support call every Sunday at 3:30 am.

So, I'm thinking that there's a fairly good chance that I'm not long for this job. And I'm not excited at the prospect of going after another IT job that's unfulfilling. I'm getting too old for this shit. It might finally be time to figure out what I want to do with my life and GO FOR IT. What the fuck am I waiting for at this point? That needs to become my short-term goal. I want it to be something creative, but can I make money at that? Gah - it's so exasperating! I have to at least try, though, so that's what I'm going to do over the next couple of months. Wish me luck...

back to where i was

I made up all of the rows I had to pull out last night, and in fact, I might be a little bit ahead. Tomorrow night, I should be able to start shaping the armhole - with any luck, I'm thinking tonight that I might actually be able to finish by Valentine's Day. Of course, making any sweater up always winds up taking much, much more time than I think it will. But I'm feeling much more optimistic about it tonight than I was last night at this time.

Had some of the birthday ice creams for dessert tonight and had to go back for a second scoop of the vanilla/bourbon/candied pecan. Holy crap, is that stuff good. I'll definitely have to make it for my dad the next time that they come to visit. He'll love it.

frustrating

I spent some time on the teen's Christmas (hopefully Valentine's?) sweater today, got a good solid inch in and realized that I'd dropped a stitch. Back about where I'd begun. So I had to rip it all out, because with yarn this fine, there's no way to weave a dropped stitch back in - way too obvious. I'm so ready to just put this sweater away, but I know she'll love it, if I ever finish it. We'll see. Probably won't be Valentine's Day at this rate. I'd just like her to still be able to wear it this winter.

Have a doctored-up frozen pizza in the oven. Cheese with added garlic, red bell pepper, chorizo, and chicken. It smells delicious. Can't wait for dinner!

sooo sleeeeepy

Brad's 40th birthday was last night, and the party was a rousing success. Should've been - we worked our asses off getting ready for it. But... no one ate much of anything (aside from the ice cream), and too many people brought beer. There's a small chance we ended up with more than what we started with. That's. So. Wrong.

As I mentioned, the ice creams were extremely popular. I made three: the vanilla/bourbon/candied pecan, the chocolate with cayenne and cinnamon, and the nutella. The nutella was fantastic - you couldn't taste the hazelnut at all, but instead, it tasted like a really, really awesome malt cup. I'm surprised we have any of that left. The vanilla/bourbon/candied pecan was as fabulous as I remembered from last weekend. Brad's comment was that it was just tipped to the correct side of too much/right amount of bourbon. And the candied pecans were a killer addition. Of course, the chocolate/cayenne/cinnamon was great - but previous batches and Sebastian Joe's already told me that would be true.

People stayed until after one, and I cleaned up afterwards, so we were up until 3. I'm pretty wiped out today, but it was completely worth it. I'm sipping the last of the leftover margaritas, and there's a pot of white bean/ham soup simmering on the stove. It's a good Sunday night.

40th, part 1

Today was Brad's 40th birthday. I don't know why, but having both of us in our 40's suddenly makes me (and him!) feel much older. We both realized that last night, and let me tell you, it was a mood killer.

Despite that, I think he had a pretty decent day. We're looking forward to the party Saturday. Looks like we might see over 30 people in our little house...

caramel martini? uh... no thank you.

Salted. Caramel. Martini. Three lovely, lovely words.  Together? Not so much. We tried a couple of different recipes, but this drink won't be at the party Saturday night. And although I love me some Bailey's, the caramel Bailey's doesn't get high marks for deliciousness. It's a very artificial caramel flavor. So I think that we'll stick with the tried-and-true chocolate martini for the party. I think some of our friends would be sad if we didn't.

um... what happened?

I think a weekend on my feet in the kitchen, cooking up a storm, totally did me in. I was so wiped out by early evening yesterday, and I had to keep going until almost nine. After that, all I could manage was a little web surfing and a viewing of "Starman." Which made me laugh almost uncontrollably a couple of times. I love Jeff Bridges, but that movie did not age well. The special effects had to be a little bit laughable even in 1984. But it was fun to watch having recently seen Karen Allen interviewed about Bridges' performance.

Tonight, I helped the teen rewrite an English paper. So. Freaking. Painful. I definitely earned tonight's glass of wine.

productive day of party prep

Spent the first part of the day running around collecting ingredients for party food/cocktails, and I've spent the latter part of the day creating tasty concoctions out of said ingredients. The margarita recipe we found is a winner, for sure, and Brad pronounced the Sazerac as "really good." Me, I took a sip and almost gagged. Not a whiskey girl. At. All. Although I found the vanilla bourbon pecan ice cream I made earlier this afternoon unexpectedly delicious. I also made two different puff pastry apps, and sometime after we make dinner, we'll take a stab at salted caramel martinis. It's been a pretty fun day.

One of the places I went on my errand trip was Heartland Market over in St. Paul. I've eaten at the new Heartland since Lenny moved it, but the market had closed by the time we finished dinner, so today was my first visit. Lord help me, it won't be my last. There were so many, many tasty treats to choose from. I barely even looked at everything in their meat/cheese case. And if I didn't have lunch waiting for me at home, you can bet I would've ordered one of their sandwiches. The banh mi sounded awesome, and I'm a sucker for a banh mi. I debated over the homemade catsup and chutneys and mustard, and I walked around the vegetable tables twice (SO nice to see everything was locally produced!), but in the end, I didn't buy that much - wild boar chorizo (went into one of the apps), duck fat, butter, garlic, a tiny slice of luxuriously silky chicken liver pate, and a chocolate chip cookie for the teen. I wish I lived a little closer - it's definitely a haul to get over there, but I badly, badly want it to succeed, so I'll be making that trip again and again. And highly recommending it to everyone I know. So go.

this weekend

I've been doing a lot of knitting in the last few days, which is great because I still owe the teen her Christmas sweater. But this weekend, I'm hoping to switch gears and get back to jewelry. Or writing. Or cooking. It's going to be damned cold her in Minnesota, at least Saturday, and if I don't have to leave the house, I'm not leaving the house. We also have a few good movies to watch, and I want to do some baking/cooking for the big 40th birthday party next weekend. Oh, and I probably need to shop a smidge for the birthday. So now it already feels like the weekend is going to be far too short, and it hasn't even started. Sigh...

is it bedtime already?

I've never been good at going to bed. When I was little, I fought it every night. As a tween, I'd take a flashlight to bed and read under the covers long after everyone else was asleep. I learned as a teen that my dad fell asleep watching the news pretty much every night, and if I sat quietly, reading or watching TV, I could stay up another couple of hours while he snoozed in his easy chair. Once I was on my own, with no one to push me off to bed, I had many, many late nights. It doesn't matter if I'm asleep or half-asleep on the couch or in a chair - it isn't giving up until I actually go to bed.

I'm still like that. No matter now tired I am, how ready I am to go to sleep, I fight having to actually climb the stairs and get into bed. It's become kind of a joke between me and my husband. He feels fairly strongly about us going up to bed together, and honestly, I do like that, too. Sharing quiet conversation in the dark, drifting off to sleep together - it's a very intimate thing and a small piece of our day that, corny as it sounds, really adds to our marriage.

So now I'm back to where I was when I was young - it's a huge treat to stay up extra late, and I feel a little better when my husband travels for work or a guys' weekend, knowing that I'll be able to watch crappy TV and play video games and read and eat popcorn and snooze on the couch into the wee hours of the morning...

out with the girls...

I had a long put-off evening out with a couple of friends tonight. We all have busy schedules, and we've been looking for a date that worked for all three of us for almost three months. They wanted to meet at 5:30, which is an ungodly early dinner hour for me, and I was sure that we'd all be home by 7, but I was wrong. They left almost grudgingly at 9:30. It was a lot of fun and much needed by all of us. I'm hoping we'll do it again soon.

revisiting those resolutions

I feel like I still have many of my list of 2011 resolutions in my sights. I haven't given up on anything yet, and I feel good about embracing more of my leisure time and taking life a little more slowly. I think I've been most successful in that, in continuing my knitting, in adding to this blog almost daily, and in watching less TV.

I've been knitting a little every day, but this project is so time-consuming and frustrating that I often put it down shortly after I pick it up. I think I need to be working on something else concurrently. Otherwise, I find that I put down the sweater, pick up my laptop, and noodle around for an hour, just wasting time. I'll find another knitting project to start on or get my cross-stitching going, so that I can go back and forth between the two.

I'm doing a lot more reading, now that the TV is off more. That's fantastic, but I'm ruining myself for nights like this. I already mentioned it before, but once you start watching less TV, when you do watch it you realize how many, many commercial breaks there are, and how much really bad programming there is out there. Tonight, being a Monday, I really just wanted to veg out and watch some mindless TV for an hour or two. I could only find two or three programs I even felt like watching, and it turned out that I'd seen all of them before. Plus, it felt like I was bombarded by ads every 5 minutes. So, off it went again. I did another 6 rows on the painful sweater, paged through a knitting book and a cookbook I picked up from the library today, and now I'm sipping wine and noodling again. And it feels pretty good.

more wine, please

I'm tired, I'm not enjoying watching this football game, and I'm feeling very unmotivated, now that dinner's been cooked and eaten. I'd very much like to just swill wine, nibble on some chocolate, and watch a movie. What I should be doing is guzzling caffeine and knitting. Nine-fifteen is far too early to be giving up on a Saturday night.

free weekend

My parents were planning on coming up this weekend, but there's enough of a threat of snow that my dad doesn't want to drive. So now... I have a free weekend. What to do, what to do....

I think I'll work on some more of the rings, watch playoff football, knit, read, cook, and spend as much time as I can with my husband. That's my idea of a happy winter weekend.

rings from grandma's jewelry

The ring bases that I ordered arrived today. Before I could even to bother putting groceries away, I was upstairs at my desk, pulling apart Grandma's earrings and necklaces, and gluing them to the rings. I worked to the point where I'll need wire cutters and files and made myself stop there. I already have two completed rings, and I can tell I'm going to have a hard time giving any up to my aunts and cousins. So many of the pieces remind me of Grandma, I'm going to want them all. But then I think about what a happy surprise they'll be - maybe Valentines for all the ladies?

jeff bridges, american masters

Awesome, awesome show. I'm always inspired by highly creative people, and damn if he isn't highly creative. I think I must get my hands on his photography book.

step away from the book.

I could do it again if I'm not careful - read a book in a day. I love the book I started on the bus this morning. It's a contemporary Finnish novel - When I Forgot, by Elina Hirvonen. Whoever translated it did a fantastic job. It flows beautifully, and there isn't a word out of place. I love it, and I'm devouring it so quickly, I'll be onto another one by Thursday. For the time being, I'm putting it down. I have a date with the knitting needles tonight. Ready to get back to the sweater.

not doing any knitting tonight. nope.

I had every intention of knitting through the football game, but the project I'm working on is for my teen, and she's bugging the crap out of me tonight with her teen drama queen act. I've been good at taking the high road overall and not taking the bait and getting into it with her, but I guess I just don't feel like doing anything nice for her, either. So. There.

Instead, I'm going to read a whole book in one sitting - Armistead Maupin's Mary Ann in Autumn. Oh, yeah, it's fluff, but having read all the Tales of the City books, it's like spending the evening with friends. And I'm drinking wine, too. Plenty of it.

allowing myself to do nothing

I was reading today about the Italian expression 'bel far niente,' which means 'the beauty of doing nothing' and is a cherished Italian ideal. It made me think about Americans and what an American thing it is to work so many hours and week and so many weeks a year and how even in our downtime, we feel we must be accomplishing something.

I am as or more guilty of this than the next person. I'm not very good at sitting and doing nothing. At all. In fact, my husband and daughter make fun of me for it. Honestly, I don't know why I embrace that way of life. Although I do get a certain satisfaction after a productive day when I've been able to check a lot of things off of my ever-changing, never-shrinking list of to-dos, constantly being in that mind set certainly doesn't make me happy.

Before I even encountered 'bel far niente,' I'd been starting to think that I'd like to get off my self-propelled treadmill. Thinking that I should be using some of my days to do things that are just for the sake of pleasure, not to get something done or check something off that imaginary list. I feel like I've done a fairly good job of that this weekend. Yeah, I worked on laundry and did a bunch of make-ahead breakfasts to take to work this week, but I also read and took myself out for a cup of coffee and kept the tv off and read some more. As a result, I've had a pretty relaxing, happy weekend. It would be great if this were the start of something permanent. And there's no reason it can't be.

planning

Today I ordered supplies to make rings, bought floss to do cross stitch, and have been researching buying wool felt for the Christmas ornaments/stockings/wreaths. Getting things ready so I have more things to work on during the week.

I also made a trip to Dogwood Coffee in Calhoun Square. I've heard great things, but I hated the coffee I had.  My own fault, though. I've never met an Ethiopian coffee I liked, but I tried again. Yech. Next time, I'll ask if they have an Indonesian.

haute dish

Since I'm finally feeling like myself again, we decided to celebrate by going out to dinner. We haven't been to Haute Dish yet, and it was at the top of a number of Twin Cities' Best Restaurant lists this year, so we decided to try it. Boy, are we glad we did.

Seriously, we were happy from the moment we got out of our car to the moment we got back into it. They have valet service (which is terrific in a low-parking, high traffic area of downtown in the winter), but when we arrived, there were several cars waiting, so we had to pull over just ahead of the valet sign. Within moments, someone got to the car and apologized for not getting to us sooner. We were escorted into the restaurant, which was warm and inviting, all honey-toned woods and brick, and a smiling host at the welcome stand. Although we arrived a little early for our reservation, we were immediately led to what looked like was the last empty table in the comfortably narrow, very long restaurant.

Our server was friendly and knowledgable about the menu and bar offerings. They listed about 7 beers on tap and had about as many seasonals that the server described for us. I happily ordered a Sierra Nevada Celebration (a favorite, and I love when I can get it on tap!), while Brad opted for a Sazarac (rye whiskey, lemon, and absinthe).

The menu has been described as updated classics, and that's what we both wound up ordering. I had the General Tso's Sweetbreads with fois fried rice. I've never had sweetbreads and have been tentative about trying them, and this was the perfect way to test the waters. They're poached and deep fried and tossed in a classic Chinese-American sauce. The piece of fois gras that sat upon the fried rice was a silky medallion that melted in your mouth. I couldn't have been happier, down to the housemade fortune cookie.  Brad had the Tater Tot Hautedish, which was a deconstructed hot dish plate of braised short ribs (so tender they fell apart at just the touch of his fork), crispy young beans, a porcini mushroom sauce, and what can best be described as mashed potato croquettes - fantastic crispy puffs that oozed mashed potato once bitten/cut into. I ordered a side of extremely rich brussels sprouts casserole - sprouts tossed in a cheesy, mushroomy sauce, and baked/served in a small cast iron pan. Brad started with the evening's soup, a white bean/ham concoction in a light broth, with smoked tomatoes and sausage, topped with a bit of grated cheese and some crispy kale. As Brad said, it was exactly the soup you'd want on a cold January Minnesota night.

It was a great dinner from start to finish. I know we'll be back (because I have to try the mac and cheese with crab and truffle!), and I'd highly, highly recommend it.

wasted time

I spend at least ten times more time thinking about and planning things I want to do than I spend actually doing them. I'm working on changing that.

Knitted a couple of inches onto teen's sweater. A big step forward, after days of piddling. Felt good.

knitting fail

Tried to start a new project tonight, for a fun little collar of eyelash yarn that looked, in the pattern, like a quick win. Wispy eyelash yarn on size 11 blunt-ended wooden needles - nightmare. I wasted away half an hour before I decided that both the pattern book and the yarn are going in my donation bag. Ugh.

But I did get some inspiration from the felted Christmas craft book I bought (I swear, one of that handful of books I bought after my resolution not to). I had so much on my plate for the holidays this year that I didn't even consider making anything out of it, but there are a bunch of ornaments I want to do, and I'm hoping to make new stockings for us for next year. I still have a lot of outstanding projects on my list, but my plan is to pack my weekends. I should probably just focus on the projects I know during the week. The night gets away from me too quickly for me to consider starting something new. Learning my limitations...

got a box full of letters

Ten years ago, when my grandpa died, I promised myself that I would write a letter a week to my grandma. With a few exceptions, I did. And she saved all of them. After she died last year, my mom and her sisters sorted through all her correspondence and returned letters and cards to her kids and grandkids. I got a flat box about the size of our piano bench, stuffed full of cards, letters, and notes, dating back to my college days. Back to high school, actually. I found one letter I wrote to both my grandparents right before my high school graduation, thanking them for everything they'd done for me to that point.

I've moved the box up to my office, which may have ben a mistake. As I try to spend time organizing my space, I find myself drawn to the box and spending too much time reading letters and getting lost in my past. Happened again tonight. And I still found a little time to knit and to recycle the bead off an old tank top to use in an upcoming project.

back to the grind - tomorrow

My 11 day winter break comes to an end today. Despite spending the bulk of it battling the worst cold I've had in memory, it was great to be around the house and just relax. I did manage to stay on the go most of the day today - laundry, light cleaning, errands, reading, and even a movie IN a theater - The Fighter, which Christian Bale owned. Managed to knit a little, so I'm still on track. Woo hoo! Three days! We'll see how it goes once I'm at work eight hours again.

(we're) still fighting it

The cold, that is. I have a cold sore that feels like it's taking over my face like some alien from a bad 80's movie. Congestion is abating, though, and I'm feeling like I might actually be able to exercise and/or leave the house tomorrow, my last day of winter vacation. I spent the bulk of today reading Steve Martin's new novel, An Object of Beauty. It's extremely well-written and lovely overall. When I purchased it (yes, I know, not supposed to be buying books, but I got a gift card for Christmas), I was struck by the fact that it's printed on such high-quality paper. I've discovered that it's for a reason - the book revolves around the art world and has a number of photographs of paintings in the book. It's making me wish, once again, that I'd delved deeper into art history than my one class. I did also work on the teen's sweater, fulfilling my obligation to create something everyday, which was my biggest resolution but the one I didn't put in writing yesterday because I'm so sadly sure I'll fail. I'll eventually post pictures, but now, I'm having one more glass of wine and considering bed.

New Year's Resolutions?

My husband doesn't believe in New Year's resolutions. He thinks that since most of the goals people set at the New Year are almost unachievable, we're better off not setting ourselves up for failure right at the beginning of the year. In a way, he's right. And I'm probably one of those people setting unrealistic goals.

There are two times of the year when I seem to take stock of my life and try to set goals for things I'd like to do: the start of the new year and the start of the schoolyear. Despite the fact that I've been out of school for more years than I'd like to admit, I still get a rush right before September, remembering that feeling of new beginnings and new possibilities. I often find myself purchasing new writing utensils and/or notebooks, despite the fact that just about everything I do now is on computers.

So here we are at the beginning of 2011, and I have a whole list of things I want to work on:
Learn Italian (this has been on my list every year for a LONG time)
Get back to jewelry making
Write/finally set up a blog
Downsize possessions
Work toward living more simply/locally
Keep pushing toward eating more locally
Knit more (not just at the Christmas rush!)
Craft more - set up Etsy shop for jewelry/crafts?
Give more to my job
Change my exercising (I'd love to add in blading)
Reconnect with friends
Get out and try new restaurants
Watch less TV

I look at this list, and it certainly seems like I could/should integrate all of this into my life. The trouble is, life seems to get in the way. I'll find half an hour of free time and decide that it's not enough to give to anything on this list, and instead, I fritter it away on something that's not really important to me.

I follow someone on Twitter who talked recently about setting a resolution for each month instead of having a list for the year. So I'm thinking that if I think about this list in terms of the whole year and tackling things in smaller steps, maybe I'll finally be successful at making all of them a permanent part of my life. It's worth a try, isn't it?