The weekend

Exciting things this weekend has brought, or has yet to bring:
-relaxing with my husband unexpectedly
-making awesome teriyaki steak dinner last night
-gym, trip to BJs to stock up, then more relaxing
-break in the relaxing to clean clean clean
-husband set up our new reading lamps! [guess who is going to bed early to read!]
Tomorrow:
Thrift store w/ Beeps. Then lunch and watching the season premiere of the final season of Big Love. Then more relaxing on my lovely federal holiday. Thank you very much.

How are you all doing?

Busy Season

During this busy Christmas season I'd much rather be sitting at home knitting some last minute gifts and getting the house in order than working 9 hours a day. I've got a few knitting projects going [secret b/c of Christmas] and I REALLY wish I had more time to get them done. Of course I didn't plan ahead and knit things in advance, but who is that prepared!?!

I'm also drawing a blank for gifts for some people...like my parents. Parents have everything they need, what do you buy for them? We have a few things for each of them, but I wish I had some more cool gifts. I love giving gifts, especially well thought out ones, but I just can't think of cool stuff. Any ideas out there? Extended family can be hard too. We've got lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and I wish we would just pick names already, but each year I try to get us to do it and no one wants to. So now we're stuck trying to figure out gifts for way too many people. It ends up feeling like exchanging money, we should just not exchange gifts.

Alright, back to the knitting and cleaning! Hope the season is treating you all well.

More Knitting Fun!

Two baby showers in one weekend made for a busy knitting fall season. I love the little sweater I made for one friend, it was super easy but so cute. The cable detail is fun and I can't wait to see it and the hat on this little girl. I will probably make this sweater again in a different color, it was just so easy and fun. Now if only I could knit myself a sweater so fast.


The baby booties were made with some yarn my mom had as extra in her stash. They only took a few hours total and were really easy. I will definitely be making these again in various sizes for all the girls that are being born this year.

It's just way too early

Now, I went to Home Depot today to get some fly paper [we have a fly issue...it's icky] and when I was there I noticed that they have Christmas trees, lights, and ornaments out already. ALREADY!!!! It's September 21st, over three months till Christmas, it's not even October, Halloween or Thanksgiving yet. Now, I don't like to see Christmas stuff really until after Halloween, or even Thanksgiving all that much. This is just insane.

Later in my errands I had to go to BJs to get bulk everything. One thing was 2, 42lbs bags of cat litter. I can barely lift these things over the edge of the cart to get them in, let alone, back out of the cart, into the car, out of the car, and into the house...but the first bag I picked up apparently had a big hole in it. As I heave it up towards my cart, a huge stream of litter pours out...right into my shoe.... Super. Sadly, these bags don't last that long. I would have bought more but it's just not in me to lift 42lbs repeatedly.

Those kitties had better catch a bunch of flies and earn their keep!

J/k. They both gave me super cuddles while I worked today.

2 things

So I tried that Chobani greek yogurt everyone is raving about. 1- when I checked the expiration date right before I was going to eat it [b/c once Giant sold me expired yogurt :-( ] the date was October 10th or so, and I was like- wow, this is some super long lasting yogurt! October! Then I realized that was basically just a month away. Where did summer go?

2- this stuff tastes like eating straight up sour cream. Seriously, it's soooo thick. I got one w/ pineapple on the bottom, but the sweet pineapple didn't do much to help the yogurt. It was good, but I don't really think of it as yogurt. And it so was so thick, I couldn't even eat it all, it was too much! I have another one I haven't eaten yet, it's a honey flavored one, I'll give it a try, maybe it's better.

Ok, still on the food track, so maybe "3 things"- I'm making a Bolognese sauce today. It takes like 4.5 hours...so far it's been 20 mins. I'm browning a puree of onion, celery, carrot, and garlic. Then you add meat, brown, tomato paste, brown, red wine, brown, water, water, water water, brown it, brown it....you get the idea. It's apparently a labor of love, we'll see if we love it when it's done. Andrew is going to make home made ricotta gnocci. I'm excited! Pictures to follow :-)

My First Raven's Game

Andrew got tickets to a pre-season game through work and asked if I'd like to go, usually with the big games he and some friends go, so it was really nice of him to ask. I've never been to a Raven's game so I thought it would be fun. I'm not a big football fan but I know it can be a lot of fun to go to games. I bought myself a cute t-shirt for the occasion and all! The weather was great and I ended up having a really nice time. I did find myself letting my eyes wander around the stadium during the game and then I'd miss whatever play was going on...but it was still fun.

I'm not sure when the season starts, but I really want to attend some Capitals games this year. Last year was the first year I really watched games and it was a great year to start. I think I would enjoy watching in person too. Hopefully we can get tickets to some games this fall.

What is your favorite sport to watch in person? On TV?

Beach Trip Highlights

We had a great week of relaxing, drinking, eating, beaching, pooling, cooking, reading...good times. Here are some pictures of the fun:

Here is our beach fort, it was pretty great, plenty of shade, which I took full advantage of. Also used my beach umbrella bag which worked great!

Me, under the umbrella, big floppy hat, sunglasses and SPF 50! I'm not getting burnt!

Best beach game ever, "Kubb". Google it. You set up wooden blocks and have to knock them down w/ wooden dowels. Everyone that walked by stopped to watch for a while, since most people have never seen this game before.
Pool pong. Harder than you would think. Andrew improvised a speed version which worked out pretty well. Having a pool was actually really cool. You would think it is superfluous, but we really enjoyed having another place to relax and cool off. The ocean was a little rough the first part of the week then filled w/ jellyfish the last few days.
Artsy photo!
Would love to be able to go back to the beach w/ friends and family asap, but will have to wait till next year :-(