Lofty Saturday

Yesterday Andrew and I went with both our sets of parents to the National Cathedral in DC. Dad, Andrew and I went on a special tour where you get to climb pretty high up in the crossing tower [the big one in the middle of the church, not the two at the west/front end]. This is the tower with the two sets of bells. Apparently this is not a normal tour. The weather was pretty good, little windy though and cold when you were up in the parts of the tower that are basically open air.

There were two sets of bells, one which are rung mechanically w/ a hammer type thing, but where the 'tune' is played by someone sitting at what resembles an organ. So someone is actually pounding at the keys to make the bells ring.

The second type are huge bells that have long ropes attached that people pull in different ways to make music. Apparently this type of ringing is centuries old. We got to hear both which was kinda neat. I would have enjoyed a little more of an 'architectural' tour that taught us about the tower construction and the building, and where we would have gotten to go higher [we really only went about half way up the tower] but it was still a cool tour.

My dad has a former student that works there that is going to set up a tour for us kinda behind the scenes, where we got to go through special doors and up stairs that regular people don't- now this is my type of tour! Looking forward to when that happens. This place is full of cool carved doors that are locked and carved spiral stone stairs that look like they go to cool places....

Afterward we all went to lunch in Georgetown which was nice too. It was great to see each of our parents all at once. We are amazingly lucky that we each have parents we totally get along with, and that our spouse gets along with too.

Cookie Success!

So the new mixer got a workout this weekend. Yesterday I made a batch of buttery shortbread cookies and today I made a ton of ginger snaps. The ginger snaps turned out awesome. You mix all the ingredients together, including butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, vinegar, ground ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and molasses [which I was skeptical about b/c it didn't smell all that great] then roll the cookies into little balls and bake on the sheet. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe, but took a cue from another recipe and dipped the cookie ball in granulated sugar before putting it on the cookie sheet and baking. That turned out to be a great idea, as the cookies bake and flatten they get that awesome characteristic cracked surface and the sugar makes them sparkle and adds just a little extra sweetness. The cookies are crisp but still a tiny bit chewy at the center. I'd say this was a success!

These are the shortbread cookies all cut up into squares. You bake them in a jelly pan [cookie sheet w/raised sides] and just press the dough in then cut into pieces when done. Very easy.

Early Birthday Gift!

So, the big 3-0- is coming up in a month, and I already get to play with my gift! I told my husband I wanted the Kitchenaid stand mixer we registered for from the wedding but never got. Over the years I've kept an eye on the price via amazon.com and figured we'd buy it asap when a good price showed up on the onyx black one we wanted. Well $207 came around, and voila! New pretty mixer to play with. It's kinda a gift for both of us, but I've been wanting it for a while and couldn't justify just buying it.

So...what do I make first!!!!!!!! I've been dying to make shortbread cookies w/ jelly in the middle and I think that will be my first recipe. What else? Any suggestions? I know there have been things I've tried to make in the past or wanted to but knew the little hand mixer I had just wouldn't cut it. So now I've got all the power and glory of this bad boy to make it happen! I think husband will attempt some bread recipes too, he's got a pretty awesome dutch oven bread already. With time I assume we'll buy the pasta attachment and maybe some others. I figure lets master the simple stuff first and then we can move on.

So, now the important question...where do I keep this thing? It's pretty big, and we have limited counter space. Already hogging space are, toaster oven, bread box, knife block, utensil holders, and griddler...all very important things. Guess we'll just have to cram one more thing on the counter. Maybe we should clear up the recycling stash and other little things....

Oh, and in other news, I don't have to go back into work for a week!
Today- telework
Friday- flex day
Saturday
Sunday
Monday- fed holiday!!!
Tuesday- telework

Wednesday, ugh, back at work :-(

Ok, back to getting some work done at home :-D

Knitting Fun- Socks and Mittens

So, it's been a while since my last knitting update. I was busy for the holidays. First I tried to make these cute little mitten Christmas ornaments for my family, they are relatively easy and took about 1.5-2 hours each. I am going to try to stock pile them this year for next Christmas and the church bazaar, apparently they were popular there. I used a self patterning sock yarn and size 1 and 2 needles.

I wanted to find something special to knit my mom for Christmas. She's not really a scarf person, and there certainly wasn't time for a sweater or anything, so I figured socks might be a good idea. This was my first attempt at knitting a sock and I must say it was kinda fun. They look complicated, but probably aren't' as bad as they look. I had a great pattern from the magazine Knit Simple and did a little research on Ravelry.com first to see what others thought of the pattern. It sounded like a good place to start. Here's the yarn I chose, Lion Brand Sock Ease, w/ aloe to sooth the hands while knitting
You start this pattern at the cuff of the sock and knit down the length of the leg. To knit the sock as a tube, you use 5 tiny needles and spread the stitches among them. This is also how you would knit a sleeves to a sweater or finger on a glove if you did not want to have a seam down the whole thing. It's a little tricky to get going, but easy once you get the hang of it. After the cuff is the desired length, then you knit the "heal flap" the part of the sock that extends down over the back of your heal, then you "turn the heal" where you make the knitting cup up so that it fits tight to the rounded heal of your foot.

Here you can see the heal flap knitting as a separate piece from the rest of the leg of the sock.

Next you pick up stitches from the portion of the leg you left on the needles, and then heal and knit the "gusset" which is the triangular space next to the heal on either side of your foot. Every other round you make decreases by knitting two stitches together, this makes this part of the sock narrow so that it will fit the flatter part of your foot. Then you just knit the top and bottom of the sock for the rest of the length of the foot until you hit the toe area. Finally you do another round of decreases specially designed to make a perfect point in the shape of the toe and, you are done!

So, I've made exactly one sock. Gave it to my mom for Christmas with the promise of its matching pair. I've got a few baby projects to get done before I can finish the second sock but hopefully it won't be too long. I see more socks in my future, they aren't as hard as I expected, and the pattern choices are endless. I think I might make the next pair for myself :-D

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.