But first. TheHusband just gave Dog some ice cream. That man spoils our dog entirely too much, at least the ice cream was put in his food bowl and announced "cookie" (our Treat word). But you can't complain too much about a man who brings you ice cream. And despite trying to be on a baking binge, I needed a treat.
Generally speaking I'm a big fan of holiday ideas and cookie recipes from Martha Stewart (or should I say Omnimedia). But this years special cookie issue (via Everyday Food) was just a little too familiar. Oh well. I have enough recipes waiting on the "to try" list.
Watching MedLibraryGirl's Scrub's video reminded me of this video TheHusband showed me on YouTube earlier today.
- on reading Vox
- on christmas shopping
- on christmas knitting
- on sleep
But on the bright side... I finished all the knitting for christmas 2005 :) I think. There might have been a project that I abandoned. I have also learned that even if you are a better knitter, when picking up a year old project you might manage to repeat last years mistakes. I forgot how many stitches I cast-on and somehow I kept picking up a stitch or two and then needing to do a k2tog, so the scarf isn't perfect but the boucle yarn should hide most mistakes well enough. I hope.
I also 7/8's done with one pair of Fetching. I'm making it out of Frog Tree Merino. This yarn is incredibly soft but I think it must be what is considered one-ply because if it doesn't get twisted in my hands I feel like I'm knitting with a long thing piece of roving (not that I've used roving myself). I don't think I screwed up the picot bind-off too badly, I should have practiced it on my guage swatch though.
When my friend H said that her little girl, S, could use mittens I decided I wanted to make them. I mean I knit and people knit mittens all the time right? But I couldn't find any patterns with thumbs for a 1 year old, and most like a 1 year old doesn't need the thumb but... So I decided to make up a pattern. It isn't to the stage where I can say I am designing patterns but eventually I probably will. I like figuring out how to put things together and designing patterns seems like a way to figure out how to put something together and make it exactly the way you want.
So here is a picture of the beta mittens (sadly they didn't get mailed today because the post office decided to close at 4:54 instead of 5:00).
What's on your Top 5 video games list?
Submitted by mileena.
I'm not a big video game player, so we'll see if I can answer this...
- Tetris
- SSX Tricky (is it called that? that is what we call it 'cause of the Tricky song)
- Dr. Mario (or should I say, "see Tetris")
- Some Mario game with Yoshi, Yoshi is cute
- Pikmen (um, I should probably actually finish playing this game, I stopped about half-way through because I was getting frustrated)
I'm not sure if I could even name more video games that I like to play. I'm not a big video game player.
Show us something pink.
a pink broom and dustpan. Shiny pink. How cool is that?
I am amused that several of my friends outlined the exact same tipping method as myself. I am not amused when we feel the need to make sure the waitstaff is tipped appropriately while table companions tip as though we haven't been at the table for 3 1/2 hours and had the waitstaff add 2 tables during the course of the evening.
I am amused that TheHusband is so enamored of his potential hat that he asks about it almost daily. I am not amused that I will start working on swatch number 5 (not counting last night's false start) to make sure the hat is not a disaster.
What's your method for calculating a tip?
I like to tip 20% unless I'm horribly disastified by the service (or am paying cash and am a bit short). I use the decimal moving trick to figure out 10% and double that.
Example: the bill is 25.00. You move the decimal over one place to the left to get 2.500 and double that for 5.
If, for some reason I want to tip 15% I do the same thing but also figure out the 5% value and add them.
Example: the bill is 25.00. 10% is 2.50, 5% is 1.25 so the tip is 3.75.
And then sometimes I round up or down to make a whole dollar amount.
Just the other day I checked out The New Best Recipe from the library. I've eyed this book before, but a group of people I know online are all cooking out of it and I wanted to join in.
Tonight I made the Mushroom Risotto (I really like risotto it feels like fancy comfort food) and the Arugula and Roasted Pear Salad with Walnuts and Parmesan Cheese. Wow, was this good. Normally I'm not big on fruit in otherwise veggie salads with the exception of dried cranberries (which can make an ordinary green salad sing). For some reason this called to me, I'm not even that big of a pear fan. Now I know, I like roasted pears (peeled, sliced, tossed with butter, 500 degrees for 10 minutes, flip 5 more = perfect). I like roasted pears on arugula (which is just fun saying, Aruuu-goo-la). I love good parmesan slices. And it was fairly simple (taking into acct the roasting and toasting of nuts) for a fancy salad. Of course the wine could be talking here too (a good but cheap bottle from TJs).
Show us change.
Submitted by quornflour.
moving half-way across the country, that counts as change right?
