Dinner

Weston and I don't eat out a lot. We both would rather buy "things" (like, yarn, bullets, washers, DVDs, etc) with our money than fancy meals. Along with that, often when we eat out, we feel that it wasn't worth the money because we could have made it ourselves for far less AND better. So, eating out hasn't been a large part of our life for at least a year. When we do eat out, it is at Bear's Tooth, Spenard Roadhouse, or some other local joint. 

Lately, I have been trying to plan dinner. While we often have been cooking at home, dinner has been this THING where we both open cabinets, him and haw, and then determine there is "nothing to eat" and wind up with something disappointing. Plus, even when W suggests things that I normally like, sometimes I'm in a whiny mood and don't WANT that and get cranky. Especially when that is what we wind up having anyway... So, I have taken it upon myself to sit down once a week, make a menu, write a grocery list, go grocery shopping, and cook. Yeah, that's right, I have been cooking dinner. I think last week I cooked 3/5 nights during the week. That is pretty much unheard of. This has improved dinner time in our house ten fold... I know what I am going to eat, I can get it ready when I'm hungry (and not have to wait until W wants to eat), and I go to the grocery store once a week instead of multiple times.... which saves us $$. Every time I go to the grocery store, I buy things I don't intend to, so the fewer times I go, the less money I spend!

Another thing this has helped is our meat intake. We have been trying to eat less meat for a while, for a few reasons. 

*It is better for the environment. A lot of the greenhouse gases are caused by meat production.... plus, shipping it a far way, etc. etc. 

*It is better for us.... If you aren't eating meat, you replace that with something else in your meal, such as a hearty vegetable...

*It is cheaper. For example, today when I went to the store and bought 34 items and I spent $58.69 (I saved $29.91 with coupons and stuff) and $14 of that was meat! I bought a pack of chicken breasts for two meals this week and a tube of sausage so I can cook it up and have sausage biscuits for breakfast. That is crazy. And I spent more $$ than I normally would for a week of groceries because I had to buy popsicles and other snacks to take to the birth center, which I normally wouldn't buy... and that was probably about $10-$12 total as well. Blows my mind how much meat costs... and I find that I don't actually miss it... I'm not a huge meat fan, mostly because we always have leftovers and I have a big THING about leftover meat. I HATE it. If I wasn't forced to eat leftovers, I probably would be more pro-meat... but as it stands, gross. 

W has a hard time coming up with dinner ideas that don't include meat, so I'm glad that I have taken over this task. 

I have a ton of cookbooks, but I have found that the best and easiest place for me to find recipes to use is a site called allrecipes.com.  You can store recipes you like, add recipes to a grocery list, and change the quantities of recipes, so that it yields more or less than the original. Amazing. I love it. OH! And almost everything has pictures... I need that. This week we are really branching out and I'm trying 4 new recipes. On the menu this week: Black bean burgers, chicken and dumplings, spinach and black bean pasta, buffalo chicken sandwiches, and spaghetti. Oh, and I might be making cheesecake, chocolate cake, or pumpkin bars... still undecided on which one (or all) of those I will be making.

So, that is our new dinner plan. Of course, now that I am in the groove of this, Baby is going to come and things are going to go crazy again. :) Oh well.... maybe I can convince family members to come over and cook....

It's all downhill from here...

I've made it. I'm officially 37 weeks (well, 37+1 actually) pregnant. Baby and I did it. Whew. So, who knows when Baby is actually planning on coming, but I will get to start at the birthing center, so that is nice. :) I am going to my birth center orientation today....

Monday my washer broke. Oops. I may or may not have been felting some sweaters at the time. Ok, I was... but it was just bad timing. I did not break the washer. Weston has assured me that it wasn't my fault. So, now we are getting a new one...

It's PFD day!!! Whoo hoo! Who doesn't love free $$. For those of you who don't know, Alaskans get what is called a permanent fund dividend every year in October. Here is the wiki page telling you all about it. This year the PFD is a little over $1,200, I'm not sure how we will be dividing up our two PFDs, but any $$ that I get to spend on whatever I want (probably 1/3 of one of them) will be going to my Sock Summit fund... I plan on going crazy while down there. Need to spin/knit down my stash to make room (which I have been doing...)...

I'm sure there were other things I had to blog about, but who knows. I have terrible baby brain (which, sadly, I've heard is one thing that doesn't go away once Baby is born... I would love to remember things for more than oh.... 5 seconds....) lately. And my legs are swelling now. Whoo hoo. :) Can't wear my dansko shoes anymore because my feet are swollen (which is actually probably a good thing, as I tend to fall in them). Oh, the joys!

Squirrel Mittens 101

What I learned while knitting my squirrel mitten....

1. I love picot edges. They are dainty, girly, and pretty slick. I don't enjoy knitting them.... BUT it was worth it and I'm glad I did it. The jury is still out on the braids... they look ok. I think maybe just one would have looked better....

2. When working color work, it is best to hold your contrast color in your left hand (if you hold one yarn in each hand like I do). I actually have done this subconsciously most of the time, but the pattern recommended it because it helps the CC "pop".

3. Working decreases on size 0 needles is not fun. I bent my addi turbo needle doing the decreases which made me even more annoyed.

4. Charting color work is a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm sure there is probably some slick computer program that would make it a bit easier, but as I was charting my initials for the mitten, all I had was graph paper and a pen. It took me four tries to get it the way I wanted. The third time I was on the last row of stitches and messed up ONE. Ugh. The little bit of altering I did to the chart was much easier.

5. Even though it was a challenge, it did make me want to chart something for my own designer mittens. Not sure what yet. I also really like the idea of having two mittens that don't match, but coordinate. Like, maybe one mitten has a dog and the other has a fire hydrant or a bone or something...

6. I love knitting color work. I already knew this, but figured it was worth mentioning. Watching the picture appear keeps me motivated to knit. It is often called "potato chip knitting" because you can't just knit one row. :)

7. When marking off rows on my chart, I prefer to use something see through, like a highlighter or a marker, rather than a pen or a magnet. Why? Because I like to read the stitches in relation to the ones in the previous row rather than counting. :)

I like when I learn new things about knitting or myself while working on a project. The other color work project on my needles (the Baby Christ-ma-kah sweater) is going to be a learning experience as well because it is steeked. Ahhh. But, I have a wonderful friend who has done it before and I'm sure she will help me out. :) I am working on the second sleeve and then I have the body to do, but it has been going faster since I started marking off rows on my chart with a marker as mentioned in point #7. Not sure why this makes such a huge difference, but it really does for me. I think another thing about it, is you can really easily see how much you've knit. If you wanted to be even more crazy about it, you could switch colors for every time you worked on it to see how much you got done in a day... just a thought. Alright, off to walk the pups and get ready for my day... considering it is 11:15 I guess I should get on that....

Drive By Picture

My first thumbless squirrel mitten!! I might do the thumb today, but who knows. :)

The Return of Thursday

Not that it was missing... but in the summer Thursday's are a bit different than in the fall for us. Thursdays in the fall/winter involve a bunch of friends coming to the house, watching Thursday night comedy (Office, 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Rec) on NBC, and enjoying dinner (typically made by me!). It is awesome. I look forward to it every week. Last week was the return of comedy, but we had breast feeding class (which W actually could not stop talking about... he is so impressed with breasts now... as he has told many people "They do so much... they are more than just good to look at!") and had to miss out. So, tonight is the official return of Thursday night. I'm making pizza. I'm excited.

Another thing that is pretty exciting is the fact that my first squirrel mitten is almost done! In fact, there is a pretty good chance it might get off the needles tonight (minus the thumb... I might have to change the chart for that, so it will require some thinking and alone time) which is awesome! I am loving them. It is amazing how once I decided to actually sit down and knit them instead of just think about them how quickly it went.  I've literally knit 85% of this mitten in the past two days. Here is the problem though... I'm not sure I want to just jump in and knit the second one. Sure, a pair would be super nice.... buuuuuut I also have some other mittens I would like to knit. Is it crazy to knit a first mitten of another pair before knitting the second mitten of this pair?? Oh, and I decided I was going to line my squirrel mittens, so really, when this is off the needles it is still only half done. (The lining should go way faster since there is no colorwork....) I don't have yarn to line them with (seriously, not even just joking around... it is laceweight and I don't buy laceweight yarn...) so I will be making a trip to the store tomorrow for that. I would love pink, but doubt I will find that. We'll see what I come up with.

Also, random side note on the mitten topic. I will wear one mitten out in public when it is done. I have no shame. I will show it off to everyone. And then when I have the first mitten of the other pair done, there is a good chance I will just wear the two mismatched ones as a pair. Whatever. I'm not trying to win a fashion contest, just keep warm....

Oh, and I'm still pregnant. :P 36 weeks and 1 day to be exact (I know you were keeping track...). I will take pictures of myself and of my mitten tonight perhaps. W is now predicting that the baby will be 2 days late (being born on Oct 29th) and a boy. I don't know anymore, so I'm not playing any predicting games. He also told me the other morning that he is really excited to meet the baby. He is so sweet. I never really thought about that... I guess I am too. (I'm actually really excited to not have heartburn and to have my body back, but meeting the baby will be a sweet bonus as well)

Alright, enough rambling about babies and mittens. (Speaking of, the baby has no mittens... does it need mittens?? oh my....) I am off to make pizza dough and enjoy my evening.

Termination Dust

It is here... termination dust... the first sign that winter is coming! Now, for a lot of people who live here, this is a sad time... but for me, I would have been dancing in the streets if I was not in a car when I noticed it!! I LOVE winter. Love it. (As long as it is a good winter, snow is soooo much better than ice or just freezing cold... but, either way, winter is amazing) It is my favorite season. And I'm sure I've mentioned that just a few times here, but in case you forgot, here is why: I love layers, I look so much better in three or four different shirts and then a scarf than I do in just a tshirt. I love snow, it makes it so sparkly and beautiful outside. My dogs love the winter... they are just so furry that this may be the only season where they are comfortable. I knit mostly with wool, so winter is just the best season for all of my handknits! I love to see my dad pull out his winter hat and wear it around... Basically, I think winter is amazing.

One thing I am happy about though, is that I am not working right now. I guarentee that a lot of people are going to spend the week lamenting the snow and complaining about the weather constantly. "We didn't even get a summer" (Which, May was amazing, and really, we have been spoiled... and we had/are having an AMAZING fall...) "I'm not ready for winter" "I hate snow" "I hate winter" "blah blah blah". Again, I know I have mentioned this before, but I don't really believe in complaining too much about the weather (or complaining in general... sometimes I will voice my frusterations to W and we will come up with a plan of action or I will just move on...) so I am very glad that I will not be around all the winter nay-sayers.

So, no matter how you feel about winter, it is almost here. After all, Friday is OCTOBER 1st! Crazy. Bundle up. Knit. Drink tea. Be happy.

Facebook

The Network (or whatever the "Facebook movie" is called) opens soon. And, truth be told, I'm a bit excited to see it.  It looks like it is well done and entertaining. The people behind it are pretty well known for making good movies.... I'll probably wait until it makes its way to Bear's Tooth just because I am frugal, but I am still looking forward to it.

Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Facebook, has been in the news a lot recently. He is planning on donating one hundred million dollars to a struggling school district in New Jersey. Good for him. So the publicity is all positive, right?? Oh, no... for some reason the media has decided to turn it into a "why is he doing this?" story. WHO CARES!?! He is giving money to schools. I don't care why he is doing it... it is a good deed.  Do people question the motives of men who hold open doors?? Ugh. I just don't understand the media. Which is probably another reason I need to move to a small time and just live without all of this media saturation.

We had a cable box dropped off at the beginning of the week... (it is supposedly going to make our bill stay the same, but we will have unlimited internet... we will see GCI, I don't really believe you) but, we haven't even hooked it up yet. Maybe that is weird. But, that is just how we roll.

Went to the dr. this week and found out that everything is still going really well with Baby and me! So, I have been released!! I am OFF of bedrest... It was a nice anniversary present! Weston and I went to see Toy Story 3D at Bear's Tooth to celebrate. I had never seen a 3D movie, and it was ok. I did LOVE Toy Story though, they did a great job with it... Also had my breastfeeding class yesterday, and that was good. I learned a lot and feel a bit more confident that even if I don't know the answers to my questions, I know where to find them.

My knitting is still going well. I haven't been knitting too much... and only on my squirrel mittens. I did ply my first 3-ply yarn last night. It is a small skein (I only spun 1 oz of each ply because I didn't want to spin it all and then hate it...) but now that I know I like it, I plan on spinning the rest and getting it plied up. I also got back into my sewing room yesterday and sewed a little something for a special birthday boy...just need to hand stitch a button on and it will be ready to go for the party tonight!

Alright, I need to go be productive now.... enjoy your weekend!