Snow Day...day of rest

Today it snowed. The forecast called for Snow, followed by freezing rain. I made the executive decision at 5am this morning, that I would start my weekend early and went back to bed. Ahhhh...very nice.

Europeans ruined my dinner....or "Why I hate the Metric system"

I am usually a pretty good cook, I've made several course dinners for family and friends that have turned out better than many restaurant meals. Tonight's dinner, unfortunately, was not one of those instances.

The menu:
London Broil
Oven Roasted Brussel Sprouts
French Bread

Let me start by saying, I have cooked London broil several times...however, mostly on the grill. Today was cold and a little snowy, not grilling weather. I decided to try it in the oven. I found a highly rated recipe by Rachel Ray on the food networks website, my usual "go to" recipe site. Season and broil 6 minutes on each side for medium rare. No problem, right? Here's how the events played out:

First side went fine, browned nicely, good crust. Flip. 6 minutes....check temperature 48 degrees...what?! "Maybe the middle of the steak was still refrigerator cold?" Leave it in longer, while I like my meat rare, i don't like it raw and Jake has a food "doneness" paranoia that he's just beginning to outgrow. 5 more minutes, "56 degrees, are you kidding!?" Is there something wrong with the oven?
Leave it a little longer, 10 more minutes elapse...67 degrees. What the hell!...Rachel Ray is a liar, 6 minutes per side, right! I cut the middle open, hard to tell, still some pink but better be sure. Brussel Sprouts go in on the top rack and the london broil gets tented with foil (becuase the outside is DONE) and moved to the bottom.
10 minutes later, brussel sprouts are done, that meat has GOT to be done by now! Check temp. 72 degrees, the thermometer must be broken because it's been in for like an hour now! Take it out...let it rest.
Jake: "Did you check the temp. of this lately"
Me: "Yeah, but something must be wrong with the thermometer, b/c it still was only registering in the 70's and this meat is done"
J: "Do you realize that the thermometer is reading in Celsius?"
Me: "F@$%#!!!!!!!!!"

There is a little button in the back of our digital thermometer that switches the readings from F to C. I must have inadvertatly hit the button and since I was checking the temp. with the meat still in the oven (rack pulled out) I didn't see the little C on the digital readout. Sorry Rachel, I shouldn't have blamed you, you know what you're talking about, I just can't read.

The meat was overdone....way overdone! Jake was sweet, saying "it's ok, just put some A1 on it". We had no A1. Instead, we used some hot sauce we had in the fridge. With the hot sauce, it was still overdone. Inedible to me, Jake sweetly choked it down. The dog loved it.

What a fiasco...oh well, at least the bread was good.

Zig-Zagging across the country

Me Snowshoeing with my Aunt

Whew! I just returned from what feels like two weeks of travel. I was lucky enough to visit family in Utah for my grandmothers birthday party. I spent a couple of days staying with my aunt and uncle and visiting with my parents and grandmother. It was very nice. I got to meet my cousin's son for the first time (what a cute baby) and hang out. Lots of fun!

I flew the red eye out from Utah Sunday night/Monday morning only to fly to Huntsville, AL for work Tuesday afternoon. I came home last night, just in time to eat dinner and go to bed!

Groundhog Day

Today, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shawdow...6 more weeks of winter. Great. More good news. 2008 has started off kind of rocky...I've been plagued with car troubles, a crazy work schedule and no time for much of anything else (including the gym, knitting or reading). UGH! I think I'm going to name Groundhog Day my new "New Year", otherwise 2008 isn't going to be very much fun.

So let's try again...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Grrrr.....

Ripping back BLACK, FINGERING-WEIGHT, yarn!....Grrrr...

I can't blog or post pictures regarding the nature of this project, as it is a gift, but no lighting in the world makes ripping back black fingering weight yarn easy.

Happy Thanksgiving

We successfully hosted Thanksgiving with our friends in our tiny townhouse kitchen...





And for that, I'm thankful.

Married in Las Vegas

Treasure Island
October 13th 2007

Loretta

When you're friendly with your LYS owner, you get introduced to people like Loretta. Loretta, a 75 year old knitter who was looking to get rid of her 50 year collection of Vogue Knitting Magazines. She has health problems and while she still knits, she no longer has use for all of the magazines and was looking to give them to someone who would use them....ME! It's so much fun to look at the magazine articles from the 50's, 60's and 70's...a couple by none other than Elizabeth Zimmerman and Meg Swanson. It's like opening a knitting time capsule.

September Deadline

The baby blankets must be finished by the end of the month. That's it. I can't take it anymore! They're cluttering up my living room and putting a damper on my creativity. Plus, the plans for Christmas knitting have begun and I want/need to get started. But, I can't think about that as long as I'm procrastinating the baby blankets!

Cheer me on, please. I can use all the help I can get!

Yarn Drive

In the spirit of Cast-on's Honor Beads for Grownups I've planned a yarn drive for charity.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that Podcasts and Cast-on in particular have jumpstarted me out of my knitting/blogging sabatical. Upon listening to a recent episode Brenda mentioned that the Interim House in Philadelphia could use yarn donations. Rather than just clean out my own stash, I figured it would be fun to invite other knitters, namely my knitting groups to de-stash for a good cause. The Yarn drive will be held on September 29th. If you live in the Philly area and are interested in attending and/or stash-busting for a good cause drop me note.

Food Poisioning

According to Jake, I have a cast iron stomach. I can eat most food and not have any gastrointestinal problems. Knowing that, I ask a lot of my stomach. Yesterday was case in point. It was IPA fest at the Drafting Room. We were meeting a friend at 2pm for "A drink". Yeah. There were 19 different beers on tap, six samples and two hours later I had decided on my drink. During that time, we won a bottle of Rogue's 10th Anniversary beer. We decided that it must be enjoyed "in the moment". At 6 o'clock we decided to go get dinner. We went to a little BYO restaurant (for those who don't know BYO = Bring your own, very popular in states like PA with crazy liquor laws) with a bottle of Le Chouffe Houblon (sp?) quite possibly my favorite beer right now and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Our dinner companions brought with them some of their delicious homemade wine and port for dessert.

Here's where my system decided it'd had enough...

I'm not quite sure if it was the mixture of all the beer/wine of the day or the Thai Peanut Pork or the really rich creampuffs for dessert but my cast iron stomach let me down. I got sick. At the restaurant. At the table (which thankfully we were seated outside and I was in front of a flower bed). On the way home.

Not only was I sick, but very embarrassed!

It was Bad News.

Update: As it turns out, one of our dinner companions (who ordered the exact same meal as I did) also got sick that night. Giving creedence to the fact that it was food poisioning and not the alcohol.

KiP'ing

I was introduced to a new Yarn Shop. It is now my favorite LYS. Although it's not quite local. Catherine introduced me to The Wooly Lamb in Pennington, NJ. (Note: There website is under construction today, but here is a link to a review of the shop from Knitter's Review). The shop is beautiful. For me, the inside is laid out very pleasing...yarn and colors everywhere, but not crammed and cluttered that would make it difficult to shop. Catherine and I spent close to 2 hours just wandering around and looking at all of the yarn. The staff is very helpful and friendly and the displays of knitted garments and samples from all of the yarn is stunning. I could have emptied my entire bank account in this store. But I was good, only buying yarn with projects in mind. My purchase included:

6 hanks of Berroco Ultra Alpaca for my Blaze sweater
2 balls of Hacho Hand-dyed for a chevron scarf (like the one that's been circling the blogosphere)

After our venture to the Wolly Lamb, we drove to Lambertville, NJ and wandered through some of the cute shops there. We crossed the bridge into New Hope, PA and found a bar with outdoor seating and good beer where we whipped out our knitting and enjoyed the glorious weather. Catherine was working on these beautiful beaded scarves, which she generously gave me a pattern for. I began swatching Blaze with my new yarn (yes...I'm going to swatch like a good girl). Two Unibroue Emphemere's later and we were off to meet the boys for dinner.

Heaven.

re-kindling a romance...

I went to knitting last week. I haven't been all summer. But, I went to knitting last week and it felt good! So good, I think I'll go again this week. I haven't knit all summer. I've had projects sitting on the needles, but I haven't had the urge to pick up my pointy sticks all summer long. I think I was a little burnt out. It had become a chore rather than a hobby. Too many obligatory projects (baby blankets, etc.). Not that anyone "made" me knit them a blanket, but you know what I mean. Looking through knitting magazines and online patterns lost it's enjoyment when I knew that in order to cast on a new project I needed to finish not 1 but 3 baby afghans! (I know...I'm a glutton for punishment...3 afghans?!) Combine that feeling with 90 degree heat and ridiculous humidity that the NE experienced all summer and it's a recipe for avoidance.
But, no more. I've embraced my old love like we never missed a beat. I have my Ravelry invitation to thank for that. What? You don't know what Ravelry is? Are living in a cave or with a non-knitter? Ravelry is the new, not yet out of beta, online community for knitters, crocheters and fiber enthusiasts. It is amazing. My favorite feature is the pattern sharing. Being able to see other knitters projects, especially the variations of what I might be working on is particularly fun. It really is an amazing site. Lurking around this site has prompted me to pick up my pointy sticks and continue knitting. And attend my knitting group. And listen to knitting podcasts. And otherwise become completely absorbed in my hobby.
Re-united and it feels so good.....

Stitch n Pitch...and sweat

Tuesday was the Phillies Stitch n Pitch night. Knitters were invited to come out to the ballpark, knit and watch the game. What fun! If you live anywhere in the Northeast, you know. Tuesday's weather was about as un-conducive to knitting as you could get. It was probably around 90 degrees with about 90% humidity. It was hot and sticky, so much so that you could actually see the humidity on the field. It looked foggy. Ugh! There were some troopers...women working on wool sweaters and scarves draped on their laps. I couldn't even stand to work on the cotton socks I brought with me. Instead, I enjoyed the good company, exciting game (Phillies won 11-4) and yummy beer (Flying Fish Summer Ale). Maybe next year the weather will cooperate.

Sharks

Last Saturday I took Jake on and adventure for his birthday. I tried to come up with a "pirate" birthday for an adult. Hmmmm...what's pirate-y? Well....ships (we went to Moshulu for lunch)...

...treasure...he got presents....what about sharks? Pirates have been known to make people walk the plank into shark infested water?....right? Either way, I was taking Jake to see some sharks (Jaws is one of his all time favorite movies, anyway) up close and personal. The Camden Aquarium has a program where you can pay to snorkel with some sharks. FUN!I made the arrangements for us both in secret, since I wanted Jake to be surprised. We had to leave early, since we had a 9:30 am swim time. He thought we were going into the city to spend the day, then as we crossed over the Ben Franklin Bridge, he looked a little nervous. "We're going to New Jersey for my birthday" he said, sounding a little dissapointed. Yes, and Camden at that.

I told him about the adventure when we arrived at the aquarium. He seemed a little nervous. He divulged that he remembered seeing the commercials for swimming with the sharks, and thinking "What moron would do that?" HA-exactly why I didn't tell him ahead of time. As we walked in to the aquarium, they walked us through the main shake exhibit, pointing out the different sharks in the tank. All of a sudden I realized why...these were the sharks we would be swimming with.

Wait a minute....the guy on the phone told me the water was only chest deep? I assumed that they would put us in a pool with some little sharks that we would swim around thinking "hey...look at me I'm swimming with sharks." Nope. We were going in the big tank! All of a sudden I was nervous. We snorkeled around on a shelf at the top of the main shark tank. It was really neat, but a little scary. The sharks came right up to our faces.

It was such a fun adventure!

The Epidemic

Warning! Something seems to be going around. At first it affected a few friends, then a girl at work, then a cousin and now more friends have been bitten by the bug! Babies....it seems like everyone is having a baby. For the parents this is so exciting...however, what's a knitter to do? Hand knit gifts are always nice and usually a lot of fun to knit, but I'm at risk for baby overload! I gotta start speed knitting if I'm ever going to get through all these projects! I hope it isn't contagious!

busy bees

bzzz...bzzz...no time to post....bzzz...bzzz.....still here.....bzzz...bzzzz...bzzz...

Football in April

Today is the day I get a little dose of football in Spring, Draft Day! I love the NFL draft for all the excitement it initiates 5 months before the season starts. I'm going to watch, as I sit on my couch and knit, eat my roast beef sandwich and drink my Rodenbach and enjoy football in spring.

Nor'easter

Today's forecast....No work. This morning I woke up to the sound of wind and rain hitting my bedroom window. I gave myself plenty of time, made a big cup of coffee and out the door I went. It wasn't rain I heard hitting the side of my house, it was hail and snow...in April. What crap! While cleaning off the glue of snow/sleet/rain that covered my car, while myself turning into a drowned rat, I made the executive decision that I wasn't going to go any further. I shuffled back inside, un-packed my lunch and turned on the news, while finishing my coffee. What a mess out there!

My partially cleaned off car...

All work and no play...

I can't believe it has been almost two months since my last post. Where has the time gone? February flew by and now March is halfway over. I have been working like crazy and in my free time I have been trying to plan an October wedding. Things are starting to settle down at work and the wedding plans are coming together so I can start to reclaim my life. My knitting is starting to resume and I have been reading more. Jake and I attended a Wine tasting dinner a couple of weeks ago.

Tonight, is St Patricks Day! We are planning to spend it at a friends house. Happy St. Patty's Day!