happy thanksgiving

most of the cooking done, table is set, and watching some of the macy's thanksgiving day parade. i so want to see that live someday. in the meantime, lurkey says "happy thanksgiving everyone!"

before holiday madness descends.

i was glad to have a few stress-free days to just focus on the moment.  on friday, sara and i had dinner plans. i had quite a bit of time on my hands before dinner, so i checked out a boutique near my office- en paris-a very cute place, and bought a file tote, which also makes a great knitting tote! i'm sure it'll appear in future blog posts. then i headed to starbucks for a coffee and knitting time. i was at the communal table until a spot in a comfy chair was available. loved the view, knitting on my cardigan (which is now finished!), watching the cars and people go by. the dinner and company were very good.

on saturday, brunch was on the menu-it's bowling night for steve and andrew, so a hearty mid-day meal beckoned. andrew wanted to make eggs benedict-with homemade hollandaise sauce (of course)-i was in charge of the potatoes and i made orange cranberry scones.  it was wonderful.

AND we had a couple extra guests-pj was spending a few days with christopher so they joined us, and we had a good time catching up with the college boys.

since dinner was just mom and i-i re-heated leftover pork loin chops, made some asparagus, and mushroom risotto-i think i could live on risotto-such a versatile dish.

on sunday, we had baked penne and i wanted a special dessert to celebrate pj being home-he loves coconut, so we had toasted poundcake (i love homemade poundcake), coconut ice cream and pineapple salsa. not only was it delicious, but watching pj's face light up and his high praise on a delicious meal made the calories so worthwhile. we had a lot of laughs-especially talking with "siri" on my i-phone.
the weekend wrapped up with a lovely call-if not spotty- from mary recapping a surprise b.day party, what's on and off our knitting needles and our upcoming family get togethers. now i think i'm ready for the holidays (at least thanksgiving) cooking timelines and menus planned, grocery lists made. hopefully there will be many blog posts to capture the moments.

right now.

guess it's time to stop the crickets-didn't realize i hadn't done a blog post in a full month! not intentional. i've taken the odd photo here and there intending to share thoughts and ideas, but i guess with the extraordinary weather we've been having and the knitting i guess i got a little distracted-evident by the photo. i took this yesterday on my way to cast on cottage and it's the view from the sunroof which i refuse to keep closed when the weather is as lovely as it was yesterday. so aside from enjoying the weather- right now i'm:

enjoying fun knitting patterns, am currently doing this hat for unknown/unmet friend, this cardigan from stash yarn, this shawlette for a gift, and am waiting to cast on this sweater. i'll have 3 sweaters worth of yarn in my stash along with pattern ideas. my plan is to finish these before i buy more yarn, and of course, i've already chosen the patterns for yarn not yet purchased! such is the way with knitters.  since the last post i've finished 2 sweaters and a man scarf.

cooking with andrew-he looks so cute in his chef's coat-his skills are excelling, i'm glad he has found something he really loves.

STILL loving the Bible study i've been doing with mary and virginia-hard to believe we are almost done-what a journey.

making plans for a trip to new orleans in january-have always wanted to visit, steve and i found a great deal on airline tickets. this of course means i need to get the two cardigans mentioned above finished!

looking forward to birthday dinner with sara, the many family get togethers planned for november and december. especially looking forward to PJ being home for thanksgiving-have handled not seeing him every day pretty well, we use texting, facebook, emails, skype, and phone calls to keep in touch, even if it's just to say hi.

reflecting on what 2012 will hold-college plans for andrew-college "stuff" for PJ-traveling, knitting, quilting, Bible studies, growing and learning, etc.

but right now- am also enjoying the odd lazy saturday where i can sit and enjoy my morning coffee, get caught up on emails, paperwork etc, and relish in the knowledge that i have nowhere i need to be (until the holidays get here! yikes.)

bucket lists.

near our subdivision we have several "farms" with horses, cows and goats. it's really quite nice, and on one of my saturday morning walks i was able to get a couple shots of horses that were just let out to exercise and graze. this lovely chestnut came running towards the fence before settling in to graze. what do you think she's thinging?  she is beautiful.  learning to ride a horse is in my bucket list of thing i want to do, i've always wanted to learn to ride a horse, really ride, no holding on to the mane-no trail riding, but sitting straight up in the saddle ridding western style-but no roping cattle-i do have my limits. being one with the horse and riding like the wind, of course, i'd need a cool new pair of cowboy boots before i make this happen. :-) how you like the goats? naaaaaaaaa. what's on your bucket list?

what i like right now..skype

it's been a while since i've done one of these-i finally got onto skype so i could video chat with pj, and it's AWESOME, it's one thing to talk on the phone, but to be able to see who you are talking with is even better. having the web cam on my laptop i was able to "take" pj around the house to visit with his nana, brother and dad. look forward to doing more of this.

food truck thursday.

i've been wanting to try the food trucks in midtown for a while. it was too hot during the summer and they were further away from my office. they don't call it "hot"lanta for nothing. anyway, today was the perfect day to venture out and try some "street" food. 

others certainly had the same idea i did, some of the options included-sliders, bbq, tamales/tacos, cajun po boys, sausages, pizza, gelato, cupcakes (i'll try these next time, they come highly recommended), paninis, i'm sure there were more that i missed.

today i tried a chicken taco, and a spicy pork tamale at the tamale queen atl truck, yum! for dessert i stopped at the king of pops cart. my boss introduced me to these last year, and they are sooo good. they are actually called paletas; which is a south american popsicle.  they are made with fresh juice and you can see from the sign some really cool extras. i highly recommend the chocolate sea salt, and today i had the blackberry mojito-mmmmm.

a bit of exercise, some glorious weather, and really really good "junk" food. can't wait for next week.

Life Lessons from Gilligan

Gilligan is probably the most challenging sweater I’ve done in quite a while. I started out with using the wrong type of yarn, ripping out and starting over cause I twisted my work when I joined it, starting over cause I just wasn’t paying attention. After consultation with mary I was on the right track with some lovely yarn that was great to use. I encountered many frustrating moments as I attempted to increase in lace, and maintain pattern, interpret instructions that were a bit confusing at times. I wanted to give up on this project many times along with way, but kept with it. I had to ask Mary to hold my hand more than once which she was willing to do, and even shared in my delight when I finished and declared that it FIT. Of course, I became a bit deflated when I blocked the sweater and worried that I had stretched it out of shape and I’d have to re-do my blocking. Fortunately most yarn is very forgiving and you get multiple re-dos. Is this the most perfect sweater, well no, I can see stitches that are not quite as tidy as I’d like, something is a bit off on another part. However, it fits pretty good (this is not a flattering shot!), and above all I stayed the course and completed the project. Here’s where the life lessons comes in-I’ve had some real challenges lately, made mistakes along the way, had to re-start a lot, get advise and encouragement from friends, including a little hand holding along the way. I've tried to equip myself with the tools I need to get the job done (in life) prayer, devotion and surrounding myself with good-vibe people (in knitting) good yarn, needles that won’t cause me to injure myself, stitch markers to help me along the way, row counters, etc. With both Gilligan and life, I can look in the mirror and see the flaws, but also see my successes. I also realize that unlike THIS sweater I’m still a work in progress, and if you look at my queue on ravelry, I’ll never really be finished knitting sweaters, but I hope that most of them will be a little easy on me. oh-and life-you can go a little easy on for a while too. thanks!