What everyone's getting this winter gift season

I love to eat. I think food is one of the great pleasures in life. Over the last year or so I have also started cooking more.

Based on a Wall Street Journal review I bought One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking, 600 Recipes from the Nation's Best Home Cooks, Farmers, Fishers, Pitmasters, and Chefs.

Just randomly flipping through it, I looked at about a dozen recipes. Of those, about 5 were by SouthEast Asian refugees, one was Persian, and the rest were Latino and European. I love that mix!

There are also stories about the places, the people, the histories behind the foods.

I think I'm going to give it to everyone I know who cooks. Or eats.

And in that spirit, since I couldn't make it to Sister's house for Thanksgiving, I finally made her a sushi toilet roll cover. It's something she's wanted for a while.

It's the embroidering for this that made me want to take up crewel work. I did buy some muslin and a hoop, and got some books from the library. But have yet to do any embroidering beyond this sushi thing.

I started knitting a scarf instead with the gorgeous red/orange/gold silk yarn I got in Savannah a few weeks ago. It's the perfect antidote to all the grey winter weather.

Vegas, baby!

back from Sister's birthday/bachelorette party in Las Vegas. Details I will reveal:

best meals:
Todai restaurant, sushi buffet. Several locations in the US, but not Atlanta, yet.
Beijing Noodle No. 9 in Caesar's Palace. Hand pulled noodles (not a euphemism).

And for the rest, like they say "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.)

All in all, a great time.

Steampunking on and Bachelorette Parties

I am currently reading Throne of Jade, book 2 in the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. Think the movie "Master and Commander" with dragons that talk and fight with aerial crews. I read book 1, In His Majesty's Service in about 3 days.

After a weekend of feeling under the weather, I've returned to staying up until 2am reading. Novik is a really good writer. Book 1 is set in the UK. In Book 2, they leave for China by sailing around Africa. She does a good job of showing different cultures and she touches on the issue of slavery in a way that's informative and pushes the story forward.

I really recommend the series. Actually, I've recommended the series to Husband's boss. The week before Dragon*Con, Husband's boss and I were talking about the Song of Ice and Fire. The rest of the dinner party had no idea what we were talking about. Previously he had lent me the Diana Gabaldon and True Blood books, which I returned without reading. I also lent him my Firefly set.

So I e-mailed him to recommend the Temeraire series. He e-mailed back to say he and his wife were really enjoying Firefly, being up to episode 8 (Out of Gas, one of my favorites) and was there a season two? Alas, I had to break the news that there was only the one season, but I could loan him the follow up movie Serenity.

I may have converted another 2 Browncoats and broken their hearts too, just like I was.

Knitting continues apace, a pic will come eventually. However the big thing coming up for me is Sister's bachelorette party coming in Las Vegas. Probably no blogging until I get back. I'm taking Boneshaker in paperback with me (again steampunk) for inflight reading.

But in the meantime, here's an really interesting link. http://kck.st/b8GOoq

Virtuoso is a comic set in steampunk Africa. And it's got a page at Kickstarter to raise funds for it. $10 gets you a copy of the 24 page prologue and supports future issues. When I have time I'll explore Kickstarter more fully. Talk about grassroots fundraising for creative works.

Staycation weekend

been a week since i posted. what a week.

got a mongo proposal done and sent in. Grants.gov is a pain, but buys me time for when I don't have things ready the day before for Fed Ex. also squeezed out a grant report that someone else was supposed to do. not gonna even start with the work drama.

worked a zillion hours last 2 weeks to get it done. taking Monday off to recuperate, even tho I didn't work over this weekend.

Husband and i were supposed to go to Buffalo for his annual family reunion but I just couldn't do it, so I bailed. Husband didn't want to go without me so he didn't go either. awww how sweet.

We had a little staycation weekend instead. It's restaurant week in downtown Atlanta, where participating restaurants offer a prix fix menu. I made reservations for us at Thrive, a place we hadn't been to before. It was okay. the shrimp salad was the best thing there.

In the mail we got our Dragon*Con progress report. So we headed up to the pool with adult beverages to plan our Labor Day weekend plans. Well I did. Husband played Angry Birds on his iPhone. that is an addictive, and deceptively difficult, little game.

Saturday we went to the Ga Aquarium to see the shark exhibit. Husband's been wanting to see it so I got us tickets. For dinner we had trout :)

Yesterday Husband went to work and I finally finished the BSG Season 3 disc I had. The last ep on the disc was the boxing one which showed life of New Caprica and the Sam-Kara-Lee-Dee situation. As much as I like Dee, my favorite part was seeing Laura and Bill hangout under the stars.

I also watched some fitness shows on FitTV station on cable. Caught the end of a yoga show and followed along with the belly-dancing show. My verdict: yoga is harder.

Finished: Sister's sweater

Finished Sister's Emerald Sweater:

Pattern: Emerald from Knitty.com

Yarn: Lamb's Pride Bulky, in the Ocean Waves colorway

Needle: size 10 US

Started: June 19, 2008

Finished: September 6, 2008

Modifications: Made size small on top, size medium on the bottom with extra darts to accommodate her boo-tay. Hmm. Seems to fit me pretty well too. That's me modeling it up there. Also, used three buttons toggle-style instead of one button as per the instructions.

Close up of buttons, sent by Sister this week:

Ramblings about my trip to DC

Went to DC this week for a conference and some meetings about money. The nonprofit organization I work at is funded largely through federal grants and 2 of them have been tricky. After the conference I had meetings with people holding the purse strings for those 2 tricky grants.

The meetings were on Friday. Thursday night I woke up in the middle of the night all in a panic about those meetings. And wondering how much longer I can do this job.

Plenty of people run nonprofit organizations for decades, which is much longer than I have so far. And I'm sure they've had these moments of panic, stress, anxiety, malaise, and general less-than-thrilled-about-the-job feelings. As has everyone throughout history.

The first meeting went pretty much as expected, which is, not too bad. Then I had lunch with some friends and vented. And then went to the meeting I was really dreading, because it was with a federal auditor.

Plus, I got off at the wrong Metro stop, had to walk blocks in the 80 degree weather, still got lost on the way to his office and showed up shiny and sweaty. However, we went to Starbucks, I got hydrated, we sat outside and worked things through. It went much better than expected.

The guy used to live in Atlanta so we chatted about that, and he also visited Taiwan at about the same time when I lived in Taiwan, and we're about the same age, and I tried to be my most charming and competent best, so all in all, my meetings went pretty well.

Still, the malaise and general less-than-thrilled-about-the-job feelings continue.

On the upside, I was staying at Sister's place and it was nice to see her and hang out. Unfortunately, she had to put down one of her cats last week who was old and suffering from some kind of cancer. Today, she picked up the ashes and I put the wooden box of ashed on the shelf next to her Han Solo bobble head doll.

Now I'm home and I see that I've finally gotten the long-promised CD of pictures from the fellowship trip I did 15 months ago. On the last day of the trip, one of the other fellows offered to copy our pics from our digital cameras onto his laptop and then burn all our pictures onto one disc so we could see everyone else's pictures.

And now, 15 months later, the disc is here!

Request from Sister

Sister left me a voice message, saying that everywhere she goes, she gets compliments on the sweater I made her. Again, it's made with Manos del Uruguay in Eclipse, using CosmicPluto's Top down Raglan Cardigan pattern.

She is requesting another one, but this time in a different color, longer and with a button band instead of ties.

Well, it'll have to go to the end of the line, behind:

• earwarmer headband for Ba
• hat for Ma
• scarves for employees (thankfully I only have 4, and big needles make fast work)
• Brother-in-Law's vest
• Top down raglan cardi for me

Also ongoing

• Husband's afghan
• Brother Two's Chinese Coins afghan
• my own Hazy Corners Malabrigo afghan
• Lotus pillow

Sister'll get her sweater for her next birthday, in September.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday my clan arrived and are staying with Husband and me: Sister and Sister's Boyfriend, Brother One, and Brother Two. We all went to Maggiano's for dinner and over ordered their family-style dinner. But not to worry, if there's anything my family does, it's eat and play games: boccie, cards, mah-jong, Scrabble. So leftovers are wonderful, as is the opportunity to sit together with family.

I also finished Sister's Easy Top-Down Raglan Cardigan, using CosmicPluto's pattern, in Manos del Uruguay yarn in Eclipse. It fits Sister, she likes it, and she wore it out to dinner. Success at last!

Fell down and went boom

I had a great time hanging out with Sister. We stayed up past 1am talking, drinking wine, and looking at magazines. She's renovating her condo, so she was all into the Blueprint and Real Simple magazines I bought.

Food summary:
Friday dinner: Korean. Saturday brunch: leftover Korean. Saturday dinner: Chili's. Sunday brunch: Dim Sum.

I so need to get back to the gym.

I had my knitting going of course. I really cranked on My So-Called Scarf, and have almost finished one ball:

Saturday we were going to have the Korean massage but we decided to go shopping instead. I wanted to visit a yarn shop and Sister wanted to go to Ikea to scope out living room furniture.

Before we went, I drew out a floor plan with measurements, taking into account things like location on A/C unit, height of window sills, etc. I also took measurements of her existing furniture. She didn't buy anything and was rather disappointed that the perfect piece wasn't available.

As for the yarn shop, we went to Aylin's Wool Gatherer, the only yarn shop listed in Sister's town's yellow pages. It was very well hidden, and I have to say, the staff gave lousy directions over the phone. But once there, I fell down and went boom. They had a 15% off sale, so I went nuts buying:

2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay 119 Adobe: 4 skeins of Manos del Uruguay colorway 111, Eclipse. You might be able to tell that 2 skeins are lighter than the other 2. Here's one skein of Malabrigo Purple Mystery (it's really darker than seen here) and 2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay 117 Violets 1 skein of Malabrigo in Tiger Lily: 2 skeins Wildfoote sock yarn in the Bluegrass colorway 1 ball of Jo Sharp Silk Tweed in color 124 Jewel. I had taken a stack of my knitting books, mostly from Interweave press, and told Sister that since Bi-colored Cables cardigan wasn't working out so well, that I'd make her something else. She liked the Paisley Shawl from Folk Style, but wanted it in a deep eggplant or russet red. I told her to pick out a color she'd like and I'd use it as reference when buying yarn for her shawl. So she chose the Jo Sharp. Maybe Knitpicks or Elann will have something appropriate.

I also offered to make Sister's boyfriend something and he liked Ela's Favorite Hat from One-Skein Wonders. He was wearing dark red and grey at the time, so maybe I'll make it for him from a skein of Manos in Bramble, like My So-called Scarf above. He doesn't use scarves, which is too bad because then I'd have one winter present done. Ah well.

What will I do with all that yarn? I don't know. Maybe a bunch of scarves. I'm really enjoying My So-Called Scarf. I'm also thinking of making another Argosy scarf. I told Husband that I went to a yarn shop and bought a lot of yarn. He said he erased that message as soon as he heard it.

All in all, a really fun weekend. And in 2 months, I'll be seeing them again for Thanksgiving. Perhaps I'll have fixed Bi-Colored Cables by then.

Sister's Birthday -- Pig!

Tomorrow I fly to DC to spend the weekend with Sister. It's her 36th birthday, meaning she's done 3 Chinese zodiac cycles (12 years each), so that's something. But the 60th birthday's the really big one. It means you've lived 5 cycles, and back when the average life span didn't quite reach that far, doing 5 cycles was really something special.

I'm not sure what's planned other than going to the spa on Saturday. Sister warned me that it's a Korean spa which is really, really exfoliating. Hm.

I'm taking her Bi-Colored Cables cardigan, gorilla sleeves and all, to pin up how it should really fit on her arms. Then my options are to cut and sew up, as if steeking, or to re-knit. If the cutting and sewing doesn't work, I may end up reknitting anyway. At least I'll know how many stitches wide to knit it.

I'm also packing the Manos So-called Scarf in Bramble and the Pagewood Farms sock yarn in Crayon (much more pastel than shown on the site, even more than the Pretty Pastels colorway) I got at Knitch last night. I'm playing around with it now, doing a So-Called Scarf swatch on size 8 US needle.

By the way, it's the year of the pig.