Alien Spouse

Blossoming Paper.

It's snowing quite hard, and my office is practically empty (Doc says we should leave at lunchtime) - So, naturally, I'm sitting at my desk learning how to make origami cherry blossom.

2012.

Happy New Year!

We spent yesterday evening at Randy and Laura's house with a small grop of friends. It was a very nice way to end 2011, and start 2012.

Today I slept late; finished playing "Arkham Asylum"; got half-way through "Genius Wars" and had a most satisfactory afternoon nap.

Doc started playing "Arkham City" (Catwoman! Squee!); made vegetable stock form the HF-W cookbook; looked on-line at houses for sale and has now settled in for a "Star Wars" marathon.

2012 is off to a cracking start!

Coffee Morning.

There must be something about me that suggests that I enjoy home-made baking, because for Christmas I was given a dozen banana cherry chocolate chip muffins and a gift basket of assorted cookies. We finished off the last of the biscotti this morning, so I'm going to have to try out a recipe so we can make more of them.

Tasty little devils!

Happy Martini Haze.

Well personally I like keeping the gin in the freezer, it produces a perfectly chilled martini that definitely softens in flavour as you drink it and I rather liked that. This has a dash of Angostura Bitters in it, and that is just delicious.

Doc C made this for me, because I was covered in sleeping cats and he then brought it to me in the living room. This then presented somewhat of a problem; how to get a decent photo of the drink with out distracting background clutter and with out leaving my station as comfy cat bed. Fortunately one of the pieces of clutter on the coffee table next to me was a sheet of crumpled red tissue paper.  I put the glass on the paper and held that up as a backdrop with my left hand whilst taking the pictures with my right hand.

I'm just as pleased with the photos as I was with the chilled gin. A successful set of experiments all around!

Halloween 2012 - More Photos!

 Halloween may be over for another year, but I still have photos to show you!

Bwa-ha-ha!

The Dessert Buffet of Halloween! Quake with fear at the coconut macaroons, almond cupcakes with chocolate icing, pumpkin tarlets, spiced butter cookies and chocolate frogs!

The Flamingoes of Halloween! In plastic champagne glasses no less!

The Dozen Battery Powered Candles of Halloween!

Sweet Amphibians.

It turns out that 1 bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk makes 15 frogs, and I had four bars of dairy milk; so now I have 60 frogs. I also hand-painted markings on all 60 in two shades of green.

So for each batch I melted the dark green candy melts and painted that on to the moulds, then melted the light green candy melts and painted that on. Before I could temper the chocolate I had to wash the double-boiler thoroughly and dry it super carefully to make sure there was not a drop of water left, because that would ruin the whole batch. All of the chocolate had to be finely chopped to make sure it melted uniformly, then stirred until it was cool enough to pour into the frog moulds.

To get the bubbles out you have to whack it down on to the worksurface, before putting it into the freezer for quarter of an hour. Once set you flip the mould over and whack it the other way up on a chopping board, and the frogs hop out. Making chocolates is a surprisingly noisy endeavour.

So yeah, I spent the whole day making chocolate frogs and now I'm exhausted.

Making Halloween, Making Halloween - La, la, la It's almost here!

Last week I bought some very elegant willow branches to arrange in a vase with a few whisps of cobweb, but it really didn't have much of a visual impact. Yesterday it occured to me that I wanted to make it a much bigger, and wilder.

 So I went outside to collect small fallen branches from the maple tree at the front of our house, and added those to my arrangement. It looks as though I have a winter tree growing out of my bookcase now.

That's much more what I was hoping for!

Chocolate Frogs and Fat Little Chipmunks.

It's Fall Break, and my Department Chair said I could close the office! So I did and I have had a really fun day!

First of all I woke up really late because I'd turned off my alarm, then Doc C made pancakes. After that I had a shower and got dressed, before spending what was left of the morning making chocolate frogs and spiders. I am very pleased with how they look, I hand-painted the molds with different colours of candy melt to get the markings; the problem is that we only had chocolate chips in the house, so the texture is wrong. As everything I read about molding chocolate had predicted, the chocolates are just too soft and melt to easily. Well, I've bought some different chocolate to experiment with, so suppose that means I'll have to taste test chocolate all over again. Deep sigh.

After that I practised applying my new mineral make-up, watched the first episode in the new "Psych" season and finished making the party invitations.

We also spent a fair amount of time today watching the chipmunk that lives under our house. It discovered the bird seed that Doc C had left on the porch for it (the man is such a softy, but don't tell him I said that), the chipmunk had to make two trips and ludicrously overstuff it's cheeks to transport all the food back to it's nest, but that is a very determined little rodent. Edith was fascinated, and very excited.
Later I looked out if the kitchen window to see (probably the same) chipmunk swinging from the bird feeder. Again it did this a few times, so I got to watch it shimmy up the feeder's metal stand and then leap across to the feeder. It was pretty impressive.

Now I'm watching "Alien" (1979), eating smoked salmon pizza and drinking pumpkin beer.

It's been a bloody nice day.

You are Invited to a Suburban Nightmare.

This is one of our Halloween Party invitations, in fact I do believe this was the first card off the production line.

Let me walk you through my process.

Step One) I hand coloured the flamingo, because I didn't have any card in the right shade of pink; so I used a sickly shade of lilac and cross-hatched it with a hot pink gel pen. Then I used my iPod to find an image of a plastic flamingo, and traced the outline onto greaseproof paper; I used that tracing to make a template which I drew around. Finally I cut out ten flamingoes, by hand, from the now pink card and hot-glued cocktail sticks onto the back of them. 

Step Two) I used a round cookie cutter as a template to draw ten circles of the same diameter onto the mottled grey card stock, and then I hand-cut those out too. They were then stuck onto the invitations, trying to get them all in roughly the same position.

Step Three) I cut out ten strips of white card, and used a Martha Stewart paper punch to get the fence cut-outs. I folded the strips in half and stuck the back half onto the card so that the fence folded around to the front of the invitation.

Step Four) Having not found any suitable grass (I was really hoping to find bento grass food dividers, but then I remembered I live in a tiny town on top of a mountain in North Carolina), I was going to cut it out of green card. Then I found a packet of acid green shredded paper which I bought at Easter to pack cupcakes in boxes with and then never used - It's the perfect colour, and, hello, it says "Easter Grass" right there on the bag! Perfect! So then I had to pull out individual clumps from the tangle inside the bag and comb it out using my fingers, line it up and cut it in half before hot-gluing it to the card. Once in place I trimmed the grass, so it wasn't covering the moon.

Step Five) I hot-glued the flamingo to the card so it was silhouetted by the moon.

Step Six) I folded the fence up over the bottom of the grass and the base of the flamingo's stick, and hot-glued it into place.

Step Seven) Place in a row on the mantel piece to check quality control and uniformity across the production line.

Step Eight) Force husband to admire the damn invitations you've spent hours making.

And I still have four to finish.

Baking for Disbelievers.

This evening I'm cooking for the University's fledgling band of heathens - The Atheists and Agnostics will be getting almond mini cupcakes with a raspberry compote, and a deconstructed pumpkin cheesecake (spiced pumpkin creamcheese piped onto a graham cracker (English Translation - A square biscuit that is sort of like a slightly less crisp digestive)).

It's rather convenient that these are two of the items on my Halloween buffet menu, isn't it? But I'm sure the students won't mind being culinary guinea pigs.

The Crack in the Wall - Now With TARDIS!

This weekend I made art - Well, I cut up a t-shirt with a print I really liked, stapled bits of it to canvases of various different sizes, and then hung them on the wall. That's art, right? Sort of?

Eh, whatever! I now have a panel of the TARDamask Threadless t-shirt hanging up on our bedroom wall right underneath a largish crack in the plaster. It couldn't be much better really could it? (Don't worry Moth, I darkened the crack in this photo to make it a bit more prominent.)

As you can see I also made some mini panels with just one TARDIS on them, this portrait one is ok, but I really like the square minis better because the whole design will fit diagonally rather neatly. I put one of those up too, on the other side of the bathroom door, so we have TARDIS whizzing off all over the place. That seems much more appropriate than them being entirely confined to nice neat rows, don't you think?

I still have half of the t-shirt left, it was a front and back all-over print, so I could make a larger panel, or a cushion maybe.

 

The First of October.

It being the first day of October Doc C has allowed me to kick off the Halloween decorating - It also helps that we got paid yesterday, because I needed one or two things to get this party started!

I'd already arranged the dried rosebuds, assorted foliage and ribbon (which all came from the lovely bunch of flowers I was given by a colleague who does weddings - So this is a recycled bridesmaid's bouquet!) onto the vine wreath, but it needed more. Specifically it needed moss, fake cobwebs and plastic spiders. The plastic spiders are rings that come in packs of 50 from the dollar store, but I had to get 2 packs because they ar a mix of the black spiders that I wanted and bright orange spiders which did not really work for this particular project. I wanted to make this look like a really lush wreath had been left on the door for years and was disentegrating, but was still just about being held together by the cobwebs -Actually the rosebuds kept falling out when left to their own devices, so the cobweb really is integral to this project.

With Edith's help (how do people manage to do any sort of DIY craft project without a cat around to helpfully try and eat everything?), it took me about forty minutes to get the whole thing finished and now it's on our front door.

I then spent a couple of hours watching old episodes of "CSI" and cutting the rings off the backs of the orange plastic spiders that I deemed totally unrealistic for the wreath. I then poked a whole in the back with my handy bradle and then stuck a cocktail stick in each one. I now have orange spider cocktail sticks, perfect for my Halloween party snacks and drinks! Thanks Martha!

Mmm... Garlicky...

I have finally got the hang of baked aubergine (it's a very American dish, so it's usually called "eggplant parmesan" - I just can't do it myself), thanks to Sophie Dahl's first cookbook, and Doc C even likes this version where as he could never see the point of this particular meal before.

One of the best parts of making this is that it's really delicious with home-made garlic bread, and that's a treat we've not had for a while. It isn't that we're totally eschewing carbs, but equally we aren't training for any marathons in the near future, so there's absolutely no need to carb-load on pasta AND bread.

So garlick bread is back in the meal plan! Hoorah! I use a loaf of fresh French bread baked that morning at our amazing local bakery, and that bread is delicious in itself, so it's hugely tempting to eat the whole baguette in one meal - but I've been freezing half, which is hugely restrained, don't you think?

Ooh! Shiny!

I have had a scathingly good idea for Halloween party invitations. It will require a specialist paper stamp, two different colours of card, swizzle sticks and, possibly, faux pearls. I'm still thinking about that.

This calls for a trip to the craft store, as soon as possible. Which would be after work tomorrow evening, and tomorrow being Wednesday, this means a detour on the way home from the pub; this may result in some interesting impulse purchases. Glitter-rama!

White (Chocolate) Bones.

Today's plans to stay in my pajamas and play "Portal 2" all day were modified slightly when it became clear that I needed to get more baking soda and vinegar to unclog the drain in the bath, so I got dressed and we went into town. Now if we were forced to go into town for boring things, then we were also going to look at Halloween stuff. I know it's barely even September, but the Halloween goods are on display already and I need to get the good stuff before it runs out. I've learnt from previous years that leaving the Halloween shopping until the day before results in a disappointing amount of orange plastic junk, and none of the good chocolate.

This year we are having a cocktail party with the theme of Suburban Nightmare, this only requires a very simple costume for me which I already have pretty much got together, and so now I'm focusing on the menu. I definitely want to make cupcakes with something poking out of them, and I think that something is going to be a miniature bone or two. I bought the mold this afternoon, and have successfully made two white chocolate skeletons.

I also got mini-cookie cutters to make hors d'oeuvres of grave stones crackers and cheese slice ghosts; as well as a baking tray which is supposed to make molded bone-shaped cookies, although I'm thinking of using that to make bone-shaped cheese straws.

Doc C is also getting into our theme, and has had some really good ideas for the decorations and ambiance of the house. This is going to be such a fun project to work on with him!

Pre-Halloween Jitters.

I'm already thinking about Halloween, as ever; particularly this year thought because we are seriously considering having a cocktail party. I already have a theme in mind, so I've pulled out my Martha Stewart Halloween specials to find suitably spooky nibbles and drinks that would work with that.

First and foremost we are going to need black vodka to make all the drinks look inky and forbidding, and there are so many cookie cutters and cake trays available that my head is already spinning from all of the options.

That's just the refreshments, we also need to decorate the house and come up with co-ordinating costumes. Now I'm starting to worry that I've let this too late, and two months just won't be enough time!

Tiny Tasty Tartlets.

Doc C's department had a party this afternoon, which everyone brings some food too. This year Doc had checked ahead and ascertained that the main courses and side dishes would be fully covered, so that meant he felt honour bound to make two kinds of dessert. Damn.

He made coconut and almond maracoons, which were and will always be damn delicious; then he extended his baking repetoire to lemon meringue tartlets.

From the pastry cases to the lemon curd to the meringue, all you see was made from scratch in out little kitchen this morning by Doc C on a baking kick. My only note would be that the pastry could have been a touch thinner, but certainly not at all bad, particularly not for a first go.

Maude in Progress.

I don't generally post pictures of works in progress on-line, but I offered to make a pair of "Harold and Maude" (1971) amigurumis for Megg back in freaking NOVEMBER, so, you know, I thought I'd make an exception. 

This is Maude, I actually made her head when I was in England, so she's been percolating for a while now, and, after seriously months of internal debate, I finally decided to dress her in the outfit she wears to the second (I think?) funeral; so a classic trench coat with a pink silk scarf (not made yet) and a big yellow umbrella.

I still haven't quite decided how to dress Harold, should he wear the clothes he is in for the second funeral, or should I go for one of his more colourful and therefore fun outfits? He has a particularly great pinkish tweed suit that keeps jumping up and down in my mind, but I have no earthly clue how I would do that. Maybe baker's twine? I don't know. Fortunately I do know for definite that Harold will have very long legs, and they will definitely be clad in flares.

Door-to-Door Letter Opener.

I love this! It's another gem from the retiring professor's office, and it's a plastic letter opener with a molded decoration on both sides of the handle. One side is a travelling saleswoman and the other is a travelling salesman, and just underneath both is the logo for Fuller's Brush Co. I adore the "Mad Men" vibe on this, but I especially love the travelling saleswoman and her fabulous outfit. I want that dress, and those gloves. Gorgeous.

Naturally I did a little google research, and I discovered that these letter openers were promotional freebies from Fuller's, which is just delightful. These letter openers aren't terribly collectible and they are easy to buy cheaply on ebay, so I'm thinking I might turn it into a piece of jewellery somehow. I think it's too big for a necklace, but maybe a brooch or a bracelet.

A Bouquet of Pipecleaners.

One of our longest serving faculty is retiring, so he is clearing out his office and gifting the treasures he finds to his friends and colleagues.

Yesterday I was given this bunch of pipecleaners, which I'm sure have a future as skelatal structures of amigurumi, but for now are impersonating impressionistic flowers on my desk.

I also got several different types of card index, a beer mat and an elephant trunk mask; whilst Doc has scored a giant pair of chalk compasses for drawing accurate circles on blackboard. 

I Dream of Germs.

Last night I dreamt that I felt really ill, and was trying to decide if I felt well enough to go into the office. It was very confusing to wake up feeling totally healthy.

Anticipating warm weather I got dressed in capris, a t-shirt and a thin cardigan; I was just putting on my shoes when Doc C told me it was actually going quite chilly. So then I had to get changed in about thirty seconds flat before we left the house.

That was still the best way round for doing things, I'd much rather be healthy and somewhat warmly dressed in jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt and a cotton blazer.

However, I didn't know the central heating was turned off over the weekend, so it was bloody freezing. Hopefully tonight I will dream a pattern for really warm socks that can be knitted up very quickly.

Seis De Mayo.

Yesterday after work we went to our friend David's house for an end of Semester slash day after cinco de mayo party. Everyone was bringing south western food with them, so sort of, kind of, mexican-ish.

I made tequila lime cupcakes with a lime and sour cream frosting, and Doc C made chilli chocolate fudge. Doc very much liked my cupcakes, but thought the fudge was too spicy so he almost didn't bring it with us; I however thought it was delicious so the fudge came too. David had invited everyone for six, so I thought I'd be home by ten and planned to post then. Isn't it funny how after three beers and two margaritas you suddenly realise it's midnight, and you've been giggling like a loon at YouTube videos for at least an hour?

It was a very fun Friday evening.

Fractal Chicks

I love packaging. If something comes in a particularly nice box, well I may covet the box more than the content and I'm sure that my love of some brands is purely down to being swept away by their design aesthetic.

This may explain why I spent quite some time on Sunday choosing just the right cardboard cartons to package the cupcakes I intend to take to my hairdresser. I went with classic Chinese takeaway boxes with the little wire handle, except these are tastefully glossy pastel shades of pink, blue and green. I also found some Easter themed cartons, which were for the most part completely hideous, but I did buy one that had rows and rows of yellow chicks, with an occasional hot pink chick facing in the other direction. So cute! So impossible to get a good photo of!

I really tried to get something a little more representational out of the shots I took, and of course I really really wanted one of the hot pink chicks to be prominently featured, but it was not to be. Even with all of those caveats I'm still pleased with how this image turned out, I imagine this is, like, the cutest bad acid trip ever!

Egg-Cup Cakes.

I made mini cupcakes last night to bring into the office to celebrate two birthdays I'd missed, and to start the week off on the right foot. How much melodrama can there be in a week that begins with titchy little cakes covered in sour cream icing and shredded coconut or sprinkles?

I made the cakes and the topping last night, but I didn't actually ice them until this morning. So, if you want a fun mental image to start the week, you can picture me in the kitchen at 6:30 this morning lovingly smearing buttercream onto little dollops of sponge whilst wearing my pyjamas with my Buckingham Palace pinny over the top.

And for a sense of the size of these little loves, here's another photo of one of them in my hand.

 

Rhubarb and Custard.

For dinner tonight I cooked brown rice with chickpeas, which Doc C wasn't wildly excited about last time I made it; but that was because I wanted something really easy to throw together for the main course whilst I concentrated on learning how to make rhubarb crumble from a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Mainly I really wanted to use the small enamel pie dishes that I bought from Utility in Brighton, and which are the perfect size for individual portions. I also made Bird's custard, which was just not thick enough in my opinion, so I'm clearly going to have to make this again and perfect my custard making techniques.

Sunday in Norfolk.

Today was a quiet Sunday at home, mainly because both Stu and Ruby were under the weather. Stu being human made it easier to ascertain his symptoms, and suggest that taking a paracetomol and resting were the best things to do. It's trickier with Ruby because she can't explain what's not feeling right, so it is purely our observing that she is off her food, not washing and very lethargic. Tomorrow morning we will take Ruby to the vets, so I'll hopefully know more then.

Mum and I are both feeling fine so far (knock on wood - because that would be bloody annoying wouldn't it?), so we baked cheese scones, lemon & poppyseed muffins and peanut butter biscuits. Then we played Scrabble, and I finished making Maude's hair.

 

Stop Motion Animation of Crochet. It's Very Sweet!

This charming stop motion video shows an Amigurumi being made and each shot is a new crochet stitch. This is pretty much exactly how I make my little manikens, but I don't have any of those handy looking clamps and stands. Also I am rarely listening to music this perky, it's far more likely to be the TV on in the background with a nice gory detective drama or, in the case of last night, an oddly predictable Oscars.

Felted Heart.

I needle felted my first three dimensional object last night, it's the small grey heart in the photo on the left. The stripy background is actually one of my favourite scarves.

I didn't really choose the heart shape, the materials did that for me. No, really! I was rolling the loose strands around in my hand and they started to ball up, but then spontaneously assumed the rudimentary shape of a love-heart. So I just worked with that, and refined the shape a bit.

The funny part is that this is actually made from the fur that came off Edith when I brushed her last night. It was just an experiment to see if cat fur could be felted, and it can! That is quite cool! Huh! This must be how furballs form! That is quite disgusting!

When I went to bed last night I imagined that if there is a market for taxidermy then there also might be a market for felted heart-shaped mementos of beloved pets, and, of course, there is. As it happens someone is already taking commissions to felt objects from pet fur on Etsy, but they make actual models of the animals from fur clippings. I'm not sure I can compete with that!

Heart of Marmite.

This is high romance in the Alien Spouse house - Marmite on toast with a heart cut-out and a cup of tea.

And I thought I was Looking Quite Slim.

Oh! I forgot to mention another reason for realising I really do need to work on toning or, at the very least, my posture!

When we were in Asheville I wanted to buy needle felting equipment, so I picked up a pack of needles, a pack of wool roving and a block of foam. To double check that was everything I asked the very nice woman in the craft shop if that was everything I needed.

She said yes, and then asked when my baby was due.

I had one of those moments of confusion where I thought maybe I'd picked up a felting kit for baby clothes or perhaps she'd found my blog somehow and therefore knew I'd literally just come off birth control. So I said "Not for a while...", at exactly that moment I realised that what she meant was I had a bit of a tummy, so I added "Well, you know, I'd have to get pregnant first!"

The poor lady was mortified, and I could not stop laughing.

Risotto Recipe.

I'm cooking risotto for dinner, and I'm sure at some stage I'll want to cook it when I'm away from home & I shall want the recipe.  It's basically Lindsey Bareham's "Cheat's Risotto", but scaled down for two people.

• Half an onion
• Unsalted Butter
• 2/3 cup of Arborio Rice
• 1/4 cup of white wine
• 2 cups of vegetable stock
• Italian 4 Cheese Blend

Soften the onion in the butter. Add the rice & stir to coat with the butter. Add the wine and stir until that has been absorbed. Add 1 1/2 cups of the stock, stir and bring to the simmer. Put the lid on the pan, turn off the heat and leave alone for half an hour. No peeking.

After letting the rice cook in the steam, return to a medium heat and add the rest of the stock. Stir in a knob of butter and a handful of cheese. Serve with more cheese on top.

At the moment my two favourite risottos are roasted butter nut squash (that's what we're having tonight. The squash is cubed and roasted whilst I'm cooking everything else, and then added at the end), and mushroom with lemon and tabasco. Yum!

Glazed Lemon Bundt Skull Cakes.

Oh poor skull-shaped baking tray!  Don't cry! We have eggs now, so I can bake something with you!

Instead of cupcakes, which I thought might be a bit too delicate, I whipped up some lemon bundt cakes based on Nigella Lawson's recipe.  They held the shape of the tin really well, and I drizelled them with a lemon syrup glaze rather than smother them in icing.  These would need to be very carefully decorated to really emphasize the skull's features, but with just a glaze it's actually quite subtle.  You know, for a skull.

Skull Cupcake Tray.

After breakfast this morning I washed up the skull-shaped cupcake baking sheet that I bought in Boston, so I could try it out.  I was hoping they would work out well enough to take to Randy and Laura's when we went over to play "Arkham Asylum".

The snow got worse and worse, so first of all our game day had to be postponed until next weekend, and then we started to think we were going to be snowed in for a while.  I thought I'd make the cupcakes anyway, but then Doc C told me we didn't have any eggs, so I couldn't.

Now this was a worry, because we then realised we didn't have a whole bunch of other stuff we might need if we did get stuck in the house; like toothpaste and cat litter.  Yikes.  Fortunately there was a break in the blizzard for about a couple of hours, and we were able to go shopping.  

Tomorrow there will be skull shaped cakes.

World History and It's Effects On Knitting.

As you may have gathered from the photo illustration for today, I've been doing some knitting over the holidays.  To be precise, I think I've added 4 diamonds in length to the scarf which I've been working on for... Oh... Three months now... To be fair to both the scarf itself and my own knitting ability, this hasn't been my primary project at any point over those months and it is the first intarsia pattern I've tried and, let's not forget it's double-sided, so really it's twice as long.  Sort of.

Anyway, the most exciting knitting development whilst in Boston was that I bought another knitting book, and was persuaded by it's glowing accounts of the high speeds that were achievable by knitting according to the Continental method. The main difference is you hold the yarn in your left hand instead of your right, so both hands do an equal amount of work and there are fewer steps involved in each stitch.

According to this entry on Wikipedia the Continental style fell out of popularity in the UK and America around World War II because of it's associations with Germany, which I find very odd.  I understand not wanting to look unpatriotic during a war, but why switch to a less efficient method of knitting just when it seems likely you'll have less time to waste when producing very necessary items of warm clothing?  It's most peculiar to think that a change in the way people knit was a lasting effect of the Second World War, but then this could easily be an urban knitting legend don't you think?  How on earth would one go about researching such a thing anyway?  Fascinating!

Pre-Christmas Monday.

Today I tidied the study and the cupboards whilst listening to Goldfrapp, and then I put together the dough for cookies whilst watching "Miss Marple" (Thanks Moth!) Now I'm baking the cookies whilst watching "Leverage".  There's just something about pastry made with a crime drama playing in the background, that's the secret to my butter cookies actually.

Tomorrow I'll probably do some laundry whilst making mince pies, and watching "Psych" or maybe "Cold Case".

It's all go!

 

Mackenzie.

This is the amigurumi I made for my work friend Amy's Christmas basket.  She's based on a particularly terrifying small girl featured in the reality television series "Toddlers and Tiaras", who has become something of a by-word in our office for the majestic power of a well timed strop.  It's worth pondering from time to time.

The Traditional Pie of Christmas.

The blizzard finally made it's appearance, and so the University was closed today - Snow Day!  Woo!

I'd made mincemeat yesterday, following a recipe in Nigella's "How to Be A Domestic Goddess" which is really easy to make and delicious.  It's cooking apples, raisins, currants, almonds, lemon juice, zest, mixed spices, sugar and cider.  Unless you forgot to buy cider, in which case why not improvise with that bottle of Chardonnay that's been lurking in the fridge?  Also don't forget the rum, but you can skip the suggested cherries if you like.  Basically you put everything in a large saucepan, simmer it until it goes pulpy and there you have it.

Today was clearly pastry making day, so we could have some mince pies and a nice cup of when Doc C had finished his grading quota for the day.  These were gone almost as soon as they were cool enough to eat, but I've still got half the dough left and two-thirds of the mincemeat so there will be more tomorrow!  YUM!

The Complete Yoda.

Instead of partying this evening, I got out the number 3 crochet hook (it's the light blue one, and it's my favourite) and finished Yoda's hands and cane.

Ta-Dah!

I have to throw false modesty to the wind and say he turned out far better than I was expecting him to.  Yoda himself is crocheted in cotton, with hair made of strands of cotton rug-hooked in and polymer clay button eyes.  His clothes are all knitted, the top and trousers from brown cotton, and the robe from new wool.  I also crocheted a cane from beige cotton, and made loops from his fingers so he can hold the handle.  The cane and the robe are removable, and of course Yoda can wear his hood up or down.

I made him for my friend Laura to give to a friend of her's who is a huge Star Wars fan, but Doc C is already starting to get quite attached, so I hope I can smuggle him out when the Doc isn't looking.

Friday Night - Before the Predicted Snow Storm.

We're going to my Department's Christmas Party this evening, which should be quite fun actually.  It's a very good thing that it's this evening, because this weekend we have been promised a blizzard.  In fact the University has already re-scheduled the exams that were supposed to take place on Monday to Wednesday, I'm assured that this is completely without precedent so this is clearly going to be some serious snow.

I'm already planning the supplies we'll need to buy tomorrow morning to survive the predicted long snow-pocalypse weekend - Mostly this involves having all the ingredients required to bake mince-pies and gingerbread houses, but I also have my eye on some draught excluding caulking cord for the window frames.  I am determined to stay warm this year, and I've been reading this blog post about things you can do to keep heat in when you live in a rented home with an eye to making that a reality.  Of course my top tips to staying warm over the winter is plenty of tea and a cat or two scattered about the place.

When life Gives You Snow, Make Hot Chocolate.

I stayed at home today, thanks to the combination of a bad headache and a heaping helping of snow.

Doc had a meeting so he still drove into campus, but the Mini is front wheel drive so he actually had a bit of a challenge just getting up the incline of the driveway and onto the main road.  It took him three tries, but he took a good run up and made it eventually.

I made myself some porridge and went back to bed with the cats.  They mostly slept, whilst I knitted and read "Freakonomics".

Doc came home at 12, and said he was really glad that I hadn't gone in today because the roads were awful already.  He'd brought home a lot of work to do, so he disappeared into the study.  

I felt much better this afternoon so I took the opportunity to whip up a batch of heart-shaped butter cookies and some hot chocolate; because if this isn't the perfect weather to snuggle up with a warm snack and a good book, then I really don't know when is.

A Friday Night List.

Home with Doc C.

Carr's Ginger and Lemon Creams.

A nice cup of tea.

Knitting Yoda robes.

A floofy lap cat's contented sigh. 

A Martini with a twist of lemon.

"CSI" (Original Flavour).

Spaghetti with veggie meatballs.

Red wine.

Dark Chocolate.

 

A Purgative of Mental Objects.

Edith woke me up at 5 this morning by miaowing pitifully, which she never does, so I went downstairs to check she was ok (she was totally fine, I don't know what that was about at all) and then back up to bed; but I couldn't fall back to sleep.  I just did that dozing thing, where you have your eyes closed but your brain is churning away.

Mainly I was thinking about life, the universe, and, you know, everything.  A recurring theme was blogging and what exactly I'm trying to do in this little bit of of the internet.  I read a lot of blogs, web comics and cyber-zines so I've observed there are as many approaches to maintaining an internet site as there are people on-line.  I've never wanted to stick to a particular theme, because my blog was more about keeping an open diary.

When I wrote about going to the hospital with Doc C on Wednseday evening he wasn't very pleased that I'd done that, but it was in defending those 2 posts that I came to the conclusion that I haven't been writing about the things I've been actually thinking about.  I don't really know why I'm censoring myself so heavily because all it means is that when I open the compose screen I'm stuck with a very limited selections of topics to write about, and it sort of feels like I'm making endless small talk.  Which is exhausting.

So I think it's time for a cathartic blurt of my current recurring thoughts:

• Doc C and I are going to try and get me pregnant in 2011.  This is a very weird thought.
• I haven't been home in over three years and I just have a small but constant lump of homesickness in my throat that I have to try and ignore or I'll just wallow in it.
• I've been on anti-depressants for 18 months mainly to cope with the homesickness, and that certainly helps, but it's still there.
• I don't like living in a small town, because I really miss being in a big city.  The job market means we are unlikely to move anywhere soon, so I'm trying to make the best of it all but it's not my ideal lifestyle.
• Only one person seems to be talking to me from my last office here on campus, and that makes me really paranoid.  Did I do something awful or are they just cross because I changed offices?  No one's actually mentioned anything to me, but it's a hard feeling to shake.
• I like my current job but I always planned to have got somewhere in an actual career by this stage in my life, and I'm getting a little bit panicky that I'm in my mid-thirties without any idea what the hell I'm going to do next. Part of the problem is that the only career option that seems viable in a small university town is becoming a university lecturer.
• I'd need to complete at least an MA, which would involve taking classes, researching and writing essays and doing student teaching whilst working a full time job.  I need a nap and a large gin just thinking about that. 
• I would like to start a small business but I'm not sure what I should try to do.  I'm always being told I should sell my Amigurumis or other stuff I make, but I'm just not sure if that's really what I want to do full-time.
• I'm not a very good house keeper, because I honestly don't notice that stuff until it becomes clear that it really needs to be done.
• I don't like my wardrobe.  The only place I ever seem to buy clothes here is Old Navy, which is fine for jeans and casual tops; but all of their skirts are too short.  I'll never be cool and that's fine, I just want to look smart and sensible, but also a bit funky or at least interesting.  
• I can't find time to exercise regularly.  Going to the University gym is free, but it opens at 7 so I can only fit in 20 to 30 minutes in the morning before I have to get ready to start work at 8; the gym then closes at 3 and I finish work at 5.  I can't run because my plataar fascitiis flares up again.  I want to take Pilates, but one studio just won't get back to me and the other isn't offering classes until next year now.
• I'm a natural blonde and, as is natural, my hair is getting darker.  I occaisonally think that I'd like to dye it a fun colour, but I've never bleached or dyed my hair and I'm not sure I could really be bothered with the necessary upkeep to keep it looking good.  Plus that sounds expensive.
• We will be in Boston for Christmas, which means we will be seeing the Doc's family and he hasn't even begun thinking what we could do for presents for all of them.  Actually when I mentioned it this morning he said he would tell them not to give us any, so we shouldn't need to get anything for them.  This strategy never bloody works, and I find it mortifying to be given gifts when I don't have anything to give in return.
• Edith keeps pooping on the bathroom floor, I'm trying not to get angry with her because I know she's just trying to tell me something, but I don't know what she wants now. This makes me feel like a bad cat owner.

Ummm... Yeah, there's other stuff too I'm sure, but that'll do for now!

Yoda 1 and Yoda 2.

I spent most of today watching films with Yoda.  The one on the right is my current project, and today he got his eyes and ears.  

This is the mid-way point, as I still have to add the top of his head, hair, hands and his Jedi robes, but having him be somewhat recognisable at this point is very reassuring.

Two Thirds of a Yoda.

Yoda now has trousers, but no arms, ears or button-eyes.

This is all according to plan, no need cause for concern.

 

A Previously Unthinkable Use of Time.

I'm still working on Yoda's trousers, whilst watching "The Damned United".  I'm pretty sure that a teenage me would be horrified by that.  Knitting and football?  Ugh!

 

 

My Weekend in Summary.

This weekend I have spoken to my Mum; been to a Zumba class; walked a dog who I would love to adopt; eaten frozen custard; watched Miss Marple solve the mystery of "The Body in the Library; made a pair of clawed feet for crochet Yoda; bought comic books; finished a Dorothy L. Sayers book; played video games; and had a really nice nap.

 

DPNs.

This is the second leg of Yoda's trousers.  Please keep your fingers crossed that I have enough yarn to finish a whole pair of breeches, or Yoda may be wearing leg warmers.

Also I'm pretty sure that Kerplunk had to have been invented by someone who knitted on Double Point Needles.

 

Tuesday Night Me Time.

Doc C has stuff to do on campus this evening, so I'm making lentil curry for dinner and watching "Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express".  I am also going to convert a knitting pattern for toe socks into a pair of trousers for the Yoda I'm making.  I'll probably read a couple of chapters of the Dorothy L. Sayers whodunnit, possibly whilst drinking a glass of red wine.

It's a non-stop 24 hour party around here!

Games, Detectives, Soup and Crochet.

Yesterday and today have both been a bit hectic in the office, and probably will be for the rest of this week too.  So I'm pretty much brain dead by the time I get home in the evening, yesterday I played video games and watched "Sherlock" and tonight I'm making lentil soup and watching "Castle".  I am also crocheting a soft toy Yoda which is very engrossing.

None of this is a particularly good photo opportunity, or white hot blogging material.

So... Hi!  I'm making soup!  How are you?

Snowy Saturday.

It started snowing yesterday, which was fine with me because I had my Coraline coat to bundle up in and besides it was only a light dusting so nothing really built up.  This morning there was some more light snow, which was really pretty; so we picked up some toasted cuban sandwiches and cafe con leche (there is a cuban cafe across the road from our house) and went for a walk around a lake.

On the way back we stopped to buy yarn because I am going to learn how to knit socks and I've got an idea for a crocheted teddy-bear sized amigurumi.

Apart from that I've been curled up in the warmest part of the house, the mezzanine conveniently enough, and reading Chine Mieville's debut novel "King Rat".

It has been a very nice Saturday.