Pinning Things: Rotating Goal List

This simple project by Cornflower Blue (her blog is very pretty!) caught my eye on Pinterest the other day and I couldn't stop thinking about it until I picked up some bright green card, a Sharpie and a ruler.

This is actually my second of three attempts. The first died when I scambled to get a fussy Emmett out of his highchair and put a wet paper towel on it without noticing until I came back a couple of hours later. The second, this one, I thought I didn't like and the third died when I tried to add doodles. I do not like my doodles (tomorrow is National Doodle Day, by the way). They look pretty in my brain but on paper they aren't something I'd like to look at every time I open the fridge. So I went back to the second incarnation, added words and some lines and hung it up. Ta da. That's what my handwriting looks like.

We just started a big cleaning/organizing project in the conservatory which included making a little space for Emmett with a drawing table and a basket of toys. My hope is that this will give me a bit of time to make a few things myself. I was able to make most of this with him scribbling away beside me which was an awesome feeling. I'm so excited about the crafts we'll make together as he gets older.

Speaking of crafts, I've found a couple of crafting magazines that I have minor crushes on but that's a post for another day!

More Catching Up: Emmett's Racetrack Rug

Okay, it's not really finished. I still need to sew a back on it but I have to admit that may never, ever happen. I'd like to think that it would...maybe by his next birthday.

Let's see, I started this in June, in Ohio, at knit night and finished it in September. Considering that it's about ten trillion single crochets, I think that's pretty good!

I also made him a little car from this Steve the Car pattern.

I made a couple of changes: I left off the eyes and the buttons for hubcaps and made the wheels a little larger. It's actually pretty cute for a car.

I gave it to him for his first birthday and wasn't suprised when he had no interest in it at all. I left it laid out in his play area, though, after I took these photos and after he woke from his nap he went right over to it and started driving the car around the track! I wasn't fast enough to get a picture but as much as this kid already loves cars, I think there will be lots of other opportunities.
 
Ravlink: Racetrack Rug

Everyone's Doing It

Pinning. Pinterest. Love.

I kind of want to do a weekly Pinterest thing. Maybe my top five favorite pins of the week or a pin that I've actually tried. But I'm not one for following through so it's still a "kind of want to" for sure.

Tonight I tried out something from my Crockpot Love board, though, and oh did I love it. It's impossible to find good Mexican food around here and it was one of my very favorite things to eat back in Ohio. The Mexican food here is either a little too sweet or they throw something strange like eggplant into the salsa. We went to Salisbury's Mexican restaurant on my birthday two years ago but walked out when I read that each meal came with a side of fries not tortilla chips. Being seven months pregnant or so, I knew that was a meal that would have ended in emotional, disappointed tears.

We're new to this crockpot thing. I had oen in the states but pretty much only used it for making this one cheese dip (Velveeta, salsa, cream and pimentos...I think that's all that went into it and it's delicious). I'm determined to use it for meals here, though. We had potatoes, onions, cream of mushroom soup and pork chops last week and it was good but not spectacular. Chicken tacos, though, with three simple ingredients...delicious! I used Chocolate Therapy's recipe. Salsa, chicken breasts and taco seasoning on high for four hours. I could go on for days about how good this was. Recently I've been rating good meals as food that makes me want to roll around on the floor. Why good food suddenly makes me want to behave like a dog, I have NO idea but this was definitely a floor roller.*

Anyway, it's so good that there's only a tiny bit left...

Just enough to pile on top of baked potatoes with sour cream and cheese for dinner tomorrow!

Next time I'm going to try making my own taco shells like this but I'm going to give it a bit of tang with a suggestion from my cousin and rub them down with lime, sea salt and fresh chopped coriander. I couldn't be bothered with that tonight. Nor could I be bothered to take a photo of the tacos themselves. I just wanted to eat some decent Mexican food and this will certainly tide me over until we make it again! 

*I do not actually roll around on the floor in delight. I just really feel like it.

 

A Christmas Catch Up

Christmas was a bit strange this year. We waited until a few days before Christmas to put up the tree and when we did, it was just a four foot one with a few favorite ornaments because I just couldn't trust Emmett with a full sized tree full of bright, grabbable goodies. And it wasn't until Christmas was over that I realized we didn't take one photo. Not one. Video, yes, but no photos of Emmett's Real First Christmas. Sigh.

I made him a stocking this year. A colorful, scrappy one using this pattern.

I had so much fun going through my stash and making up a ball of random bits and bobs. I wish now that I'd taken a photo of the ball before I used it all up - it was very pretty.

Unfortunately by the time we finishing finding things for his stocking, it was too small! So instead he used the stocking I crocheted two years ago (which I just realized I never photographed to add to Ravelry).

I also really got into making snowflakes for the front window. They're still up, in fact. A few toward the bottom of the window didn't stick around long as standing on his little blue stepstool in front of the window is one of Emmett's favorite things to do. 

I was finding it really hard to get a photo of the ones that are left. For one, the window is dirty. Two, the view outside isn't the prettiest: a street. And three, every photo I took had a blurry car in it. Then I happened to notice the sun shining through and the crazy shadows it created. Not a great representation on the snowflakes but a much better/interesting photo!

I kept meaning to make more but never got around to it. I did create a favorite, though, that didn't go in the window at all as I didn't want to destroy it. If I ever get around to mounting and framing it, I'll take a photo. For now it's folded up and stashed away from little hands.

Yikes, it's now one in the morning! I should really get to bed as Emmett will be ready to get up long before I will!

 

 

Shop Talk

Hmm, I'm posting using the Typepad app which only let's you post plain text with no easy way to add HTML so I'm adding it the old fashioned way and it doesn't seem to like it much. That said, pardon the mess in my last post!

Bears and Books

So much to catch up on!

Back in the fall, after I finished Emmett's enormous race track rug (another post for another day), I decided it was time to make something for myself and I wanted a bear. Although I think he kind of looks like a sad alien rather than a bear, I do love him. He crocheted up in no time since he's made from double crochets and I might eventually make another one for Emmett in shades of blue or purple. Right now the only stuffed animal he has any interest in is a hand me down otter that came from his cousins so there's no hurry. Ironic, considering Emmett the Otter is probably one of the more famous Emmetts (but <i>not</i> the reason we picked the name).

Thanks to my Kindle, I've been doing quite a bit of reading, too. Not much to shout about but I did read Stephen King's latest <i>11.23.63</i> and loved it. Like some of my other favorite King novels (specifically <i>Misery</i>), the scary isn't supernatural or anything else that goes bump in the night. I actually read a real, paper book recently, too - bought because it was only £2.99 if you bought the Times and we were doing that already. It's <i>The Sisters Brothers</i> by Patrick DeWitt - also excellent! It got a bit wacky toward the end but the rest of it so good it's easy to shrug that off. One of the reviews used the words "If Cormac McCarthy had a sense of humor" and I think that's about right.

What are you reading these days? Has anyone read <i>A Discovery of Witches</i> by Deborah Harkness? The reviews are good but the sample chapter I read didn't make me rush to read it. I preordered <i>Legend</i> by Marie Lu as it's already gotten good reviews from the states and is supposed to be a bit like <i>The Hunger Games</i>. Anyone heard or it or read it?

Ravelry link for bear pattern: <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/happyberry-bear-dotty-in-christmas-colours">Happybeary Bear</a>

Becoming British

The week before Christmas, we dropped Emmett off at Matt's mum's and drove to

a nice little town - the name of which completely escapes me - where I took my Life in UK test.

I'd been cramming for a week or two - taking test quizzes and going over my flash cards whenever I had a moment. I felt fairly confident but had to stop in Boots for something to cure my nervous heartburn.

The test questions are a mixed bag of difficult things like how the government is structured to ridiculous questions like what holiday is on February 14th. Seriously. I can only remember one of my questions and it asked what time pubs without special licenses were supposed to close. You know, because knowing they close at eleven pm is incredibly important and proves that you're British. Ridiculous.

Anyhow, I passed, thankfully, and spent all day on December 23rd gathering the dozens of things the settlement application requires, including filling out my debit card information so that they could charge me an outrageous fee of £972. Ouch. Strangely, there's nothing on the application about any children you and your partner might have. They want mail addressed to you over the two years you've resided together to prove you live under the same roof but nothing about the flesh and blood that proves you're not a green card couple. So I included some family photos, Emmett's birth certificate and a letter.

I packaged it all up along with our passports (yikes), mailed it off, came home and opened a bottle of Buck's Fizz (like a mimosa). Now we have to wait for up to six months for the verdict. I'm not too worried but it is quite scary....