-Knit an entire sock on the first leg of the flight. Ok, it was sport weight, but still. The flight attendants thought this was the coolest thing ever and kept stopping by to check my progress.
-Emirates has amazing in flight entertainment. I watched Brave and the entire second season of Downton Abbey.
-CodeMonkey and I spent 40aed on Starbucks. I don't know how much that is in USD, and I was so exhausted I didn't care. God bless Starbucks and their predictably burnt coffee available worldwide.
-The coffee was kind of ineffective. It is 2 a.m. in New York now. I am so tired I'm now snapping at CodeMonkey every time he talks to me. WIFE FAIL.
-One more flight and then I will be in Malaysia, meeting my in-laws for the first time. Eeeeek.
-I should sleep on the plane, but I won't. Please let me make a good first impression. I'll have gone 36 hours without sleep. I am such a nervous wreck. CodeMonkey keeps telling me we'll be fine. I don't believe him.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Oh Yeah, I Knit
I'm a knitter. That's where the "Woolens" part of the blog name comes from. And, like any obsessive knitter, it's taken me longer to pack the yarn for my trip than to pack my clothes and other belongings.
My goals for this year were to knit 12 shawls and 12 socks. I'm doing well on the shawls. 7 are completely finished. The remaining pieces are mostly started. In progress:
1. Quill This needs the border finished (only 1000 or so stitches in a round, so, you know, nothing major) and a lace edging applied. This is probably a month of work. For some insane reason, I opted for the 50" size.
2. Growing Flowers I have 350 grams of wool for this piece; I've used 150. The rounds are getting longer, and I'm losing motivation. Also, it's Estonian lace and has that really obnoxious "purl 3 into 7" stitch and those hurt my hands.
3. Margarethe Lace Shawl This is actually mostly done! It's just huge, and I'm doing it in all alpaca. The thing weighs a ton, so I'm ignoring it until it's cooler. I've already made one of these, and it lives at my desk at work. Best shawl ever.
4. Nuvem Thisistheshawlthateverends... Amazing, mindless knitting. I should pull this out for TV knitting in the evenings. It's too heavy for the subway now. And I'm making it out of madelinetosh, so it's yummy. I'm doing it in gray, so it should be versatile.
Writing it down now, that's better than I expected. I'll need one more shawl; I think a small lacy piece for my mother would be ideal.
When I took on the sock challenge, I said 12 socks OR 12 pairs would work. I've got 4 pairs, so 8 socks, done. I have 2 more pairs over halfway done. Next year's challenge is to knit 12 sweaters, but I badly need sweaters BEFORE January, and I have 3 on the needles now. I should probably leave it at a dozen socks for the year and finish off the sweaters in progress.
For this trip, I'm taking the two in progress pairs of socks, and the Nuvem. Plus some extra sock yarn for emergencies. (Yes, I need emergency sock yarn. Shaddup.) The Nuvem, one pair of socks, and some emergency yarn will go in our checked bag. The other socks and some spare yarn will go into my carry on.
I'm one of those people who does not cope well with flying, so I'm hoping our TSA overlords let me keep my needles for the 20 hour flight, since I'll be too panicked to sleep. 20 hours is enough time to make 3 sport weight socks at 7.75 stitches to the inch. (Per the TSA, knitting needles are allowed on planes, but it's all up to the discretion of security agents on-site. And I have no idea about the rules in other countries.)
In case they don't, I took advantage of Audible's sale to treat myself to a few new audiobooks. I got Isabella, She Wolf of France, Queen of England, by Alison Weir; The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, by Dan Ariely and The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, read by Anne Hathaway was free, so I picked that up too. I'm actually almost looking forward to hours of uninterrupted listening.
My goals for this year were to knit 12 shawls and 12 socks. I'm doing well on the shawls. 7 are completely finished. The remaining pieces are mostly started. In progress:
1. Quill This needs the border finished (only 1000 or so stitches in a round, so, you know, nothing major) and a lace edging applied. This is probably a month of work. For some insane reason, I opted for the 50" size.
2. Growing Flowers I have 350 grams of wool for this piece; I've used 150. The rounds are getting longer, and I'm losing motivation. Also, it's Estonian lace and has that really obnoxious "purl 3 into 7" stitch and those hurt my hands.
3. Margarethe Lace Shawl This is actually mostly done! It's just huge, and I'm doing it in all alpaca. The thing weighs a ton, so I'm ignoring it until it's cooler. I've already made one of these, and it lives at my desk at work. Best shawl ever.
4. Nuvem Thisistheshawlthateverends... Amazing, mindless knitting. I should pull this out for TV knitting in the evenings. It's too heavy for the subway now. And I'm making it out of madelinetosh, so it's yummy. I'm doing it in gray, so it should be versatile.
Writing it down now, that's better than I expected. I'll need one more shawl; I think a small lacy piece for my mother would be ideal.
When I took on the sock challenge, I said 12 socks OR 12 pairs would work. I've got 4 pairs, so 8 socks, done. I have 2 more pairs over halfway done. Next year's challenge is to knit 12 sweaters, but I badly need sweaters BEFORE January, and I have 3 on the needles now. I should probably leave it at a dozen socks for the year and finish off the sweaters in progress.
For this trip, I'm taking the two in progress pairs of socks, and the Nuvem. Plus some extra sock yarn for emergencies. (Yes, I need emergency sock yarn. Shaddup.) The Nuvem, one pair of socks, and some emergency yarn will go in our checked bag. The other socks and some spare yarn will go into my carry on.
I'm one of those people who does not cope well with flying, so I'm hoping our TSA overlords let me keep my needles for the 20 hour flight, since I'll be too panicked to sleep. 20 hours is enough time to make 3 sport weight socks at 7.75 stitches to the inch. (Per the TSA, knitting needles are allowed on planes, but it's all up to the discretion of security agents on-site. And I have no idea about the rules in other countries.)
In case they don't, I took advantage of Audible's sale to treat myself to a few new audiobooks. I got Isabella, She Wolf of France, Queen of England, by Alison Weir; The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, by Dan Ariely and The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, read by Anne Hathaway was free, so I picked that up too. I'm actually almost looking forward to hours of uninterrupted listening.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Cooking Is Labor
I normally find Slate kind of tiresome to read, but this article about home cooking is bang-on accurate. Tracie McMillan points out something most advocates of home-cooking ignore--quotidian cooking is labor, just as much as laundry or cleaning.
CodeMonkey works much longer hours than I do, so the housework largely falls to me. I enjoy cooking, but churning out dinner after a full day of work, bookended by subway commutes, is a chore. Part of why I struggle with the temptation to eat out is because it's so much easier in the short term. Cooking or food prep probably takes 10 hours or more out of my week and I use convenience foods and don't bake. My mother probably spent twice that much time every week when she had young children, between the cooking and scratch baking. I fully understand why people choose to eat out often instead. And I'd probably hate cooking a whole lot more if I didn't have the money to get takeout on the days where I'm wrung out and the prospect of making dinner makes me want to cry.
As McMillian points out, cooking doesn't just require time and energy, it requires a specific skill set. I grew up cooking and baking and still had a lot to learn when I moved out. But I had a foundational set of skills I could use to start cooking better meals. CodeMonkey never cooked before we met, and my in-laws don't cook either. He didn't know how to dice an onion; he didn't now to level off a scoop of flour to get an accurate measurement; he hadn't the least notion of how to retrieve a pan from the oven without burning himself. No one of those problems are insurmountable (and he can now do all of them) but there are dozens of these techniques and they provide the vocabulary of cooking and learning them adds another layer of difficulty to becoming a competent home cook.
I don't know where this is going. It was a good article. Go read it.
CodeMonkey works much longer hours than I do, so the housework largely falls to me. I enjoy cooking, but churning out dinner after a full day of work, bookended by subway commutes, is a chore. Part of why I struggle with the temptation to eat out is because it's so much easier in the short term. Cooking or food prep probably takes 10 hours or more out of my week and I use convenience foods and don't bake. My mother probably spent twice that much time every week when she had young children, between the cooking and scratch baking. I fully understand why people choose to eat out often instead. And I'd probably hate cooking a whole lot more if I didn't have the money to get takeout on the days where I'm wrung out and the prospect of making dinner makes me want to cry.
As McMillian points out, cooking doesn't just require time and energy, it requires a specific skill set. I grew up cooking and baking and still had a lot to learn when I moved out. But I had a foundational set of skills I could use to start cooking better meals. CodeMonkey never cooked before we met, and my in-laws don't cook either. He didn't know how to dice an onion; he didn't now to level off a scoop of flour to get an accurate measurement; he hadn't the least notion of how to retrieve a pan from the oven without burning himself. No one of those problems are insurmountable (and he can now do all of them) but there are dozens of these techniques and they provide the vocabulary of cooking and learning them adds another layer of difficulty to becoming a competent home cook.
I don't know where this is going. It was a good article. Go read it.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Letter of the Day
I served Pesto Pizza with Pecan Pie for dinner. Because I am Pathetic, we Purchased the crusts from Pillsbury. Seriously, I'd like to make my own bread products, but that's just not happening yet.
CodeMonkey requested the pie, but we both felt it was too sugary. I have to bug my grandmother; I remember her serving a really amazing Chocolate Pecan Pie about a decade ago. Maybe she still has the recipe.
We didn't eat any meals out today, so that caps a good week. No goals for the next week, as we're traveling to CodeMonkey's home country. I'm a nervous wreck, as I've never met them in person. We Skype often, but it's not the same. Eeeeeek. Scratch that. Here's the goal: try not to mess this up.
CodeMonkey requested the pie, but we both felt it was too sugary. I have to bug my grandmother; I remember her serving a really amazing Chocolate Pecan Pie about a decade ago. Maybe she still has the recipe.
We didn't eat any meals out today, so that caps a good week. No goals for the next week, as we're traveling to CodeMonkey's home country. I'm a nervous wreck, as I've never met them in person. We Skype often, but it's not the same. Eeeeeek. Scratch that. Here's the goal: try not to mess this up.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Time for a New Rice Cooker
CodeMonkey and I sometimes leave notes for each other around the house. You know, "Finished the milk. Please get more" and things like that. He cleaned the kitchen again. I came home tonight and found this note on the rice cooker.
I stopped and looked at the bowl and he was right. That probably wasn't safe. Given that the rice cooker is 6 years old and has taken to burning the rice half the time, I think it's time for a new one. Sure, I could make rice on the stove top, but we eat a lot of rice and it's handy.
At the grocery store, I impulse bought a bag of rice noodles. This is not any old bag of noodles. This bag of noodles is so big, it comes with a handle on top so you can carry it home. It's about 8 meal's worth, so we will use them up, but this was a very stupid impulse by. I keep bumping into the Monster Bag of Noodles. This photo doesn't convey the scale. The bag is like 16"x16"x8"
Today was subpar on the home-cooking front. 14/42 meals eaten out this week, and the week ends tomorrow.
I stopped and looked at the bowl and he was right. That probably wasn't safe. Given that the rice cooker is 6 years old and has taken to burning the rice half the time, I think it's time for a new one. Sure, I could make rice on the stove top, but we eat a lot of rice and it's handy.
At the grocery store, I impulse bought a bag of rice noodles. This is not any old bag of noodles. This bag of noodles is so big, it comes with a handle on top so you can carry it home. It's about 8 meal's worth, so we will use them up, but this was a very stupid impulse by. I keep bumping into the Monster Bag of Noodles. This photo doesn't convey the scale. The bag is like 16"x16"x8"
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Is it Time to Go to Bed Yet?
This was going to be a good morning! I could breathe through my nose again! I got us out of the house on time! Granted, I hadn't packed our lunches or made breakfast, but things were going well, considering.
I made it out of the subway and more good news! The newspaper boxes were stocked with the latest edition of The Onion. Awesome! I grabbed one, and headed to Starbucks.
Not 5 minutes into my morning read and drink, I managed to spill nearly an entire Venti Chai Latte on the floor. FAIL. I apologized profusely, helped clean up, bought another drink, and scurried to the office. Let's hope I don't botch anything up at work today.
My kitchen FAIL this morning means we're both buying breakfast and lunch today. So make that 10/42 meals eaten out this week.
Note: I only count meals eaten out that we pay for. If CodeMonkey's employer feeds him, I don't count it as eating out, as this is about trying to save us money.
I made it out of the subway and more good news! The newspaper boxes were stocked with the latest edition of The Onion. Awesome! I grabbed one, and headed to Starbucks.
Not 5 minutes into my morning read and drink, I managed to spill nearly an entire Venti Chai Latte on the floor. FAIL. I apologized profusely, helped clean up, bought another drink, and scurried to the office. Let's hope I don't botch anything up at work today.
My kitchen FAIL this morning means we're both buying breakfast and lunch today. So make that 10/42 meals eaten out this week.
Note: I only count meals eaten out that we pay for. If CodeMonkey's employer feeds him, I don't count it as eating out, as this is about trying to save us money.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
I Fail At Life
Yesterday, I was so sick, my boss sent me home before lunch. I must have been a mess, as I wound up on the wring train, and it was a few stops before I realized it. Then I got lost trying to find the other subway platform. Eventually, I made it home and collapsed.
Woke up this morning even sicker. Progress! Called in sick to work, and went to our insurance company's website to find a local doctor. I selected filters for our area, and found a GP that was accepting new patients. And they had an opening today at three! I went to the appointment, filled in all the new patient paperwork.
It seemed to ask an awful lot about my history of injuries, but, whatever. I handed it back to the secretary, along with the insurance paperwork. She then asked me which injury we'd be working in that day. I stared blankly and told her I was there for a bad cold and possibly a sinus infection.
She told me they didn't do that and they were a rehabilitation clinic. Crap. I resisted the urge to shout angry things at the secretary (it wasn't her fault I was sick and confused) and went home. Double checked the insurance company's website, and sure enough, the doctor is listed as a GP. Tomorrow, when I'm not mildly annoyed at everyone for being obnoxiously healthy, I should probably call the insurance company to inform them of error.
CodeMonkey had to buy breakfast today,must his company bought him lunch and dinner. This is probably why it's 9:00 p.m. and he's still not home. But that means 6/42 meals this week have been eaten out.
Woke up this morning even sicker. Progress! Called in sick to work, and went to our insurance company's website to find a local doctor. I selected filters for our area, and found a GP that was accepting new patients. And they had an opening today at three! I went to the appointment, filled in all the new patient paperwork.
It seemed to ask an awful lot about my history of injuries, but, whatever. I handed it back to the secretary, along with the insurance paperwork. She then asked me which injury we'd be working in that day. I stared blankly and told her I was there for a bad cold and possibly a sinus infection.
She told me they didn't do that and they were a rehabilitation clinic. Crap. I resisted the urge to shout angry things at the secretary (it wasn't her fault I was sick and confused) and went home. Double checked the insurance company's website, and sure enough, the doctor is listed as a GP. Tomorrow, when I'm not mildly annoyed at everyone for being obnoxiously healthy, I should probably call the insurance company to inform them of error.
CodeMonkey had to buy breakfast today,must his company bought him lunch and dinner. This is probably why it's 9:00 p.m. and he's still not home. But that means 6/42 meals this week have been eaten out.
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