Two New Challenges

It is a well known fact that I have entirely too much free time. I am always just sitting around wondering "Hmmmm, what should I do? I'm so bored! There must be something I can do to keep busy..."

It's also a well know fact that I am a sarcastic smart-ass...

So, in the interest of staying ever-more busy, I have given myself two new challenges!

The first has to do with my kitchen pantry. I used to tease my Mom about having a soup kitchen's worth of food in her house. Over the holidays I opened my cupboards and, lo and behold, I found a soup kitchen! Not really, but considering the fact that I live alone and don't really entertain often, I seemed to have an inordinately large quantity of food.

So my first challenge is: Use up all the staples in my cupboard before buying anything new. There will still be some shopping required, for perishables and such. But I will attempt not to buy a single non-perishable item until I have used up all that I stored (including the 9 cans of pumpkin that I bought because I heard there a was shortage due to bad weather. Really, who needs 9 cans of pumpkin?).



To reward myself for sticking to a Pilates schedule (6 days a week since October, with just a few days missed when I was sick) I finally bought myself a punching bag!!! I've been wanting one since I lived in CT, but it just didn't seem practical to have a punching bag in a third floor apartment (nor very friendly towards downstairs neighbors).

My second challenge is going to be a lot more fun than the first: Use my punching bag for a minimum of 30 minutes at least twice a week. I signed up for a 5K in February and hopefully this will help build my endurance. Not only will this increase my cardio for the week, but I'm pretty sure it's going to reduce my stress levels, too. There's nothing quite like hitting and kicking something until your arms twitch and your legs quiver to give you that peaceful, relaxed feeling...
I'll keep you posted on the status of both challenges. And if you have any good recipes for canned pumpkin or pearled barley, please feel free to pass those along...

A little birdie told me...

I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of this little cutie! This was my first project from my new favorite knitting book, Knitted Toy Tales! Her shaping is not quite as neat as that in Amigurumi Knits, but there are pros and cons to each book. These have more of a "toy" feel whereas Amigurumi Knits look a bit more realistic (or as real as a knitted creature can look, such as this octopus or ant).

What I like most about this book, and a big deciding factor in why I picked this over the several other knitted toys books I was scoping out, is that these knitted patterns have small bits of fabric worked into them! The underside of this birdie's wings are a 1930's reprint fabric from Mom's stash. I have two other works in progress and will hopefully have more photos next week!

Care Package #9: Best EVER Cookies!

When I was young, Mom used to make what I thought was the best chocolate chip cookies. I remember being a very small child and helping her stir the chocolate and peanut butter chips into the batter. The best part, however, was scooping the batter onto the cookie sheets, mainly because I always ended up eating a good portion of the batter! I have some friends who were never allowed to eat cookie dough (raw eggs and such) but we always nibbled while baking and I managed to survive.



It wasn't until I went off to college that I started to experiment with the recipe. Mom's cookies always came out very crunchy. They were perfect for dipping in milk or even hot tea on a cold day, but I really liked cakey cookies that could be eaten without having to dip. By adjusting the amount of flour, baking time, type of cookie sheet, chilling the dough before baking, and even replacing Crisco with butter, I was able to bake a super-yummy cookie that was soft and chewy, but could still be dunked if desired. I also discovered that the dough freezes well, which allows me to make a big batch of dough, but spread out the baking over a few weeks. There's nothing like coming home and tossing a few frozen dough balls into the toaster oven and enjoying warm cookies on a cold night! This batch for Brian came out PERFECT and I had to vacuum seal them as soon as they cooled to keep from eating them all up myself!

Mom's Best Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Ingredients
1 1/3 C softened butter
1 C brown sugar
1 C white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
3 – 3 ½ C flour
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 C peanut butter chips

With a hand mixer, blend together softened butter with sugars. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Add vanilla and baking soda, mix again. Add one cup of flour at a time and stir well with a wooden spoon until dough is slightly tacky and holds together well. Stir in chips and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Pre-heat over to 350°. Scoop teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet, leaving at least one inch between each scoop. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. If you have good will power, the cookies will keep in an air tight container for about 10 days. If you want to freeze some of the dough, slightly flatten the teaspoon-sized ball of dough before freezing and bake for a wee-little bit longer.

What did you do on your Christmas vacation?

I finally took a few days off from work over the holidays. Work was slow anyway, and I didn't have any classes scheduled, so it seemed like a good time to catch up on some fun!

Amanda and I grabbed a slice of pizza at Vinnie Van Go-Go's then wandered around Broughton Street checking out all the holiday displays. This over sized Nutcracker freaked me out about 3 seconds after this picture was taken: as I turned to walk away it's arm and mouth started moving!

I have been having a great time knitting the fun toys from my new favorite book, Knitted Toy Tales. This owl was really easy to make, and I'm in the middle of finishing an elephant and piggy!

If you didn't already know, I have a pretty firm policy on gifts: make it myself or forget about it. (There are, of course, a few exceptions. But for the most part if you get a gift from me it will be something I made with my own two hands.)

For Dad's Christmas gift, I made him a pair of purple, flannel pajamas. Flannel is one of my favorite fabrics and I've made PJ bottoms before on many occasions. This was my first attempt at the complete set and I have to say I'm pretty happy with it!

Joy's present was a bit belated. By "belated" I mean that I actually made it back in 2003 and just got around to framing and giving it to her! I drew this picture of her cat, Bailey A.K.A. Meemers, from a photo I took when I had been living on her couch after college. I re-discovered it in the packing and moving process of last March and decided to finally frame it up and pass it along.

Harley was happy with her new bed (this is one of those "handmade gift exceptions" because the foam material I wanted to use to make her a bed cost $60 and this ready-made bed only cost $19!).

Dad and I attended a Compline service at the Christ Church downtown. I can see why some people may not enjoy a "passive" service where the congregation merely listens. But for me, it is comforting to partake in a service yet not recite passages and phrases which I do not wholly believe.

And what are the holidays if not a time for comfort food? I made one of my favorite dishes: Lentil Shepherd's Pie for dinner and savored the leftovers for many days.

I rounded out my holiday events with a quick walk on the beach New Year's Day. It was a bit on the chilly side (for Georgia) and storm clouds were threatening, so I didn't linger long. But I did enjoy the fresh air, beautiful shells and adorable little sand pipers that were flitting about.

Care Package #8: Don't sniff the box!

I picked up a bag of mini-Reese Peanut Butter Cups a few weeks ago with the intention of eventually making Peanut Butter Cup Brownies. Then I made a fatal mistake: I opened the bag to use one Peanut Butter Cup as a prop to pose my newly finished knitted Ant.

Sure, it looks really cute and I'm happy with the way the finished Ant came together (I'm also happy to finally be done with it!). But after the Ant photo shoot, I had to eat the Peanut Butter Cup. I mean, it was already unwrapped, so I couldn't put it back. And throwing it away was just out of the question. And one little Peanut Butter Cup all by itself is not such a big deal. But there was also the issue of the bag. The bag full of dozens of other little Peanut Butter Cups sitting on top of my cabinet taunting me. After nibbling all weekend I finally decided that I had to make the brownies ASAP, before all the Peanut Butter Cups were gone!

I may come back later and post the recipe, but I wasn't very happy with it. Don't get me wrong, the brownies were perfectly fine, but I didn't think they were great. They certainly didn't come close to the Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies. They did, however, smell wonderful. In fact, even after I vacuum-sealed the brownies and taped the box to the point it would take a blowtorch to open it, you could still smell the chocolaty goodness.

Um, Brrrr

I moved to Georgia just a little less than a year ago. The first few weeks I was here it was kinda chilly. According to folks in Savannah, it was freezing. But, having just come from a location that actually was freezing, I sorta enjoyed the "mild" winter temperatures. I'm also not the sort of person that generally complains about the weather, it being one of those things over which I have no control (at least not yet, anyway...).

So the fact that Savannah has been getting down into the teens and low 20s during the night and barely topping out at 50 during the day is not really upsetting to me. What is upsetting, however, is that my heat system decided that this was the week it would up and die on me! I guess it just had enough and couldn't keep fighting the good fight to keep me warm and toasty (and by "warm and toasty" I mean 62 degrees) anymore. My property manager brought over a couple of space heaters...which do absolutely nothing in rooms with 13 foot ceilings. So Saturday night and most of Sunday Harley and I camped out in my bedroom trying to fend off hypothermia.

When I wandered out to use the bathroom and noticed that the rest of my house was a mere 40 degrees I decided that it was no longer fun to tough it out: I sent Harley to spend the week with Dad and have been bunking up at a friend's house for the week.

As of this morning I am waiting for a compressor to arrive. Hopefully it will be installed and charged up tomorrow and I can return to life as I know it. It has been kinda relaxing to stay at Amanda's, but I am a home-body that misses my own home! I also miss my morning walks around Forsyth and my puppy and my own bed and not having to live out of a suitcase and having a choice of what to wear each morning.

Interestingly, this has actually been a very positive learning experience for me. When I thanked Amanda for offering to let me stay, she replied that she was just excited to be able to do something for me. Now, I love doing things for others; I get a lot of pleasure out of making gifts, or helping out, or any other type of giving/doing. But for some reason, maybe owing to my fierce sense of independence, I rarely allow others the opportunity to "do" for me, thus denying them the pleasure that I so greatly enjoy. Clearly this is something that I need to work on, especially since I have such wonderfully caring and giving friends. I think this is what Steven Covey means by "inter-dependence" being more powerful than independence...

Care Package #7: New Year's

I thought long and hard about what to send in the New Year's care package. I don't like buying junky stuff, so I didn't want to send the usual noise makers and confetti. I thought about some traditional New Year good-luck foods, like Black Eyed Peas, but didn't think Brian would have a way to cook them. Then I thought about one of the biggest parts of New Year's Eve: the kiss at midnight! Since I couldn't be there for a kiss at midnight, I figured I could send him a bunch of kisses... Hershey Kisses, that is.


I tried a new Peanut Butter Cookie recipe for the base of these Hershey Kiss cookies. Seemed to taste the same as my old recipe, so nothing really exciting there.

Just for fun I decided to try a completely new cookie.

You can find the Raspberry Pinwheel recipe here. They are pretty yummy, but I need to work on the rolling process: most of the jam squeezed out while I was rolling it up. Oh, and Harley helped herself to two sticks of butter and a package of cream cheese that were softening on the counter. A quick trip to the vet for X-rays showed that the packaging wouldn't cause any blockage problems and also revealed that she had been shot twice with a BB gun! Seems my girl had a tough life before I found her.

I was very surprised and more than a little annoyed to find out that the Army does not issue pillows to the soldiers. Brian had been sleeping on an inflatable camping pillow until he got a flat, stiff pillow from the PX. So I picked up a soft, fluffy pillow from TJ Maxx and sent it over in a large vacuum bag, along with a broken-in pillowcase. I was afraid that shipping it in a vacuum bag might kill the fluffiness, but Brian said it sprang right back to life as soon as he opened it.