week 3 of resolutions

i had high hopes of displaying my finished good

unfortunately i didn't finish the second sleeve until bout 9:55 last night, and by the time i googled how to seam a sweater i was too tired to put the needed effort into finishing the baby cardigan.

so now i have a pressed dismembered baby cardigan.

tonight is the night i finish! 

i'm also itching to go buy more yarn to knit another.  or make some socks.  or i guess i could make baby owen a hat to match his cardigan!  or i guess i could follow through with putting little elbow patches on this one...

decisions decisions...

speaking of

what decisions did i make for week 3 of resolutions?

my original goals were

1. no artificial sweeteners
2. more home cooking/less going out
3. cook more with Bill
4. clean closet
5. save money
6. run happy
7. knit more

and this is how i've been doing

1.  i still haven't 100% kicked the habit.  i'm still wanting a diet sprite with dinner and we had lunch out one day this week where i wanted diet peach sprite with my meal.  other than that my coffee is still sugar/artificial sweetener free.  EXCEPT.  i've been adding creamer to my coffee which is full of hydrogenated oils.  i've basically traded one evil for another.  maybe i can just switch to vanilla almond milk in my coffee?  i'm going to try it.  i've also developed a habit of having an evening coffee while knitting - which is making me wired!  i desperately need to pick up more decaf and/or get a nice herbal evening tea to sip.  BUT - my best accomplishment is not having a diet coke at work every day - actually i haven't bought one at all!  hooray!

2&3.  oh man - this has been such a good resolution!  bill and i are cooking so much more.  and actually eating our leftovers! bill is a smoothie making machine - which is being hindered by the fact that our ice maker stopped working yesterday!  we haven't had a full ice bucket in months and i just thought it was because we use a lot of ice.  well when our ice bucket was empty for over a day i knew something was wrong.  i've called to have it fixed - but they won't be out until MONDAY!  we'll be purchasing some bagged ice to get us through such depravity.   but on the cooking front, we've made potato soup, broccoli salad, eggplant parmesan - and it's all been so tasty.  but in an effort not to waste leftovers i haven't been cooking all the things i've set out to.  again i need to evaluate how much a recipe makes and how many leftover meals we can make out of it so i don't over buy produce for the week.  i also purchased a new cookbook - meatless meals by martha stewart.  there are several interesting meals i can't wait to try.  i'm really running out of meatless dishes that don't rely on noodles so much.  ALSO (i'm rambling) i've noticed our grocery bill has gone down - and it's from planning alone.  we're not buying lots of snacks, we're going in with a plan (and coupons) and coming out with only what we need.  i've also noticed we snack less - because we're making actual meals and not grazing all day. 

4.  no.  i need to be shamed into doing this i guess.

5.  i get paid on friday and plan on depositing some money into my savings!  i'm thinking about calculating how much money we would normally spend on eating out and putting that money into the savings account too - each time we chose to stay in.

6.  i don't wanna talk about it :(  i haven't ran happy all week.  i did start wearing my nike plus fuel band again - and the fact that i've maintained my (easy) goal, makes me want to get out and beat my record every day.  so there's that...

7.  i'm clearly surpassing this goal with flying colors.  i just think it's my passion right now.  i have lots of hobbies and right now this one is burning up!  come spring i'm sure i'll flip flop goals 6 & 7 - but for now i'm just going to roll with it and get lots of knitting projects completed.  tonight i sew up the seams!  and this weekend i buy more wool!

wee cuteness

can we all just agree

itty bitty baby sleeves are the cutest

i didn't get both sleeves done as planned

the pattern is knit flat in stockinette... and i hate switching between purling and knitting - something about my purl technique is really slow

and i also thought it was dumb to add another seam to such a small garment

so i knit the sleeve in the round

and turns out i don't have size 5 double pointed needles.

so i had to use magic loop with a pair of size 5 circulars.

so i traded not having to purl and seam

for constantly shifting stitches on the loop - and when you only have about 30 stitches

that's a lot of shifting.

so it took longer than expected

and coffee was needed.

i should have stuck to decaff

because sleeping was elusive.

but one sleeve down

and one more to go tonight.

i'll save seaming for tomorrow

and i promise

PROMISE

pretty pictures soon.

what projects are you working on?

knitting and cooking

it's back to work

but thankfully it was a great rainy weekend

cooking and knitting and a bit of shopping got done

i tackled eggplant parmesan for the first time using this recipe

cheesy goodness indeed!

bill and i made this together - i got him started on the flour, egg, breadcrumb baths for the slices of eggplant

and i fried the little slices up - we then assembled the pieces, enjoyed some wine while the whole dish cooked, and then chowed down.

this made a LOT.  eggplant is very meaty and filling, but i was worried how well the leftovers would be.

i had another slice saturday night and i promise this keeps very well in the fridge!  i was worried the whole dish would go soggy. but that wasn't the case.

bill and i had gotten in the habit of going out to eat every friday night and then head to target to pick up unnecessary items.

it was really nice to spend time cooking in the kitchen and just staying home to enjoy...well...our home!

woodford was grateful

saturday we had a few errands to tackle - which meant

starbucks was needed.

errands + coffee = more fun and caffeinated!

aside from needing to pick up a check from the consignment store, i needed to price frozen fruit and bananas at sams club, take my engagement ring in to get sized, shop some sales (bought nothing), annnnnd

check out a local yarn shop

to get inspired by some fibers

i just wish i hadn't showed up while they were having their knitting group.

i was interested in really looking at yarn - but it was too crowded and the tables were keeping me from even getting to some of their product. :(  i had hopes to find some pretty sock yarn but that got nixed

but i did find some lovely spud and chloe yarn

in waterslide to knit the sweater featured above

for a wee baby boy

it's my first attempt at a sweater - so i warned the mommy that this might turn out horrible but it was made with love and good intentions and that i only need to see a picture of it on him once :)

the pattern is knitting up very quickly and right now all i have left are the sleeves, piecing, ribbing around the collar, and adding buttons - maybe another 2 nights of work.

i'll take some prettier pictures tonight or tomorrow - the color is gorgeous - maybe not very manly - but very springy - i'm hoping to find some cool buttons to put on it - something hipster-y - maybe even stitch on some elbow pads.

tiny clothes are so cute.

IF...a big IF...this goes well, i would love to knit bill or myself a sweater or cardigan.

i'm just scared of big projects because they take so much longer to knit and stick with.  i should probably just go for it and knit smaller projects at the same time to keep myself distracted and engaged at the same time.

and don't get me started on the price of yarn.  buying lots of yarn for a big project scares me and my checking account.

and the best thing to soothe knitting worries, as well as fuel more knitting

bacon.

specifically bacon crumbles that go in potato soup.

i made this sunday - a day filled with more knitting and lots of football.  it rained hard all day, so it just made sense to hang out indoors.

and now...i'm hanging out indoors all day due to work

but at least i have leftover soup

i hope you had a great weekend!