Monday update

So it looks like I'll be blogging on Mondays. I may have more things to blog about this week but we'll see.

J had fun last week in his sailing school. It was hard work and there were nights when he fell asleep reading because he was so tired but he had a great time. This is week two of sailing school but he missed today. He has some kind of weird bite on his knee - we think it was some kind of bug bite. Last night he said it hurt but it looked fairly normal. This morning he woke up and there was a big white blister thing on it.

We decided to take him to the doctor because it didn't look good and in the past he's had an infected bug bite. Of course the blistery part popped before we made it to the doctor so she couldn't see what it looked like then. The doctor said it wasn't infected (yet) but she went ahead and gave us a topical antibiotic for it to prevent it from getting bad. It's making his knee sore so he stayed home from sailing today but he will go tomorrow. I won't share a picture of it because well, it's pretty gross.

Last week while J was at sailing, S and I went to check out a newly reopened toy store in town. Over a year ago there was a fire in the back part of their building. I don't think there was fire damage to the toy store part but I believe there was water/smoke damage. Also, the owner had to get the building up to the new codes. While we were there, S used some of her own money to buy a kit for making her own dinosaurs. We mixed up the plaster and poured it into the moulds and once they were dry she could paint them. This is the result:

They are very colourful! She had a great time painting them. At this point, all she has left to do is add a little glow-in-the-dark paint to them and they will be done. We should have some time to do that tomorrow.

On Friday I received my first clue for my Once and Future King MKAL. It seemed like a fairly simple clue until I started working with the yarn. I thought I had the right needles for the yarn based on what I used for the gauge swatch - they were bamboo needles. I don't know if it was the needles, or the lighting, or a combination of both, but I had to tear out my work at least 4 times on Friday. I finally gave up and put it away until Saturday. 

On Saturday I tried working in better light and it helped but I still felt like I was fighting with the yarn. I switched to some aluminum needles and suddenly I was doing a lot better. I had tried those needles when I did the gauge swatch and really had trouble with them. I've been using the aluminum needles since then and I have been making a lot of progress.

The shawl is worked from the ends into the center and then grafted together so I had a decision to make. Was I going to work this asymmetrically or symmetrically? To work it asymmetrically I would start with skein 1 for one end and skein 4 for the other and then work towards the center using skeins 1 and 2 for one half and 3 and 4 for the other. After some thought I decided to work it symmetrically. I decided to start with skein 4, so I split it up into two balls. I've worked one of the end patterns already and I've started on the second one. Both ends will look like this:

It's not the best picture but I didn't feel like trying to block this section already. I'll be picking up stitches with the next clue and actually working on the body of the shawl. Yes, that is a bamboo needle in the picture. I'm just using it as a holder right now while I use my aluminum circular for the other end panel. I think I'll be picking up a second set of aluminum circs so I don't have to keep moving my work onto holders. The chances of me dropping a stitch will increase with how many times I have to move my work from holders to needles.

Tomorrow I'm going to be meeting with a salesperson at a car dealership to see about getting a new car. We'll see how it goes tomorrow!

Singing, Fish, and Knitting

I think spring has finally come and isn't going anywhere for a while. It was another beautiful day outside. J actually wore shorts to school - their schools are hot because they don't have air conditioning. We were over at S's school today for her spring concert. The theme was Garden Hoedown and it was very cute. All the kids had bandanas tied around their necks and carried sunflowers (made from paper plates). They sang a bunch of songs and did a dance to Cotton-Eyed Joe. I was lucky enough to see it twice and it was adorable both times.

S has her special helper day on Friday and she wants to take a picture of her fish Bubbles. Here he is:

So far he's doing well - eating and swimming around. He seems to be adjusted to his new home.

Yesterday was the end of the contest for the Solar Flare shawl. I came in second place and that's fine with me. I know how it should have turned out and I had some bitter thoughts from time to time over this past week but now I've moved on. No sense in dwelling on it anymore. 

I've been busy knitting other things now. I finished my Outlander shawl and should get around to blocking it tomorrow. I also completed the first clue for my Game of Thrones MKAL. I have no clue what we're making - the designer didn't tell us ahead of time and there are no clues in the pattern as to what we are making. It is a true mystery knit-along. A lot of people are speculating that it's a poncho or some sort of shoulder-covering cowl. I'm just going to keep knitting and find out. Here's what it looks like so far:

I've also been working on the Hobbit scarf. I finally finished chart 1! Of course after I had finished it and taken the pictures I noticed a mistake. Most people probably won't notice it so I'm not going to tear it out to fix it. I love how it's coming out and it feels good to actually make progress on it. Next up are the stone trolls and Rivendell.

I had started a long cowl with some Unique Sheep yarn I have but I just wasn't liking it so I frogged it tonight. I'll let the yarn rest for a few days while I figure out what I am actually going to use it for. I will go through my patterns and maybe poke around on Ravelry to see if there's something that catches my eye. I liked the pattern I was doing but it just didn't seem to be working well with the yarn and I couldn't figure out why. All I know is that I wasn't happy with it and I like the yarn too much to leave it in something I don't like.

Now I'm going to go eat half a chocolate muffin (they are big so half is plenty) and catch up on Gotham. We didn't watch it last night because we were busy watching the Caps beat up on the Rangers. Go Caps!

"FryDay" means Burger Day

Even though I am still recovering from having my tooth out on Wednesday, I wanted a burger. I was determined not to let the fact that I can only chew on one side of my mouth right now stop me. So today I had burger #6 of Burger Love month. Today's burger is the Bronco Burger from Sam's Charlottetown location.

What did I think of it? It was pretty much a classic bacon cheese burger with a twist, which isn't a bad thing. It was a change from the burgers I've had so far with all the crazy things they put on them. Let's start with the burger itself. The burger wasn't as juicy as some of the others but it wasn't super dry either. There were two 4 oz patties on it and honestly I found it was too much meat. The meat seemed to drown out the other flavours, which were pretty good when you could taste them. I think if they had flattened the patties out more (they were pretty thick) or just gone with a single patty it would have been better.

The burger was dressed with sweet and smokey BBQ sauce which seemed more on the sweet side to me (again not a bad thing). The bacon was PEI Maple & More (TM) infused candied bacon, which added more sweetness to the burger. By itself the bacon had good flavour, but as I said, on the burger the taste got lost. Apparently there were hickory sticks on it but I missed them - I didn't taste them or feel the crunch of them. The cheese for the burger was a smoked cheddar and Havarti. Again, both were fantastic when you tried them separately but their flavour was lost in the meat. Lettuce, tomato, and grilled onion finished off the burger which was served on a toasted sesame Kaiser bun.

The bun itself held up in supporting the burger. The outside of the bun was toasted as well as the inside and I ended up with crumbs everywhere every time I took a bite. It was tasty but messy. The burger was topped with a deep fried pickle. I had never had a deep fried pickle before and it was tasty.

Overall it was a decent burger but it didn't leave me with a feeling of "wow, I need to have that burger again." So far the Southern Jack, the first burger I had is the one that tops that list. We were driving home from the restaurant we passed the place that sells the Southern Jack and I almost said we should stop so I could get one. But I figured one burger a day, considering I had just finished one, was enough. I have a few other places I want to try before the end of the month so there will be more burger reviews coming.

In knitting news, I finally got caught up on the clues for my Solar Flare MKAL. I would post pictures but because it's scrunched up on the needles it doesn't photograph fairly well. I will get the final clue Monday and when I'm done with that I will take some good pictures and share them. I am now working on getting caught up with my Outlander MKAL. I should be getting another clue tomorrow but I'm not finished with the current clue so I'm already behind. But I don't mind because there aren't any prizes for that MKAL while there are prizes for the Solar Flare MKAL. I will hopefully get all caught up on the Outlander shawl this weekend.

A Day for Knitting and Cooking

S was still sick today, so I opted to keep her home from both J's hockey game (they lost their game but the coach was happy with the way they played) and the birthday party she was suppose to go to. I knew she really wasn't feeling well when she didn't put up a fight about not going to the party. She usually will protest about not going but today she just said okay. Yeah, not feeling well.

To keep her occupied, I started teaching her how to make a friendship bracelet. She got a kit for her birthday but I was concerned that the embroidery floss in it would be too hard for her to start learning with so I whipped out some yarn and we started with that. She is getting the hang of it but she got tired/bored after a few rows and said she'd work on it later. I think it is hard for her to concentrate with her nose being so stuffy. At least the medicine I have for her seems to be helping control the cough which is triggered by the runny/stuffy nose. Too bad the stuff only lasts 4-6 hours. It would be nice if it was at least 8 so she could sleep well tonight.

Because I was home today and S was content to just play/watch TV/rest, I was able to get a bunch of knitting done. I finished the first clue for the Outlander MKAL I'm working on. Here's what it looks like through clue 1:

I was reading through the comments on the spoilers thread on Ravelry and a lot of people seem to be having the same thought I've been having - that the yarn and the pattern are competing against each other rather than working together. Also, the photo above made me notice that the yarn is beginning to pool as we knitters call it - the colours are clumping up. I'll have to see how that continues. I looked to see if I had a solid colour to use but I don't have enough of anything in the right weight so I will just keep going and see how it turns out. Worse comes to worse I tear it out when it's done and use the yarn for something else.

I also got work done on my Solar Flare shawl. I made it through the clue for the third skein of yarn. It's hard to get a decent picture because I don't have long enough needles to show it all off but this is one section of it:

I have begun adding in skein 4 which has a lot more red in it and it looks really good. I can't wait to see it all spread out when it's done. The designer is going to release the clue for skein 5 this week so I will be able to keep plugging away at this one. It's definitely taking me longer to do each clue than the Snow Queen did. I think it's because there is less lace work in this one.

I also remembered to take pictures of my recently acquired yarn. Here is the Casterly Rock yarn for the GoT MKAL:

Yup, it totally reminds me of the Lannisters. I'm excited that GoT starts back up again on Sunday. The MKAL won't start until May so it won't be competing with the Outlander MKAL so much. I'm curious to see what we make with this because it definitely is a heavier weight yarn - it calls for size 10 needles. Perhaps a cowl?

This is the yarn my mom sent me for my birthday:

 

The yarn on the left side is 100% mink yarn and the colour is Aegean. I'm not sure what I'm going to use it for but I'm sure I'll find something. The yarn on the right is from a company Simply Socks and it's 600 yarns of my favourite Unique Sheep yarn - Luxe. It came in a really cute zip-top bag which I will take a picture of tomorrow. I've seen a shawlette/scarf pattern that would be perfect for this yarn.

I didn't spend all day knitting - I made supper this evening. I made Feta-topped baked chicken, orzo, and Brussels sprouts. We had hummus and tzatziki sauce with pretzel chips as a snack type side (I dipped my chicken in the tzatziki sauce). For the Brussels sprouts I steamed them until tender but not overcooked and then tossed them with Parmesan cheese and butter. The Feta-topped baked chicken is so easy to make so I'll share the recipe:

Feta-Topped Baked Chicken

Oven 350F.

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I use chicken tenders)

2 Tbsp lemon juice, divided

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp oregano

1 cup Feta cheese

1/4 cup diced red bell pepper

1/4 cup diced fresh parsley

1. Arrange chicken in a 9 x 13 baking dish.

2. Drizzle chicken with 1 Tbsp of lemon juice. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano.

3. Top chicken with Feta cheese and drizzle with the remaining lemon juice.

4. Bake for 35-40 minutes (25 for chicken tenders) or until the chicken is cooked through.

5. Sprinkle with red pepper and parsley before serving.

I typically forget to buy the red pepper and parsley and it tastes fine without it. When I do remember to buy them I like to throw the red pepper in with the Feta cheese on top of the chicken before baking. I serve this dish over orzo pasta that I've tossed with butter and sometimes extra Feta cheese (yes, we do like Feta cheese around here). It's an easy meal and so tasty. I can even get S to eat the baked chicken although hers can't have any Feta on it. Silly girl does not know what she's missing!

Burger #4...and other things

I got my linen closet and drawer cleaned out today. Two bags of linens went to the donation centre, as well as a bag of clothes that I'd been holding on to for a while. I thought I might want some of the clothes in the bag but since I hadn't even looked at the bag since I got my snow tires on. So the bag went in the back of the car with the other things and off to the donation centre they went.

Over near the donation centre is another restaurant that is participating in Burger Love. After checking it out online I decided it was one I wanted to try. I'll admit there are some that I have no interest in trying, but this one looked good. It's called the Ciao Bella and it is at Papa Joe's restaurant. Papa Joe's has one Burger Love in the past. I'm not sure if this one will win this year, but it was a good burger.

First, the patty - it is 7 oz and was juicy and not too dense. It was topped with crispy fried onions which were crispy! I'm not a big fan of onions, but these were good. It also had bacon, aged white cheddar and goat cheese on it. I didn't like the garlic goat cheese on the Sucker Punch but it worked on the Ciao Bella because of the other things on the burger. There was a sundried and Roma tomato chutney on it which went really well with the goat cheese. Adding to the flavour (not competing with it) was arugula tossed in housemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing. The goat cheese, the chutney, and the arugula all worked together to give it an Italian/Mediterranean taste. 

The bun, a toasted onion poppy seed bun, was hearty enough to handle all these ingredients. It was nice and fresh and the bottom bun was cut thick enough to support the burger, which was nice since the chutney was a bit drippy. The bun was garnished with a spicy pickled red onion (zingy!), a gerkin (tasty, and I don't like gerkins), a dried roma tomato slice (crispy), and a piece of candied bacon (delicious). All in all, I liked this one. I'd rank it in third place out of the four I've tried so far. Here's what it looks like:

I have to say, I'm loving Burger Love month but I am glad it is only for 30 days. Any more than that and I'd start to have burger overload. I know there are some people who have tried 10, even 20 burgers. Not me! I can only handle one every few days. My next one will probably be on Sunday.

Oh, I took a picture of the apron I won. I think it's cute. I'll have to wear it the next time I make potatoes. :-)

Tomorrow morning I am off to the dentist but it should be an easy appointment. They are doing my cleaning. Of course they will reschedule my fillings that I was suppose to have today. I kind of wanted to get that appointment over with but the dentist couldn't make it for some reason. Maybe they will combine the fillings with the extraction next week. I'll find out tomorrow.

New yarn arrived today for a MKAL that doesn't start until May. I didn't expect the yarn to arrive already but it did. The colour is Casterly Rock and I believe this will be a shawl or possibly a cowl. It's thicker yarn than I've been working with so it will be a nice change. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow when the light is better. I'm still working on my Solar Flare shawl - I'm on skein 3 now - as well as the Outlander shawl. The next clue for both KALs will be coming out this weekend, so I better get knitting if I'm going to be ready for them!

Too Much Going On

Today there is too much going on, but probably not in the way you think. It's actually been a pretty calm day - no after school activities. Here's how there's too much going on...

I started a new knitting project today. It's another mystery KAL (I seem to be into those lately). The theme of this one is Outlander. I like the pattern so far, and I like the yarn, but I'm not so sure I like them together. Here is the yarn:

It's a pretty combination of purples, blues, and grays and it's named Craigh na Dun after the stones that sent Claire back in time. And here it is knit up into the beginnings of the shawl:

I really like the pattern - it has reversible cables which is really cool. I'm just worried that there is too much going on with this yarn and this pattern. I'm afraid that the pattern will get too lost in the colour changes of the yarn. Perhaps as the shawl gets wider the colours will stretch out more and it won't look so busy. I think this pattern would look really lovely on a solid colour yarn. I'll wait until I finish the first clue and then decide if I'm going to tear it out and start again with a solid colour. I bought the yarn specifically for this KAL but if I'm not loving the combination, I won't hesitate to tear it out and use the yarn for something else and grab something from my stash for the KAL.

And speaking of too much going on, we went out for supper tonight and I tried my third Burger Love burger tonight - the Sucker Punch at Phinleys. Here's the picture of it:

Out of the three I've tried so far, I would put this one in third place. The burgers (it has two 4 oz patties) were juicy and not too dense. I would have preferred a single 6 oz burger instead of two patties. The crispy onion tanglers kind of got lost on the burger; I didn't notice any crunch in my burger as I ate it.

I wasn't so sure about the combination of the whipped garlic goat cheese and the cajun chocolate covered bacon. The bacon, well, it's bacon and you can't go wrong with that. It had a subtle chocolate flavour to it but I didn't notice any spiciness from the cajun part of it. The garlic goat cheese tasted out of place to me. Even though there was only a small amount on the burger, it seemed to overpower the other flavours. 

The Sweet & Smokey Cream Sauce and the Chipotle Molasses BBQ Mayo added more flavour to it and they seemed to be competing with each other instead of complementing each other. The Cheddar Jalapeno Kaiser was fresh but like the Dubster, the bottom bun just didn't seem hearty enough to handle all the burger. My bottom bun became soggy with the sauce and mayo combo. It was a messy burger to eat. The burger did come with a bubble gum sucker stuck into it. Since I don't like bubble gum, I will pass it on to J.

I'm glad I tried it because I had been hearing from people about how tasty it was but honestly, it wasn't my taste. There was just too many flavours going on and they all seemed to be competing with each other instead of working together. And honestly, after trying two spicy burgers first, I missed the heat they had. Of course, this is just my opinion and I know a lot of others out there have enjoyed it. I tend to judge the burgers by whether or not I would order them again. And the Sucker Punch goes on the not list. Next time we go to this restaurant, I'll stick with my usual meals.

I will miss you, Target

Our Target is finally closing. All Targets in Canada are closing. The last time I was in our Target things were getting pretty picked over although the kids found some toys they wanted and we got a few other things we needed. But I kind of said my goodbyes to Target with that trip and haven't been back since. Now it's just days away from closing for good. It is a sad time for me, because I am a Target person. When asked to choose between Target and Walmart, my go to store is Target.

But since our Target will be gone, I decided to venture into our Walmart in hopes that it had improved. When Target opened, Walmart said they weren't going to make any changes in the store but then a few months later they started renovating the store to add a full grocery store. The renovations took forever but finally finished up a few months ago. While all the work was going on I would only go into Walmart when I absolutely had to because it always seemed so chaotic in the store.

So today I went in. First, I went early because the later in the day it gets, the more packed the parking lot gets. It was busy in the store but at least it didn't have that chaotic feel. There was actually room to push a shopping cart around and get past people without feeling like you were going to knock things over. While I didn't go into the grocery section, the produce I could see when I walked in looked fresh. The different departments had their sections unlike during the renovations when things were all squished together.

I looked at clothes for the kids and that's what really made me miss Target. The prices at Walmart are less than at Target, but the quality wasn't as nice at Target, at least in my opinion. The fabric felt thin and I was concerned about how well it would hold up with the way my kids are with clothes. Target's clothing always seemed to be better quality to me and because of that I was willing to pay slightly more there. I guess I'll either have to start shopping at the more expensive kids' stores or else start making trips down to the States to stock up on kids' clothes.

I was able to find everything that was on my shopping list except for one thing, so there is that. And Walmart has a craft section that includes yarn, which Target didn't have. Of course all the yarn that Walmart carries I can find at Michaels, so I'll have to do some price comparison to see which place has the better deal. It's always good to have more local options for yarn. But I will still miss Target.

And speaking of yarn, I finally remembered to take a picture of my Solar Flare mystery shawl I'm working on. It's not the best picture because my needles are short and I can't stretch out the shawl, but at least I was able to get some of the wedges.

I'm almost done with clue 1, which used the first two skeins out of six. Unfortunately I still have skeins 3 and 4 to catch up on. The designer decided that since it's taking everyone longer than she expected, she won't release another clue on Monday to give everyone a chance to catch up. For this MKAL, she's going to have people vote for their favourite finished shawl and the one with the most votes will win a gift certificate to the Unique Sheep. I'm hoping I win! I love their yarn, and a gift certificate to there would be awesome! We'll have to see how it turns out. I'll keep working on it until the next clue for the Snow Queen comes out. I've got my own fire/snow summer/winter knitting theme going on these days!