Sun Day

I wish the sun was shining today. I've seen it peek out for a few seconds and then disappear behind all the ominous gray clouds that have been hanging around all day. We've had some rain off and on today but not a stead rain. Of course, because this is Canada, the forecast for tonight includes 2 cm of snow, with a chance of rain or snow for the next few days. Yes, you read that correctly. Snow. At the end of April. The snow won't stick around if it does show up but still, snow.

So to brighten up my day, I am going to share a picture of the sun:

Okay, it's not really the sun but according to S it looks like the sun. That is my finished Solar Flare MKAL shawl. C took the picture for me this morning so I would have a good picture to post on Ravelry. So far I am the only one with a finished picture and tomorrow is suppose to be the final submission day but I have a feeling the designer will give everyone a few more days. I love how the colours in this look like the sun. It reminds me of a set of paintings I saw in an art auction that I really liked. If it wouldn't cost a ton of money, I would get this framed and hang it on the wall as a piece of art.

It does feel good to have it done. I have gotten back to work on my Outlander shawl. Amazingly I'm not behind on it. I was able to finish up clue 3 last night and start on clue 4 which just came out yesterday morning. I also wound up the yarn for a cowl using some Unique Sheep yarn that I have. The colour for that is called Carpe Diem and I'm sure I shared a picture before but here it is again:

I have to say, the yarn looks totally different all wound up into little cakes. My least favourite hank of yarn was skein 4 (3rd from the top) but when I wound them up, skein 4 ended up being one of my favourites. It's strange, I know. I am excited to see what it will look like all knit up. I'm trying to decide if I should start with the reds or with the bluish-green colour. Once I get it started I will add some in progress pictures.

S will be heading back to school tomorrow - and there was much rejoicing. She is all better now and hopefully her immune system has had time to recover and she will be able to resist getting sick again. She is excited to go back to school because she's missed her friends. It will be good for her to have some time away from me (and good for me too). I'm happy to have things back to normal for this week.

I wasn't going to add this but hey, why not? If you like my shawl and you're on Ravelry, go here and click the love button to vote for my shawl. You need to have a Ravelry account to go to view that link. If you do vote, thank you! I appreciate the support. :-)

No Love Today

Today the Burger Love people are trying to set a world record for the most freshly served burgers in 24 hours. We decided we'd try to help them set the record by going out for a burger for lunch. Now, we knew it was going to be busy in places that are participating in Burger Love, especially since it's the last weekend and the world record attempt. So we picked a restaurant and went.

We were briefly greeted when we walked in the door and told to pick one of three tables. So we chose one and after a few minutes a man came over and handed us menus. Then we waited...and waited but no one came over to us. When the man handed us menus he didn't offer to bring us drinks. So after waiting for at least 10 minutes without a single server coming over to us we got up and left. We ended up going to another non-Burger Love restaurant and having our favourite curry for lunch. It worked out better over all because S was happy to have a normal grilled cheese for lunch (instead of a fancy one) and the curry was excellent, as usual.

It was disappointing that the service at the first restaurant was poor today. C and I have been there before and it's been fine. I just find it hard to excuse poor service when restaurants know what is in store for them when they choose to participate in Burger Love. This particular restaurant has participated in Porktober (the pork version of Burger Love) so they know how busy it can get, especially on the final weekend. Why they didn't have extra servers on hand, I don't know. But they lost out on 2 burger sales today, and if the world record comes up 2 burgers short, well then you can blame it on the fact that C and I weren't able to order burgers today.

I was able to finish my Solar Flare shawl today! I got all the ends woven in this morning and after a good soaking it is now drying on the blocking pads. It seems to be taking a long time to dry. I hope it will be dry by morning so that C can take some good pictures of it. I have to say, I am so glad this MKAL is over! It was fun but honestly, there would have been no way I could have finished it on time if I had to go to work during the day. It was a very time-intensive pattern and many of the people who began it have given up, which ups the odds that I'll be the first prize winner. I'm considering sending feedback to the designer, just suggesting things like lengthening the time between clues or breaking the pattern up into smaller clues. It was overwhelming at times seeing these huge, time-intensive clues. I do absolutely love how the shawl turned out. The dye job by the Unique Sheep was dead on for a solar flare.

Now I'm going to go work on my poor, neglected Outlander shawl and watch some more episodes of DareDevil. If you haven't seen it, go watch. Excellent show! And I'm happy because there will be a second season. Yay!

Burger #8

The girl child was feeling better today although her eyes still looked red so we let her stay home again today. By 10ish her eyes were actually looking a lot better so we decided to do a short road trip. C needed some paint from a gaming store in a town about an hour away so we climbed into the car and off we went.

Of course when we got there the gaming store wasn't where it was. At that point we realized it was almost lunchtime and we were hungry so we pulled up the Burger Love list to see what was available in the town we were in. We found one we wanted to try - Let It Ride:

The patty itself is 6 oz but it seemed like more to me because it was very densely packed. Because of that it wasn't as juicy as some of the other ones I've had. C said it almost tasted like it was cooked from frozen. I hope not because I thought all the burgers were suppose to be made from fresh meat. The dryness of the burger was a counterbalance to the messiness of the rest of it.

As you can see from the picture, things were oozing out of this burger before I even took a bite. My first bite sent all the messy stuff squishing out all over my hands. Those messy things started with a bacon and sweet onion jam, which was tasty. The cheese is a 2 year aged cheddar which I had trouble tasting - it got lost in all the messiness. 

There was also a rustic tomato chutney on the burger - that's the stuff oozing out on the plate in the picture - and a black pepper mayo. Both had good flavour but contributed to the messiness of the burger. There was also a spiced Parmesan crisp on the burger but with all the sauces it lost it's crispness. The lettuce on the burger was fresh and crisp though.

The bun is a pretzel bun and it held up very well to all the sauces on this burger. It was fresh, soft, and definitely tasted like a pretzel. The bottom of the bun was cut thick enough to support the burger. Overall, it was a good, middle of the pack burger.

What wasn't good was the wait for the food to come. I understand it was lunchtime and it was busy but the restaurant wasn't huge. The wait for our food was long. It's the second time during Burger Love that we've encountered slow service while waiting for our burgers. This isn't the first year that Burger Love has happened so restaurants know that if they are going to participate in this they need to step up their service. I'm not expecting my burger to come out in 5 minutes, but a 30 minute wait for a burger seems excessive to me.

In dental news, I thought my gum was healed where that damn tooth came out so I started chewing carefully on that side because I need to get back into chewing normally. Of course that's when I discovered that I don't think it healed correctly and could possibly have a small area of dry socket going on. Lovely, right? Of course it's Friday evening so the dentist isn't there anymore. I'll have to wait until at least Monday to call them. I have an appointment Wednesday so they'll probably tell me that if I can tolerate it to wait until I come in then to deal with it. Thankfully over the counter pain meds dull the ache enough that I can tolerate it. Let's hope that continues.

In knitting news, I am one flame shy of finishing my Solar Flare shawl. Here's what it looks like unblocked:

I really like how it came out. I will finish up that last flame - it's the smallest one so it will go quick - and then I'll start weaving in all those ends. I'm going to try to get them all finished up by tomorrow so I can block it and get my final picture up so people can start voting for it on Ravelry. I want first prize! :-)

Another Short Post

S was home for day number 3 today. Her cold seems to be much better but her eyes are still very red. It seems that the virus has taken up residence in her eyes. When they first turned red this time we did a few doses of antibiotic but it wasn't doing anything but gumming up her eyes in the morning. I found some over-the-counter pinkeye medicine that helps treat viral pinkeye by reducing the redness, swelling, itchiness, and sensitivity to light. While S doesn't like having the drops put in, we're hoping that this will help make her eyes look good enough to send her to school tomorrow.

I was able to get some time out by myself today. I went to a few stores looking for a new purse but couldn't find the style that I wanted. I did send up getting a few new shirts for the spring because everyone needs a few new spring shirts, right? I had a coupon for one of the shirts so that made it even better. It was nice to be out of the house by myself for a bit. The weather cleared off this morning and it was warm enough out that I could be out in just my sweater and cowl combo with no coat. Yeah, it was only in the 40sF but when your winters are in the single and negative digits, 40s feels warm. :-)

I am getting closer to being finished with my Solar Flare shawl. I have 2/3 of flames done and should be able to get a lot more of it done once J heads off to bed. Of course once I finish all the knitting I probably have an hour or two of doing nothing but weaving in the bloody ends. I love the pattern and all the colour changes but egad, it does make for a hell of a lot of ends.

J had hockey tonight for the third time this week. He is enjoying spring hockey. They have only had one game so far (they lost) but they have more games coming up soon. In a few weeks they will be in a tournament on the island and at the end of May he will be in an off-island tournament. This weekend he doesn't have any hockey and it's the last weekend of Burger Love so I expect we'll get out and have one more burger. I haven't decided which one I want to try next so I'll start cruising the page and decide.

This Saturday the Burger Love people are trying to set a world record for the most freshly made burgers served in a 24 hour period. I may skip having a burger tomorrow and go for one on Saturday to help set the world record. Or I may have a burger tomorrow AND Saturday. I'm not sure what number of burgers need to be served to set the record, but I'll see if I can find out. It would be fun to help set the record, eh?

A Wet Wednesday and a Sick Child

S took a trip to the doctor today. The doctor she saw said S was going through the same things his own son was going through and that unfortunately, it is just a string of viruses and that there's nothing much to do but wait it out. He did give her more medicine for the pinkeye that came back with this cold (ah, pinkeye. joy!) and gave me suggestions for helping deal with the symptoms. She seemed to be feeling a bit better tonight. We'll see how she is in the morning and decide then if she gets another day home or not.

S was content to rest on the sofa watching TV again. Normally she'll take breaks to go play with toys or draw pictures but for most of the day she just snuggled under a blanket and was rather lethargic. I was content to keep the TV shows flowing because I wanted to keep making progress on my Solar Flare Shawl.

The shawl is coming along nicely. I've finished off 4 wedges out of 9, which makes me happy. What doesn't make me happy is the sheer amount of ends to weave in. I'll worry about them at the end. I do absolutely love how it is coming out. I'm also really pleased with the colours and how they came out. I am so glad I went with yellow as my first colour and worked my way out to the deep red/purplish colour. Hopefully everyone will agree with me and I'll win the coveted Unique Sheep yarn prize.

We survived the rainfall warning that was issued for today. The only water that came into the garage was the rain that dripped off the cars. The water has deepened the drainage channel down the side of the house so the water goes where it is suppose to. We should be good from now on and soon we'll get someone out to permanently fix the problem.

This rain has melted so much of the snow. Normally when I'd leave our neighbourhood I would have a hard time seeing the oncoming traffic because the snow banks. But this morning I realized I could see traffic and that where there use to be snow was now just grass. And C said he could see our tulips sprouting out front! That makes me happy. I like seeing all the signs of spring. We just need to get through the muddy part of spring and then it will be beautiful here!

"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!

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!