Snow Day

What could be better?


A foot of snow fell overnight. Schools and daycares were shut down, commuting extremely treacherous. What could be better than staying home? What could be better than the pure joy on the faces of children as they careen down the hill on a tobaggan?

Except maybe the beauty of it all. There is nothing prettier than snow on a bare tree.

WIP and some goodies....

Finally I have some down time where I can update the old blog! We've been extremely busy since school was back in session. Work monopolizes WAY to much of my time, and the kids have started skating lessons on Thursday nights as well. Add that to the soccer practices, games, and ballet, and it seems we are barely ever home! I've been working on the Gathered Pullover for the last few weeks. I've had to rip back a few times because of a dropped cable stitch, and then because of some indecisions, but I am halfway through the cable chart, and hope to make some progress in the next few days. Here it is as it stands right now...


I've also done some baking...I know...I don't bake...but part of my New Years resolution was to provide healthier food choices for my kids. There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to have cooked everything from scratch, but I'm going to start trying, and my first effort is these Banana Bread Muffins. It is the same old recipe as I have made before, but I have made it healthier by adding whole wheat flour and flaxseed meal. They turned out fabulous! So good in fact that I had to take some pictures of them and give you all my recipe.

Shannon's Healthier Banana Bread Muffins

Preheat Oven to 350F

1 1/2 C. banana (3 large bananas)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/4 C. milk w/ a dash of lemon juice
1/4 C. melted butter
1 C. white flour
3/4 C. whole wheat flour
1/4 C. flaxseed meal
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
sprinkling of cinnamon
chocolate chips (as many as you want...chocolate is healthy...who said so? I said so!)

Mix wet & dry separately
Add wet to dry
Mix just to combine (don't over mix!)
Add the chocolate chips
Bake 30 minutes and enjoy!

The next time I make them I will decrease the white flour, and increase the whole wheat flour accordingly...the more whole wheat the better, I'm just not sure how they'd turn out if I went completely whole wheat, or if my kids would eat them!

Aidan cooked us a fabulous pasta dinner the other night. Maeghan loved hers so much she asked me to take a picture of it to put on my blog...here it is.

Dang it was good!

In other news, Owen got his first black eye in a street hockey game the other night. He's hilarious, he was really upset until I got out there, and then he didn't want me to look because he wanted to be a tough boy in front of his friends! He wiped his tears a way and went back out to the game. He's a pretty tough kid! I think his friends might think that he has a strange mother, though, since when they came to get me they could see me taking pictures of muffins through the window. Who takes pictures of muffins? Apparently me. I'm just disappointed that the pics didn't turn out better. Anyways, I have to go pick up the kids from school.

Only one more week to the Fabulous Girlfriend Getaway! Woot woot! More on that in the next post!

FO: Calorimetry

First FO of 2008...woohoo! I decided I just wanted to do something quick and easy...instant gratification...so on New Years Day I cast on for Calorimetry, finished it in a few hours, and then cast on for a second one for Maeghan the very next day! I think they both turned out very well, but if I ever make myself another one it will have a slightly larger circumferance.

Here are the specs of mine:

Pattern: Calorimetry by Kathryn Schoendorf from Knitty Winter 2006
Yarn: Patons SWS color "Natural Earth"
Needles: 5mm/US 8's KP Options
Mods: I changed the cast-on from 120st to 92st because I have read that most people find it ends up way to big if following the original pattern. I repeated row 5 11 times instead of the original 15. Next time I will increase my cast-on st to 96.

Maeghans:
Yarn: Patons SWS color "Natural Plum"
Needles: 5mm/US 8's KP Options
Mods: I cast on 88st for Maeghan's and repeated row 5 10 times. It fits her perfectly.

Surprisingly I don't find this yarn itchy at all...I've read that some people do, and since I'm sensitive to the itch factor, I was pretty uncertain how I was going to like it, Maeghan doesn't think it is itchy either.

I can see myself making many more of these as gifts...so fast, so easy, I enjoyed every minute of it! I do think though that Maeghan looks way better in it than I do, she is just one of those people that looks great in any type of head gear. So now that I got that out of my system, I'm ready to cast-on for Gathered Pullover...well, at least swatch for it anyway!