Food for Thought

James and I just arrived home from seeing his friend Marshall perform in his band, Funk-o-tron, on the patio of a little bar in southwest Fort Worth. We had a nice time visiting with him before they went on, even while we were all sweating like crazy in the heat. I tried to make the most of my time by knitting on my sock during the show, and I actually made some progress. It will still probably be at least another month before I finish, though, at the rate I've been going.

Last weekend, I didn't knit a stitch. I helped Sara address her wedding invitations on Saturday, and then I helped throw her a bridal shower on Sunday at her future MIL's house. It was pretty successful (and Sara received not one; not two; but THREE sets of sheets), but I forgot to bring my camera, so I have no pictures.

I did set up my chocolate fountain for the second (and probably last) time, and it doesn't seem to work too well. People seemed to enjoy the melted chocolate, but the "fountain" capability isn't really there. I had brought pretzels, strawberries, and marshmallows to dip in the chocolate, but when all was said and done, I could hardly tell anything had been eaten. I gave the pretzels to Amber, and James and I managed to eat all the strawberries this week, but I still had a full bag of marshmallows sitting on the counter yesterday.

In the past when I have found myself with a full bag of marshmallows (usually after a camping trip when exactly four marshmallows have been eaten for the requisite s'mores), I end up throwing it away after I get tired of looking at it for a few weeks. Today, however, inspiration struck as James and I were leaving Fuddrucker's and admiring the sweet treats in the display case; among the cookies were some giant Rice Krispies Treats. Yum.

Normally, this would not be enough for me to decide to make something so incredibly bad (unhealthy) at home, but James and I went to see Julie & Julia last night at the movies, which I think influenced me. (Warning: do not see on an empty stomach!) There was so much delicious food being made in the movie that it actually made me think that I might want to cook something. Of course, I came to my senses and realized that I'd never choose cooking over knitting, but homemade food was still on my mind when I saw those Rice Krispies Treats...and then remembered that I already one of the two main ingredients at home: marshmallows.

Before I knew it, I had convinced James to go buy a box of Rice Krispies. I could lie and say that I made the treats (simple as they are, I know you'd be impressed, right?), but, of course, James made the treats. He even broke one of our wooden spoons in half while trying to mix the Rice Krispies with the melted marshmallows.

So, now you know what I had for dinner.

Thank you, James

For:

1. Taking my car to be fixed on Monday. It's so nice to not have all those lights on the dashboard glaring at me every day.
2. Cooking dinner four nights this week and making pasta for me to take to work for lunch. I'm not sure what I would be eating otherwise.
3. Making me French toast for breakfast this morning. It was very, very good. I needed a break from the granola.
4. Running and unloading the dishwasher before I even had a chance to notice it was full. When I asked if it were full yet, you could have at least told me it was empty instead of shrugging and waiting for me to open it and see that it was empty.
5. Not making me sit through that DVD you wanted to watch last night. (Actually, you probably only turned it off because I kept interrupting you, but thanks anyway.)

A Lot of Not Much

Things have been very quiet since our trip to the Frio River a few weeks ago, and I'm absolutely loving it. It has been so nice to just spend the weekends at home catching up on our Netflix and replenishing my supply of clean clothes. I still haven't been knitting too much, though, and tomorrow will be the one month mark for the pair (well, so far, just one) of socks I'm working on. They don't look much different than last week:

I finished the lacy shawl/wrap that I worked on primarily over July 4th weekend and the following weekend camping, but that comes easy when you're stuck in a car for a total of twenty hours. I still need to get some wires so I can block it out and make it look really lacy, and some buttons to put on one of the ends (so you can button it in different ways...I'll demonstrate when I finish), but right now it's sitting in a pile on my desk. This is how it looked last weekend when I finally bound off the stitches and took a quick picture to put on Ravelry:

I'm still making progress on the wedding afghan for Sara and Brandon, but I don't think I'll have it done for Sara's shower next Sunday. I'm just a little over halfway finished, but I'm not putting up any pictures of it until I give it to them.

Speaking of Sara's bridal shower, I am co-hosting it with her future mother-in-law next Sunday, and I'm pretty excited about it. Next weekend will be almost completely devoted to Sara's wedding since we are designing, printing, and addressing her invitations next Saturday. I don't get much girl time with my two best friends, so I am really looking forward to this even though I suspect it will be hectic.

Now it's off to the grocery store and then to my knitting group. With next weekend's plans in mind, I'm guessing I should have more exciting things to talk about next Sunday.

Rio Frio Trip

Every summer for the past few years, James and I have gotten together with our friends Sara and Brandon (and usually various others) to go tubing down the Guadalupe or Comal River in New Braunfels, Texas. We always have a good time, but we decided we wanted a change of scenery this year, so we opted for the Frio River, which is a couple of hours west of where we usually go.

We saw this not too far into our trip down I-35:

Once we started getting closer, the landscape changed drastically. It was lots of green rolling hills that were practically the size of small mountains.

We even drove through Utopia, where we stopped for gas on the way back home.

I didn't take many pictures while we were there, unfortunately, because we spent most of our time in the water and my camera is not water-proof. We stayed at Garner State Park, which is by far the largest and busiest state park I've ever been too. When we arrived, we had to take a number to wait to check in, and the door going into the part of the building with the check-in counters would only unlock briefly to let the next person in.

I cannot even begin to describe how very, very hot it was. It was easily over 100 degrees, and we quickly made the decision to walk down to the river to get in the water. The river was a short walk from our campsite, and though the river was pretty shallow, we found a spot deep enough to sit down and have the water up to our chests. We stayed there until dark, when it had cooled down enough to no longer be sweltering. That night we had the typical hot dogs, with the special treat of James' rum punch and Jason's peach cobbler made in a dutch oven. The cobbler was so good it has convinced me that a cast iron dutch oven is a camping necessity, and I hope to get one before we go camping again.

The next day, we drove to the tube rental place and were surprised to see that it was pretty empty. It was very unlike New Braunfels, but we didn't think much about it and proceeded to pay for our tube rentals. An employee asked Sara if we were tubing and told her that the river was very, very low. I questioned the cashier about it, and she responded, "yeah, it's pretty low...we're actually not recommending tubing right now." Hmmm, wouldn't it have been better for her to tell us before some of us had paid? She refunded Jason and Jill, who had just paid, and we discussed what to do instead.

We decided to look for a place along the river where we could just hang out in the water, and we ended up finding the perfect spot at the second river crossing we came to. The water was deep enough at some parts where we couldn't touch bottom (though we could easily see it in the very clear water) and shallow enough closer to the shore where we could just sit in the water. We stayed there for several hours before deciding we were ready to go, partly because some of us were getting cold. As we clearly discovered upon arriving back at our campsite, we were delusional--it was still blistering hot out of the water, and I think we all immediately wished we hadn't left.

It didn't take long for us to all walk back down to the river near our campsite and reclaim the spot we'd occupied the night before. It was amazing to me how secluded this particular part of the river was. Aside from a father and son rearranging rocks, we couldn't see any other people from where we were sitting. The Guadalupe and Comal Rivers are usually so crowded that you can't help but be completely surrounded by people at all times. And by "people," I mean mostly drunk college students.

We went out to eat dinner that night at a little place called The Feed Lot in Leakey. It was about as glamourous as it sounds, but the chicken fried steak was very, very good. In fact, it had been featured in Texas Monthly at some point as we saw the article from it inside on the wall. The owner was an older guy wearing denim overalls who walked around and chatted with everyone.

This is probably a good place to mention that James and I have been eating a lot of beef lately. We still haven't cooked any meat (other than seafood/fish) at home this year, but I have been craving hamburgers constantly. Whataburger, specifically, and I blame it on commercials. I never thought I cared much for hamburgers, but I am clearly convinced that I was very, very wrong. I love hamburgers. On the way home the next day, we all stopped and had Mighty Fine burgers for lunch in Round Rock. The burgers fit their description pretty well, I think. Check them out if you're ever in the area.

Here is a picture from our campsite of some sap that had seeped out of one of the trees. Kinda pretty, huh?

Where I've Been...

As someone just let me know, it's been nearly a month since my last blog entry. I think my new job is mostly to blame for that.

I like my new job, but I don't like how much more time it takes up. I never get home until after 6:00pm (compared to getting home a little after 4:00pm at the last job) and sometimes it's even later. Needless to say, this has been hard for me to get used to, and my blogging hasn't been the only thing to suffer. I have stopped keeping up with blogs and columns I used to read regularly, and my knitting is pretty much ignored from Monday until Friday. Also to blame is the fact that I have been busy during the last several weekends, which has forced me to deal with laundry, pest control (a whole other blog entry there!), packing/unpacking, and other responsibilities during my decreased weeknight time. It has been very hectic, but now that things are slowing down I plan to make more time for myself. And the blog.

So, basically, this is just a tiny blog to let you know I'll be back. I need to take some pictures and write up some other stuff for separate entries, and I should finally have time to do that today. Yay for a day at home!

What a Difference a Frame Makes

Two weeks ago, James and I finally took our college diplomas to get them matted and framed. They had been propped up against the TV cabinet for months, but I finally decided (with a 60% off coupon in hand) that it was time to have it done. Before the months-long stint in the living room, the diplomas had been stashed in a closet ever since their receipts, roughly three years ago (for mine) and two and half years ago (for James's).

I knew they would look good, but until we picked them up last weekend, I had no idea just how good they would look. We hung them in the bedroom over our desk. Maybe one day we can hang them in our home office or study. It amazes me how good it feels to have finally done something that I've put off for so long. Maybe I'll feel the same if I organize the camping gear?

In other news, I've hardly knitted or crocheted at all this week. I feel like there's so little time left in the day now that I have to commute between 1.5 and 2 hours each day and I no longer get to spend lunch at home.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I know, it may seem a little early for this post. And, if you know me, you are probably wondering 'what vacation?'

Well, though I didn't really know it at the time, I had a two and a half week vacation that ended on Wednesday of this past week. It could also be known as unemployment.

In addition to the typical job hunting and interviews, I was also able to enjoy myself a little (which was really just enough to balance out all the stress I was trying not to feel) by lounging by the pool, sleeping in, and-of course-knitting.

With all the extra knitting time, I was able to knit not one, but TWO pairs of socks. And let's not forget the Mario goodies I crocheted during this time. I feel pretty accomplished, and both pairs of socks turned out great (aside from pooling issues, anyway). In fact, the pair of socks for myself was started on last Saturday (I had started Friday night, but ended up ripping it out and starting over on Saturday when I realized they'd be too small.) and finished on Thursday. That is primarily because I knitted almost constantly on Monday and Tuesday since I didn't have to look for a job those days.

Aren't they nice?

The ones on the left are the Spring Forward pattern from Knitty Summer 2008 using the Araucania Ranco Multy that James bought for me in Austin at Hill Country Weavers while I was in New Mexico over Memorial Day. Strangely enough, the socks on the right are also made from yarn (ShibuiKnits) that I bought at the same LYS during a trip to Austin last year over Labor Day weekend. The pattern is Double Basket Weave from More Sensational Socks by Charlene Schurch. I had to use some leftover KnitPicks sock yarn for the toes on James's socks because I was going to run out of the brown.