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Caught red-handed

12_30_guiltySomeone parked herself on my damp sweater yesterday morning after I’d washed it and laid it out to dry. No sooner did I get upstairs with the camera to document the crime then she tried to slink away unnoticed. I did manage to snag a blurry picture that shows her red-handed (or mayhap that should be red-pawed) in the act. I suppose I should leave it full of pins if I don’t want it covered in cat hair.

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We’ve always intended to replace the original roller shades that were on the first floor of our house when we moved in but somehow we never got ’round to it. Just before Christmas the inner spring gave out on the one next to my desk which is the one that gets the most use. No big deal or so I thought. I tried to move one of the others into it’s place but one by one the springs snapped and it because apparently that we could procrastinate no longer. Upon our return one of the first orders of business was to find an affordable replacement and we soon came home with some new Roman shades that fit the bill nicely and will even conserve a bit of energy into the deal.

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We also needed a new mat for inside the front door where salt and sand gets tracked in. This became a dire situation over the past few weeks when we’ve had several snow storms one right after the other. We found this cute little snowman mat on sale though I suspect it’ll soon be grimy and not nearly so endearing but if it cuts down on the vacuuming and mopping I’ll be well pleased.

Dionysos visits

Wine_jobbySome years ago now we decided to purchase a small wine cellar/refrigerator. We belonged to a local wine club and decided to give cellaring a try on a very small scale. There was quite a buzz about the year 2000 wines so we bought a few to kick off our nascent cellar. A few months later we went to a port tasting and we were blown away by the vintage port we tasted there. We thought it would be lovely to have some on our tenth anniversary but having just done a bit of research on it will probably wait a bit longer than that. For Christmas we got a couple very nice wines indeed so I decided it is time to make a little folder for our tiny collection and map out drinkable dates for each vintage.

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These are the 2000 wines with which we began our little endeavor. We have a bordeaux, a margaux and a port. The port we tasted, as I mentioned, but we have no clue what the other two will be like. It’ll be a lot of fun to open them some time in the future and see how they matured.

Tintara_mclaren_vale_south_austrailSilver_oak_2002_cabernet_sauvingon_Coldi_sole_brunello_di_montalcino_2Brandlin_mount_veeder_cabernet_sauvThe Shiraz is a mystery wine, neither of us can remember how it made it into our little cellar but when I looked it up it seems very nice. The Silver Oak Cabernet is a wine I’ve been drinking for many years now although it seldom fits in the budget anymore. This year it was given to us as a gift and we thought it was definitely a cellar worthy wine. The Brunello was another wine gift that fell into the cellaring category this year as was the  Brandlin Cabernet which is the inaugural vintage for this wine. I can’t find statistics on the 03 Brandlin cab but the 04 got high marks and sounds absolutely delicious. If I remember correctly we should be able to fit 24 bottles of wine in our little cellar so we have plenty of room to grow.   

Sneaky Trip

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080_pack_leaderOn Christmas Eve we headed off to Colorado where we stayed with friends who moved away last spring. Jason’s sister knew we were coming but his parents did not. Early Christmas morning we got up and headed over to surprise them. It had already snowed 3 or 4 inches as we hit the road but since we had loan of a 4wd truck we had no trouble driving (though seeing road signs was challenging!). It continues to snow throughout the day which made for a very picturesque Christmas.

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We spent Wednesday with Jason’s parents and aunt and uncle in Boulder where we had a nice tour of the Celestial Seasonings plant. We bought a fair amount of tea after tasting quite a few of them and we were gifted a really cool tea bag squasher. We may also have picked up a new tea kettle like the one I had some years ago. I think someone is tired of hearing me opine it’s absence.

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Despite a second snow storm on Thursday we made it out to the movies and a fabulous dinner at Frasca. We always love lodging that comes complete with a kitty! On Friday we tooled around Pearl Street in Boulder, had lunch at the tea house and made a few stops for a wee bit of shopping. A bigger set of photos can be found here for those who are interested.

Christmas Lace

Blocking76_inches_longChristmas_lace Here’s another secret project I was working on for the holidays. This the oldest stash yarn I own, Inca Alpaca by Classic Elite. I bought it the very month I learned to knit, nearly four years ago, with MIL in mind as it’s mainly blue with flecks of purple and green, her favorite color combination. Hopefully this lacy scarf is light enough for Florida winters but if not it may come in handy for visits to colder climes. I knit this on size 6 needles. The pattern is available here, link is also on the sidebar.

More hats?

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12_17_fil_hat_tubular_cast_offAre you all getting tired of the hats yet? This was another gift knit from earlier this month. I’ve used 1824 Mission Falls Wool and size 6 needles. I increased until I had 112 stitches for a 23-inch hat (large) and knit until it was 7 inches tall. This was my first attempt at a top-down hat as well as my first time using the tubular bind-off.

Blue Sporty Hat

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12_13_blue_stripe_hatHere’s another Christmas gift I knit earlier this month. The pattern is the boy hat from Limulus Knits. I used size 6 DPNs and Mission Falls 1824 Wool for this hat. I goofed and picked up only one ball. When I went back for a second I wasn’t able to get the same dye lot so I used the black stripes to break it up a bit and disguise the transition from one dye lot to the second. It’s a nice cozy hat and another fairly quick knit.

Merry Christmas

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12_11_sisters_hat_crown_viewWe are away for the week but I thought I’d reveal some secret knitting since it will have been gifted by now. This is the Sisters hat which I knit up a few weeks ago using size 6 needles and Berroco Ultra Alpaca. I thoroughly loved both the pattern and the yarn. I would definitely knit this pattern again.

Cookies galore

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12_23_cookiesMuch of yesterday was spent making cookies and a batch of almond rocca candy in preparation for Christmas dinner dessert. The almond rocca and chocolate shortbread stars are both from Essence of Chocolate. The shortbread is barely sweet and has exotic fancy dancy salt pressed into the top. There are ginger crinkles from Fine Cooking Winter 2006 and Fruit Cake Cookies from Joy of Cooking Christmas Cookies.

Balloons and eggbeaters, really?

12_21_balloon_creationMuch of Friday Daniel and I bounced around between doctor’s offices and pharmacies. While we were waiting for one of our prescriptions to be filled Daniel found an inexpensive balloon animal kit so it went home with us. He spent the rest of the weekend creating balloon sculptures one of which is pictured here.

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At knitting this morning Debbi and Mary showed up with the best Christmas gift. We’d had a conversation a few weeks ago in which I mentioned that I’d love to have a little egg beater (there being really no more space in my kitchen for electronic appliances). They were surprised that I was having trouble finding one and subsequently noticed that they are indeed not exactly everywhere. After that the eggbeater finding mission ensued with great success and I was presented with the results this morning. Thanks ladies, I love it! What an excellent surprise that was.

There’s no place like home

Ruby_beholderOn one of my recent visits to the yarn shop I had a discussion with the owner about Fair Isle. She’s taking a class in January with Kaffe Fasset and mentioned she was getting a Ruby Beholder to help choose yarn colors for her sample piece. I asked her to snag one for me as well. I’ve been looking for a value finder for awhile now albeit halfheartedly. This will be a great help for those colorwork projects although it doesn’t work on red so I still need to hunt down a green one as well.