Sunday, October 10, 2010

Random Sunday

1. We woke up late (10 a.m.) and had to hustle like you wouldn't believe to Arlington, only to watch the Rangers lose (again) to the Tampa Bay (death) Rays. Also, I just don't understand how people can drink 5 or 6 beers when they're $6 a pop. Six bucks for Bud Light out of an aluminum bottle? No thanks.

2. After putting it off for forever, I finally counted all of the yoke stitches for my February Lady sweater. If you really want to know, I'm going to be doing some serious ripping. Ridiculous.

3. I'm this close to finishing one of my Nutkin socks that I started in May. FREAKING MAY.

4. I did finish an alpaca neckwarmer while we were in Colorado. Too bad it's still in the 80s here.

5. It's pretty much a given that I'll have to work from home at least for a couple of hours every weekend, but I need to figure out how to get out of the office earlier than 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because, people, that's not fun.

6. Dave and I took the dogs to the playing fields at Hexter Elementary today to run around and act like goofballs. It makes me wish we had a huge backyard where they could run and play and just be puppies.

7. Jane is laying eggs again, so now we have egg cartons full of regular ol' brown eggs and these lovely greenish-blue ones. It almost kills me to actually crack and eat them, but I do it anyways because they're delicious.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Another Finished Object, And a Trip to Colorado

We've been back from Colorado for two painful weeks. They've been painful because, after visiting Denver, Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Pikes Peak, Fort Collins, Boulder, Estes Park, and Aurora, we've seen what we've been missing by not living near the Rockies.

First, there are views like this:

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This was taken from the Eastern edge of Aurora on our way back to our friends' house. We ended up taking several day trips because my dear childhood friend allowed us to use her car. She wasn't headed anywhere, considering that, just a day before we arrived, she gave birth to my sweet "nephew." Which is awesome, because that meant he could model the blanket I made for him!

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It's from hand-dyed Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (You're actually looking at the "wrong" side of the blanket, but what the heck). I used four different shades of Kool Aid to dye the yarn in a many tones of red. I love how it turned out, and hopefully it will get many years of use!

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On our first day, we tried to take it easy to avoid altitude sickness, so we went to downtown Denver to visit a couple of book stores, a yarn shop, and a Mexican restaurant all recommended to us by the ever-lovely Colorado native, The Maiden Metallurgist.

First, though, I visited the state capitol building, which was pretty cool. I mean, it's no Texas State Capitol, but it did have some neat features, like the stained glass portraits:

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The walls were suffocating witha beautifully veined stone, too:

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And you could take a trip to the tip-top of the dome:

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And soak up the vista:

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Wow, right?

And then we went to La Cueva. Seriously. Do not pass "Go," do not collect $200 without La Cueva's chile rellenos. It's two Anaheim peppers stuffed with Jack cheese and fried to a pleasant texture. They're then smothered in your choice of red or green chile sauce, a la so many joints in New Mexico. If you're a wimp like me when it comes to spicy foods, the red chile sauce is a safe bet. The rellenos go perfectly with the fresh-made flour tortillas.

The folks at La Cueva were even kind enough to show us how they make their tortillas. Two women work the tortilla press until each bit of dough is thin, round, and uniform:

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As they day goes by, a single cook mans the griddle, turning out tortillas by flipping them almost constantly until they're just a little bubbled and browned:

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And folks, that was just the first day.

You can check out our travels though my flickr feed, which has some pretty crazy photos of rocks (never thought I'd say that).

Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Win vs. Fail

I was in a wedding this past weekend. It was a really beautiful ceremony, with really beautiful people getting married...

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Lovely friends...

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And the food (cake) wasn't too bad, either.

Wrapping up the wedding weekend with probably the worst stomach bug I've ever had?

Fail.