January in Instagram

 This month was so busy, I can't even believe that it started out in Kansas with snow and stomach flu.

Our friend Maria came to stay with us for a week.  She lived here for two years so we took her to all her old hang outs and showed her the new Riverwalk extension.

The day Maria left, Jason and Abby came to stay.  Abby was here because we organized a conference, but they stayed through the weekend to hang out.  We had lots of tacos and, of course, visited a mission (we did the Alamo last year).

These flowers were an unexpected thank you gift.

Hank loves to sit up in her cat town and look down on us.

For Christmas, I got the Smitten Kitchen cookbook and only made it to the first page before I decided I HAD to have the apple-sour cream pancakes.

I also got the Super Natural Everyday cookbook and made this rice salad featuring forbidden rice.  Somehow I thought it would be hard to get - turns out you can get it in the bulk bin for $4 a pound.

Scrabble Night!!!! (That's Geoff's game face)

 

Celebrated Kansas Day on the 29th with this gorgeous quilled necklace my mom made.

Finally got the last 7 years worth of photos (since I bought a digital camera) printed and in albums!

Whew!  Quite a month.

Wishing you a (Retroactively) Merry Christmas!

I hope those of you celebrating had a wonderful Christmas.  We were in Kansas with my family.  These are our stockings on Christmas morning - the stockings were made by my Grandma and mom and the quilted fireplace screen was just made by my mom this year. En route, we stopped in Oklahoma to catch up with my aunt and cousins.  We dropped off some homemade gingerbread play dough (made from Sugarbelle's recipe) for my cousins' sons.  It smells exactly as good as you imagine and comes together in no time.

We made it to Kansas ahead of the snow and did all sorts of wonderful Christmas things like playing Trivial Pursuit, making Rice Krispie treat ornaments, and having dinner on the Plaza with my mom's sister's family before we were all stricken with the stomach flu.

But let's back up, the Christmas season started off way back in November when we attended the annual lighting of all of the trees on the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word.  Every tree on campus is outlined in multicolored lights that twinkle all season.  It's gorgeous.

When I was complaining of a lack of Christmas spirit, my friend Katy took me down to the Riverwalk where we sat outside and drank prickly pear margaritas.  Totally getting into the idea of a relatively warm Christmas!  The Riverwalk Christmas lights are fantastic, like a fairy land (and that's not just the tequila talking).

In the Christmas spirit, I began to plan a special treat for my mom.  She loves stollen, but my dad hates the fluorescent candied fruit that so often fills it.  Instead, I soaked dried apricots and cranberries in a combination of whiskey and cider for a week before taking the fruit to Kansas with us.  I baked up the stollen recipe from Bread Baker's Apprentice with a (too thick) layer of almond paste in the middle.  It was good fresh, but I liked it best toasted with butter and I found the more muted fruit to be festive (and less frightening).

Giving handmade gifts is one of my favorite aspects of Christmas and this year was no exception.  I was particularly busy at work these last few months so some got finished once I was already in Kansas, but they were no less welcome.  Here are few of my favorites:

For my mom, a pair of Cozy Toes socks knit from yarn she picked out while we were in Portland.  She knew they were coming but had no idea what they would look like.  (In fact, due to some facebook complaining about my lack of time, she thought they were coming unfinished.)

Mom also got a new cover for her sewing machine (which I made good use of in finishing up this and other presents) based on an applique from Ellison Lane Quilts.

For dad, I made a custom-etched casserole dish that no one will ever walk away with from a potluck. Etching glass is so easy and  can be done with etching cream that you can pick up at any craft store.  It elevates inexpensive glassware into a cherished gift and I think it would be a great way to personalize bakeware that might be on a wedding registry. I also made a casserole carrier to tote it around based on this Sew4Home pattern.  Somehow I neglected to take a picture of that part.

By far my favorite gift this year was this lovable guy.  He's based on Otto the Lovable Monster with some liberal modifications.  I made him for a very special two month old and wanted him to match the That's Not my Monster board book by Fiona Watt.  I love these touchy-feely books that all follow the same format ("That's no my monster, his ears are too scratchy") until the final page ("That's my monster, his ears are so fluffy.").  So I made his to match the final monster.  I think I did a pretty good job.  You may recognize this present idea from this dragon and the orangutan up in my header.  I'm sure it will come up again because there are about twenty more books I haven't made a knit version of yet!

The holidays - even, and maybe especially being sick - gave me time to slow down, appreciate being surrounded by people I love, and rejuvenate me for the excitement and business of 2013.  I hope you are looking forward to this new year too!

Coast-to-Coast and Back Again

October was a crazy-busy month of travelling!  First we headed to Pennsylvania for our dear friends' wedding which was just so perfectly them.  It was held in the small-town brewery where they got engaged with just a small group of family and friends.  We were so lucky to get to share their wedding day with them.  Look how happy they are, it makes my heart skip a beat.

We spent a few extra days in State College where we caught up with friends, closed down a bar after a funk show, and remembered the burning sensation of breathing in 20 degree weather.  During the day, I was able to meet up with some of my ongoing collaborators back in the anthropology department.  Geoff flew back to San Antonio with some equipment they are lending me for our newly funded research (YAY!) and got only a moderate amount of questioning from the skeptical TSA agents.

While Geoff was on his way back to balmy Texas, I flew to Stephenson, WA for a pair of conferences focusing on novel techniques in statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology.  The conferences were jam packed but educational and the surroundings - located on the Columbia River Gorge couldn't be beat.  I even ran into a friend from grad school that I didn't even know would be there.

Between prepping for my presentations at the conferences and all the travel, I was ready for a break.  My mom flew out and met me in Portland for a very relaxing three days.  The only real plans we had were to eat at some food carts and for me to get my first pedicure.  (I've sort of avoided them because I was afraid I would love them too much and want to get them all the time.  I was right!)

Because my family loves museums, we had to check out the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry where we happened upon a kids chemistry lab (they were doing flame tests!), the AAA's exhibit on race which features several anthropologists I know, and the very fun Grossology exhibit where we played a life-size game of Operation.

Of course, when in Portland, you must have Voodoo doughnuts and Stumptown coffee.  Being the loving women we are, we each flew home with a box of maple-bacon glazed doughnuts as carry-ons.

Our last night in town, we had drinks on the 30th floor of a large pink building (I think it was a bank?) and watched the sun set.  It was the perfect ending to a relaxing weekend with mom!

Catching up

Woooo-weeeee!  It has been busy around here.  What is it about September that always rushes by?  Or maybe the world just seems to be rushing by because I've been spending so much time running lately!  On September 8th, I completed the Wurst Tri Ever my second triathlon of the year and my longest to date.  A cold front came through through about an hour before the race began and made the temperatures perfect, but the wind pretty intense.  That's definitely a trade-off I'll take!

Veronica and I decided to compete in this tri for one reason and one reason only - the slide!  This is a way more fun way to start a race than clinging to the side of a pool until someone says go.  The slide drops you into a 70 degree spring-fed pool.  I was ready for it to be cold, but for some reason I wasn't expecting the pool to be full of plants (I even found some stuck to me when I hit the showers after).  After the swim, we took off on a very hilly bike ride with 15 mph headwinds for the first 7 miles.  Luckily it was an out and back loop (with lots of pretty farmlands and cows), so I flew on the return with the wind at my back.  By the time I got to the run, I was cruising.  The weather was gorgeous and some young deer ran with me for a few blocks!  

A few days later, my cousin Abbie was in town for business so we took her out to dinner at La Fonda on Main.  It's San Antonio's oldest Mexican restaurant and has a fantastic patio.  The weather has finally cooled down enough that we can eat outside again.  It's a weird quirk of south Texas weather that fall through spring is our outdoor eating season.  It was so great to catch up with Abbie, I wish we got the chance to see each other more often.  (Notice our cousin synchronicity - we showed up to dinner wearing the same necklace.)

Last Friday we did something I wish we did more often - see (and in Geoff's case, play) live music.  There are plenty of opportunities to see shows any night of the week, but it took an old friend from the Ataris coming to town to get us out of the house.  There were a couple great local bands opening up, the beer was cheap, and the bar was Stanley Kubrick-themed.  (You can watch a video of Geoff playing base on their last song, here).

I took it easy because Saturday mornings are my longest runs - 7 miles this week - in training for the half marathon. I have mostly been running along the Riverwalk, starting and ending at the farmer's market where I can pick up some produce, locally roasted coffee, and a breakfast burrito.  This week there was even a great rockabilly band playing while I stretched.  (If you want to donate to SBTX in support of my half-marathon, and get an entry in my custom-knit raffle here's the link.)

I've been trying to make some protein-packed snacks lately including these protein-poppers for before runs.  For mid-afternoon snacking, I made some homemade crackers and white bean dip.  The dip is super easy - cooked or canned white beans, lots of lightly toasted garlic, thyme, rosemary, and red pepper flakes thinned out the richest chicken stock you can get your hands on.  Good, healthy, and quick.  Okay, I think you're caught up now!  I'll be back soon, I promise.

Long Weekend in Dallas

Sorry I've been quiet around here lately, I've been traveling!  Two weeks ago, we met my parents in Dallas for a long weekend.

We went to the JFK museum, but the real draw was the temporary Chihuly exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum.  

Dale Chihuly is an amazingly talented glass artist whose work my family has enjoyed for quite a while.  I've seen several of his large-scale works indoors but this was totally new environment and the first time I've seen so many works in one location.

Some of my favorites were positioned in water, this grouping made me think of Venetian Carnival boats (or what I imagine those are like). 

The glass works have a wonderfully organic feel and the color pops like flowers against the drab colors of Texas in August.  I really can't say anything better than what you can see in this small selection of the 200 photos I took.

If you live near or are visiting Dallas before November 5, check it out!  Admission is only $5 during August, but go early because it is HOT!

Bundles of (Knit) Joy

My facebook news feed is back-to-back baby photos.  I suppose it should come as no surprise considering about three years ago it was back-to-back wedding photos.  My favorite thing about babies (other than that baby smell and being able to hand them back to their parents when they start crying) is knitting tiny things for them.  While I usually knit sweaters using my grandma/mom's sweater pattern (seen here and here), I've accumulated quite a few other baby patterns in my Ravelry queue and decided to tackle some of them for this recent spate of baby gifts.

 Baby hats are a great project for using up partial skeins and can be done completed in just a single night - or on a flight to California, as was the case for this blueberry hat.  (It was a gift for the couple we were staying with, so I finished it in the car on the way to their house - thus the weird photo.)  I cast on as we took off and finished as we landed about three hours later.  As we were getting off the plane, the couple across from me confessed that they had been surreptitiously watching the hat come into existence over the course of the trip and were amazed, "It was just yarn when we left San Antonio!").

If you have a bit more time, maybe a weekend, you can knit a coordinating hat and toy.  I've had my eye on this panda hat forever, but found myself without black yarn, yet with quite a bit of leftover superwash wool in a froggy green, so I adapted it to be a frog hat and I love it!  I can imagine it being a sweet little Halloween costume this October, but isn't so costume-y that you couldn't put it on your baby the rest of the winter.  How cute are these buttons that I found for the chin strap?

I've knit this frog stuffed animal before and I think it is the perfect size for a toddler (it fits easily in the palm of my hand).  And the long arms and legs make it easy for a little one to grab and drag around.  The round belly can either be stuffed with a tennis ball or regular poly-fil.

Knitting for Texas babies is a little bit tricky.  There is only a brief window where they need warm and cozies, but it's hard to guess just what size they will be for those two months.  This cabled baby vest, knit in washable cotton, is a great solution because it can be worn over short-sleeves or long-sleeves.  I love the cables, but what really makes this a great pattern is that the left shoulder buttons to make it easier to get on and off - genius!

This is the sort of pattern that I'm slightly hesitant to knit because it looks sort of commercial - like something you could easily find at a store.  To personalize the pattern, I skipped one of the cables and then duplicate stitched an "A," the recipient's first initial.  Once I found those cute duck buttons, I decided to include a washcloth puppet, rubber duckie, and bath-time book as part of the gift.

One of my favorite things about all of these patterns is that they use only a single skein of yarn (or less) and I was able to use a lot of orphaned skeins from my stash (yay for de-stashing!!!).  I had two skeins of Lion Brand Homespun that I had absolutely no idea what to do with or what I bought them for originally.  Then, I came across this pattern for a toddler-sized kimono!  The kimono shirt is brilliant because it closes with ties so it can grow with the child.  I knit two in two different colors for a friend who recently had twins.  The pattern is quick and straight-forward which lets the fun yarn come through.  Phew!  That's a lot of baby knitting.  Back to knitting for myself for a while.

California Love

Earlier this month, Geoff and I took a week-long trip to Los Angeles.  Since it is his hometown, I let him take the lead with planning as long as we made it to the beach!  We did.  The water was FREEZING!  But I didn't care - I love beaches.

I've always pictured it as very urban, but LA is surprisingly beautiful.  We took a hike in the Santa Monica Mountains which are scrubby and semi-arid and not what I expect so close to the ocean.  There were two trail and we took the one that went up and back down the mountain (instead of through the valley) to arrive at the ruins of a mansion and this idyllic waterfall.

Feet cooled and rested, we headed back to civilization for a drive around Hollywood to see the sites - the Hollywood sign, Mann's Chinese Theater, and the Capitol Records Building.

Other than the beach, my only request was to visit the La Brea Tar Pits, because I'm a huge nerd.  There are a number of other museums I want to see when we're there next (the Getty and the Los Angeles County Museum are my other top two), but this was at the top of my list.  It was smaller than I anticipated, but their were fossils of 2 foot tall deer and 12 foot tall sloths, so I was happy.

What I really loved about LA wasn't the places we visited as much as getting the chance to hang out in the gorgeous weather (I couldn't stop talking about it, I think the locals thought I was nuts; but it was 70 every day and 90 in Texas) and getting to know Geoff's friends and family.

For several days, we stayed with a friend of Geoff's in Santa Monica.  We spent a few afternoons drink beer at a pub on Venice Beach with friends and people-watching.  Venice Beach was full of street performers, people selling their art, and dudes in bikini bottoms at Muscle Beach (I'm pretty sure they are the same guys from the 80s as they all seemed to be pushing 60 now).

The impetus for our trip was Mel and Christine's wedding.  It took place at a vineyard in Malibu.  The setting was gorgeous and the ceremony was short but very moving.  The vows were sweet and funny - much like the couple.

For the last several years, we have been so far from LA that we pretty much only get to see Geoff's friends at weddings so it was great to get to see and catch up with everyone.  Hopefully, we'll be back soon now that it is just a 3 hour direct flight away!

This was the second time I've ever had an In-N-Out burger and it was just as delicious as the first one I had in Las Vegas.  Evidently there is one in Dallas, so we know where we are having lunch the next time we drive up to Kansas!

After the wedding, we spent a few days with Geoff's dad, wife, and their kids.  Knowing we don't get much great Vietnamese food in San Antonio, they took us to their favorite place for pho.  I had the bun with char-grilled pork and the pork was basically bacon.  It was awesome, but I digress.

That Sunday night was a solar eclipse.  We punched a whole in a piece of paper so we could safely view it, but we soon realized that you could make a better aperture with your hands (it worked, try it).  We had a great time hanging out with the family and we are looking forward to making it back soon.

Our last night in town, Geoff, Lee, and I rented a karaoke room for an hour (which turned into three).  My singing voice is, let's say, unpolished.  But I belted out a few songs and was mostly content to let my much more talented companions steal the show.  Singing before, after, or in the same room as Geoff is always intimidating.  It was a fun final night in LA and we were both sad to leave!