Taking Back Our Home

This weekend was all about taking back our home. It’s kind of falling apart (on the inside and out – we live in a high-rise and the Board has informed us the building needs about $15 million worth of work – who’s going to pay for that you ask?) but we’re trying to get it back in baby steps.

Last week we had the plumber in – $600 later we have a non-leaking kitchen sink and all three toilets flush, leak free! Yeah for working plumbing! (You may question why we need three toilets if there are only two of in the house. Options, dahling, options.)

So, now that that’s out of the way, we can clean things up. The place is a sty. I bought a Swiffer WetJet and I love it, except Georgie (who likes to give goofy names to everything) keeps calling it the Swift Boat thinga-ma-jig. I need to be reminded of that every five minutes for sure! The good thing is my floors might actually be semi-clean now. I love the little scrubby thing on the side too.

Georgie sealed up the windows in the bedrooms so our house is nice and toasty now that it’s freezing! And I finally organized my stash! I gave up on the cedar chest – too much money, not enough space – and went with some plastic bins that fit in the closet perfectly. And my stash pretty much fit in one of the bins so I have an emtpy one to fill. I also bought a lovely leather basket type thing at Crate & Barrel the other day – it was marked down a lot – for storing my current projects. I figure I can tote it around if need be, but it will probably sit next to me by the couch. Here’s a picture of it filled with Jo Sharp stash!

It’s actually not completely filled with Jo Sharp –
my project bags take up most of the basket and the Jo Sharp
accents the top. For a more pleasing picture.

Georgie made a lovely pasta bolognese the other night and for dessert – my own molten chocolate cake! He bought the mix and the ramekins from Williams & Sonoma and made it himself. It was fantastic. We may never go out to eat again.

ETA: Annie asked for a recipe. There is none! It’s a kit. They send you the chocolate drops and the cake mix and you melt the chocolate and add water and butter to the mix (two sticks of butter!) then add the chocolate to the mix. Once it’s all together, put it into the little ramekins and bake for 12-15 minutes. That’s it! So easy and unbelievably good. It makes about 8-12 cakes. We made four and put the rest of the batter in the frig. The next day I scooped out the cold mix into the ramekins, baked it, and it was just as good as fresh. The mix came from Williams & Sonoma.

While School Daze was blocking, I managed to finish the back and start the front of Picot-Boo. I’m still completely in love with this yarn.

This picture was taken with my new 50mm f1.4 lens,
which has an extremely narrow depth of field (that’s why so much of it is blurry.)
I thought the picture was interesting.

What I learned in school…

Never do a stair-step bind off on the shoulders (or anywhere for the matter!) What a pain in the ass. I started to seam the shoulders for School Daze last night – it blocked beautifully – and met with all kinds of problems. After consulting my books (they all said don’t do it – thanks!) and finding this very, very helpful web page, I think my seams look just fine thank you!

Like the rug underneath the knit? It’s Bonne Marie’s idea.

I figure if her blocking method works so well, might as well have the rug too!
As an extra bonus, it matches our decor too!

What else? Class went well on Thursday. Cassie sums up the teaching experience pretty well in her post today. It’s performance art all the way! I have fourteen people in the class and already I can tell the difference between Fiction I and Fiction II – in F1 they’re feeling their way – I want to write, but maybe I don’t have what it takes. In F2, they are there for the long haul. So it’s all good.

My new camera came as well. But I haven’t really played with it yet – I’m waiting for our trip this weekend to beautiful sunny Miami (fingers crossed for the weather.)

Have a great day!