Sunday, April 13, 2008

Under Construction

Don't quite know where I'm going with this yet, just know it had to change. Work in Progress, comments appreciated.

Personally I don't like the sidebar being a solid color.

Blogger vs Wordpress

So I'm re-vamping the blog, and was considerin moving to Wordpress. I'd heard really great things about it, but so far it's really not adding up:
Wordpress does not:
allow free (or easy) CSS modification
allow flickr badges
have easy-to-use sidebar options

Wordpress does
have better comment format, but not nearly as good as LJ, which I already use for non-knitting content.
have multi-level blog options built in, like built in pages.

Please check out both versions of this blog, and let me know what you think! I've heard from some people that white on black text is hard to read, but I disagree think it looks much more interesting (and that's how I prefer the other blogs I read as well, including my LJ friends page)
Keep in mind I cannot change the colors of the wordpress blog without changing the template, only the top picture
http://redthreadknits.wordpress.com

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Quiet Weekend

Sorry to those who read both my LJ and this blog, I've been doubling up lately.
I don't know if I needed the alone-time or what, but due to motivation and finances my weekend is turning out to be very mellow and quiet.
I stayed in last night and did some housework, then knit while watching Pursuit of Happiness and What Not to Wear, and I fully enjoyed myself. The only disappointments of the night were a bad choice in white wine on my part, and not paying enough attention to my knitting and having to rip back 3 rows twice in one movie.
Yesterday Subi woke me up at 8:30 in the morning, which turned out to be not so bad, as it was a truly gorgeous day and I had my tea and breakfast out in the warm spring air on the deck, and had plenty of time to check email, make a white bean and cucumber salad, and enjoy myself before heading over to the yarn shop for a few extra hours of work. It was a very slow day, but I enjoyed getting to sit and knit with Jess, and chat about Ravelry and the Sheep and Wool festival coming up, even if being there did mean I couldn't spend the day outside.
I came home to this view from my deck:
springsunset 001
springsunset 009
springsunset 002
springsunset 013

Then my dad called, and I got to chat with him about news, politics, religion, the environment, and everything else for about 2 hours which was really nice. I also bought a plane ticket to go up and see him for a weekend, as I haven't seen him in nearly a year.
By then it was after 10pm, and I didn't feel like spending the possible $50 to come out tonight when I'm trying to save cash for the fiber festival.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Spring!

I haven't posted anything of substance in months! I'm going to try to post AT LEAST once or twice a week now. Sorry, no real knitting content in this post, but I promise to have fibery goodness in next weeks post!

J is going away on one of his trips for the month, starting Wednesday, so I will have more time to post. It's hard to get anything done when he's around, as he's a cuddle monster and is always in my lap (not that I'm complaining).

Friday night J and I went out to dinner with two other couples to a lovely Italian restaurant on Charles St called Sotto Sopra. It's on the expensive side, but I felt the food, the setting, and the service were worth the price. I had duck raviolli in a sweet, reduced veal broth, with a goat cheese and arugula salad with dried cherries. I had creme brulee for dessert. We also got a bottle of wine called a Vernaccia, from San Geminano, Italy. It was light and fruity, but also had a nice dry crispness that was perfect with my meal. We're probably going to pool our cash and buy a case of the stuff.

The ritual of going to dinner at a fancy restaurant is still fun for me: the table arrangement, the order the waitress takes our orders in and serves us, the wine ritual... We remarked how it was both nice to be taken seriously at a nice restaurant, but sad because it means we're getting old!

A few weeks ago I was really proud of us, as we spent the whole weekend cleaning the house top to bottom (except the backroom which only got tidied a bit). The house stayed that way for about a week. Now it's back to it's regular messy state. It's just so hard to devote precious free time to doing stupid mundane things like dishes and laundry and tidying up, even though we feel better after they are done. I can cook and decorate and grow things and knit and all that fun domestic stuff, but when it comes to housework, I throw in the towel ;)

I've been watching the weather the past few weeks as I was anxious to get my Calla Lilly bulbs in their pot. I have Caladium in another long pot as well. I only get partial sun, but I'm hoping for a luscious colorful deck this year. I'm also planting herbs, lettuce, and spinach.

Calla Lillies-to-be

On Easter I made Spinach Quiche! It was my first quiche, but I learned from my mom that to avoid a soggy quiche you need to pre-bake the crust:

Spinach, onions, bell pepper, swiss and cheddar cheese.

Spinach Quiche

I also have some pretty pictures over on Flickr from when J, M and I went to Longwood Gardens in PA. My camera battery died soon after we got there, so I used M's camera for most of it:

longwoodorchidwall orchid8

When J gets back we'll start new-apartment hunting in earnest. We'd really like to rent a house, but we'll see what we can find. We want a place with 3 bedrooms, or 2 bedrooms and a finished basement so the snakes can have their own room and I can still have a studio. I wish we could afford to buy, but it's not going to happen this year.

Tucked behind Old Ellicott City, a bit down the river is Oella. The apartments in Oella that they built in the old mill look absolutely gorgeous, and are in a wonderful location, but are ridiculously priced! We were pretty sad to discover we couldn't afford to get something there in a space we could use. I'd still like to tour them though. http://www.oellamills.com/