Sunday Update

Just a quick weekend blog post to let people know what I've been up to. I'm hoping to do these every Sunday, or at least fairly regularly.

The new job is going well. I worked on brainstorming new product ideas this week and fleshing out my ideas to figure out which ones are feasible. If you have any brilliant ideas for dietary supplements that you wish you could find but seem to be sold nowhere, feel free to let me know. (I make no promises.) I'm looking forward to everything picking up a little now that the holidays are over.

Christmas vacation was lovely, and involved driving to my parents' house, visiting with them and a brother and sister, drinking fresh orange juice every day, going shopping, and relaxing. And we brought back tons of oranges, grapefruit, and lemons to prolong the enjoyment! Speaking of citrus, I also received a dwarf Valencia orange tree for Christmas from my mother-in-law, so I'm excited to have my own (small) source of oranges at some point. It currently has 4 on there that are still a ways off from being ripe.

I've been trying my hand at origami as of late as well, since I go a big stack of origami paper for Christmas too. Here's what I've done so far:

box, elephant, crane, more complicated elephant, another box

I really like the pink elephant, and the box on the right currently holds perlers that I drop on the floor and don't pick up until later. Now the question is what to make next...

Nathan and I have also been working on a super secret project that we should have more information on soon (like, in a week or two), so stay tuned! It's related to our etsy shop, but that's the only hint I can give yet.

In other news, we went shopping last Saturday to DSW (my favorite shoe store) and Joann's, and I just have to show off one of my receipts from the purchase I made...

That's right, I got a pair of pink heels for a penny. Not too shabby. I also got a ton of remnants at Joann's for under $5, which was also very exciting, but I'll spare you another picture.

I've been playing through the newest Zelda game (A Link Between Worlds), and finally beat it on Friday, only to start over on hard mode yesterday. In case that wasn't a big enough clue, I really, really liked it. If you have a 3DS or 2DS, you should totally buy and play it. Super clever puzzles, decent plot, and really pretty graphics. And, in fact, I do turn on the 3D (especially in dungeons) to help with the platforming bits, which is more than most games manage. (It is playable without 3D, just easier in certain parts with it.)

This is the first week of a new term for Nathan, plus his interview for an internship with Microsoft is on Friday, and I of course will be going to work as per usual, but hopefully I'll have some fun/interesting updates for you next week. Happy new year to all!

The Rest of the Crochet Stuff

Having family come to visit really messes up all my intentions of posting every day... oh well. :) I think it's worth spending time with them.

And now for the last two crochet creations from Christmas...

A carrot for my dad (again only available for download as a PDF on Ravelry) - #10 crochet thread

A happy cactus for my sister (first pattern from the link, smile added on a whim... also I could NOT figure out how to get the dirt to stay down in the pot like it was supposed to; I swear my yarn was stretchier than theirs or something). I think I might try one of those patterns again in #10 thread instead to see if that works better.

We also got a pretty awesome present from my brother. We asked for gray floor mats and got... 

I rather like them. They are "gray on average".

I also received, among other things, lots of kitchenware, a filing cabinet, a few DS games, and lots of chocolate.

I hope you all have been having a wonderful Christmas break as well. I'm a little sad that I didn't take tomorrow and Friday off of work too, but it's too late for that now. At least I get a three day weekend after that. XD

Crochet Extravaganza!

I made lots of crochet gifts this year... so this post is mostly a picture blitz with links to each pattern.

Fierce little dragon... in honor of Skyrim (it's a PDF download available for free on Ravelry). Made from #10 crochet thread.

A little money purse (adapted from here - I only did a starting row of 14 chain st though, and then made as many rows as it needed to look like the right shape. The flap was also many fewer rows as a result but the basic pattern remained the same.). Made from some kind of soft acrylic yarn.

Mario mushroom collection - made from #10 crochet thread

Hobbes - aka the present that took until 3am Christmas Eve! (The tail will be added on this week... it was not a necessity for the present opening when it came right down to it.) Made from #10 crochet thread.

Yoshi (Man, this pattern takes a LONG time... and has a lot of pieces to put together in the end.)

Yoshi from a different angle. Made from #10 crochet thread.

Elfin booties (for an incoming niece/nephew) - I swear they look the same size in real life. I have no idea what is going on in the picture. Made from a wool/acrylic blend of yarn.

There are a few more that I missed getting pictures of, but I'll post them soon!

Christmas Crocheting

At long last, I can unveil one of my Christmas surprises!

I made each of my nieces and nephews a little crocheted plushie monster this year. Nathan helped quite a bit with all the faces, which was the really important part. And now for pictures (grouped by family):

The Princess and the Pirate

The second one from the right has spikes on its back.

Blue is popular in this family.

We had fun making these! I thought they turned out pretty cute overall. Now I just need to make one for myself...

Christmas Deliciousness

All the Christmas guests have arrived safely! Hooray! I got some last minute shopping done today too, so I feel a little bit more prepared now for all the festivities. Not completely, but getting there.

But the big project for today was making treats for distribution to the neighbors. We got it down pretty well, I think; we had 3 adults and 4 kids helping, and we managed to crank out 3 batches of cookies, 2 batches of fudge, and some chocolate drizzled pretzels. Tomorrow we'll do some candied nuts and maybe one or two more kinds of cookies before we put it all together. I might have to get up a little earlier today to fit everything in... Starting the day at noon does tend to put a damper on how much you can get done.

I guess I already posted recipes for the fudge and pretzels, but for the cookies we made: gingersnaps, peanut blossoms, and Andes mint cookies. (The Andes mint recipe came from off the package of Andes mint chips, and the bag is up two flights of stairs, so... yeah. Not gonna happen tonight. But if you buy some from Walmart, which is the only place I've seen them, you will have the recipe on the bag anyway.)

Tomorrow is candied almonds and either snowball cookies or peppermint meltaways (or both, time permitting, which it probably won't). The snowball cookie recipe is my mom's and she brought dough already made, so that one will probably win. Recipe will come when I manage to get a copy from her, but the basic idea is here.

Then I get to make these for us, because they are too delicious to give away. :) And Nathan's mom gave me the kitchen gadgets to make some sort of fried cookie as well that is apparently quite delicious, so we'll have to try those as well - I mean, I have a deep fat fryer, I might as well use it...

What treats are traditional at your Christmas celebration?

Christmas is rapidly approaching...

...and I am not ready for it at all (yet). I think I got a little overambitious with my projects this year. Still, I hope to make lots of progress tomorrow on getting everything ready to go before family starts arriving on Tuesday (in between cleaning my kitchen and bathroom before we have a rockin' Major cousin party tomorrow night). It is going to be a busy next few weeks! For some reason, last year didn't seem nearly so busy even though we ended up celebrating Christmas early due to my in-laws taking us to Rome over Christmas and the week following.

Anyway, I have lots more exciting stuff coming up on here once I am not swamped in secrecy, including at least four crochet projects (two done, two still in progress). I am also hoping to help my sister in law make goodie plates for the neighbors sometime as well, possibly including candied almonds, festive cookies, and fudge. I'll post any recipes I end up using, of course.

But for now, I will leave you with the instructions for making one of my favorite holiday treats, chocolate drizzled pretzels:

Get some parchment paper or wax paper and lay it out on the counter. Spread out a bunch of pretzels on it. Melt some white and milk chocolate in separate bowls (microwave for 30 sec to 1 min, stir, repeat until melted). Dip a fork or knife in the melted chocolate and drizzle the melted chocolate over the pretzels. Repeat with both white and milk chocolate until pretzels are suitably covered to your tastes. Leave them be for a while (30 min to an hour should do the trick) and then eat them ALL. Mmmmm. (I tried just dipping the pretzels in the chocolate one year, but it didn't give me a satisfactory pretzel to chocolate ratio, so I prefer this method instead. Also milk AND white chocolate was by far the favorite of all test subjects.)

If you have some of the big fat stick pretzels, try dipping them in caramel, then milk and/or white chocolate, and then rolling them in chopped nuts, coconut, or sprinkles. Be sure to let each layer set before moving on to the next one (except during the last step, of course, otherwise the nuts etc. won't stick).

Gingerbread House

For Christmas, my mother in law decided to do an advent calendar for us... except instead of having a calendar, she gave us numbered gifts - one to open each day from Dec 1-25. Sunday's was a gingerbread house kit! Naturally we had to make it tonight. It was a fun project, especially when we started getting a little creative. Perhaps we got a bit carried away... you decide!

The front. We tried to make it look realistic, but instead it just looks like a pouting face.

Nathan's side, with a reference to Skyrim.

The back, with the Maw! And also our plushie Maw peeking over the roof.

The Maw is not quite sure what to think of this. 

My side, with reference to Plants vs. Zombies and an angry bird.