raining non-stop

It has been storming pretty hard the last 2 days. I couldn't sleep very well last night because of all the noise from the rain and wind. It's supposed to clear up a little bit tomorrow, and then start back up again on Thursday. I can't wait for the sun to come out.

Last Sunday Lisa and I took our kids (except for my little one who stayed home with Papa and Grandma) to see Nemo on Ice. We all enjoyed the show, and it was nice for Lisa and I to get out with the kids. The show tickets were a present from my mother-in-law's friend who works at the HP Pavilion. She got us great seats -- we were only 9 rows from the front. Before we went to the show we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown San Jose for lunch. I love that place, especially the free spumoni for dessert!

I made up my own recipe for dinner tonight and it came out pretty good! Here's the recipe for my Cilantro Beef:
1 bunch of cilantro
1 pack of stew meat (~1 lb)
1/2 chopped onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
3 small zucchini, chopped
1 bunch of broccoli

Blend the cilantro, chopped onion, and garlic in the food processor, drizzling in the 1 tbsp of olive oil. In a deep pan, brown the outside of the meat. Pour cilantro, onion, garlic mixture into the pan with the meat, and simmer on low/medium-low for 2.5 to 3 hours until meat is tender. Add the chopped zucchini and broccoli florets and cook until vegetables are tender. If you want, you can thicken the sauce by mixing a spoon of flour with some water, and pouring into the pan. Serve over rice! It's good comfort food during this rainy weather...

Papa's in the office right now working on the remodel plans. He's making good progress on the drawings. He's been working on it off and on for weeks now, trying to come up with floorplan ideas. Once we have an idea of how we want the house, we can use the drawing to estimate the cost of all the materials.

next project

I'm in between knitting projects and trying to decide what to start on next. At Stitches West I saw someone wearing a beautiful grey lace shawl. It's inspiring me to try knitting lace. I've been looking for easy patterns, something with a simple 4 row repeat might be a good first-time project for me. Another option I'm thinking about is a shrug. I bought a shrug pattern at Stitches, and I also found a few nice free patterns online too. Whatever I decide to do, I think I'm ready to graduate from scarves and try something a little more challenging.

I organized my yarn stash over the weekend. It's not that bad--everything I have fits in one plastic storage box, but it's still way too much for me. I'll probably never knit it all up at the rate I'm going! When I first learned to knit, I bought a lot of yarn at Michael's. After a few projects I realized I really don't like acrylic yarn. So I made 2 piles from my stash, one to keep and one to give away...From now on I'm not buying yarn unless I have a specific project for it! I'm going to see if my older boy's school might want some of my stash for crafting.

I saw my friend Lisa over the weekend and gave her the feather and fan lace scarf I made. She called today and said she really likes it. It made me really happy to hear that, especially since it took me so long to make it!

Have you seen the latest Rebecca mag? The spring issue is out already and it looks pretty cool. I love the light green shrug and pink sweater on this screenshot (if you go to the rebecca website they give you a preview of the projects). I just called my LYS and asked if they had the latest issue yet. They don't but they're expecting the shipment any day now!

feather and fan simple lace scarf

Yarn used: Rowan, Classic Yarns
pink yarn in Cashsoft Baby DK, color 1132081 (2 balls)
brown yarn (used for trim) in Cashsoft DK, color 11331801 (1 ball)
Free pattern from Knitpicks.com
Needles: size 8

This scarf was knitted as a gift for my good friend. One of her favorite color combinations is pink and brown. I still have to give it to her so I won't say yet who it's for...but if she's reading this she probably figured out it's for her :)

I used a variation of the Feather and Fan pattern from Knit Picks' Parade Scarf Trio pattern. I cast on 24 stitches I think and only did one repeat.

knitting convention

Stitches West was last week and I had a great time there! I only went one day, on Friday, although the convention lasted through the weekend. Last year, I didn't buy a ticket in advance and when I got there, had to wait in a long line to buy one at the door. This year I was more prepared with an advanced ticket...well, at least I *thought* I was more prepared :) The funny thing is the line was longer for people who already had tickets and just needed to get in. When I got there the ticket counter had only 4-5 people waiting in front of it to buy tickets.

There were a lot of cool booths and my friends and I checked out every single one of them. We started from the far left of the convention room and worked our way through every row, from one side of the aisle and back down to check out the other side of the aisle, never deviating from that order. We didn't want to miss anything :) When we were halfway through, we finally sat down at about 1pm to eat the lunches we packed. I was starving! After we ate, we visited all the rest of the booths. By the time we were done looking, it was close to 5pm. With my busy schedule I hardly ever have time to do anything fun just for me, let alone spend a whole day! This was a very cool treat...

cool new blog to check out - See Euny Knit

I found a new blog to add to my list of daily reading--well, make that occasional (I don't have much free time so reading blogs daily would be a luxury!). Check it out: See Euny Knit. She is so cool...I love her Deep V Argyle Vest pattern. Someday I will attempt to make this. I've always loved argyle sweaters and socks ever since I was a kid. It's kind of funny how it's back in style again.

I'm looking forward to Stitches West next week! I'm going to take Friday off so I can spend most of the day there.

I was actually off today too, to volunteer at my older boy's school. They hosted a Senior Luncheon today. After I took the baby to daycare, I came back to the school at about 9:15 and didn't leave until after 3! I helped prep everything for the luncheon and then cleaned up afterwards. It was a lot of hard work and I was on my feet all day, but it felt good to help out. The kids did a good job "waiting" on their guests, and they also gave a great performance doing a skit and singing some songs.

random act of kindness

Someone did something really nice for me today...

I was trying to find any mention of discount coupons for Stitches West on the Knitty.com coffeeshop. There was a post asking if anyone was interested in a ticket for Stitches West because they couldn't go. I sent a message saying I'd love to buy it but she wanted to give it to me as a gift. Such a simple gesture but so touching. It's not every day someone does something nice for someone they don't even know. I love giving to others, as I told her, but it's nice to be on the receiving end. I know there are still a lot of good people in the world, and most of them are probably knitters :)