Cooking for Cravings

It's definitely comfort food craving night at my house! I cooked up a big batch of rice the other night, making extra on-purpose for fried rice tonight, and the thought of it has been eating at me ever since. I can't wait! I bought some big, fat shrimp for the rice, plus a little chicken and vegetables for some honey-garlic chicken stir fry. Yum....and now I need my wok. I have no idea where it is--still haven't moved in quite yet, but I'm getting to it...sort of. It's okay, I'll make do without the wok, but I have a new wok--a real one--on my list along with a Thai sticky rice steaming basket and pot. I've never been able to hack the sticky rice thing, but I am determined.

I also had a terrific craving for Peanut Blossom cookies, under the supposed idea that we really need something with a lot of peanut protein in it for our Big Sky ski weekend...right. Hey, it's a pretty good excuse, really. And after I finally lost the six pounds I gained in Thailand (plus two for good measure), well...oh, hell. I'm going to have to be careful if I'm ever going to wear the bikini I'm knitting. I bought two bags of Hershey's kisses for the cookies, and while I am so very not a Hershey's kisses kind of girl (I like my chocolate dark, rich, and expensive), that didn't seem to stop me during the annual Christmas cookie bake-off and swearing until midnight ritual. Yeah, ate a whole bowl of those suckers. Okay, any extra kisses are going to work with me for the guys to eat.

And speaking of knitting, I got a bunch of new yarn today! Woohoo! It was a huge haul--18 balls of Cascade's Fixation and a couple balls of Peruvian wool for a felting project. Gorgeous colors...I'm in love! But I have to discipline myself too--there's a paper to write for my marketing class Tuesday and a math test on Wednesday. Bleh.

Big Sky Skiing

On Friday, I'll be here...hopefully skiing. If there's snow, that is, so please, make a little wish for snow for me! Then again, if it's really bad, there are three hot tubs and of course I'll take some knitting. I really wish it were possible to knit in the tub. That would be combining two of my very favorite things, but it's not (trust me).

Oh, and speaking of knitting (heh, heh)... the yarn for my first-ever really, truly design project is here! Well, it's at the yarn store. I'm so excited, but also nervous, and if the pattern doesn't work out...well, I don't want to jinx it by telling anyone what I'm trying to design (hopefully!). So it'll have to stay a secret for a while. But I'm so excited. It's stretchy yarn. Actually, I found some other stretchy yarn (Patons' Katrina) on sale the other day when I was looking for leather cord for my rock necklace. It was on a clearance sale, $1.49 a skein, so I decided to grab some. I didn't even know it was stretchy when I bought it, but suddenly all sorts of possibilities came to mind, and now I'm working on a little cardigan and bikini set. Very resort-chic. Will be perfect for a mid-winter trip to Hawaii next year!

Knitting

Knitting in Thailand

I took my knitting projects practically everywhere on our vacation. Trains, planes, boats, autos...I love to pass the time with knitting, and I had a few projects that I really wanted to complete during the trip. A pair of alpaca fingerless gloves for knitting when it's cold, a pair of cable socks designed by Cookie A. in gorgeous ivory merino (didn't get to start these, so they are tucked away for a future adventure), a felted bag to replace the disaster that I made for my mother (sigh), and my favorite pattern, the Sunrise Circle Jacket by Kate Gilbert. The girl is a genius, by the way, or she made some sort of pact with the devil in order to create such a brilliant design.

Anyway, as any travel knitter will tell you, knitting attracts a lot of attention. Especially for these women, who'd never seen anyone knit. We traded tips (knitting for weaving), and even though we didn't speak a common language, it was completely unneccessary. Nassah, the village leader's wife, seemed pretty dissapointed to learn that I was married. She was ready to wed me away to some guy in her village!

Here I am, knitting on the boat. It looks like I'm concentrating really, really hard, but I think I was just trying to keep that hair out of my eyes. It was pretty windy. So windy, in fact, that my Sunrise Circle Jacket pattern went flying into the sea!
But dear, sweet Been, God bless 'im, was on the case and got them back for me. Yes, we turned the boat around to save the knitting directions.

Travel

Adventures in Thailand

Our Thai honeymon was amazing--just amazing. I knew I would have fun, but I couldn't believe just how much fun I had. I fell in love with everything: the food, the people, the landscape, the warmth, the sea, the mountains...everything. Well, actually, I could do without the "squatch toilets" (as our guide called them) and the humidity. We took well over a thousand photos, and there are many stories to tell, but here are a few highlights:

An offering of lotus and roses


Riding an elephant to one of the villages


One of our island campsites (ours is the camo tent...you probably can't see it)


Buddha statues


A hilltribe girl


Village puppies

Travel

Adventures in Thailand
the funny pics

Okay, so we took this picture because it's obviously hilarious...little did I know what Thai massages were really like...and that's pretty much all I'm gonna say.

So, meet my new friend Mary Ellen. She's awesome, and we wanted a picture of us together next to this waterfall

And so my darling huband snaps this shot. Nice.

Here's me on the elephant again, arial view. But my butt looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.