Saturday, September 27, 2008

Cupcakes!

My latest creative endeavor: Black-and-gold Hawkeye cupcakes.

Share photos on twitter with Twitpic
photo taken with my cell phone, then posted to twitpic,
which explains, i guess, the odd size


Today was Homecoming here at the University of Iowa. Yesterday, we had a little advance celebration, and I brought devil's food cupcake with vanilla frosting, colored gold. I dug out my cake decorating tools to frost the cupcakes -- using a giant star tip is fast, relatively non-messy, and looks much more impressive than it really should!

Unfortunately, the Hawkeyes lost to Northwestern. I celebrated by working this afternoon, although since this was the first time I worked a weekend (worked as in covering a public service desk) since I moved here, it was okay. In San Antonio I worked a weekend day every couple months.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

FO!

Hey, look! It's a second sock! The first sock got sent to my sister a month ago, and finally I've finished the second. Hopefully, it will get in the mail tomorrow.

Second Sister Sock

The yarn is A Piece of Vermont's wool/nylon superwash. It's a great yarn, although I'm not sure Jessie is still using this base yarn. The color is called Away.

The pattern is the Baby Cable Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks. This the second pair I've made from this pattern. It's easy to memorize (even for me, and I'm a lousy memorizer) but still interesting.

As soon as I finished the sock, I cast on for my Red Scarf Project scarf -- Grumperina's Shifting Sands scarf, in Cascade 220 Paints, in a red/orange colorway called 9868. So far I love it -- I think the pattern and the colors go together perfectly.

Autumn Sand

I also did a couple rows on Daedelus, but I have to admit that I need to bring my reading glasses home from work. I can't keep blaming my problems seeing the tiny beads on poor lighting....

And finally -- here's a great video by a guy with a lot of good stuff to say. This one's called What Teachers Really Make, and it's not what you think it is.



Thanks, Helen, for introducing him to us!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ouch! (and a recipe)

In the middle of making a pot of Pasta e Fagiole, I dropped my Pampered Chef can opener. It landed working-end down on my toe.


ouch!
It's hard to take picture of your own toe, at least when you want to do so.
And sorry for the blurry -- my camera battery died immediately after I took this!


Have I shared my Pasta e Fagiole recipe before?

1 cup dried white or red kidney, pinto, cranberry, or cannellini beans
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
15 ounce can peeled, chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon fresh sage (or 1½ teaspoons dried sage)
pinch red pepper flakes, salt, pepper
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 or 2 carrots, julienned (optional)
4 ounces sliced mushrooms (optional)
3/4 cup dried small pasta
grated parmesan

Rinse beans, then soak in water to cover for about three hours.

Drain, then place in saucepan with water to cover by about two inches. Bring to boil, boil for 2 min, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until skins begin to crack and beans are tender (45-60 min). Drain.

In the meantime, in soup pot over medium heat, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onions are soft (10 min). Add tomatoes, sage, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Simmer 20 min. (If using carrots and/or mushrooms, add them about 5 minutes before the end of this time.) Add beans and broth and simmer for 30 minutes more. Add pasta and simmer until tender, 12-15 minutes.

Serve with grated parmesan cheese.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Daedeli

On Sunday, my Daedelus got to visit Helen's. My Daedelus now understands what it will grow up to be.

Daedeli

It's been a really busy week, though (work stuff on two evenings) and I haven't worked on it once since Sunday.

Have you seen the new Knitty? There's lots there that I like, but highest on the list is Waves of Grain, because y'all know I need more lace to knit!

Friday, September 05, 2008

L is for....

(I'm meandering slowly through the ABC-along...)

Librarians! I could say a lot more, like how librarians sort of take themselves for granted (note that it's the American Library Association, National Library Week, etc., even though without librarians and the rest of the staff, those libraries wouldn't be much.) I could remind you that although lots of great people work in libraries, the title "librarian" indicates that you have a master's degree in library/information science. I could also point out that, as a general rule, librarians are very politically liberal. I think I've know one Republican librarian. We take that freedom of speech/freedom to read stuff pretty seriously.

But mostly, I'll say that I know a whole lot of fun librarians. The pictures below were all taken at some sort of official gathering of librarians, but we were having fun anyway! (I also realized that I don't have pictures of some of the most important librarians from my past. I may have to go scan some old pictures.)

Librarians