Merry Christmas 2015!

Jeff and I stayed home for Christmas this year due to lack of time off and to avoid holiday travel stress.  This was the first time in I don't know how many years that I put up my little Illini Christmas tree (without lights because those were lost until about two days ago).  I also received the ceramic Christmas tree that my Mom made in the early 80s for Grandma I that I inherited.  I love it, but couldn't find any cat-free space to put it and there's no way I would risk it breaking due to their curiosity.

We spent the day playing board games, doing a puzzle, and watching movies.  It was splendid.  For dinner, Jeff cooked a ginormous steak in addition to corn and sweet potatoes.  Everything was delicious as always.  We finished off the evening by watching the Doctor Who Christmas special... and it truly was special (love, love, love River Song!).  Hoping you and yours had an equally lovely holiday!

Cat Butt Coasters

A couple months ago, my coworker friend came across some cat butt coasters and sent a picture of them to me.  I thought they were hilarious and decided to make them as Christmas gifts for my aunts and cousins who are also cat people.  I found this Peeking Cat Butt Coaster pattern by Upper Crust Crochet on Ravelry and set to work.

The tails on my coasters didn't stick up the way a cat's tail would in real life, but I thought the curl was cute so I left them that way instead of trying to iron them out.  You can find all my project notes here.  I sent them off today, so I'm hoping they'll be well received!

Obligatory Furry Children Photos

It's been a while since I posted pictures of my furry children, so here they are:

The dudes love each other, but Cali is a prissy pants and keeps to herself.  This means she resorts to shoving herself as close to inside the heat vent as she can manage.  Life at our house is never boring thanks to these three weirdos.

Happy Thanksgiving 2015!

Our annual Seattle Transplant Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving turned out as delicious as ever.

Tons of food was shared by many friends and everyone left full and happy.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Sparkly Purple Shellac Manicure

HK and I took another trip to Patsy James Nail Spa last weekend for some much needed girl time.  I really wanted the grape gum color that HK got on our last trip in addition to sparkles.  Patsy did a beautiful job combining the two and my nails currently look like this after 1 week (in blurry cam, my specialty):

The picture hardly does the amount of sparkle justice.  I've caught myself starting at my nails thinking how pretty they look multiple times this week (which is not conducive to being productive at work, oops).  Can't wait to see Patsy again soon!

Knitted Scarf made from Real Raichus!

My fellow crafty friend, RN, presented me with this lovely knitted infinity scarf last weekend.  It's made from the leftover raichu yarn that I gave her.  I've been joking that the scarf is made from real raichus, but nobody seems to understand and/or enjoy my cheesy joke.  Surprise, surprise.

You can read more about the pattern and how she made it here.

Crochet Christmas Tree

I'm proud to present the final version of my crochet Christmas tree that will be available at the Silent Auction next Saturday.  It took a lot of time and a lot of yarn to make, but it turned out really well!

All my project notes can be found here.

Happy Halloween 2015!

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I held my annual pumpkin carving party last night and wanted to share the results, so here they are:

Groot, Boo, and the Nightmare Before Christmas pumpkins were carved from patterns by Zombie Pumpkins.  All others were carved by friends without a pattern.

Painting: Rainy Path

The girls and I decided it was time for a much needed painting outing.  Sadly, Palettes and Pairings Kirkland location (where I got engaged) will be closing soon due to the whole shopping center being torn down in favor of tall fancy buildings like those in Bellevue.  They have temporarily relocated to the old Borders at Redmond Town Center until their new space is remodeled.  They've also changed the business name to the Painted Palace to reflect that they now offer kids parties as well.

Even with all the change, we had a great time painting Rainy Path with Liz.  It was my first time using the palette knife and it turned out pretty well, especially since I did mine in blue as opposed to red like most everyone else.  Hoping to do more paintings with the ladies very soon!

Christmas Tree Testing

Mom suggested I crochet a Christmas tree for this year's Silent Auction, so I dug into the patterns available on Ravelry to find the perfect tree.  After a lot of reading and evaluating, I came down to two patterns:  Christmas Tree by sarisue and Crochet Christmas Tree by Michael Sellick of The Crochet Crowd.  Neither was exactly what I wanted, so I came up with this small mock up using inspiration from both patterns (and lots of leftover green yarns):

I'm pretty happy with it, so a big version will be coming soon!

"Purple Head"

A couple of months ago, I decided it was time for a hair change.  I kept thinking about getting my hair chemically straightened again, but I vowed never to do that again all the way back in 2008.  I haven't played much with hair color, so I decided it was time to give it a try.  I presented the idea to my stylist in March, and I haven't looked back.  She took me into the world of "purpley red" little by little since then and I'm in love.

Suffering from serious cases of doofus face, so geometric coverage was necessary.

I was too lazy to take a picture of the most recent purpley goodness, so the purple goo will have to do.  I guess the point of this post is that if you're considering doing something different, don't be afraid to go for it.

Crochet Groot

I saw Guardians of the Galaxy with Jeff a while back and fell in love with Groot, particularly in his baby form.  I found this pattern by Twinkie Chan on Ravelry and set to work.  Check out how cute he is:

Overall, he was fairly simple to make.  I altered his arms and fingers a bit because I had a hard time making them so small.  I also crocheted a white pot and dirt decorated with grass/moss.  All my project notes can be found here.

New Wire Jewelry Book

As a professional tech contractor, I've been very fortunate to meet some awesome people who were formerly coworkers and are now friends.  Several of them enjoy crafty hobbies like me and share crafty goodness!  One such friend, KG, brought me Great Wire Jewelry Projects and Techniques by Irene From Peterson.  There are some really neat projects in here, so I can't wait to dig in.

Hooray for crafty friends!

Austin Trip

Jeff and I took a trip to Austin last week.  I would say it was to see the sights, but it was really hot... so the actual reason was to eat the food.  We took the red eye and arrived around 5:30am Friday morning.  By 6:30am we made it to Round Rock Donuts.  We had a regular glazed donuts, an apple fritter, and some donut holes.  All were every bit as delicious as they looked on tv.

Post donuts, we walked around Walmart to kill some time before heading to get in line at Franklin Barbecue.  I feel like it's important to note the way Austinites wait for their barbecue - since barbecue is a cook ahead food, there is only so much available per day.  People line up hours before lunchtime to be sure they'll be able to get some food.  To my surprise, it was almost like tailgating since people bring chairs and coolers full of beverages.  We got there a little before 8am and the line was already stretching into the parking lot.  Thankfully, we made friends with the people in line in front of us, so the wait wasn't atrocious.  We finally made it to the counter to order around 12:30pm.  Let me tell you, it was every bit worth the wait.

We had a pound of brisket, two pork ribs, and a sausage link in addition to personal sized bourbon banana and lemon chess pies.  Everything, especially the brisket, was every bit as tasty as it looks on tv.  I think the pies surprised me the most.  My banana bourbon pie was to die for and Jeff had nothing but good things to say about his lemon chess pie.  I wish I could order one to be shipped to our house.  There is no doubt that we will be making a return trip to Austin since this meal alone made the trip worth it for me.

Banana Bread

Last week I mentioned we were taking time off from keto.  This actually translates to me eating all the carbs in sight.  I discovered some delicious chocolate chip banana bread at Tully's and decided I wanted to try to make it at home.  Since Jeff is the chef in this relationship, he found this recipe from Serious Eats and we threw chocolate chips in it.  It was amazing.  We made two more iterations of it:  one with fewer chocolate chips and one with no chocolate chips.  These were equally as amazing.

I decided I wanted a piece as dessert one night, so I warmed it in the microwave and added a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Who knew banana bread a la mode could be so delicious?!  I highly recommend trying the recipe as well as having it a la mode.  It was so delicious.

Food Truck Binging

We've taken having family in town as an excuse to go off keto for a month.  I've been enjoying lunches from all the food trucks at the Bellevue food truck pod and Skyline Towers.  A few favorites include the shrimp po' boy from Where Ya at Matt, chicken tikka bowl from Roll OK Please, and garlic chicken from Poke to the Max.  The most exciting thing I've found recently is this special from Bread and Circuses:

It's toasted ravioli!  This was one of my favorite things growing up, but I've learned it's fairly localized to the greater St. Louis area and is almost non-existent elsewhere.  I was beyond excited to see this on the menu the other day and was even more excited that it was absolutely delicious.  This definitely made my work day better.

Seattle Recommendations

Coming from a small town, everyone there knows I now live in the greater Seattle area.  This means anytime anyone is in the area for a visit, I get questions about things to see/do/eat.  I compiled a great list to put on our wedding website last year, but our wedding website expired and I'm moving the list here.  I'll update it from time to time, so check back!

Blue Baby Dragon

I found this little guy on Ravelry recently and knew he'd be the perfect birthday present for JK.  The pattern, by Vanja Grundmann, can be found here as a free Ravelry download.

I made several adjustments from the original pattern including the head, feet, arms, and belly applique.  All my notes can be found in my project on Ravelry.  The only part of him I'm not crazy about is his eyes, but that has nothing to do with the pattern and everything to do with me still learning to sew features... a work in progress.  Overall, he's very cute and JK (and JK's momma, HK) loved him.

Food Randomness

Happy 4th of July, everyone!  I'm in a food mood, so I thought I'd share a recipe I recently discovered for garlic Parmesan green beans.  Between my forever love of cheese and my recent love of green beans, these sounded amazing.  I baked them up for the first time a couple of weeks ago and they turned out really well!

Cake cake cake!

Last week was my birthday and I wanted to share this beautiful (and funny) cake my friends made for me.  I'm incredibly lucky to have such awesome friends and family in my life!

Giant Guinea Pigs and Hiking

I think I saw the biggest guinea pig known to man last weekend at Petsmart in Bellevue.  Seriously, compare it to the size of what I believe is a normal sized guinea pig castle/house.  I really just wanted to give it a hug.

In other news, I went hiking for the first time ever with Jeff and some friends last weekend.  I'm not an outdoorsy person whatsoever, so this was a big deal.  Thankfully, my friends planned a short and easy hike so I wouldn't be too overwhelmed.  I saw some nature (including a big slug), didn't die, and had a nice time.  I might be encouraged to do it again sometime. 

Electric Run

One day last year while looking for fun things to do on Pinterest, I came across the Electric Run.  I'm not a runner, but it looked like something I'd want to do because of the "bumpin'" music and the neon lights.  Unfortunately, I came across it after it had already occurred in Seattle so I signed up to be notified about it next year and pinned it to my "fun things to do" board.  I got an email about it in early 2015 and signed up with a few friends.  Excitement kept building in my group of friends and the event finally took place last weekend.  Outside of being annoyed that the event took place in Puyallup, we had a pretty good time.  Here are some pictures (kind of blurry cam):

Random, but I was also proud of the braids I managed to do in my hair:

I was happy that most people walked and didn't run since I'm out of shape.  On another level, I felt the event was over hyped with fun marketing material that the event in Puyallup didn't quite live up to.  For this reason, I think this was a do-it-once activity for me unless they really change it up for future events.

Crochet Settlers of Catan Pillow

Well, I finally finished it!  This creation started out as a blanket for Baby M made from a pattern by Amber of Cthulu Crochet.  I thought it would be pretty easy to put together until I actually started making the hexagons.  I must be dense because I absolutely could not get the hexes to work out the way the pattern was written.  In typical me style, I altered the pattern a bit and the hexes worked out just fine.  Little did I know, joining them together was going to be even more difficult.  Luckily, I found the zipper method on Pinterest and it worked quite well.

At this point, I had all the land hexes joined and was not impressed with the size.  It was way too small for a cat, let alone a growing baby.  Jeff suggested that it would be a good size for a pillow, which could still be useful.  I liked the idea, so I went with it.  I didn't want to deal with more hexes and joining them together, so I decided to creatively crochet around the outside to make the water part of the board.  I ended up with a big hex that I was fairly happy with.

I made one ginormous hex in a darker blue for the back, but realized I didn't want to crochet the two giant hexes together and stuff them for fear the stuffing would come out the holes.  Instead, I bought some blue fabric and did my best to sew a pillow to crochet the two hexes around (because I'm terrible at sewing). It all worked out in the end, and I came out with a pretty good (thought slightly lumpy) looking pillow.

I left all my notes in my Catan pillow project on Ravelry if anyone is interested in making a pillow also!

Ceramic Painting!

My lady friends and I decided we wanted to do a crafty outing that was different from Palettes & Pairings.  We ended up trying out ceramic painting at Paint Away.  They had a ton of adorable ceramics to choose from.  The process is simple.  After the trying decision of choosing what you want to paint, you let the helper write it down, paint it, put it on the shelf to await firing, and check out at the front counter.  So easy!

I chose a little snowman and painted him in an Illini theme(surprise, surprise).  My friends painted everything from baby dragons to mugs and bowls.  We spent about two hours chatting and painting and had a really nice time.  We painted on a Sunday afternoon and our ceramics were available to pick up after 5pm on Friday.  I was very pleased when I picked mine up.  Mr. Snowman is just adorable.  There's a very good chance that I'll be back to paint some more.

Three little kitties...

Well, we've learned that Cali is not especially fond of the boys (probably because she thinks she's a kitty person and that they're annoying little cat brats).  I was beyond excited to get a picture with all three of them in it because you never know when (or if) it'll happen again.  So here are my three furry kids:

Apparently the ball puzzle is intriguing to all of them...

Seriously, Who Is Fancy?

I admit I've been more than a little intrigued by the mystery surrounding Who Is Fancy, an artist I first heard about on my beloved Elvis Duran Show earlier this year.  I was smitten with the song "Goodbye" from the first time I heard it and set out to work my magical search powers to find out more.  

Too bad Who Is Fancy had next to no presence online... it's as if he/she/they had been erased.  Three different versions of the music video for "Goodbye" eventually surfaced featuring three different individuals posing as the artist.  At this point, I just wanted to know who the heck those beautiful pipes belonged to and I wasn't the only one.  Elvis Duran himself was getting fed up with trying to find out who the artist was and started raising a stink.

Finally, the artist agreed to call in to the show for an interview.  Instead, he psyched everyone out and showed up for an in-person interview (but no pictures or video were posted for a week!).  He stated that he prefers to be called Fancy and that the mystery was so people could hear his art before they saw him since he feared people expected him to be a certain way that he feels he is not.  He also announced he'd make his big reveal appearance on Jimmy Fallon on April 7.  On a scale of 1 to 10, my excitement was at about 100 by this point and I still had 5 days to wait until the mystery was completely revealed.

On April 7 I found an East Coast feed of Fallon's show online because I couldn't stand to do any more waiting.  Fancy's performance was even better than I expected.  He truly was Fancy, if that counts... also adorable.  And the glitter at the end... I'm all over it.  Now that I've listened to his song, heard his interview, and seen him perform, I can't wait to see (and of course hear) more.  The mystery has been solved, but I'm still excited.  I guess your mystery marketing worked.  Score one for Fancy!

Fun Game Alert: Little Alchemy

I recently came across a browser based game called Little Alchemy.  The object of the game is to combine elements to make things.  You start out with just a few elements and can build up to stuff like islands, people, cars, and much more.  There are 500+ elements/things to create/discover and so far I've found about 100.  I like the game for its simple design and somewhat challenging, but fun, game play.  All in all, it's a game that's easy to understand while also fairly relaxing and fun.  There's not much more to say except go give it a try... you'll probably enjoy it as much as I do!

Guess What I'm Making Next...

I admit that I'm behind on my crochet by a ton.  There are so many things I want to make and yet none of them are getting done.  I did make a little progress this morning on a trip to Joann's.  I bought all this yarn for a specific project.  Any ideas what it could be?  I'm very excited about it!

Fun Shellac Manicure

I don't do a lot of beauty posts because it's not really my thing, but I wanted to share.  Last weekend I took HK to Patsy James Exclusive Nail Spa for a shellac manicure as a belated birthday gift.  We got matching manicures with a spring trend called side part and glitter.  Here's the photo Patsy took before we left:

We had a fantastic time and my nails still look amazing a week later.  I think I'm developing a shellac addiction.

Alton Brown Good Eats Inspired Chicken V2

As I said in this post, a normal/smaller size chicken was coming.  After many months of my usual cycle of working on it for a bit then taking an extended frustration break, it is complete!

This version is better than the last, but I'm still not completely happy with it.  The comb on this version is made in a single piece instead of multiple bumps crocheted together which is a plus.  The eyes, on the other hand, are not as good.  I couldn't crochet them small enough to sew on, so I decided to sew them straight onto the chicken's head.  They turned out too boxy, so if I make this again I'll revise them.  I think the best part is that Jeff loves his chickens.  Fry some more!

Alton Brown Live!

In case you missed it, my husband loves Alton Brown and his scientific outlook on food.  I bought Jeff tickets to his Inevitable Edible tour last year for his birthday after I found out there was a date in Seattle.  Well, the show finally happened and it was every bit as fantastic as we expected.

You know it's going to be a great time when the pre-show features the goofy yeasts from Good Eats and Alton starts out by saying the show is 2.5 hours of things they won't let him do on TV.  He told some hilarious stories, sang/rapped a few songs, and did some outrageous cooking using a fire extinguisher as well as a giant cousin of the Easy Bake Oven called the Mega Bake.  Through all this, we learned several things:

1. Chickens don't have fingers
2. Trout doesn't belong in ice cream
3. Never forget the salt
4. Don't eat shrimp cocktail from the airport

Alton was every bit as funny as he is on TV and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience.  If he ever does another tour with a date in Seattle, you can bet Jeff and I will be there.

Low Carb Tortila Pizza

Jeff recently made keto-friendly pizza with low carb tortillas as the crust in our giant cast-iron skillet.  I was skeptical at first, but they turned out really well!

Each pizza is ~8 net carbs depending on what toppings you use.  I think it's a great low carb alternative and I can hardly tell the difference from a thin, crispy crust pizza.

Valentine's 2015: Bin on the Lake

Happy Valentine's Day!  Tonight Jeff took me on a double date with some of our best friends to Bin on the Lake at Carillon Point in Kirkland.  The view was gorgeous and there was a special holiday menu.  We took the night off keto and had a fantastic meal.  Here's a sampling of our food including dungeness crab toast, beef tartare, NY strip steak with potato puree and broccolini, and chocolate mousse cake:

Great experience!  I would definitely consider going back for a special occasion.

Earring Party

Last night some of the lovely ladies who work with Jeff hosted an earring making party.  I didn't know what to expect since there are all kinds of earrings to be made:  wire, beaded, chainmaille, etc.  It turns out they were using clay!  I made a pair of really cute cat earrings and some flowers(which still need to be baked).  Some of the other ladies even made little statues to put on their desks.  Here's how everything turned out:

I hope we do this again soon!

The Game of Real Life

A friend received a parody of the Game of Life called the Real Game of Life for Christmas.  We played it recently and it was interesting to say the least.  You roll a character and play the game going through realities of life earning or losing health points and money and also collecting happiness points along the way.  To win, you must collect the most happiness points.

A few examples of the situations you go through include a first kiss, choosing whether or not to use drugs or commit crimes, whether or not to get married, and whether or not to have kids.  All these things have positive or negative consequences on your health and bank account.  In our game, none of the players lived to the end.  My character lived the longest, but died just before the end and unfortunately didn't collect the most happiness points.  We wrote down each step of each person's life and told their story at the end.  Most of them had pretty tough lives.  On one hand, the game was funny since it felt like no one in real life would have such terrible luck, but on the other it seemed kind of sad that there really are people out there with unhappy, unhealthy lives.  Either way, I find this game much better than the original version.  When played with the right group of friends, it's a hoot.

Kittens!

Last week we felt the time was right to open our hearts and our home to new furry family members.  We headed to the Seattle Humane Society and fell in love with these two little dudes:

Baz is a Siamese mix with a somewhat dopey but loving personality and Pog is fluffy and orange with a very laid back style.  I wish the pictures were better, but most of the ones we've taken so far are blurry because they're so active.  Much more to come on these little guys!

Crochet Kitty Nest

Remember the cat nest I talked about finding on Pinterest and wanting to make in a post back in November?  Well, I finally stopped playing Terraria long enough to finish it.  It took forever to make enough t-shirt yarn and I had to make some pattern adjustments after reading project notes from other Ravelry users.  You can find them in my Ravelry project.  Here's the finished product:

My adjustments weren't enough to curb the collapsing and curling problems many other crocheters had.  I think I'm going to make a few more modifications and crochet another nest, but this time bite the bullet and purchase the yarn from Joann's Fabric.  On the plus side, Cali really enjoyed the making of this cat nest.  She sat inside a few times before deciding it was better in a smashed flat form.  It now resides under my crocheting chair and she happily relaxes on top of it.  All in all, a decent project.  Possible update in the future.

Welcome, 2015!

Happy 2015!  Jeff and I have returned from our holiday travels and as usual would like to share some delicious food details.

While visiting my family in Illinois, we stopped by White Castle.  It's one of those guilty pleasures that we can't miss since there aren't any on the West coast.  We also visited our alma mater, U of I in "Chambana," and ate at Jeff's favorite campus joint, Cravings, which serves a variety of Asian foods.  We were happy to see the same server everyone loves is still working there all this time later.  Finally, we made the stop that can't be missed ever:  17th Street Bar and Grill in Murphysboro, IL.  I don't care what anyone says, it is the best barbecue and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

We headed on to DC to visit Jeff's family and had some great dim sum at Oriental East, which is a very busy place.  I'm so glad we read the reviews and went early to stand in line.  We also hit up a Smashburger since it was great the first time we had it with some Chicago friends.  There was terrific sushi at Matuba.  We topped it off with a visit to Mia's Pizza.  We eventually realized we ate at 3 restaurants all right next to each other over the course of a few days.  Random, but delicious.

Our first holiday travels as husband and wife went very well and we enjoyed seeing our families.  Hope you all had a fantastic holiday season as well.  Much more to come in 2015!