The Weekend

Just a quick catch up after the weekend. Sorry, no pics today...it is very dark and rainy and this apartment is severely lacking in natural light (another thing that will be fixed upon moving).

On the knitting front, I managed to overcome the dreaded intarsia with the help of a couple online tutorials. I only had to rip it out once and now it looks pretty good, if I do say so! I completely finished the rest of the sleeve, so now half the sweater is done. I am remaining faithful so far and not casting on any socks...yet....

I actually had a horrible migraine on Sunday, so I didn't really get much accomplished but we did make it to a local yarn store, Three Bags Full, who was having their annual after Christmas sale. This sale is so popular that people actually line up outside the store for over an hour just to get inside! Once you are finished shopping, the lineup to pay is long as well. I usually avoid this kind of craziness because I hate crowds but I had a gift certificate from Christmas burning a hole in my purse. We got there just as it opened on Sunday so it actually wasn't so bad. I scored a sweater's worth of Berroco Ultra Alpaca in a nice rusty red and ended up only paying a couple of dollars out of my own pocket. There was lots of really good deals, but I decided to be conservative for once.

On the cooking front, I made a really good discovery when I was making lamb stew on Friday. Instead of just throwing the raw vegetables in the pot to cook, I cut them up and seared them in a hot pan on the stove with some oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. I fried them until they were nicely browned and almost cooked, then threw them in the pot with the almost finished meat and gravy. It added a really nice richness to the flavor of the whole dish and the vinegar was not overpowering at all. I used onions, garlic, carrots, celery, parsnip and squash. I served the stew over a nutty brown/wild rice mix but it would have went equally well over mashed potatoes. Everyone in the family agreed that it was delicious!

And that's about it. I'm in countdown mode for the move now. I'm trying to do a little bit of preparation every day so that I don't get all stressed and panicky at the last minute. This whole moving thing feels so much like the right thing to do, though, that I'm sure there will be no problems. So far, at least, everything is falling into place rather handily!