Lessons in Crochet

I'm sorry if you stumbled upon this post looking for some actual lessons on crochet. I'm not the person to look to, as I have only just recently completed my first non-hat crochet project. And it turned out. Sort of.

I found a book at Michael's with crochet projects for baby. Baby boy is, of course, the motivation for crochet/any projects I've thought of as of late. My goal was a sweater. A pattern in the book claimed to be easy...but how can it be easy if you've never read a crochet pattern before? So for me, I'd list the pattern is "intermediate."

Either way, I completed the sweater mostly as described in the pattern. I had some issues with the yoke, so I improvised. It looks like a sweater. The sleeves are proportionate to the body, and it looks like it will fit a child.

Except I never checked the gauge of my crochet skills and the hook listed in the pattern. Eager me just started crocheting. I followed the directions to make a sweater for a six month old. It'll probably fit a one year old. Which is fine, I just won't get to use the sweater as soon as I had hoped.

Yesterday, I started a cardigan for the boy as well. I dove right in without checking the gauge and wondered why, again, was this sweater (meant for a 6 month old) turning out to be so huge?! Luckily, I was only four rows in before I realized that maybe the crochet pattern writers were on to something with gauge-checking. So I crocheted my 12 stitches with the hook listed in the pattern. Twelve stitches should have been four inches. In my case? Six.

Well, there ya go. Tried the same with a smaller hook: twelve stitches, four inches. I was set to go. And now, four rows in to this sweater? It looks like it'll fit the average 6 month old.

Someday, I'll learn to just follow directions. Until then, I'll continue to learn from my little mistakes!

Thunderstorm!

This afternoon, my husband and I made some purchases to finalize our Bearded Dragon set-up. We just got two Bearded Dragon babies (but that is a completely different story--another post) and thought that the equipment we were given was going to be enough. It wasn't, so we made some purchases and began set-up.

In the middle of set-up, my brother called to inform us that his plane had finally landed. We packed a few things up and headed to the airport to drop him off at my parents' house. On our way home there were severe thunderstorm warnings throughout the metro area. I was concerned--and beginning to question our competence as homeowners--about the kitchen window that was left open in the downpour.

As I headed to the garage door, for some reason or another, my husband walked out of the garage to look in the yard. He came back in as I opened the garage door and noticed the wet mess on the entryway floor.

"The front door is open," I heard from behind me. What the #*%%?!

We had 60 mile an hour winds and an unlocked front door. The wind forced the door open and allowed in all of the rain, tree bark and other messy crap.

Really, should we have bought a home? I'm not so sure...

Another Moment...

In all honesty, I thought I would have one or two, maybe three moron moments a year. Well. It's March and I think I'm on number two. But I may have already lost count. Ugh.


My latest moron moment wasn't just me. The husband was an assistant. We have been collecting sap from our silver maple trees. With the odd weather, we didn't expect to get any sap, but we have collected a bit. Well, enough to warrant our trekking through the yard each morning to collect and refrigerate the sap.


Thursday was the day of the moron moment. We decided to head out to collect at 6:45, after having had breakfast and about ready to leave for work.


I close the front door behind me. Husband and I look at each other and think, "Oh, shit. The door is locked." Then one of us, I think it was me? says, "We'll go in through the garage." No biggie. We collected a LOT of sap that morning. Well, I guess it was only 40 ounces, which only makes an ounce of syrup. But still. For expecting nothing, it was a lot.


We made our way to the garage and punched in the code. Garage door open, we can get in the house. Hooray!


But, no. Because we are safe, we lock the deadbolt on the door that goes from the house to the garage. And we didn't unlock it on our way out this morning.


And because it's the morning, we don't have our keys with us. Nor do we have our phones.


CRAP. The husband tries everything to get in the door. I take off every screen and attempt to get in each window I could access. No luck. We are too safe and ensure that everything is locked. And, indeed, it was. Every single window. Every single door (all four of them).


With my head hung, I brought my husband a hammer. A few swings later, our (ugly) front door had a busted window and were inside. We swept up the glass, taped up the door and headed to work. 


After the work day, we headed to Menard's (how lucky to have seen their weekly ad, with entry doors on sale!) to buy a door. We had to stop at my sister's to borrow her minivan (nice ride!) and gathered all of the supplies for our new project.


Two? Three? Four hours later? We had a new front door (one I actually liked!) and a key hidden in the case that we lock ourselves out again (believe you me, this is not the first time we've been locked out). We also made some extra to distribute to parents and a nearby friend.

BBQ Chicken & Roasted Vegetables

I know, I know. It's not summer yet, but the zucchini and yellow squash looked SO good at the store the other day, I had to get a few of each.


I can only give you my plans right now, because I don't have my camera with me (I really need to get better about bringing it everywhere!). I will have pictures for you, though because both parts of the meal turned out fabulously!


I started the chicken early because my plan was to use the slow cooker. Oh, before I get any further. I have another novice moment. And (digital age, anyone?) Facebook helped me out. The original plan was to make pulled pork sandwiches. I headed to the market to buy a shoulder roast. Couldn't find one for the life of me. I searched high and low (well, in the pork section, anyway). I settled on chicken because it was there. Each night, I spend some time looking at my news feed on Facebook. And there, right in front of my eyes, was a picture of a butt roast. Funny! I saw those when I was shopping for the shoulder roast. So, I clicked on the picture and read the caption. It informed me that a butt roast is actually the shoulder. WHAT!? I could have gotten the pork and been fine. Ugh. Thanks, Facebook.


I put all the chicken in the slow cooker and dumped a bunch of BBQ sauce on top (21 ounces, to be precise). Cooked on high. The chicken was fabulous. And, what's better is how easy the recipe was!


The vegetables. Ah, the vegetables. I cut them all in the small chunks (zucchini and squash into half-moons, peppers into squares) and let them soak in some water for a bit. I tossed both in olive oil and sprinkled it all with garlic salt and a little pepper. Then it was to the baking sheet and on to the oven. 350 degrees for about a half hour. They were so summery and delicious--I plan on making them again (soon!). 

Demolition

We've started wall demolition and an experience it has been! As mentioned before, we had a construction buddy stop by. We were told that the wall was not load bearing and could be taken down (hooray!).


The big, ugly, useless cabinet was emptied during the pantry reorganization (another big hooray!).

Do you see how horrible it is? It isn't that deep, which is the problem. You know the big cans of tomatoes? Crushed, stewed, whole, etc.? Think of the diameter of that can (I think it's the 28 ounce size). That's how deep the pantry is. Useless, just useless. Plus, you can see in the bottom right corner of the picture, there is a counter top. That is our peninsula. Makes for a little walkway between the kitchen and dining room. Key word: little. After emptying the cabinet, it wasn't missed even a little bit.


So...after dinner the other night, we took it down. And it was frighteningly easy. And now, amazingly g-g-g-gone!

Oh yeah. We put some holes in it too. You see, here is the story:


First came the hammer.
Then came the (big) holes.
Then came the...

• Why are there two 2 by 4s in there?
• What does that note say? (there was an inspector's note nailed to the doubled up 2 by 4s).
• Can I put more holes in the wall? (that was from my lovely husband).
• Let's call a home inspector (that was from the sensible wife).

So, when I started thinking about this post, I was going to say that now we'd have to wait to hear from the city's building inspector and that we hope that the wall is not load-bearing and that we will live with a wall that is half destroyed.


But the wonderful husband went to the city right after work and found out that "what? That wall? That's not doing anything."


And, as I type, our wall looks ... fabulous? It doesn't look that fabulous right now, but the husband is pounding and demolishing away.

And soon, there will be no wall!

The Gas Man

Did I ever feel like a home-owning novice today. Goodness. Here's the full story:


I was making a recipe in the slow cooker that called for chicken stock. I glanced at my newly organized pantry and realized that I was out of chicken stock and chicken broth. Oh no! Luckily, I did have chicken bouillon cubes. Now, I've never prepared the cubes in water on their own. I normally just toss a few into the crock pot. I thought I'd give it a shot, so I put a chicken bouillon cube in a saucepan with a cup of water and turned on the stove. Hooray, it worked!


I poured all of the other ingredients into the slow cooker and then added the ... can I call it "homemade" broth? to the slow cooker and went on my way. No biggie, the recipe was turning out and smelling wonderfully!


I went about my business: checking email, putting the laundry into the dryer, cleaning off the dining room table. Then, about twenty minutes after finishing the "broth," I headed into the kitchen for a little lunch. I looked down at the stove and HOLY EXPLETIVE the stove was still ON. Quick, quick, quickly I turned it off and turned off the crock pot and the dryer (what if my house blew up!?).


If you know me at all, you know I can be a paranoid person. So, I called the gas company and talked with the woman in the call center. She decided it necessary to send a tech out to check out my house. She also made me even more nervous by asking me all of these questions, then having me open all of the windows in the kitchen, dining room and living room. She told me to not turn anything on or off (including lights) and to leave the house.


Ugh.


An hour and fifteen minutes later, the gas man came (thankfully...I was getting cold, after having been outside the whole time) and said the air was clear in the house. He said there is no issue at the furnace, water heater or dryer. He checked the gas oven and stove. All was well.


And, all is well. My toes are a little cold and the house hasn't warmed back up. As tedious and annoying the whole process was, I have to say that I am happy that I called. I'd still be worried (a full hour after the gas man left) had he not come out and said everything looked OK.


AND! Look what I found in our garden from last year (no lie, these pictures were taken today):

There's only one of them, but this is where we had onions planted last year. Needless to say, winter has been pretty odd in Minnesota this time around!

Tastebud Disagreement

I have heard RAVE reviews about Guinness Stew (also known as Stout Stew, Irish Stew, etc.). I was very much hoping that it would be a wonderful dinner served over mashed potatoes. Plus, Guinness is such a yummy beer...how could it be bad?

Well, it was. Just straight up not good. Mr. Husband and I got married in June of this year. While we do have dinner with family quite frequently, I cook a majority of the evenings (except this past week: we ate out or at a family member's house every night). Never have I ever had to throw a dinner away. Granted, this is mostly because my husband will eat anything. Even if it doesn't taste fantastic.

Today, Guinness Stew ended up in the sink. I took two bites, he took four. Never has this happened before. Mr. Husband, of course, was very sweet and said, "It's okay, babe." Quite frankly, I don't care that dinner ended up badly. Am I bummed about the wasted ingredients? Of course. I don't like to waste food one bit. But am I going to continue to eat something that makes me gag? Not so much. We ate our small portions and got rid of the rest via the garbage disposal.

Someday, there will be another attempt at making Guinness Stew (obviously with a different recipe).

Does anyone have a good Guinness stew recipe?  Please share...

Culinary (?) Creations

I'm not positive that these creations can truly be called culinary. Especially since I threw one out after one bite (it was gross!).

The first creation was Stone Soup. This is something we make in Kindergarten the week of Thanksgiving every year. I thought the Stone Soup tasted horrible, so I worked on it a little bit at home. It didn't get much better, and I'll have to give it another go shortly. It looked decent enough, the taste just wasn't up to par.

I made two batches, one with gluten-free vegetable stock (top), the other with chicken stock. Both looked pretty, but landed in the trash can mere minutes after being done.  Oh well!

The next creation was one of my all time favorite, super easy dinners. Hobo dinners!  I LOVE them, and they are SO simple to make. I involved Mr. Husband in this dinner, since I felt overwhelmed with life that day. He was a gem and chopped all of the vegetables while I mixed Lawry's super yummy seasoned salt into the ground beef.  He did a fantastic job.

 As you can see, I also use my cooking time as an "experiment with photography" time. Look how quickly his hand is moving while chopping the mushrooms!

Anyway, a hobo dinner (well, our hobo dinners this time) included mushrooms, carrots, green pepper and onion for the vegetables. I don't care for the texture of having an onion in my mouth, but they definitely need to be included in the cooking process to bring out all of the delightful flavors... So, if you're like me and despise onion, include them anyway and pick around them while eating.

We also boiled potatoes as a yummy way to serve the meal.  It was delicious!!

And to the right is the product before being wrapped up and heading into the oven. The ground beef is hiding under all of the vegetable goodness! We double wrap them in tin foil and place them on a cookie sheet.  I stick them in the oven at 350, then check them after 25 minutes to see how the beef is holding up.  YUMMY!

Rookie Mistake

I had some left over fabric from my stocking adventure. I also had some pillow forms lying around from when Mr. Husband's grandmother passed away. I had no zippers, so I searched for a tutorial on how to make an envelope pillow... Seemed easy enough.

Excitement got the best of me. I forgot to put the fabric with the right sides facing each other. Sewing away I went, with the right side of one fabric facing the wrong side of the other piece. Dang it!

I flipped it out and put the pillow form in anyway, in hopes of having the correct size (I did). So the pillow could have been a success.

So instead, I cut a Christmas tree out of on side of the pillow, glued it to a cross-stitch napkin, stuck it in a hoop and hung it on the way.

At least all was not lost from my rookie mistake!