Update

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything here, so I'm just going to summarize what we've been up to lately.

On March 31, I completed the Cooper River Bridge Run, a large 10k run here in Charleston. This was my second 10k race ever, the first having been 12 years ago (and boy does that make me feel old). I'd been training for it since early January, and my goal was to finish in under an hour from the time I crossed the starting line (a.k.a. "chip time"). Not only did I beat that goal by 4 minutes, but I also finished in under an hour from when the starting gun went off (a.k.a. "gun time"), which meant that my official time, as printed in the newspaper, was 59:58. I was pretty happy, but had to deal with some big-time soreness for about 4 days afterwards.
Also, on a related note, congrats to Eulynn, who finished the Cherry Blossom 10-miler the next day.

My sister and my mom came to visit for a few days. They did a ton of shopping and went to the beach. It was fun to see them, and I think they enjoyed escaping the chilly April weather in Michigan.

Mike and I went to Opening Day for the Riverdogs, our local minor-league baseball team. It was a pretty uneventful game, with almost as many errors as hits. And this weekend is the Ballpark Festival of Beers!

Oscar Picks

Eulynn sent me an email, reminding me that it's time for Oscar predictions.

As per my usual methods, I've seen very few of the movies involved. (To put this into a positive light, I could say that I am untainted by emotional attachments to the films.) So I don't know if I can even come up with a "Should win" list.

As usual, I reserve the right to change my picks up until the show starts.

Best picture - This is, as usual, the toughest choice. I just can't make up my mind. This may be one of my last minute desperation decisions.
Best actor - Easy. I had this pick made months ago: Forest Whitaker.
Best actress - Second year in a row of breaking the "Always pick Judi Dench" rule: Helen Mirren.
Supporting actor - I'll take Eddie Murphy.
Supporting actress - Jennifer Hudson.
Director - I'm really struggling over whether to choose Clint Eastwood or Martin Scorsese. I'm currently leaning towards Scorsese, but it's a really tough call. Underestimating Eastwood's popularity has burned me before, but they may also want to finally give Scorsese his due.
Adapted screenplay - The Departed.
Original screenplay - I'm still trying to choose between Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, and The Queen.
Animated feature - Cars.
Documentary feature - An Inconvenient Truth.

Bonus prediction: Al Gore is NOT running for president.

This one's for you, Brad!

Especially since you seem to be our only reader.






I actually finished this a couple of days ago, but didn't post a picture because I was waiting to get some googly eyes to put on it. Mike didn't want me to get googly eyes, because he was afraid I'd go all Amy Sedaris on him, and start putting googly eyes on everything.
Which, I confess, is exactly why I was so excited about getting a pack of googly eyes.

So anyhow, my trilobite is finally finished. Wierdly, it turns out that someone had already posted a pattern for a trilobite. I didn't know this when I started knitting mine, but I think that my own rendition actually isn't too bad.

Give 'em the boot, the roots the radicals

Last week, Becky found an idea on this blog to have a weekly theme dinner night. I was game. I haven't cooked much since we got married. In fact, I'm not sure I've done any. But I figured the theme night would give me a challenge and motivation to get back in the kitchen. So, we made a list of possible themes, put them in a bag, and pulled one for last week. I pulled root vegetables. I had a week to come up with a menu that featured root vegetables. After a little cookbook searching, I came up with the following menu for Sunday night's dinner: quick-braised root vegetables with hoisin (courtesy of Mark Bittman's "Best Recipes in the World") served with brown rice, carrot walnut layer cake, and, of course, root beer.

The root vegetables were actually quite good. If you've never tried parsnips, I would highly recommend at least trying this root which is a good source of calcium, folate, potassium, and dietary fiber (according to the Publix flyer). The carrot cake was very dry, almost stale. I bought it at Earth Fare thinking they would have good prepared foods there. Well, I was wrong. Becky got Virgil's Root Beer and I got Boylan's Natural Root Beer. The Virgil's was very herbal, but the Boylan's was very vanilla-y which made it taste more cream soda than root beer.

Next week: Foods that start with "C"

Knit-a-long

I've been on a real knitting tear lately. I've always knitted mittens as a hobby, but lately I've been pulling off much more complicated and larger-scale projects. There are just so many cool knitting patterns and ideas out there!

I've also gotten involved in a new group that is getting together to provide knitting instruction and supplies to cancer patients. Our first knitting circle was tonight, and although there weren't many people, it was a start. I think this is a pretty cool idea, so I hope that the group takes off.

I promise not to turn this into a knitting blog, but here are a few of the items I've knitted lately:

A trio of sea creatures.

On the left is Nautie, the nautilus (pattern is from Knitty). In the middle is Larry the lobster (a pattern I made up as I went along (!)). On the right is Sheldon the turtle (pattern is from Knitty as well). The coolest thing about Sheldon is that his shell is a separate piece, so he can come completely out of his shell.

In a similar vein, I made this baby hat. It was inspired by this pattern, but I made mine differently, because I thought I could make it look a little more frog-like. I would like to make the matching booties, but this particular yarn is a real hassle to work with, so it's one of the projects that I keep on putting off.

I made these chemo caps for a member of our church. The left one is a crochet design I made up, with a crocheted flower pin attached. The right one is basically this Knitty pattern, but with the top done in k4-p1 ribbing rather than stockinette. And please excuse the appalling bathroom wallpaper.

These are three of the ballband warshrags I made. I found the pattern in Mason Dixon Knitting , but you can also find the pattern inside the ballband of Peaches & Creme yarn (which is what I used).

I'm not the only one who's been knitting. Here is Mike's felted belt. He used a pattern from Knitting with Balls, a book about men and knitting, which was a gift from Eulynn (it's written by a friend of hers). Thanks, Eulynn!

And last, but not least, an assortment of mittens and hats for Grandma's mitten tree next year.