First Glimpses of Sun

Hello Dear Readers,

We had a rare treat for this part of England, two sunny days in a row on a weekend!  Chris and I took the opportunity to walk to the small but perfectly formed Barnes Farmer's Market on Saturday and I bought some special sourdough bread. 

 I also took advantage of the natural light to take some photos of some of my latest projects, which I can now reveal to you all since my sister has just passed her first trimester.  That's right, her five year plan is ticking right along, from the engagement Christmas 2010, wedding in Fall 2011, a house in the summer of 2012 followed by being pregnant by Christmas 2012, baby number one by September 2013!  Phew, I'm tired just typing that!  Anyway, amongst other things I have been casting on one baby knit after the other and queuing them up in my Ravelry list. The only limit..... is my yarn stash!

I got this matching sweater, hat and mitts set knocked out in no time, with another Olive Owl planned to use up the rest of this yarn.  I'm also doing a sheepy hat, a sweater with interchangeable fronts to minimize changes, and at least one more sweater, possibly sweater dress if it turns out to be a girl.  Baby Wu already is in my good books for having the sense to be born just before winter so s/he can enjoy all the benefits of my knitting straight away.

I'm also continuing with the spinning, have a few Christmas presents on the go, and a very fun birthday present that will be revealed shortly.....

Otherwise, on our second sunny day of the weekend Chris an I walked down to the club to see Patrick race against London Rowing Club.  Well, Patrick's club race, I'm not sure if we caught his race or not, but we enjoyed it all the same.

Can you spot Patrick in his boat?  Nope? Neither could we..... oh well, it's sunny so who cares!  Yes spring is certainly in the air, and we are soaking up every minute of it here in Putney.  There are even snowdrops and crocus up in the gardens, and daffodils in the grocery stores.







After this Chris and I walked around the neighborhoods a little further south of our place, scoping out possible new places to buy.....  Our lease is up at the end of July, so we have a deadline now, it's just a matter of moving all our money into the country and putting in an offer.  Oh, it's on.


Hope spring is busting out a little bit wherever you are!

The Usual

Hello Dear Readers,

A regular, quiet weekend this time, three loads of laundry, the third having just made the 'snap snap' sound telling me it's ready to be hung up.  As usual there has been another flurry of knitting activity, with me starting yet another project which I will be showing and telling you about in a few weeks........

I did make some amazing red bean paste buns though, in honor of the year of the snake!
 I used some red beans (also called adzuki) I had leftover from making energy bars last week.  I knew vaguely that red bean paste was made from cooking red beans with sugar, but I had no idea that it was as easy as pouring sugar onto red beans and then whipping them up in the food processor!!


I love red bean paste buns, but the kind you get at the grocery store often have a lot of bun and just a tiny bit of paste, and you have to eat very carefully around the edges to get just the right amount of bun/paste ratio, and then at the end you are left with one big bite of mostly paste and a little bit of bun.  Not so these, which I packed with as much bean paste as I could and rolled the dough very thin, you can see in the middle of the foremost pot here that the wrapper was a bit too thin and some paste oozed out.  I made so many that I actually used both my steaming pans at once, which I don't normally do.  These also come with the distinction of being Chris approved, he ate 4 in a row as soon as they were cool enough.

Regarding my last post on Insanity and P90X, Adam asked if I liked them and what I thought etc.  I think P90X was great because it was so well rounded, there was yoga and martial arts and weights and lots of stretching, but the workouts were pretty LOOOOONNNNGGG, an hour for most, and 90 min for the yoga.  They recommend that you do it fully the first time through, and then only do half the workout time once you are up to speed, so that is my plan after Insanity.  As far as results, I saw great results in the first two months of P90X, losing about 13 lbs, but I think the first 10 are the easiest and the last 5 the hardest.  I haven't lost weight on Insanity, but have stayed the same which is better than increasing.  I find the workouts are easier, but geared to plyometrics more than anything, which hasn't sculpted my figure (except my thighs, which are muscled monstrosities now) but has increased the power in my cycling every day, which is perhaps more useful to me then a svelte figure.  The workouts are also generally under 40 min, including warm up cool down and stretching, which I find psychologically easier to face in the morning than 60 min for some reason, though it's not that different.  Insanity is also more portable because you don't use weights or mats or anything, just your body weight.  If you think you will have to travel during your workouts, this is a much better option.  The schedule is also a little different, with P90X you do some of the same workouts throughout the 90 days, whereas with insanity you do the same 3-4 for 4 weeks, a week of the same "recovery" workout, then 4 weeks of different 3-4 sets of workouts.  So you get a week to get used to it, a week to improve, a week to really kick ass, and a week to think, I'm so done with these.  We'll see how my results are when I'm done, I'm in the middle recovery week now, so I have 5 weeks to go, then plan on doing a 50 % effort P90X.

After all this working out you need to refuel, so I'm off to the kitchen to do some cooking to last me a week, raw taco salad for dinner, quinoa soup for lunch, baked oatmeal for the week and veggie burgers to freeze and have on hand for desperate dinners.

Cheers

Short One

Hello Dear Readers,

No time for an epic post with lots of links, or rather there is probably time but I'm feeling tired tonight after a busy day, so I'll make it a short one.  Saturday Chris and I went out for a walk, we ended up walking past Oliver Bonas where they had a very pretty dress in the window.  I usually see and covet dresses at Oliver Bonas, but lets be honest, they don't fit over my hideously huge boobs and it's usually just a major bummer trying stuff on.  But the shopping gods were with me, and they were 60% off and I bought them, woo hoo!

In other shopping news, for Patrick's work he got a 100 pound gift certificate to spend at Selfridges.  See above for a Jelly Bean sculptre of Mr. Selfridge himself (reputed to have coined the phrase "the customer is always right").  Note me sporting new dress number one.  Patrick and I had a grand time trying to spend all his money, which we mostly spent on food.  At least we didn't waste it!!

Also notice here I have my hair in pin curls.  Mostly to keep it out of the way, but when I combed them out in the evening, yikes!

 Pin curls were used in the 40's-60's for shaping your hair into wacky styles.  I was thinking more Gracy Kelly in To Catch a Thief, but from the look's on Patrick and Chris's faces, it was not a winning look.

 And Patrick doing the photography didn't help, though I tried to get rid of my red eye in the second photo.

 Yikes, double creepy.  Oh well, it was fun to try anyway, and I was just washing my hair that night anyway.....

 More Creepy photos.  I can't seem to get photos to look the way I want in this blog, I want to be able to put two side by side.  Hmph.  too tired to look up how to do it.

Anyway, lots more knitting went on this weekend, and even a squid this week, but again, all surprises and gifts, so not really for public consumption, though I've mentioned the squid, so I'm showing it anyway...

Ok, off to bed, have to do my Insanity work out tomorrow morning.  It's week 4 and it's getting a little hard to hit play, though next week is all recovery week, and then it's 4 weeks of new (harder) exercises, hooray!