The basement reno is nearly done. D just has the last few pieces of trim to put up. The furniture is moved in and we’re in that state of deciding what goes where and how to work things out.  The office used to be on the main floor so it was easy to drop off a piece of paper in a file, but now it’s downstairs and the files haven’t been unpacked yet. Maybe I should get to that. Once we have the stuff sorted out, I’ll post pictures.  We also have a baby room now. All we need is a baby!

The belly is growing and getting in the way. I’m just over 37 weeks, due in just over 2 weeks and I’m starting to get clumsy and bumpy. I run into people with my belly all the time!  It’s almost dangerous for me to be cooking.  Here’s a picture of me from christmas. The tree is crooked, so am I, and the camera does not like the colour of my dress.  This was a month ago – you can imagine how much bigger I am now.

I’ve taken a part time contracting  job at the university where I did my Ph.D. that started on January 2nd. It’s taking a lot of time, but is using my brain more. I hope I can finish the project before baby comes, but I also want some time off as I’m completely drained at this point.  I can’t say anything more about the job (confidentiality agreements are in place), but it’s really interesting and useful.

OK, off to get more pictures of knitted stuff to post.

eta: I found a picture of my belly as of 36W.

Getting there. Wasn’t feeling all that hot that day…

I opened my etsy store – SPALC Designs.  So far I’ve posted a few scarves and hats that I made on my knitting machine. I hope to get up some baby hats soon.  The hardest part of putting up a store was getting good pictures of the product, not actually making the stuff. I didn’t expect that.

Basement renovations are ongoing. We’re up to drywall. Hopefully that will be done in the next 2 weeks. Then paint, floor, ceiling, trim…. Christmas???? I hope.

Baby preparations are coming along. I’m accumulating some stuff. We have a car seat, some clothes and a crib in the house and a stroller on the way. Baby is also growing inside.

24 weeks – Thanksgiving weekend.

24 weeks – about to burst out of my bibs. If we get out again, I bet I’ll be in D’s shorts.

26 weeks – dirty window and allAnd it’s all belly – from the back at 24 weeks.

OK, back to baking.

Last week I shopped on Friday. I had a list, but it included such inspiring options as “meat” and “veggies”. Luckily the store and market came through.

I found a lovely sirloin steak on sale for 30% off the $8 tag. It was great grilled on Friday night with cauliflower from the market doused in cheese sauce. Probably not the most healthy meal, but baby wanted it!

The leftover steak became fajitas on Saturday. The store I’ve recently started shopping at sells corn tortillas in a bag of 30 for $1.69. That’s way less than flour tortillas and they taste so much yummier. They do need heating, but I don’t mind. Fajitas are a fallback in our house. We always have sour cream, tomatoes, salsa and red pepper in the fridge and, worst case,  we can thaw a chicken breast and make fajitas with some fajita seasoning that we keep in stock in the cupboard.

That was Saturday dinner. Sunday was supposed to be a pork loin roast, but we got in late from visiting friends (and playing bridge, but that makes us sound 70 instead of in our 30′s!) so we changed up the plan and made blackened tilapia with corn and tomato salsa from a Cooking Light cookbook we have on the shelf.  It was fast and easy – make up a spice mix, rub into fish fillets (was supposed to be catfish, but we have tilapia), fry in a pan.  The salsa was as easy – fry corn and tomatoes in garlic oil, then add some green onions, thyme and wine vinegar. Rice on the side, good dinner.

Tonight was the roast pork loin. The store had half loins on sale for cheap, so I got one and cut it up into roasts and chops. One roast into the fridge, the others into the freezer. A sprinkle of Fines Herbs my mom made a few years back and into the over for 80 minutes. First 10 at 450, then down to 250 until an internal temperature of 165.  I no longer roast without a thermometer. This has saved me so much money in not overcooking meat.  Sides were mashed potatoes and braised cabbage with bacon, apples and balsamic vinegar from Jamie Oliver. The cabbage is really yummy, but it takes way longer than the recipe says and I always forget that. This time I wrote right in the book to remind me next time!

Later this week we have addictive sweet potato burritos planned and perhaps Alton Brown’s chicken piccata (I bought lemons, everything else is already in the house).  That should get us through till Wednesday when I will shop again. I have to get snacks for Thursday because I’m working for 13.5 hours straight as a poll clerk in the provincial election. Apparently, no really meals get eaten, but lots of snacks do so I need to stock up.

Muffins have been off the plan for sheer laziness. Maybe now that I’m getting my energy back I’ll do some again soon.

Once again, it’s a post without pictures. Maybe next time? We’re behind on the belly shots.

For the third time, my knitting gang descended on my house and we dyed yarn. This year we purchased undyed yarn from a more local company called Acme Fibres.  The yarn was lovely. I did have to wash it before my friends came to get rid of the spinning oils which was a bit of fun as we had 18 skeins of yarn total, but we had 7 types of yarn total.  Keeping them separate, untangled, and knowing which skein was which proved a challenge, but in the end, we all ended up with what we wanted.

Once again, we sed the jacqurad acid dyes from Knitpicks. We have a setup of squirt bottles, a steamer, tongs, spray bottle of vinegar, plastic wrap and lots of plastic gloves. All of this other stuff besides the dyes was purchases at a thrift store (roasting pan for steaming) or dollar store (everything else). I think we’re going to upgrade the squirt bottles next time as the dollar store ones started leaking and that’s really frustrating.

I dyed two skeins. One was the Bamberino Superwash sock. For it I used an extra squirt bottle and diluted a few colours. At first it was a pastel clown barf, but then I overdyed it all with diluted silver grey and the end result is lovely.

The second skein was a thank you to D for letting us take over the house with dyes and yarn. This will be socks for him. It’s the Cashmerino superwash sock. So soft after washing. Again, lots of grey and black with a hit of red and green.

The past week has been a writeoff. There’s a back to school cold going around and I’ve been on the couch since I caught it on Tuesday. I had no idea my body could use so many tissues. Garbage pails full. Boxes empty. I moved on to the lotion ones because my poor nose was raw.  Hopefully I’ll get better soon, but the combo of smaller lungs from baby taking up my torso and inability to breath from the cold has me on the disabled list.

Speaking of baby, we’re taking donations for orthodontics. Both D and I had braces growing up and according to our latest ultrasound baby is a thumbsucker. We opted out of knowing the sex so you (and we!) will have to wait.

(psst. if you don’t like ultrasound pictures, go somewhere else now!)

20 weeks down, 20 ish to go!

Apparently it’s not just food, it’s a baby.  Due early February, we will not find out the sex and we’re excited yet shocked in a good way – is this really happening?

Knitting wise it’s been an OK summer. I finished a Rock Island Shawl and it’s gorgeous. I used a small part of a skein of Auntie Boo Laceweight (I have nieces and nephews that call me Auntie Boo, so it’s weird to have that be the name of Claire’s company!).  The colourway is Clockwork Orange and it’s GORGEOUS yarn. Not solid, but not too variegated.

The colour is more accurate in the first picture. Must go back and tweak the second photo to get the colour right.

I also did some SISC (Self Imposed Sock Club) knitting, but the socks turned into armwarmers. They just wouldn’t go over my ankle and I’d been knitting for so long!  I need pictures for them and a few other projects.

What else. Been to France, been camping, been cottaging, avoiding storms at cottages and camping… a typical summer.

We have been biking, but the midwife allows only 1 hour of exercise at a stretch – 15 minutes warm up, 30 minutes at 140 bpm max then 15 minute cool down.  Not the 2-3 hours averaging 175 to 185 bpm that I’m used to. We’ve found a few short flat loops for me, then D does some rides on his own or bikes home while I drive over the hills. The interesting thing is that these short slow rides are really improving his fitness. He’s noticed a big change in his harder rides from the slow rides. We’ve been reading that low heartrate training really helps for years, but it was really hard to do. This was a hard lesson to learn, but we’ve learned it. Definately a slow and steady wins the race kind of thing.

I have no kitten pictures, but I might have to start referring to them as cats now – they are 5 after all. They both seemed to know I was pregnant before I did. Fred has become uber-snuggly and Ginger is fascinated with my belly. I can’t wait for the day my belly punches her back!  Fred has let us try swaddling him in blankets we were given. He’s so mellow!

A few months later, I was at the Knitter’s Frolic in Toronto and one of my knitting group friend (H) mentioned that she has never knit a sweater and liked the same sweater. It actually took us a while to figure out that it was the same sweater as we were pronouncing the name (Chiton) in very different ways. We all read it with an l in the middle, when in fact it doesn’t have an l at all.

H doesn’t have wrist problems and we found the suggested yarn at the frolic for a good price. She bought that and I bought 2 skeins of Viola Merino Fingering in the Sea Storm colourway.
AS H has never knit a sweater before, I told her we could do this as a knit-a-long (KAL) and I realised this is a good chance to show what I do when I knit a sweater and to have other suggest ways I can improving my knitting.

First I wound balls of my skeins.

Next was gauge swatches. For a sweater, I always knit a gauge swatch AND WASH IT!

These are two gauge swatches, knit on US5 and US6 of my Denise interchangeable needle set. Sorry W, no metric on here.

I measured them before washing – US 5 was 26 st to 4″ and 17 rows to 2″ and the US 6 was 25″ to 4″ and 17 rows to 2″.  After washing the US 5 was 24.5 st to 4″ and 19 rows to 2″ and the US6 was 23.5 st to 4″ and 18 rows to 4″.  That slight change in gauge doesn’t look like much, but that means the fabric GREW when it was washed – so if I knit the sweater to fit, the first time I washed it it would grow – for each 24 inches around, it would grow an inch – that is enough to really change the fit of the garment. Also, now I know that if the pattern asks me to knit for 2″ I should knit 18 rows instead of the 17 rows that the unblocked gauge gives.

I hope that makes sense.

The gauge swatch not only ensures I get the gauge the pattern wants after washing, but that I like the fabric that I’m knitting. Initially I thought the US6 was too loose – it was like netting, but after it was washed it filled in and had a really nice hand. The sweater needs a drapey fabric and the US5 fabric was too stiff. It would be great for something cabled as the cables would really pop, but the US6 is much better for this pattern.

Now, I get to start the many many inches of garter belt. Well, I’m going to wait for H to catch up and do her gauge swatches. I have 3 other projects on the go (well, more like 4, but one is on timeout!).

This post is because I’m really proud of some pictures I took.

As I mentioned previously, I bought D a new DSLR camera for his birthday. I haven’t played with it much yet, but I did get some good pictures!

These are D and my aunt AJ at the cottage. We’d gone up to help AJ open up, then we got to relax. The cottage has no electricity, so we read by the windows until we need to get the lamps out.

Thanks to D and AJ for continuing on with their reading and conversation while I futzed around with the camera!

The muffins are oatmeal with blueberry from Epicurious. When they say “makes 18 regular” they mean it!  I don’t use the epicurious webpage much, but I love the app for my ipod touch.  I can search by ingredient and it shows up front what percentage of people would make the recipe again.  Also, the comments tend to have good ideas for modifying the recipe.  We have several recipes in high rotation that I found on epicurious.

Monday night we went grocery shopping and purchased a hot cooked chicken. One breast became chicken on a chicken caesar salad for dinner.  Some of the chicken became curried chicken salad with grapes and pecans for Tuesday’s lunch

Tuesday we dined on Beef and Broccoli stirfry from the Dieticians of Canada Cook Great Food. Leftovers for lunch today

Tonight was supposed to be risotto, but I wasn’t in the mood to stir or for really hot heavy food, so we got pizza instead. There is enough left over for me to have it for lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be a chicken pot pie that we will bake at my Grandfather’s house. He’s written a memoir and D has been asked to take a photo for the back flap.  We will then eat there. Grandpa doesn’t have a driver’s license anymore (he’s 96 or 97) so having visitors really helps perk him up. When I phoned to say we’d be by with dinner, he responded with “that’ll be first class”!  I follow the Pioneer Woman’s recipe for an inspiration, but I use Mr. President’s butter puff pastry for the top and add way more veggies!

Friday is ribs. I’m thinking cook in the slowcooker all day, then char on the BBQ. Gotta get thinking about that more.  Maybe I should move risotto to Friday and do ribs Saturday when I’ll have more time to think about it.  hmm. I’m fluid in my meal planning.

I’d write more, but the job is boring and I’m exhausted at the end of it, so I haven’t been doing much.  Food is a highlight!

Then I got a job.

My job has me on my feet at least 8 hours a day.

I’m exhausted.

But I want to get back to my blog.

So I’ve decided to post a few things weekly.

I bake a batch of muffins every week to take to work for a snack.

I will post which muffins I make and a review.

I’ve also started meal planning and I will post my meal plan.

The muffin of the week is Banana Pecan from the Joy of Cooking.

Very good muffin. Nice texture. Not as gloppy as my typical banana muffin.  They also seem to be holding up well.

This weeks meal plan.

Monday – Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onion. We added some meatballs from our local specialty store and had leftovers for lunch on Tuesday.

Tuesday- Fajitas – beef with seasoning from The Spice House on flour tortillas with cheese, red pepper, onion, sour cream and salsa.

Wednesday – Tilapia with Mango Salsa with coconut rice.

Thursday – Slow cooker Coconut chicken curry. Hmmm. I’m sensing a theme.

Friday – Beef and Rice Noodle Stirfry from one of my favourite cookbooks. There’s a new edition out!

I’ll leave you with a picture or two. Now that I’m working, D got a nice birthday present. A new camera has entered the Casa M-P!

These are from hike on Sunday to a local park with chickadees.

It’ll pay the bills.

It’s sucking the life out of me in more ways than one. I don’t want to go into it.

I’m exhausted and drained. I have little time to do much beyond work, getting my stuff together to go back to work and sleep.

This cold isn’t helping much.

There is some light on the horizon, so I have hope for improvement.

I’ll be back.