cue the jpegs

The Awesome Boyfriend and I passed the road trip test this weekend. After twenty hours in the car together, we still love each other to pieces (I should hope so!), and enjoyed being around each other. (Excepting, perhaps, a brief stretch of time during which we were hopelessly lost. I glare in your general direction, New Jersey.)

We made the great voyage for the nuptials of one of my closest friends. It was a terrific weekend all around, but because much of the excitement revolved around other people's personal lives, I don't think it's particularly bloggable. I'll do a brief photo essay instead.

In Which I Ramble About the Cooking of Vegetables and a Particular Shade of Blue

Ah, you remarkably complex, maddening, wonderful shade of blue paint with a touch of gloss. Nine times out of ten, at least, you look hideous in photographs. All reflecty and cold and weird and just generally inaccurate (which is to say, no, we did not in fact paint four walls in our house a cold, weird shade of blue that's hideous in person). But oh, that rare successful photograph that captures you perfectly is ever so worth it. Thank you, natural light.

Anyway. My shoulder there in that photo is wearing my finished Surface sweater. It fits, I like the sleeves, and I think I'll like the torso when I've perfected the button/buttonhole combination. Right now I have cute little buttons on it, but the buttonholes are too big to adhere to them, and I'll need to sew them up soon. Suffice it to say, I'm not a fan of the finished product worn open. So here it is with the help of some straight pins.



In other news, I inadvertently made a southern themed, albeit thoroughly unauthentic, dinner tonight. Pork in homemade barbecue sauce (being from New England, I'm sure I'm using that term entirely incorrectly), roasted sweet potato wedges, and roasted kale.

Yes, roasted kale. I'd heard about it a few weeks ago, pondered, schemed, and finally bit the bullet and gave it a whirl. Verdict: fantastic. If you'd like to try it as well, here's whatcha do: whisk together a few tablespoons of vegetable oil (I used canola), at least as much rice vinegar, a couple healthy shakes of garlic powder, and several healthy shakes of cumin. Drizzle this over a batch of raw kale (um, maybe a pound? two pounds? however much you have, keeping in mind that what looks like way too much roughage for any one person to consume will cook down to a fraction of its former size), washed and dried (or at least not sopping wet), then toss to coat. Spread it out over a couple cookie sheets and pop it in the oven at 400 degrees for ten-ish minutes. It'll get all crispy and delicate and delicious. Trust me. Or, ya know, don't, and cook it to see for yourself. If I've spread the gloriousness of roasted kale to even one person, my work here is done.

You're welcome.

Snowboarding: Do Not Like!

The Awesome Boyfriend and I spent a lovely couple of days with his family at a local(ish) ski resort over the weekend. They're wonderful people and I had a fantastic time. But the snowboarding. Oh, the snowboarding.

Now, I went into the snowboarding lesson fully expecting to be less than stellar. I'm endearingly clumsy, to put it kindly. Elementary school birthday parties held at roller skating rinks struck me with fear and dread throughout my childhood. I get nervous when I traverse an icy stretch of sidewalk, for heaven's sake. Balance is not my forte.

Apparently, once I strap a snowboard to (even just one of!) my feet, the effects of whatever inner ear issue I've been suffering from magnify in severity. I almost fell over while standing still and listening to the lesson instructor tell us what we were going to do next. Standing on the board and trying to move? Laughable. I was That Girl, unable to stop without falling over, but not before helplessly watching my snowboard foot travel in one direction and my free foot stay infuriatingly planted in place about three feet back. I threw in the towel after about an hour and a half on the mountain. (And I'm glad I did! Holy hummus, do I hurt! The hip adductor machine at the gym? Yeah, I feel like I spent about four hours on the thing. Clearly, I'm not used to dragging a piece of fiberglass behind me with my foot.)

Snowshoeing was much more my speed. As was good food and beer and fun conversation and the outdoor pool and hot tub, to be sure. But the snowshoeing was great. Two hours of wandering through wooded trails with The Awesome Boyfriend was so much nicer than the embarassment of displaying my clumsiness in the manner of an eighth grade gym class flashback.

... and the lack of falling allowed for the taking of pictures!

Snowshoeing ticket. Uber-official.

Single file

End of the trail! Injury-free!

OK, fine. Now where are my sneakers?

Dear Self,

Congratulations on getting through that 5k over the weekend. That's great. High five. Taking a day off from the gym on Monday was well deserved. Maybe Tuesday was as well. Maybe.

But this, this not having done any cardio since Sunday nonsense is ridiculous. There will be more road races in your future, and if you've got any hope of running them in a more respectable amount of time, you're going to have to make friends with the treadmill again. Soon. And don't even get me started on training for the 10k. Six miles, dude. Six miles. They won't run themselves. And you certainly won't run them with this level of effort.

In sum: go to the gym already! Seriously.

Cheers,
Reality: Destroyer of Denial

Challenge

I sewed the sleeves and body of Surface together yesterday evening and tried on the result to see if I could proceed without utterly wasting my time. Best Boyfriend Ever was impressed with the progress (though, honestly, I could show him a tangled mess of yarn with three sleeves and no neckhole, and he'd still be my biggest cheerleader), and then, unwittingly, he issued a challenge I fear I'm powerless to ignore.

"Do you think you'll finish it in time to wear it this weekend?"

A finished Surface would be perfect for this weekend. We're going on a mini vacation with his family, and there'll be a need for cute, I'm-making-an-effort-to-look-put-together (but not dressy) attire. I hadn't even thought of bringing Surface, except for a vague likelihood that I'd bring it to work on. In his nonchalance, though, Best Boyfriend Ever made me realize that I could absolutely get it finished and blocked in time. And now I must try.

Sigh. Sorry, walls I need to get painted. As it turns out, I probably won't have time for you this week, after all. Catch ya next week...

I spoke too soon!

That thing I said, about how I figured the seeds I planted were never going to germinate (they are, after all, from last season or perhaps the year before), was apparently an example of me speaking prematurely. And me being impatient. As it turns out, hope springs eternal (as have the tomato seeds), if only one can can manage to wait another few days.

Phototropism at work!

I'll also tell you all that I ran that race I talked about, and managed not to be the last person across the finish line. Whoo! I walked up a couple of hills, but otherwise ran the whole thing, albeit rather slowly. The silver lining here is that I'm almost guaranteed to see an improvement in my time for my next 5k. I've also (almost) decided to sign up for my area's Big Famous 10k. Eeep. Scary.

What else? Surface sleeves are nearly done. Sushi for dinner tonight. It's a good day.

Updates by Category

KNITTING
I'm about halfway through Surface at this point. I knit the back and fronts of the body as one piece (no side seams!) and that part is finished. The sleeves, knit from the fun, textured cuffs up to the caps, are about a third done. Enter a lot of rows of stockinette in my future.






GARDENING
Still wistful and hopeful for warmer temperatures and visible soil around the corner (ha). My Favorite Man recently received a Home Despot gift certificate, which we've decided to allocate toward the building materials needed to assemble raised beds. Must research. The seeds I planted a week-ish ago have done zilch in the germination department; I think it's almost time to give up the ghost and admit that they've aged out. Updated shopping list: building materials for raised beds, seeds.


FITNESS
Road race this weekend. Between now and then I need to create a super-duper up-tempo playlist for myself to make sure I've got constant motivation in my ears for the numerous points at which I'm likely to want to slow down and/or start walking.

The following weekend, I'll actually be learning how to snowboard. That phrasing might be a bit ambitious, to be fair. I'll be on a snowboard, and I'll take a snowboard lesson, but whether I'll actually learn *how* to snowboard is still up in the air. Either way, I expect to use my get-up-from-having-fallen muscles quite a bit.