knives

It may be the case that I kinda 'forced' Michael into buying this lovely set of knives. Since I played on his difficulty of passing up a good deal (50% off!) and made him feel guilty about not letting me get them. But, I think things have worked out ok. Having new knives has inspired my work in the kitchen again...

What's not to love about that knife? Doesn't it look lovely? I went on a major salad kick, just so I would have a reason to enjoy chopping veggies! I cannot believe how much fun it is when your knife is so sharp it just melts through things! Michael even made the comment, and I quote, 'If I had known how much you would love the knives and want to use them and work in the kitchen, I would've bought them the day we got married!'

a field trip!

That is me cuddling with a sheep!

My knitting friend, Allison, and I planned a little day trip to a sheep farm near Inwood. It's called Sheeples. They raise their own sheep, and then turn it into yarn right there on the farm. It's kinda cool to see and touch wool on a sheep, that you might possible buy and knit with some day.

Amazing! Don't they look cool?

later that same day...

March 4. Funny, I didn't realize the beautiful hoar frost happened on the same day as this disaster until now when I went to blog about it. This is what we came home to after work on the same day we saw the beautiful trees:

Yup, that is our front door smashed in. Sigh. Our tenant was actually the first one home, so he called Michael at work, who then called me. We both got home as quickly as we could to determine what was missing and file a police report.

Thankfully, our alarm system did it's job. The people who broke in didn't stay long and didn't have time to make a big mess. This is what it looked like, and our bedroom is the only room they touched. It was a strange feeling and I was a little creeped out by the fact that some stranger had been in my house. The police even came to try and take finger prints, but didn't find any.

The only thing they found was some cash on the dresser. It also just so happened that Michael's laptop was sitting on the floor in the green room next to the bedroom. They saw that and grabbed it. That is all they took.

The crazy part is that they walked back out the front door with the loot. We live across the street from a private school and they broke in at 1:30pm on a Thursday afternoon. This whole thing really shocked us, I mean we've always felt safe because our street has so much going on on it during the day and you can see it from the major road that we live just off of. Two people actually witnessed it happening and called in to the police to report it.

So, in order to be able to leave the house, Michael got creative and screwed the door shut.

Thankfully, because the laptop was unreliable, we don't keep anything saved on it, so we didn't lose anything important. Insurance was good to us, replacing the door and the cash and the laptop. Everything worked out.

What I learned was that it's important not to keep valuables out in the open where they are visible. The things they stole were the laptop and the cash, which were both out in the open, there were other things that they could've taken but didn't see. We could've lost our camera, which had been laying on the floor, but Michael just randomly decided to take it to work that day. It's also not a good idea to keep valuables in your bedroom, it's the first place a thief looks apparently.

hoar frost - a reason to love Manitoba

beautiful.

skating on the river, sans pictures

So, Michael and I enjoyed another season of skating on the river, me with new skates that fit (without squeezing the snot out of my feet).

The season was short this year, but we managed to get out there a few times, and the weather was nice the times we did go out. We just couldn't seem to remember the camera.

Here's a picture of said skates, just to prove that we do in fact own skates, maybe you'll believe me that we actually do go skating if you can at least see a picture of the skates.

Next year I will get pictures of us on the river, I promise.

Alsace Pizza

If I had ever gotten around to blogging about our trip to Europe last year, you would already know a bit about what this is, but I never did. (someday I will finish the digital photo book and figure out a way to share it online).

There is a region in France called Alsace, that is German speaking and produces a lot of wine. This pizza is something we experienced while staying at the chalet with my Aunt & Uncle and their friends in Switzerland. It was so tasty that I was inspired to try making it here after we got back (thanks to some pizza crusts that I got through work). So I set out to find a recipe, since my memory of how to make it was pretty vague. I found this lovely blog that listed some good instructions.

This is what it looks like before it goes in the oven.

This is after it's baked.

And this is sliced and ready to eat with a green salad. So tasty!

diving back into the world of sewing

A good long while ago my Mom told me she was going to get rid of her sewing machine because she bought a new one. I intercepted it's path to the MCC Store and arranged to have it come live with me instead.

Now it's been sitting there for a very long time. Michael keeps thinking that I'll use it to mend his clothes or something, but thus far that has not happened.

After our trip to BC, where we stayed with my friend Colleen who is a sewer, I was inspired to get this machine out, dust it off and make something. Sewing after all is much better than knitting when you require a last minute gift (I don't know of anything that I can knit and complete in an hour, although I have knit a baby hat on the way to the hospital, but that was a 2 hour drive).

I decided to start with a little project for a baby shower at work. Sewing is also convenient because there are two fabric stores that are less than a 5 minute walk from my work.

This is my very first rag quilt. Here are all the cut squares ready to be sewn.

Squares where the layers have been sewn together and are laid out ready for me to sew them together.

(please don't ask me how long it took me to figure out the layout for this, even though I was following a web tutorial)

Sewing the squares into strips.

Look ma! I did it!

Final step involved a lot of cutting (so much that I got a little blister on my thumb) and then some time in the washing machine for a final result that looked like this:

Easy-peasy. Probably took me a total of 3 hours to make. Awesome! And it was a big hit at the shower.

Michael's first pair of hand knit socks!

Ok, so Michael has been hesitant to let me knit for him, in case he ends up not liking it or wearing it (he's scared that I might get mad at him, which is probably not an unreasonable thing to fear). I knit him matching mitts, scarf and toque when we were dating and he only wears the mitts, and I do give him a hard time about that.

He is even more scared of letting me knit socks, because he might get a hole in them the first time he wears them or something equally disastrous.

In Germany last year, he found some sock yarn that he liked, so I said I would buy it make him a pair of socks out of it. He reluctantly agreed.

This is the finished product. I even managed to find an embellishment to keep myself interested and him from feeling emasculated.

Pretty nice looking socks, eh?

And Michael found out that hand knit socks really are awesome and comfortable! (I also promised not to get mad at him when they wear out.)

Park on Eagle Mountain

On another day, we hung out with my cousin Sylvia and her husband Paul. They have three kids, Dawson, Eve and Cadence (sorry no pictures of Cadence, she just slept in the stroller while we were at the park).

The lovely view from the park, which is up on Eagle Mountain, a housing development in Abbotsford, what a spectacular view!

Eve enjoying the swing, Dawson wandering around.

Sylvia and I chatting and trying to stay warm. Again, thanks for hanging out with us Paul & Sylvia, we had fun!

ice skating inside

While we were in BC we decided to gather up some friends and go to a public skate. It's been ages since I did this! Michael and I have skated outdoors on the river in Manitoba, but never on an indoor rink.

My cousin Heidi took her son Sam out for his first ice skate adventure.

That's me, hanging with friends and their kids. I finally got to test drive the new skates I got for Christmas (so nice to have some designed for wide feet!).

So, friends, it was great to see you at the skating. Thanks for coming out!