Rug

Remember the brown rag rug? Well that same designer had a second pattern for a rug using the same techniques that I also wanted to try! So I ripped up an old burgundy sheet and made this:

She also has a pattern using plastic grocery bags that I'm excited to try!

Menu!

First I have to say that today I have such a brilliant day! I got two birthday gifts made, and one wrapped (I'll share later-- I told you I'm behind!) and I got the apartment straightened and pretty, and the menu for this week written! Here it is:

Thursday: Cheeseburger Pie (Yes, I know it sounds weird, but we figured we might as well give it a try-- it's not really possible to screw up ground beef and cheese, is it?)

Friday: Apple-Stuffed Chicken Breasts. I love cooking stuffed chicken. Once we stuffed the chicken with tomatoes, spinach, and Parmesan, and that was fantastic, so I figure apple should be pretty marvelous, too.

Saturday: BBQ at my Aunt's! Fun!

Sunday: Stuffed Potatoes. This is like a baked potato, except instead of putting everything on after the potato is baked, you mix the boiled potato with everything and then spoon it back in the potato skin to bake it. We'll see...I love potato, so I'm sure I'll like this fine, but there's something kind of fun about building your own meal at the table, you know? So this might not end up being a favorite.

Monday: Sesame Shrimp Pasta. We did a shrimp dish awhile back, so we already have that, and we always have a stock of pasta. That makes this a fairly cheap dish-- all we need to buy is the sesame and veggies!

Tuesday: Rice dinner...in case we're out of leftovers by then! We take leftovers from dinner for our lunches, so we always try to have a lot of them in the fridge. When we start to run low, rice dinner is the meal we make! It makes tons of leftovers!

Wednesday: Baked chicken in Lemon and Wine. We don't cook with wine very often since it's so expensive, but occasionally we splurge-- and then you have the added bonus of a glass of wine with dinner. I'm collecting wine bottles right now for a project I have in mind (my own home-made flavored vinegars and oils, with the name of each etched into the glass) so all the bottles are on top of the fridge. It makes a nice display up there!

I like sharing menus. Last time, I even got some tips from my Mom when she noticed I was about to screw up (apparently, bbq sauce is not a good substitute for Worcestershire).

Major Project: Brown Sweater Update!

I know it's been forever since you heard anything about the brown sweater, but look!

 

And here you thought I wasn't getting anything done!

Ethiopian Food

Nick and I are big fans of Ethiopian food, especially the injera. So we did some research on some recipes for faux injera (which uses soda water instead of sitting out for a week) and chicken stew and made ourselves dinner!

 

Isn't that fun?? We loved the food, although it's way better at the restaurants (of course)!

Purple Butterfly

Remember the purple bag my boyfriend made as a Christmas gift for his Mom? Well look what he made as a package top:

Isn't he just the cutest ever?

Runner

This is just a silly little thing. My boyfriend's grandmother (so sweet) gave me a big bag of yarn and patterns, and in the bag was a couple of pieces she had started, but decided not to finish. I studied the piece and was able to finish the stitch to complete the row, which left me with a long, narrow piece of cloth. I could have pulled it all apart and used the yarn, but I thought it would be nice to have a runner that was made by someone I knew-- I always like looking around the room and being reminded of the people I love! So here's the finished piece:

Sleeping Shorts

My cousin gave me this pair of sweat pants that turned out to fit like this:

...which was not particularly comfortable. So I cut them off at knee length, and stretched the jersey tight while I was sewing a zig zag along the edge, which resulted in:

Much better :) They're a child's size large...but that seems to work out just fine.

Also, I joined this site called My Sewing Circle, and it works a lot like Ravelry, except that it's more difficult to share patterns. Anyhow, if you're into sewing, it might be a good thing to look into!