-:- weekending

This weekend was all about gorillas, botanical gardens, vegan Chinese food from one of my favorite places, and the best instant ramen I've ever had. Lemongrass ginger flavored ramen - with no MSG (or other bad ingredients) and way less sodium than usual. So amazing.

I also went to yoga, cleaned up the house, started a new knitting project, and took a long nap - all while Mr. worked hard on the shores of South Carolina. This past week he has been in the field for the first time as a geologist, which meant I was flying solo this weekend.

Usually when I'm on my own, my tendency is to hunker down and not go anywhere unless I have to. I can knit, read, and cook for hours on end and be perfectly happy. But I've started to realize that I'm a bit happier if I balance some of that pure, unadulterated alone time with some time being out in the world, experiencing things. Finding new ramen. Chatting with my sister in a Japanese garden. Saying hello to some pretty wonderful primates. So that's what I did.

Balance is a beautiful thing. I'm so grateful that I found it this weekend.

xox

-:- busy weekending

This weekend was the first super busy weekend we've had in a long time - but it was busy in the most wonderful, relaxing way. Saturday involved yoga, the Shepherd's Harvest Festival, and vegan Chinese food for dinner. So good.

We cleaned up a bit when we got home from our full Saturday and then Mr. successfully brewed his first batch of beer while I finished those socks and got them blocking. By the end of the night, our house smelled like fresh beer and wet wool - what's better than that?

Today was dedicated to our poor backyard. We pruned and sawed and pulled huge roots from the ground. We raked and swept and planted clover seeds in one of the few places where sunlight is a certainty (it's a special mix for the bees). There's still so much left to do, but luckily, it's just the kind of work we love in these parts.

Very little of what we had planned for our yard today actually happened, but we made significant progress nonetheless. And we did manage to come home with several plants from an amazing local plant sale, which will have to wait to be planted in the ground just a bit longer...

xox

P.S. Happy Mother's Day!

-:- april (snow) showers

Oh, April.
What a month.

It has been filled with, among many other things, a lot of snow.
Just this morning, we woke up to about 4 inches of it - that's some April 23rd craziness right there. And I think it was our third or fourth snowfall this month.

So while I don't have any pictures of wonderful, fresh, green things to show you, I do have some snow-related pictures to share. They are from all the way back in March, though they very well could have been from this morning.

Mr. was planning an orienteering field trip for his kids and in order to fully prepare, we went orienteering ourselves. Our first attempt included Lou and did not include snowshoes - neither of those things worked out very well for us. So the next day, when we were better educated, we tried again.

We had a lot of fun - we saw a ton of animals tracks, met some friendly cross-country skiers, gathered codes from all of the posts, and made a mental list of everything Mr. needed to tell his kids before they set out on their own orienteering adventure. And while we're excited to go snowshoeing again, we're okay letting spring have a turn for awhile.

Hear that, April? Forget about the snow and bring us some green.

xox

-:- weekend scenes

On Saturday, we took Lou to doggie day care and then got out and about a bit. We went slightly north for a special visit with the wolves (more on that soon, I promise) - and then ate out for lunch, discovered a new thrift store, and ran all of our errands for the week. I love having a full kitchen after we go grocery shopping, especially when it includes special treats.

Louie got two baths this weekend, much to his chagrin. His first came after he got home from doggie day care on Saturday and his second came after a long walk we took earlier today. He also discovered that he quite likes the contents of the litter box, much to my chagrin.

Tomorrow, we're back at it. I am already looking forward to this week's dinners - butternut squash ravioli and an Indian feast are in the works - and there are crumpets for breakfast. What a wonderful way to start my Monday morning.

Wishing you all a beautiful week ahead.

xox

-:- weekend scenes

Last weekend, my parents were here for their first visit to our new home - it was so wonderful to see them. And I'm happy they came when they did - had they visited a week later, they would have encountered snowy weather and a daughter with a sore throat. There's so much more to tell you about from last weekend, but I'm going to wait just a bit longer for that.

This weekend, we ran all of our usual errands and then we spent some time at Mr.'s school. He had a few miscellaneous things to get done and I used the time to play the old piano they have there, which I have missed doing. It's out of tune, but it was still lovely to play.

I also started doing yoga this weekend (beyond my usual sun salutation) with the help of a library DVD. I already love how it makes me feel and have found myself doing mountain pose while waiting for my neep and tattie scones to cook - and seated forward bends as Mr. and I played our nightly games of gin rummy on the floor. Hopefully daily yoga is a habit I keep.

Now I'm sitting in front of the fire with Lou by my side, sipping a cup of tea made by Mr. for my sore throat. I hope you all had restful weekends - and I wish you wonderful weeks ahead.

xox

-:- from our kitchen lately

-:- Lo mein from here. I added some tofu (I put it in the skillet with the carrots and mushrooms) and a yellow pepper (added to the skillet with the cabbage).

-:- Mr.'s own vegan banana pancake recipe. I promise to share it soon - these were so good and such a wonderful surprise from my love!

-:- Last weekend, Mr. spent Sunday morning outside, shoveling our walkways and our neighbors' walkways after a fresh layer of snow had fallen. When he came back in to warm up and have breakfast, I was ready with some homemade bagels. Recipe from here. (I added 2 tsp. baking soda to my boiling water.)

-:- Blueberry vanilla oatmeal, adapted from here. I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk and added 1/2 c. of frozen blueberries instead of the pumpkin. I kept the cinnamon, but left the ginger and nutmeg. So good.

-:- Vegan chocolate peanut butter pie from here. Oh my goodness. I made two of these, one to test the recipe and one to take to dinner.

xox

-:- keep on keeping on

This weekend, after realizing that our plans were being kiboshed by the weather, I felt a little restless knitting-wise. I've been working on my cardigan all month and I love it, truly. But I wanted a small, simple, routine project to occupy my grey afternoon - one that would be finished relatively quickly.

So I did a little hunting on ravelry for some inspiration - and decided to make a jar cozy with some yarn that Mr. got me years ago, when I was first discovering knitting. Actually, the fact that Mr. bought me yarn says something about how fledgling my hobby was - neither one of us knew what a stash was at that point.

I cast on before the chores were done, paused every once in awhile to accomplish something around the house (and maybe to take a nap), and a few hours later, my drinking jar had become decidedly more snuggly. And I was ready to start working on my cardigan again. There's nothing like a little finished project to inspire you to keep on keeping on.

xox

-:- weekend scenes

This has been such a fun weekend - Mr. and I had dinner with some new friends at their house, which was just what the doctor ordered. We had a lot of fun and can't wait to reciprocate. I didn't take my camera (I thought that might be weird - hi, nice to meet you, can I take pictures of the dinner you cooked for my blog?) but they fixed such a beautiful spread - I almost wish I had risked it!

We had big plans to go into the city today, but Mother Nature forced us to cancel - we got a good layer of sleet and freezing rain under a couple of inches of snow - and that kept us off the roads for most of the day. But for as much fun as we would have had out and about, I was just as happy staying in with a cup of tea, my furry boys, and a bunch of gorgeous tulips to keep me company while I watched the snow fall.

The whole weekend was just gorgeous. And I hope yours was too!

xox

-:- weekend scenes

Last weekend, Mr. and I put all of the Christmas decorations away and scrubbed our house for the new year - we love Christmas and all of the happy head decorations that come with it, but our house feels so much bigger and lighter now that everything is tucked away again. To everything there is a season, I suppose!

This weekend, I picked up my knitting for the first time in a long time, tackled reorganizing our tiny pantry (now we can see what we have), and since we cleaned in a big way last weekend, we spent less time cleaning and more time relaxing this weekend. Mr. also made several pizza pies that we've been munching on pretty much non-stop (mine were made with nut cheese - yum).

I hope your weekends were filled with wonderful things and I'm wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

xox

-:- holiday cheer

This weekend I occupied myself with some quiet holiday baking that we shared with our neighbors and Mr.'s coworkers. Mr. and I picked our favorite cookies (lime meltaways for him and Russian tea cakes for me) and then I added a few new recipes to the mix. I am in love with those Bounty balls - they are so good and I think they will become a new holiday tradition around here.

And see those cinnamon chip oatmeal cookies? Mr. said they might be his new favorite. I didn't have enough oats on hand, so I supplemented with another multi-grain hot cereal. I also ran out of brown sugar and ended up with just short of a quarter cup (instead of the half cup the recipe calls for). Luckily, the finished product wasn't adversely affected by either modification.

Bounty Balls
Lime Meltaways
Russian Tea Cakes
Cinnamon Chip Oatmeal Cookies

yum.

xox