As the years have gone by I've watched the book arrangement on shelves at local bookstores change. They've gone from being tightly packed and separated by hardcover and paperback, to a mix of some covers facing outward among a sea of spines, to this; a mix of paperback and hardcover with all the covers facing outward. Granted this is the "new release" section, but a lot of the bookstore is similarly spaced like this.

This makes the little kid in me that dreamed of owning a used bookstore cry.

There is something alluring about this blue shopping bag. Maybe it is the feeling of the fabric against Leki's fur. Maybe it's the color. Whatever it is, he's been obsessed with laying on it. He's even knocked it off of places I try to hide it.

Construction downtown has begun for the season.

I'm going to blame the weather for the obnoxious headache I've had for the last week. Who know's if that's the true culprit. All I know is it's steadily been getting more obnoxious, and today it was too much. I spent a big chunk of the day lying around doing nothing, going from feeling fine as the headache waned to lying around trying to convince myself it's not that bad when it started to wax. I'm happy its Sunday and we didn't have a whole lot going on today.

I did get to enjoy the ferret and the cat playing around a bit.

I also made a modified version of a chicken and dumpling soup recipe I really like. We now have leftovers. Yay!
So yes, I know this isn't a photo of the chicken soup, but it is one of the cat laying on fresh laundry. Way cuter, right?

It's a macaron party at Erin's!

Step one? Planning!

Also, whiteboards are awesome.
With planning out of the way it was time to get started laying out the various ingredients and prepping the area.
Each of the five of us, Amy, Jacqui (slightly hidden), Rachel, Erin and myself, were responsible for a different flavor of macaron cookie. So that meant five different batches in all kinds of flavors. The possibilities were endless!
Amy, the local baking goddess (she's worked in a bakery, people), worked on piping the first batch.
With each of us making a different flavor we ended up with quite a few different colors and texture of macarons. They were sticky little buggers, so it was hard to get them off of the parchment paper.

Erin and Jared were kind enough to feed the group of us, so when the macaron cooking was done, we took a break and ate some tasty dinner. After that we hung out and watched some netflix and enjoyed sitting down. It was so nice sitting down I don't think any of us really wanted to get up and get cracking on the filling portion.

I came home with a few cookies of each of the flavors. My intent is to make the filings and assemble a macaron cookie at home. That is, if I don't eat the cookie halves before I get around to the filling, and there's a strong likelihood that will happen.
Also today is a certain orange terror's 4th birthday! Here he is looking innocent but the bags under my eyes from being awakened at 5am can attest to him being anything but. Happy birthday my little orange monster!


I think half of this stuff was melted the the evening.


Argh! Stupid scarf!

The worst part is I kind of want to make this one too.


We spent a chunk of the night narrowing down and selecting a home owners insurance policy. That would just be a boring photo of papers, so here is a more orange, sausage-y alternative!

Today started out kinda blah. Having a cavity filling done first thing in the morning is always the most fun.
Finishing the first Dalek washcloth, however, is.

I'm pretty sure I have enough yarn left over to make another in off-white, plus I have a whole thing of green.

I'm going to make bunches of these and practice getting more even stitches. I also think I might try blocking this, just to try that. From everything I read it sounds like blocking can help even out stitches, and as you can see, there are some tight and loose areas in that stockinette bit.

This knitted up fast, once I got started, and I had a lot of fun. Maybe because most of the time I just had constant Doctor Who episodes in my mind while knitting.

I'm enjoying these quick easy projects. Poor Chris's scarf gets no love. I'll finish it eventually, I swear! I only have like another foot I need to knit on that thing...

Some days I just really enjoy wandering the skywalk at lunch.

A little over a week ago after finishing up my first knitting project (blanket), I decided to try a Dalek washcloth. Yes, I do still have a scarf in progress for Chris, but it's been so warm this winter, he doesn't really need it anyway. Besides, that thing is taking forever.

This washcloth, however, is knitting up quick! I've completed the skirt and soon it will be onto the eye-stalk and finishing border.

I'm totally going to make another one of these in green.


With an offer accepted on a house, the next step was to do a home inspection. So this Saturday Chris and I headed over to our potential new home for a thorough inspection.

We learned some things, confirmed that nothing was insanely wrong with the house, and got to take measurements of all of the rooms.

All in all it was an afternoon well spent. I'm excited and looking forward to the next phase we need to act on: closing.

Now to just wait for the bank and title companies to do their thing.

There's a dancing buffalo in front of the new Buffalo Wild Wings (and across from the My Bar & Grill) downtown.

Cause you know, what Ionia street was really missing was another bar where you can get hot wings.


The World of Warcraft desk calendar my little brother got me last year has been an endless source of amusement.

Coming home to Mass Effect 2 so there's no downtime between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.

Now I just have to finish Mass Effect....

...that they have DS9 on Netflix? Guess what I did tonight!

Monday was an intense day. We put an offer in on a house over the weekend and received a counter offer today.

Plus there was work.

I definitely was happy to hang out and do what the cat is doing when everything settled down in the evening.

Part of me really wishes that this came in adult size.
Also, I woke up from a nap today to find Chris creating an awesome Doctor Who police box, out of paper.

We spent last evening driving around with our realtor looking at houses in the crappy weather, so today neither of us were terribly motivated to go out and about. It's pretty out, I'll give you that. But it's cold and the Fusion is, to be perfectly blunt, a horrible drive in the snow (even with brand new tires). I miss my Taurus.

I hung out a chunk of the day and played some Mass Effect. With the third installment coming out soon I feel like I really should finish at least the first. I'm also avoiding any news about Mass Effect 3 like the plague in case there are any spoilers concerning Mass Effect 2.
I did finally get around to experimenting with some food. I've been contemplating for the better part of a week to stuff crescent roll dough into a muffin pan, fill it with hamburger meat (and other burger toppings) and bake it. I'm not sure what you'd call them. Cheeseburger cups? Mini-muffin burgers?

Regardless of what you'd call them, they came out tasty. I under-filled all of the muffin pans because I was worried they'd puff up while baking, but nope. Next time I'll know to put more fillings in the

They'd make great party food. You could honestly stuff the things with anything.

Giant clusters of snow started to fall around noon while I was out and about on lunch.

Sunny. Not too chilly. A perfect day to take a stroll around downtown Grand Rapids.

I've been working on and off with a few different projects, but mostly knitting a blanket. Using bulky yarn and big needles gives the feeling of making progress quickly, which I like.

I ended up knitting about 6 extra inches (which honestly, I think is fine) before I realized that I was actually done with the blanket. I mean, I guess I could make it whatever length I want to (done is when I decide it's done) but if I was going by the pattern, I went too long. 
Anyway, it took me another hour or so to do the frills on both ends. Mostly because the cat really, really likes new things. Especially new things that involve yarn.

I'm mostly happy with the finished product. The ends to curl a little bit, which I read later is an issue with the stockinette stitch. If I make another blanket I might try to make a border so it doesn't curl just to see how that works.

But, it's the first actual knitting project I finished. Poor Chris's scarf is feels like it's taking forever compared to this blanket. Two feet is long enough for a scarf, right?

7am. Fillings at the dentist. Great way to kick off a Tuesday...

It wasn't too cold yesterday so I decided to take a stroll around downtown Grand Rapids. All of the nicer paths along the water are closed but I could still cross all of the bridges so I was satisfied.

One awesome thing about knitting this blanket is how much progress I feel like I've made after just a few rows. Knitting with bulky yarn and thick needles is like magic!

The gray scarf on the other hand, feels like its taking ages...

Today's been kind of a bleh day. It started with waking up a little after midnight and thinking it was the morning. Then again a few hours later doing the same thing. Chris was also up much of the night and he was feeling pretty ill.

The day went by and I can honestly say I didn't do much. I tried to knit a bit but mostly I laid around watching seasons of Being Human (UK version).

Chris spent most of the day on the couch alternating between sleeping and feeling terrible while conscious. As the day wore on he started to feel a little better, so that's a good thing. This evening he's still not 100%.

Meanwhile the cat has been an absolute terror (don't let that photo fool you). Having his schedule messed with makes him evil. He thought 4am was breakfast and spent a big chunk of the day scratching at everything for attention.

I hope Chris feels worlds better tomorrow and I hope that orange terror kitty gets back onto his normal schedule.

There's a zamboni out there driving around, doing it's thing, and making the Rosa Parks ice rink smooth.

With temperatures soaring into the 40's this week nearly all of the snow has melted. No snow certainly makes for a less slushy walk downtown while on lunch.

Sometimes when we're watching the previous night's Daily Show on the DVR, we discover it's an extended interview. When that happens we boot up an ipad and watch the full thing on the web.