bekswhoknits

Yarn shopping!

Posted on July 1, 2011July 4, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Even though it was raining yesterday, I needed to buy some new yarn to start a couple of new knitting projects. So I decided to brave the rain and head to Spotlight.

I love Spotlight. It doesn’t have the feel of the little yarn store in Bassendean, but it’s so big you can find pretty much anything you want.

And of course there were a couple of impulse buys. I was tired of using a big sistema container (me tired of sistema, yes I know, world gone topsy-turvy) that was too small. So I bought a fold out kind of hamper ($10), which I thought was pretty trendy until I got it home and J remarked that it looked like something his Nan owns. But his Nan is all kinds of awesome so I don’t really mind too much.

I also bought a knitting needle case ($5). I bought a bamboo set of double pointed needles from eBay which has sizes from 4 – 8 (so a lot of needles) and I needed to have some organization to them. I love order and having everything in place.

Continue reading Yarn shopping!

My life as I know it.

Posted on June 30, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Is a shambles.

An absolute mess.

I have no idea where anything is. Well actually I know where everything is – on the floor.

But until we get our new furniture that’s life.

New toy

Posted on June 30, 2011June 29, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Well with some of the money that we got paid out from the insurance company. After replacing most of the clothes and furniture, there was a little money left to buy me an iPad.

Yeah so maybe I’m rationalizing it a bit, but I wanted one.
And I have wanted one for ages.

I must confess i’m a bit of a apple fangirl, I have had an iPod since I was 17 (a few years ago now) and have had three iPods since. And I have my iPhone, my boyfriend has now bought an iPhone (mostly because of me) and now I have an iPad.

Of course the iPad/iPhone/iTouch experience is all about the apps.
And I have my favorites.

I have bought all of the ‘dash’ games (diner dash, cooking dash, hotel dash, and wedding dash), and they work well for the iPad.
Although not as many levels as the iPhone versions because I finished them in one day.
But the beauty of the dash games is in their simple gameplay which can be repeated without getting boring.
I’m addicted to them.

My boyfriend doesn’t get them at all.
Meh.

anything we need from the shops? – google docs to the rescue

Posted on June 29, 2011October 5, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Being the technology lover that i am, i’m always looking for ways that technology will help improve and generally make my life easier.

I’m the main shopper for the household. It’s something that i’d like to be able to delegate without ending up with a cupboard full of pop tarts and steak.
But as i generally end up going to the shops straight after work, i always end up sms-ing the boy with something along the lines of “anything we need from the shops?” or “you wrote something on the fridge that we ran out of, what was that again?”.
All of which results in me going to the shops (which i hate), walking around the shops in a rage, and getting home and remembering what i needed to buy.

I knew that somewhere out there, someone else shares this problem.
And given that we both have iphones, there has to be an app for that.

Not that I could find, but I found a solution anyway.

Google Docs.

I created a shared document, which both of us can edit, and put a shortcut on each of our home screens.
Now when I’m shopping I can pull up the shopping list and not forget anything (or at least absolve blame).
And if I need to I can send J shopping and he (theoretically) can return with a balanced shopping trolley.

Items can be added as inspiration strikes, and live updating means that if i need to add something while J’s at the shops he can get it straight away.

It’s the best solution that i’ve found for sharing shopping lists between iphones, or indeed smartphones.

parcels of hammy goodness (oh and salad)

Posted on June 29, 2011July 6, 2011 by bekswhoknits

The continuing adventures of my salad sistema container

My sistema container has had a lot of use since i bought it. It’s also half price at Coles at the moment, which i’m not too pleased about. But murphy’s law does dictate as soon as you buy something it will be on sale for cheaper.

Today i have a chopped salad. Which is really just a whole heap of fruit and vegies chopped up for picking at.
There’s mandarin, mushrooms, celery, tomato, snow peas, carrot, and lettuce.
All of which taste good with Australian mustard, which is what’s in the dressing container.

With some left over store bought potato salad (which has some tinned corn added because last night we added half a tin of corn to the stew and i didn’t know what else to do with half a tin of corn).
And some ham. Because ham is also good with mustard and wrapped in lettuce, to make a tiny parcels of hammy goodness.

On a wintery evening

Posted on June 29, 2011June 29, 2011 by bekswhoknits

A stew was in order.
It was a blustery day in perth.
The sort of day where you want to curl up with a good book, but had to be at work instead.

So at about 10 o clock i decided that a stew was in order. Something nice and hearty; a reason to have the oven on.

It wasn’t the greatest stew i’ve ever made. My head wasn’t quite in the game and i forgot to add flavour.
And when i did it was a bit too late.

Onion and chuck steak went in a fry pan to brown.
Then some flour went over that, as a thickening agent.
I imagine it like a roux sauce where your flour and butter stick together and then thicken milk, except for a casserole i use beer. And in this case Fosters.
My boy and I are two Australians who actually drink Fosters, but it is hard to find.

While that was bubbling away i chopped some potatoes, carrots, capsicum, and mushrooms.

They went in the bottom of my little casserole dish and then the meat on top.
That went in the oven for half an hour.
I checked on it at half an hour, the potatoes still weren’t cooked, and it was very bland.
So i added some salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and HP barbeque sauce (seriously what was i thinking not adding any of this earlier??) and stirred that through the best i could.
Another half an hour and it was still looking a bit runny, so i put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

It still wasn’t really thick (i don’t know why i can’t get a nice thick stew – to the research-mobile!), but i was hungry.

It definitely hit the spot, but i’m going to have to practice some more to make it good.

Posted on June 27, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Another night of Parks and Recs.
The tennis is on. I wanted to watch the Tomic game because he’s doing so well. But when we switched it over it was just finished.
Then women’s tennis came on (can’t stand the grunting).

So it’s Parks and Recs. Completely addicted. April Luddgate is my power animal.

Saturday lunch @ Chapels on Whatley

Posted on June 27, 2011August 9, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Maylands is evolving.
Slightly biased because I live here, but I keep discovering new places.
Well mostly I stick to the same places but every now and again we venture out to some where new.

Chapels on Whatley has been a shop that I’ve walked past on the way to the train countless time. But it never really appealed to me aesthetically. It’s just not the kind of furniture that I like.

But as a coffee shop I was willing to give it a shot. And I was pleasantly surprised.

Feeling ever so delicate from a night at the Inglewood previously, the ham bagel went down a treat.
But the highlight was the scone and jam that was fresh and hot out of the oven, and the best cup of tea I have had in a very long time.

They actually sell the tea as well which I have to buy, as soon as I buy a teapot that I can use. I have my Royal Albert teapot which I got for my 21st, but I’ve never used it.

Now I’m on the hunt for a teapot.

Chicken!

Posted on June 27, 2011June 27, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Monday. The start of the week.
I’m always a little bit more enthusiastic on a monday – well as ado an as i get home from work.
Mondays at work are never productive but Monday afternoons seem to be.

So full of gusto, I cleaned the bathroom, started cleaning the kitchen, and decided to tackle a nice veggie filled dinner.

The veggies were boiled.
The carrots went in first, then the cauliflower. The bok choy and snow peas went in at the very end just to blanch.

The chicken was grilled in a little bit of butter (mmm butter). Then once that was cooked some sauvignon blanc (I’m getting better with my wines) went in to deglaze the pan. After that had boiled off, some chicken stock and cream went in to make a sauce. Some fresh parsley and chives topped off the sauce and that was it.

And the best thing was, after eating it I don’t feel bloated and stuffed.
Great way to start the week.

British Morning Socks

Posted on June 24, 2011June 27, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Next knitting project is for a friend who also loves How I Met Your Mother, and will totally appreciate the Ted packing his overnight bag, not with slippers but British Morning Socks. But said friend is also going to England soon to visit family so it’s a pretty good double play on words.

So I was looking through my basic knitting patterns (free download from knitting daily) and thought that the Mocassins looked easy enough.

I used Patons Inca in red and black. And followed the pattern to the letter.
It uses size 8 double pointed needles, so it looks like a sock pretty quickly. And then it switches to size 5 double pointed for that extra bit of detail.
I can’t reproduce the pattern here, but it should be easy enough to find on the Knitting Daily site.

I’m currently doing up a pair for myself in the Moda Cardellino yarn, but you can’t really see the ribbing detail as much with the multi-coloured yarn. I think i’ll have to buy some more Patons Inca, it really is the better yarn for it.

I can see these becoming a standby birthday/christmas present.

I’m giving them to my friend tonight. Hopefully she’ll like them (and get the joke).