Grandma Emma’s Blanket

This blanket arrived in an old Nieman Marcus box that had handwritten in pen, “Grandma Emma blanket. 1999”. You see, the husband and I started dating at the end of the year in 1998. In 1999, Grandma Emma was crocheting a blanket for a family friend’s baby, to be born that year. The husband’s Mom then asked Grandma to crochet a blanket for the husband’s first born as well, as it was sort of known that her eye sight was not what it once was.

“Why,” she asked. “Is there something I should know?”

As it turned out, the husband and I wouldn’t marry until 2004. Grandma Emma passed away in 2006. And, now, finally, the husband and I have a baby on the way. The mother-in-law gave this to us on Thanksgiving. She’d been holding it for nine years. Waiting patiently. Who knew it would take this long? Not me. Probably not Grandma Emma, either.

Grandma Emmas Baby Blanket

Grandma Emma's Baby Blanket

A beautiful blanket. And a sweet story.

Gobble, gobbled

Another Thanksgiving come and gone! I asked the husband if he wanted to watch any Christmas movies today. He says we need to allow Thanksgiving to have its time in the limelight. I said it did … yesterday. He insists it needs the full weekend. So, no Rudolph or Frosty just yet. But, I bet before I return to work on Monday we will have our awesome fake Christmas tree out of storage. Happy Egg Nog.

Thanksgiving was at the in-laws last night. The lighting wasn’t very good in the dining room, so I apologize that the pics are sorta dismal. The highlights: a brined turkey. Incredibly juicy! The husband carved and was amazed at how pieces of turkey just fell out. Green bean casserole! What a great tradition. Stuffing! With water chestnuts and chicken liver. Yum. Oh so good.

thanksgiving plate

thanksgiving plate

juiciest. turkey. ever

juiciest. turkey. ever.

green bean casserole

green bean casserole

stuffing

stuffing

Did I mention, the mother-in-law surprised us with a delicious chocolate pecan pie? Yum. The husband really loved it. I was glad we got to take some home.

chocolate pecan pie via chattycha on flickr

MILs Chocolate Pecan Pie

And, I brought along the Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake (the 2008 version)

Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake (the 2008 version)

I used a mix of reduced fat cream cheese and whole cream cheese, and for the topping I also combined low-fat sour cream with regular sour cream. If I can remember, for next year, I may do like the MIL, and try a new recipe. I’m not really a cheesecake eater, and this tends to be the only time of the year I will eat (let along bake) cheesecake. So, I’ll have to decide if I’m willing to give that up!

BTW, the cheesecake recipe is courtesy of Gourmet Magazine, on Epicurious.com

Leg warmers

Do you remember when leg warmers were the “in” thing? I was in maybe third grade or something. Not just for aerobicizing women, I’m pretty we just wore them to school. They were h-o-t.

Anyway, I purchased some super-cute leg warmers as a baby shower gift from Baby Legs. Then, I decided I could also knit some basic ones. Not as cute as the polka dots, stripes, or skull and crossbones that Baby Legs makes, but these were done while watching Sunday Night Football. Nice and easy. Here’s the pattern I used.

baby leg warmers

baby leg warmers

Believe it or not, the yarn is the same as the baby hat I knit earlier. Different light, different time of the day that the picture was taken makes the colors a bit off. I know, we are having a girl and I’ve knit a lot of blue stuff. But, I’m merely trying to use yarn that I have sitting in the house. Besides I’m not one to put gender stereotypes on my child so early. Don’t cha think? For anyone who is still not convinced, my plan is to add some pom-poms to the bottom of warmers to make them a little bit more girly, but not too girly. Either I will outsource the pom-poms to E., or perhaps I’ll try to do them myself. I just found some instructions on the web. Ain’t the Inter-webs amazing?

Sorry, this blog has become more crafty than I meant it to be. I’ll bring some food pics back soon. It is Thanksgiving weekend, after all, and this afternoon I’ll be making my traditional bourbon pumpkin cheesecake.

Monday

Today I had to take another glucose screening blood test. Results come in on Wednesday. Apparently my first glucose screening took place about five days before the window of when I’m supposed to have it. Because of my Asian heritage, doc recommended we do it again. Depending on the results, I may not be eating many more sweets from here on out. The husband thought ahead and we shared a very tasty slice of chocolate cake. Hint of coconut and caramel on top of the frosting. It was quite the piece of cake. This is what happens when we split the evening chores (“You walk Max. I’ll pick up some groceries.”) Sorry, no pics. We ate it too quickly. Well, there is still a hunk of it in the fridge but it’s not pretty now, half-eaten and all.

So, anyway. Today’s workout was very similar to Saturday, 15 min on treadmill (2.5% incline, 3.6 mph) then 30 minutes on elliptical, with the HR hovering in the 150s this time. Ended with a quick circuit of squats, bicep curls and shoulder press, all using the red band. I was doing this in the women’s workout room and observed a woman walking backwards on the treadmill. Seriously?

Finally, on the knitting front. Working on a pair of baby leg warmers. Stay tuned for a pic in the near future.

Exercise and espresso

Today: 15 minutes walking on the treadmill, 2% incline at 3.5 mph. Then, 30 minutes elliptical, kept the heart rate in the 140s. Then, bw squats, biceps and shoulder press with band. Taking it easy these days. I gained a little more weight these past four weeks than I should have, no doubt due to the fact that I’m not exercising as much as I used to. Oh, and I suppose the cookie baking, Halloween candy eating, mocha imbibing has something to do with it.

My favorite beverage of this season: a tall decaf reduced-fat eggnog latte. The decaf, yeah, it’s kinda lame, but whatev. I’m over it. Egad. Nevermind. I just checked the web site and apparently one of these suckers is 370 calories. The runner-up, tall nonfat with whipped mocha is “just” 230 calories. A bit easier to digest, so to speak.

Knitting Projects

I have a stash of yarn. There was a particular project that I had held off on until I was pregnant … a baby blanket. I sorta felt like if I started a blanket before I became pregnant that it would somehow jinx the getting pregnant part. But then, weeks and months went by and I completely forgot of my intentions. Until a few weeks ago, wherein I hustled this little project out.

knitted baby blanket in eggplant

knitted baby blanket in eggplant

It is a very easy pattern. I’ve done several dishcloths using a similar pattern, and just expanded it significantly to create a large blanket. The idea behind the diamond-shaped blanket is that you start by casting on 5 stitches, then continue to increase each row until you get to the halfway point. Then you begin decreasing each row until you get back to 5 stitches on the needle. I reviewed a lot of patterns and one suggested adding a little hood at the end, which I did. However, the husband suggested, upon project completion, that the hood looked a bit pointy. He says it reminded him of the cartoon “The Point” which I had never heard of, but after hearing him talk about, now I want to see it.

Anyway, E. from the vp suggested a pom-pom for the hood, and did I mention she also has a pom-pom maker?

hood with pom-pom

hood with pom-pom

Last weekend I started my second project … infant hats. The first one (I finished it yesterday) is pretty small, so it’s definitely newborn. Using double-pointed needles, I did an inch of ribbing, then just knitted in a round, and 2 inches later began decreasing each row to create the crown until the end. Wasn’t quite sure how to finish it so there’s a little notch at the top.

baby hat

baby hat

I’m not a great knitter. My skills end at “beginner”. But I enjoy doing it. And it gives me something to do while vegging out in front of the tv.

Last one

Hey, I finally finished the full workout from New Rules of Lifting for Women. I skipped Stage 5, where you basically focus your exercises towards doing an unassisted pull-up. I’ll do that another time, but I repeated Stage 7, and that’s where I ended this morning:
BW Squats – Tabata for 3 minutes
(4 sets of 15 reps, 30 seconds rest in between each exercise):

  • Squats with heels on plates, 12.5#
  • DB Shoulder Press, 12.5#
  • Step Ups, 12.5#
  • Push-ups (at 30 deg angle)

This varies from the book workout in that I swapped Lat Pull downs for the push ups. I also lightened up the weight big time, as I’m carrying an extra 20 lbs around, I figure it’s not really necessary to do heavier weights as well. Afterwards, 30 minutes of steady state on the Elliptical.

A little bit burned out on the NROL thing, so I’m looking for other lifting ideas that I can do in my third trimester (yes, that’s right, I’m just beginning my third trimester. 12 weeks to go!). Anyone have suggestions? Send them on.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The husband requested chocolate chip cookies last week, but we didn’t have chocolate chips. He bought some for me, and then casually left the walnuts out on the kitchen table as well, so here are some chocolate chip walnut cookies. The husband bought milk chocolate morsels, not the semi-sweets that I would have chosen. But, hey, he wanted the cookies, so he chooses the morsels.

I took care this time to take them out of the oven just as the sides started turning brown. Growing up I always burned the bottoms of my cookies. Never occured to me to take them out of the oven a little bit before the buzzer rang.

chocolate chip cookies with walnuts

chocolate chip cookies with walnuts

Anyway. The cookies were good. Not burnt.