Bread for Brunch

So this glorious bit of brunch happened this weekend. 

Drooling? I sure did. 

Sometimes, especially when the Sailor isn't home, I don't make a great effort to sit at the table, let alone set it with any great fanfare. I end up hastily eating something over the sink, or somewhere near the counter, wondering if I should have even bothered using a plate. 

Is it just me, or do we all do this at some point when we're on our own? 

I have gotten better about this... and nowadays I do find myself eating most meals at the actual table. Last Friday, soon after I bought these flowers, I decided I had a hankering for Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread (this delightful dish is one of many found on Annie's Eats... my go-to site for great recipe ideas.) 

Bread isn't normally on my list of things to make from scratch on a weekend morning, but when I realized I could make the dough ahead of time and then store it in the fridge overnight, I decided to just go for it. The next morning, all I had to do was roll it out, assemble it, let it rise again and then bake it! 

As a bonus, this was the perfect scene for the first day of February's round of #7Vignettes on Instagram. The theme was 'love' and who doesn't love a good Saturday morning brunch? (Not to mention those wonderful pink Pyrex vintage plates?!)

Slipper Flop?

Remember when I felted these slippers last month? 

At first they felt (no pun intended...) a little big. I wore them around, and they flopped all over the place. Not really what you want in cozy slippers. Like socks, slippers should hug your feet perfectly to keep them warm. 

These did not. They felt like a flop to me.

So I bent the rules and threw them in the front-loading washing machine to felt them further. 

Absolute success. I had to stretch them out a bit while they were still wet, but the second felting worked. 

I wanted the blue layer on the outside, but even after the second felting, it kept falling off while I walked around. An hour would pass and I'd wonder why my left foot was colder than my right and then I'd find a lonely slipper on the other side of the apartment. The inside gray layer stayed on, however.

I kind of chalked it up to a bad knitting job (after all... I'm on a roll with this yarn and the sweaters...) but then I realized I could put the blue layer on the inside and the tighter gray layer could keep them on. 

While these are nice slippers... I still prefer this felt clog style in the winter, simply because they cover more of my feet. These however, are great for spring or fall, I think. 

Definitely not a flop!

Friday Flowers

Many, many moons ago, when I was a 20-something writer living in England, I used to buy myself flowers nearly every Friday. I lived in a little village that had everything you could ask for: a post office, a train station that went directly to London in 20 minutes, a small grocery store, an even smaller corner shop, the best bagels I've ever had in my life, and a flower shop. 

We used to get out of work early on Fridays -- around lunchtime. Believe me, we still worked a 40-hour-week (sometimes much longer!) but those Friday were glorious. Unless there was a crazy deadline, I was out the door early. 

I'd clean my house, get food for the weekend, water my plants, and I'd almost always go for a walk. England has the best footpaths that make you feel as though you're miles from civilization, even though you're just a block away from a main street. And even when you're in a residential area, people are serious about their flower gardens.

My actual flower garden was in a sad state. The lady who lived in the house previously had multiple green thumbs and she left an amazing bunch of flowers for me to tend to. Sadly, I didn't have a clue what to do unless the flowers were in a pot. To make matters worse, in what was meant to be a good deed, my neighbor mowed my tiny front yard for me and hacked my flowers apart in the process. (They hadn't yet bloomed... and somehow he couldn't tell the difference between flower stems and the giant grass growing around them.)

Along my walk home, I'd invariably stop to admire the buckets of flowers outside the florist's. And then, I'd almost always purchase some. Even if my outdoor flower garden wasn't up to snuff, I'd have some gorgeous blooms indoors. 

Today, after going for a walk (the temperatures were above freezing, I'm happy to report), I stopped to get some groceries on the way home. At the entrance to the store, I saw these mini yellow roses, and I realized far too many Fridays have passed since I bought myself some flowers. I think the last time may have been months ago, when I bought these carnations.

 

I think it might be high time to re-institute the Friday Flower tradition. 

Have a great weekend! 

Let it (Not) Snow

So 'a chance of flurries' turned into snow yesterday... and the South made national headlines because apparently one inch of this stuff wreaks more havoc around here than a blizzard does in the Northeast. 

This is what's left of the snow on my porch. 

Mind you, it IS chilly and the roads are slick. And apparently salt and sand and those trucks that spread the stuff around are in short supply. 

Having a snow day with one inch of snow is a perfectly delightful way to get cracking on the rest of those fingerless gloves (I'm up four and just started the fifth...) 

I still can't believe how many people were stranded in the 'snowstorm' (kids had to stay overnight in some schools!) and I'm thankful I didn't have to go anywhere yesterday or today. I didn't expect that at all from an inch or two of snow.
 

This is the kind of snow that I grew up with.

That's my old car. 

I know you really can't see it, but I can assure you it was under there, because I'm pretty sure I drove it fairly soon after I shoveled out from under the white stuff. I had a trunk full of kitty litter and a shovel in there, too. Just in case.

A good snowstorm once a year that keeps everyone indoors with a day off is usually good. But I know for many people, this year has seen far too much cold weather. 

This is one of the reasons we moved South. The Sailor doesn't like the cold, or shoveling. I concur. The other night, the light at dusk reminded me a little of spring. It was still frigid out, but I caught a glimpse that winter doesn't last forever (even though in some parts of the States, it may feel like that right now!) 

Here's to hoping for an early thaw -- even if there is a just a dusting of snow in your part of the world. 

Seed Stitch and Plant Revival

This sweater is still a hot mess. I knit one sleeve, thinking that I just needed to give it arms and then I'd like it. 

Still not convinced. 

Right now it's laying in a ball next to the sofa awaiting its fate. I fear that if I rip it out, I'll regret it. After all, I was the one obsessed with seed stitch there for a while. But realistically, although it's a nice seed stitch design, it looks terrible on me. I even took a selfie while wearing it (with just the one arm...) in the bathroom mirror. My face is grimacing, which tells me that this is NOT the bulky, cozy sweater for me. And no, I'm NOT posting that photo. I can think of better ways to use this bulky yarn. Grimacing is not one of them.

On a completely different note (and because I like to end with a bit of positive fluff  -- much like the evening news) this plant had me convinced that it wasn't going to make it once winter hit. Almost months after I re-potted it, this thing is springing back to life.