knitting is not a punishment; it's a privilege

This is making the knitting rounds via Ravelry and all that, but I have to post it here. I adore CBS News Sunday Morning, which is where I saw this segment. Marry it with knitting, and I'm in deep.

eat this, not that

I'll tell you what. You know I just ate something good if I'm on here posting about it.

These days one of my main priorities is to eat well, which means more vegetables for one thing. The last couple of nights I've been using my little in-pot steamer to steam broccoli and cabbage that taste like big old forkfuls of responsibility. Not bad, those steamed veggies. Just not what you'd want to eat, more what you should eat. Tonight I decided roasting was in order, and I realized I'd never had roasted cabbage that I could recall. Roasting a cabbage seems so obvious, but odd at the same time. I asked my mother if it was okay to even attempt such a thing (read: I Googled "roasted cabbage"; I have come to think of Google as the mother I never had, one who gives wise advice on unlimited topics) and came up with a few simple steps. Where I would've gone wrong is in the cutting of the cabbage, which is best done in wedges, like this recipe. I don't eat pork, so I icksnayed the bacon. For seasoning I did sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, garlic powder, and paprika. I drizzled and rubbed on olive oil and let the cabbage cook for 25-30 minutes at 450 degrees.

The result is hands down the absolute best cabbage I've ever eaten. Really, one of the absolute best anythings I've ever eaten. Roasting cabbage elevates it from cabbage to something as close to God as food comes.

Eat this, not that. That being anything else.

(Photos courtesy of Apartment Therapy's the kitchn.)

kind of about cars, but mostly about birds (with a cat along the way)

I'm happy you guys like the colors of my scarf. I'm making one for Natalie, but I have to rip it out because the consensus in my knitting group is that the colors I'm using don't work as well together. Oh well. You win some, and others you start again.

I haven't been knitting/crocheting much this week. Instead I've been focusing on life matters, and it's been a week of great relief and even joy.

Today the weather was so nice that after running errands I didn't want to be in the house; so I took Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed and sat in my car, in my driveway, and read.

I'm a big fan of sitting in the car, at home or in random parking lots. During break times at my old job, I'd drive to Vons Supermarket on 3rd and Vermont, sit in the lot and eat lunch or daydream. I don't rightly know why I'm drawn to hanging out in parked vehicles. Maybe the indoor/outdoor nature of being in a windowed box, a small, movable world, in private but in public simultaneously. It helps to have a sun roof. Then you feel like you're camping out.

At home there's only so much car camping I can do before nosy Mira comes around. She peeks in the sun roof, sometimes swiping at me, then treads on the windshields, leaving lots of paw prints to remember her by. Sometimes she'll jump in the car and act all trapped, scrambling to get out. I gripe, but I love this cat endlessly.

The view through the sun roof is what inspired this post. The sky was such a gorgeous blue, and there were these yellow birds I'd never noticed before filling up the tree branches above my house. (I barely know a cardinal from a crow; so if you can tell me what kind of bird these are, please do.)

danke schon

This is a post to thank Stacy, Lisa G, Ellen, afrowalking, golden star, Summer, and woolanthropy. Some of you are my real-life friends, others I only know from this weird, wonderful Internet, but you're all so sweet to comment on my blog, even after I've left it alone for like ever, and you say the kindest, most uplifting things, and I love you for it.

That's what's really on my mind, but while I'm here I'll share a project.

You have to love crochet, because all you have to do is watch a little TV while you're doing it, and voila! instant scarf, or shawl, or baby sweater ... whatever. It's really fast, and since it uses more yarn than knitting, it gives you an excuse to buy more.

I crocheted this scarf from this pattern. I made it solely because I saw the brown (Lamb's Pride Cafe Au Lait) and green (Lamb's Pride Moss) yarns resting in their cubby at work, and believed with all my heart that they needed to be wed in a project. Even with maneuvering the stripes, the scarf only took a couple of days, working off and on, to complete.