Drop Spinning

Starting a new hobby for me is starting to become difficult. I used to joke that whenever there is a rainy day I'll start a new hobby... It becomes a little less funny to some people when they find out just how true that statement is! But I think that learning something new is one of the best things you can do for yourself and it is a lot of fun. I've been a knitter since I was a kid and have always loved looking at different colors and textures of yarns in the stores. Recently I wondered if it would be possible and feasible for me to make my own yarns out of wool. I got super excited straight away and decided I wanted to get a spinning wheel. I did a bit of research and decided on the one I wanted:

The Ashford Traveller:

I just love it! But I can't really justify spending so much money on something I've really never tried before... It would just be a shame to get it and then find out that I don't love spinning yarn as much as I thought I would.

Fortunately there is another much cheaper option out there.

Drop Spindles:

Drop spindles are a LOT cheaper than a spinning wheel and can do pretty well the exact same thing! Both tools put twist into fibre (such as wool) to create yarn. Drop spindles, however, are a lot more affordable and portable, to start off with especially. My sister also wanted to start spindling so she picked up an Ashford Student Spindle from a yarn shop in our area for $11.50! And she has already made some beautiful yarns with it.

My spindle looks a little bit different because my Husband actually got me a handmade one for Christmas that they had at the yarn shop. =) I really love the look of it and I think I'll probably always use it. =)

I'm still working on getting really even yarn, and working on how much twist to put into the yarn, but I'm having a lot of fun learning! And I think that I've gotten even with just the bit that I've done so far.

I decided to take most of the pink and grey fibre that I also got for Christmas and make a pair of pink and grey mittens. I'm pretty excited to see how they work out.

I've got half of the yarn done for the mittens, and then the rest of the fibre to spin up for the other ball in the background there. I'm excited to get to try making something out of my own yarn soon!

A Day of Cooking

Where I live January tends to be the coldest month of the winter. This year has decided to make no exceptions. I think January is probably even more difficult to get through because there are no cheerful Christmas lights or warm family gatherings to look forward to anymore. It's just kinda the daily grind... and then Mother Nature drops another foot and a half of snow. Not Awesome.

This past weekend there was a pretty decent snow storm that lasted a lot of both Friday and Saturday which made doing anything at all pretty unappealing. On Sunday however, my Husband and I needed to get groceries and all either of us really wanted right then was piping hot homemade soup.

We decided on our two favourites, French Onion Soup, and Borscht. We realized at the time that this was going to be kind of a task to get everything done, but to have enough soup for the next week or two would be worth it!

Cooking up onions and beets, and then the pots of finished soups simmering on the stove!

For the Borscht we used:

4 Cups of Shredded Beets
3x900ml Boxes of Beef Broth
1 can (1.36 Litres) Tomato Juice
3 Medium Yellow Onions
1/2 Cup White Vinegar
2 Tbs Sugar
2 Tsp Black Pepper
1 Tbs Dill

Chop the Onions and fry until slightly browned in a frying pan. While the Onions brown, pour the Beef Broth and Tomato Juice into a Large Pot and set the stove to Medium - High. Add the Onions to the Beef Broth and Tomato Juice once they've browned. Fill a Medium Sized Pot with water and bring to a boil. Add the beets to the boiling water and turn down the temperature to medium. Cook until the beets have lost most of their colour. Strain the beets and add them to the hot beef broth and tomato juice.

The Vinegar, Sugar, Pepper, and Dill should be added to taste. I sort of wrote in about how much we used, however. We've made this soup a few times now and I think every time we make it we do things a little bit differently, but it always turns out to be delicious!

We decided also to make Perishky or Sauerkraut Buns to go with the Borscht. We fried Onions and Mushrooms with the Sauerkraut to make the filling, and I didn't know what kind of dough to use (and by this point was pretty tired...) so I just made a pizza / bread dough recipe that I already knew I could make as I've made it a few times before. It's actually the Jamie Oliver Pizza Dough Recipe and I think it tastes really good and is really easy to make!

For the Filling We Used:

About 2 Cups of Chopped Mushrooms
1 Medium Sized Onion
1 1Litre Jar of Sauerkraut

We fried the Mushrooms and Onions separately from the Sauerkraut as the Sauerkraut just has to brown slightly and we wanted to cook the mushrooms and onions a bit longer.

 I think maybe next time I will only make maybe one soup at a time, and maybe we'll give the Perishky their own separate day as well... But all of this cooking was totally worth it! And even though we were crazy tired by the end of it, it was really nice getting to spend the whole day cooking with my Husband as we usually sort of just go off and do our own thing. It's kind of surprising how little you can interact with someone on a day to day basis, even when you live in the same little house! So it's really nice every now and again to slow down and do something fun together.

Thanks for reading!
Keep Warm!
xoxo

Happy New Year!

I can't believe that it's already 2013! The start of a new year is always so exciting! I love "starting points" like, I'll start new projects on sundays typically because it's the start of a new week, or maybe I'll start a big project at the start of a new month, so a new year is always fun because you get to think of any goals or projects that you want to start to hopefully last the entire year!

I love sitting down and really thinking of a list of new goals to set into place every new year, but they always seem to end up looking tragically similar. I usually just end up with a new diet and work out plan that I stick to until february. This year I decided that weight loss could not be part of my resolutions and this is what I finally decided on.

Get Organized: Basically I want to actually find a place for everything in my home so that every room doesn't feel like it's cluttered with every random thing I own. I also want to organize my time better so that I can always stick to my daily cleaning and working out goals without really having to even think about it much.

Live a Little More: I spend far too much of my time planning for the future instead of actually doing things. I couldn't honestly tell you why that is, but it is a really bad habit I've fallen into. This year I want to plan dates with my husband, go out with my friends, and just spend a lot more time with the people in my life. I also want to sort of live life a little bit more on my own too by doing things I don't normally let myself do like, cook a meal that takes all day, or go for a drive to take pictures in a park somewhere, and I want to do a lot more small projects around the house. I basically just want to have a lot more days where, at the end of the day I can look back at how fun a day was, or how much I accomplished and just feel really fulfilled.

And that's basically it! I'm really excited about these goals as they are really out of the 'norm' for me, and I'm just really excited for 2013!

Happy New Year!!

Decorating for Christmas

Christmas has always been filled with a lot of traditions in my family. Things you don't notice when you're a kid, but that I've really come to appreciate them now that I'm moved out. We do things like a gift exchange between all of the siblings, have an advent wreath that we light at supper, and we always put up the Christmas Tree as a family. 

Putting up the Christmas Tree is always a lot of fun because we usually listen to Christmas Carols, or watch Christmas movies and eat some snacks. It's just a really relaxing time to hang out and not worry about anything else that's going on in our day to day lives.

I decided that for my tree I would kind of go with a blue and silver theme for the plain "Jingle Ball" decorations, and mostly just scattered the more sentimental ornaments around the tree. I'm looking forward to collecting a lot more original and special ornaments over the years.

Merry Christmas Everyone! And Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is happy and warm and with their families.

Low Fat Tuna Sandwich

Hey Guys! So with the weather getting colder I've been really tempted to eat of ton of carbs, and I somehow always seem to be super hungry. In an attempt to not eat rice, and toast all-the-time I figured I'd try to find something that was filling and still pretty good for you at the same time.

 I decided on a tuna sandwich! I used to love tuna sandwiches as a kid, but I haven't had one in forever! I wanted to try making it lower in fat, while still tasting good, so instead of using the usual white bread and mayonnaise I used:

1 Can of Flaked Light Tuna
1 Tbs of Lemon Juice
1/4 Tsp of Black Pepper
1/8 Tsp of Dill
A couple Tomato Slices
1 Slice of Whole Wheat Bread

I lightly toasted the slice of Whole Wheat Bread and mixed together the Lemon Juice, Black Pepper and Dill. I then spread about a third of the tuna onto the bread and put the tomato slices on top. To warm everything up I put it in the oven under the broiler for about a minute.

It tasted so good, and totally handled my craving for carbs. I think I'm going to have a lot of hot sandwiches this winter.

Red Christmas Nails

Hey Guys! So I know that it's a little early to be thinking of pulling out the Christmas Nails, Carols, Fuzzy Socks etc, but I figured that every year I wait until a couple weeks before Christmas and I always feel like I missed it. This year I decided to start pulling out some of my Christmas stuff slowly just so I can really enjoy it. 

Anyway, This is a really really simple nail design that can be done in red and white if you want it to look a little Christmas-y (or Green and Gold would work too), but it would also look good with any two colors that go well together for just a normal nail design. Also, if you don't have dotting tools you could use just about anything like, a tooth pick, bobby pin, knitting needle, anything like that

So Basically I just painted my nails two coats of a sparkly red nail polish and, with a white nail polish, used a bigger and smaller dotting tool to make different sized dots randomly all over each nail. After the nails had quite a long time to set (so as not to smudge the dots) I used a top coat.

This design was so easy to do and really did not take that long. I hope you give it a try!

Day 31: 31 Days Finale!

Happy Halloween!! Today I've sort of looked back to all of my other 31 days posts and I'm really happy with the way things went. I feel like I actually have learned to live more by doing less. I now am more likely to set reasonable goals for myself, and have started to work on things one project at a time until-it-is-done which has really helped me to be more productive.

"Productive" is also a word I have been using a lot less. I no longer feel the need to be "productive". I just get done what I set out to do, and if I spend the rest of the night watching a movie, or knitting then awesome!

Today was a pretty relaxing day for me. I just got up and got my cleaning done and spent the rest of the day getting ready for trick-or-treators and then my husband, sisters, and I sat around, ate candy and watched halloween movies. It was a really good, not-at-all-productive sort of night.

Have a Happy Halloween Everyone!
Thanks for Reading.