Yay! (and Darn!)

So I'm totally excited: I've just had a piece accepted for publication, which of course is the "Yay!" part of the title. 

But that means there's even less knitting I can show you right now, so "Darn!"

Designering stinks in that way.  

I can tell you I'm very excited about this piece. It's the sort of sweater I love and want to wear all the time, and I hope you will feel the same way when it hits the streets this fall.

Totally Silly, but Really Neat

Boy-O sent me the link to BrowserBall. Very fun for the non-athletes among us (i.e., me, me and also me).

Neglected Passions

It's been a busy week here at chez CrazyHouse (tm): Boy-O & I finally got to use my Christmas pressie (Wicked tickets), but in order to do so, we first had to remove the layers of dirt and dust from our house so the babysitter could come. (Seriously: there was a good chance the babe would have been lost in the mess!) 

Once that was accomplished, we saw the show-- very fun, and Z did very well with her first professional sitter -- but the experience really got me thinking about my long-standing love of performing. It was a lifetime ago, but I sometimes wonder if I'd been braver, what might have been. I can't say I'd have been hugely successful: I am not especially driven in that particular way.

And I certainly wouldn't trade my life now; there's a richness to it I couldn't have imagined 10 years ago.

But it does remind me that I really do need to make sure my life includes more of the things I love. To wit:

mini-loaf. egg included for scale 

tiny little slices. they are perfectly sized for Z's hands.

I'd been intimidated by sandwich bread, which seems ridiculous now, considering how simple it was, and that I've made far more complex recipes. I think it just seemed out of reach because buying loaves of bread from the store is so automatic. But these miniature loaves were just the ticket to get me started. 

One of our wedding gifts was a set of four adorable mini-loaf pans -- any recipe that makes a single loaf fits them perfectly. I used the "American Sandwich Bread" recipe from Baking Illustrated. I'm a big fan of Cook's Illustrated's books in general, but I think this one in particular is excellent. (Plus it's on sale right now - who doesn't love that?)

The bread has good crumb, and is soft without falling apart. I'll *definitely* be making more.

Still swatching

In a time-honored blogging technique, I'm distracting from a lack of crafty progress with cute kid pictures: 

They are adorable, aren't they?

Haven't fallen off the planet, just busy swatching, celebrating -- Mr. T is 8 now! -- and doing daily playgroups with the babe. It all takes a good deal more time than I bargained for -- I'm making no progress at all on my latest sweater. No regrets, but I think all of my projects will have to be vests in oreder to complete NaKniSweMoDo. 

For the moment, however, I'm home alone for the first time in ages: Boy-O's run off with the kids and allowed me to sleep in. 

It's a very weird feeling, just me and the dogs, looking at each other as if to say "I dunno. What do you want to do?" I can't speak for the dogs, but I plan to enjoy an unhurried shower and then unparalleled excitement of eating something without my little companion stealing from my plate!

Heady times. ;-P