Machinule Monday

machinule ~ tool used by surveyors to obtain right angle

In many ways, last week was a very up and down kind of week.

First, there was the weather. We had a bad snow storm on Monday, sun on Tuesday, a worse snowstorm on Wednesday, sun on Thursday, and then a series of mediocre storms (that were supposed to be worse than they were) the rest of the week. I got an extra workout on Wednesday shovelling snow.

And of course because the weather was up and down, my head was too. I suffered from a series of bad to very bad headaches last week which sometimes led to taking pain killers, which led to being extra tired and not getting stuff done, like Wednesday's wildcard post.

I did finish the crocheting I was doing for the baby shower I went to on the weekend. No pictures I'm afraid, 'cause I didn't like the way the afghan turned out. I blame Walmart. I picked up a ball of this incredibly soft yarn in a variegated pink/blue/yellow/white and started a baby blanket - just a simple granny square pattern. For some reason I thought I'd be able to do the whole thing out of one ball, but alas, it was not meant to be. I ran out of yarn and the blanket wasn't even half done.

So back to Walmart I went and of course there wasn't a trace of that particular colour combo of yarn. So I picked up a ball of white and a different ball of variegated. And I get it home and realized the new ball of variegated did not in any way go with the colours in the first ball. So back I went yet again and exchanged it for a ball of green/pink/white. I actually liked it better than the pink/blue/yellow/white, but of course there was only one ball of it, too. And there was no more white.

The afghan ended up white in the center, a wide band of the green variegated, a narrow band of white, a wide band of the pink/blue variegated, a narrow band of white, a narrow band of the green variegated and I finished with a single row of white in a single crochet. What it lacked in elegance it made up for with softness.

Writing wise I spent a lot of time working on a Valentine's story, which is turning out to be longer than I expected. If I can find my focus this week I might even get it finished in time for Valentine's Day.

Cross your fingers for me. :-D

After weeks of healthy eating, Friday night the hubby and I were in the mood for something bad for us, so we decided on poutine . . . sort of. Poutine, for those of you out there who are barbarians, is a Canadian delicacy made from French fries with gravy and cheese curds on it.

I've done Italian poutine before, where you use spaghetti sauce instead of gravy, but this time I decided to try something different. I wanted to create a Mexican poutine. Now to do it right, I should have covered my fries with hamburger done up with taco seasonings, the cheese-like product you dip your nachos in, sour cream, and green pepper. But I didn't have the taco filling or nacho cheese on hand.

What I did have was cheddar cheese, chili, sour cream, green onion, and bacon. So I guess mine was more like fries with "the works" than anything else, but they tasted incredible.

Now here's the part where I'd intended to post a picture of them, because I did take a moment to take one, however I seem to have misplaced the cord I need that connects my camera to a computer. I left it on my desk and it's nowhere to be found. And it's a different cord than any of the others I have access to, including my husband's camera which is made by the same company.

Apparently the ghost isn't done with me yet!