Monotonous Monday(s) and the Bonus Prime Minister Game

Not only are my crafts mediocre, my blogging skills are even less impressive.  Sorry about missing the last monotonous Monday, three to five blog-reading friends.  I know you were eagerly anticipating a cross-stitching update.  Missing last Monday has one definite advantage, though.  Now you get to see two Monday pics together, so you can really compare the progress!  Unfortunately, I am currently on the “clouds” portion of the pattern, meaning that I fill in empty white space with tiny white x’s.  What a thrill!  I hope you’re sitting down for this.

Feb 14:

Feb 21:

There you go!  Wasn’t that exciting!  I don’t know how you all waited a whole extra week for that.  Whew!  Better go get a glass of water.

I baked these cookies from Joy the Baker this week.  This was the first time I’ve made sugar cookies in my married life, because I just got a rolling pin this year for Christmas. (I know.. rolling pins cost like $10.  Why did I wait to get one for Christmas?  I think I probably had a spare ten dollars sometime in the last 5.5 years.) They were pretty good, but I made them a little too thin, so they were slightly overbaked, I think.  They were a bit too crispy for my liking.  I made my husband take pictures for me while I baked.  I’m pretty bossy, but he doesn’t mind too much.

I am about to write a special MID-WEEK blog post for you to read!  That is what happens when I get a three-day weekend– I get all productive-like.

BONUS: A wintry sunset picture.  (There is a vent in this picture that looks like Stephen Harper’s head.  See it?)

 

Monotonous Monday plus cookies.

Good morning, happy Monday to you!

I have temporarily scaled back my crafting due to an overwhelming and super-mandatory online course with an approaching deadline.  Boo.  I promise to create some hideous/uninspired art work for you all to enjoy as soon as that is done.

Here’s this week’s Monotonous Monday cross-stitching update:

You’ll recall that I warned you against false hope last week.  This is my I-told-you-so moment.  Incremental progress at best.  Wait till I have a long weekend.. then you will see some actual growth.

In the meantime, I did manage to make some oatmeal raisin cookies with the recipe from Annie’s Eats.  Yes, I am essentially a parasitic blog for her lovely, useful site.  I’m not even going to feign symbiosis.

Oatmeal raisin is my favourite kind of cookie and these ones are delicious.  Too bad I can only give you a picture and not pass them out through virtual land.  I know you want one.

I also spent WAAAY  too long making chicken chili verde this weekend.  While chopping peppers, I got jalapeño pepper juice in a little hangnail-type cut on my finger- ouch!  I didn’t think it would be anything terrible, but it got all hot and pulsy and took three soakings in milk (including one this morning!) to cure.  Typical me.

Anyways, that recipe in the Joy of Cooking takes 2.5 hours.  I’m so glad I doubled it and had lots to freeze because it doesn’t matter how good a dinner tastes, no single dinner is worth spending 2.5 hours of my weekend slaving over a hot stove.  Literally. I was so exhausted by the end of it, I had no appetite and didn’t even bother tasting it.  I’d show you a picture but it looked kind of icky and watery.  I’m assured by my husband that it was in fact edible…

Despite the crafting dearth around these parts, I have a simple one to tell you about later in the week.  Something to look forward to in these January-and-online-course-induced-dark days.