It's sangria time. I promised to post a recipe awhile ago and I'm finally following through on that. I generally don't follow through very well, have you noticed. Like I still need to do a post on the bathrooms as mentioned ages ago (yeah that's right you know you want it), finish up Kooch, finish up Rambling Rose, and do an update on the state of my mom's dog Mocha...

I'm giving you not one but TWO recipes for sangria.

Red Sangria

1 bottle red wine
1 1/2 cups light rum
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice

1 orange, sliced into rounds
1 lime, sliced into rounds
1 lemon, sliced into rounds

Chill for at least 2 hours.

Passionfruit Sangria
Lighter and more refreshing than a red!

1 bottle dry white wine (sauvignon blanc)
1/2 cup brandy (or light rum)
1/4 cup triple sec
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup passionfruit juice (like Goya brand, can be found in the canned beans section of most conventional supermarkets)

1 orange, sliced into rounds
1 lemon, sliced into rounds
1/2 cup blackberries

Chill for at least 2 hours.

Now go make one!

While you do that, I'll be shaking up a martini. After drinking sangrias for two weeks non-stop, I started on the dirty vodka martinis as if tomorrow would never come. It's weird because on paper this is the type of drink I can't stomach, for the same reasons I can't drink Bloody Marys - cocktails aren't supposed to be savory. But now 5 o'clock will roll around and my taste buds will start tingling from craving the savory brine of olives that will then be washed down by a wave of ice-cold vodka. I had four Friday night, and at least two every night thereafter. So that's...a lot. I may have a problem.

Dirty Vodka Martini
Martini's are traditionally gin-based. But gin is yucky to me.

2 oz vodka (I prefer Grey Goose)
2 Tbs olive juice from the jar
1 Tbs dry vermouth (I leave this out and replace with more vodka :) )

Shake with ice, pour and garnish with green olives. Enjoy!

Comments [10]
Filed Under: Cocktails

This is the bomb

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I recently scored a skein of Sundara Yarn in the most beautiful colorway ever.

It's called Peacock and Purple, and when I opened the box, the sheen from the yarn shot a sea-blue glow across my face, and I wept. I wept. Then I wound it into a shiny blue cake and I knit with it, I immediately knit with it.

Here is a preview of my so-far unnamed socks. It's going really quickly, so hopefully I'll have a finished pair to show in no time.

Yarn is awesome.

Comments [14]
Filed Under: Socks | Yarn Stash

Like working from inside a Bartlett pear

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

We've been in this condo for almost a year. Hard to believe. There was only one bit of major work that needed to be done, and that was to refinish the upstairs flooring. All three bedrooms were covered in this hideously dirty, white, wall-to-wall carpeting. Whoever invented white carpeting needs to die. Whoever took the white carpeting to hide the pumpkin pine flooring from the 1890's also needs to die.

Had the schedule allowed, we would have gotten the floors done before moving in. Alas. But it had to be done. So last month we bit the bullet, moved all our stuff upstairs down to the living room and kitchen and lived like packrats for a couple of weeks while the floors were sanded and finished piecemeal. The really really heavy pieces - bureaus, office desk, elliptical machine - we left in the rooms, sort of dismantled if possible and pushed to a corner. Once one area of a room was completely done, we'd move the furniture to that side, and then the sanders would finish the other. The process took 100 times longer than normal. Humans and felines alike were getting cranky. Two floors of furniture crammed into two rooms, living out of suitcases, dust everywhere despite best effors to keep it contained, cats crawling around everything despite best effors to keep them contained, not being able to find anything, and hey I think I just realized why I stopped knitting for a bit there. There was no ZEN. You cannot knit without the ZEN.

The results were totally worth it though. The original pine flooring has been returned to their former glory.

This is the office. Where all the blogging magic happens.

Before, as furnished by the previous owner:

After:

Our office desk is significantly larger

In Between the Before and After:

Floors sanded to a warm blonde, stained to a warm amber, then varnished to a glow.

We also knocked down the wall that covered the chimney. Obviously at some point this was a working fireplace, but no more. Unless we want to burn the entire rowhouse to the ground. We almost exposed the whole wall over there but decided we needed the wall space, and long column of brick was more accenty than an entire wall of brick.

The wall color was inspired by this outfit from the now-defunct Blueprint Magazine, March/April 2007 issue.

I love that crisp pear-green skirt accompanied by the pale gray/blue shirt. I almost went with that gray/blue for the office, but will do it for the adjacent bedroom instead.

Next I throw some things on the walls and some nice rugs on the floors (just around the desk for the chairs, not going to cover up those floors too much!) and then it'll be 1 room down, 2 more to go...

Comments [13]
Filed Under: Life

Hello summer. Please stay awhile.

Monday, June 09, 2008

I had a goal this weekend. Come hell or high water, I was getting started on the Roofdeck Garden of 2008. Yes, the 95+ degree temps did make the process a bit uncomfortable, but last week the heat turned on for a few minutes each day in the house, so what I would say to 100 degree temps at this point is, SABOUT TIME YOU SHOWED UP. In fact I relished working in the heat, like a self-imposed rite of passage towards summer. One has not properly enjoyed summer until one's sweat glands have turned inside out. So sunscreen-stained sweat drained happily into my eyes, underpants laminated themselves to the cheeks, dirt hitched a ride on the skin, and it felt great. I got a ton of exercise, a decent tan, enjoyed the view...have I mentioned how much I really love living here?

This is before. There are about 10 containers up there and all of them are filled with a dead trunk sticking out of the dirt.

This is after, if you can tell the difference. It's not terribly dramatic through photos but I assure you. The difference is there. There are more green things now. And the occasional yellow and orange and red things. At the garden center I bought a plethora of heat-loving, sun-loving all-around hardy plants - geraniums, lantanas, potato vines, petunias, hens and chicks, some other tropical dohickeys of various heights - and arranged them randomly in various containers.

Also moved the grill and deck table from the back to the front, just to spice things up even more. Eventually there will be a big umbrella for the table. It would be nice to be up here with the option of not scorching to death.

Here is the back of the deck, with views south. I was going to go for evergreen hedges but went for grass at the last minute. They are mundane and yet strangely elegant because of it. So swishy. In fact I think I would like to get a couple more. I planted strawberries and catnip too. Here's hoping they will remain unviolated by the neighborhood squirrels and Phillip, the cat next door who roams the upper decks.

Still a work in progress, but very much improved

There will eventually be a couple of lounge chairs to fill the space. Tonight I walk to Pottery Barn to investigate their deck chair selection. I will be very excited once those are in. And very tan. I'd also like to see if there are any outdoor "rugs" available that I could throw up there, to add more color and texture.

It's coming along though, it's coming along.

Here is the deck at sunset. Everything's in rosy, post-apocalyptic glow.

The next goal this summer is to enjoy this deck as much as possible with friends. There must be parties. There must be.

Comments [13]
Filed Under: Life

Things burning holes through various containment systems

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Needless to say I've come down with a raging case of knitting standstillitis. I believe the cure for this evil will be time. Time and perhaps more sangria (I really have been drinking a boatload of that stuff lately, so much that the acidity from the wine and fruit and whatnot has burned a little bit of skin off the roof of my mouth, aren't you glad you asked, but all that vitamin C surely is good for you).

I mean the other day I actually did only one other activity while watching TV, and that was to sit on the couch. Hands idle, except when they were required to convey more sangria to the lips, needles nowhere to be seen. It was so wrong yet so right. For our week at the Cape, it was only after everything else was packed away did I think to bring some knitting along, and even then I couldn't decide what, because I didn't know what I wanted to knit, so in desperation I stuffed 6 random cakes of leftover sock yarn into a bag and decided I would make a Chevron Scarf out of them. It's going to look interesting, that scarf. If I ever finish it.

Is this the beginning of the end?

And I have so much inspiration that ought to keep me going too...

1. Two gift certificates to Purl Soho from Kitty, burning a hole on the refrigerator door since September!

2. A whole rainbow of Sundara Sock Yarns, burning a humongous but pretty hole in the drawer since the winter!

3. And of course, Rambling Rose, on the brink of world domination...yet burning a sad, lonely hole in this bag since March.

I did bring it down to Atlanta in April hoping my mother would finish it for me, but with the move and whatnot there was no time. Now it's June and it's supposed to hit 90 degrees this weekend (heaven!). 90 degree weather does not bode well for our little sweatery friend here. Nor for the bottles of rum I will destroy while making more sangria and/or mojitos.

Comments [15]
Filed Under: Rambling Rose

Another rather terse update

Monday, June 02, 2008

Hello. We are back from Provincetown, back to a regular schedule and a regular diet that does not include daily doses of vodka, bacon, and lobster. We spent a week there and ate out only twice for lunch and twice for dinner; the rest of the time we cooked our little tails off. In total we polished off:

4 packages of bacon
4 dozen eggs
5 links of salami
4 large blocks of cheese
2 boxes of sugar

There was a lot fruit and orange juice too but most of it was put into the five or so batches of sangria we made.

Both Kitty and I brought our knitting. I knit about 5 rows total and she knit 0. We are awesome.

We spotted a filmmaker at a kitchen supply store in P-town. Check him out on his wicker-basketed bike.

It's J0hn Waters! He's so OFFBEAT!

We made eye contact over a pile of cookbooks. My first thought was that it was someone dressed up as JW, since people are always playing dress up here, and because that mustache of his looked like it was crudely drawn in with a Sharpie low on ink. I guess that is on purpose.

I must put some of his movies on netflix now.

And guess who has finally resurfaced from winter hibernation?

Comments [5]
Filed Under: Postcards from Dottie | Travel

Ptown

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Duck and I have been in Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod for the past week with our friends. It's our 3rd annual Memorial Day Week getaway to our 3rd seaside town.