Penelope

We've had our new cat for several months, so I suppose it's time to introduce her.


Her name is Penelope.

She's about three years old, but she often acts like a kitten. She's both terrified of people and loves them.


She likes to hide. When we first got her from the kennel, they told us that she would sit in her kitty litter box. Gross. Thankfully, now that she has an entire house to hide in, she avoids chillin' in the box. Instead, she'll go hide in the corner of the guest bathtub. Or under a chair. Or under our bed. Or, her favorite, under the couch.

The problem with her hiding under the couch is that Mr. A has taught her a game that she can play from under the couch. It's called "attack the feet". So you could be sitting down, minding your own business, just wanting to watch some TV, read a book, or get on the computer, and all of a sudden her swift paws will dart from under the couch and latch onto your unsuspecting ankles, quick as a flash! Seriously? THAT'S the game my wonderful husband decides to teach our cat?

I decided to go a more practical route to play with kitty. I've taught her to play fetch :) That's right, folks. Cats can play fetch, too. And when a cat brings the toy back, it's not all slobbery and nasty. Just sayin'.


Since Penelope likes to hide so much, she also doesn't mind hiding in blankets =^_^= In fact, she even has a favorite blanket - the heated blanket. Of course. Here she is all nestled in!


We did get her fixed shortly after we got her, which put her in the cone of shame for almost 3 weeks, one of which I was MIA, and Mr. A had to take care of her all by himself. Poor Penelope. She just couldn't always figure it out. She would still try to hide under the couch, but imagine trying to get the cone of shame under the couch - she'd manage it, but you'd hear the scrape of the plastic cone against the floor as she did it. She also had trouble figuring out how to eat and drink out of her bowls (don't worry, she'd figure it out eventually, she'd just have to hit the cone against the edge several times first).


Anyway, that is your introduction to Penelope, the newest member of our household.

Yarn wreath

As I wrote in my last post, I bought the largest balls of yarn ever. SO, now I have to find projects to do with them. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

So, in addition to the baby hats, I decided to usher in spring with a spring yarn wreath, based on this fantastic tutorial. Found on Pintrest, of course.




Now, I am married and such, so I went with more neutral colors instead of pink and lacy. Instead, I used green yarn, a yellow cotton fabric, and burlap. Yep, burlap.





Here's what I used for my wreath:
- 1 foam wreath form
- yarn
- at least two different fabrics
- pearl-headed pins (you need as many pins as you have flowers, and maybe a couple more to help secure the flowers to the wreath form)

Fancy people actually -sew- their flowers. I, however, couldn't find my needle and thread, and got lazy, sooo... I just used pins, instead. Definitely not as secure as actually sewing, but hopefully the wreath won't see much abuse and will hold up. Thus far it's doing well.

Directions:

1. Wind the yarn around the wreath form. The other tutorial tells you to cut lengths of yarn to do this. Again, I'm lazy, folks. I didn't want the extra steps of cutting the yarn and then knotting it in the back every couple inches. Instead, I just rolled my yarn into a ball and passed it through the yarn form continuously. Now, the outer diameter is larger than the inner diameter (obviously), so it will take more yarn to cover the outer portion of the wreath than the inner, so you'll have to make layers of yarn along the inner side of the wreath so that the outer edge of the wreath can be covered. This is not rocket science, I'm sure you'll figure it out.


Wrapping the wreath took -forever-. Make sure you set aside enough time. I did it while Mr. A and I watched a movie together (Elizabeth). All in all, it took me about 2-2 1/2 hours to complete this stage.

2. Tie the two ends of the yarn into a knot so that it doesn't come undone. Fairly obvious, I know, but it must be said. Here's the knot and a picture of the wreath form fully covered:













3. Now comes the making of the flowers. I used two different types of flowers. One requires strips of fabric, the other requires circles of fabric.

a. Flower #1, using strips of fabric.
- Cut strips of fabric (I used the burlap for these flowers) anywhere from 1/2" to 1 1/2" thick. The thicker the strip of fabric, the bigger the flower. Also, the thicker you cut the strip, the longer the strip should be, too. For a fairly thin strip, the fabric strip should be about 7" long.


- Take the fabric and pleat one of the long sides, making sure that each pleat is on top of the last, forming the flower shape.

- Once you have finished the round, you don't want the rough edge facing out, so tuck the rough edge under your last pleat, putting the corner in the center.

- Take one of your trust pins and stick it straight through the center of the flower. If you have done your pleating well, it should go through ever layer, securing them all in place. If you are a particularly fancy person, you could probably sew this. If you'd prefer to do that, see the other tutorial (mine's for lazy people like me).

- The pin will then stick directly into the wreath form. If it needs some extra securing, you can always add a few pins in inconspicuous places.

b. Flower #2, using circles of fabric.

- Cut circles of fabric out of your other type of fabric. I used my yellow cotton for this one. The circles should be about 1-2" in diameter.

- Fold each circle in half, then layer them like you would shut a box, one side of each half-circle above the one next to it, the other under, so that the semi-circles are woven together into one whole circle.

- Fold the new circle in half, and then in half again, forming a kind of triangle. Take a pin and push it through at the point of the triangle, making sure you push it through each layer.

- Stick the pin into wreath form.

I made three of the pleated flowers and two of the circle flowers to create my wreath.


Have fun!

Babies, babies, and more babies

Not ours. Sorry for any disappointment.

Living on base in Oki is kind of like having a constant flock of storks (does that even happen?) flying overhead dropping baby-bombs. Seriously. Everyone gets pregnant over here, and those hoping to avoid adding a number to their family are just trying to find a safe bunker to hide in.

As of right now, I personally know four women who are pregnant, which is saying something, since I don't know that many people.

The result?

Baby hats. Lots and lots of baby hats.


That's right, folks, I've gotten back into my baby-hat knitting frenzy. Which is ridiculous because I still have baby hats left over from my last baby-hat craze (mostly because I never got on the ball to mail any back to the states. Oops...).

This time around, however, I'm knitting early enough to not know the gender of the babies. Which means neutral colors. SO, I went out and bought the most MONSTROUS balls of yarn you can imagine. Seriously, they're the size of watermelons. And I am determined not to let them go to waste. I might have to knit some scarves or blankets or something. Who cares that Okinawa isn't cold enough for either of those?

I gave up on crocheting hats as they never seem to come out quite as I'd like. So, I went back to my go-to of knitting the hats. I chose to use size 6 double-pointed knitting needles.


Basically, when you use double-pointed needles, you knit around in a circle and never have to purl. Aka, you only have to know how to do one stitch and be able to do it to one stitch or two stitches at a time (aka, when you knit two stitches together).

My basic pattern is one that I learned in 4th grade. Cast on 60 stitches (that's 20 stitches each on three needles). Knit about 3" normally. The edges will curl up automatically on their own (woohoo!). This is the best time to add in different patterns and such. Once you start having patterns added when you're decreasing, you start running into more complicated stuff. I... avoid complicated stuff as much as possible.

After knitting at least 3" (hey, the baby's gotta have enough space in the hat for it's head, right?), then you'll start decreasing. I generally start by knitting 10, then knitting two together. Now, pay attention to when you've finished a row, because you want to start over counting when you hit a new row. That way, you'll have defined 'seams' where you decrease, which looks cleaner and more well-done.

When you've gotten to the point where you've done a whole row knitting two together one after the other (ie, knit two together, knit two together, etc), it's time to finish off. Knit two together and then put that new stitch back on the original needle. Finish the row like that, ending with only one stitch remaining. Snip your yarn and pull it through that last stitch et voila! You're done.

Ta da!

I'm becoming a local

That's right. I've succumbed to the Okinawan trend of (drum roll, please...)

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NAIL ART.

As I've posted before, this is a trend in Okinawa, particularly among the American women. When I first arrived, I was completely confused by this, as I've never desired anything other than a plain color on my tootsies. In fact, the primary reason I get a pedicure is never for the color, but rather for the exfoliating, cleansing, callus-removing, moisturizing, etc.

Well, it's time for confessions.

In October I got my first Okinawa Pedicure. Yes, it is capitalized. On purpose. BUT, I had a legitimate excuse - we had a ball to go to, and I couldn't go with crazy feet. Plus, like I said, my feet do need a little tender care occasionally. However, I fully intended on getting a SINGLE COLOR on my toenails. Remember, this is in Okinawa. There are language barriers here. Despite my desperate attempts to assure them that I just wanted a single color, I somehow ended up with three whole books of decorated nails in front of me. I had no option but to choose one. I did, however, manage to convince them to just decorate my big toe instead of on all of them. Disaster partially averted.

I was still, however, too weirded out by the entire idea of decorated toes to take a picture of them. They were bright pink and silver, to match the two dresses I'd gotten for the ball (I only ended up wearing the silver one).

Well, for a Christmas white elephant gift exchange, Mr. A managed to win a manicure at the same nail salon specifically with me in mind (what a great husband!). I don't know about the rest of you out there, but manicures only last about a day on me, especially if I do dishes or do any sort of work. Seriously. SO, I decided to take that gift certificate and turn it into a pedicure - yesss.

After scouring Pintrest (if you don't know about Pintrest yet, you need to look it up. I get so many sweet recipes, creative ideas, etc from it), I found a sweet chevron style that I thought I'd try. Until they set two whole books of more ideas on my lap while I sat in my plush massage chair and they scrubbed away at my tootsies. I ended up choosing an entirely different pattern with even more bling (eek!). That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I have bling on my toes. Not rhinestone bling, but little gold sequin looking things. Yep.


I guess I'm starting to fit in more.

More cupcakes!!!

Well, today was Mr. A's birthday (yay!).

In celebration, we went out to Bovino's (see earlier post), which has become a tradition on our birthdays. It's a Brazilian steak house where you get your meal free when it's your birthday (woohoo, birthday perks!).

I also decided to make him an extra special dessert - Andes Mint Cupcakes.

Basically, they're the most incredible cupcakes ever. They're a chocolate cupcake with a mint-chocolate ganache filling, with a mint butter-cream icing, topped with an andes mint. Yep, that's right, folks. Pure and sweet awesomeness.

Here's the final product:


I know, pure and utter amazingness. I made a few without the chocolate ganache filling since Mr. A likes things to be a little more simple. I know, right? Who would NOT want a glorious creamy minty-chocolaty filling inside a chocolate cupcake?

I didn't realize that it's really a fairly simple process to make ganache-filled cupcakes, though! Essentially, you just bake the cupcakes, make the ganache (which requires melting chocolate with milk and then adding mint extract and powdered sugar and stirring until smooth), then putting the ganache into a pastry bag with a tip, then sticking the tip into the cupcake and squeezing some ganache into the cupcake. Love it.

Also, this is the most successful icing I've ever made. Seriously. And it's so simple. Two sticks of unsalted butter, a package of cream cheese, a full bag of powdered sugar, and some vanilla and mint extract. And using those fancy-looking icing bags with the coupler and metal tips wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I was supposed to use a different tip, but... this was all I had, and it worked really well! Especially for a first-timer :D

What are you waiting for?! Go bake!

Gardening in Okinawa

Well, after a week in Okinawa, some of my plants were somewhat less 'alive' than when I left. I forgot to mention to Mr. A that it might be helpful to water them. Oops <_<...>_>

So, I was feeling like I needed to fix the situation and replace the plants that died - rosemary (seriously, this is the second rosemary plant I've killed. Rosemary is supposed to be un-killable...), mint (another plant that's supposed to be impossible to kill), and basil (I feel a little less stupid with this kill). Anyway, so I went to the local JA to buy some plants. I bought:
- three green-leaf lettuces
- three red-leafed lettuce plants
- three foxglove plants
- three little purple flowered plants (who knows what they are)
- two cucumber plants (I think)
- mint

Here's how they look several weeks later:


Pretty awesome, right? Two of the red-leafed lettuce plants got knocked over before I could plant them, so they're still struggling a little bit. Also, I think I managed to buy fertilizer or mulch instead of actual soil when I bought the plants, thanks to being functionally illiterate here. Thankfully, I had some left over soil from when I planted my original planters.

Here are my original planters:


They're a little more sparse than they used to be after the week-long drought, but I've been able to use the rosemary and thyme in them to cook regularly, which has been great!

I can't wait until I can use my lettuce to make a salad - so exciting!

My friend also gave me some seeds - oregano and basil, to be exact. I REALLY want to be able to at least grow the basil since I love love love it SO much in almost all of my cooking. However, I've never grown anything from seeds before, so I was a little daunted by the task. Here they are after about a week:


Both sets of seeds are up now, and the basil seedlings are already about an inch to an inch and a half tall! So exciting! I'm not completely sure when to plant them outside, but I'm excited that I haven't killed them all yet :D