T is for therapy

Belatedly, T is for therapy

A bit of light therapy

A bit of mental therapy

A bit of relaxation therapy

ABC-along catch-up: R & S

I'm not very good at this regular blogging business, right? I'm trying to catch up on the abc-along, and then hopefully there will be some real posts. I haven't done a lot of knitting lately, mainly reading (and then repairing my computer when it crashed and needed a completely brain wipe, then a new graphics card), but I'm back on track.

R is for rug

I know most of you have seen my old living room rug, because I take a lot of knitting pictures on it! It was a nice cheap rug from IKEA, which served us well, but we wanted to replace it with something on which the spilled wine wouldn't show as much.
And now I have a new rug!

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S is for Seafood soup

Continuing on the food theme, S is for seafood soup.
Ingredients (serves 2)
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1/2 tin of chopped tomatoes
- ~250 g mixed seafood
- 100 g fish (we use the "fish pie mix")
- 1/2 pint chicken stock
- ~75 ml white wine
- butter
- herbs (basil, thyme, marjoram, oregano)

Melt some butter in a pot, and slowly heat the onions and garlic until softened.
Add the tomatoes, stock, a small glass of water, the wine and herbs, and simmer for ~ 25 minutes.

Add the seafood and fish, heat up, then simmer for 6-8 more minutes
     
Serve with nice bread and enjoy!

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Finally, S is accidentally on time for Smithers. Smithers was one of my friends from university, who died this week after being hit by a bus. He was knocked unconscious immediately, so at least he did not suffer.
Smithers was a very kind and gentle person, incredibly intelligent, and with the type of enthusiasm that is contagious and actually makes things happen. We are all a bit more poor with this loss. I have accepted his death on an intellectual level, but I haven't yet truly understood what it really means. The concept of Smithers is no longer alive is too surreal to understand.

Q and reports of my death

The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, but only by a bit :)
I've been down for the last two weeks with the eeeeebil cold from hell, so everything has been very quiet. It[s not been swine flu at least, and it's not gone down to my lungs. I am nearly cleared from it now, just in time to go back to work tomorrow...

I had intended to skip Q in the abc-along, but then dinner yesterday came to my rescue, and I finally have the energy to write something coherent, take pictures and prepare them, even if it's a bit late. Mmmm, food. So there is another recipe for you. I have a feeling S will be another recipe, so stay tuned!

Q is for Quick Chicken

- Halve a chicken breast per person and slather it with pesto.
- Wrap a slice of unsmoked back bacon around each piece and put in an oven tray.
- Add a splash of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and plenty of cherry tomatoes.
- Bake in the oven (about 30 min at 200C (fan), or until the chicken is done)
- Eat! (with some pasta or couscous)


It's really easy food to make, and I find it ideal for entertaining people. The preparation is really simple and quick, and the end result looks quite fancy.

P is for P Meal

A "P meal" is what Alex and I have when we are tired and don't want to bother with dinner.

1. Get some pasta

2. Some prawns and peas, frozen for convenience!
   

3. Boil it all together (6 minutes for pasta, 3 minutes all together)


4. Add some pesto



5. ...


6. Profit!

O is for Obsolete

When I was in Spain last weekend, my parents and I tried to look for a public phone, as my mother's mobile had run out of battery and we wanted to call my brother (my father doesn't have a phone, and mine is from another country).
It was difficult. With the ubiquity of mobile phones, they are becoming nearly obsolete. There are, however, two public phones on the short way from my house to the supermarket :)



I tried to take a picture of a floppy disk to complement this O, but couldn't find any in the house. However, I still remember even the 8-inch and 5¼-inch floppies. They were nearly obsolete even when I came into contact with them. And now the 3½-inch has followed them, and I don't have any.

N is for Nails

This is less of a pretty post, but N is for Nails, because they are something important to me, even if a bit embarrassing. I have bitten them since I am very small, and even when I'm not biting them, I keep obsessing about them, looking at them and prodding them. Most of the time I don't even realise I'm doing it.

I've tried to stop many times, but only sheer will power does anything (nothing else helps, not the nasty-tasting nail polish, nor getting spanked as a child by my parents; only me helps, only I can do it). Often my mood or tiredness don't leave me a lot of room for will (I have certainly noticed that I bite them more when I'm anxious!), so I never manage to be more than a small number of months "clean".
As well as sheer will, keeping them short and always having a nailclipper handy helps. The moment *something* happens to one of them, my brain turns them into fair game!


I manage at times. Often I will manage to get them nice enough for a creamy light nail polish, which also helps on stopping me from biting them. And sometimes, some glorious times, I get them good enough for bright red nail polish.!

Monkeys, Mongooses and Marmosets, Oh My!

I was in a small London zoo a couple of weeks ago, and saw animals. The cutest animals also happened to start with M, so I squeed and took pictures and behaved like I was 20 years younger, while Alex put up with me :)

There were Monkeys!

     


I wanna be a mongoose!


Or the fighting mongooses. That's a cool team name.

And marmosets. 'Tis another monkey!


Not an M!

L is for Light

Sun light reflected on the curtains, on the skirt that is waiting to be fixed.

     

Full spectrum daylight bulb, for winter, when it is dark and there isn't enough light. To light the fine lace clearly when counting stitches.


Last sunlight of the day, outlining the St Mary Redcliff, Wells Tower.


And and the end of the day, there is always candle light.

K is for Knitting

Because it is my first go at the ABC-along, I figured is was game to do K for knitting. Next year I will actually have to think (kilo? kansas? potassium?).

I learned to knit about 2 and a half years ago. "Hang on", I hear you say, "I remember that number! It's exactly how long you were on your meds!"
It was indeed. I had thought about taking up knitting before, because I needed a hobby and Alex wanted a particular scarf, but it was only in the beginning of the Big Breakdown that I, surprisingly, got needles, yarn and instructions all together, and started. That time is all a blur now, and I am not sure how I managed such feat of organisation, or if I got everything just before the Big Breakdown. My journals from the time don't give any clue.
From that, my first real Knitted item was, as promised, Alex's Ravenclaw scarf¹. It was a long and hard time for him too, and I hope the scarf showed something. I finished just in time to be one of his Christmas presents.

I'm actually a bit embarrassed now by the scarf. All the "weaved-in" edges showing.

I could make him much better scarves now, of course, but this is my first real knitted item, which he still wears (in winter). The love keeps him warm. Also, it's made of wool².



Knitting stuck surprisingly well, because it kept my brain from wandering too far, and because it's fun. Today, I have move on from simple scarfs (although, having no sense of fear, my second ever project was a stuffed toy in the round, Nautie).

My two current projects on the needles are some socks for Alex, and a stole for me. There are technically others, as you can see to your right, but these two are the ones that I actually work on.



My knitting has come a long way!




¹. In the books, Ravenclaw is bronze and blue, while it's light grey and blue in the movies. Alex wanted the movie version, but there wasn't a nice grey colour, so white and blue it is.
². The Futurama fans in the audience will recognise this as Kif's comments in Three Hundred Big Boys (It's powered by love. Also, you have to wind it).

J is for...

J is for Jaime, my little brother.
By little, of course, I mean that he was born several years after me, as he is now a good foot taller than I am. I still weigh more than him, though, as he is closely related to spaghetti, so good old inertia is still on my side if we wrestle.

My much awaited little brother was born when I was nearly 8. I had wanted a little sibling for years, as most of my friends had some, but that was when it suited my parents best. There were, of course, times when I really hated ever wishing one, as everything was centred about him!
Here is my little brother when he was exactly one month old. Only one month to the day, don't get distracted by the hair. We were both born with that much hair, and it didn't fall off, not a single one of them. We have always been weird.

For many years, my mental image of Jaime was that of a 9 year old child, as that was his age when I left home. However, he is now 17. In the last year of so, as he enters the last years of teenagehood, we are starting to have more and more things in common. Instead of short "How are you? Fine, you? Fine" conversations, we now chat about things we both like, mainly video games, movies, science fiction and the internet. And I love being able to talk to him on the same level as to a friend!


Jaime will go to university next year, to study Computer Science. He is now finishing his exams, and getting ready to apply to university. I wish him the best of luck on his exams and university applications.

I is for ... I don't know!

Is it cheating? Probably. Am I going to be defeated by a letter? Hell no!

Hear the "I don't know" GIR clip

I really didn't know what to do for I. The only things that came to mind were i-cord and internet, and i-cord was boring and, short of taking pictures of some pipes, I didn't know how to take a picture of the Internet.

I don't like "I don't know". I like knowing things. I hear disturbingly often "How do you even know things things?", mainly from my co-workers. Because knowing is fun! (also, normally the faces of people when I pull out a weird but eerily appropriate fact are quite fun too).
I like trivia. I'm not even that good at it: Alex can out-trivia me any day, but I do my best.

A small part of my day is always devoted to learning new things. Most of them come to me via forums on the internet: I will look up things people are talking about, and then get lost in some wiki-hopping. Suddenly it's 2 hours later, and my boss is probably starting to get annoyed :)

What is your random bit of knowledge for the day? I want to know more!

H is for Hands of Blue, Healed

Two by two, hands of blue.

   

One of the easy ways of discovering who is a Firefly fan is to show them some blue hands. If they back away in fear, you know they are Browncoats. "Two by two, hands of blue" is repeated by one of the major characters when she senses that these people are coming. They have hands of blue, pretty much like the picture, and can kill you with noise, in a rather painful manner.

However, the hands of blue can be good, when not in the Firefly universe. I've had some doctor visit lately (two hospitals and the dentist), and some of them have been wearing blue gloves (but this is not a G entry, it's for Hands!). I obtained these at one of the hospitals, while I was left alone in the x-ray room for a bit. I mainly got them because I love blue gloves (due to Firefly), and because they were an S. I've only seen them enormous before.

Two by two, hands of blue


Tangentially related to the gloves, and accidentally H, my foot is Healed! When I went last week to the (private) hospital, I got another x-ray, and it showed that the bones had finally bonded together. It only took 5 months. I'm now waiting for the referral to start physiotherapy, as I have no strength or elasticity in my foot. But the bones are finally healed, so we are certainly more than half-way to wearing Heels again.

G is for Garlic, Gourmand

G is for Garlic. I love garlic. Very conveniently, Alex also loves garlic, so this is not a problem (the key issue that we both like garlic to the same extent, which is a lot). Most of the time when we cook and we have to halve a recipe, we just simply won't have the garlic.
As mentioned, I made garlic bread some days ago, using BitterSweet's recipe. It involves 2 heads of garlic, so you really must love it. I must confess that it didn't taste as garlicky as previously advertised when I first eat it, but that was because I had been surrounded by the smell of garlic for the previous 2-3 hours, so I was somewhat accustomed to it. It tasted deliciously garlicky this afternoon when I had it as my post-work snack.
I am posting this picture in the hopes that the smell will permeate from the computer onto you, and hope that you too love garlic!

However, G also appears to be for something else! G is for Gourmand.
Last week, during lunchtime, I was talking to my coworkers about food. I like food, and I like cooking. So, the conversation turned to fish, and I demonstrated a "superior" knowledge of fish. My coworkers decided that it was not normal, and it was all because I was a "gourmet". The word for a person is gourmand, gourmet is an adjective, so I seem to be also a pedant.

I don't really consider myself a gourmand, but I do like my food and occasionally will go out of my way to get nice food: as per the conversation above, I will sometimes look for a proper fishmongers and get my fish there, taking the opportunity to absorb fish knowledge from the fishmonger. They will give you tips and tell you about the best ways to cook the fish, and most of them are really passionate about it, which is something I really love.

In an accidental effort to prove them right, this weekend I made to gourmet meals, and decided it was a good idea to share it.

First, we made the Thai Fish Cakes from Gordon Ramsay's Cooking with Friends.


Then, on Saturday, Alex and I got fish from our local Loch Fyne, and made sushi.


Both meals were delicious, although I have not had the opportunity to share this with my colleagues to reassure them that I am a gourmand. Being a Garlic lover Gourmand is delicious!

F is for Foot, Fractured

So, a while ago I broke my foot. It was a clean, not displaced break (5th metatarsus) and, although it was still a bummer, because I had a broken bone. Estimated healing time: 4-6 weeks.

4 months later, foot is still partially fractured. I can walk on it: barefoot at home (carefully), with my boot and one crutch outside. The bone has healed half-way through, but not completely, so it still won't take full weight without some pain.
This is my usual work do:

This, however, is my usual home do:

You can see the bone I fractured on black, the green being the fracture line.

I do have a hospital appointment via the NHS in another month, and I'm trying to get a second opinion privately via work's insurance. Hopefully I will have answers soon. Because, frankly, this is getting quite old. Though at least it saved me having to think of an F


- ABC along in ravelry
- My ABCs

E is for electricity

I was boiling the (electric) kettle to make a pot of tea, when Alex, who was playing on his computer, asked me to turn on the lights for him, because it was getting dark. And then I realised (for the nth time) how nice it is to have electricity.
Electricity make me warm and lets me have hot water. It makes working in this computer possible, gives me light. I like candles, but I would be even more blind if I had to knit or read to the light of a candle. Electricity cooks my foot.

It is something that we take for granted. But sometimes I remember how much is possible thanks to electricity, and I marvel at the little travelling electrons, and thank the for the comfort they give me.

I must admit that I was struggling to find something for E, but then electricity struck me (pun intended) so much that I actually mentioned to Alex that it was great to have it, and I thought it deserved some thanks.

Electricity on wikipedia.

D is for Dragon

Dragon is my kitten. He was a present from Alex for one Xmas, and he was named Dragon because that way I could have a kitten *and* a dragon. Later on, I read a book that featured a dragon named Kitten. I laughed for hours.

Dragon was a present that came together because of my depression-triggered kitten obsession and because, well, it's dangerous to go alone.


Dragon is a very brave kitten, and sat my final exams with me, to the confusion of everybody else. He followed me to the Netherlands, and then back to the UK, always in my hand luggage, and I always sleep cuddling him when Alex is not around.


Dragon sometimes hunts and eats mice!
     

He also likes the same things I do.


One day, when I both live in a house that can have them and I'm mentally stable to take care of someone else, I will have a kitten. But for now, I have Dragon, and he is the best kitten in the world.