Is This SusieHomemaker,MD?

No, but remember that scene in Castaway where Tom Hanks is happy he started a fire, and he beats his chest and yells, "I.....HAVE MADE FIRE!" That's me today. But it didn't start out well. (Does anything with me in a starring role in the kitchen start...or end....well?) I neglected to read the part of this recipe that said, "In a food processor..." Yeah, I don't have one. But wait! We have a juicer-thingy that processes in a cup!

So what happens here is that the flour and confectioners sugar shoot out the sides of this thing all over the counter. I abandoned that for the tiny nut-chopper-processor, but after carefully transferring some flour and a pat of butter into it, I realized it wasn't going to work. So guess what? I took a damn fork and painstakingly mixed the crust up like that. (Plus, who cooks lemon bars in a casserole dish? Well, people who don't have 8x8 square baking dishes.)

Well, it wasn't self-rising flour, so I'm not sure why it rose up in the middle like that, but I pushed it back down, and it never did turn "golden," but whatever. Here it is with the lemon juice, eggs, and sugar baked on top.

And I can't cut a square to save my life, plus my sugaring was a bit off, but I'll take it!

And even Drew, who hates lemons, proclaimed these delicious. Well, maybe I overstated that claim. Everyone said they were good....not fine, but good, which is better than fine!

And now if you'd like to see progress on the secret knitted item, please click here - but not you, Tracey! And this weekend I'll probably have Mary's triple-threat lemon cake to show you - bought the ingredients today!

Meyer Lemon Recipes, Anyone?

This is just part of the haul from our 3 trees, picked before the dreaded freeze. There are still some on the tree, but I haven't tried them yet to see if they ruined. Other than the best lemonade ever, anybody got any great recipes? I tried key lime pie (since Drew insisted they were limes past their prime) but Lucas spit the first mouthful out, and I couldn't blame him. I'm going to try to make lemon bars, but I have to yank myself away from knitting and Rosetta Stone first. Want a taste of what I've learned with RS?

Konnichiwa! Onna no hito tachi ga wanpiisu o kitte imasu.
(Hello! The ladies are wearing dresses...or they HAVE dresses...still a little fuzzy on the verb there.)
Otto kono ko to otto kono hito wa hashitte imasu. (The boy and man are running.)
Japanese visitors, feel free to correct me if I've mangled it. Robbie can attest to how amazing it is that my Southern accent disappears completely when I'm speaking Japanese...uh, right, Robbie?

Post-Thanksgiving Roundup

Well I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! I was on call and am not the greatest cook (see end of post for the gory details), so my husband did all the cooking (for 3 days he cooked!). Here's a picture of his and Lucas's apple pie - he even made leaves!

But we have to talk about knitting! So my knitting obsession made me buy the holiday Vogue Knitting magazine at Hancock yesterday. I went to buy yarn for a special project, but I can't talk about it here since my sister reads the blog. I've put it up on Ravelry, and she better promise not to go there (do NOT click on this link, Tracey). I'm just getting started on it, but have watched several videos on YouTube that helped. Anyhoo, this was on the cover of the Vogue magazine - a peplum!

See, knitting chicks got it going on too! For you non-sewer people, peplums are apparently all the rage and Pattern Review is full of peplum patterns. (Of course, by the time I finished knitting this, peplums would be out of fashion.)

Anyway, I also finished a hat for my BIL - Tracey, do NOT show Joe this page!

I improvised a pattern from a couple of other patterns, but I still need to work on decreases at the crown. I'm not happy with the poofiness of it, but the original pattern only had 3 rows of decreases and was even more poofy.

Oh, and if you're ready for the reason I don't cook so much, it's because of the family gathering where I was assigned only the sweet potato casserole to cook. Now how hard could that be? So I'm cutting up sweet potatoes to boil, and I slice off a chunk of my pinky tip. It commences to bleeding very badly, so Dean has to stop what he's cooking and help me wrap it up. I applied pressure for about 15 minutes and it was still bleeding, so we debated going to the ER, but there wasn't anything you could stitch together, really, so I just kept up the pressure. Finally it quit bleeding. Anyway, I proceeded on with my dish and boiled the potatoes, then poured them into the colander to drain. That's when I found the little pinky tip I was missing - EWWWWW! Now everything was boiled and aseptic, so it didn't ruin the casserole or anything, but I'm now excused from all cooking - woohoo!

Another Mad Cow Moment

No, this isn't it. This is a mask my sister sent me, and it scared Lucas but not the dog, surprisingly. It comes with a serum that you rub in after you wear this cloth for 15 minutes, and boy my skin was soft after that! Here's a link to Perfectly Posh if you're in need of a facial.

No, my Mad Cow moment was before this mask. Lucas and I ran some errands last night and popped in Walgreen's for a gallon of milk on the way home. The clerk really wanted me to have a rewards card, so we got carried away setting that up, and Lucas was looking at toys while I paid. We came home and had a lovely evening for an hour and a half, then I realized I hadn't brought the milk in the house. I went to check the car, then I realized I didn't remember carrying it out of the store. Lucas said he didn't carry it out either so I called the store, and sure enough, I left it sitting there on the counter. (Now to be fair, Walgreen's puts your bagged items on a lower counter that can easily be overlooked when you're paying. I really think they should raise that counter for people like me.)

They were kind enough to put it back in the cooler for me till I came to get it, and they didn't even make mooing noises as I was leaving!

Dr. Fun Sews Again!!

Well, I finished a second Bernat Tizzy hat that's smaller and used one skein of that yarn...

and I'm continuing work on the full-size sweater made with alpaca wool I got at Clara's Loom...(and this is natural un-dyed wool, but look how I'm ending up with stripes - cool!)

but Dean inspired me to get back upstairs on the sewing machine. He said my machine was probably crying because it was so lonely and forgotten. What he probably meant was that he's tired of my running commentary while he (tries to) watch football. Knitting does give me more together time with the family! So here's my muslin of Kwik Sew 3740. I wanted a new shirt to wear to Pure Barre, so I made the XL length.

Straight out of the envelope, I'm amazed at the fit - hooray! Well...

Need to do a swayback adjustment...and what's up with the weird left shoulder wrinkle?

and I guess I'll lower the armscye. I had problems with wrinkles under there on another shirt. Seems like I always have an issue with my armholes...sigh.

So if you combine the muslin of the Silhouette yoga pant with this shirt, I'll just look like a mess in class.

You know what? I think I'll go back to knitting.

Whatchoo Think 'Bout This Hat?

This was the crazy Bernat Tizzy yarn. It's Super Chunky, so this hat was finished in one day...despite the fact that I couldn't see the stitches at all and had to restart multiple times to get the right number of cast-ons.

It still ended up being a little too big at the bottom, but it kind of has a floppy wavy look...and a shower-cap kind of look...

So this was going to be for my hairdresser, since she said she tried to make a fuzzy pink hat with eyelash yarn and never got it finished...and that was the second thing she every tried to knit.

So would you wear this in the winter-time, or is it too embarrassing for an adult to wear? Be honest....

The Sweater is Finished!

But first, here's our Halloween at work. We even got the medical student rotating with us to be a scarecrow - she did her best on short notice.

And now........without further ado.........TA DAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Ooh, that neckline is very ripply, but this is pre-blocking, and amazingly, it disappeared with blocking - who knew?! Here's the back.

And because I'm so proud of that Trinity stitch (or Blueberry stitch)...

And yes, I sewed the button on with 5 minutes to go before Pure Barre, and it was just a little chilly, so I wore that sucker to class! (I had thoughts of them asking me where I got it because they'd love to sell it in their store. They sell all kinds of weird drapey tops to warm up in....yeah, they didn't ask.)

And here it is with a collared shirt and work pants.

And here it is with an untucked shirt and jeans - that's okay, right?

So I'm deliriously happy today, but now it's onto a fuzzy pink hat! Have a great weekend!!!