A little racing, some Rock and Roll and a Lot of Girl Time

Friday afternoon, after school got out, Ellie and I headed south to meet our friends Mike and Laurel at the Castle Rock Outlet mall. We had a nice time looking for great deals. I didn't really find the things I was looking for, but we had luck with Mike's quest. She had drawn the name of a young man in foster card who would love a copy of one of the "Transformers" movies or a hoodie. Aeropostale, a very cool store, was having an amazing sale where nearly everything was 70% off. Mike was able to afford both and stay within budget. After shopping we spent the night at their house. They live in Monument on a nice chunk of land. Without the light pollution of Denver and the clear skies, we were able to admire the stars,including the big dipper.

On Saturday the girls raced. Ellie had another bad race. At one point she took so long to come around that I asked another one of the kids if he had seen her and if she was still on her bike. It turns out that she crashed and landed on her face. She was okay, but very upset once the race was over. It was hard to see how she felt. I hate when I am powerless to make her feel better. I've taken care of the stuff I can control, like her bike, better racing shoes, making sure she does not have asthma, etc. It seems like she has to reconcile whatever is going on in herself. It is one of the most difficult parts of parenting. After she recovered we all went to lunch at a pit of a Mexican food restaurant, but the food was wonderful. I had a party to go to so I kissed my girl goodbye and told her I would see her on Sunday. She and Laurel had plans.


I made my way to Golden to attend Michelle's bridal shower at The French Press. It was a great party. I am so pleased for Michelle and Nils. They deserve only the best. They are so in love. It is inspiring to see, and fun to experience. The coffee house closed at 1:00 so we had the place to ourselves. They served wonderful food, we had a nice time visiting and it was fun to see her gifts.

We had nice roll-ups with roast beef or turkey as well as veggies.

My favorite item was the savory pastry. It was puff pastry that enclosed a bacon and cheddar cheese filling. I could have had just these and would been perfectly satisfied. curiosity got the better of me, so I tried a little of most of the items.

It was hard to pick a dessert. In the end I elected to have the chocolate filled pillow, a lovely choice.

I zipped home to see the boys. We wanted to relax together so Larr, Ethan and I went to see the new the "Pirate Radio" movie. It was refreshing to see such a fun movie. It made me want to create a new playlist on my IPod.


Times like these make me thankful for my friends and my family. I had such fun with all of them.

Holiday Inspiration - Candied Nuts & Many Ways to Decorate

Lots of stuff happened this past weekend, of course. But today I am finding a small snatch of time to enjoy the quiet and be inspired by other blogger's postings. Here are some of my favorites:


Red and White by Joanna Henderson

Inspiration via Molly Irwin.

I'm so impressed and inspired by the work of Helen Musselwhite.

This lovely image and the ones below are from Living ETC. magazine. You can see them and many other by visiting their gallery section and selecting Christmas.


I am also starting the free holiday class over at JessicaSprague.com. I love her wonderful classes. In the letter from her today she mentioned a fun website for those who love to be totally organized. Organized Christmas has tons of printable items for creating notebooks with checklists, to do lists, section dividers, etc. You might like it, too.

I love candied or glazed nuts. I find that I have to buy them every time I go to the Renaissance Festival. My friend, Mike, shared her recipe with me recently. We loved the results. I think Ethan would simply stand at the stove and eat all 48 oz. (nearly 9 cups) of them if I would let him. I think it is a recipe worth sharing and I think Mike would be glad for it, too.

Mike's Candied Nuts

8 cups mixed pecan halves, walnuts, and almonds [use raw not pre-salted nuts]
4 egg whites beaten to soft peaks
1 cup sugar [I've used both brown and white, but cut it down to 3/4 cup packed brown]
4 tsps. cinnamon
1 tsp. grated nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom ( I didn't have this, but they were still great!)
Pam for baking sheet

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with heavy duty foil; spray lightly with Pam.

Bring egg whites to soft peak. In a separate bowl combine the sugar and spices. Gently fold the mixed nuts to the egg white peaks. Add the sugar and spice mixture. Spread out in a single layer over baking sheets. Cook 15 minutes. Stir. cook an additional 15 minutes. Stir. Reduce heat to 250 degrees and bake an additional 15 minutes. stir and cool.

Ellie would like to come up with a caramel glazed nut recipe. I'll let you know if we are successful.

Ethan's New Team Kit Design Concept

Our team is having a contest to design a new team kit. Here's Ethan's submition:


I was surprised when Ethan showed interest in designing a kit. It was cool to see him come up with a design. He did a mock up in Paint and then we created a cleaner copy in Adobe together last night. Here's wishing my boy luck!

A Little Q, A Little Shoe, a Little Hat and a Big Ball of Stress

We took last Saturday off from the races. We all slept in a bit and enjoyed a more relaxing start than we usually experience. I had visions of staying home, getting the cleaning and laundry done quickly and then having the day to mostly relax. But that is not how it really played out. We had errands to run and kids to shuttle to places. Ethan went with the Boy Scouts to sell beef jerky. Ellie just HAD to go shopping with Christy. She's been on a quest for shoes to go with her special dress for the Masquerade Ball in January and she had great luck. She came home, pleased as can be, with these lovely, high heeled, very grown up shoes. She is smitten. She gets her love of shoes from Grandma Gay.

I raised my eyebrow and before a word even slipped from my lips, Ellie rattled on how they are so comfortable and that she'll be just fine. I think the shoes are cute, but you couldn't pay me to wear such things. However, I'm glad she found what she was looking for.

Larr and I did some of our shopping and come home with a few goodies including a new Star Trek Fan Collective - Q. I had hoped to find the Borg collective but it was not to be found.

We spent much of the evening last many of the past, enjoying Star Trek.

Sunday found us off to the races again. This time we were at a new location in Brighton. Ethan had a great race, placing first in his category and third overall in the juniors.

Ellie had a miserable race. Her shoe came off during one of the run ups, she fell over at one point and she had the speed of little more than a slug, sort of. It was hard to watch. It was like her legs were in slow motion. The race winner passed (lapped) her about five feet from the finish line. She pulled out thinking she was done. Coach Bill and I made her do one more lap since she was racing against the girls and had not been lapped. She felt defeated, but we had a good talk. She has been feeling a lot of stress of late. Not just about biking, but about life in general. We had hoped that once she got her room cleaned that she would feel better. She says she has been stressed for weeks and felt like she could not breathe during the race. She felt like her lips were turning blue or purple. I am taking this to heart and am seeking to help her remedy the situation. Her dad suffers from stress induced asthma some times and she thinks she does, too. It is hard to know what to worry about and what is simply part of growing up.



On a brighter note, I was happy to finish the hat that I am making for sweet baby William. I hope that it will get some use.

Trying to Get a Calm Center or Knitting and Movie Watching as a way to relax

[Photos are coming soon - just as soon as I can get that boy to model the hat for me.]
The last two weeks were crazy busy. Although they were fun, they were also stressful. The two races last weekend were national level races which meant that they were a big deal. The kids raced both of them, but they really did seem to want to. I think they were simply tired, which translated into big fights over stupid stuff. I'm trying to pull back a bit and relax more this week. I went to see The Pioneer Woman on Monday and we have a party tonight, but on Tuesday and Wednesday we mostly relaxed and watched movies. We viewed "GI Joe" which was predictable, but fun to watch, and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" which was a real chick flick. I've also worked on my knitting. I am trying to make my self feel more centered or grounded. I am seeking out a sense of calmness. All of this relaxing will catch up to me, but for now it is my best choice.

There is another mother on the bike team, Vicki, who knits. I always love to check out what she is making. Most recently she made a thin wool hat that her son Sam wears under his helmet on cold days. I loved the feel and simple look of it. She used Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino for the hat. It is a DK weight so the needles were only size three. I was inspired so I asked for the pattern. She had it memorized and told it to me. I usually use much thicker yarn, but decided to give it a go. I made Ethan's hat very quickly and it has already served him well. Now I am onto another hat that I am making for a new little soul who has joined this world.

Here's Vicki's Hat Pattern (slightly modified)

You'll Need:
#2 16" Circular Needles
#3 16" Circular Needles
1 set #3 Double Pointed Needles
Stitch Markers
2 balls DK weight Yarn

Cast on 108 st. onto the #3 circular needles (I think Vicki does her ribbed rows on #2 circular needles for a tighter band. I could not get any so I went with the #3 and it worked just fine.) Knit one row, being sure that it does not twist. Begin the ribbing in the second row by:
K3 P3 - continue until the ribbing is 1.5" wide.
(Switch to the #3 needles and a new color)
K 52, add 1 stitch, K 52 add 1 more stitch to have 110 stitches per row. Knit as many rows of the new color as pleases you. Switch back to the main color when you want to.
Continue knitting in the round and making color stripes until the hat measures 6.5" total, including the ribbing.
Now to begin the decrease (Switch over to the DPN when the circular needles become too long to manage):
K8 KT2, K8 KT2 > to the end of the row. Consider putting on a stitch marker after each KT2.
Knit a row.
K7 KT2, K7 KT2> to the end of the row.
Knit a row.
K6 KT2, K6 KT2 > to the end of the row.
Knit a row.
K5 KT2, K5 KT2> to the end of the row.
Knit a row.
K4 KT2, K4 KT2> to the end of the row.
Knit a row.
K3 KT2, K3 KT2> to the end of the row.
Knit a row.
K2 KT2, K2 KT2> to the end of the row.
Knit a row.
K1 KT2, K1 KT2> to the end of the row.
Knit a row.
Continue this until you have about 6 stitches left on your needles.
Use a crochet hook to thread the fiber through the remaining stitches and pull tight. Knit in the ends.

The hat will look pretty thin and small, but it stretches nicely.

Enjoy! I know I did!

Pioneer Woman Comes to Denver

I have an entire list of blogs that I love to read each day. The funny thing is that I have very little in common with most of the bloggers that I read on a regular basis. One of my favorites is thepioneerwoman.com. I first learned about her from my friend, Natalie. I began reading it for the recipes that Natalie loved and then I became hooked. This past year we watched her work on writing a cookbook. Last night I got to meet her and get my copy of the book signed. The folks at the Tattered Cover expected about 40-50 people to show up. They sold all 350 copies of the book they had on hand and more people kept coming. She was lovely, humble and gracious, just as I expected.
I arrived almost an hour early and stood in the back of the room the entire time. She spoke briefly, took a few questions and then signed books. My turn came around 11:30 p.m. While I had not planned on waiting so long, I found wonderful people to talk to including Kate Wyman who is a local watercolorist. She came to buy a book for her daughter-in-law and will most likely become a reader. I also enjoyed the company of Carter who is a fellow foodie who creates The-Kitchenette.com blog. It is kind of silly that I waited so long, but it was fun, too.

Haunted Happenings - A Party. Some Mud and a Lot of Activity

Here's what we did during the Halloween weekend:

We had a party at school. Here are the girls. They were supposed to be coordinated. Ellie is a bee, of sorts. When I saw them with eye makeup on I was taken aback a bit. I didn't even recognize Christy at first. Her hair is normally down and she wears glasses.

Here are some of the boys. Ethan is a soldier from the museum and the other two are apocalyptic survivors.

Here's Ethan with a ghost and a walrus. The walrus costume was a big hit.

The next day we raced. It was a national level race on an extremely muddy course due to the big storm we had earlier in the week. There were riders who traveled from many places to take part in this race. In junior catagory only less than half of those who started finished.Ethan had to stop part way through. The extreme mud caked on his bike began to do damage to his brakes.

I was super proud of the girls. There were the only two girls to finish the course. The mud broke Ellie's derailleur so she had to run and carry her bike for the last mile and a half.