The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

This day did not go according to plan!

Exercise:

I didn’t get my usual Coquitlam Crunch run in as my friend found herself without a babysitter at the last moment, so I went there at 6:30am instead of for a run. I was kept company by this cutie until her son awoke at 7:45:) I had every intention of going for a nice long run this afternoon, but unfortunately it was shortened by getting sick:( (at least it didn’t appear to be witnessed!)

I did not sit down with a bucket of ice cream, only a cup of tea, but I still ended up with a reaction that tells me I got dairy in my system. Yes the tea was called Cream of Earl Grey, but I checked that ingredient list about five times and examined the entire tin and nowhere did it mention dairy ingredients. It is the only thing I have eaten today that I have not had before:(. I sat down on a rainy afternoon with a book, a cup of tea in one of my favourite mugs (a gift from my brother a few years ago)

the fireplace on, … a perfect Fall weekend day and twenty minutes later, I’m sicker than a dog:( I went for an easy run as it can often help me feel better, but it obviously didn’t this time! I have continued reading, but have stuck with ginger ale instead! Grrrr!!😖 I guess the good part is that my stomach took my mind off my head cold🤣

Let’s get to better parts of my day!

Socializing:

After leaving my friend’s place I met up with my teaching colleague to hit one of the three garage sales I do a year. This one is held at a private school near us as a fundraiser. It is always crazy and they prove things high, but seem to be willing to negotiate:) I looked through the games and toys for my classroom, thought about buying my parents the scrabble and monopoly games as I know they’re looking for them, but worried that not all the pieces would be there, so finally left them. I had much better success at the book table! I had picked out a ton of kids books for my classroom and then realized that they wanted a dollar each and I have a lot of books in my room so I scaled them back to just three. I am very proud of myself for this!!! 🤣. Unfortunately, I then turned around to the adult table. I found a cookbook that was both dairy free and gluten free, the only kind I’ll allow myself to buy these days, and a knitting book. I have never worked with Cascade yarns before, but I hear it mentioned on lots of blogs so I thought this book might be a good investment😂. I then found the Nora Roberts box. I know my mom has been enjoying her books lately so I scooped them all up. What they wanted for these books was crazy, but they accepted $15, so I was super happy!!!!

Reading:

I celebrated finishing The Shadow of the Wind by reading trashy romances. I love reading series, but I have to read them in order! That meant I had to find, A New York Christmas Fairy Tale by Sarah Morgan before I could read the next book in my library pile. I found it as a short story on Harlequin.com and raced through it. It’s the story of James and Roxy who work together. They don’t realize that they both have feelings for each other until the Christmas season. It was a lovely fairy tale that made me laugh, cry and sigh so a success in the world of trashy romances:)

The second trashy romance I got through today was Dare to Submit by Carly Phillips. I started this book a long time ago on the kindle app, but had to leave it for The Shadow of the Wind, so unfortunately I can’t say much as I don’t remember the beginning. It ended satisfyingly and the characters were interesting. The big “twist” wasn’t such a twist as I had it figured out immediately.

I’ve been working my way through the whole series, but not back to back so I’m probably not getting as much out of the series as I would if I read it uninterrupted.

Baking:

This morning I discovered a bake-a-long and I was intrigued. Kathy Reeve’s blog is where I first heard about it though it seems to be hosted by Traci at T Sweets. I just couldn’t resit trying the recipe (even though I haven’t officially been added to the bake-along). It was a recipe for chocolate chili bread made in the breadmaker by Kristabella’s Hodepodge. It was very simple to throw together though I replaced the butter with Earth Balance non dairy butter and the flour with a combination of rice flour, Sorghum flour, millet flour, potato starch, Arrowroot starch and xanthum gum and the chocolate chips with non dairy bittersweet chocolate chips. The load didn’t rise much (not unusual for gf breadmaker bread, I’ve found), but boy did it taste good. It’s not sweet and I admit I’d like to try it with semi sweet chocolate, but it baked perfectly and was good both warm and cold! (Thankfully I tried it before I drank my tea!). I didn’t taste the chili much so I think I would increase the amount I used next time.  I think I’ll slice and freeze this so I can enjoy it again:)

Knitting:

I also got some knitting done today! I finished my Three Ring Cowl by Karen Holmes (free on Ravelry). I picked this to use up the ends of chunky yarns I had hanging around in the basket under my coffee table.

Pattern:

The pattern is simple- cast on 84 stitches, join in a circle and then alternate between knitting for rows and purling four rows, then cast off. For the next two rings you do the same but twist it around the first before joining into a circle. I did end up making some modifications. I tried it with 84 stitches and found it was just too long for short little me, so I cut it back to sixty stitches. This did make it a little difficult to get the first row done on a circular needle long enough to twist around the other rings. I also ended up doing twenty rows in each ring instead of sixteen simply to use up the yarn I had.

I am very happy with how the cowl turned out and I think it will be lovely and warm for the Fall and Winter, though I think next time I might try knitting three flat scarves and then twining them and sewing them into circles as I think I might be able to get the twists better spaced this way and it wouldn’t be so awkward to knit. All in all though, a success!

Well I’m going to drink some more ginger ale, read some more books and try to figure out a Spanish food recipe to take to book club tomorrow. If anyone knows of an easy one, I’d love to hear about it!!!!

Have fun!

AJ