Happy Linky Thursday

Just some links that made me happy or thoughtful this week. Happy Thursday!

Mighty Girl is a great blog and her lifelist an inspiration. I cracked up at her New Years Resolutions! Such good ones, but also written so well! Snacks! Making out! Etc.!

Oh these super cute doggies and kitties enjoying the winter!

Downton Abbey pickup lines in case you need to woo a fan of the show.

Meditation and mindfulness (particularly in the context of yoga) has helped me with my anxiety immensely and here's a little science to back that up! I like that the article points out that even if meditation doesn't serve a medical purpose it's free, harmless, and can be done at home.

These pictures are stunning, but I have tea at home thank you very much. The most dangerous part of that journey is tripping over cats and that's the way I like it.

More New Years Resolutions, this time from Letters to a Young Librarian. This is one of my favorite library blogs I read on my quest to read more of what librarians are writing, both professionally and in more casual contexts. I also really love her recent post about social media as a graduate student. It was reassuring to see her espouse guidelines I already try to follow about being yourself but being professional. I think they are good habits for anyone engaging in social media, regardless of your profession.

Pinterest Wednesday: Flaunt your flautas

In an effort to make my weeks less hectic, I'm trying to do more meal planning and cooking ahead. Now, that might seem unrelated to this post because I definitely did not cook any part of these ahead BUT I COULD HAVE and might in the future. I mention it because even though I was a bit lax on my prep work, these were quick and easy and done in about 25 minutes baking time included. That is not bad. And the 15 minutes it took them to cook was just enough time to clean the kitchen, which was rad. So the theme of this post is: I was starving, I didn't plan ahead super well, and these still turned out great.

 The first example of my not planning well was that the tortillas were frozen. Oops! But, pro tip here, if your tortillas are frozen and you are preheating the oven, spread those babies on top of the stove and they will be thawed in time for you to fill them with flauta goodness!

Thank you, iphone for these terrible pictures.

 So then I mixed up my business. I used frozen corn from this summer's CSA which was still frozen when I mixed this up and was just fine. I left out the peppers because I didn't have any and I didn't do any sort of "mexicorn" like the recipe calls for (click on the first picture to get to the pin which you can then click through to the complete recipe). It's called winging it, people. I also completely forgot cheese which explains why these were pretty low calorie when I did that calculation. They were good without it but I will add it next time if I remember.

So, you're pretty clearly supposed to use smaller tortillas, because the ends got kind of burny after 15 minutes and there was a lot of extra tortilla but other than that these were totally delicious, pretty filling, quick to make, and there are lots of opportunities to make parts of this ahead of time if you are so inclined. They were also relatively inexpensive, so I'm calling it a win all around!

Phoning in the weekend 1/6

 I started out the weekend by keeping one of my New Years Resolutions and going to yoga. It was a fantastic practice; I'm out of shape and felt my abs all weekend, but that's why I do it!

 Then I was inspired to do a little New Years decluttering. I gave this stack of magazines to my sister for projects with my niece and now it looks like this:

That's where that book went!

 There was a lot of knitting this weekend. A lot. Since I'm working on destashing projects, that counts as decluttering right? Right. My poor old coffee pot finally bit the dust so I'm French Pressing it from now on. I started one of the two French Press cozies I'll need (one for work and one for at home). I also worked on this destashing project:

 which I highly recommend. It's a really fun pattern, great for using up randoms in the stash and won't take your attention away from the exploits of these fine gentlemen:

 (Thanks to Anne for the recommendation!) Netflix it, you guys. If you like British murder mysteries, you'll love this.

I did get off my butt long enough to do a major grocery shopping adventure, complete with meal planning, stocking up on staples, and some apples bossing me around in the fitness department.

Overall it was a lovely weekend! What did you do?

New Years! 2014 for the win! (a sort of Pinterest Wednesday)

Happy New Year! In writing this post, I looked back over past blog posts because I was sure SURE that I must have written before about how much I love New Years but NO! Not one single New Years post to link to! Whaaaaaaat?

I'm a huge believer in new beginnings of all kinds. Remember how every first day of school you thought THIS WAS THE YEAR you were going to stay organized and have a clean desk and never lose a pencil? Or was that just me? Regardless, I know calendars are arbitrary and everyday is it's own new beginning and blah blah but on January 1rst a lot of people agree all at once that it's a new year and resolve to do things differently and that's good enough for me. I'm pretty much the same as everyone in that I make resolutions and stop/break them by the end of January. And I'm ok with that too. There are some that I've kept: I make my bed everyday and I'm pretty sure that was a New Years resolution. I put on makeup, perfume, and jewelry every morning before work because it makes me feel like less of a slob and I think that was a resolution too. I'm careful not to make too many resolutions including the words "always," or "never," and when I use the word "everyday" I mean it the same way I meant it when I said it about making the bed and getting ready for work which is to say "most days" and probably never on a Saturday or Sunday.

Because this is a Pinterest Wednesday, the pictures link to my Resolution board on Pinterest. Oh, tricky tricky!

I resolve:

-to knit instead of play with my phone after dinner (it's better for my focus, my eyes, my happiness).

 -to make time for yoga weekly.

-to work a little toward various goals and big projects calmly everyday instead of freaking out and fear-watching too much Netflix.

-to remember that I am enough, I do enough, and I'm right where I should be and to listen to my breath when I needed to be reminded of it.

-to do the dishes everyday. And to remember that it makes me feel good to wake up to a clean kitchen counter.

-to be quiet and listen more often.

-to journal everyday.

-to blog three times a week.

And that's it! In short, I want to knit, write, and be more mindful. I want to stop freaking myself out and indulging in counter-productive behavior because of it. If I move in that direction this year, I'll be pleased. It's not about the number of times I do something, really, or doing something daily without fail. It's about gently guiding yourself in the direction you'd like your life to go. And that is why I love New Years.

What are your resolutions? Do you make them? What are you hoping for out of the new year? Regardless, Happy New Year everyone!

Pinterest Wednesday: Christmas Edition

Merry Christmas to you and yours! I hope everyone's enjoying  a quiet, restful holiday!

As I mentioned I was not originally going to knit anyone Christmas gifts. But then money got away from me and I got ambitious and I got on a knitting kick, so I decided what the heck! I don't have the resources to give all of my friends gifts, but there are some friends that I would like to give more than just a Christmas card. I found this pattern on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect. They are quick, easy, I could use yarn I already had in my stash, and they are cute!

You could do a lot of fun things with this pattern: use sparkly yarn, add beads, do different colors, etc. I actually knit the stars and made them into individual ornaments for peole and didn't do the garland, but that would be a fun/pretty project too! I was going to do an i-cord border in a contrasting color, but then I remembered my love/hate relationship with i-cord borders and this was meant to be a quick project so I refrained.

Here's my first one! It was a really simple project with minimal construction at the end. I will say the pattern doesn't describe wrapped short rows very well, but I had just started working on another project that involved them so I knew what it was talking about. So if you're reading the pattern and unsure on what to do, that's what it means: wrapped short rows. You might want to find a video or other instructions if you've never done them before, but rest-assured they're super simple once you know what to do.

Have you ever knit Christmas ornaments before? Do you have any favorite patterns? And one more Merry Christmas!

Friday FO's

Like most knitting bloggers around this time of year, there is not much I can show you. The projects I have finished are gifts, the projects I am working on are gifts...I can't even show you some of the yarn I'm going to use because: gifts.

Quick side note: I definitely told some craft friends in November that I wasn't going to knit any Christmas presents this year because that way lay madness in years past. Hahahahaahahaha, I have three knitted Christmas present finished, two on needles, and at least three or four more to try to knit before the big day. It's a sickness, I tell you.

What I can show you is the way I torture my cat when he just so happens to be sitting next to me when I'm knitting gauge swatches. Did I say gauge swatch? I meant cat bonnet:

O. Henry you are a good sport.

Second quick side note: Henry's full name is O. Henry because he's named after this guy. So when I would normally say "Oh, Henry." I use his full name instead. Because I am a dork who lives alone with her cats and needs to get out more.

There will be SO MANY FO's the Friday after Christmas, my friends! SO MANY, I SAY! Good luck to all of you who are in the heat of the holiday knitting frenzy. Rest your hands frequently, drink lots of tea and if you feel like you need to slip a little whiskey in your tea, well, it's the holidays!

Happy Happy Internet Thursday!

Happy Thursday, one and all! I only have two days of work left before the Winter Holiday Season starts and there is a festive feeling all around work. Also, a lot of cookies and candy, of which I am highly in favor. Because I can't give you all cookies and the holidays don't make everyone happy, here are just some general (with maybe just one holiday related) happy things I found (or were pointed out to me) from around the internet. Because we all know that what the internet is truly good for is pictures of cute animals and funny gifs. After the dissemination of knowledge, blah blah blah.

I could watch cats jump and miss all day long. It's one of the main reasons I have cats in my house.

I mean, seriously.

And of course, Mr. Ron Swanson.

If you are in the mood for something a little Christmassy, there's this funny story of NORAD's Santa Tracking service and how it got an unexpected start.