Happy New Year

Good-Bye, 2012. You were a pretty good year in many ways. Russ and I have lost over sixty pounds between the two of us since 2011, mainly through exercise and non-piggishness in the eating department. Our kids are happy and both seem to be enjoying college and more independence, and we're enjoying having more time together, just the two of us. In typical fashion, we don't plan any big celebration tonight, just a nice meal with some good wine.

Bakersfield has quite a few good ethnic restaurants, which have opened in the last four or five years, but ethnic restaurants are nothing new here. Luigi's Delicatessen has been at the same location in East Bakersfield for over a hundred years, and it has wonderful Italian food. We don't go there very often, but I thought it would be fun to go there today and buy some homemade ravioli to have for our little New Year's Eve dinner. I neglected to remember that they are closed on Mondays. My solution was to make some myself. I kind of improvised, but my initial recipe for lemon ricotta ravioli with brown butter sauce was from Bakerita's website.

I had a little helper much of the time. Paige brought her little kitty, Cosette home for Christmas, and she was very interested in sampling the ricotta in my filling.

They look a little greasy in this picture, but they were a hit with everyone. I had plans to freeze some of them for later, but this was all that was left. ..and that was the end of our New Year Year's celebration. Russ and I have settled down to a cozy evening of Doc Martin, and Paige is watching it with us before heading to whatever celebration she planning to attend and Kai is happily ensconced in his room playing online soccer with some friends. That's as exciting as I need.  Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

I love Christmas time, and I'm definitely not one of those people who throw the Christmas tree out the day after Christmas, particularly since we've had a "fake" tree for the last three or four years. Another reason that I'm not too quick to let go of Christmas decorations is that I usually don't get them up until the week before Christmas anyway. This year was no different. We had school until the 21st, so I was pretty busy until then. I was proud of some of my little displays this year though. I knit gobs of these little stockings several years ago and usually put them on the tree, but this year, I strung them across the fireplace, using some little clothespins I found in a tourist shop this fall.

I have no new knitting to show off after almost an entire week of vacation. I'm struggling still with finding a focus. I have tons of yarn but no vision for any of it. I know that Paige could use some mitts for riding her bike to classes early in the morning, and Kai says he'd like a "cowl," which kind of surprised but intrigued me. So, what am I doing? I'm messing around with making myself a cowl out of some random yarn that I found in my yarn basket, which has obviously been the victim of our kitty, sharpening her claws because it keeps fraying. Oh well, it will give me a good excuse if I decide once again to unravel and start something new, ha, ha.