Honey and Ollie

I am not sure to what I owe the sudden surge in traffic, but, hey, that’s kind of neat that people are reading! Welcome!

It’s been a real doozy of a week, and it is only Thursday. I am a little gobsmacked by how much has been packed in to just a few short days.

First there were final exams. Which are, thankfully, now over. I am not sure about how the algebra exam went, but I think it went okay. Grades get posted next week, so we shall see. The anatomy exam went great and I walked out of the class with a 99% average for the semester. I missed 11 lectures due to illness (my own, or the children’s) over the course of the semester. That’s a lot. You’re only supposed to miss 4, max. Fortunately, because of H1N1 season, the school was being really flexible about illness-based absences this term, and my professor was a total rock star about it. Plus, ya know, I worked my arse off. I am (justifiably, I think) really really proud of that grade. It came with a lot of tears, from a lot of hard work, in the face of a lot of bad days.

The humans are not the only ones at Casa Fabulous getting sick, oh no. Now the cats all have colds. I spent last night at the emergency vet clinic with Mittens von Skitterspants of the Good Ship HMS Fabulous. Now, Mittens is in the regular vet hospital on ivs, and Honey de la Crankypants and Charlie Bukatski are both on Clavamox and in isolation. Princess Bonbon Fluffypants Von Schnufflestein and Professor Oliver Rumblestein, PhD (Doctor of Purrology) both seem to have gotten over their bouts okay. Let me tell you, you have not lived until you’ve taken a trio of sick, sneezing, drippy, pissed off cats to the vet in one go. It is times like these that I am reminded of 2 things.

1. 5 cats is a lot of cats.
2. Pet insurance. I really need to get some.

Despite it all, or maybe because of it all, I’ve gotten a nice whack of knitting done on my Lacy Baktus [Ravelry], knit in my own handspun.

Finally, I’ve had some time to read (at the vet clinic, natch), and started to read The Namesake which has only been on my TBR pile for… well, never mind, that’s embarrassing.

And now? it is time for a nap. Or perhaps hot buttered rum… I don’t have to crack a textbook for 4 weeks. Let the holidays commence…

It’s a miserable cold day here at Casa Fabulous. I am really sick with lurgy, and have possibly flunked a test, so more grateful than ever for the advent of shabbos. Two and a half hours and it will be upon us. And it is also the first night of Chanukah, so I needed to make something special for dinner. Because I lack the energy to do anything remotely like work today, I am attempting something new. I have terrible luck roasting turkey breasts, because they always dry out. However, I had such great luck doing crock pot roast chicken a few weeks ago, I thought I’d try it out with turkey.

I got one large boneless turkey breast (don’t ask me how big, I pointed, the guy at the butcher’s counter wrapped it, and I paid – I was too busy trying to ignore the fresh Dungeoness crabs that I can’t eat anymore to pay attention to what size) and rubbed it down with a lemon infused olive oil, then rubbed it all over with an herb and fleur de sel blend from O&Co. Popped that into the crock pot on top of a bed of coarsely chopped shallots, crushed garlic, and half a chopped onion. Threw some white wine into the pot, enough to cover the bottom, and we shall see. I’m cooking it on high for an hour, and then on low for 5. When it is done, I’m going to pop it under the broiler for a few minutes and crisp up the skin.

The plan is to saute some mushrooms and a little more shallot, strain the juices from the crock pot, and add that and a little bit of flour/water mixture to the pan to make a mushroom gravy to ladle over the slices of turkey when we serve.

There shall also be squash kugel, though I intend to cut the sugar in the recipe by at least half, and throw in some Chinese Five Spice. And, of course, latkes. I’m making two kinds, regular and sweet potato. Which will be served with apricot-applesauce, and 2% lowfat Greek yogurt in lieu of sour cream.

Epic noms. And yeah, I have pretty much given up trying to keep meat and dairy separate for the time being. It is very hard. I think I’m waiting until after the holidays to give it another go. The no pork/no shellfish thing is hard enough, though getting a lot easier. Unless there is fresh just in from the Northcoast Dungeoness Crab in season taunting me at the fishmongers. Then, you know, there might be a little bit of whining.

There will also, of course, be presents. Though I haven’t decided whether or not to give the kids their loot all in one go, or dole ‘em out over the 8 crazy nights.

Have a good one, y’all.

There’s been a fair whack of spinning and knitting going on here, Chez Honey and Ollie, though not a ton of finished anything to show for it. I’m particularly pleased with this bump of fiber from Funky Carolina though, which I spun up last week. The finished product exceeded all my hopes:

This one from Fat Cat Knits monthly fiber club (Little Luxuries) came out pretty great too:

I think that over the course of the next few weeks, I am going to be migrating all of my J-blog stuff (Mitpachat) over here. Sidebar links and new postings. I’d kept the subjects fairly separate, not wanting to inflict a lot of religious musings about observant Judaism on my knitting readers and vice versa, but honestly, I yam who I yam, all in one package. I don’t think the two need be mutually exclusive. And its a lot easier to maintain one blog than two, especially when you’re as cramped in the time department as I am.

One thing I did do is register http://honeyandollie.com through WordPress, so you can point your browsers there, as well as to the old URL. Both should work, though the latter will redirect you to the new address. I had hoped to be able to link multiple pages off of this and consolidate things that way, but alas, it does not seem to want to do that.

So. More to come. Knitting. Spinning. Kosher food. Evolution is, right?

I absolutely swear that in a few weeks, this semester shall be over.

By then, I will have a card reader and there will be knitting and real life content again. Promise. Pinky swear. Really.

Until then? This is neat.

I have a huge test to study for.

Therefore, I am being Easily Amused.