Hiking...and knitting.

Wow, I meant to post yesterday or the day before, and just kind of forgot. Oh well.

Last week Wednesday was Administrative Professionals Day (formerly Secretarys Day, but then that became un-pc or something) and I was a little disappointed that nobody took Jessica and me out to lunch, but we got roses, so that was cool anyway.

They looked really beautiful on Friday when I left work, and I made sure to add some extra water so they wouldn't die over the weekend, but they did anyway. They're all sad and droopy now, but I haven't gotten rid of them yet.

Saturday was hiking day, and as usual, hiking in Sedona is beautiful:

That's a pretty cool looking dead tree we encountered. That is, it's beautiful until my hiking buddy loses the trail several times, and walks me around for 3+ hours on steep angled rock leading down to a sheer cliff and a drop to my certain death. While I'm exhausted because his pace is much faster than mine. Yeah. We circled Chimney Rock looking for the trail, walking a little, looking over the cliff at the trail below wondering how to get down to it, then walking a little more and looking again, until we came back around to the path that had lead us up there in the first place. It looks lovely when you look at it from far away, it's not so much fun when you're walking around it trying to find a way down.

All of which played a part in prompting me to go out the next day and buy some real, decent hiking shoes, just in case my hiking buddy wasn't so fed up with all my whining to never head out with me again. Check 'em out!

They have sticky rubber on the bottom so I can't fall off the rocks as easily! Hopefully I'll have a chance to try them out this weekend.

In knitting knews (hehe, I'm a dork) I managed to finish part of AJ's birthday present today. That's one down, one to go, and her birthday was only last Thursday, so considering my track record over the last few years, I think I'm doing fairly well.

I also finished the first panel of the super secret bag for the Knit Knack Purses and Pasties exchange. I learned intarsia for it, which was pretty difficult at first, then I got the hang of it, so it's not so bad. It didn't help that I came up with a pretty complicated chart for my first foray into intarsia. But that's just how I roll, I guess.

I can't wait to finish all the pieces and felt it, something else I've never actually done!

Wow, I hope the guys singing and playing accordian across the street pack it up before I go to bed...accordian-induced insomnia may be fine as the subject of a song by The Who, but in actuality would kind of suck.

Today I am grateful for yarn shops and mountain roads.

And also for weekends.

I drove through Jerome today to get home, because I needed to buy some yarn for the Knit Knack exchanges that are going on (purses and pasties). And I'm super-excited about the yarn I got! It was like a big bag of love!

See what I mean?

Jerome was freaky crowded though. It was hard to find parking, but from where I parked, as you walk into town you get a lovely view of the Verde Valley, which seems a lot more hazy than it did last year about this time.

I remember being up there and being able to see the Red Rocks clear on the other side of the valley, and today you could hardly see anything.

Erica at Knit 1 Bead 2 was awesome, and extraordinarily helpful, as always, and I had a beautiful drive the rest of the way over Mingus to Chino Valley with the car window open and my arm hanging out. I'm gonna end up with trucker's arm, for sure.

Tonight the Charoset, Tomorrow Passover

Yay, my first blog post ever! Or something. Since I have no readers or anything yet, I'm going to post a link for nobody to an awesome collection of charoset recipes, none of which I'm making for tomorrow night's Seder. Here's the link Ok, so I sort of took suggestions from all the recipes, but I've got picky eaters to cater to, so no raisins for my dad, change up the walnuts for pecans for my mom, mashed banana just sounds kind of wierd in charoset to me, and so on. So my charoset recipe is as follows:

3 apples (whatever looks good)
walnuts
almonds (the sliced kind, although I guess if you're gonna chop them up it doesn't really matter)
dates
red wine
cinnamon
powdered ginger

Then you kind of chop everything up and mix it all together. It's not supposed to be pretty, y'all, it's supposed to look like mortar. Amounts are totally however much you feel like putting in, and pretty much the ingredients are up to you too, with the exception of apples, nuts and red wine. Technically it's supposed to be kosher wine, but I hate that thick Manischevitz shit, so I chose an Australian Shiraz that was on sale for dirt cheap. Some recipes seem to call for sweet red wine and some call for dry. I know absolutely shit about wines, so I chose what was on sale.

Oh yeah, that link also has a recipe for something called Huevos Haminados, which is some kind of hard cooked eggs, all Sephardic style, which sounds pretty awesome. I'm gonna have to try it one of these days.