With grim determination: 5 things 13.11.17

• Technical knitting design discussion that I couldn’t quite follow left me feeling a little sad about the high school teacher who ruined maths for me. I always enjoyed and did well in maths, until the final years. Could be that my brain genuinely didn’t grok trig and calculus, and that’s just how it would have been no matter what. But I don’t think it’s a complete coincidence that those were the years when I was taught by a sour old bat with a personal grudge against me. I mean, whatever. It’s not like I was ever going to study maths further, and while it would be nice to understand things like why sine is part of this Excel calculation, it really hasn’t held me back. But it’s a shame. (File under: things I feel bad about not really understanding, like what makes computers go and what we really know about black holes. Apparently I am constantly feeding the kids wrong answers to their questions about space and the universe and stuff, thank goodness they have Armin to keep them up to date on Science.)
• Whining about my brain’s inadequacies aside, I think I’m feeling… better? Whatever hormonal storm or planetary square it was has passed, and I’m back on an even keel, no unnecessary tears.
• And resolved to try and treat myself kindly, in all the boring ways like getting enough sleep and exercise, and mostly staying off Twitter, in hopes of rediscovering what it is to have an attention span. We’ll see how that goes. But I have all these Projects! and in theory, enough time to make at least some progress on at least some of them, so.
• I have been fondly imagining that my design schedule for the next year (four sweaters and a shawl, plus possibly some little things) was ambitious but doable, but then I looked at the list of things I’ve actually knit in 2017, and it’s… not encouraging. So two of those sweaters will probably have to be 2018 releases (bugger) and I must get started on one more of them RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT NOW. That’s fine, there’s nothing holding me back except that I foolishly thought it wasn’t that urgent and I could tackle some other stuff first. Whoops.
• I very very very much want to do some solid de-cluttering before the end of this year, but… I don’t fancy my chances. Mostly because it’s Armin’s and the kids’ clutter that needs chucking. No really. I prune my own stuff pretty regularly. (Yarn aside. I would LOVE to destash but with Swiss postage prices…) But A is a hoarder of note, and of course kids are kids and can’t bear to part with any tiny pebble they’ve ever picked up. Give me strength.

Nos 44, 45 & 46 I guess of #52recipes: pasta with roasted eggplant and balsamic glazed sweet potatoes. The eggplant sauce was great, especially with lots of grana padano, but the kids didn’t appreciate it at all. (This is kind of a recurring theme…) The sweet potatoes were fine, not as good as the way I usually roast them, with olive oil and paprika and cayenne pepper. But I also threw some brussel sprouts in there and HELL YES balsamic glazed is now officially the only way to cook sprouts. Would be even better with a little diced bacon. 

AND then I felt the need to make cookies, and I started with these but hoo boy did I screw up. The dough wasn’t “soft and wet and you’ll think there’s something wrong”, it was WAAAAY wet and completely incapable of holding any shape whatsoever. So that all went in the bin (after a token effort to improve the consistency with some ground almond, but eh, whatever, I wasn’t feeling it) and I tried these. No problem with the dough but I had some issues with my nozzle (just too small I suspect), and then I couldn’t find my rolling pin so any kind of pretty shapes were out of the question. But I made basic blobs and dipped them in some basic melted chocolate and sprinkles, and the kids were SO VERY EXCITED. I’ll definitely have to repeat that whole sprinkles thing soon. Anyway, I’m counting both of these half-arsed cookie attempts as one of my 52, if only because of the number of times I’ve claimed a whole recipe when only half following it.