How to Survive in Subtropical 'Paradise'

I'm back!

2011-08-03T23:20:00.002-05:00

Hello world! Did you miss me? I'm back to blogging after a many-year hiatus. Only now I'm in a bigger and better space, talking about all kinds of new and exciting things -- primarily my upcoming move to and renovation of a 1916 yellow farmhouse called Meyer Grove. But I'll leave the forum open to pretty much anything and everything. As the politicians that I report on for my day job like to say: "Everything is on the table." Get excited, people. It's going to be a wild ride.

If anyone is still subscribing to this feed, head on over to my new site. See you there!

meyergrove.typepad.com

It's Christmas Eve Eve!

2008-12-23T21:39:00.003-06:00

As my (second) favorite New Yorker likes to say: It's Christmas Eve Eve! So here's a little Yuletide cheer from me to you. Hope your holidays are merry and bright!

(Christmas) tree hugger

2008-12-10T16:20:00.003-06:00

Last week, just after Thanksgiving, I was having a crisis of sorts. I'm not going home to my parent's house for Christmas until late on Christmas Eve. So unless I have my own Christmas tree, there's going to be very little time for Christmas cheer in my life this year. But getting my own Christmas tree presents a dilemma in and of itself. Growing up, we always had fresh trees -- fresh as in we went out to the woods on our land and tromped around until we found the perfect tree, chopped it down and trudged back home, tree in tow. Obviously it would be a smidge difficult for me to find some landowner in the District who wouldn't mind my trespassing on his property looking for the perfect cedar tree –- much less my procuring the saw to sever said tree. And I'm just not mentally prepared to pay for a tree that someone else got to go tromp about in the woods to chop down (OK, I realize the trees at your average tree stand are probably not natural growths that some hunter stumbled upon during his walk through the wilderness, but instead products of massive tree-farming operations –- just another reason not to buy a fresh tree). But I'm also really not into fake trees. Ugh. Plastic. Consumerism. Ugly. A dilemma, you see.

So after much debating and consultation with friends and family, I decided to divert from the mainstream and go with a potted Christmas tree. This way, even though I'd have to buy it, I could keep it afterward –- or plant it in a certain West Virginian's new backyard. So I tromped the two blocks to the hardware store, carefully scrutinized the three potential potted Christmas trees and settled on a lovely, slightly wonky Norfolk pine. Even my arms were spared their typical Christmas scarring (have you ever tried to carry a cedar tree while trudging through the woods?) because my special neighborly friend, Daniel, carried it all the way back for me.

My sparse collection of ornaments (that I used to hang on kitchen cabinet knobs) covered the tree perfectly. Add a few lights, and voila! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Word on the street is that even a certain Long Island mom/secret hippie is a fan of my socially responsible decor.

Thanks

2008-11-27T23:42:00.003-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone Stateside. It's been a good holiday here in Mississippi, where I'm eating my turkey. My sister asked us all what we were thankful for, primarily so she could gloat and say she's thankful for Nick Saban (she's an Alabama fan; the rest of us root for Ole Miss). But her question got me thinking. I'm obviously thankful for all the *important* things -- life, free country, family, friends, health, etc. -- but I'm also thankful for so many little things as well. Little things that I appreciate on a daily basis but rarely stop to think about, like sunny days, live music, and Converse. But instead of rambling on with hackneyed tryptophan-induced musings, I will leave you with just one superficial thing I'm thankful for: pecan beer (and a brother willing to import it for me from Louisiana). Happy Thanksgiving.

Guest blogging

2008-11-21T11:14:00.001-06:00

I've got a guest post up at my good friend Amanda's humorous public transportation-stories blog. Check it out.

First you start with a roux

2008-11-14T19:24:00.004-06:00

I'm big on second chances. I gave DC a second chance and fell in love with it. I've given countless people second chances. So I figured I should probably give delicata a second chance too. It was a wise decision.

All week long, I've been salivating over this recipe, drawn primarily to the cashew cream. I considered using a different squash like a butternut, but after hearing a friend's horror story of trying to peel those bad boys, I decided to stick with the delicata. Being the overachieving perfectionist that I am, I decided to forego store-bought broth and make my own. And because I'm scared of dead chickens, veggie broth became the de facto winner. I threw in all the typical broth ingredients: carrots, celery, onions, garlic, peppercorns, oil, salt, etc. But I wanted to add some additional flavors, so I chopped up a pepper and -- on a whim -- plucked a few leaves off the ornamental cabbage I've been trying to keep alive in my living room. (I checked first -- it's edible.)

After an hour-ish of broth-making, my stomach told me it was time to get the show on the road, so I strained my veggies and rigged up a sweet apparatus (potholders covered with plastic bags) to squeeze out the additional juice. My hands are only slightly worse for the wear. My dinner guest decided the shenanigans needed to be documented -- but I think she just wanted to play with my new toy.

Finally the broth was ready. The delicata had been roasting all the while, and it was time to get down to business. The cashew cream was really interesting. My guest and I were completely intrigued by the process. And it added an excellent flavor, texture and pallor to the otherwise disgusting-looking soup.

My drizzling skills leave something to be desired, but I managed to make one of the bowls look halfway decent, and the soup was delish!

So I didn't actually start with a roux -- there was no flour involved -- but I figured it was an appropriate enough title. Plus, I've had Louisiana on the brain recently. I blame it on this muggy, dreary weather.

Where's my banjo player?

2008-11-07T15:18:00.006-06:00

Last night I needed to make cookies for several reasons -- the primary one being that I wanted to eat some. And it was my first free evening at home in about two weeks, so naturally I needed something to do to fill my time. I couldn't just sit around and watch TV and knit like a normal person. Not me. So I decided to make some snickerdoodles. And not just any snickerdoodles; they had to be Ms. Jennifer's special snickerdoodles.

Growing up, my brother, sister and I had a pretty awesome lineup of regular babysitters. My hometown is a college town, and that school was my parents' alma mater, so they frequently attended football and basketball games, and we kids got to hang out with our awesome babysitters.

First, there was Ms. Frazier. She made these amazing mini-pancake things. Plus, she lived in an old house, which was cool. Then there was Miss Genia, who quite possibly -- along with my grandmother -- inspired my love of crafting. Every Saturday while my parents were tailgating and watching football, Miss Genia helped us undertake dozens of messy crafty endeavors -- I think much to my mother's chagrin because we never cleaned up. There was also Miss Kathryn, whose artwork hangs in my kitchen to this day. But the babysitter of note in this post was Ms. Jennifer because she introduced us to snickerdoodles. (I should probably also note that looking back on it, she was just a generally cool person: gymnastics coach, Spanish teacher, granddaughter of a governor, and I'm pretty sure she also dated the mandolin/banjo player in a local band for a while, which totally ups her street cred in grown-up Katie's book.)

But that's all a very long aside to the true purpose of this post: the cookies.

Making these cookies is fun because in doing so, I get to use two of my favorite kitchen tools:

1. my sifter. I love sifting. I could literally sift all day. I love the machine. I love the fluffy piles of white powder (OK, that's going to put me in some interesting google searches). Seriously, I love it. I almost had a nervous breakdown a few years ago when I couldn't find a sifter anywhere. I searched and searched and finally found one at a grocery store. Go figure.

2. my Pampered Chef mini whisk thingie. This tool is awesome. My mom gave it to me, touting dozens of perks. And she was right. It's great. She also told me to never lose it and to never let anyone steal it from me. So far I've succeeded -- don't get any fresh ideas, Cole. I use it in basically everything that requires mixing. It also works well for stirring soup.

Unfortunately for all of you, my photo tutorial will have to suffice. My mom just told me it's a secret recipe!

Better late than never

2008-11-06T15:02:00.005-06:00

As mentioned earlier, there was a third hipster headband made for the big birthday fete of 2008. Sorry it took me eons to catch my favorite organic farming, veg-oil-converting West Virginian wearing hers. For "The Richele," I chose an earthy motif to match her hippie-ish nature. The butterfly adds a girlish touch so she can still feel like a lady even if she's wearing a dirty jumpsuit and is underneath the hood of a giant diesel truck. Purple is her favorite color, so naturellement it played a role.

You may recall I also promised to make a more age-appropriate hipster headband. So for "The Porkchop," I went with princess styling because what 2-year-old doesn't want to be a princess? There's also sequined bling because Layla loves flashy things as I discovered when I gave her some of my Mardi Gras beads back in the spring. (It sounds a lot fishier than it is -- don't worry, I didn't make the poor 2-year-old flash for her beads. For that matter, I didn't flash for the beads!) Perhaps Richele will get some pictures of Princess Porkchop this weekend that I can share next week. Happy Thursday and almost-end to the longest week ever.

Dressed to pin

2008-11-05T20:50:00.003-06:00

In another lifetime, sorority girl Katie used to love "dressing to pin" (i.e., dressing up so I could wear my sorority badge and not disrespect my letters). And while sorority girl Katie remains a distant memory for the most part, I still get a little thrill when I know I'm dressed to pin. This quirk is more than likely responsible for my current obsession with brooches. Here's a sneak peak at my "new" peacock one I got at a vintage store not long ago. It's supposedly 1920s-era, but who knows if that's accurate. Regardless, I like it. (And might I add it's surprisingly difficult to take a picture of one's own chest.)

Dixieland delight

2008-11-05T14:26:00.004-06:00

Sorry I'm such a blogging tease. I was quite the active blogger last week, and then nothing. Whatever did you do with yourselves? I apologize. But I was MIA for good reason: My little sister turned 21, so I went down to Alabama for a visit. Coincidentally, this past weekend was also her school's Homecoming, and she was in charge of the parade (wow!), so I thought I'd share a few photos here. Don't worry, crafty endeavors will return soon. I've actually been fairly productive recently despite all the election brouhaha and lots of exciting copy editing.

It took a lot of work -- and sweet-talking -- to get the parade going, but everything eventually fell into place, the judges took their seats and the show began.

Then it was time for football (No.-1-team-in-the-nation football, if I might add)...

We sat in the student section, which made me feel old...

But we were next to the Queen, which was cool.

Of course, there were typical birthday shenanigans as well.

Looks like she liked her gifts.

All in all, a good weekend. Happiness.

'Je vois la vie en rose'

2008-10-29T18:01:00.003-05:00

My life yesterday was a lovely mix of Parisienne chic and Stars Hollow charm. I was making dinner for a friend and decided we needed some bread to go with our soup and squash. I planned to go to the grocery store after work until I remembered -- with great delight -- that my neighborhood is home to a bakery. So I popped in and picked up a fresh baguette and strolled toward home, reveling in all my Francophile glory. (This was compounded by the fact that I was wearing my Paris-girl uniform: black dress, black boots, fancy tights and short black coat.)

I forgot to switch the lens back to autofocus, so this photo is totally wonky, but I kind of like the awkward artsiness of it.

Dinner consisted of much-hyped delicata and artichoke soup. Both were excellent. I primarily followed Jess's preparation for the delicata: chopped it in half, spread on some olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and baked for an hour at 350.

The chopping was much easier said than done. Perhaps if I'd had a bigger knife similar to this one (hint hint, Mama, Christmas is only two months away -- though I'm not sure how I'd check that thing through security in Memphis), then my life would have been easier. But I didn't, so that's why there are awkward cut marks on the squash.

I *generally* followed Blair's recipe for the artichoke soup. And by generally followed, I mean I basically used the same ingredients. I didn't really keep track of how much of anything I used. And I eyeballed the majority of the spices, but in essence, I used her recipe. With the addition of garlic. Everything's better with garlic.

Dinner was delish. The soup was excellent. Spicy. Warm. Yummy. The delicata was OK. For the texture, my pick would be spaghetti squash. But delicata definitely beats out acorn squash in my book.

After my jaunt to the bakery earlier, I had nipped into the craft store near my apartment (my street is just like Stars Hollow -- there's even an animal-themed store à la Le Chat Club) for supplies for our after-dinner pants-hemming party. Seriously, it was a party. There were orange corduroy hemline headbands. And dancing. I'm embarrassed to say there was even some Abba.

Does it get any more Lorelei Gilmore than that?

Someone should probably check to see that I'm still alive in the morning because I have a feeling she's going to murder me in my sleep for posting these photos. Happy Wednesday.

Maudlin

2008-10-28T15:46:00.002-05:00

So I’ve been quite the busy blogger bee recently. I’m not sure what it is; maybe fall inspires me. Anyhow, I mentioned in my Gimpy post that I had some before-and-after photos to show off my photo-editing skills. Well, I lied. I actually only have the afters. Flickr won’t let me upload any more pictures this month without paying money -- and let’s be honest; I don’t need to spend money right now to put photos on flickr. We are on the verge of recession after all. But I thought I’d share the after images anyway. They are quite lovely, if I say so myself. They were taken with my old camera. So I guess I jumped the gun in blogging about my new toy yesterday. I promise more shots from the D90 are coming soon -- perhaps as soon as tomorrow.

My sister came up to visit earlier this month, and we did a few touristy things, including a stroll along the Potomac and a visit to the Jefferson Memorial.

Apparently it’s not a good idea to scuba dive in the Potomac. Who knew?

Some tourists at Jefferson.

Views of the monuments from the East Potomac Park bridge.

Last weekend, a couple of friends and I went for a romantic drive to Middleburg, Va., for some small-town charm, shopping and to wish we were rich and owned horse farms in the country.

Richele and Amanda amuse themselves while I take pictures.

Stimulating the economy

2008-10-27T15:34:00.004-05:00

Get excited, folks. The photo quality on this blog is about to get better. This weekend, in a moment of fiscal irresponsibility/economic duty, I went out and bought myself a new camera. A new Nikon D90, to be precise. After an hour of haggling over, well, nothing with the sales girl and a sizable depletion of my bank account, I am now the proud owner of my very own digital SLR. And I couldn't be happier. I love my old camera. It's a very nice digital prosumer (Nikon Coolpix 5700) -- it was top of the line when I got it in 2002 -- but six years is a long time in digital camera years, and it was time for an upgrade.

My old lovely:

My new lovely:

I haven't gotten to play around with it as much as I would like yet because the majority of this weekend was spent hiding from the rain or scurrying to meet some fast-approaching deadlines for work. But here are a couple of shots of randomness to quell your appetites (OK, to quell my appetite). Soon enough, my friends, soon enough. Happy Monday.

More socks

2008-10-26T21:30:00.002-05:00

I just finished editing a few more pictures of my brother's work socks. They're all up on Ravelry (subtropicalkatie), but I thought I'd share them here too.

Halloween place mat sock blocker

A tale of two socks

2008-10-24T15:46:00.004-05:00

My patient brother was the only member of my family not to get a handmade gift for Christmas last year, so I told him he could choose any item he wanted, and I would make it first thing in 2008. He chose socks -- specifically Nancy Bush's Gentleman's Half Hose in Ringwood Pattern from her book "Knitting Vintage Socks." I had never ~~made~~ finished a pair of socks before. So I wasn't quite prepared for what was in store: millions of tiny, tiny stitches in the same pattern for rows and rows and rows. And then you have to repeat the same thing all over again for the second one. So here it is nearly 10 months to the day from my promise, and I'm finally delivering the goods. To my credit, 2008 has been a crazy year with two moves, a new job, an impromptu trip to Paris, among other things. But the real reason for the delay is that I really don't like making socks -- perhaps more specifically, I really don't like making second socks. The first one was finished before I moved away from New Orleans in February. And I've been "working" on the second one ever since. So Hunter, I hope you like these socks because they are more than likely the only *pair* I will ever make.

Without further ado, a pictorial essay of Hunter's work socks:

I knitted so much that I snapped a needle. (Or maybe I just got so frustrated when I realized I had dropped two stitches...)

Poor broken needle. Luckily these suckers come in sets of five.

Finally finished!! Trying them on for size. Way too big for me...

More sampling. Koigu is really soft and lovely. Those Canadians know what they're doing. These socks, however, are not at all flattering on my legs. Here's hoping they look better on Hunter.

Sock blocking.

Drying on the "veranda" (aka my sketchy fire escape).

More dryage. I made my sock blocker (singular) out of a Halloween place mat from Target. Unfortunately one place mat was not big enough to make two blockers, so these suckers took extra long to dry.

And now, all the stitches are set, they're boxed and ready. Keep an eye out for the postman, Hunter, cause your socks are finally on their way!

Hipster headwear

2008-10-17T15:50:00.004-05:00

My shopping guru stumbled upon these amazing headbands not long ago, and I was instantly smitten. Not ~~willing~~ able to shell out $150+ for such a novelty item, however, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Armed with my trusty hot glue gun and an array of random odds and ends from Michael’s, I cranked out three of these lovelies a couple weeks ago for myself and two friends to wear during a certain birthday weekend. Kate’s headband is above, and mine is below. I’ll show Richele’s in a separate post once I get a better picture. And I’ve been commissioned to make one for a more age-appropriate customer, Richele’s 2-year-old niece, Layla. Once that one is done -- Richele, I need her head measurements! -- there will be even more hipster headgear to showcase. Happy weekend everyone!

Gimpy

2008-10-16T16:18:00.006-05:00

Photography has always been something I’ve enjoyed and dabbled with. In my high school journalism classes more than a decade ago (yikes!), we learned all about composure and framing, contrast and light, as well the technical aspects of using SLR cameras -- film back in those days, not digital. Another aspect of those classes was learning to use Photoshop for editing the photos. I quickly learned that just as a good editor can turn an average piece of writing into a literary masterpiece, a good photo editor can do the same for a photograph, albeit with more technical tools. Luckily (?) for me, I was in school for many, many years beyond high school, so I was able to keep easy access to Photoshop. Those academics love their fancy software. But ever since I’ve been out in the *real* world, my life has been sadly Photoshop-free.

I still enjoy photography. And I have still edited my photos -- to some degree. But until recently, it was not at the level that I would have liked. I got a free copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements somewhere, but it just offended me with its simplicity. So essentially I haven’t had access to good photo-editing software since 2006. Until now.

Thanks to my good friend Hilary’s advice, I downloaded Gimp. It’s freeware, which is awesome compared with $700 for CS4. But it’s got a lot of the capabilities -- and functions very similarly to -- the old Photoshop I know and love. So far I’ve just used it on my PC at work because I don’t have Internet at home. So I don’t know how it will work on my Mac, but as soon as Verizon stops hating me and I’m back in Web-land, I plan on downloading that version and testing it out as well.

I’m an idiot and forgot my jump drive at home today with all my before-and-after edited photos to show off (again, no Internet at home -- so frustrating). I had all these lovely images of fall leaves and DC scenes. But oh well. Instead, I’ll show you Richele. Richele is Washington’s newest Examiner blogger, and she needed a profile picture for her bio. So she called on me, her trusty life assistant, to help out. Here’s the picture we started with. Obviously she didn’t want other people in the shot, but she liked this picture. So I told her I’d work some magic.

Normally I’m not one to alter reality (i.e., delete light posts, flip images, etc.), but I figured since this was for a bio picture, it was OK to take out all the background noise so it didn’t appear that she had strange plastic things growing out of her head. I didn’t have a lot of time to work on it, so the contrast between her head and the background is a little fuzzier than I'd like. But all in all, I -- and she -- was pleased. And now I'm spreading the word about Gimp, which I'm the last person in the world to know about, per usual.

The best time of year

2008-10-10T14:44:00.002-05:00

Every now and again, I get a mild case of homesicknesses -- crazy, I know, for someone who has lived in seven cities in five states during the past 10 years (I just counted, I've moved 15 times in that period!). And rarer still, are the times that I feel nostalgia for Subtropical Paradise. But one of those rare occurrences has been happening during the past month or so. Chalk it up to missing out on a presidential debate in my hometown as well as some golden gridiron moments or turning a year older, but nonetheless I've been missing recently the rolling hills of Oxford, Saturday afternoons in the Grove, and humid Wednesday evenings spent sweating and listening to jazz in Lafayette Square.

But then something happened. The days started getting shorter. The nights started getting chilly. And before I knew it, fall was here, and I remembered why I love the East Coast so much.

Last weekend, I drove a friend to her hometown in West Virginia and decided to take the long way back to enjoy a solo romantic drive through the mountains to see the leaves that are beginning to change -- and let's be honest, to stop by Sonic in Winchester (a tried and true homesickness remedy). Doing so also allowed me to snag a whole bushel of freshly picked West Virginia apples (or maybe it's a peck -- I can never remember the difference).

I must backtrack now and explain that my family is known for our love of apples. I do, after all, share my birthday with John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. There's a story that often gets shared at holiday gatherings about the time I told my parents' friend who was offering a much-younger me something to drink that no, I wouldn't like a Coke or milk. "I'd like apple juice, please." And my sister has a similar penchant for the fruit. In fact, one of her many nicknames, Teej, is strangely enough derived from her affinity for apple juice.

But this is all an aside from the story at hand: my elation at scoring the mother lode.

Obviously I had to do something with my apples. I ate a bunch. And I made some applesauce. But my honest-to-goodness "grown-up" favorite way to use apples is to make apple pie.

So I made some -- lots, in fact.

And they were delicious. My favorite apple pie recipe has been stiched together from several years of trial and error. And I'm pretty pleased with the current product. Or at least I was until I saw this recipe today. Thank goodness I'm going apple picking next weekend, so I can try it out.

But until then, here's the current front-runner. Enjoy!

Katie's Apple Crumb Pie

Ingredients:
1 pie shell (store-bought or I usually use a generic Better Homes and Garden recipe)
6 cups peeled and sliced cooking apples
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinammon
Dash of nutmeg
1 cup flour (sifted)
1/2 cup brown sugar
Dash of salt
Stick of butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash, peel, and slice the apples. Toss apple slices with lemon juice in a large bowl. Add sugar, cinammon, and nutmeg. Stir to coat all the apples, then add the apple mixture to the pie shell. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, and salt with butter until the mixture is crumbly. (I usually let my butter sit out for a while first so it's softer to work with, but don't wait too long or your crumb topping will end up runny).

Sprinkle the crumb mixture on top of the apples and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until the apples are soft.

Geez, can't there be any good news?

2008-09-30T11:24:00.001-05:00

'Traspasar os sete mares, espellismo tatuado, labirinto de consciencia e nacen cantes.'

2008-09-22T15:34:00.003-05:00

Just about a year ago, I was madly working on two giant freelance projects about Barcelona and Dubai. And even though they took up every waking minute of my spare time for about five weeks last September and October, I look back on the time fondly because I discovered all sorts of fantastic things about both Barcelona and Dubai in the process. The lyrics in the title of this post are from a song called "Todo Tiende" by Ojos de Brujo, a Barcelona-based hip hop-flamenco band (with quite a few other influences as well). The group and song are just one of the gems I discovered on those projects. Among some others are a Filipino pop group popular among the expat set in Dubai and Pink Sushi, a fabulously awesome Emirati designer, whose quirky handbags are unfortunately only available in the Gulf.

But all this is just an aside to the main purpose of this post: to showcase my new -- OK, new-ish -- Barcelona skirt. I made this on a whim back in the summer. I'd gotten some cute Free Spirit fabric at Ipso Crafto and already had the pattern from my apron overlay. So I cranked out the layered skirt. I love the frayed look on the unfinished edges, though it could use a few more washings for an extra distressed look.

Suspense

2008-09-18T11:13:00.003-05:00

I'm nothing if not good at keeping you in suspense. At long last, here are the some ~~pictures~~ glamour shots of the lacy dress in action. And yes, I realize it's way too late after Labor Day to be wearing white, but I'll hope you'll forgive when you think how long this thing took to make... (Special shout out to Richele for being my Tyra.)

(And no, I don't know why my eyes look even squintier than normal in these pics. They don't look like this on flickr.)

This is what I like to see

2008-09-16T10:39:00.002-05:00

'Some days go on forever, sometimes the weatherman says rain'

2008-09-05T15:52:00.004-05:00

1. Isabel, 2. Ivan, 3. Cindy, 4. Katrina, 5. Rita, 6. Ernesto, 7. Humberto, 8. Fay, 9. Gustav

Tomorrow is a special day. It's my blog's first birthday. It's also the day that Tropical Storm Hanna is expected to douse the eastern seaboard. One of the biggest pitfalls of living in subtropical paradise was the likelihood for violent storms to roll through the region, wreaking havoc, flooding my apartments, leaving death and destruction in their wakes. When I left New Orleans in the spring, I was quite happy at the thought of getting out of Dodge before another hurricane season. And with Gustav's pummeling the region earlier this week, I can see that I left not a moment too soon.

But now, come hurricane season, I've been lulled into a false sense of security on the east coast -- thinking I'm safe and secure in my high-ish ground, miles inland position. Yeah, not so much. I should have known it was too good to be true. Hurricanes have been following me all over southeastern coastlines -- and inland mountain valleys (thanks, Isabel '03) -- for the past five years.

So now it's time to batten down the hatches and hunker down. Here's hoping this apartment doesn't flood!

Icing on the cake

2008-07-22T16:02:00.002-05:00

Here are some better FO pics of the Wallis cardigan I made for my mom's birthday. She came up to visit me this past weekend, so we staged a little fashion shoot.

Blackberries for Katie

2008-07-21T15:39:00.002-05:00

Who knew there was a farmers market in the basement of the Cannon House office building? Certainly not me. But I'm glad I know now. These blackberries were delicious!