Movie Knitting = achieved!

Ever since I learned to knit I have wanted to be able to knit in the dark and knit at the movies like my friends do. Yes, I know some people find this lame, but it was a goal of mine. I really like to be doing something with my hands and never watch tv at home without either a craft or the computer in my hands.

Anyway, I've been gradually getting better and working up to not looking, I've been knitting before the movie and then keeping up until I had to stop for some reason. Friday we went to see The Dark Knight (awesometastic, yes that is to a word. sort of) and I was able to keep knitting all the way through the (2 1/2 hour) movie! Yay for multitasking! Here's the first short version of the Broadripple, that I worked on all through the movie then did the toe the next day at home...

and here it is with the chucks that I had in mind when I saw the yarn, not the same colors at all, but it made me think of them going together...
Pink and green is my favorite color combination (oh but there's pink and brown too...) so these are perfect. I just have to start the other one. But first, I'm starting a sweater.

The 3D Journey...

Those Elvis Costello looking glasses? The hip new version of 3D glasses, apparently. This afternoon we went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D. It wasn't a movie we were interested in at all except for the 3D factor. I ♥ 3D movies. The movie was as expected (really not good) but it was awesome in 3D!! Creepy bugs jumping out at you, water splashes (which reminded me of Muppet 3D at Disney - where they really do squirt water at you when there is 3D water!), dinosaurs, falling down cliffs coming out of the screen... In conclusion: movie not recommended unless you can see it in 3D. Oh, there was even a preview in 3D - apparently this year's Thanksgiving Disney movie, Bolt, will be in 3D too.

In an additional review of fun stuff note - we got Guitar Hero Aerosmith today (yay for Bestbuy Rewards certificates!) and it is super cool. (note that I show myself as not cool at all with the use of the phrase "super cool") You can get it in the Guitar Hero pack with a special Aerosmith guitar, but since we already had Guitar Hero 3 we just bought the game itself. Trevor's playing right now and the band looks very good. It has 25 Aerosmith master tracks on it, plus songs by other artists and includes real Aerosmith venues like the high school where they played their first gig. Oh, and live action clips of the band talking about how they started out, and about their songs (man, I love Steven Tyler). Recommended for Aerosmith loving Guitar Hero fans!

I never promised you a rose garden...

but here's one anyway...


sorry, that's all I could think of when I looked at the photos. ;-) A few weeks ago my parents came over for a belated father's day celebration. While my mom was off at a workshop we took my dad to see the beautiful rose garden in the park. We managed to hit it right at prime time this year, as you can see. It had rained about an hour before thus the wonderful raindrop photos. I liked so many of them that I couldn't pick so you get a bunch. enjoy :-) (you can click any of these to see them bigger...)

pondering the pond...

Climbing roses on the arbor

Tea Roses

To the right, sculpture "Variation on The Chinese
Calligraph Yuan (garden)"

edited to add a pun ;-)

A little video...

Cal finds Butternut's balloon
Originally uploaded by Alissao

Our cat Butternut is obsessed with mylar balloons. She carries them around by the string and alternates between loving them and trying to kill them. In this video, Cal tries to play with Butter's balloon...

Summer Salad Sampler

I really wanted bread salad for dinner tonight so I stopped at the store on the way home. I saw some nice fruit and decided to make a few different salads for dinner tonight and tomorrow night.

Here's the bread salad, modeled after Panera's - good bread chunked up (this one is called Peasant bread), fresh mozzarella, good tomatoes (from the garden/farmers market when its that time, these are $4 a pint "Splendido" extra sweet grape tomatoes), and honey balsamic dressing It turned out great, yum!

My favorite summer salad is a green salad with lots of fruit on top - whatever your favorites are - my standard is a melon (watermelon), berry, and one or more of: peach, nectarine, plum. This time there is a bit more with: peach, apricot, red grapes, cherries, and plum along with the romaine, mushrooms, tomato, and european cucumber. I like this one with a balsamic dressing too, or, raspberry vinaigrette or something of the sort.

And I also whipped up a macaroni salad.

elbow macaroni with ranch dressing, baco bits, and burgundy olives. Not too attractive since the baco bits and burgundy olives are the same color basically so it is monochromatic, but it tastes great! I was going to use green olives but the jar didn't pop right when I opened it so... I've never bought these burgundy olives before but they grabbed my attention in the store a few weeks ago and I picked them up. They're good! The flavor is different than a plain black olive, and the color is... a bit off putting actually. According to the can they have olive oil and vinegar in them (Burgundy wine vinegar apparently) and according to the website, they come in flavors as well. These were Classic Italian which is the "plain" variety it seems.

And... another baby hat. I finished the Pink Petal hat (Upside-Down Daisy), now hopefully somebody has a girl!

note: In case anyone was unclear, I'm only obsessed with baby hats, not babies. None of these baby hats are for me. ;-)

BBQ, Cars, and Doves, Oh My!

Friday was an "Aloha" birthday party with

cupcakes

snow cones and

Tres Leche Cake!

Saturday we went to Saratoga for their July 4th celebration and the All-American BBQ and Dessert Fest. It was really good so hopefully it will become an annual thing. A bunch of downtown restaurants participated, and you could go around and get their contest entry for a buck! Trevor had the BBQ and I had the desserts, I think he got four BBQ and I got three desserts. The best dessert was the coconut cake from Lime Restaurant and Trevor liked the hunk o'BBQ pork from Cantina the best. yuuum! Everything we tried was good though, except for this nasty mojito bread pudding with some kind of unexplainable gelatinous stuff in it. We didn't get any pictures though, they all got eaten too fast!

They also had a classic car show in town that day. There were a lot of really nice cars! I've come to appreciate a nice car from hanging out with my husband but our tastes do differ a bit,

1950something Oldsmobile Holiday
this is the kind of thing I'm drawn to

1987 Chevy Monte Carlo
and this is the kind of thing he's drawn to!

After that we were on to a family graduation party and then we were wonderfully close to...

an old school A&W with real car hop service! woo hoo! They don't wear roller skates though. ;-) We got lucky and a spot right in front opened up as we got there.

Here you see the food tray on the car window!

And, they have deep fried cheese curds!!

Trevor ordered these but the silly man didn't like them so I got to eat them. I kinda thought I didn't like cheese curds but I guess I do. At least when they are deep fried!

Souvenir mug so root beer at home can taste as good. ;-) Actually, I didn't like the root beer at A&W. Unlikely the kind in the can/bottle, at the restaurant it was the "rooty" natural kind of root beer. I don't like that kind. Oh well!

Today we went to Albany to check out this spiffy new bakery I'd heard about - Crisan Bakery & Edible Art Gallery.

This is the bakery part

On top, a Rafael - chocolate cake, coconut cream, and coconut cake, on the bottom, an Amandine - chocolate cake, chocolate butter cream, and fondant (but it seems more like ganache). The Rafael was light, and wonderful. The Amandine tasted like it has some kind of booze in it although it wasn't mentioned and was also very tasty. But the best thing was this:
a dove! It's solid chocolate cake (very brownie or fudge like) with nuts, coconut, and rum raisins covered with coconut fondant! It was as delicious as it is cute. We also got two feta filled puff pastries but those were eaten right away for brunch so they aren't pictured. Oh, the prices are very reasonable - the feta pastries were 60cents each (!), the dove was $2.75, and I think the other desserts were $3.50 each? I'm very sorry that I suggested we split the dove. It was oh so very good.
And this, is the edible art gallery part! The baker is also a sugar artist, who makes sugar jewelry and is an expert on the art and lectures on it as well. This is the piece of hers that was in British Vogue and these are some that are inside the glass tables in the bakery

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th, originally uploaded by Alissao.

Happy 4th of July everyone! I have many things in the works but I'm upstairs, the photos are downstairs and I'm too tired and/or lazy to go get them! So expect knitting, birthday month roundup and more, coming soon!