A quick change in plan

This week has been a very productive holiday week: started and finished 3 projects, watched a couple of movies, ate at a new restaurant, and did a little shopping.

Just as I was putting the finishing on my sister Jaime's pair of felted clogs, I received a call from her wanting to know what Sylvain would like for Christmas. (Unfortunately for us all, he's moved into the moody teen years where he's either very specific on a few big-ticket items and fairly ambivalent on any other gift ideas.) Jaime knew my plans for making the felted clogs, since I needed someone to feed me the correct foot sizes for her family. During our gifting conversation, she mentioned that her and her daughter Payton saw a pair of knit boots in the store that they'd rather have than clogs. I didn't have the heart to tell Jaime that I already had their clogs done. Thank God for Ravelry because I found a pattern for boots that seems within the realm of possibility of completing before Christmas. On the bright side, I have a long list of people that I had planned on making clogs for, so can easily mark someone else off the list who I have yet to knit for.

Not wanting to knit these clogs while spending the holiday with Chuck's family, I brought two charity hat grab-bags that were passed out during the guild's September meeting. These are the other two projects that were (for the most part) completed this weekend. Both hats are disgusting acrylic yarn, so I needed to do something to spiffy up the results. The Dale-style hat still needs a pompom, which Chuck will make for me during the drive home today; and I'll crochet a flower to go onto the fuzzy one using the left-over yellow yarn from the Dale.

Now that those are out of the way, I have yarn on hand for a set of clogs for my niece Calista.

On the movie front: Chuck and I made it to New Moon Tuesday night before leaving town. I know this'll sound weird to a number of folks, but I actually like Celebration Cinema over the Regal theater in Crocker Park (where we usually see movies while in Cleveland). Sure, Celebration is starting to show its age, but I'm far more comfortable there. Okay, so about the movie -- what can I say? Either you're a fan of Twilight or you're not and I think, above anything else, that will dictate whether you enjoy the film or not. This was a significant improvement over the first film and the night we went was probably one of the best nights last week to see it because school was out on Wednesday, so the theater was packed with a ton of teens, with plenty of squealing to go around during all of the appropriate squeal-worthy scenes. Not quite having my fill of Robert Pattinson, I picked up another movie of his to watch in Cleveland: The Haunted Airman. In no way, shape, or form do I recommend this movie. On the bright side, it is only 70 minutes long. On the downside, bringing this stinker to Chuck's parents house to watch validated for them his claim that I will literally watch anything and can't pick out a decent movie to save my life. I also brought Dead Snow with us, but no one else seemed interested in watching a movie about Nazi zombies. I'll have to save that gem for tonight.....Oh, and before I forget, if anyone out there can possibly explain to me what the hell happens in The Life Before Her Eyes, please send me a message because I felt thoroughly confused by the end of that movie.

I finished reading my book club's December book "My Year of Meats" by Ruth Ozeki, which is a minor miracle because I usually finish the books the morning of book club, if at all. (Maybe travelling so much really has its benefits!) Inspired by this book, I've started to back off the amount of meat I eat, and even managed to make it through Thanksgiving without eating turkey (okay, I know that's heresy in some cirlces). Not helping my cause, Chuck and I went to dinner on Friday night to Bar Symon (a restaurant owned by Michael Symon, who is a local celebrity chef); and, as you can guess from the restaurant's logo, it is a mecca for pork.

So, thinking that "pork is possible", I decided to break my meat fast. The place was pretty busy when we arrived and we were told that it would be a 30 to 45 minute wait, so we took seats at the bar in time to order drinks before happy hour was over. The first thing we noticed was that the beer selection was huge, with about 25 or so on tap and another 25 in bottles. The second thing was that the happy hour were very reasonable ($5 martinis, $5 burgers, and $1 fries). Our wait ended up being far shorter than 30 minutes and we were seated at a two-person table that was seated side-by-side with along a wall with other small tables, enabling us to talk with those seated next to us. One couple had the grilled hangar steak and macaroni and cheese, which they both thought were wonderful. Not wanting steak or pasta (which had chicken in it BTW, which is a huge no-no to me; yes, I know that that could be omitted, but still). Another couple had a grilled sausage board (literally a wooden cutting board with pieces of cut sausage, cut pickle, and dollops of three types of mustard) and a pastrami sandwich.

Chuck and I started dinner off with the house chips with "blue cheese fondue", which was the only thing I didn't really care for. The blue cheese dip did not taste much like blue cheese to me and reminded me of poutine. Maybe it's been a long while since I've had that, but I couldn't get it out of my head as we were eating this appetizer. Chuck ordered the pastrami sandwich and I went with the pork shank and opted for polenta as a side. We both enjoyed our dinners and would definitely recommend those to anyone who goes to this restaurant. We were too stuffed for a dessert, but the couple next to us ordered a beer and pretzel sundae, which they seemed to enjoy.

Countering our weekend of over-eating, we took the afternoon off from shopping yesterday to hang out at one of the local metroparks for a nice long walk. The fresh air and stretching my legs was just the break I needed. I'm feeling relaxed, refreshed, and ready for December to begin.