Put on the Glasses

We now own a caliper. Brian's grandpa gave it to us last night. It was his father's. Brian and I have started to measure the inside and outside of all sorts of things. To what end, I know not. It is one of those random objects I feel the need to develop a project for. Ideas?

Went to Albert Lea this evening to visit Brian's grandparents. I am obsessed with their cat Spatz:

I've always had a problem keeping track of recipes. When I had a recipe box, I always had too many recipes jammed in there and would waste an hour flipping through cards. Then, I tried a giant binder with all of the recipes I had saved from every magazine, website, or newspaper clipping jammed into it. I tried to section it by food type. I tried to "scrapbook" the recipes so that they looked nice on the page. All of this was in an effort to make my recipes easy to find, to no avail. There were simply too many of them. The solution that worked for me was just to take out those recipes that I really loved and consolidate them into one mini-binder. Mine is by Russell+Hazel  and it's only 9x7 inches. It has plastic sleeves so I can slip recipes in and out with ease. I love it. I only allow myself to put recipes in there that I truly loved and do not want to lose (I still have that giant binder full of recipes that I intend to try someday). I've since expanded to a...

I recently finished reading Justin Cronin's The Twelve. The second book in a trilogy, it's your basic apocalyptic novel, but instead of zombies, this series is about vampires. What do I think of it? It was all right. I'll definitely read the third book, but I don't think I would recommend this book to most people I know. Above all, I would not recommend reading this book if you haven't read the first book, The Passage. While the author does an excellent job summarizing the last book at the beginning of this one, I don't think it would be enough to let a new reader make any sort of sense of this book.

As I was folding laundry in the bedroom last night, I heard Brian yell from the living room, "I am an adult, and I get to decide what that means!" I walked out to find that he had set up the hammock in the living room.

My father-in-law's co-worker had this Racers Ferrari F1 Pit Stop Lego set sitting around his office for years. It was once a gift to a son who took all the Lego pieces out but, for reasons unknown, failed to ever put the full set together. There was even a birthday card stuffed in the box. I was surprised to find all of the pieces were in there, it still had the instructions, and none of the stickers had been placed on the pieces yet. It's a pretty cool set, and it was fun to put together a set from 2004. Here are a couple of pictures:

Brian has cereal and the cats come running. He spoiled them with their own dishes of milk.

My cold from yesterday got worse. The cat stuck by my side all day though, looking cute.

I'm coming down with a nasty cold. So, Brian is making me chili and trying to teach the cat how to cook. She is listening attentively:

Brian is at a work dinner and what do I do with my free time? I marathon episodes of Downton Abbey and plod away at a paint-by-number (the only kind of painting I am capable of doing). At the rate I'm going, however, I will have this painting done in 2016.

Brian and I went to an analytics conference put on by MinneAnalytics at the Carlson School of Business today. While I work as a copywriter, I am drawn to information about big data and analytics. It is the future. My photo of the day is from my favorite of the talks: The picture is of Dave Fowler, CEO of Chartio . He presented on charting best practices. While many of the things he pointed out were intuitive, it was great to have someone outline the things to avoid when making a chart such as a line graph or bar graph. Some examples: Avoid using unnecessary gradients. They just confuse people and make it appear that there is an added level of meaning.  Avoid extra colors that are not necessary. Avoid using textures. Avoid using dimensions  By showing a chart in 3-d or at an angle, you can make it more difficult for the user to interpret the information.  Overall, he championed the idea that we should think of charts as text, and we should ask ours...

Brian and I have made it a bimonthly habit to go to Cheapo in Uptown and buy a bunch of cheap, used CDs. Generally, I try to buy things less than $5 that will make for good driving music. Here is what we picked up today: Yes, I bought the Drive soundtrack for when I drive my Fiat. Yes, I expect that will be awesome.

Brian and I hit the Mall of America today. We walked all three levels and looped through each anchor store on each level. This was more than 3 miles and my FitBit has logged nearly 20,000 steps today. I am exhausted. Here's a shot of the giant Lego robot on top of the Lego store: Here's Brian at dinner playing with his yo-yo. He bought it early in the day and played with it as we walked, garnering several chuckles from passersby:

Today I completed the first week of a couch to 5k program. I'm using the Zombie 5k app for iOS and it is awesome. I feel great, the workouts are hard but not impossible, and I am running for the first time since gym class in high school. Leave it to a zombie game to get me running. To commemorate this moment, I share a disheveled photo of me, face shiny with sweat, right after my workout. Quite happy: Screen shot as proof of my completing the first week of workouts:

I keep a lot of toys in my work cubicle. It gives me something to fiddle with when I'm on the phone with clients. Top two cube toys: Spock and my Lego apple. The apple actually comes apart and has a Lego core.

Livia's sleeps on Brian's pillow next to the window so she can survey her evil empire. Beware all ye squirrels who enter here.

Brian picked up a new scotch today to add to our collection. It's an Islay and quite peaty.

Picked these up for myself before the holidays at a craft fair. I thought they were awesome and didn't even think twice before buying them. Studio 1015 sells them on etsy.

Went out for afternoon drinks with Brian today at the Northbound Smokehouse. He didn't want his picture taken:

Today is a two-picture day. First, I made a German Chocolate cake today to celebrate my Dad's 75th birthday, my nephew's birthday and my brother-in-law's birthday. After the celebrations, we went to watch my nephew play hockey: He's in the white jersey, moving toward the camera.

This past December, I had the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar. By Christmas, these were the sets that stood out to me as keepers. In particular, I think the micro AT-AT is just about the cutest Lego set I have ever owned.

Good day for a brew

The recipe for blue cheese burgers (or juicy blucys as they are known in Minnesota) is one of my go-to recipes for a weeknight. I got the recipe from Cooking Light ( link via MyRecipes) a long, long time ago. I usually cut the recipe in half, which is still more than enough for me and Brian.

Since when did I start adding graphic novels to my book collection? Since I realized how awesome they are. It started with Neil Gaiman. Then, I read Scott Pilgrim. Right now, I am working my way through the second compendium of the Walking Dead and I am loving it. Where have graphic novels been all my life? I am open to suggestions. I need to expand this part of my book collection.

Made another recipe from Artisan Breads Every Day. It's cooling now and I'm excited to try a slice.

Made homemade bagels today. Turned out pretty good. I used a recipe from the book Artisan Breads Every Day by Peter Reinhart.

I made this little I heart skulls cross stitch for myself this afternoon since I love skulls so much (I collect stone skull sculptures and animal skulls). Not sure what I am going to do with my creation. It may become a bookmark or I might frame it. I do think it is rather cute though, don't you?

I made the gray kerchief you see on my head there yesterday. It was the third project in the knitting book Stitch 'n Bitch, a book I recommend for starting knitting. It has really clear instructions and illustrations. Also, the patterns are for things I would actually wear. Next up, I am going to work on the Windy City scarf pattern in the book. Here's hoping it turns out as well as my kerchief.

I recently finished this mini-DIY embroidery project I picked up at Michael's. It's a sleeve for a coffee cup and a matching coaster. I had never done any embroidery-type work before and the kit at the store looked like something I would actually like to own. It didn't take long and was super-easy. Now I am tempted to go get some felt and make my own creations. I can't find the kit on Michael's site or I would include the link. I do find it at other sites when I search "Handmade Bird Coaster & Coffee Cozy Embroidery Kit."

One of my goals for 2013 is to take a picture a day. I took two yesterday and am unable to decide which is better. Therefore, I include both. The top one is Brian with his bubble calendar from 2012. All bubbles popped! The second is a quick shot of Brian and I to start out the year.