Thank you for all the kind words and support on my last blog post. I love that you are reading it and enjoying! I hope I'll be inspired to have another post like it again some day.
If you are concerned about my walking goals not being met, don't worry - I figured that the winter months would be a little low and will catch up with higher mileage months the rest of the year. I am on pace for 50 in March - just need about 4 more in the next 3 days which is very doable. I told E I wanted to walk 3 miles today - we ended up with a tiring (for me) 3.7.
The Knitting Grandmas (& Friends!) group that I make the baby hats with has developed a connection with a women's correctional facility in the area. There is a group there that knits and crochets (and teaches others to knit and crochet) blankets that they then donate to shelters. I don't know the whole backstory of how we got connected but they accept yarn donations for their projects. Occasionally the Grandmas (& Friends!) will receive yarn that we can't use for baby hats (we have been advised to use only a certain brand and type of acrylic yarn due to allergies, softness and ease of washing), so we then pass that yarn on to the correctional facility group. Once word spread, people started donating entire boxes and garbage bags full of yarn and our group became kind of a yarn pipeline. Our weekly email last week, telling us how many hats we had turned in for the week (108, none of them mine), also said if you are planning to donate to the ladies in prison, we should bring it in on Monday because there probably won't be another pickup until 2nd quarter. This prompted me to gather all my yarn in one place, write down what I have and how much of it I have, and weed out the stuff that I am not likely to use. Most of what I am donating is either smaller amounts, too small for any projects I will do but good for the bright colorful blankets the women make, or yarn that I picked up for free somewhere along the way that I am just not going to use (color, type of yarn, etc.). I came up with a large plastic bagful to donate (bigger than a Target bag, smaller than a kitchen garbage bag. I thought you might like this picture of a bunch (but not all) of my yarn in one place.
I also found the giant first-ever sock which reminded me again that GAUGE MATTERS, one random granny square (I was teaching myself the technique), and a part of what appears to be a knit flower where I was trying to figure out how the petals work in stockinette or garter stitch (they curl up in stockinette and look much better in garter). It only has 2 of the petals, though, so made me really think about what it was supposed to be.
I'll drop off hats and yarn tomorrow, so we'll count and post about those hats next time. I think I have maybe 6 to drop off?
Book 12
I finished another book of poems - Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. Because poetry is best read aloud, I read a few of them to my cat Zeke. He seemed bored (slept through most of it) but maybe that is because these poems are about cats, not for cats. These poems are the basis for most of the songs in the Broadway musical Cats, which I saw in NYC when I was 18. We had amazing seats for this show, in the orchestra pit area so right up front and close. I loved this show so much and only partly because I was already familiar with the music by the time we saw it live. I liked how the cats/actors moved, and their costumes were really cool too. As I read the poems, I had a little trouble because I wanted to sing them instead. Some of them show their age, and every time I cringed a little, I had to remind myself that they were published in the 1930's, very much a different time. Overall I enjoyed the book, though, and love how he captures the very different personalities of cats in the characters like Rum Tum Tugger, Macavity, and Skimbleshanks.
Recipe 12 - Dole Whip
I will confess - I have never had this at Disney, but I did have it once from the work cafeteria and that is kind of the same, right? Back when we used to have a frozen yogurt shop at work instead of a coffee shop, they gave out samples of Dole Whip. I raved about it to E, who somewhat surprisingly likes pineapple, and then several times he stopped by my yogurt shop but Dole Whip was not in stock. Finally, I found an easy recipe that seems true to the spirit of the real thing - no dairy. Pineapples were on sale so I had E pick one up, and then made him cut it up and freeze (I am bossy, I know). This was a good version of it, though I added some pineapple juice because it was too thick. From Holderness Family (whose videos I also enjoy).
2 cups frozen pineapple
1/3 cup coconut milk (I was surprised to find the can of coconut milk solid when I opened it - apparently it does this at room temperature?)
3 Tbsp maple syrup (there was an incident at my house that may or may not have been kind of a sticky mess - I got part of the measured amount into my blender)
1 tsp lemon juice (I forgot this)
1 tsp lime juice (I forgot this too)
1 pinch salt (guess what? I forgot it)
Put all ingredients into blender or food processor (I used my Ninja because that is what I have for both blender and processor, and because it works well on frozen stuff). You may have to stop and scraped down sides (I did several times before I added in the juice which helped loosen it up some). If you want to be fancy, you can put it in a plastic bag and pipe into dishes. (I put mine in plastic bag and then in freezer because we weren't ready to eat it yet and it makes 4 servings and we were only eating 2 of them. I scooped out with ice cream scoop and we have some left for another evening.)
That's it. Simple, tasty and fast. If you don't like or have coconut milk, you could swap in another type of milk. Honestly, I couldn't taste the coconut nor the maple, just the creamy delicious pineapple goodness.
Fifty for 50 Tally
Books completed – 12 (5 more in progress)
Recipes tried – 12
Blog posts published– 13
Miles walked in March - 46.07
Miles walked year-to-date –123.86
Scrap book pages completed –12
Hats donated – 16
Hours volunteered – 0
Until we read or eat again,
Hallie
