Catie: I guess you could say it's been a while.

But can I just note that I have been very busy.

Number 1.) Knitting.

Number 2.) Cooking some stuff.

Number 3.) Failing at all baking endeavors.

Number 4.) Knitting more things I want to have.

Number 5.) Organizing the kitchen, living room and bedroom intermittently.

Number 6.) Cleaning out and setting up the spare room to become a makeshift pantry. (All right, I haven't exactly done this yet, but soon I will be very busy doing it, so it is my excuse for next time.)

See how busy I have been?

Answer: So very.

Yes, you are right.

Things I have knit:

1. a pair of slipper clogs for The Benjamin.

2. a pair of socks for me.

3. ...half of another pair of socks.  also for me.

4. still MORE on my red, cabled cowl scarf and no, it is not done yet, believe me, I will be the first to tell you when that bane of my very existence is finally DONE.

5. half a pair of one slipper clog for me.  I got bored.  yes, yes, I got bored.  probably because, for this pair, I didn't have a husband waiting for slippers.

6. a red and blue elephant.

7. a red and blue octopus.

8. a happy little fox.

9: three weird looking balls.

10. a felted handle for a basket/makeshift drawer that contains kitchen utensils and lives under a riser on the kitchen table/makeshift counter top.

11. a little felted bag with a button hole that hangs on a hook near the sink and is filled with every rubber band in existence.  It's a cute bag and I needed those rubber bands off my counter.  I'd normally put them in a drawer, but Koreans don't like drawers, and we only have two, both housed in our wardrobe.  So, there is a ledge along the back of the kitchen sink, under the window, and I kept them there in a little box.  But they kept collecting odd food particles as well as always getting tangled up in the green robot man that I found under the fridge a few months ago who managed to make his way into the rubber band box.  Anyway, it was just TOO much.  So, I knit a wall-bag (and I coined the term "wall-bag").  Mostly in public, while out and about.  Korean women always think I'm knitting hats.  Always.  They point at my hands and they hit their heads saying all kinds of things in Korean and then, in Korean, I say "No, no." (since that is just about the extent of my second language skills) and then I say, "Bag.  Is bag." (like if I speak in broken English they'll be better able to understand) and I make the motion that seems to be Korean speak for "shopping bag", which means moving my hands from a cupping gesture, outward and up to sort of outline the bottom of a bag.  Then they look at me like I've just lost my mind because who makes shopping bags that small and.. then they give me a nod and pat their head one more time, saying the word for "hat".  Just making sure I'm really looney.  And I smile and they leave and anyway, now it's done.  So, they don't think I'm crazy for making tiny shopping bags, just for wearing birkenstocks in the winter and for leaving the house in a very light drizzle without an umbrella.

13. a calorimetry.  it turned out waaay big, but I wear it anyway.

14. I just-just finished my first pair of endpaper mitts yesterday.  it may possibly be true that I have been lusting after them in an unnaturally disturbing sort of way.  possibly.  but, now they are finished.

I think those are pretty much all my recent projects.  I am now working on a second pair of endpaper mitts (they were the funnest thing I've made in a long time), the half-done sock and NOT the bane of my existence.  Oh, and also my 1/4 finished clogs, which are cute colors.  red-orange and pale turquoise.

It is late now and the light is bad, so I do not have pictures for you, but I am planning on taking some of, you know, things.

We didn't cook much in December. It was busy and crazy and we just ended up eating out a lot.  To the complete detriment of our health.  But, through many fits of digestive illness, we have again begun to cook at home.  This time, I've been paying a lot more attention to our healthier American food options like whole wheat spaghetti and fresh frozen green beans instead of canned, etc...  Eating American in Korea can be difficult (although I'd venture to say we're quite adept at this point), but eating healthy American is even more difficult.  However, there is a lot of brown rice, some frozen alternatives to canned vegetables, yummy yogurts (waaay too many yogurts), soy products, awesome tofu and the best produce and eggs anywhere.  Now I just need to figure out which greens are what so we can make salads.  None of them make sense to me and all of them look like the weeds you pull out of your garden.  Some of them taste like them, too, and that is gross.

Today, we found some good frozen vegetables at Costco.  This is nice only because the combination includes broccoli and cauliflower, two vegetables we either can't find or refuse to eat (cauliflower = nowhere to be found, broccoli = tastes like the smell of new tires mixed with moldy navel oranges).  We eat lots of zucchini and I think I may have found beets the other day which could be interesting.  I've been craving a chocolate beet cake.

Anyway.  I have to go... you know, do something.  Like I usually do.

- catie