Resolution Update: Learning to Cook + boxing day sale books

I am sad to say that I haven't had time to cast on another hat yet, though i have KIPs on both Wednesday and Thursday evening, so I will probably get my 4th hat of the month done on one of those days. Mittens aren't going much better, as I have to wait to order as a group from Knitpicks with the rooms group. I'm debating using Palette for a pair of mittens that require a lot of colorwork, as it would be cheaper to order from there, but perhaps i'll use something thicker. I guess I could always line them for warmth, though.

Anyway, this entry is not about knitting but cooking, rather. I have taken it upon myself to learn how to cook properly.
I have made a couple of things the past little while. I've decided the only way to expand my cooking skills, and to eat more/new things, is to just dive in and try a ton of new things.


Corn Salad
peaches and cream corn, peas, red onion, 1 tbsp ranch dressing, red bell pepper


The entire meal:
corn salad, sweet and spicy sweet potatoes, and steak stirfry strips marinated in the leftover sweet n spicy sauce i made. It doesn't look like a whole lot but I was so full after eating this. My sister had hot wings instead of steak, her loss.


I am really impressed with how everything has tasted so far - not that any of the things I have made so far have been complicated in any way, of course. This weeks creations will be a much larger amount of sweet potato soup, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, shortbread cookies, and chicken pot pie. I'm looking forward to it. I want to get more simple things accomplished before I attempt moving forward with more..interesting things [Read: hard]


And in other news once again, I have finally spent just about all my gift card money. I had 125 bucks in chapters gift cards, and I figured it wouldn't go very far but I somehow managed to get 20 books out of it!

Heres a photo and a list of my purchases:




I know you can probably read it anyway but:

1.Dr. Jeckyll & Mr Hyde and Other Strange Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson
2. Heart of Darkness & Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad
3. The Professor Charlotte Bronte
4. Journey to The Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
5. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
6. Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
7. Lady Chatterlays Lover by D.H Lawrence
8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
9. The Metamorphosis + other stories by Franz Kafka
10. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
11. Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill
12. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
13. Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
14. Wolf Woman Bay + other stories by Ed Gorman
15. The Unexpected and Fictional Career Change of Jim Kearns by David Munroe
16. Empress of Asia by Adam Lewis Shroeder
17. The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar
18. Great Novels by Charles Dickens [ contains several of his novels]

All in all not so bad. I am not buying another book until I clean up my shelf and actually read more of the books on said shelves. Every purchase makes me pleased because i actually have a small library and it grows all the time. However, I should stay on top of that and organize it properly before I dare invest in another shelf.

anyway, things to do. I wish i had more time to blog but alas. This month is all about beginning the things I want to do, see which ones i want to continue and which ones im not interested in after all. Next month I will deal more with time management and organizing it all.