Tonight I have made for myself a chocolate cake

...with two layers and dark chocolate frosting.

I baked the two layers and let them cool completely in the oven so the tops wouldn't crack.
I turned each out onto a plate, and evened the top of the second layer, so it would fit with the first.


I frosted the entire thing with a crumb layer, which I let set before putting on the final layer. I was sure to use the flat side of the knife when making the swirls, so they wouldn't have the lines from the serrated knife edge.

I put it on my best china, and cleaned the frosting dabs off the plate. Then i took a picture, because i thought it a beautiful cake.

It is not birthday cake, or graduation cake, or celebration cake. It is not for Thanksgiving dinner or the Fourth of July cookout, or for anyone else but me to eat. Once in a while, it is lovely and right that we should make for ourselves something that has as much care put into it as if it were for someone else. I don't make myself cake often, but I make myself plenty of other foods, and usually i don't bother much with presentation. I cook "good enough" food, throw it on a plate, and scarf it down while watching a tv program, or checking on a website. Lots of people do this with their knitting, too. They make socks and scarves and baby blankets for everyone they know, then feel a bit guilty when picking up a long-ago started cardigan that they just loved.

So here's to sometimes saving the nicest things for only ourselves. Not to be selfish, but to remind ourselves that we are worth the niceties we reserve for others.

On Lunch

I'm on lunch, so there isn't much time for posting. But I wanted to show off a couple of things.

First a FO. The Celtic tote from IK Winter 2007.

I think the lighting in my new apartment is better than where I lived before.

Next, I've finally gotten my arm back in spinning condition again after an attack of the nasties (I'm beginning to think that plying yarn has a greater-than-normal effect on my bad arm. Perhaps because I keep trying to ply the bobbin of yarn in one sitting)

But, in small doses the spinning has returned. And i'm currently working on the "Fawkes" colorway that i dyed back at the end of last year.


It is just the proper thing to be doing in the midst of February, don't you think?

Now, back to work. Look sharp for our next edition when we shall discuss the return of The Bad Cat, and perhaps Pi Shawls.

Just a suggestion.

If you live in one of 22 super Tuesday states, you are a lucky individual. I encourage you to go to your polling place or caucus location and support the candidate of your choice, regardless of leaning or party.


Personally, I live in the politically irrelevant state of Indiana, but I'm happy to let you know that if I had a vote to count today, this is who I'd cast it for:



Not just for the singing. For the hope. It's not often in the jaded world of modern politics someone can talk so unremittingly about hope and the power of individual people to change an entrenched system while continuing to sound at all sincere. I think that's what I need now as a voter, and what we could surely use as a nation. So my vote, that I gave myself by virtue of having a blog, and a little voice on some corner of the internet, goes to Barack Obama. I hope you have a candidate you believe in just as much. And I hope you get involved, and when it is your time, that you cast your vote for him or her.

Things I have been working on

Yesterday was an exciting night for me. It was the first night I spent in my new apartment. And anyone who has moved into a new place, ever, in their whole lives will understand that I didn't get any sleep. New places have new sounds, and new cars driving by at new times, and new dogs barking, and new neighbors upstairs moving about at odd times, or maybe it's just the house shifting and I really shouldn't be commenting on the habits of my upstairs neighbor who seems a lovely sort of girl and has a really pretty coat, maybe i should ask her where she got it next time i see her. (I'm going to have to take a moment and apologize to all my English teachers ever for that sentence. Sorry. Let's continue...)

anyhoodle, I am tired, and all of me hurts from the moving which is not at all complete. But I just had to show off my new, still messy apartment to the internets in general because i am beyond pleased to finally have my own little home. it's been nice living with my mom last year, i'm certainly grateful for the free room and board she's offered me while i got back on my feet, but let us face it: living with one's mother is not the most liberating of experiences. This is particularly true when one has previously lived on one's own, as I did.

I now present you with a photo tour of "Things I Like About my Apartment"
Thing the first: My Kitchen

There was a time when I was known among my friends as quite the cook. Now that I have all my things out of storage and arranged just so, I am somewhat eager to see if this is still the case.

I even have my own little kitchen table at which I am sitting this very moment. See the computer. Imagine me in the chair, that's what's going on now. That mess of newspaper and boxes is even still there. (Thing the second I like: I don't have to clean up until i'm ready, because only i see the mess.)

The apartment I rented is a studio, a little back apartment in what was once a big ol' colonial house. It has some nice details from the old house like this:

A built in...oh, i don't even know what to call it, "place-of-storing-my-craft-stuff-and-displaying-pictures". Or "Thing I like: number 3." Yeah, that's better.

Next we have my own pictures on my own walls. Fourth think I like about my apartment.

And here are some books. Lots of books, most of which were in storage with my kitchen stuff until recently. They are thing the fifth that I like about my new apartment: Books.

I'll update you with slightly more presentable pictures soon shortly eventually someday