What's new with me

• I'm cranking along on Christmas knitting projects! Finished: scarf & hat set for my niece, socks for my gram, and felted purse for my MIL. Not so finished: pink scarf for aunt, the yarn for which is on back order (I'm not very happy w/ the online yarn store...won't get into that now), blue chenille scarf for my mom, and crocheted snowflake(s) for family friend. I was especially glad to realize one Tuesday that I was FINALLY knitting an actual project to be felted AT Felt-n-belch.
  

• I switched over to Google's new internet browser called Chrome a couple of months ago and I love it. Just so you know.
• I have jury duty tomorrow. While I am generally supportive of fulfilling this basic civic duty, I'm mad about having to serve this time. Why? Because DC Board of Elections and Ethics blocked every attempt I made to get my absentee ballot. Despite their final claims to me that they FedEx'ed it out on Oct. 30th, I never received it and therefore didn't get to vote. And my jury summons most likely stemmed from the fact that I was registered to vote. From what I've read (and experienced) the DCBOEE needs a serious overhaul on their systems (really, lack thereof) and accountability. It was shameful. I have a full-page chronology of the entire thing (with bullet points and dates of course) if you're interested. ha.
• I'm afraid I'm addicted to roasted chickpeas seasoned with garam masala. I'm going through 1-2 cans a week and I've moved on to dealing. Now my mom and a couple of friends are hooked though I don't think they're using as much as I am. There are lots of different spice combinations that people recommend, but I haven't budged from the garam masala because I don't want to be disappointed.
  
  Ok that's a lie. Once I made them with rosemary and a little lemon juice. They were fine but didn't have the kick I was looking for. Over Thanksgiving, when I didn't have access to my usual stash of store-bought garam masala, I actually made some from scratch: bought the seeds my mom didn't have, roasted them whole and ground 'em up.
• My other addiction, which seems to be little more respectable is a soup recipe my mom adapted from Cooking light: Sweet potato, sausage, and kale. My mom's adaptations were to split the potatoes into half red potatoes and half sweet, and use 1 can each of canellini and red kidney beans. Oh, and Cooking Light seems to have a typo in the list - obviously it should say "sweet italian turkey sausage." I think I've made this 4-5 times in the last 3 months. I'm eating so much of it that I ran it through one of my favorite nutrition-y sites to see it's nutritional breakdown: Protein - 19g, Dietary fiber - 13g/52%, calories - 317 (from fat, 62), iron - 29%, vitamin A - 148%, vitamin C - 51%. And more importantly, it's delicious!!
  

Chile Chocolate Cupcakes

I've had this recipe on file for awhile, awaiting the right opportunity. A couple days after I got back from Miami, the temperature started dropping here in DC. So these cupcakes that pack some heat seemed like a good idea during the chillier days. A member of our knitting group is leaving us for Chicago next week (and a better job in yet another restaurant that I can't afford :) so I made some cupcakes for her last week here. She's always brought yummy homemade baked goods to Thursday night SnB so it was nice to return the favor.

Recipe mod: I couldn't find Pequin chilies very easily so I substituted with Chilies de Arbol... thanks to a well-stocked latin grocery near us. While they came out pretty spicy, I didn't hear any complaints that they were too hot so I'd probably stick with that level of heat (3/4 t. of ground chile in both the batter and in the frosting).

Decisions

Several decisions have been made since last I blogged.

Here's the result of one of them:

Another decision that was made carries less importance for the country, but still affects the quality of my sleep.

Here it is:

Thanks for all of your input!!! 

Ms. Passionknitly comes to Washington

Who wants a list!? 

My mom's flying in tonight and staying for a week so if I don't post this now, it might never get done. Thus, we're opting for the list format to speed things up. 

Friday

• Sox game. Yay!
  

Saturday

• Sculpture Garden and Fountain by the National Gallery of Art. Lot of knitting and people-watching. Someone (not one of us) got asked to leave after she jumped (fully clothed) into the fountain.
  
• Beverage break (and more knitting) at Teaism.
  
• Homemade pizza (mushroom, tomato, and corn) and more Sox game. Ugh.
  
• House party to see a couple of friends who moved out of town this year but were back for a visit. I may have overdone it with the dancing and hurt my back. I think we made it home on the next to the last train.
  

Sunday

• Reserved a cooper mini zipcar so we could check out the National Arboretum and a yarn store in Hyattsville. The arboretum rocked! We checked out the orchid show and sale as well as the bonsai and penjing collections. We were running out of time so we had to miss the Capitol Building columns and the herb garden.
• Stitch-n-bitch at Teaism. 2 new people plus faces I hadn't seen in awhile all while enjoying the gorgeous weather outside.
• Dinner at Wonderland on the patio
• A long walk around the Tidal Basin, the Roosevelt memorial, and the Jefferson Monument at night.

Monday

• Portrait Gallery: knitting in the Kogod courtyard and the "Women of our Time" exhibit.
• Potbelly's for dinner before heading to the airport.
• Sox game. Ugh.

Ah, it was truly a relaxing weekend. I'm really impressed with our balance of activities, knitting, and vegging.

The environment vs. my health

I was putting some milk in my coffee the other morning in the office kitchen when someone I don't know (from another department?) said, "You know those are bad for you, right?"

I looked up and realized he was referring to my small Nalgene bottle which I fill with milk at the beginning of the week and keep in the fridge at work. 

I replied that I was aware of the issue but that I had never really taken it that seriously and since I have about 7 or 8 various sized Nalgenes, I hadn't really considered throwing them all away. He said a few other things about how the dangers are pretty cut and dry, etc and generally looked at me like I was crazy. I also said something about not really believing that the studies were that conclusive with respect to the level of exposure necessary to increase one's risk of cancer.

If you're not familiar with the issue, here's an excerpt from the Nalgene entry in Wikipedia:

"In recent years, studies have suggested that polycarbonate plastics such as the ones Nalgene used may leach endocrine disruptors. Nalgene denies that the quantity leached from their products posed a significant threat to health.[5] Among the secreted chemicals, Bisphenol A (BPA) is an area of concern as it binds to estrogen receptors, thus altering gene expression. Other research has found that fixatives in polycarbonate plastics can cause chromosomal error in cell division called aneuploidy. Nalgene claims these chemicals are only potentially released from Nalgene products when used at temperatures outside of the designed range.

In November 2007, Mountain Equipment Co-op removed all hard, clear polycarbonate plastic water bottles (including Nalgene-branded product) from their shelves and no longer offers these items for sale. In December 2007, Lululemon made a similar move. In May 2008, REI removed Nalgene-branded polycarbonate water bottles and replaced them with BP-A free Nalgene bottles.

On April 18, 2008, Health Canada announced that Bisphenol A is "'toxic' to human health". Canada is the first nation to make this designation. On the same date Nalgene announced it would phase out production of its Outdoor line of polycarbonate containers containing the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA). Nalgene’s current product mix, includes the recently launched Everyday line and the original polycarbonate bottles made from materials that do not contain BPA."

Also, a New York Times article from this past April: NYT: Bottle Maker to Stop Using Plastic Linked to Health Concerns

So after knowing all that, it does kind of sound silly that I continue to use these bottles. I've tried to find out if there's a decent way to dispose of them if I were to come to that decision. So far, the only solution seems to be to find a recycling service that accepts plastics with the #7 on the bottom. I think that generally, your neighborhood recycling service doesn't accept those items. I REALLY don't want to just chuck them in the landfill. But should I be looking out more for the environment or my health?*

Would you throw yours away? Have you already?

Oh, and my replacement of choice at this point would be Sigg bottles.

*I realize that my personal health is in many ways tied to the health of the environment.

Duvet short list

I swear, this is almost over. We will soon be back to our regularly (and equally mundane) programming.

After lots of helpful input, we have this lovely short list. Feel free to weigh in again! I've tried to add one semi-negative comment for each one. Don't ask me why - that seemed like a good idea.

Fairhaven: No blue!

Twighlight: Matches our shower curtain. Is that good or bad?

Marimekko Ruovikko: Not enough color?

Zen: Color might not work in our bedroom

Sea Reeds: Too much blue?

Morning Bloom: Seems a tad cartoonish?

Branches French Blue: Afraid of getting sick of the pattern

Cove Organic: Hard to keep clean, EDITED: super expensive

Valerie: Hard to keep clean

Time to buy some bedding

When we got married, we didn't put any bedding on the registry. We were already happy with what we had (same goes for towels, bathroom stuff, etc). But over time, I've grown to loathe how haphazard our bedroom feels. Between the navy blue duvet cover and the various pillowcases on the bed at any time, we're looking at navy blue, black, white, and forest green. I don't like the furniture either but that's not something we can tackle in the near future.

So my first thought was to just replace all of the pillowcases with 1 fun print that has at least SOME navy blue in it to match the duvet. That hasn't been as easy as it sounds. So now I'm leaning towards replacing all of the bedding and getting a duvet cover with a print along with solid, matching pillow cases.

After checking out about 6 stores' online inventory, here is the short list:

CrateandBarrel "Marimekko Ruovikko"
BBB 1
BBB 2
Macys 1 "Sea Reeds"
Macys 2 "Morning Bloom"
Macys 3 "Glacier"
Overstock "Branches French Blue"
Pottery Barn 1 "Tatum"
Pottery Barn 2 "Koi Fish" (just the pillow cases)
Pottery Barn 3 "Songbird"

My mom and gram have a strong favorite from this list - I think I agree with them. I'll reveal which one in a couple days.

EDITED: This is so fun - thanks for voting ladies!

Here are a few more I just found - a couple seem to be out of stock and/or are probably too expensive. Man, do you see the common thread among all these? Who knew my taste was so specific. 

Bugheart - I KNEW you'd pick the Marimekko one. That's also my mom and gram's favorite.

Twighlight
Stanton
Cove Organic
Elysium
Fairhaven
Tranquility
Valerie
Zen

In a couple days, I'll probably post a ranked top 5 list based on your input. Can we say overkill?