A Week of Riding the Struggle Bus

Man!  This last week really kicked me right where it hurts.  I’ve had so many struggles….both personal and professional the whole week long.  I’ve been mentally uncomfortable and have wanted to retreat into myself but also wanted to get away from my own thoughts. The only remedies I’ve found?  Yarn and cooking.  (*I* KNOW! Shocking, right?!)  

I am still working on the shawl that will never end.  I thought I had just a few hours on it at some point last week.  Not so.  I didn’t take into account that I am increasing many stitches on each RS row, so my end date/time just keeps slipping further into the future as it simultaneously grows nearer.  The dichotomy of a knitters reality.  Seriously?   I am just spent. 

The pattern calls for 4 and half more pattern repeats before finishing off.  I am less than halfway on the fourth repeat and I just can’t take it anymore.  WHY am I so annoyed by this project?  I really don’t have any idea.  But I have never wanted a project to end as desperately as I do this one.  The thing is, I don’t want to knit it, so therefore it is not getting done….but I NEED for it to get done.  So, there.  You can clearly see my dilemma.  I will either absolutely LOVE it when it’s all over or despise it completely.  Care to take bets?

But ALAS! I have BOTH food & yarn pics!  And who doesn’t love those?  (besides like, over half the internet with their millions of memes making fun of food posts and the other half portraying knitters as grannies in rocking chairs waiting for death to come ….)  So my interests are laughable to a lot people. Pretty sure that’s not going to stop me from knitting my heart out and continuing to cook ‘til my kitchen goes up in smoke.  Take THAT internet bullies!

This week I embarked on a vegan burger that used rice and garbanzo beans rather than kidney or black beans which I often come across in vegan recipes.  It made for a lighter burger than I’ve tried making before, which felt better on my stomach.  To cook them up I tried two methods – pan fried and broiled. First I had the pan fried in oil version and felt pretty queasy after eating it actually.  Later when I tried the broiled version I did not feel the unsettled stomach and heaviness come on.  I suspected this was going to happen (since my digestion is very, very touchy), but I do tempt fate in the kitchen from time to time.  😊

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I also made my own vegan mayonnaise with oil, vinegar, soy milk, mustard, garlic and salt.  I found a basic recipe online and worked in the mustard and garlic to suit our tastes.   It looked and tasted just like mayonnaise, but somehow better?  I also melted Chao cheez on the burgers.  Chao is a processed vegan & gf cheez that is INCREDIBLE. It melts like real cheese and has great flavor.  It is also 100% junk food, so we don’t eat it very often, but Man!  When we do, we REALLY enjoy the creamy meltiness of it.  

Vegan cheez burger topped with craft beer sauerkraut. Mmmmm.

In other news – my husband and I are gearing up for a big change in our lives.  The details haven’t been ironed out yet, but we are steadily moving in the direction of big changes for us both.  All good vibes here!  I cannot really talk about it yet, but the moment I get the OK, IT’S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!

Since starting to write this blog post last night until now, I have finished the shawl that never ends.  And this is what it looks like now……. 

Hated it.