watch out, Martha

It's 8 degrees right now. Mother Nature is punishing us for the warm winter we've had. It's supposed to be -8 tonight. Yikes! I finally broke down and started wearing a coat and gloves again. BOO!! I even like the cold, but this year, we were spoiled so bad with warm weather over the past few months, that this kind of bums me out! Oh well. Just over a month until the official start to spring - it can only get warmer, right?

Some of my friends like to call me Martha because I pretend that I'm better than her. I like to consider myself a crafty person, but I don't always succeed. Case in point - I try to cook. Every night I try to cook an outstanding meal for me and my boyfriend. I hit the mark about 50% of the time. Baking however, is another story. I can bake like there is no tomorrow. I'm good at it, and I like it that way. Check out the cake in the photo - a materpiece, no? I make 4 of those in two weeks for two dinner parties we had at my house, one that I took to work, and one for us. I can't even barely look at it anymore without getting sick. You see, it's good. Really, really good. But I ate so much of it that I ruined it. It's not my recipe, I found it in my Pillsbury Best of the Bake Off cookbook. Or, you can find it here. I am missing the one important part of this cake in the photo because this was just after I made it. You're supposed to put chocolate shavings on the top. It looks even better when you do that.

I also had a few dinner parties in the last couple of weeks. I had to take a photo of what the table looked like because I think it was gorgeous. A table set for 8 people. I try, I really, really do. I really like entertaining and cooking for people. I just need to learn to be a better cook. There are no good cooking schools around town which is kind of a bummer. Please forgive my non-matching dinnerware. I don't have enough plates for them to all match. One day I will though. one day I will also have more than just folding chairs for my guest and a big long card table for them to sit at. Tablecloths are magic, aren't they.

I've been terrible about posting knitting news simply because there hasn't been any. This weekend, I am once again going to unearth my yarn stash, re-prioritize projects, and maybe post some things to swap or sell on the Flash your Stash site. To be continued, I suppose. Stay warm this weekend!