Knitting and Cupcake Therapy

Mourning the loss of my cousin, interviews going well, but waiting, waiting, waiting for offers, tired of spending all day every day looking for jobs.... what's a girl to do????

Why Indulge in a little Knitting and Cupcake Therapy, of course!!!!

The past few weeks have had so many ups and downs. Hopeful news and then sad endings, but remembering Lynn, I can't help but bake everything I can think of with peanut butter. I'm tellin' Ya for REAL, there was noone on the planet that loved peanut butter more than my cousin.

Sunday afternoon I made peanut butter cookies in his honor and now those are gone, so this morning I noticed a suggested variation on the back of a Betty Crocker Butter flavor cake mix which REALLY caught my eye. I was somewhat skeptical, and of course as always, didn't follow the instructions completely but WOW! Are these ever some awesome cupcakes!!!!! I added 1/2 cup peanut butter to the mix with 1-1/2 c. water, 1/2 c. margarine and 3 eggs. The resulting batter was super fluffy! There was just enough batter for 24 perfect cupcakes.

Instead of following package directions for a combination boiled ingredient plus whipped cream frosting, I made my own using approximately 1/3 c. butter, About a Tablespoon or 2 of shortening, maybe 2/3 c. peanut butter and enough confectioner's sugar to combine well, with a splash of half-n-half to create the proper spreadable fluffiness, and oh my oh my goodness are these ever heavenly peanut butter cupcakes and I'm hoping my sweet cousin is smiling down from above and enjoying them with me!

YUMMMMMMYYYYY!!!

But cupcake therapy, albeit good, is not as good as cupcake therapy and knitting! Seriously, I'm spending SO MUCH TIME EVERY DAY answering ads and going on interviews.... it's high time some knitting was done!

Should I finish one of possibly 4 projects already in process???!?


NOOOOOOO!!!! It's much more fun to pour over old issues of Vogue Knitting and catch the inspirational kick needed to start my first project on double pointed needles.

Hey Kathy! If you happen to be reading, I'm making a pair of those fingerless gloves. (My sweet friend Kathy didn't catch my fingerless glove fever, even though I tried to explain how great it would be to have gloves to type and knit in..) It seems my friend likes to have her fingers warm, too... That's okay. I still think she's plenty smart and awesome.... and I just know that any gloves I knit for Kathy will most assuredly include fingers =) Or then again, maybe Kathy will get a hat and not gloves. Yes, I think that's better. =)

About DPNs: It felt awkward for the first couple of rows, but I think soon I'll have the hang of it. As with the cupcakes, I'm not following the instructions to the letter, but this concept looks pretty easy. The original instructions were for an even number of stitches with instructions to begin alternate rows with k1, p1 to be followed by p1,k1. Well, I get distracted too easily and my gauge was a tiny bit large, so I reduced the pattern to an odd number of stitches so that I don't have to keep up with what row I'm on, but can simply k1,p1,k1,p1 and the seed stitch occurs without thinking about it(a little trick I picked up on another project). So far it seems gauge is cooperating and soon I will be to a point where I can take the ultimate test to see if it indeed will fit over my hands.

Well, the husband cooked hotdogs for lunch, so I'm off to maybe an employment application or two and then more knitting and cupcakes!!!!

I highly recommend this therapy. =)

Happy Days everyone.


Aunt M