A Multi-Purposed Post

Firstly, I'm posting to show you this. I made it on Wordle today and I'm excessively proud of myself. Really, it's a little ridiculous.

Secondarily, I'm leaving Blogger. I have many reasons for this, and I will expound approximately none of them here. But I am leaving Blogger for WordPress. My new blog can be found here. I am still going to call it "A Large Cup of Tea and a Long Book."
That's all...

How to Read Victor Hugo

So I just finished reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. It only took me seven days. How did I do it?

1. I took advice from people who had read it before. It really is 50% social commentary and history that you don't really need to know to understand the story.
   
2. Find someone to mock you. I got my friend, Susanna, to mock me. I didn't ask her for it. But she'd read it before and she knew that I was reading it. So she teased me and mocked me. And it motivated me.
3. Find someone to cheer you on. For me, that was my friend's little sister. She thought it was the most impressive thing ever how fast I was reading the book. So she was basically my personal cheering section.
   
4. I was listening to the musical soundtrack.
   
5. And I skimmed through the history stuff. It was boring and dry and unnecessary.
   

And I finished the book quickly.

Daylight Savings Time is Going to Kill Me

Last night, my roommate went to a concert and a friend drove her. Thusly, she didn't take her keys with her. But I didn't know this. So I locked the door before I went to bed at 11pm. Around 11pm, I also set my alarm for 7:45 am so I could shower before my favorite brother picked me up for church at 8:50am.
Then, my phone started ringing at 12:51am because the roommate was home and needed me to unlock the door. But my ringtone and the alarm sound enough alike that I opened my phone, hit clear, and then closed the phone again. "I'll go back to sleep," I thought. "I'm tired and I can get like five more minutes of sleep. Then I'll get up and shower."
Then she started knocking on the door. And I thought, "If my alarm just went off, why is Greg here already? I'll go tell him I need to get dressed before we can go to church."
So I went to the front door and opened it. There was my roommate. Then I went back to my room and realized that it was 12:51 am...not 7:45am.
I went back to sleep for another six hours and fifty-four minutes. Then I got up.

And then the USA lost to Canada in hockey. Go back to preschool and learn how to grow a beard, Sidney Crosby.

Never Trust a Man Wearing a Beaded Snood

Theoretically speaking, I am currently sitting in my school's Language Resource Center watching Mozart's opera Don Giovanni as the title character wears a beaded snood in his hair and seduces 2,065 women. The music is lovely. And I wish I owned his snood. But the point remains...c'mon ladies! Never, never, never trust a man wearing a beaded snood.

I really am watching it. It's just kind of weird that he's wearing a beaded snood. I want a beaded snood. I don't want to be seduced. And I don't like reading 90 million different adaptations of Don Juan. The guy's a jerk; I got that in adaptation #1...and now I'm on #4. Admittedly, watching an opera is more fun than reading a book.

I'm also knitting my Slouchy Cardigan. I finished the back piece last night and cast on the right front. I have to finish that piece, make the left front, make the sleeves and the hood, and then it'll be done. I think I should have it done by Easter. (Knock on wood. *Rap, rap*)

January Lady Sweater-Pt. 2

It needs buttons but it's technically done.
However, there are two problems with it:
1) one of the sleeves needs to be fixed.
2) It's too small for me. I made a mistake and made it too small. In March, I'm going to fix that messed up sleeve, give the sweater buttons, and then find a young child to give this to.
Then, I plan on remaking this sweater (possibly in a different color) so that I can actually wear it.

The reason I'm waiting until March to deal with this is that I have three other projects lined up for the month of February, which I'm committed to working on during February. I'm doing a Knit-a-long/Read-a-long on Ravelry where we're reading "Sense and Sensibility" and I'm working on a cardigan (in dark plum) for that. I'm also (starting February 12) doing the Ravelympics and making a scarf and a pair of mittens. That goes until February 28. And then I'll still be working on the KAL/RAL cardigan. And then I'll fix the JLS and then I can start a March Lady Sweater.

January Lady Sweater-Pt. 1

The real name of the pattern from which I'm working is the "February Lady Sweater." But since I started making this project on 12/31/09 and am aiming to finish it by 1/31/10, I'm calling it my "January Lady Sweater."
It's about 50% done. Well, the body is completely done and I just need to make the sleeves. I've never knit sleeves before. I've knit in the round only once before and that was when I made a pair of fingerless mittens. So...we'll see what happens. I'll update y'all on the progress-hopefully before 1/31/10.

Chicken and Mashed Potatoes: A Recipe

Betty Crocker and Julia Child and Erma What's-Her-Face-From-the-Joy-of-Cooking probably all have their own variations on this. But seeing as I came up with this today, I thought I'd share. This is part of my quest to find more lactose-free meals for myself (and future roommates and family) to eat.
The way I made this it feeds two but I'm sure that with some very simple math, it could be made to serve more.

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
2 cups chicken broth
1 small onion-diced
1 clove of garlic-crushed/sliced/pressed
2 tbsp parsley

3-4 medium sized potatoes
2 tbsp margarine

Boil the potatoes until they are soft. Drain the water and mash them. Mix in the margarine.
At the same time, heat the broth and mix in the onion, garlic, and parsley. When it's come to a boil, turn the heat down a little and put in the chicken breasts. Cook them thoroughly and then remove them from the broth. Put them on a plate to serve.
Take the excess broth and pour it into the potatoes. Mix the potatoes well.

Serve the meal.

Total prep time: 25-30 minutes