What I did yesterday.

 I made bagels.  1 doz bagels from a recipe for a 1.5 lb loaf.  Guess how many were left when I got up this morning!   Three.  We went through almost an entire loaf of bread, i.e. we ate 9 bagels.  And I wonder why I'm putting on weight.  But they are so good.  I tend to make crunchy bagels rather than chewy ones.  And when you split them and toast them, oh my, they are better than potato chips.  And just as addictive.  Actually, I think I'm better with a bag of chips than my bagels.  Oh, and I'm almost finished eating that bagel.  Do I need to make more?  I think I'll make a regular loaf of bread instead; at least that lasts a couple of days.

Bagel recipe:  just a normal bread recipe:  flour, water, salt, yeast, and I added tons of caraway seeds.  Mmmm.

I cleaned the kitchen counters.  When we bought the house, we knew we had to do a total kitchen makeover.  We decided not to bump out walls or add anything to the original footprint.  And that was fine, except that we are serious slobby pack rats, and my baking area became a holding spot for junk.  I'm talking 2 huge piles of cookbooks, Cooking Light magazines, assorted bank statements from 2 years ago, scraps of knitting patterns, graph paper with those patterns graphed out, ancient sales receipts, etc, etc.  So yesterday, I cleaned it all off.  Whoo hoo.  I now have an area to work on.  I can actually use the baking center as a baking center.  I can mix, knead, whatever.  I wonder how long it will take before it's a mess again.

And I started a new project.  I was working on this shawl from hell, and finally got smart enough to frog the entire thing.  So, here's what's now on the needles.  I hope you are impressed.

This little gem took me forever.  I wanted to play with a different shaping, and for some reason, it wouldn't come together in my brain.  I finally took out the graph paper, and played with it all, and ta da!  I did it.  Of course I frogged it 4 times for very stupid reasons.  But now it's fine.  And then I spent also forever working out the chart.  I like the pattern that I came up with for the previous incarnation of this shawl.  So I recharted it, and now I have to decide when to begin it.  This is fun knitting.  This is a nice workout for my brain.  No auto-pilot here. 

And of course I photographed yarn, edited the pics, blogged, washed the endless laundry, and watched The Biggest Loser.  And ate bagels while watching The Biggest Loser.

Scrabblequeen - mmm.  Tasty and delicious! I"m now down to one bagel, which I'll force myself to consume in a little bit. And in the oven is a cinnamon bread, done in about 8 minutes.  I think I could live on bread alone.
itsJUSTme - I'm a good bread baker, and a lousy house keeper.