TasteBook=Genius

I am so beyond thrilled to have found this thing called TasteBook.

[insert imaginary screen shot here because blogger fails at life]

It's such a great idea. It is an online, build-your-own, fully customizable cookbook. You can choose the cover, the title that you put on the book, all of the recipes inside...it's awesome. It's $34.95 for the spring-apart binder (so that you can add and remove recipes) and 100 printed recipes.

Seriously. (!!!)

Recipe sources include epicurious and several popular foodie blogs (like SimplyRecipes, where I found this). You can also make custom print outs that fit in the binder of your own recipes with your own pictures and order additional recipes after purchase. Or, if you create one as a gift, you can add, say, 30 recipes and give the other 70 to the giftee to choose for themselves.

I am truly impressed with this thing...and I have a feeling that this will become the standard wedding gift. Freaking awesome, this. Folks at epicurious, I bow down to you and your genius.

A Puckin' Great Weekend.

Yes, I had a Pucking Great Weekend, well-deserving of capitalization. My mom came down to visit for the weekend because my cousin was in town playing in a hockey tournament.

Three games of hockey in 36 hours.

It. Was. AWESOME.

I had forgotten just how much I love watching hockey. The sounds of the skates cutting the ice, seeing fully grown muscular men flying after each other, even the semi-funky smells of a building-sized refrigerator. Not to mention the throw-down-the-gloves fights. Oh, yes. Especially those. Turns out I'm quite the bloodthirsty fan. Heh.

But like any good knitter--especially one practically from Canada, as Michigan is more Canadian than most will admit--I did take some yarn and sticks with me. I started a toe-up, short-rowed, plain stockinette sock using some yarn I bought from ThankEwe on Etsy in Scuba Dive. Dood, I am completely in love with this stuff. Super soft, wicked colors. And the good news is that I have three more skeins from her in different colors. Yessss.

top: photo of Scuba Dive yarn from ThankEwe's etsy listing

middle and bottom: Scuba Dive at home after the games, in the recliner

I made it all the way to the heel in three games. My mom was making fun of me (nothing new, that) because at the end of the third game, which went into sudden death overtime, I was knitting faster and faster. And then they won the game--and hence the tournament--and all was good with the world. I was kind of disappointed for a while because my cousin is a senior and had been playing Indiana University in hockey for four years and I just found that out. Seriously, I could have gone to his games! B-ton is pretty much right next door. Lame. Non-lame, though, is that he's taking the family college plan and sticking around for a fifth year. Hoorah, now that I know he'll be in town I can go to the games! I'm ridiculously excited about that, I think. And he'll also be in town over the summer with the hockey camp that he works with. But for now, his team is heading to Florida to play for the National Championship or something, and they're hoping for a three-peat. Woo, go DU! Woo, hockey! Woo, sock!

Edited to fix an overabundance of verbs. My bad.