You can't win 'em all

So besides highlighting my baking/cooking successes I should probably tell you about the failures. A friend brought me some citrus fruit from Florida last week and I found a recipe online for three fruit marmalade. Grapefruit, lemon and oranges, perfect. I peeled and sliced and got everything together and it was pretty looking, all orange and yellow and pink and I simmered it for almost 2 hours, just as the directions told me to.

Then I added sugar and boiled and waited for it to thicken. And I waited and waited and it was still the consistency of water. Not wanting to waste it, I strained it and took out a little less than half of the liquid, assuming this was the problem. I then put the rest of the liquid and the solids back in the pot along with a little more sugar. I set it to a medium boil and went into the living room. Within ten minutes I caught a whiff of the unmistakable smell of burning sugar. My marmalade that I had such high hopes for turned into this burned and blackened mess. Blah.But this will not beat me, I plan on attempting this again next weekend. I know I can do this. I need to find another recipe though. Martha Stewart + marshmallow recipe = golden. Martha Stewart + marmalade recipe = FAIL.

Besides ruining a batch of marmalade, I caught up on my This American Life podcasts. I cannot emphasize enough how much I love this radio show and Ira Glass. The Valentine's show was call 'Somewhere Out There' and for the music between segments they actually played the song "Somewhere Out There" which is from a movie of my childhood, An American Tail. For some completely unknown and ridiculous reason the playing of this song hit me at the exact right moment and made me cry. And laugh at myself for crying. This was before the marmalade failure too so I didn't have anything to cry about yet.

I finished a hat on Friday, because I guess I don't have enough hats. I counted how many hats I have knit myself, including the newest one the total is NINE. Nine different hats, almost all in wool or a wool blend for someone who lives in a climate where winter lasts about 3 months. This is the Spring Beret from Natalie Larson found here, done in Berroco Palace, a merino/silk blend.

I'm also working on a Cream of Spinach Scarf in Classic Elite Miracle for a friend's extremely late Christmas present. At the rate I'm going its going to be an Easter present.As I was out taking pictures of the hat I found that my planter with mint and chives in it had sprouted a whole new set of chives. It's been outside this whole time too. It was on the patio between the brick of the house and the eave of the woodshop with a ton of leaves on top so that's probably why it made it. I've also got green parsley and golden sage still in the garden. Just a few more weeks before that starts up again. I have a lot to do to prep since we're tripling the size. Happy Sunday!