Pittsburgh 'n' Pie

H. and I took a roadtrip to Pittsburgh this weekend and we did a lot of fun things. I'll make sure to post about the trip starting tomorrow, as I'm too tired to get all the pictures together with words that make sense. :)

But right when we came home I realized we had no desert (as we were away and did no shopping) but luckily I had some cherries (tart cherries which I can not find in the grocery stores around here) from my Mom. She froze a few batches for me (in convenient 4 cups packages, perfect for pie) from their backyard tree.



So here is the pie... and a close-up of my decoration. Please do not point out that I mis-wove my lattice and one piece is wrong. I know. I just couldn't fix it because of the hot pie filling. So while I had enough energy to make pie, now my energy is gone and I have to go fold and put away my laundry. But I promise to show you lots of Pittsburgh pictures during the week.

Mystery Solved!

Or this post could have been entitled "adventures in eating in my own dining room".

Okay so every once and a while the Hubster can't eat dinner with me and I almost always end up shopping my little heart out at the local Korean market. The reason I like shopping without him there is because a) they're always re-arranging b) they always have new items and c) I like to browse there. I don't feel that I love to browse Target, or the Wegmans or Trader Joe's as much as I do at Grand Mart.

Anyway, I usually end up getting some side dishes and kimchi, as they make their own there. H-mart is another lovely Korean store in the area, but usually I am too lazy to drive over there.

One thing I am a sucker for is various root side dishes. I love them and since H. doesn't like them that much, the perfect guilt-free time to get them is a dinner night on my own! (Plus, leftovers for lunch!)

So they had a nice looking spicy root side dish, and after chowing down I decided to read the label. And finally after all these years I have a name to go with the root! Whenever I asked when I lived in Korea, people would say, "I dunno, a root." or "Some flower root" or "I think maybe it is radish" (this last one I knew was false!). My Korean cookbooks were no help since they'd list things like "a mountain climber root" or "type of mugwort" or "bellflower root" and I can't tell the difference in the pictures which one was shredded in a dish!

But now I know! Because rather than a non-descriptive "root" on the label - This time it actually says!!!


Balloon flower root! Of course this term wasn't in my cookbooks. So after searching all four of them... I went to my friend Google and it sent me to Wikipedia and finally found out what it is.

Click here to find out.

Apparently it is even easy to grow! And it is pretty! Maybe I'll get some when I have a place for a real garden.

And now we know that the Chinese Bellflower can also be called a balloonflower and is called Doraji in Korean and we know that I like to eat them in a Korean dish called Doraji Saengchae.

Now I just have to figure out what kind of roots are in that other dish I like.

Tidbits

Well nothing much to report here, so I'll chat a little about little things!

1. Knitting tidbits: The knitting bag is for sure lost to the wind... So now I'll have to start collecting knitting gadgets. One good note, I worked some overtime recently so at least I'll have the funds.

2. I'd like to say I have been sewing, but also that was put on hold. I decided to wait to take sewing classes until after Christmastime. But now that my knitting accessories bag is lost, I think I'll try and sew one this week. So hopefully I'll have some pictures for you later this week.

3. The Olympics are almost over and I think H. might be already having withdrawal symptoms. He's already looking sadder at each mention of "closing ceremonies".

4. Running tidbit, I have been having fun on the websiteMap my run looking at different loops I run and how big hills are. This week I made two new milestones, One one day I ran 30 minutes and another day I ran three loops around my usual loop. It isn't a 5K yet but I'm getting closer. Getting to run less than 40min will be tough and probably close. I'm not as confidant I'll beat my younger self. But I still have about 3 weeks to keep running faster. So there is hope.

5. I've also (in between Olympic coverage, H watches it non-stop so it is hard) been playing some on my Wii, one of my coworkers loaned me Boom Blox and Lego Star Wars - they're both really super fun.

Other than that it's pretty much same as usual.

Knitting beginnings, and knitting sadness

Okay so I promise you that I still knit.

Here is exhibit A.



This is the close-up (without the flash it looks too red, the color in the other picture is much more truer to color. It's called berry and looks like a purplish raspberry color.

what is it going to be?
A Clapotis (click here for pattern)
Mine's in Paton's SWS (a wool/soy blend) which I really like the feel of, even though I keep splitting stitches. I'm still in the increasing stage.

It's fun to have a pattern you don't have to think about that much during the Olympics. We're really into it, watching it until we go to bed, then taping what we can't stay up long enough to watch. Then we watch part of that while getting ready in the morning.

I think H. really wishes he was Phelps, just so he could eat like him
Have you seen what he eats? Click here if you haven't. He literally eats more for breakfast than I do all day.

H. just wishes I would let him eat a whole pizza once.

Now for the sad news. I lost my knitting accessories bag. In it was some extra cables for my harmony knitting needles, all my cable needles, a tape measure (luckily i have two of those), all of my stitch markers (I had to buy more for Clapotis!), a crochet hook, all my stitch holders and my knitting row counter. And some spare rubber bands and other things I don't really care I lost.

I don't know what happened to it. The last chance I have of finding it is if it magically ended into my closet. Otherwise... well I must have left it on the bus one morning. :(

Sunday walkies

Well, as usual, after a fierce evening storm (see post below for some hail pictures) we had a beautiful morning. We decided to go over to Manassas Battlefield Park and go walking. It's rather close to where we live and is a really nice place for a morning walk.

One reason is you can look at an old stone bridge.


You can look at some rolling hills and fields (they mowed down the grasses for hay a few weeks ago, but I imagine it will spring back up once more before fall).


You can walk in the woods.


And you can see some cool bugs.
I'm not sure what this is, the wings were different than most dragonflies I have seen. They were black - not clear.


I'm not sure what kind of spider this one is, but he was huge. My thought process went "oh look a baby toad, oh wait no, that is a tarantula!" It was about 2 inches or 3 inches in diameter. It was H-U-G-E. Neither Harland nor I have ever seen such a spider.


I have been trying to find out what is it online, but the closest I can come up with is maybe a bark crab spider? But the pictures don't quite look like it. Anyone know what this monster is? It was okay to see it outside, in the woods, but if this creepy crawly was anywhere near my house I'd be freaking out. This was the biggest, ugliest spider I have ever ever seen.
What is interesting is I was not nearly as creeped out taking the pictures of him as I am now looking at him. Those bumps! eww! Gross!

Hail Storm

So last evening we had a hail storm, it came out of nowhere. It was kind of funny because we were watching October Sky (the movie about the Rocket Boys from West Virginia)and there was a storm in the movie, then all the sudden when they switched scenes I realized it was storming outside our place too!

Anyway, the unmistakable sound of hail hitting our window really caught our attention. It even pelted my poor plants on the porch, which is how windy you can tell it is, they almost never get rained on, even in the fiercest storms.

Here are some pictures I took. The hail started off small but then ended up being about the size of a penny in diameter. Luckily the hail did not ding up our cars. I used my hand as sizing here in the pictures of some hail off our balcony.

Running in the Rain

Well, Maybe that is overstating it a little bit. We had a thunderstorm come through at 5 or 6am and since then it has been raining on and off. When I first went to go running, it was pouring, so I sat on the couch for a half hour reading the latest National Geographic magazine before trying again.

The 2nd time was much more successful... it only rained for about 5 minutes on me in the middle of the run.

And I ran all 20 minutes, I am impressed. I thought it would be harder to do but I really have to say the "couch to 5-k" program is solid. I think really the hardest was a while ago when I moved from 3 minutes to 5 minutes running. Since then, everything has been running smoothly (pun not intended, but funny anyway).

Well it is official, our names are up on the register for the Navy Federal Credit Union 5-k. You can see them here. It doesn't seem like that many people are signed up yet, but I am sure that will change soon - I mean it is still more than a month away. There are a lot of people in my age bracket, which is interesting. Maybe the 30-40yr old female crowd plans way ahead.

Speaking of planning ahead, a co-worker has been talking of a half marathon in late winter/early spring. It's intriguing me. I might as well do one, since I'll have plenty of down time when H is away.

After all...

"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." - Jules Renard