December 22 Startup.

What's a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?

I am particularly pleased that we have a brand new Indian restaurant right here in our food wasteland neighborhood. I was not prepared to love buffet style North Indian food, but every time we've been the food has been quite tasty. There's good variety, great value, nice folks working there and top in my kids' view is the soft serve mango ice cream machine. What's not to like?

Namaste Indian restaurant at NE 82nd and Sandy in Portland.

December 21: Project.

December 21 Project. What did you start (or in my case finish) this year that you're proud of?

The skirt! For sure--the skirt! I had no idea I had that much patience or that I would enjoy hand sewing quite so much. The Alabama Stitch Book and the Flickr group I joined were both tremendous sources of inspiration and encouragement.


With luck, I'll be able to add a beautiful green February Lady Sweater to my 2009 accomplishments as well. One sleeve to go!

December 20--New Person

New person-- She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?

This one was easy. While I met Chris a couple of years ago, only this year did we start spending time together. Chris is an amazing person who knows so much about raising, cooking, and preserving food and she is very generous with her knowledge. I love how she tackles big projects with the right combination of research and fearlessness. We've done a few food oriented projects together now and I love when we work in the kitchen, her calm and quiet energy balancing my more hyper tendencies. If you're reading this, Chris--thanks for hanging out with me this year!

December 19--Car Ride

What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?

This was the second year I drove to California with my kids over Spring Break and much as I love my husband (and knitting while he's driving) I also really love loading my kids in the car and heading off on an adventure. Like most fathers I know, my beloved is, shall we say, rather goal oriented. But when I'm at the wheel, there's a bit more wandering.

On this trip we listened to Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, stopped for coffee and ice cream whenever necessary, and took a little time to explore, leading us to the most amazing Sundial Bridge in Sacramento. And I only had to pull over once to make the sibling bickering stop. They got the message pretty quickly and we went on to have a grand journey.

Best of Catchup

I'm catching up on a few days of Best of 2009 prompts:


12/15 Best packaging--Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

I freely admit to buying these ginger chews based entirely on their packaging. They aren't the best ginger chews I've had but I love their fancy little tin.

I almost bought a set of these just because I was similarly charmed by the packaging but then reminded myself that I hate working with double pointed needles. More money for ginger candy, I guess!

12/16 Tea of the year? I can taste my favorite tea right now. What's yours? So far no one has been able to make me like tea. Apart from my delicious, spicy homemade chai, I'd never choose tea over coffee. But, on the ever changing coffee front, I recently scored a little old Krups espresso maker that makes a lovely cup of coffee, especially when I use Doreen's Italian roast.

12/17 Word or Phrase--A word that encapsulates your year. "2009 was _____."
How could one word or phrase describe a whole year? What stands out most about this year has been waiting. We're doing a lot of waiting to see how it all turns out. When raising little ones it was easy to feel confident about where they'd end up but now with almost-adults making their own choices it's harder to be certain. So we're waiting to see how it all turns out and hoping that all these bumps prove useful in the long run.