02.26.08
How To Make Peanut Butter
My family goes through a huge amount of peanut butter, I don’t like the stuff myself but the other two could live on it if I alouded them to. So when we noticed that most of the brands on the shelf here in NZ are made in China we thought it would be best to find an alternative. We had been buying the Ceres Organic Stuff which was good, so I was told. But then there was production problems and it wasn’t on the shelf for a good month or so. Time to take matters into our own hand, and so we made it ourself.
Take one cup of roasted skinless, saltless peanuts. Organic would be nice if you could get it. And a mixer of some sort. We have a Braun stick mixer with heaps of attachments, including a food processor.
Mix it all up a bit
I added 2 tablespoons of oil, pretty much just enough to get the smoothness required, and wizzed it up again. Like the action shot?
The finished product, which DH & T like, which is all that is important.
02.24.08
Road Trip January 2008 Part 3
Our second day in Wellington, we headed into the city to visit Te Papa, the national museum, and the cable car. We left Lower Hutt at around 9 am thinking we would miss the Thursday morning peak time but we were wrong. However the peak was no where near what Auckland is so we didn’t lose too much time. We had no idea of the roading lay-out in the capital but with DH as the navigator we found our way along the water front past the Cake Tin which I have to say really does earn its name, the way the rail way goes right into the car park of it is such a great idea, if only we had something like that here in Auckland for our stadiums. We found a great parking deal at Te Papa $12 for the whole day, we thought this was a bargain so found a nice park undercover and headed on up to the museum.
Turns out it did not open until 10 a, which is fair enough so we had a little walk around the water front near by.
And found some of the lovely poetry they have around the waterfront.
We then headed into the Te Papa complete to get a caffeine fix, it had now been 5 days since we had had a ‘real’ coffee and although we like to think we are not coffee snobs, we are. Good coffee is easy to find in New Zealand and Wellington, so I’ve been told, is the coffee capital of New Zealand, and we weren’t to be disappointed. Myself and DH got flat whites and T got a little fluffy. We also shared a chocolate brownie, and DH got a bacon & egg sandwich. The decor in the cafe was different, they had carpet with a semi-Maori design on it up on the wall which made it look a little like a Marae (meet house).
Once 10 am rolled around we headed up the stair to Te Papa, and what a joy it is. Unlike Auckland museum where the ‘donation’ is enforced by having ticking gates were you must obtain a ticket, for “health & safety” reasons, Te Papa has a small un-intrusive box near the bottom of the stairs for donations. This in my option is how a donation entry should work.
The museum has lots of interactive activities for children of all ages, and really gives you a hands on to the history of New Zealand. TP had great fun with all the touch-screens and buttons to press. The one complaint as with most museums is why do they have such low lighting on everything. I know that light can damage things but in the areas where it is all models they have made why the need for such low lighting, it can’t be good for your eyes when trying to read one of the 100’s of signs.
Te Papa also houses the national art gallery, well I think it is the national one. One of the pieces is this installation. I don’t know how they got the van up into the space but it was very cool. 
They also have this very colourful marae. 
And a great activity for kids to dig up stuff, here is what we found.
After Te Papa, we headed towards the Cable Car, which involved navigating the CBD by foot, much easier than by car. We called in and got lunch on the way and did a little window browsing. When we arrived at Cable Car Lane the car was there waiting for us so on we got and up we went.
The views were lovely and we were lucky to have a rather still day in Wellington, so we didn’t get blown away. Up the top of the cable car is the cable car museum, which is free. (Wellington seams to have a lot of free things) so in we went to have a look at the old car, and get the photo for course. 
They were going “down the hill” which is why the funny angle. The cable car museum was rather intrusting really for such a thing.
The cable car also takes you to the bottom of the botanic gardens so we went for a walk around to see what we could see. And all that we could see, were lots of hill. but we did find the playground, so TP had to test it out.
After going back down the cable car, we meet up with a friend who now lives in Wellington and had him help us navigate back out of the CBD to their place for a catch up and the yummiest of Chinese take-aways we have had. Was nice having some time with them and learning what its like to live in Wellington. We returned to our camp ground around 10:30 pm with some good directions to ensure we did not get lost, but oops I got in the wrong lane and went for a little tiki tour, but we found our way back in the end.
To be continued.
02.19.08
The Hat
I’m happy to report that I did as I said, and finished the Slouchy Hat from Drop Designs.
It was hard going, but while watching Sunday night TV I completed it. I’m rather happy with it, I have photographed it on T so I could get a better photo. It fits my head well, although DH says it only suits if I have a little hair sticking out. Don’t know how much wear the hat will get, but I’m sure it will be good for bad hair days in autumn / winter.
I did make a rather noticeable mistake on the back of it were I knitted two rows instead of doing the YO, K2togs on the second row, but I think I can live with it, I was so far past it when I found it that I was not going back.
On a bloggy note, I have been able to fix some of the problems I have been having with formatting. Turns out that WordPress is not 100% compatible with the Mac browser Safari. In time I hope to go back and edit the old posts with problems.
02.17.08
Knitting Projects
Been a little while since I have updated on my knitting projects so it’s about time.
I have completed all the knitting for the Silk Slip, so now the search is on for fabric to match. I haven’t had a good look around (only spotlight currently) but there was nothing that took my fancy. I have decided to go with just a tank length so not a great deal is needed, which is good for the budget. 
I also have two projects on the go at the moment. The first being the Presto Chango for friends baby (due July 3rd) I am knitting it up in some horrible yarn I found at spotlight, it is grey with a blue sparkle in it. 100% polyester shit but soft. It is really hard to knit with, and hard on the hands so I have stalled on this at the moment. I only have one side left to do and the panel. I’m thinking of knitting the panel as part of the left side so I only need 3 buttons and it is a bit easier to do. I’m also unsure how the lace pattern would show up in this yarn, I think I might start a test swatch of the lace to see. 
My other project is a Garn Studio Hat. I’m using this as a bit of stash buster using some Panda Magnum acrylic that is left over from my Drop Stitch Vest I made a few years back. It is a pretty boring knit so I’m having trouble sticking to this also, but I hope to get it finished this weekend. It should be knit on DPN but I do not have the correct size so I’m using 2 circular needle needles which I find easier than DPN. 
02.14.08
Road Trip January 2008 Part 2
I was a little disappointed by the lights, but the park is amazing. If I was ever to come into a lot of money I would do something similar. I’m not too sure how large it is but what an asset for the city!
We stayed at the park and Festival Of Lights for a good three hours then headed back to our motel for sleep. The following morning, we headed back to the huge park and went to the FREE zoo, then on to the FREE museum.
After that we got in the car and headed to Wanganui, via a stop over in Hawera where we walked around the graveyard looking for my Great Grandfather’s grave, which we didn’t find. Hawera is a bit of a hole really, which is a shame, I always though well of it for some reason but we were really disappointed. The fact that the people at the i-Site didn’t know where the graveyard was wasn’t a good start, then we didn’t find anything very appealing for lunch. However the last interaction we had with anyone in Hawera was good, at the Shell station of all places, A+ for the lovely girl who was working that day.
The drive to Wanganui wasn’t too bad but I was feeling sick & we stayed in the worst motel in the world. Warning bells should have gone off when the manager invited us up to the local hospital for dinner with him when we checked in. We were too scared to pull back the sheets so slept in our sleeping bags. I didn’t have a shower as it looked like you would pick something up from it and the jug didn’t work. Having said that, we did go for a drive around the city and went up to the look-out, were I didn’t take any photos and saw the river. We also found a playground that must have been built in the 70’s but they have kept it in working order. It was great for the TP.
I think I would like to go back to Wanganui again, but stay somewhere better which might put the whole city in a better light. For the record, don’t stay at the Bignel St Motel if you are in the area.
Then it was on to Wellington, where we meet up with an on-line friend I have known for around 7 years but never meet. We headed into Poruira at around 11 and met up in the mall. What a mall it is, and I don’t say that in a good way. The air conditioning seems to not work and friend informs me it’s always like this. The one redeeming feature would be it has a Lush store. Once again we used the local i-Site to get directions to our accommodation in Lower Hutt. The drive from Poruria down to Wellington then into Lower Hutt is a good one. I enjoyed it, lots to look at, and it was a great feeling being there, the weather was also amazing.
We arrived at the Top 10 Holiday Park in Lower Hutt a little early but they were good enough to shuffle the rooms around so we could go straight into one. We chose a basic cabin, which was all we needed. Nice and close to the communal bathroom and kitchen and right next to the GREAT playground. TP was very happy to discover the jumping pillow, and a flying fox of sorts.
We chilled happily here at the lovely park facilities for the rest of the day, while planning what we would do with ourselves tomorrow, I also cast on the baby cardigan here.
To be continued.
02.10.08
Road Trip January 2008 Part 1.
We did a total of 1530 km in 5 days. I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I wanted to but I had to consider both DH & TP.We traveled from Auckland to New Plymouth the first day. The first thing we noticed at the start of our trip was how brown the Waikato is at present. Normally, it has fields of lush green grass, but at the moment, it is brown everywhere you look.
We called in to visit friends who are farm-hands in Otorohunga who mentioned that the milk yield for the whole area is down around 10%. After stopping by their place we headed down State Highway 3. What a trip, when we got close to coast we couldn’t believe how blue the water was, I don’t think I’ve seen water that blue anywhere. It was when we were on this stretch of road we had a little accident, which wasn’t too bad, but left us all very shaken and wanting to get to our days destination. As a result I don’t have any photos of that lovely blue water.
We left on our road trip with no accommodation booked at all. This was a very brave thing for me to do, as I like to be super organized when it comes to things like this, but we took a leaf out of Bill Bryson’s books and headed straight to the i-Sites to get them to book our accommodation. They found a nice little motel which had everything we needed and was close to Pukekura Park where the festival of the lights are. After dropping off our bags we headed off to the waterfront for a walk around and to let TP have a play on any playgrounds we found along the way. What a great waterfront they have in New Plymouth. I could stay there all day long, just wonderful.
We then headed into the inner city where once again we took Bill’s advice and walked around to see the ‘real’ town.
It was Sunday early evening so nothing was open but it gave us time to have a good look without a lot of people. The vibe there was lovely and I think myself and DH could live with it.
We found an Asian smorgasbord for dinner, which was both good value and yummy, then off to Pukekura park for the lights.
To be continued…
02.07.08
Hat & Booties To Match
Quick post to show of the matching Booties & Hat. The photos are not the best, I have requested a photo of baby in the full out fit come July when it is born. 
The booties are made for this pattern which was super easy and FAST! only took an hour for both. Once again I had to go up 2 sizes in needles, but I think they will fit. Funny how you forget just how small babies really are.
For the Hat I used the Toasty Topper pattern from Knitty, but didn’t put the scarf bit on as I thought since the cardigan had a shawl coaller that it would be pointless. I’m hoping the hat won’t be too big.
02.03.08
Road Trip Jan 08
We came home. I am in the process of writing a full post of all of our adventure but for now here is a link to my Flick Road Trip Set. I will be adding to them in the coming weeks, so please check back.
On a crafty note I did get a whole project finished while away. The little ribbed jacket for a work friends Baby to be. She is due in July so I still have time to knit more things for the lucky winter baby. Now please don’t be scared of the Doll as DD is, it just happened to be the right size. 
I am now working on a matching Hat.
