Granola

Did you know how easy it is to make your own granola?  It's even easier than making yogurt.  As with everything else my first thought was "why make it when you can buy it?" So I never bothered, but, as with everything else, we ran out of granola and I looked into buying it, but it is expensive!  So I finally broke down and looked up how to make it.  It didn't look too bad so I decided to go for it.
It's messy and involves smooshing ingredients together with your hands so I enlisted my resident ingredient smoosher to help me out.

From Blogger Pictures

ingredients in the bowl.

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then the smooshing

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after the baking in the oven, add the dried fruit (if you like that sort of thing)

From Blogger Pictures

tasty granola in your cabinet with the rest of your cereal!  Did I mention that I love oats (oatmeal, granola, oatmeal bread, oatmeal muffins)?  I think I might be turning into a horse.  

Fall is in the Air

We're back in Chengdu, and the weather has turned grey and cool.  Cooler weather always turns my mind towards soups, baking, and knitting.  In fact, I had to make a run to the Yarn Market near the North Market today because I realized I did not have enough grey and black yarn to finish my shawl.  I've only been to the yarn market once before, and that was during the summer.  Back then it was a listless place with empty stalls, and brilliant sunshine driving the merchants under awnings.  But today, all the stalls were bustling, there were little old Chinese ladies everywhere fingering the yarn (and my hair... grrr!) and discussing the colors and weights of yarn.  And the colors!  I had to keep my blinders on because I was only there for black and grey, but oh!  I wanted to stop and touch and take home everything.  I wish I had taken my camera because despite the greyness of the day (a usual occurrence in Chengdu) the yarn market was awash with happy colors.  *sigh* but I digress.
Anyway, I have already made my first soup of the season (actually second soup, I made a baked potato soup earlier this week).  My family loves Chicken n' dumplings. 

From Blogger Pictures

Can you believe I'd never had it before I started cooking for myself?  My dad despises dumplings so ne'er a dumpling was seen in my parents' house growing up, but in my house Chicken n' dumplings is a regular on the rotation, I can't wait for the weather to cool down so that I can make some more.  Then I baked a loaf of bread (another sourdough oatmeal loaf) and made some pumpkin gingerbread for Halloween. 
Oh!  And I discovered that I can make more than fudge!  I made these Halloween pumpkins out of peanut butter and confectioner's sugar!  Super easy and super cute!

From Blogger Pictures

Up next: make your own granola.

The end

We have reached the end of our vacation.  Surprisingly, we did not tour any temples, or visit farms, or do a lot of shopping, but we had fun.  Our vacation routine was simple but relaxing.  In the morning Babes would wake us up and we'd watch an hour or so of cartoons, this was followed by breakfast at the hotel and then off to the pool.  After the pool we'd hit the town for lunch, then back to the room for quiet time and then back to the pool.  We'd end the day with dinner then off to bed to repeat the next day.  I thought I'd get bored with this routine, after all we were on vacation for two weeks, but it was relaxing and nice.  I didn't even feel the need to get a massage or a pedicure (even though I really did need a pedicure). 
Some thoughts on Bali....  First of all, the weather was GORGEOUS!  Big blue skies, just the slightest touch of humidity to soften the breezes, and the temperature hovering right on the edge of hot.  I think part of the reason we were reluctant to do anything was that we just wanted to soak up those blue skies.  Coming from the grey days of Chengdu, blue skies are worth just sitting around in. 
Second, the Balinese seem very friendly.  They have that old fashioned customer service with a smile that you don't see very much anymore.  I saw very few people with evil scowls.  I wondered if the smile was the default expression of the Balinese and they were really happy at all.  But i decided that I didn't care.  I can't stop you from thinking bad thoughts about me, at least this way everyone looks pleasant. 
Third, like Taiwan, religion in bali was part of their daily life.  In front of every business, in the entrances to restaurants, every so often on sidewalks there were these little baskets of fruit, flowers, and rice that I assume were offerings to a God (are Hindu Gods Gods or gods?).  There were tons of little mini temples or mini shrines everywhere.  Driving from place to place you could see larger temples with people attending services in the neighborhoods we passed.  Bali reminded me that Islam and Hindu are two religions that I know very little about. 
Despite the touristy nature of Bali I really enjoyed myself.  It is very nice to have the infrastructure there and not have to worry about little things, for instance everyone that we encountered spoke enough English to make transactions.  I had drinks with ice in them (something I generally don't do when I travel) and didn't have tummy troubles. 
Bali October 24, 2011

In Bali

My first impression of Bali was not a favorable one.  I have heard over and over again about the beauty of Bali, but my first thought after getting out of the taxi in Sanur was "tourist trap".  Indeed this is the first place that we've been that has been so built up for tourists.  The place where we stayed was on a long street stuffed full of tourist restaraunts, massage parlors, and souvenir shops.  It was a little weird.  (what is weirder is that I'm not someone who ever wants to get in touch with the native peoples or their whatever, so for me to be saying this is very odd) However after we went to bed and woke up the next morning to a brilliant blue sky and weather that was perfect, not too hot, not too cold I began to see the attraction.  Despite the various tours that we could take to jungles, native villages, farms, or whatever, we spent almost all of our Bali vacation by the pool.  The beautiful sun and the perfect weather did not inspire us to trek anywhere but to the pool.  We did make it to the beach (Sanur beaches are NOT attractive) and then we went right back to the pool.  The same was true for Ubud, although we did make it to the elephant farm which was alot of fun, but as soon as we were done we were right back pool side again.  We have reached the end of our journey in Musadooah and the beaches here are beautiful, I would write more, but we are off to the beach. 
Bali October 20, 2011

Sudden Showers

An interesting thing about the tropics are the sudden rain storms that will blow in from seemingly nowhere.  On our last evening in Kuching (which means cat in Malay) as we set out for dinner we noticed sinister clouds in the sky.  We hurried out to dinner carrying our umbrellas with us thinking that even if it rained we would be covered.  Little did we know that rain in Malaysia does not mean light drizzle or even the type of heavy rain you get in the US.  No, Malaysian rain storms give a new meaning to the term torrential downpour.  As we were sitting in a food court that specialized in seafood the skies opened up and it rained in a steady sheet for at least an hour.  At some point we realized that it was not really going to stop so when it lightened up to a heavy rain we made a break for it. 
But more on the food court...  The Top Spot, which is what the food court was called, specialized in sea food.  Now, as I've gotten older I've gotten a lot more picky about what I put in my mouth.  I've become one of those travelers that I used to scorn.  I will eat at McDonalds if I have to, rather than eat at some local hole in the wall.  The problem with local hole in the walls, is that you never know if eating there is going to be a great experience or if you are going to sit on the toilet for the next three days wishing you were dead.  But I digress.  At first blush the Top Spot did not look like some place that I wanted to eat in.  Plastic tables and chairs, sea food out on display, and dim lighting which made it look dingy.  But as we got closer I noticed the smell-or rather lack of a smell.  Despite all the sea food everywhere I did not smell old sea food at all.  In fact, there was a curious lack of smell.  And despite the dinginess of the place it was very very clean.  So we sat down to eat, and we ate, and we ate, and we ate some more.  And it was good.  It all tasted very fresh and flavorful.

Welcome to Oz

We have left the gray and gloom of Chengdu for the rain and sudden showers of Malaysia.  Babes was amazed by the brightness of the Malaysian sunshine and the colorful foliage even around the airport.  Her first comment upon seeing the landscape outside of the airport windows was "It's just like Oz!"  I laughed her off at first, but I can see how she might draw the parallel.  We just finished reading the Wizard of Oz in chapter book form last month (If you have a 4 or 5 year old Oz makes a wonderful read aloud book) and just watched the movie for the first time a couple of days ago (part of my project to get Babes into reading, we'll read a chapter book and then watch the movie).  Like Dorothy we left the dull gray sunshineless Chengdu (yes, the long dark of the Chengdu fall/winter/spring has started) flew through the air, only to emerge into a country that is filled with warm bright sunshine and beautiful colorful flowers.
We are not jet lagged, but we flew overnight to get here so yesterday we walked around in a bit of a haze.  Hopefully today will be better and colorful pictures are to follow.

while watching a movie

I have been mad at my blog.... Ok not really, I'm more mad at myself.  I restored most of the pictures to my blog last week, but I haven't wanted to blog AT ALL this week.  Stupid blog! 
But I feel like I should break the web silence and at least do a crafting update to get something up here.  One of the most awesome things that I've discovered in the last year is the public library ecollection.  It is awesome!  One of the things that I hated most about living overseas was having to plan your reading materials out 6 months in advance.  Before whenever we went home we would hit up the used bookstore and buy what we hoped would be 6 months of books (just so you know that's one heavy box).  And, of course, we would always run out of books around month 4, but a used bookstore only has so many books. Then my sister bought me a Sony Reader for Christmas...  I poo pooed her at first, I mean why would I need a reader, I like paper books gosh darn it, and I'm not going to buy books for $10 are you crazy, etc, etc.  But she bought it, so I set it up, but then discovered that you can use your local library with the reader (from anywhere in the world)!  Now I can go to the library while I'm in China, download a book, and read it anywhere!  There are tons of new books for me to read all the time! 
At the same time, I discovered audio books.  I have tried audiobooks in the past, but I just didn't like them.  You've got some dude reading and pretending to be a lady, and more often than not they have annoying voices, but I've discovered that while I listen to an audio book I can knit at the same time!  (as I write that sentence I realize how really lame I am, but I don't care).  So that has lead to me doing a lot of headphone listening... and basically this is a long winded introduction to the earbud covers that I knitted while watching a movie yesterday to turn my earbuds from tangled to tame while sitting around in my purse. 
hopelessly tangled
perfectly tame

I'm an idiot

Our internet was out for two days this week!  I have been going crazy trying to get it fixed or fix it myself.  I tried all the usual suspects with no luck, but then finally today I swapped out one of the cables for a new cable and viola!  It was fixed!  So I was feeling all proud of myself and dancing around, and then I got on Picasa to see what I haven't posted yet.  As I was looking around, I noticed that one of my albums was shared, and i thought to myself surely that's a mistake.  So I deleted it....  and I DELETED ALL OF THE PICTURES FROM MY BLOG!  GRRRR!
I am working to restore the pictures from this year.  (I can't believe I'm such an idiot!) And once that's done, I might look at some of the older pictures.  This is what I get for doing a happy dance after I fixed the internet.