Knitting Zeal

Omar the bellydancer

Moroccan Belly dancer from Diane S on Vimeo.

Last weekend I went out one night with a small group of mommy-friends for a night of laughs, good food, and good wine.  We went to a local Moroccan restaurant that features belly dancers along with an eight course meal.  The food was amazing and the company was even better!  I even danced with the belly dancer, but thankfully no one took a photo of that!  I tried to record Omar, the male dancer, but the lighting was just too dark for my camera's video setting.  The video above is all I could get, so you can sort of see how seductive his dance was.  He had more make up on than all of us together and he was quite good with those finger cymbals!  Such fun!

 
 
The bastilla dish is one of my favorites: a light pastry filled with a chicken, egg and almond mixture and topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon.  It only look this pretty momentarily until we dug into it.  The fun thing about this place is that you eat with your hands, so you better like with whom you are sharing your food!  The hummus was delicious and so fresh. I also had an amazing lamb dish with honey and almonds.  I'd love to learn to cook some Moroccan dishes and need to do a bit of research on some recipes. 

Belly dancing, wine, and bad pick up lines...

Mommy’s night out led us to Casablanca. Not the Moroccan city, but the restaurant in the suburbs.  It is a BYOB establishment, so BYOB we did.  It’s been a long time since I enjoyed wine, pre pregnancy I think, so it was a good night.  I think that night was the most fun I’ve had with girlfriends since college.  The food was delicious and I think we all enjoyed just about everything served.  My favorites were the bastilla, the carrot salad, and the lamb with honey and almonds.  But besides the food, there were the funny conversations. The hilarity started with our conversation being overheard by a quad of high schoolers.  We thought it was odd that HS kids would be out at a restaurant like this, since it wasn’t exactly cheap, but apparently the son of the CEO of an expensive crafter’s light that starts with O and ends with TT can afford to take his friends out to eat fancy Moroccan food.  These two very young boys (I think they were possibly 14 or 15) popped over to our table and joined in our conversation, which I believe was at that moment about someone’s pre-teen son having pubes and the shock that their baby was growing up.  I suppose they were more interested in checking out our cleavage and I’m sure they went home with quite a story concocted to tell their friends.  Besides the obnoxious little boys, we also had fun learning to belly dance a bit and chatted up the dancer, who was very nice and offered to teach us at her studio.  Apparently our dancing was seductive enough for the possible future mayor of Lansdale to come over to us to chat.  His opening line was “I hear you crochet?”  Turns out he had been questioning the belly dancer who told him that we were crocheters, which wasn’t exactly true, but close. One of his dinner mates mentioned to us that he was single and looking.  We let her know that we were not.  He was very nice and a conversation about wine making ensued.  On the way out of the place, we saw the father/CEO waiting to drive his cherubs home.  He was in possibly the largest Hummer I’ve ever seen.  I guess he isn’t worried about fossil fuels.  His face looked botox-ed and he actually flirted a bit with us.  Like father like son??  It was a hoot.  Now if only we thought to ask for some free products!!

hello goodbye

The power of advertising has its influence on me.  A while back when Andrew was flipping out crying and I was struggling to remember a song to sing to him besides Twinkle Twinkle the only thing that popped into my sleep deprived head was the song from the Target commercial, Hello-Goodbuy.  It is a catchy little tune that has only a few words and I can remember it despite the time of day/night or lack of energy.  So, that is what I sang to Andrew, repeatedly, until he stopped crying.  It is now the same song I sing to him almost always when he is upset and sure enough, he settles down.  He even pays attention to the Target commercials now when they come on when the TV is on.  I thought Target was genius with such a catchy little tune.  Then in a conversation with friends I learned that it was not a tune invented by Target...no, it was a Beatles/Paul McCartney song.  So, I bought it from itunes and now Andrew has his official version to hear.  Silly mommy. Goodbye.

I love Hondas!

Check out this awesome UK commercial for Honda.  I am partial to Honda's, but this is an amazing creation.  Below is an explanation sent to me with the link.

And you thought those people that set up roomfuls of dominoes to knock over were amazing...
There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film.
Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.
The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work.
They would then have to set the whole thing up again.
The crew spent weeks shooting night and day.
By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions.
The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including full engineering of the sequence.
In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime.
However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history.
Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free viewings"
(Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!).
When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation - including the costs.
There are six and only six hand-made Honda Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film.
Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) is parts from those two cars.
The voice over is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten.
They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real.
Oh. and about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit weird in the commercial.

Click Here!

Meme

I found this meme on many different blogs.  I thought it would be fun to fill it out and reflect on my life. 

Ten Years Ago:  I had just learned to knit and was working on my first adult sweater for a Christmas gift for my boyfriend (now husband).  I was a substance abuse counselor for the same agency where I work today.  I had been dating Chris for four months.

Five Years Ago:  I had been married to Chris for two years.  He had just starting working at his current company and we were beginning to look for a house to buy.  I was still a substance abuse counselor.  I was still knitting, but not as obsessively as I do now.  My big craft of that time was rubber stamping cards.

One Year Ago:  Still at the same agency, only now as a clinical supervisor for a prevention program for teens, celebrating ten years of employment.  My nephew was one month old.  I had been blogging for a bit over a month and was increasing my blog reading.  Knitting was an obsession, as was stash enhancement.

Five Favorite Snacks:

Cinnamon almonds, soft pretzels with spicy mustard, chocolate, Swedish fish, caramel macchiato with biscotti from Starbucks.

Five Four Songs I Know All the Words To: 

Jessie’s Girl-Rick Springfield

White Wedding-Billy Idol

Beautiful Day-U2

People are People-Depeche Mode

Five Things I Would Do with $100 Million:

Pay off my student loans and mortgage

Finish furnishing my home, with the help of an interior decorator

Travel around Europe for a month

Start a college fund for my niece and nephew

Buy a vacation home in Florida

Five Places to Run Away to:

Paris, Angers, L’ile de Noirmoutier (France); Maui, HA; Longboat Key, FL.

Five Things I Would Never Wear:

Leg warmers, bikini, uniform, bell-bottom jeans, ugly or flashy jewelry

Five Favorite TV Shows:

LOST, Desperate Housewives, Sopranos, Sex in the City, ER

Five Biggest Joys:

My yarn stash, my diplomas/education, my family, my friends, memories.

Five Favorite Toys:

Cell phones, magic markers, knitting tools, my molecule squishy ball, i-pod

What flavor are you?

Your Icecream Flavour is...Neopolitan!

You aren't satisfied with just one flavor. They say variety is the spice of life and this shines through in your Ice cream of choice! Just don't eat all the chocolate and leave the strawberry and vanilla behind!

What is your Icecream Flavour?
Find out at Go Quiz