Having longed to make some of Jennifer Hansen's designs in Tunisian and hairpin lace crochet, I eagerly registered for Fancy Tiger's Tunisian crochet scarf class. I had the yarn in stash--Cascade Magnum--and owned a Tunisian crochet hook I bought off Mr. Jenkins in Estes Park. Surely one Tunisian crochet hook is like another; they couldn't possibly come in sizes, could they?

It's thinking like this that makes me worry.

Yes, they do come in sizes and this class required an almost impossible-to-source size T, which the store has had on order since October. To meet class needs, they ordered custom size S'es from Jenkins Woodworking--the only downside being the hand-hewn, made-in-the-USA price tag of 40 bucks. For a crochet hook.

Fine, I'll just make do with my little size N, learn the technique and be done with it. But then I saw the scarf and those fabulously exaggerated stitches...Tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing.

I bought the big wood. And am loving it!

OK, so it's not 9-5, more like 1-5ish, but after 17 or 18 years of lounging about with no makeup and a wardrobe that spans the decades (heavy on the late '80s and early '90s), fitting into an office has been...illuminating.

Most challenging is its effect on my off time. When I'm not In.The.Office. I'm like all la-dee-da, Facebook, blog, look-there's-the-kitty, kiss, kisss, kiss, ouch! What's-for-lunch? When I need to be focused on my other work.

And tired. Really tired.

How do you people do it?

To keep the cookbooks in circulation, I've committed to trying at least one new recipe a week from a new source.

Last night was bitterly cold at the bus stop, so a warming soup seemed just the thing. The Happy Herbivore offered this very doable, good-looking stew, African Kale and Yam Soup. (Lindsay Nixon's schtick is fat-free and low-fat vegan recipes.)

I used hot Chimayo chili and a medium yellow curry and eliminated the red pepper. Oh, yes, and added demon salt to taste. It was sweet and spicey and savory and satisfying and muy caliente--in a good way.

I could see this going into regular winter rotation. Definitely impressed and will be trying more of Ms. Nixon's delicacies.

Enjoy.

We are playing a little game of chance in our spinning group--spinning poker--that involves choosing cards from spinning categories and then creating a yarn from those cards.

I selected "super bulky," "luxury fiber," "two-ply," "socks" and "four colors."

We only need to use four of our five cards. I was going to toss socks (super bulky socks?) but now might jettison "super bulky," and spin for socks. Mighty soft socks.

And, I've cheated, selecting a 20/80 cashmere/merino from Color Craze Fiber, instead of a 100 percent exotic. A girl's gotta think of her pocketbook.

We'll see what waltzes onto the bobbin.

Also, while we were all spinning, I joked that we needed cup holders for our wheels. Turns out, there's an Etsy vendor who does just that. Domestically produced plastic cup holders for spinning wheels. American ingenuity at its finest.

Crafting. I swear, it's the answer to our economic woes.

This was inspired by Deanna, who had the wonderful idea of putting coffee in our batch. Coffee makes a handsome, exfoliating soap, good for removing the smell of fish and other nasties from your hands after cooking. It's also a good bar for your "slug sink," as Deanna calls it. The sink where you wash out your paint brushes and the like.

We upped the deodorant factor by adding peppermint essential oil.

There is nothing quite like fresh soap.

As if you didn't know.

Those of us in the Centennial State enjoy access to all manner of talented designers, hand-dyers, fiber producers, spinners and terrific yarn shops, including shops that showcase our Rocky Mountain wonderfulness.

There has been some movement of late. The much-lamented closing of Knitting Habitat and rumors of others, as well as the expansion and move of Fancy Tiger and the impending move of The Recycled Lamb across the street.

We've had some additions, too. Treenway Silks now lives in Lakewood. And the popular Loopy Ewe opens its new digs in Fort Collins today!

The early adopters among you know this already: It's devishly easy to buy books for an e-reader. Devishly easy. Why you can even buy e-books from your favorite independent bookstore. A click or two and you're reading.

Raised to be parsimonious in all things but book buying, this spells "trouble."

Given the weird state of the Nake-id diet, a lot of the purchases--electronic and "dead tree"--are cookbooks. The one pictured above is by a triumvirate of raw food stars, who are rethinking their 100 percent raw diets based on emerging nutritional knowledge and how they feel. Inside are 100 raw and semi-raw recipes, including some by Chad Sarno, who had me with his seitan brisket sauce.

The Whole Plants Cookbook has also come into my possession by LeAnne Campbell Disla, Phd. (Dad wrote The China Study.) Along with a handful of others.

So as to not allow these gems to languish, I'm committing (here we go...) to cook and report on one new recipe a week from different books on the veg cookbook shelf.

More fun to come.

There was a flurry of pent-up domestic activity this weekend--apart from laundry. There was soapmaking (a lovely working soap, coffee-peppermint, inspired by Deanna), vegan chocolate stout cake spiked with prunes (from this recipe and this), mushroom mole tacos topped with cilantro-lime slaw, a new divided shelf in the cabinets to deal with the too-many spices problem (thanks to Mr. Nake-id, we'll no longer have this conversation, "Honey, where's the star anise?") and yarn, plied yarn (thanks to the spinning group at Cheryl's!).

Sigh. If only my institutions were celebrating Dr. King's holiday.

In spite of a week of office work, requiring the need to dress, pack lunch, shower and mind the spicey vocabulary (not necessarily in that order), some new obsessions have taken hold:

Green Soup: Warm, delicious, savory and so much easier to gag down than cold smoothies this time of year.

Searching for Beauty: The Life of Millicent Rogers: We're having a Millicent Rogers moment here at Nake-id Knits (when aren't we). The biography is engaging, surprising (she had an affair with Clark Gable!), well-researched and disappointing only in the dearth of photographs. So few, when this woman was a fashion icon. Still, a well-done biography about a woman-of-her-time who did it her way.

Boardwalk Empire: Totally want inhabit those gorgeous sets!

Have an obession-filled weekend.

Snapped. Like a twig I did. After playing with Dad's Kindle Fire, I was a gonner. As the Sibling would say, "She finally let the moths out of her wallet."

Granted its no iPad but for the price? Surfing. Reading. Email. Movies. Music. Knitting patterns...and it fits into my purse.

Anyone else succumb?