Marvelous Monday

I've recently discovered a few new products that I'm weirdly excited about and wanted to share them with you.  And since so many folks tend to bitch about Mondays, I decided to start Marvelous Mondays where I'll comment positively on a new product, place, or food group that I've bought or experienced.   So, today's kick-off Marvelous Monday is all about EOS lip balm.  I have a major lip balm addiction.  For way more years than I care to count, I've used Avon's Care Deeply lip balm but I worry about the petroleum content.  I started worrying about it when I began running.  All that huffing & puffing I do and gasping for breath....  I had to be sucking in some serious amounts of petroleum .  EOS is petroleum free so no more worries.  It glides on smoothly, tastes good, but only for a moment (which I like because I want to taste my coffee, not my lip balm,) and its affects seem to last longer than any other lip balm I've ever tried.    It used to be that the last thing I did before going to sleep at night would be to swipe on a layer of lip balm.  When I'd wake in the morning, my lips would have that crunchy, I Need Lip Balm! feeling.  Since using the EOS, no more crunchy morning lips.  I can even make the coffee & feed the dogs before I start feeling the need for a lip balm fix.  Another thing that I really like is the shape of its packaging.  While it may not be so great for someone who carries their lip balm in their skinny jeans pocket, the shape makes it easily findable in a purse or knitting bag.  I now have four tubes in various flavors (maybe I should call them rounds) of EOS - one in the knitting bag, one at the desk, one in the bathroom & one by the TV.  And next time I go to the store, I'm buying a fifth so I can keep one in my purse.  I'll also be buying some of their hand lotion.  If it's half as good as the lip balm, I know I'll love it too!

Now, on to knitting news....

The Bigger on the Inside is finished and blocking as I type.  The pattern was a lot of fun to knit.  The lace pattern at the beginning drove me nuts until I had the lightbulb moment of putting stitch markers in between the pattern repeats.  From that point on, the lace was easy-peasy.  Trying to pick up the 311 stitches evenly spaced across the side of the lace gave me a few gray hairs until I had another light bulb moment & marked off quarters of the shawl & picked up even numbers of stitches within each quarter.  The first few rows of knitting those 311 stitches seemed to take a lifetime & I thought I might die of old age before I got the shawl finished but perhaps I stepped into a Tardis without realizing it because suddenly, the rows didn't take any time at all to complete.  I got down to the ribbing section and excitedly told my daughter I was almost finished with it, although it may take me weeks to do all that mind numbing ribbing.  But once again, time warped and after a couple of episodes of Buffy, the ribbing was done and so was the bind-off!   I'll post photos as soon as it's finished blocking.  The pictures I took before blocking were all horribly blurry for some reason.

Now on the needles, I have a Color Affection shawl in shades of green & blue and one of those ruffled scarves knit with netting.  I'm a little late jumping on the ruffled scarf band wagon and it's one wagon I probably won't ride for long.  While I like the look of the scarves, I'm not a big fan of knitting them.  I'd already bought the yarn for two of them, (one for me, one for my daughter) so I'll do those and then I'll be unhitching that wagon for good I think.  Besides, I have about four more color ways for the Color Affection that I'd like to try.

Meanwhile, Sarah's slight lactose intolerance has suddenly become a severe intolerance.  Teen friendly dairy free meal ideas and/or recipes would be MUCH appreciated.  Specially foods that she could/would cook for herself since she finds herself frequently home alone for dinner.