Today was Eli's fourth birthday and I made him a little sock creature...

Eli is all about motorcycles so I gave this guy a felt helmet in case he was going to be jumping on a motorcycle and tearing around the house. Better safe than sorry. Apparently he told Eli that he likes to ride skateboards which is quite a coincidence as that was one of Eli's presents. Mark was suggesting that he be named Ratso but Eli has other ideas: he thought that we could call him Eli. We'll see if the name sticks.

I also whipped up some chocolate mummy cupcakes to take into work. The creepcake recipe comes from Martha Stewart and the only complaint I have is the amount of icing the recipe makes. It says that it makes enough for 28 cupcakes but I think what they meant to say was 280. I now have a mixing bowl almost completely full of icing sitting in my fridge and nothing to ice. Oh, the hardship!

Circular needles have finally made it into my knitting repertoire. I'm not sure why I thought it would be so difficult because it turns out that it's SO EASY. And anything that eliminates the need to sew a seam should be fully embraced. This will hopefully become an awesome balaclava - assuming that I can figure out the eye holes. But so far, so good.

How to store 3 bikes in one small apartment:

Just imagine the third bike on the floor behind these two. It's all a bit much, isn't it? But I am loving the Swagman Hang It Bike Hangar from Mountain Equipment Co-op. I will have to re-arrange the hallway art but that's okay. It's probably time to switch it up anyway.

Marlene and I went over to Trish's for brunch today. We're working on a knitting project for the window of Birkeland Bros. Trish let me use her oven and I made a Roasted Garlic & Tomato Savoury Custard from Canadian Living. It was so good! Marlene brought some homemade banana bread and Trish made her cheese and green onion scones. Then we figured out what we'll be making for our window display. Our deadline is January so there's a couple of months to get the knitting done. The real question is where we're going to get a giant olive jar.

Q:What is awesome about this bike?

A: Everything and then some!

(1) It has really great brakes and (b) it has more gears than the bike that changed my life. After discovering the amazingness of cycling this last summer I decided that I would become a person that rides their bike in the rain. Normally by this time of year my bike would be left in the hallway until next summer. But not this year. And that meant getting a bike that would be able to stop when you want it to, not 3 blocks later. Of course that also means that I now own 3 bikes which is kind of dumb. After all, my hallway is only so long.

Now that my plan of riding in the rain is finally a reality instead of a theory I can definitely say there's one thing I didn't anticipate: the rain blowing into my eyes and making me half blind. Awesome.