No time for blogging, I’m visiting family in Spokane this week. I went to a nice little place called A Good Yarn yesterday. After you buy your yarn, they let you use their swift and winder. That was much more fun than doing it myself at home.

I am vacationing without my laptop, so I hope this post works from my phone!

Taken with GorillaCam, edited with PS Express, Tiltshift Generator, and Lo-Mob

Taken with GorillaCam, edited with PS Express, Tiltshift Generator, and Lo-Mob

Taken with GorillaCam, edited with PS Express, Tiltshift Generator, and Lo-Mob

Oh, all right Spring, I guess you are welcome to come now, you and your pretty, pink, blossoms. 

I'm not sure which version I like best, I think the first one is my favorite. What do you think? 

Tonight is knitting group, so I'll show you some knitting in the next post. I've joined the Knit Knit Café Westknits KAL, which is fun, since I haven't really done a knit-along before. 

Here are some links I've been collecting recently:

I'd like this camera case for my iPhone.

Brooklyn Tweed is going to take us on a tour of the mill where Shelter yarn is made. The series starts here. I think this will be fascinating. 

Doesn't orange-vanilla marmalade sound delicious? 

I would love one of Ann Wood's ships, but maybe I can make do with my own teacup instead. She very generously shares the how-to. 

I'm currently cooking a lot of quinoa. These recipes look delicious, and this one is for sure. I know, because I've made it about three times in the last two weeks. 

I like brownies, but they are so rich, I don't have them often. These seem like a really good idea. White chocolate?! Raspberries?! Yes, a very good idea.

Taken with GorillaCam, edited with TiltShift Generator and Labelbox

This post is a combination of iphoneography, app review and cookbook review. Three for the price of one! The iphoneography part is self-explanatory. I try not to overdo the TiltShift Generator, but I really love that app. You don't have to do the whole depth-of-field blur thing with it, like I did here, it's equally handy to quickly lighten and brighten just about any photo. I think it's an iphoneography staple, so you should just get it.

Today's review is actually the other app I used above, Labelbox. Labelbox is free, and super fun to use for adding tape-style labels to your photos. It's easy-peasy, too. Just choose your tape style (there's 8 included, and a pack of four more you can purchase in the app for 99 cents), slide your finger across your image to apply the tape, and type your label. If you're not happy with the result, just tap and hold the tape and it will disappear. 

There are some limitations that I would love to see addressed, like the ability to resize or move a label once it's applied, but I can live without that in a free app. It does save your image at nearly full resolution (1435 x 1920), which is a big plus. This would be a lot of fun for digital scrapbookers, and it's also great for sharing photos on facebook and twitter. It's a fun little app well worth the download.

Let me tell you about that salad now, because it was delicious and I will probably be craving it regularly. I've still been working on my quest to eat less meat and more vegetables. I haven't been cooking much of interest lately, and eating out way too much, so I thought it was time to step it up a bit and start bringing my lunch to work more often than not, and cooking dinner on weeknights and not just the weekend. I recently picked up Appetite for Reduction, about which I've heard lots of good things, which might surprise a lot of people, since it's a low-fat, vegan cookbook. I don't plan to become vegan, and I have no fear of oil (particularly olive oil, yum!), but this is a really great book and I pretty much want to try everything in it, that's how good it is. 

So far I've made the Vietnamese Noodle Salad with grilled tofu that you see above, and the Quinoa, Kale and White Bean Stew. Mr. HeyLucy, a soup aficionado and carnivore, loved the stew and requested that it be put into regular rotation around here. I also caught him nibbling at the grilled tofu as I was packing my lunch this morning and had to swat his hand away. I kind of didn't blame him, though, because darn, that tofu was delicious, as was the whole salad. The dressing is a simple, oil-free blend of soy sauce, sweet chili-garlic sauce, agave, lime juice and some water. It's just the right blend of salty, sweet and tangy. The tofu is marinated in the dressing, and then grilled, which gives it a nice texture and a lot of flavor. I think that's one of my favorite things about the book actually, it doesn't try to make "fake meat" replacements, it's about eating good food that doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. Everything looks really flavorful, and there are all sorts of herbs, spices and interesting ingredients used, but nothing that seems like it would be difficult to find at your local grocery store. Most stores carry quinoa now, right? 

Appetite for Reduction my be billed as a low-fat, vegan cookbook, but really, it's just a whole bunch of real, good, and good-for-you food.  

Taken with GorillaCam, edited with TiltShift Generator and Instagram

 I know it's crazy, but I'm not quite done with winter. I'm not tired of boots and sweaters just yet, but it seems that spring is on the way, and the daffodils are starting to bloom!

It's app time! Since I recently mentioned Downton Abbey, I thought I'd tell you how I initially found it. PBS has this handy (free!) app that lets you preview their most popular series, it includes schedules for your local station, spotlights of selected shows, and even limited-time viewing of complete programs. 

You can even share what you're watching on Twitter and Facebook. I am particularly enjoying episodes of Julia Child. It's not the original French chef series, but she introduces a chef each episode and then that chef cooks a signature dish. It's a nice distraction when you're awoken at five in the morning by yet another cat fight. But that is a story for another post. Anyway, it's free, it's well-designed, polished, and it's educational. Get it!