Small Delights

Another day with more bad news, and I'm getting increasingly anxious. So I'm focusing more and more on little things that make me happy or bring me joy in an effort to combat the panic, and I'm joining up with Carole and friends by sharing three of them with you.

1. Baking with Rainbow

One of the gifts Rainbow received last year from my parents was the American Girl Baking cookbook. She has been looking through it ever since and drooling over the recipes, and this time at home seemed like the perfect time to make something out of it. We started with something simple, a baked apple pancake. There was no picture of the finished item in the book, but we had all the ingredients on hand (save the powdered sugar for topping, but we thought we could live without it). We prepped the apples and the batter before dinner and popped it into the oven while we were eating so it would be ready for dessert. This beauty is what came out:

Actually, it was even taller when it first came out of the oven, like a good souffle, but of course it settled as it cooled. It was very easy to make, though we agreed in the future we'd use a bit more apple (the recipe called for one large baking apple and we used two small Honeycrisps). It uses only 4 tablespoons of sugar, so it wasn't overly sweet. We all had seconds last night and Rainbow enjoyed what was left for breakfast this morning!

2. A pile of handspun

I retrieved these skeins from the stash room this morning and plan to wind them up (or at least wind some of them up) later today so they're ready to be knit.

The purple gradient, thanks to Bonny's influence, is going to become my first-ever Hitchhiker. The chocolate brown and pinky-purple skeins are bulky weight Bond and Charollais, respectively, from Southern Cross Fibre that I spun a couple of summers ago. Earlier in the week I learned that designer Whitney Hayward had made all her designs for Harrisville free (I believe just for the duration of the current public health crisis), and I fell in love with her Cleburne Cardigan. I immediately thought of these skeins of handspun, so I'm going to swatch and see if I can make it work.

3. Treat yo'self

I've realized that an easy way to boost my mood is through self-pampering, so I've been doing things like using the nice hand lotion instead of my everyday Aveeno. Yesterday I gave myself a manicure, something I rarely do because I'm usually so busy that I don't feel I can spare the time to sit and wait for the polish to dry (though I did use the quick-drying polish I have so I didn't have to wait too long). Yesterday I was listening to the Knitmore Girls episode from last week and Gigi mentioned that she'd been wearing perfume since she started staying at home. I've stopped wearing my perfume when I've been out in public so as not to bother those who are sensitive to scents, but I knew no one in my house would have a problem, so I put on a spritz after my shower this morning. That was such a tiny thing, but catching a whiff of scent injects a little joy throughout the day.

How about you? What small delights have you found or indulged in this week?