01/22/12

This post is in effort to remember what I've been filling my time with lately.

Reading:

Bossypants by Tina Fey. The Wichita Public Library is having their annual Adult Winter Reading Program and they are encouraging staff to get involved. This means reading from a variety of genre, including things I don’t normally read. I just finished this last week for the non-fiction category.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. This is for the classics category as well as my resolution to read 5 classics this year. Hopefully I can finish it. I haven’t really read much Austen but since I’ve been steeping myself in historical British things maybe I can stay focused.
A variety of cookbooks and gardening books. I can’t help bringing them home, but often barely glance at them until it’s time to return them. But I am ever hopeful they will inspire me.

Listening to:
Playlists- Matt Hamer and the Ramshackle Sound. Matt’s a friend who just came out with his first CD and it’s pretty great. I’m also pretty attached to my “Folksy” playlist which includes the Civil Wars, Mumford and Sons, Fleet Foxes, and Aaron Lee Martin.
Podcasts- Joy the Baker. Joy and Tracy from Shutterbean.com discuss “all the unimportant important things” and very little about food, but definitely a fun listen.
We’re About to be Friends. Joy the Baker’s other podcast which doesn’t update weekly, but actually is normally about food is a good kitchen listen.
NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.
WNYC’s Radio Lab.
Audiobook- A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King. This is the second book about Sherlock Holmes’ female apprentice Mary Russell and is pretty enjoyable so far.

Watching:

Downton Abbey. It took me awhile to make time for it, but I’ve been hearing great things about it for months. Finally we started watching it and we just finished the first season (Netflix) this afternoon. Thankfully PBS is putting season 2 online so hopefully we can keep up. It has wonderful characters and beautiful settings and compelling stories that we just couldn’t stop watching.
Star Trek: The Next Generation. Brian and I started this awhile ago, after he finally caught an episode that did not bore him. We are near the end of the 5th season and return to it whenever we’re not in the middle of something.
Murdock Mysteries. I often end up watching something in the afternoons after work. I just caught up on Inspector Lewis and have watched a lot of Midsomer Murders and can’t seem to tear myself away from mysteries. I thought maybe I couldn’t tear myself away from British shows, but I think Downton filled that gap. So I turned to Murdock Mysteries, which is almost British as it takes place in Toronto. It’s rather steampunk-y and a bit cheesy, but at least it’s only an hour.

Cooking and Baking:

I’ve been keeping track of what we’ve been eating lately and it’s been nice to see lots of eating at home. Most of the meals haven’t been too exciting, but they are happening. Baking is not happening as much, but it’s definitely more exciting. Last weekend I made Brownies from scratch which was a first, and I added some cinnamon, since they we accompanying tacos. Friday I made these yummy Blood Orange Crostatas (the pictures with the recipe link are beautiful), except I used mostly whole wheat flour and had cream cheese on hand so I substituted that for the mascarpone.

Discussing:

Topics of discussion lately have ranged from reasonable and unreasonable Non-Compete forms, healthy eating, church hunting, and hopes for the new Sherlock season (it doesn’t air on PBS until May! no spoilers please, since it’s done in the UK).

And now I'm off to go attempt a quinoa salad.

Hey! It's 2012!

I even made some resolutions! How very grown-up of me. The good thing: I started thinking about some of them awhile ago so I’m really sure I want to work on them, and even got started on some of them. The bad thing: I had a cold the entire first week of the year. This means I have barely done anything yet. But I’ve got a whole year to figure it out.

So, here goes!

1) Deliberately BE in the Kitchen
- Record our meals. This way I know what I can cook in a pinch and it’ll be easier to see where I need to challenge myself (and maybe even share more food related stuff here).
-Make menus. Sometimes at least, to get in the habit of thinking ahead.
-Shop better. Coupon more, keep an eye out for deals, and keep track for the budget.
-Do the dishes more regularly. Load the dishwasher right away, check (for this week)! Wash pans, still needs work.
-Bake more! I realized toward the end of 2011 that I really like making cookies and I want to broaden my baking horizons. Brian’s definitely on board and got me Cookiepedia for Christmas.

2) Physical Fitness
I’m pretty vague about my resolutions. These are things I want to be mindful of all year, and I don’t want to set myself up for too much failure. So, become more physically fit. Shouldn’t be too hard to improve a little bit, but it will be necessary if I follow through on baking more. Sometime after Thanksgiving a couple of friends and I started getting together for yoga once a week. Wahoo! Progress! Other plans include jumping rope, going for walks, and riding bikes.

3)Travel
We have friends and family all over that we would like to visit more. We would also like to see some places we haven’t been to before. No extensive plans yet, just, travel more.

4) Read 5 Classics
Last year my reading goal was 30ish books and Goodreads helped me keep track of everything I read and I’ll be using it again. I want to focus my goal this year so 5 Classics is a good start, I even left it open-ended and haven’t picked which ones yet. Any ideas?

5) Spend Time Each Week Creating
Ok, hopefully this happens more than once a week, but I needed to be a little more specific about some goals, right? This is kind of a joint resolution with Brian. Basically it means we will spend time away from the TV and work on something we wished did more last year, he on “recreational programming,” and me on writing, or creating. Hopefully this means more posts here, I really would like to inhabit it more, but I already know I can’t promise that.

6) Home Improvement
Not the show (No, I did not have a JTT crush, but we watched it regularly). I just added this to my resolution list, even though we have plans to remodel the kitchen this spring, and want to get the office in order. Not sure why it wasn’t on the list. Maybe my subconscious knows most the resolutions are a bit flimsy and this one needs to actually happen. Somehow it got filed elsewhere, but it fits here as well. Woo, plans! And hopefully details posted as we get closer to working on things.

A pretty ambitious list. For me at least. But I do want to be more ambitious this year. I need to live my life more fully, and stop saying “Someday I’d like to...” and just do it.

Randomling: Is this winter? Mostly I don't mind the temperate weather (especially when driving), but I kind of miss the white stuff. I've prolly just cursed myself with the iciest roads ever, but so be it.

Summer 2011 Recap, what I can remember anyway...

I’ve been meaning to recap the summer a bit. I know it’s well into feeling autumn-ish, but I don’t want to forget what we did this summer. Er, any more than I already have...

Projects:
Memorial Day sort of kicked off summer and we painted the kitchen a lovely pale yellow. Hooray for a whole room that is not the same color as everywhere else in the house!

Mid-July my uncle visited which gave me incentive to clean out the “guest room” and make it a real guest room. It had become a catch-all room for my stuff after I moved in, as well as wedding gift bags and tissue paper, Christmas wrappings, and general junk. Also we had my daybed and Brian’s full size mattress and box springs in that tiny room. Now it’s basically the daybed and actual floor space!

Other projects included painting the trash can and spray painting a metal bench? vanity stool? i should find that picture...

I still want to get some different fabric for the cushion, but this stuff matched so it’s safety-pinned to the pillow. Currently it's sitting in the tidy guest room and I still need to work on my camera skills. Probably some other small projects happened but I can't remember them right now.

Travel and People:
In June we road-tripped to Colorado with my parents for my brother’s wedding. It was the most intimate, beautiful wedding I’ve ever been to. It was immediate family only and we just spent the afternoon together on the top of a mountain and ate good food and had great fellowship. C and her family are wonderful. (check out these blogs for a great peak, uh, peek: http://seanflanigan.net/?p=5790 http://sergiomottola.com/blog/?p=724 )

In July, as previously mentioned my uncle from L.A. visited. It was fun to host him and show him around to some of our favorite places in Wichita. We also attended a family reunion, where we mainly showed up to eat, and were terrible about talking to any of the relatives.
Then we road-tripped back to Colorado with my youngest brother and sister-in-law for a camping trip with my family, and said uncle, an aunt, and a cousin and wife. It ended up being a lot of fun and definitely cooler than Kansas. It was good to catch up with family we haven’t seen much lately and hang out with the month-old newlyweds. Most of us went down a zipline, had a little archery tournament, and played lots of Five Crowns.

August included a bridal shower for one of my best friends (and former roommate), as well as wedding preparation. We welcomed friends home after they’d been in Korea a year. All summer we soaked up time with friends and family. The wedding shindig was over Labor Day weekend and felt like the official capstone to summer!

Busy Summer

I've been wanting to get back here for a while now. It's even on my to-do list, but (aside from getting sucked in to Pinterest and audiobooks) it has been a busy summer. Which is exactly what I've wanted to write about, so I remember the trips and the people and the projects. I figure since I just finished another little project that now is a good time to get back into things and maybe (maybe) I'll catch up on everything else too, one of these days.

I've been inspired by a number of sources and projects to return to my roots of garage sale-ing and thrifting, and to try my hand at re-inventing my findings. (These sources include, but aren't limited to, Young House Love, A Beautiful Mess, and Pinterest)

I have a short list I carry around with me of Things to Keep an Eye Out for While Thrifting/Garage Sale-ing (or other Shopping). One (or rather two) of the things on the list is a trash can. The office, or studio, or whatever we're calling it, needs a trash can. Especially if we ever get it cleaned out and functioning. Hmm, I guess I am sitting in it right now, so it's functioning, but the piles o'stuff are distracting.

Anyway. Trash can. On the list. Found one! An old metal trash can with hand painted fruit was waiting for me at the DAV thrift store:

So I painted it. I mixed the paint myself from two sample pots I have around.

After a couple of coats of paint I decoupage'd some circles from an old book. Cause I like the look of old pages and I wanted to experiment. I'm not sure if the circle of circles is my favorite design, but I can always turn the trash can around and look at the turquoise? tiffany blue? greeny blue? side (since that's what's pictured above). Or I can decoupage something new.

I know. Decorating a trash can. Soo exciting. But, it gave me something to do, a creative outlet, and I like pretty things. And sorry about the pictures. One of the other things on my to-do list is learn how to use the camera better, and some editing.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with another project that is in progress and maybe other random tidbits or improved camera skills.

Updates 4/13/11

Hmm, i was doing so good updating more regularly there for a while. Then the weather turned nice, beckoning me. Also I’ve been using the ipad for most of my internet-ing lately, since Brian upgraded to the xoom, and that’s just not good for blogging, at least not for me.

So here’s some stuff that’s happened/been going on since I don’t really have any stories to tell...

We have now been married over a year! It has been a great one, our best yet! And we decided to celebrate with a trip to Kansas City where we did lots of walking and eating good food, as well as saw some art and spent some money. Ah, vacation.

We also celebrated Brian’s birthday with a small gathering. The theme was, rather loosely, Robots. Of course, the only party hats I could find on short notice were dinosaur ones, and i found a pirate pinata that I couldn’t pass up. So, it felt like little boy extravaganza complete with cake and ice cream only there were also more adult drinks. I drew a large robot and we played pin-the-mustache-on-the-robot. It was a surprising success. Hold on, I think I can find an after (after people had some fun with mustaches that ended up on the wall, that is) picture...

And all of that was about a month ago. Lately time has been filled with books and gardening. So far I have onions in as well as some going in pots. Last summer I started on clearing out a spot in our garden for a garden. It had completely become overrun with day lilies and weeds and a few iris’ and other random things. So this year I have continued digging it up, and hopefully when it’s time to plant more things I have the space for them. Just so long as I can keep the cats and other wildlife from using it as a litterbox.

I’ve also been listening to and reading several books. This has probably cut into some blog time, but the listening ones have been great for the yard and getting dishes done. I listened to Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and am about ⅕ of the way through Wise Man’s Fear, the second in the trilogy. These are fantasy books (and they’re certainly long enough to be), but they are also just really well told stories. I also just finished Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. This book is the first for the author, who is from Wichita, and won the 2011 Newberry award. Needless to say it’s got a little bit of hype around here. It is definitely worth it. The main part of the story is set in 1936 in a small southeast Kansas town and focuses on a 12 year-old girl, but there is another story about the same town in 1918 and is about a 13 year-old boy. It’s beautifully told and I think it would appeal to boys and girls alike, of all ages.

Good Grief! I had no idea I had so much I wanted to talk about. Sorry it’s so long! and random! I’ll leave you with that, and try and keep things more current... Who am I kidding? There will be a new post when there is a new post.

Random: Everyone seems to be blogging these days. Check out the new people over there ----> And I’ll probably be adding more soon. (i like it when i know bloggers :-) )

A Few of my Favorite Things

I’m feeling the need to write. or something. I’m doing absolutely nothing else. I’m not involved in any books right now (other than Hunger Games, but I’m waiting to read it with the Read Allowed Group...I don’t cheat), and I started a project, but it involves waiting for glue to dry. I feel like I’ve done enough of nothing today. So I’m going to have myself a cup of tea and share a list of current favorite things. Because that’s a good thing to do on a blog.

1) I’m kind of obsessed with the blog A Beautiful Mess right now. It’s been overly full of the writer’s dress shop projects lately, but that has only served to whet my appetite for vintage things. The nice thing is I’m rediscovering vintage things i already own, wahoo!

2) Another blog I’ve been following lately is Young House Love. They recently bought and started re-doing a new house and it’s very inspiring. Now that I have weekends off my list of projects has grown.

3) A trip to World Market last weekend scored some half-price water bottles. It’s nice ‘cause they’re glass, so that’s healthy and stuff. Also they’re cute so I find I’m drinking more water. (Hmm, I planned on linking a picture, but I suppose they were on sale for a reason, and they're no longer on their website)

4) I’m excited about gardening. I’ve been planning it out in my head and even on paper. These warm bursts that feel like early spring have me antsy.

5) Brian and I have be re-watching and re-enjoying Arrested Development. So good.

#6 For good measure. It goes without saying but Brian is my all-time Favorite. cheese, I know but still true :-)

Not favorite: the Ice Cream trucks already starting up.

2/18/11

I’m thinking I’ll take up journaling again. In some form or other. The thought springs from starting the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Who knows if I’ll finish it, I’m bad at reading non-fiction, and I'm just in the introduction. And I don’t know that I really want to be a writer...
I also read Neil Gaiman’s blog. And both of these things remind me that I spend a lot of time putting things into my head, but I never pull anything out. I spend so much of my day reading the endless subscriptions in my google reader, watching tv, looking at magazines, reading books, that I rarely take time to process it.

So, even though I don’t think I’m really a writer, I feel the need to take time to write, or at least process. Maybe that will be through some art, or maybe it will be while I’m working on some project, or maybe it will simply be washing the dishes with no extraneous noise, no podcasts or audio books, just taking the time to let my mind wander. And wonder. And maybe stuff will end up on the blog, and maybe it won’t. Because that’s not the point.

And now I think I’ll go wash dishes.

Note: When I say “writer,” well, obviously I’m writing. But I don’t think it’s my craft, my best way of expressing myself. I’m not bubbling with stories that must be told. I’m not a wordsmith. I’ll leave that in more capable hands. I simply use writing as a means of expression, not the means of my expression.