Home

I always want our home to feel welcoming and inviting. I also want it to feel like us... but also decorated. Apparently I’m succeeding on some level because people do compliment me on our home and how it’s decorated. I think it really comes down the feeling it conveys though, because it’s not all that decorated, though plenty of our stuff is everywhere, the walls are still almost all the same color and sometimes it’s not very clean. But I think the things that make it succeed is when it is tidy, and it feels like you can just plop down anywhere in a comfy seat. I hope you feel at home. Even if the kitchen isn’t spotless (it so rarely is) you can go and get some water from the fridge. You can peruse the bookshelf and find something interesting. You can even take a nap in the giant chair.

I’m so thankful for our home. It really is ours. Our stacks of books crammed into bookcases, our dings in the walls from rearranging, our ridiculously large chair-and-a-half. When we’re away we look forward to coming back, and not just to our comfy bed, but the whole place.

Sometimes I need to remind myself of these things. That we have made this house our home, and that people enjoy coming and hanging out here (or so I’ve been told). I need reminded when I feel antsy to paint a room, or all the kitchen cupboards, or the insides of closets, or any other project lurking in my brain. That’s the problem right now, I’m feeling antsy. Paint is not overly expensive, but time must be considered too. And I may be feeling overly ambitious but I need to focus on the present, the things that need baked for Thanksgiving, the lovely ideas for Christmas presents that need to be attempted (so there’s time to try or get something else), projects already in motion, the things that need a simple cleaning, the daily meals that are so necessary. I’m so good at coming up with ambitious ideas, but there are other important things that need my time right now.

So, the house will wait for its little upgrades. It is doing what it needs to do. Welcoming us and our loved ones in, providing warmth and peace. Thanks, house. Someday maybe we’ll give you a name along with some new colors.

New Project! The Book and the Bird

So I've started another project. Woo! My friend Kayla and I have started a video blog (vlog). Kayla is a awesome lady I met in college and got to hang out with a bit while I lived in Hillsboro. This summer we started hanging out more, and I was reminded what a cool person she is and how easy it is to talk to her.

And then she moved to grad school in North Carolina. 

That’s far away. But, Kayla is also the friend who introduced me to the Lizzie Bennett Diaries and got me addicted to the VlogBrothers. So we decided to utilize the distance and try something we are both interested in: vlogging.

We are making videos for each other. I think we are settling into a weekly rhythm. Kayla just posted a delightful new video. We have so much to learn, but I feel like there are improvements every time. Also, since I'm doing this with someone else there's a great chance it will continue for a while. We named our channel The Book and the Bird. It just seems to fit us both in so many ways, and maybe we'll discuss such things in a video someday.

I will probably be hanging out in the video realm, so I hope you like it, but chances are I’ll still update the blog as often as I currently do. Which is to say- once in a blue moon.

Right Now

Right now:

Listening to Fleet Foxes Sing tumblr where they have a bunch of cover songs.

Drinking coffee which I haven’t done in over a week because Brian has had a cold and it seems silly to make coffee for one. PG Tips tea is a great substitute.

Have just been doodling the secret life of my stuffed owl, Owly. I think he dreams of being a real owl and having adventures.

Thinking I should go take a shower and start my day.

Dreaming about things I want to do someday. Projects I want to do, art classes I want to take, travels I want to do. Do travels? Go on travels? eh.

Reading Start Something that Matters by Blake Mycoskie. Just finished Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James (eh, it was ok, not my favorite. My favorite Austen fanfic would be The Lizzie Bennet Diaries). I have 18 things checked out from the library. I should return some stuff.


Ok. Coffee's gone. Time to get ready for the day. Storytime at the library this morning. That means we're super busy and it should go quickly. I'm so glad I just have to work the desk and not entertain 38 kids at once!

Spring Bug

Ah, Spring. May! This time of year always fills me with hope and ambition. When I was young it was the joy of the end of school and the hope of what the summer would bring. It still feels that way. Plans of projects crowd my mind. Thankfully I don’t have to finish homework before starting them or sit through class all day before enjoying the sunshine. Oh wait. I don’t have summers off. I still have to make sure the house is moderately taken care of and my husband is fed. I still have to go to work. But I am lucky, I only work a few hours so I still have time at home to tackle projects. 

I just have so many things crowding into my mind. And my workspace. I have projects that are unfinished lying around from the beginning of March. I wasn’t in a terrible hurry to get to gardening this year, but it has finally hit me and I’ve been planning and labeling pots so I can now go buy things to stick in them. I did a linocut, but I don’t know how I feel about it, and a blog post about it is still churning inside me. I have a collage started, as well as a requested project from my mom. The project from March is something for Brian. I’m anxious to start a project for my aunt. I want to repair my Toms, take an art class, learn to sew, and keep blogging. I want to have picnics, and to keep going on bike rides, to soak up the sun. So many things.

Spring is a time of starts. Beginnings. I just realized that, as I sit here and think of all the things I’m not finishing before I start something new. Maybe I don’t need to feel overwhelmed by the incomplete. I’m planting the seeds, and nurturing the sprouts that will someday bear fruit. Hmm, I like that. As long as they don’t wither and languish. That’s something I’m pretty good at, not finishing projects. But I’m feeling excited now. Not overwhelmed. And that bodes well for seeing fruit (completion).

"New" Dresser

This project started over two weeks ago, and would have been pretty quick, except I decided to get fancy with the top, and then our mini stay-cation happened. This flimsy old dresser with a poor stain job came from my grandparents house. It really is not high quality so I no qualms painting it:

This is during the sanding stage. 

I actually first painted it a brighter, and (I decided) more obnoxious blue. This light blue is just a little test pot of paint I’ve had for a while. I only did one coat and like it rustic for now. Plus I ran out of paint.

I wanted to be more creative with it other than that random green drawer. I’ve had a placemat that I thought would be a great stencil for a while and this might be the project to use it on. I didn’t really think through all of the ways I could accomplish this, I just knew I wasn’t ready to paint over the placemat yet. So I traced it in pencil and decided to use the green color I had used on the drawer. I’ve never been good at coloring inside the lines. This is very good practice. That’s what I keep telling myself. And good practice with a paintbrush, since I don’t really know any techniques. 

The green is an interior wall paint, and went on very thinly. It definitely needed a second coat, which I’m still working on (see mini stay-cation). That is why it seems darker in the upper left corner, it actually is, not just more weird lighting. For the second coat I mixed it with green acrylics and it seems a lot better. I’m not sure if I’ll get to a third coat or just call it good when I’m finally done with the second. It will just be in our bedroom, and if we end up annoyed with it I can always paint over it. I’m not sure what I will do with the knobs. I might look for some different ones, or just paint the ones that came with this, but I ran out of blue paint. So, we’ll see, but it definitely needs handles.

I’ve enjoyed working on this, and it’s nice to get paints out again, even if it’s just for a dresser. Although I am ready to be done with it. So, now, onward!

"Your House Did Not Asplode"

Yay! We didn’t explode! Our house did not explode! And we’re having a mini stay-cation! Wahoo!

I should probably start with the exploding business. Tuesday night when I had my routine bathroom visit i thought the hallway smelled like gas. In the morning it still smelled when you first walked out of the bedroom, but you didn’t notice it after a little while. So we forgot about it. Then I got home from work and after smelling the fresh rainy air, it definitely smelled like gas inside. I was in a bit of denial and made tea, which was a stupid idea, but at least our stove is electric so there was no open flame. Brian called the gas company and then called me and told me to leave the house. Ugh. So I took my cup of tea and bowl of cereal (yes, afternoon breakfast. I do that sometimes) and sat in the car. because it was raining. The gas company came and it was not a false alarm, but it was also not a major emergency yet (or I might still be in denial). A valve that did not get replaced when the new furnace was installed was leaking. So it was easy to find and easy to fix. And we did not blow up.

I have been working extra hours on Mondays which means I have other random days off during the week. This time I got a lovely four day weekend, having today and tomorrow off. Brian surprised me on Tuesday by announcing he got the days off too! We had thrown some ideas around about a little trip for our anniversary, but since we didn’t plan anything in advance we decided to stay home and enjoy our own town.
After the gas excitement we kicked off the stay-cation by going to the East side of town. Which I guess is a West-sider’s vacation spot. But really, we thought we would get some half-priced Bang Bang Shrimp at Bonefish Grill because it was Wednesday. But there was a 50 minute wait. Too long. So we headed to Bradley Fair where we immediately got seated at Bella Luna and enjoyed some lovely pasta (although I think I’ll go back to my regular next time). Then we walked a bit as it was no longer raining, and I wanted to check out Francesca’s because I’ve seen cute things there, but never been in. I got a dress. It has tiny whales on it. I have weddings to go to this spring. And Brian bought it as an anniversary gift.
Then we had to go to Cocoa Dolce. They have the best hot chocolate ever. Well, they have the best everything chocolate ever, and beverage form seemed appropriate with the weather. After way too much chocolate to drink we came home happy.

Today has been pretty lazy. More like a Saturday, without feeling like we need to accomplish things around the house. I’ve been wanting to finish up painting a dresser, but I ended up experimenting in the kitchen instead. I guess that was my creative outlet today. I made peanut sauce with rice for lunch. My former roommate used to make it, so I kind of just made it up as I went, using coconut milk and peanut butter as the base and adding sriracha and lime juice and other things that struck my fancy. Then this afternoon I made some chicken salad. I’ve been craving it for a little while, so I pretty much made it up too. I cooked the chicken in lots of curry seasoning and added grapes and celery and pecans. It might need some more miracle whip, but you have to be careful with it, you know? You don’t want to over do a thing like that.

So, now there’s a fresh cup of tea and a new episode of Psych (watched on amazon) calling my name. I think I’ll go indulge in some more vacation.

Creative Every Day 2012 Challenge: Accepted

A little over a year ago I talked about writing and expressing myself creatively more often. Honestly I haven’t done a great job of it. I have done creative things, and written for myself a bit, but not as much as I would like to. So. It’s time to get down to business. Make yet another goal. (Hopefully I’ll be back soon with an update on how the New Year’s goals are doing.)

I’m going to accept the Creative Every Day Challenge.

And I’m actually signing up, not just being my usual lurker self, so I have some accountability. I’ll be back later this week with some project-y things and ways I’m finding creativity.

Reasons to do CED:
I want to blog more. I sit around often thinking about this space and what it is to me and what I want to do with it. I’ve had this blog quite a long time in blog years, but it really hasn’t gone anywhere. I don’t necessarily want this to just be a space to record CED, but I want to use it more, and this will be one way to do it.

I want to get better at creative things I’ve already tried. A lot of times I happen on a project that I want to try and think, “Hey this would be a great Christmas present” or, “I really like doing this, if I get good at it, maybe someone would buy it.” But then once I’ve tried it, that’s it. No perfecting it, no going back and learning from the mistakes to make it better. I’m clearly not a very disciplined person but I want to get better at the artistic things I try. Not necessarily for monetary gain, but to make something lovely that will last. That won’t fall apart, or be a canvas someone will decide to paint over.

Also I want to broaden my horizons. Every month there is an optional theme for Creative Every Day. So at least once during the month I’m going to do something with that theme in mind. Hopefully this will push me to try new things. And the March theme is Mixed Media. I’ve been interested in Mixed Media, so hopefully I can get going and have something to show for this month’s theme.

So, Challenge accepted. Now to go Be Creative!

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.