Eyes Open E-Course

Trying out an e-course on photography to shake off the rustiness that's settled in around my manual picture taking. My goal is to sustain my focus on re-learning photography, as well as gain new skills that the digital photography world has opened up in the last decade:

• Photo storage
• Photo editing in PhotoShop
• Backing up photos
• How to blog pictures effectively

Family goals, as we approach 2014

Goals for the NOW!
1. FREEDOM from 'stuff' and giving 'stuff' a home when we don't even use or need it. Pass it on to others who might use or need it.
2. Keep working on making parts of our home an open environment for LEARNING and CREATING.
3. Remember to CELEBRATE the season and the goodness of our family.  Make sure to add it into the schedule and be ready to deviate from the schedule when something unexpected but delightful pops up.
4. Get outside and stay active as the cold winter creeps in (or suddenly descends), for the HEALTH and WELLBEING of our family.

A day off

It is very rare that I get a full day off from my desk job to be home, by myself, to chose what I do with my day.

My destiny for today has already been shaped by the actions of the last two days: today I have to finish painting the hallway and today I need to finish re-upholstering the dining chairs. My big project for the day is to make a serious dent in the basement, though. The basement, my lion that needs to be tamed. By making some organizational decisions about it (what goes to the Goodwill and what stays) I can make my creative space and share it with the lads. We will give ourselves more space (our home is under 1000 square feet for the 4 of us and our rabbit) to open our minds and make! Make! Make!

But first, a quiet egg & coffee breakfast and putting the chicken carcass on to boil for stock, making the house smell delicious!

Sweet basil pesto

I'm not one for pine nuts: not the taste, not the cost, not the limited use of them.  If I have 1/2 cup leftover after making pesto, I can't add them to chocolate cookies or granola.

But the beauty of pesto is its versatility. After all, 'pesto' is Italian for 'paste'. If I'm happy with the taste, cost, consistency and use of the final product, why follow a recipe?! I'll make up my own recipe in a non-measured sort of way.

And for preserving pesto a la freezer, I never use ice cube trays anymore. I hate having little tiny chunks of pesto, it's never enough. I want to decide how big my chunks are, thank you very much. I use a lipped pan to gather up my pesto and when it's done I pop it out of there and cut it into the sizes I want.  Earlier in the summer (technically, it's still summer) I made five batches of this while listening to Mark Maron interview Iggy Pop. Iggy will always taste like pesto to me now.

Sweet basil pesto

Ingredients
Basil leaves (and the softer top bits of stem seem to be ok too and add more bulk)
Salt, enough to taste (but I guess you could say that about any of these ingredients)
Pepper (I'll use shallot pepper or lemon pepper if I have it to change it up a bit)
Olive oil
Parmesan-romano blend of cheeses (I get mine in a tub from Trader Joes, where the good people have already shredded it. I hate shredding that much hard cheese. Gives me the shivers.)
Almonds, sliced and dry roasted and not salted. Again, from Trader Joes. The land of decently priced nuts.

Directions
1. Swish it all around in your food processor.
2. If you need more oil, because it's too dry, then add another glug of oil.
3. If you need more heft to the pesto, give it another sprinkle of sliced almonds.
4. Etc. with the adding of the ingredients.
5. Line a lipped container with parchment paper. With no lip, that pesto will go floating over the edge. The lip's no joke here.
6. Lay that pesto down in the lipped pan/container/pyrex.
7. Let it sit in the freezer overnight.
8. Remove the pesto by pulling on the parchment paper. Or, if you couldn't find the parchment paper and just put the pesto directly into the pan, run some hot water over the back of the pan and the rectangle of pesto will slide on out. *Remember it will slide on out and be ready to catch it or have a cutting board ready to catch it.
9. Now cut the pesto in the sizes you are likely to use. Ice cubes trays always gave me pesto that wasn't enough. Cut it into different sizes and use the smaller ones to add to soup and bigger ones to cover pasta.
10. Date those freezer bags and throw it in the freezer to take the chill off of winter.

Thai basil pesto

The fragrance of thai basil is undeniably delicious. My mouth waters when I even think about it. As I was plucking the sprigs of my CSA's herbs yesterday I wondered how I could keep this luscious flavor to use in the coming months of stir fries and sauces.

Yes, I googled 'thai basil pesto' and didn't find many recipes I liked.

A lot of the recipes were essentially a sweet basil pesto using pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan cheese. A few switched it up using cashews or peanuts, peanut oil instead of olive. But all of them felt like they committed to much to one way of using the thai basil in a recipe.

I wanted a recipe that would allow me to be versatile with it, when it came time to add it to a recipe. So I took it to a basic place: how do I use thai basil?  I always use it with coconut milk and lemon grass. But the lemon grass, I find, releases a better flavor if it's heated slightly first, then added to a recipe.  So, a half can of Trader Joes Coconut Cream with my two handfuls of thai basil. It's concentrated, I think, so I'll only take what I need with each curry recipe I make and it will mix smoothly in, but *hopefully* release the gorgeous aroma and flavor I'm used to associating with thai basil.

Thai basil pesto

Ingredients
One can of coconut milk or coconut cream
4 handfuls of thai basil

Directions
1. Wash and drain the thai basil (I used my salad spinner to dry it off as best I could).
2. Remove as many stems as possible. the softer stems should be ok.
3. I plucked off as many leaves and flowers (I'm not sure if the flowers have flavor, but the more the merrier) and put them in the mini food processor.
4. Add in the coconut milk (or cream) and just mix it up until the leaves are chopped up to your preferred size.
5. I put this in a freezer-safe pyrex bowl overnight.
6. Use hot water to loosen the mixture. Plop it onto a cutting board and chop it into the portions you envision using for future recipes.
7. Right down what it is and the date, onto a freezer friendly bag, add pesto and freeze til needed.

The most I've done so far is leave it in the freezer overnight. I haven't tried it with rice or in a soup yet. Perhaps an update later or, if it's absolutely awful, I will promise to remove the offending recipe.

Lights of summer

One of the last weekends of summer and the swirling neon light sticks allowed me to have some fun with my new-ish camera. The lads were in a state of wonder, creating designs in light that can only be achieved with a low shutter speed.

Green in foreground, flashlight in back.

Two colors against the dusk of night.

a lapse in meditation / a meditation for lunch

For these last few months I've been reading up on meditation, different forms, by different groups, different outcomes, different approaches. It's been so eye opening. I felt like I'd read enough by various authors and dabbled to the point where I was ready to try give the daily practice a jingle.

Low, with July came our summer house project. The one week we had put aside for it (well nine days, we added the second weekend for follow-up) turned into one month. And we're still moving back in, slowly. Amidst the dust, living out of boxes and eating out too much, I had lost track of my meditation goals.

As luck would have it, garlic scapes are in full force in early-mid July and pesto is incredibly easy to make. And now it's been scientifically proven that, if you skip the bbq & fireworks on July 4th, you can make 5 full batches of garlic scape pesto to fill the freezer while listening to a WTF interview of Iggy Pop. And garlic scape pesto will always remind me of Iggy Pop now.

But I digress. That same pesto became one with my daily sandwich everyday I was home with hubby, sanding floors and painting walls. I pint of milky iced tea accompanied it. The chunky texture of scape pieces, richness added by the romano, the chewy bread and coolness of the iced tea. None of the experience went to waste. That daily lunch became my exercise in mindfulness.

After four hours of working in 95 degree heat, my focus only on the task at hand, a full stop to sit and enjoy the front porch and my same lunch. A few deep breaths, taking in the fresh shaded air, and I was ready for another four hours of labor.

Update: walls are all painted and floors are all sanded & sealed.

Getting it done

I'm in the beginning stages of learning about meditation. While there's no way I want to get sucked into Transcendental Meditation (which would be impossible anyway, when a series of sessions is a good $2500!!!), the book 'Transcendence' still has some wonderful material to cull from it.

So far, this simple sentence is what has struck me the deepest:

"If you want to get something done, you can't wait until you feel like doing it."

This resonates in my life, putting off projects because I'm not in the mood to work on it. Dishes pile up, laundry follows suit and I take care of those because they have a physical legacy: you can see the mess, people run out of bowls and underwear. So those chores area automatic.

But the projects that are closest to my heart: photography, learning to sew well, drawing with my children. learning music or foreign languages... these have no physical manifestations. It's easy to keep pushing those wonderful dreams aside because you can't see it pile up. I feel it piling up inside of me, these dreams and hopes, but it rarely feels urgent. It builds until I feel underwhelmed by my ability to create. Those artistic pursuits take time and attention and focus, so they are pushed aside since focus is so difficult in a 1000 square foot house with 4 people. There is so little time when we both work full time and still want to pay so much attention to the children. Plus the usual: appointments, meetings, soccer practices, etc.

So I have to take the plunge. Choose one thing to start: order a ukulele; make time to draw with the boys in our art journals; put handsewing projects together in a basket so they can be picked up at a moment's notice.  Starting small, accomplishing small feats and working for something.

And don't wait for the inspiration to do it, because it's in the doing of something that I become inspired.

recipe title: i don't know i need to know how it tastes when it's done

Today Dashiell has created a new baked holiday recipe of deliciousness!  I'll share the recipe if it turns into a winner, but for a peek into the yumminess, well, let's just say it involved melted chocolate and crushed candy canes!
Now, on to practicing 'The Macarena'.

stash sewing: part one

The mighty budget has finally been tended to at our home.  Once again we have quickly realized we need to be more thoughtful about how we spend our earned money.

So begins a new journey for me: I shall work through the stash of fabric and re-cycled clothes (converted into fabric), to make what I'd like to make.

First up: Grain bags for the family to keep us warm through these cooler autumnal days and into the winter that will surely be thick with snow. 


I hope to start these tonight and at the weekend figure out the grain that would be the cheapest to use: rice, lentils, any other types?  Hmmm...  Should be done by early next week and then my second project will be...

mission accomplished october 1, 2012

this past month (cause it's been awhile):

• oven roasted anaheim and poblano peppers.
• successfully stuffed poblano peppers with tomato, corn, cheese mixture - alas, the end of tomato and corn season!  i can't make these again until next year.
• froze basil in olive oil & herb mixture in olive oil to start out soups or pasta dishes over the chilly seasons ahead.
• made a rather large square pillow for the kids' room.
• successfully installed a 20" zipper into the aforementioned rather large square pillow.
• made lotion via sonoma garden's recipes & i really love the beeswax lotion (i hadn't made that one before).
• been biking to work on fridays - this week it was tuesday - and having a marvelous time.  can't believe i didn't think of this until now.  moron.
• entered a local photo contest.  not so proud of the finished images.  but very proud of following through with a promise to myself & of seeing through a vision to the end product.  high 5!
• patched some kid trousers that will see, maybe, one more season of use.
• made, ate and froze tomatillo sauce.
• read 'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed.  i'd like to move to the pacific coast trail.  i'm now in a reading rut, nothing could be as satisfying as her book to me right now. come on library, i dare you to find me a book that could hook me like that so soon.  (please, i hate finishing books that are that good because it means no other books can live up to those standards of honesty and connection.)
• came up with some more photography ideas.  maybe a portable light studio for taking pics of things on the trail.
• performed cpr on my little canon camera by giving it a good whack!  phew.  i nearly lost it.
• leisurely weekend trips to the library
• kids helping with meals, creating their own recipes, we all bounce along in the same space, in our own space.  
• finally re-connected to American Routes - and this last weekend was a very strong show.  in fact, it was perfect for cooking alongside the kids, as we bobbed and weaved around one another, dancing along to the mighty fine tunes.

Mend-Patch-Alter

Mend
Many t-shirts with itsy, bitsy holes that need to be sewn shut (a stitch in nine, and all that).  A bag that needs it's hem sewn shut and reinforced.  That cute floral yellow romper with the split seam - in a not-so-demure location!  The seam on a maxi skirt that makes the slit go on and on too far!

Patch
Pairs of laddy trousers and short on the knee side and the bum side that need to be patched.
Love the monster knee and I know that would be a hit.



Alter
I'm going to use One Pearl Button's transformed tutorials for ideas to use up some clothes that aren't quite my style.

Silk Shirt Refashion

and 

Twenty Minute Skirt

I have a lovely navy with white polka dots button-up dress that I'd like to change up.  And some 80's looking long prairie skirts with nice fabric, but the style is all wrong for me.

A lovely brown floral Benetton linen dress I bought 2 years ago from the Goodwill was a little too low on the chest, so I need to pull those seams together and sew that inch up.

So many pastel long sleeved shirts that fit in all but the bodice.  I need to trim them to be more fitted.

Maybe think ahead to some use of the warmer clothes in the pile too: butt warmer over leggings, legwarmers, quick wool hat or mittens...  One cannot limit oneself to one season, can one?

No new clothes: June challenge

When I say 'No new clothes', I mean no clothes that are new to me.  Besides the black leggings I bought last month, I haven't bought new vestiments in months.  I see no need to pay a full price (including the full environmental price) for items when there is plenty to be had at a variety of second hand stores in the area. Remove self from soapbox, and continue...  I have recently uncovered a large pile of summer clothes that needs repairing, from a small hole to be sewn closed to a split seam on a very sweet vintage romper to some hemming that needs to be updated.  Gonna do some fixin' this June and make that pile of 'to do' disappear. It's already June 4 and I haven't bought anything, so how difficult can another 26 days be?  Not very, I'll just avoid my usual hospice shop vice (I'll spend a good $20 on average a month there) at lunchtime and go on a bike ride instead.  Yeah for the outdoors to salvage a wayward shopper from yet another summer skirt purchase!

A week of soups

I ended up making soup three times in the last week and used a new recipe on the weekend that had HEAT (and flavor and deliciousness and health, etc.).  I tend to shy away from spicy meals so my little ones aren't excluded.  But I've been wanting to try this recipe for weeks and to have a thermos of spicy soup ready for apres-skiing, well, it couldn't be helped. I had Heidi Swanson's new cookbook, Super Natural Everyday, out of the library for a couple of weeks.  KCRW's Good Food had a best of 2011 cookbook list, as did TheKitchn and so about half of them went on my library's request list.  Truly, I am digging this book.  I made the millet muffins and added chunks of pear.  Those are gone, with only one dissenter in the family who wasn't into the millet's crunch.  (To each his own.) Cook This Now - I think there was one recipe in there that I earmarked.  The rest were using ingredients I don't have around and a style of cooking that I don't use.  Plus I didn't like the book construction, it didn't stay open very well and it's tall and narrow.  Definitely a no-no where I'm concerned. Super Natural Everyday - GORGEOUS photos and arrangement, square-ish size and not so massive that it closes shut.  Sure, I have to prop it open with something heavy, but I'm willing to overlook that since the first 2 recipes I've made out of it have been total winners that will have now been inducted into my recipe hall-of-fame. Home Made by Yvette van Boven - I am judging this book by its cover.  The homemade font scratched onto the tomatoes is so warm. Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi - I haven't received this yet from the library, but I am a sucker for eggplant and the cover photo looks delicious.  Again with the cover! There's another layer of best of cookbooks in 2011, but I need to eat my way through these ones first.  Delicious

Knitting project #1

I'm finally starting a very basic knitting project - and it's NOT on Ravelry?!? Margaret Oomen's Scarfette has started off easily with a semi bulky, bumpy yarn I purchases ages ago.  The strands of colour remind me of smoothed pebbles on an ocean beach in southern England. (Update: Gedifra Gigante 100% woo Made in Italy) My history with knitting is rather spotty.  I have finished a sweater before, when I first moved here ten years ago.  But, man was it heavy.  And it the style looked awful on me, making my generous shoulders look incredibly manly.  So my husband inherited, after all, he's manly and that's the kind of look that works for him.  But the sweater was heavy for him too.  (Think: hauberk for a knight.) I'm trying to move on to simpler, easy, beginner patterns now and using yarn I already have.  My plan is to gain some knitting confidence and work up to some of Jane Richmond's simply so-sweet patterns (Cozy Bolero, Rae scarf) or a few other Ravelry gems: Plain and Simple Pullover, a cute cardy etc. when my mum next comes to visit. My mum is about the world's most amazing knitter (she used to sell her wares at craft shows in and around Seattle) and I'd love to try out one of those more complex patterns with her around to help me fix whatever knitting problems would inevitably arise. Craft on!

Blog idea

Considering a blog between my brother and myself. He's so far away (or is it me who's so far away?) in Seattle and we both love photography. It would be a fun collaboration to put something visual together, together.

Once we get an iPad for home, I think I'll broach the concept with him.

No show

It's so cold Still no snow to show - Where do we go, to ski?

Holidays and activity in the home

The tree is dismantled and the overwhelming sweet and creamy season is our most recent memory. My big gift to my family this year was an advent calendar of activities.  There were nights when, after work and school, it was near to impossible to fulfill the goal I'd intended.  That's when putting 2 packets of fruit leather in the envelope became indispensable.  But other nights were spent taking family pictures, dancing around the living room, dipping various foods in chocolate, etc.  The gift of activity and time is something I'll be doing again. My husband gave me the gift of ceramic classes and studio time.  He'd thought it through, investigated a bit and accidentally ran into the teacher whom he talked to at length.  As he unfolded his gift to me, tears leaked out of my eyes.  He is so in tune with me, he knew I needed to be more active in my creativity.  Through our first few years together I was taking ceramics classes and enjoying it so thoroughly.  It's been over ten years since I threw on a wheel, but one week from yesterday gets me back on again.  Ideas are spinning around in my head like crazy.  So many ideas that I can soon make happen!