Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Thanks, Nature Valley

There's a picture of someone doing yoga (tree pose, if you must know) on this box of yoga granola bars I have. I have not decided whether this is because yoga and yogurt sound like they might go together or because yoga is good for you and it is being done right here on this box, therefore these granola bars are totally good for you, too, even though yogurt-covered snacks are not ever all that good for you.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Overheard on the playground*

"I want to learn Mexican. I want to be able to speak Mexican."

*Though she was using the swings, the speaker was high school age. I thought her friend was about to redeem the Baltimore City School system when she said, "You mean Spanish?" But then she added, "Bonjour."

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Twin Peaks

I was in elementary school when everyone's parents were watching Twin Peaks, so it seemed to me that it was your typical adult show and probably looked something like Dallas. I only learned as an adult that it was directed by David Lynch.

Troy would only let me watch two episodes a week. But once we got to Season 2, it was on VHS, and that seemed to slow us down natuarally.

Season 2 is on DVD now, and Slate looks at The Overlooked Genius of Twin Peaks' Season 2. They've even included video.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Pretty things


Swap
Originally uploaded by airhen.
Crystal in Michigan made me many pretty things for the Crafty Daisies swap. I can't imagine how much patience (and good eyesight) it takes to work with those tiny beads. I have been needing a needle case and stitch markers, and there they were. How did she know?

Click on the photo to see it on Flickr, where I've labeled everything. Not pictured is the orange Vitamin water. It is not pictured because I am thirsty.

I am going to plant my flowers now.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Life kit

Artist Toland Grinnell tells The New York Times' "Posessed" column that he and his wife furnished their home entirely from Ikea: "Ikea is like a kit, and all my art is like a kit."

Ikea, thank you for giving us your kit for living.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Let's eat stromboli

It seems like stromboli used to be more common. Or maybe that's just because my mom makes it, and my mom hasn't been providing my meals for a while now. Often when I see stromboli on a menu, it's really a calzone. Stromboli is rolled, so you have layers of fillings and crust, while a calzone is folded.

I used this recipe for the crust, and I filled mine with sauce and part-skim mozzarella. I don't even know whether you're technically supposed to put sauce in stromboli, but I say add whatever you want.

For the sauce, I sauteed three large cloves of garlic in olive oil, and then took the pan off the heat and added a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. Then I mixed in some dried basil and oregano. I just threw in an amount that looked right and then tasted.

You have to wait for the dough to rise, but there's not much hands-on time for stromboli.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Spring harvest


Maybe it was more of a spring thinning, but the French radishes I pulled from the ground today tasted great in my salad. There were more, but I ate them before I took this photo.

Two tomato plants went in the ground today, and I can't wait for some real tomatoes. That's a long way off, though.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Now with photos

Maryann posted photos of our garden helper.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Pulling weeds

You Grow Girl offers 12 Reasons Why I Don't Grow Edibles in my Street Garden. Lucky for me, my little piece of garden isn't on the street, though it would be nice to have somewhere to plant flowers closer to home.

Maryann kept me company in the garden today, and we got some watering help from our new friend Delisha, who was playing on the playground next door.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Laundry ethics

I'm hoping this isn't going to shoot all my laundry karma, but sometimes I leave my laundry in the washer or dryer. I'm careful to be there once it stops, but still, as my friend Ric pointed out, there are so many people who have nothing and stopping by the Laundromat (Would someone please come up with a good generic term for that place? Thanks.) would be a good way to get something. So it's always a little surprise to find my clothes there and unmolested.

I'd like to think that people just think that stealing someone's laundry is too low, but the night after my neighbor got evicted someone stole his TV. If people are OK with stealing from a man who just lost his home, then they are OK with stealing someone's clothes from the dryer.

Maybe it's that even though my clothes would cost me a lot to replace, they're not really valuable in a liquid-asset sense. (Let's go to the pawn shop and buy some jeans!) And usually someone else is in there doing laundry, which might be a deterrant.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Not OK

There's this tuna sandwich in the work fridge that has to have been there since at least Friday because it's clearly from the cafeteria, which has not been open since Friday.

I am all for leftovers and eating expired food that still smells fine. But with the bread, sandwiches have a short shelf life. And a tuna sandwich ...

Kitchen tip: You could probably save it if you took the tuna off the bread. This would work less well for peanut butter and jelly, but why would you ever have leftover peanut butter and jelly? You wouldn't.

"Wow, I am stuffed, can't finish this tuna sandwich. I'll just put it away for a soggy snack."

Monday, April 23, 2007

The swap tease

I promise I haven't been slacking off on the Crafty Daisies swap, just slacking off on posting about it. I've been inspired to try some beading, which turned out to be faster and easier than I thought.

For your first hint, I've gotten supplies and surprises from these stores:
Atomic Books
Atomic Pop
Lovely Yarns
Hometown Girl
Beadazzled
Plaza

Monday, April 09, 2007

Overheard

Exclaimed proudly on the light rail:

"22 and no kids!"

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Playing in the dirt

The gardening season opened yesterday, with my first day of weeding. A friend and I spent about 7 hours in her Hampden garden plot (where I have little rectangle this year), most of it just pulling and pulling and pulling weeds.

It didn't seem so hard at the time -- and hanging out in the dirt is fun -- but last night I hurt from my calves to my shoulders. My weeding muscles in my right wrist still aren't happy. But I got to plant some cold-weather plants: lettuce, carrots and radishes.

I wish I'd taken before and after photos, because we accomplished so much.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Each week, they choose a theme

This American Life usually inspires me to think about my own response to their topic, so I thought I'd make it a writing project.

Each week, I'll post their theme for the next week's show, and then anyone who wants to write on that theme can e-mail me a link (or their essay, if it's not on a blog) at erin (dot) mediamixed (at) gmail (dot) com. E-mail me by, say, Monday, because that's when I get the TAL podcast, but that's not a real deadline.

Since this is the first week, here's two topics (the previous week's and the coming week's):

"What I Learned from TV"
"The Allure of the Mean Friend"

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Socks that rock

To maybe someday make the Space Invaders socks, I have to figure out how to make some simple socks. I think I'm on the right track with this tutorial, though it would have been smart of me to use a thicker yarn so I didn't have 64 stitches in each round. (Is it even called a round?)

To learn how to make the little guys, I plan on making a pattern for a Space Invaders scarf. If it works out, I'll share, but I don't know how to read a pattern, let alone make one, so it will probably just be all unofficial.

I also love these monkey socks (no monkeys on them).


Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Purled

I was surprised at how quickly I caught on to purling (after a couple of evenings of trial and error). This very first ribbed scarf is made with a mostly cotton yarn for my mom, who wants a lightweight white scarf to go with a blue sweater. Now I just have to get to the post office.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Something I am not doing

That would be making curtains.

Since I moved into my place in December, I have needed curtains. I have huge windows that are too tall for anything off the rack. And they face south, so they spend all day capturing sunlight, making my place hot.

I have measured for curtains and bought all the hardware to hang them, but I have yet to buy fabric.

All the fabic stores are inaccessible to me. They're either on a bus line that I don't know how to get to or the light rail runs by there but doesn't stop nearby. I called one store and asked whether they were near the subway and was told, "Kind of?"

There is one that's close enough to a light rail stop, but I've been there, and there are no sidewalks between the stop and the store, which is on a busy, curvy road. Not fun or safe. (There is a bus between the stop and the store, but it runs about every 45 minutes, and I really don't need this to become an all-day ordeal.)

I even tried Wal-Mart, but finding 12 yards of the same fabric was not happening there.

Baltimore, I am so disappointed in you.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Scarf No. 2

I finished my second scarf. Now I'm learning how to purl. DIY Network's Knitty Gritty has some videos on knitting basics, which can really help if you're having trouble visualizing instructions from a book.

Found objects


I had these extra bike tires sitting around uselessly and taking up precious inches in my pint-sized bedroom. I also had this disturbingly blank wall above my couch (fine, it's a futon) in the living room. Now, I don't have either problem.

Each hangs from a single nail. Weight-wise, this shouldn't be a problem, but the tires are pretty thick and just kind of perched there.

Plastic bag bag

Mod Cottage has a tutorial on how to turn your old plastic bags into a no-sew grocery bag. I made something similar (but uglier) out of newspaper bags a la instructions from the Ready Made book, but I had thought your typical grocery bag might not be sturdy enough.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Photogenic snow

It's just about gone, but lots of people captured Baltimore's snow.

Troy, who took that first photo offered some advice for snow photographers: Bracket your shots. The snow can trick your light meter, so take one shot as your light meter indicates, but also some underexposed and overexposed. (Some cameras have a setting to do this automatically.)

Check out Troy's snow photo set.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Snow-day pizza

My mom would always make pizza on snow days, and it's snowing in Baltimore. I don't have the day off and didn't have time to make it, but here's a pizza dough recipe.

I have never used this recipe, but it looks like it will work. It says to use water between 95 and 115 degrees, but I think that's too hot . I would go for something that feels lukewarm. Otherwise, you could kill the yeast.

Another snow day favorite was fried dough (or Italian doughnuts) made with some of the extra pizza dough.

Art -- Creating and collecting

The New York Times Magazine makes a case for photography as this century's painting in a profile of Jeff Wall, "Where Jeff Wall has Taken the Photograph."

"One thing that Wall knew for certain when he took up the profession in the
late 1970s is that he would not become a photojournalistic hunter. Educated as
an art historian, he aspired instead to make photographs that could be
constructed and experienced the way paintings are."

Photography seems so accessible as a viewer and as a creator because we consider that there's an element of luck (in addition to patience and having a good eye). But where Jeff Wall has taken the photograph is to a place where the artist's vision is as important as it is in other artistic media. He does not see the picture in front of him; he creates it.

The Times Magazine also features the home (and contemporary art collection) of philanthropist Constance Caplan. The article doesn't say where in Baltimore this is, but I think it's way north, by Lake Roland, possibly in Baltimore County.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

I'd like s'more


Some people don't like s'mores, but I do, so I made some s'more brownies. Mine didn't toast up as well as the Food Network's. But I had people waiting for me on the street below. Besides, the Food Network probably made their "toasted marshmallows" out of toasted mashed potatoes or something for their photo shoot. Potato brownies, yum!

Monday, February 19, 2007

Too bad the ground's still frozen


My carrot seeds arrived on my desk yesterday, so now all I need is the last frost and some other seeds and to start some tomato plants, and then it will be time to get outside.

I've been wanting to plant some basil inside because I have huge south-facing windows that make parts of the apartment greenhouse-like, but casual attempts to find potting soil have proved fruitless.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Inspiration

Need some photo ideas? Thanks, Photogamer!

This is like the Day Before Christmas pool on Flickr only more specific.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

I got lots of good ideas at the end of the day

I found all the good Valentine's Day crafts too late, so all I had were my modified cards (because the prototype had been revealed) and some orange cranberry muffins.

And I didn't take photos of any of it, because I am a planner like that.

The cards were like the original, only I cut some squares of transluscent red paper and tied it on top with ribbon (fed through two holes this time -- yay) so they opened at the top.

The muffins looked mostly like muffins.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Embrace your knitting mistakes

Let's say a scarf has 400 rows of 20 stitches each. That's 8,000 stitches. If you're a beginnner (like me), you're probably learning a new technique with each scarf. (My first scarf I learned how to just do a knit stitch. My second, I'm learning how to make stripes.) So it makes sense that by the time you get to your second 4,000 stitches, you will have figured out quite a bit about what works for you concerning your new technique. Who cares if you're not perfect from stitch one?

It's easy to think that if you struggle with your first row, you're going to struggle until the end of your project, so you better get that first row just right. But that's not true, and you'll drive yourself crazy and learn to hate knitting if you think that way.

Instead, remember that you're getting better -- and knitting is getting easier -- with every stitch. It's only supposed to be fun.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Cards


It's really smart of me to post a photo of the cards I'm making, because then it will totally be a surprise to my friends when they get them. I used a tutorial on The Sampler to tea stain the card stock. Before staining, I copied by hand something like the template from there, but you're supposed to just print it out. I didn't feel like getting out my printer, though.

Then I glued the card stock to some red paper (a little smoother than construction paper), punched a hole near the top and tied some ribbon through the hole.

I also experimented with tea-staining some envelopes, but I forgot that maybe I shouldn't get the envelope glue wet. I'm sure it could be done, carefully, but the envelope might be a little thin to survive the tea well.

This is just the prototype. Next time I'm going to draw straight lines to cut along instead of just cutting freehand. And I'm going to punch two holes instead of one for the ribbon.

All new

This is going to be a projects blog now, because I made a scarf and painted some furniture, and that makes me an expert. But I'm leaving all the old stuff up because I don't want an empty blog and because why deny my history?