Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

or perhaps it should be housekeeping, rather than home life, in my case...


today i got frustrated at the slow-going of some organization projects i've been trying to accomplish. so i took it out on the house, and worked on a different one. an old HUGE pet cage we own has been sitting collecting dust and gathering junk mail, since we don't have any critters living in it currently.  so today i cleaned it off, cleaned it out, put it on a stand, covered it in a table cloth, and converted it into storage. took most of the day, but i'm pleased with the results. also got a good chunk of an area of the living room intended for exercise equipment cleared out. so hopefully sooner than later i'll be able to get my weight bench back from my brother-in-law's house, since i'll finally have room for it.
this weekend i hope to make progress on the coat closet and sort through all my food storage containers and cull what i don't need. we'll see how that goes. probably won't post again until monday. wish me luck!

Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again.

well, it's been a really long time. seems i'm not so good at this consistently blogging thing. but screw it, in fits and starts is better than not at all, right? maybe?

so anyway, it's a new year and a fresh start. my goals for the time being are to get a handle on keeping my house consistently clean, and to keep a food diary to help me stick to my diet.
so with that in mind, i'm going to start out keeping a list of daily accomplishments.


today i:

• rescued some produce that was slightly over the hill by making a batch of potato soup for my lunches and mixing up enough smoothies for the week (to be kept in the freezer and thawed out in the fridge over night.)
• started some bone broth in a mini crockpot. i've tried doing it in a full sized crock pot, but it often makes more broth than i can use. i figure i can try working my way up.
• caught up on dishes
•  ordered some tension rods to make some improvements in the kitchen. i want to hang a curtain and a drying station between my kitchen cabinets, kinda like seen here, but with a curtain to hide it all behind. 

home made shaving cream recipe

i found a recipe on pinterest for homemade shave cream. i tweaked it a little, and love it! it’s ultra cheap, and i can customize the smell however i want. :D

i replaced the baby oil in the original recipe with extra virgin olive oil. i also didn’t want to commit to a whole bunch, so i decreased the portions.

• 1/4 cup shampoo
• 1/4 cup conditioner (i used suave apple)
• 1 Tablespoon lotion
• 1 Tablespoon EVOO

i just put it all in a small jar and shook it up. it was really runny. seems a lot of people were having that problem. i remembered old shaving soap and dug out an old kabuki-style makeup brush i had, put a little of the mix in a mug and whisked it up with the brush. it lathers great! i just brushed the foam on my legs and shaved. i only need a couple tablespoons, my skin feels great, and i love the smell. so glad i found this recipe!

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

i travel for my job, so i’ve been out town the past couple of weeks and staying at my dad’s place while i work. while i’ve missed being home i’ve had plenty to keep me busy.

i’ve mostly been doing a lot of fabric cutting in my free time. my dad realized over the years he’s accumulated more bedding than he can use, and gave me a bunch of old sheet sets. some i’ll use, but i have a queen sized bed and most of them were twin or full sized, so i have a lot of fabric to work with. i’ll be making some clothes out of some of them, but some are getting turned into cleaning cloths. lots of cleaning cloths. including cloth napkins. a lot more earth and budget friendly at dinner time than paper towels.

i’ve also been working on a plastic canvas mail sorter. i’m hoping to get all the pieces needle pointed before i go home, then finish it up there.

i’ve also been working on a set of blackwork butterflies i intend to decorate my kitchen with. they’re really portable, so they make a good travel project. my ADHD makes it hard for me to concentrate unless i have something for my hands to do, so it’s also great to shove in my backpack when i visit friends and family, to help keep my mind on the conversation.

i can’t wait to get back home and back to my studio, not to mention my fiance! first project i need to tackle is some waaaaaay over due skirts i owe my mother-in-law… but first, figuring out how to cram all that fabric into my luggage…

“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” --Marcus Aurelius

i got a couple of great responses from my last post! thank you for reading! i wish i knew where my camera was so i could show you the progress as it’s made, but for now i’ll have to do my best to describe it.

so far today we’ve gotten all the fabric moved in. it’s all lined up against one wall (where i hope to put bookshelves eventually), in eight 18 gallon rubbermade totes, one 30 gallon tote, two 5 gallon buckets, a dozen or so medium sized boxes, a bunch of little boxes, and some bags.

it’s crazy how much fabric i’ve accumulated! i’ve never had a space big enough or organized enough to keep it in, so most of it has been in storage for years. i kept gathering more because i didn’t have access to what i had, and now that i have it all in one place it’s a little nuts. and that’s after getting rid of some of it before i moved to this state! i can’t wait to get the chance to dive into it all and see what i’ve got, but that’s going to be a big project!

i have a long and narrow closet in my studio, but currently it’s mostly filled. it and the door to the room take up one whole wall. the top shelf is full of boxes of unfinished projects. the bottom has a giant (currently unoccupied) pet cage, a large box of decorations and a few other odds and ends in it.

the wall opposite the closet has a HUGE window, which i love. lots of air flow makes it the coolest room in the house right now. and lots of natural light means i rarely have to use artificial lighting. under the window is my desk, which has a fan, my sewing machine, space for my laptop, and three stacks of tiny drawers (i <3 these so much!). so far i have drawers for:

• general office supplies (pencil sharpeners, erasers, that kind of thing)
• pens
• pencils
• mechanical pencils (had so many pencils i had to split them into two drawers! o.o; )
• permanent markers
• wet and dry erase markers
• highlighters
• batteries
• lighters
• ink cartages (empty ones i need to recycle. XD )

i have about 20 more little drawers that are empty or filled with stuff that needs sorting. i think i might use one for my crochet hooks, one for scrap thread (threads i trim off things i’m sewing by machine, that are long enough to baste things, like paper pieced hexagons), and one for straight pins. not sure what i’ll be using the rest for, but i’ll figure that out as i go along.

on the remaining wall i have a bookshelf that’s falling apart that i need to get a bunch of brackets to shore everything up, but until i can get around to that (hopefully soon!) it’s just kinda taking up space. >.< next to it i have a bookshelf that just needs a little fixing up that i plan on putting all my crafting books, magazines, and patterns on. next to the bookshelf is a plastic tower of drawers, kind of like this one,

except mine had 4 large drawers and two small ones. i have one small drawer for buttons, one small drawer empty, one large one for stamps, stencils and punches, and currently one large one full of bottles of paint, but it’s over flowing, and i have a whole other box that’s still unpacked, so need to figure out where i want to move it to. to of the large drawers are still empty. next to that is another 30 gallon tote full of a couple quilt projects. probably going to move that to the closet once the cage is moved out.

in the middle of the room i have our old dining room table. it’s counter height which is *great* for a cutting table. but i’m short. so it kind of sucked for sitting at. >.< really the only time we ever ate at the table was when we had company, so it was mostly just being a clutter collector at our old place anyway. hopefully we’ll be able to scrounge up a new table and chairs before we get around to entertaining again. under the table i have all sorts of storage goodies. i have three rows of yaffa blocks and a tower of small bins on one side, a tower of three larger bins on another side, a 3 drawered tower and another tower of small bins on the third side, and a filing-cabinet-like thing on the last side. so far i have thread, molds, and paint samples in baskets on top of yaffa blocks and the drawer tower, and small bins for:

• scissors (all sorts, for cutting paper, fabric, border shapes, etc)
• other sharp things (box cutters, exact-o knives, sculpting tools… be careful when reaching in that bin!)
• tapes and glue (might make them two separate bins, eventually)
• glue guns, glue sticks, and my wood burner (hot things with cords go together, right?)
• handled punches (single hole punches, grommet setter, etc)

in theory i want to put all my supplies under the table and on my desk, all my materials and bookish things along the walls, and projects-in-progress in the closet. not sure if it’s going to be practical to do it that way entirely, though.

i still have to figure out where to put my yarn. i have one very large box (bigger than the 18 gallon totes, maybe as big as the 30 gallons), two or three medium sized boxes, a small box, and a couple small bags. if i could store it the way i wanted, i’d probably have enough to fill 2/3 of a bookcase. i also need to figure out where to put my candle making supplies, which would probably fill most of a shelf, my beads and beading supplies which would fill most of another shelf, and my altered art (scrapbooking paper, clipart, glitter etc) supplies, which currently occupy 3 or 4 boxes. i also have good sized boxes of plastic canvas i need to figure out where to store! my dad got them for me at a yard sale a few years back for dirt cheep (that’s where most of my yarn came from too), and i have enough to last me a lifetime!

then i have a million odds and ends, like old cassette tapes and floppy disks that i need to figure out where to put until i can do something with them. i want to use some of the floppy disks to make some cool looking storage bins to sort things on shelves once i get them, like this one from readapta 2.0:

i also have a ton of baskets a TON of plastic pencil boxes (got them on sale for 10 cents each a few years  back!) and some good clear storage boxes. all in all i have a bunch of storage, and i have a bunch of stuff, i just need to figure out how i want to put it all together, and get some shelving so a bunch of it isn’t just stacked on each other.

i know this was a loooong post, and thank you for reading it! i wish i had done it sooner, because writing it out like this has helped me sort through some of my thoughts and come up with some good ideas! any and all sugestions are welcome! i’ll keep you all posted on my progress.

closing the gap between dreaming and doing

i spent the day looking at organized craft rooms/studios in an attempt to get mine organized... but there's just so many questions left! like where to i store mask molds? or what do i do with the billions of yards of fabric i've collected over the years until i can get a bookshelf to put them on? should glitter paint be classified as glitter or paint?

things that still need a home:

• paints
• glitter
• beads
• fabric
• yarn
• knitting needles
• crochet hooks
• lots of plastic canvas
• scrapbook paper
• my huge, heavy, industrial three hole punch
• lots of things i’m probably forgetting.

so far i have figured out where to put:

• books
• scissors
• glues
• tapes
• glue guns
• wood burner
• stamps/stencils and punches
• buttons
• pens/pencils/markers/crayons
• paintbrushes

i’ve gotten some great ideas from pinterest, and hopefully before it’s all over i’ll have gotten more. here’s some ideas i’ve used, or plan to use.

from mathew moss’s flickr, altoid tins labeled and stored on their side.

from prudent baby, thin ribbon and trim organized in tic tac containers. smart, and cute!

i couldn’t find the source for this one, but grouping objects in ziplock bags and hanging them from shower rings and/or binder clips is genius.

from i love my three sons. a great way to keep decorative paper grouped and under control, but still easily accessible and no out-of-sight-out-of-mind problems like i have with my current system.

from the red kitchen, ribbon spool organizers from pencils and eraser caps. so simple, so smart.

things i’ve done in the past few days:

finished work on the knitted pillowcase border. now i just need to figure out how i want to back it.

experimented with making bar soap into hand soap. i used dial gold soap, and ended up with a snotty mess the consistency of egg whites. not sure what i did wrong, or if it’s just the kind of soap, but it was an interesting experiment. and even though it’s a little weirdly textured, it’s still usable.

finished a knit cuddlefish (see what i did there?) i started years ago.

finished the hair on an embroidered patch of the sandman  and bastet from neil gaiman’s graphic novel series. all that’s left to do is finish the background and bind it off, but i’m at a standstill because the embroidery floss i need is still packed away.

worked on a cross stitch project i started a LONG time ago, until i again needed thread that’s packed away. then i worked on a different unfinished cross stitch project.

basted more hexagons for my quilt.

patched my best bed sheet because squeebles got to it. XD

now i just need to figure out how/if i can stand at my cutting table with an injured foot, so i can work on some skirts i should have gotten to my mother-in-law months ago. >.<

When liberty returns, I will return. (Victor Hugo)

it’s been a long while since i posted. time to catch up a little!

i moved at the beginning of the year, and i’ve been happier than i have been in a while. :) i’ve got a new home studio that i’m *thrilled* with. i’m still haven’t gotten my supplies unpacked for the most part, though.

this year i plan on working on *finishing* projects. i realized i have a million unfinished projects laying around. i’ve already finished a few in the past couple of weeks. i don’t plan on starting anything new this year, unless it’s something i *need*, like clothing.

i’ve discovered pinterest. i’m totally addicted! i love it. i’m a visual thinker, and it just… it totally works with my brain. i’ve become way more productive and inspired since i started using it. and found a lot of cleaver solutions i’ve put to use, too.

i’ve lost my camera (yet again) so pix will be sparse for now. i hope to post at least once a week, and hopefully more frequently once i find the camera.

things of note i did today:

• finished a cross stitch pattern on a patch of hand-woven fabric (will post pix later).
• started work on finishing a border of a pillow case intended to match my crochet bedspread.
• dehydrated a bunch of aging bananas.

“Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those of a chick, which has not broken its way through its shell, might form of the outside world.”

it’s been a long time since i posted, and the cookbook thing didn’t happen for reasons i won’t go into right now. let’s move on to one of my recent creations.

here’s a cute little chick bag i crocheted that i’m putting up for sale.

it’s about 11 1/2 inches (29 cm) tall with handles, and about 10 inches (26 cm) wide. inside it’s just about the right size for a 7x9 inch book, with room on the sides for extra stuff. a notebook (the ol’ paper kind) fits really well too.

the top closes with a flap and a crocheted button in the back

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear

i’ve been working on a hexagon quilt. i plan on doing it in purples, blues and greens, all paper pieced and sewn by hand. the back will be all black, with silver latticing where the front has black. i’ll be ‘stuffing’ it with a hexagon of fleece in between layers, as i go along, working from the inside out, joining front and back as i go. i already have one of the diamonds done, and several more cut out. i can get a diamond out of an 1/8 of a yard, and i plan on checking out the remnants every time i go to the store.

…I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible…

i’ve decided to write a cookbook. i want to combine my love of culture and cooking, and make a book with healthy, budget-friendly recipes inspired by dishes from around the world. i figure it will take me a couple of years, but so far it’s been really fun! i love learning and i look forward to picking countries that i know little or nothing about the cuisine. the first country i chose to research is Nigeria. i plan on writing 7 recipes inspired my each country/region/culture. some will be more difficult than others. i did china in an evening. Nigeria might take me a month. so far i’ve tried a recipe called jollof rice. it was pretty good. i didn’t realize i didn’t  have any thyme until it was half made, so i used marjoram in the recipe, but i think i’ll like it even better with thyme and can’t wait to try it again.

 

next i plan on working on korean recipes. i have a few good resources for that, so it should go pretty quickly.

if anyone has any favorite ethnic dishes, please suggest them, and/or share your favorite recipes!

 

on another note, my ferret seems to have moved into my bathtub. O.o he’s not able to get around like he used to anymore, so we moved him to a smaller cage. well, he didn’t like doing his business in there, so we would let him out in the kitchen and let him go on newspaper, and throw it away when he was done. then i realized the bathtub would be better, because it would be easier to clean up any… uh… overflow puddles. i also put a bowl of water on the other end of the tub, because he likes to drink out of bowls when he’s not in his cage. he got to the point he would pluck on the bars of his cage with his claws when he needed to go potty.
one day we let him out to play, and he curled up under one of my shirts in the closet and fell asleep. i decided to put him back in his cage to sleep, but i picked him up (shirt and all) and put him in the tub first so he could get a drink and go piddle if he need too. he got a drink. then crawled under the shirt and went back to sleeping. in the tub. o.O lol. he was just so content to sleep in the bathtub for the next hour and a half. i kept checking on him every so often, and when he woke up, got a drink, did his business, and went back to bed, i decided to put some food next to the water and just let him be. now we’ve got into the schedule of putting him in the tub in the morning when we get up, changing the paper ever time he goes, and putting him back in his cage at night or when we take a shower. with his mobility issues he can’t get out, and he seems very happy in there. and it’s easier to get him out for cuddles or play time. he likes to cuddle with me and my fiancé in the evenings when we watch tv. he seems to think he’s not in a cage anymore and has his own bedroom. lol. we moved squeebles into his old cage, which is HUGE for such a little rat, and she seemed confused for the first few days. i think she didn’t think she was in a cage either, and was trying to figure out how to get to us when we were on the couch. lol

i’m back

my medical issue has been long resolved, but i’ve been too busy to blog. i had a major migraine for over two weeks, that got worse before it got better. then it just went away. O.o it wasn’t my old problem returning. they never did figure out what caused it. i basically paid $100 for the ophthalmologist to tell me i had a bad migraine. >.<

we have high-speed internet again! with the deal we made with the phone company, the DSL actually ends up being cheaper than dialup! it’s insane. i’m glad to be part of the 21st century again. it definitely makes blogging easier.

i’ve been busy while i was gone. i lost some storage space and my house ended up packed with boxes and crap i had to sort through and find places for. probably ended up tossing half of it. i’m finally able to see an end to the chaos. there’s more clean in the house than just a pathway now. except the sewing room. it’s trashed. it’ll be a while before i’ll be able to get to it.

the bottom heating element of our (electric) oven burned out. we need to get the landlord to replace it, and hopefully make some other repairs, but we want to get the place a bit more presentable first. hopefully we’ll have a working oven to roast our thanksgiving turkey in! there will be no baking for now, except what can be done in the toaster oven.

over the next few days i’ll update about the projects and stuff i’ve been working on while i was away. it’s good to be blogging again. :D

ugh

due to medical problems, i’m going to be severely limited on how much i post. i’ve had a migraine for a week and don’t have an appointment with an ophthalmologist until friday to see if my idiopathic intracranial hypertension has come back or not. >.< so i don’t know when i’ll post next.

material blessings, when they pay beyond the category of need, are weirdly fruitful of headache

i’ve had a stupid headache for the past 4 days. ugh. i haven’t got much done. if i move more than to go to the bathroom, or get around too much light my head throbs and i feel like i’m going to throw up. oddly, the first hour or so after i wake up in the morning i’m fine, and it goes away occasionally, but it comes right back if im not careful.  ugh. well, i’m getting a lot of reading done, again. some day i’ll be productive.

i’ve been keeping track of what i eat, just haven’t been posting it to the menu, cuz computer light sucks. XD

::goes to curl up with the 6th sookie stackhouse book::

He that will not give some portion of his ease, his blood, his wealth, for others' good, is a poor, frozen churl

i spent most of yesterday cutting up fruits and vegetables. since i was sick, and now my fiancé has caught it, we haven’t been up to dealing with or eating the fresh produce we’ve gotten lately. then my dad gave me a bunch of extra stuff from his garden. so we had waaaay too much, and most of it needed to be frozen. i really really wish we had a chest or upright freezer! the one above the fridge to so small, and sucks, a lot.
i managed to:
dice 2 bell peppers
dice 2 onions
shuck a dozen ears of corn
slice 1 1/2 pounds of strawberries
sliced up 1 bunch green unions
cut 3 zucchinis into chunks
made a batch of black bean “hummus”
turned 2-3 pounds of multi colored carrots into carrot sticks.
i was exhausted by time i was done. and i didn’t even finish what i started out to do, i’m still cleaning out my fridge and salvaging what i can. i can’t wait until i’m over this nasty cold or whatever it is we’ve got. >.<

the “black bean “hummus”” just tasted like bean dip to me. i don’t like bean dip. so i reduced the amount of cumin, added 2 Tablespoon of tahini, and about a 1/4 cup or so of lemon juice,  and a teaspoon of chicken bouillon, to make it taste more like actual hummus. i think black beans could make a decent faux hummus, if made the same as hummus, with some added chicken broth or bouillon powder. i want to experiment with different kinds of beans, to see how cheep and healthy i can make it. i’ve come to *love* hummus, and with as low calorie as it can be made, i plan on keeping a ton of it around.

last night for dinner i made the hamburger casserole i had planned. i forgot the mushrooms, probably would have been better with it. i used canned potatoes, because i was too tired to use fresh ones. might have been better with fresh, too. i wasn’t all that impressed. it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t very memorable.

today i plan on catching up on dishes and spend some time pampering myself. there’s a ton of stuff to do around the house, but i have to keep reminding myself that i’m still sick, and the harder i push myself the longer i will be. ::sigh::

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

i did better yesterday on my diet than i did the day before. today my plan went completely out the window because i had to work when i didn’t expect to. but i stuck to my points pretty well, anyway. i’ve moved the dinner i’d planned for tonight to later in the month.
i got a bunch of home grown produce. my dad grew more than he could use, so he gave some to me. i got some small, long eggplant, a couple of zucchinis, and a bunch of different colored carrots. there’s white, yellow, orange, red, and purple carrots in the bunch. the darker the carrot, the sweeter they are. the purple ones are my favorite. they go *great* with the hummus my fiancé made from scratch . it’s really good. i was supposed to get some fresh basil from my dad too, but i forgot it at his house. XD

spent my free time at work working on the NIN cross-stitch some more. hasn’t been a very productive few days. i’m feeling a little bit better, but i’m still not feeling all that well. time to get some sleep. g’night.

“Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired” –Mark Twain

i had to go into work for a few hours in the afternoon yesterday, even though i’m still not feeling well. at least i’m starting to get a little better, though. the swelling in my throat has gone down, and i don’t feel quite as week and achy, but i still get tired very easily. i tried making dinner last night. i’d been looking forward to trying the recipe, and i thought i was up to it. i probably shouldn’t have. half way through i just wanted to be done with it, and it didn’t turn out as well as it probably could have. i did really bad on my eating plan, but at least i recorded it. and i’ll do better today. i plan on comparing what i actually ate, to the plan, on the menu page. i have to work again today. hopefully i’m not pushing myself too hard and make myself sicker. i just need to make it through the next 2 days, and then i can rest for most of the rest of the week.

::thwaps blogger::

every time i try to save, blogger screws up my formatting. so if my menu looks like suck, it's blogger, not me. also, chloraseptic cough drops are wonderful. *heart*

wake up feeling green, sick as a dog and six times as mean

i’ve been sick since sunday. i feel like shit. my throat and sinuses are swollen, my throat feels like someone took sand paper too it, i can’t sleep for more than two hours at a time because coughing wakes me up. and i have a really annoying mouth sore. and the soonest i can go to a doctor is probably monday, if i can at all. which sucks. really sucks. and i’m weak and i ache all over. yet i still don’t have a fever. which is very confusing. i’ve barely gotten out of bed since sunday. when i do it’s to play games on the computer to distract myself from how miserable i am a the moment. one good thing (and only one) has come out of it. i’ve gotten a lot of reading done. i have a bunch of ebooks, and i’ve been reading those on my little ancient pda. i read book 4 (dead to the world) of the sookie stackhouse books by charlaine harris in a day and a half. i’m reading a few short stories before i move on to book 5 (dead as a doornail). i’m posting july’s menu today. it’s not done, but i’ll update it as i feel up to it. i’m headed back to bed. g’night.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. - Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

i’ve been working every day since the 19th, which is unusual for me. i usually only work a couple days in a row. so i’ve been busy with that, and my schedule has completely suffered. i haven’t gotten much done except some work on the NIN cross-stitch. and i’ve been playing too much frontierville on facebook. XD it is sooooo like harvest moon 2.0 or something. lol

i plan on posting my monthly menus again, starting in july. i also plan on recording how closely i stuck to the plan, too. i figure if i keep it public it’ll help by making me more accountable. i tried that for a while, and it worked pretty well.

my fiancé did the grocery shopping this week, and he did a *really* good job getting some produce. he got 5 peaches, 3 pounds of strawberries, 4 pounds of grapes, and a couple zucchinis, all for less than a dollar a pound! he also got a pound of cherries for $1.50, which is a pretty good price for cherries, and 9 ears of corn for $3. i have a lot of healthy stuff to be eating this week. :D