Skirt score!

I had my eye on this skirt at Goodwill. I tried it on (God bless Goodwill for fitting rooms!) and it was just too big. For $4.99 I couldn’t conscience buying a skirt I’d have to alter. But I went back on a Monday when everything with a blue tag was $1.29. This had a blue tag, so I bought it. I put a few darts in the elastic waistband and now it fits just fine. It’s an Eddie Bauer, 100% cotton skirt with a 100% cotton lining. I really like it.

Time for a reboot

I fell off the blogging map a few years ago. I stopped posting, got out of the habit, and every time I thought of picking it up again some excuse got in the way.

But recently I’ve found a new obsession, shopping at the local thrift shops in Seattle. There are a lot of them. And they have some really, really great finds. I’ve started to take risks in the stuff I try on and the things I buy, because it’s easier to take that risk when I’m spending $4-$6 for it. That’s my usual goal. Something vintage or awesome in the shoe department gets a pass at a larger splurge. I have a couple different kinds of boots I have my eye on, for example, and I’ll pay more if I can get a lot of wear out of it.

In the meantime, I’m still trying out experiments in gardening, and I go through a pretty obsessive canning phase every summer. I also love baking my own bread and making a lot of the food I take to work. I like sewing, knitting, jewelry making, and quilting. Why not document it? So I figured I’d give blogging another shot.

I look forward to hearing criticisms, suggestions, ideas and contradictions. I want to have fun with my failures as well as my successes. As long as I learn from the failure I’ll be able to reap some benefit from it.

The poor person's air conditioning

So. It got up to 104 degrees today. It's supposed to hit at least 100 tomorrow. No a/c in the house, no a/c at my PT office job, no a/c on the bus. It's been a lot more tolerable than I would've expected, but really, I gotta maximize the complainance potential of this scenario, right?

What do you do to stay cool in a situation like this? There's massive hydration, of course. The wearing of natural fibers (I was wearing a rayon slip under my skirt on Monday and boy o boy did I regret that). Eating cold foods (pasta salad, green salads, fruit). But nothing takes the edge off the end of a hot day like:



The summer cocktail. This is a rather poorly-rendered picture of a gin and tonic. Summer cocktails are great in that they don't need lots of booze, and therefore can stretch your alcohol for a lengthy period of time. Lemonade cocktails are also great--lemonade with vodka, with strawberry vodka, with a few splashes of bourbon--good stuff. Gives you a sip of summer, lets you chill out after a hard day, and stretches your liquor cabinet. If you have a fave summer drink, feel free to toss your preferences in the comments.

Blackberries--not the digital kind

Whoa. Um...ok, way, way too long since I've posted. Eep. Time to get back in the saddle with this baby.

Of course, summer in the PNW makes that pretty easy to do. There's lots of free entertainment to be had (hiking, taking walks, hanging out at the fantabulous public library) and hopefully those are easy things to do all over the country. But I gotta say, foraging is pretty great out here. In the last 3 days I've picked about 4 pounds of these:

They're coming into their own, but as you can probably see, a lot of 'em are still green...so they'll be ripening for the next month or so. Plenty of blackberries whenever I want them. I've made 4 cups into a cobbler:

A very, very easy one courtesy of a FB friend. I love FB way too much for my own good. 

And muffins are next on the list. 

Meanwhile, there's also a cherry plum tree in our driveway. They're kinda small-looking to be plausible plums, but they're definitely edible (and tasty):

So I'm gonna try to take full advantage of the free fruit. 

Meanwhile I've seen chammomile growing wild along the side of the road. I'd love to harvest and dry it to make tea, but it doesn't seem to be blooming before it dies. It needs to flower first before being dried for tea, am I right?

Inspiration

I've had the honor of doing some writing and web development work for this family for a couple months now. Their drive, ability, and great attitude constantly remind me of what's possible when you focus on the ways you want to create positive change in your environment. Check it out...

Saving Up

I’ve always been a compulsive pack rat. It’s almost inevitable when one of your obsessions is crafting—save the fabric scraps, maybe you can use ‘em in a quilt. Those little pieces of yarn? You might be able to use them as stitch markers for your knitting. Little bits of paper left over from making Valentines? You could use them in another card!

Now that I’m keeping a closer eye over our food expenditures, I find myself doing the same while cooking. A roast chicken recently made a nice dinner. The extra meat was stripped off the bones so I could freeze the carcass for making stock later. The extra meat found its way into sandwiches and a chicken casserole, made with leftover frozen veggies, a quick milk and mushroom roux and some sautéed onion, celery and pasta. The extra onion and celery went into this morning’s scrambled eggs. The piece of bacon I didn’t end up eating with my eggs made it into a grilled cheese sandwich.

Naturally if you lose track of all the little items you save, you can have some scary results in the fridge. But that little bit-by-bit chipping away of leftovers can make a difference in the grocery bill. The chicken casserole alone resulted in 2 dinners I hadn’t planned on, extending my menu planning and creating a quick-heat meal to enjoy in the next day or two.

It’s also good to keep a few items on hand that allow for easy folding-in of leftovers. Quesadillas are a great way to use up leftover meat—scatter in some cheese and a bit of chopped jalepeno with the meat between 2 tortillas and heat on both sides in an oiled skillet and you’ve got a meal. Keeps eggs around for when you want to toss leftover ingredients into an omlet for a quick dinner.

And as usual, organizing works wonders. That may seem obvious, but given how disorganized I can be I’m constantly amazed by what can be accomplished by a list on the fridge to keep track of prepped food leftovers waiting to perk up or even make a dish.

Ok, now I’m getting hungry. What are your fave ways to use up leftovers?

Interesting vid

I'm ashamed to say I'm still kinda confused about it all, but then, so are a lot of economists. But I found this video to be somewhat helpful:


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.