Phoning in the weekend... on Wednesday

Hello everybody! It was a big weekend, mostly full of food. So that's a pretty good thing, huh?

First my sisters and I got mani/pedis with our mom as a belated mother's day present. When I asked for a glass of water the kind receptionist brought me this goblet of water. I'm going to start drinking water out of wine glasses all the time; it's much more fancy.

After mani/pedis it was time to prepare for my youngest sister's bachelorette party! I made some cupcakes that called for beating six eggs whites until they formed stiff peaks. It never fails to amaze me how much egg whites expand! Look at that! It's kind of gross but so impressive! It's as magical to me as instant mashed potatoes. And if you are thinking that a woman who is amazed by egg whites and instant mashed potatoes must be constantly in awe of the world around her...you are correct.

I ended up not making guacamole for the bahelorette party, so I had a left over avocado! I baked an egg in it and topped it with goat cheese and salsa. And I was so happy I died and then came back to life. But that's just a normal reaction to goat cheese.

This didn't happen over the weekend, but if I deprive even one person of this picture, I could never forgive myself. This is me knitting with my niece Evelyn who at that moment was embodying Cinderella and "knitting" (stabbing a blanket repeatedly with knitting needles). It was the cutest thing ever.

Pinterest Wednesday: the day your breath started smelling like onions forever

You guys, seriously. Seriously. You will smell like red onions for the rest of your natural life and you will not care even a little.

I made this for dinner Monday night to top a lentils and rice dish I made and I haven't stopped eating it since. It is summer in a bowl and I long for the day i can make it with produce fresh from the farmer's market. It's cold, crisp, refreshing and just delicious. I'm used to making this type of salad with an olive oil, lemon, garlic dressing but the red wine vinegar, olive oil, oregano is a new winner.

Click the picture to get to the pin, then to the recipe, then to heaven in salad form.

Happy New Habit Thursday

Source

Happy Thursday one and all!


True confession time: I can sleep through basically any alarm all the time and the snooze button is my absolute #1 best friend. I am THE WORST at getting up on time and it always starts my day off on the wrong foot. I'm rushing around, running late, scolding myself mentally for sleeping in too late. I've tried the obvious things like making sure I'm getting enough sleep but still I hit snooze. I have seriously considered getting this alarm clock but it sounds like a nightmare and not that much better of a way to wake up.

For a while now I've been slowly building a meditation practice in the morning. It's nothing fancy at all, up until this morning it's just been sitting in bed and setting an intention for the day. Usually my intentions are something like, "Take today as it comes," or "Let yourself feel joy today," or "Allow the script to change," because I have problems with over planning and getting bogged down in to-do lists. So last night I decided to expand on it to try to help with my snooze-button problem. As I lay down in bed last night I visualized myself turning off my alarm clock and getting out of bed. I pictured myself stepping onto the rug at the foot of the bed and assuming Sukhasana, setting my intention, breathing three deep breathes, then walking into the living room, turning on a jazz record and enjoying my shower without all the rushing and negative self-talk.

You guys, it worked so well.

The alarm went off and I did not want to get up. I wanted to hit snooze. But I had clearly laid out a plan for my morning and I liked the plan. SO I DID IT! I know this might be a bit of overcelebration for a 30 year old woman to get out of bed on time, but whatever, it made my morning so much better.

I highly, highly recommend visualization and morning meditation. Don't be put off by the word meditation, in my opinion you can make of it what you will. Mine probably takes 3 minutes and involved the intention setting and listening to my breath. That is all. It will probably change in the future and I may not always do it, but right now I find it very soothing. I can return to my intention, breathing, and meditative state throughout the day if my thoughts start to get frantic.

If you're looking for a more spiritual bent, or some inspirational thoughts to meditate on, allow me to recommend my friend Heather's blog. She has offered my friends and me wonderful advice and guidance and I'm so pleased she's decide to expand on that with this blog!
 
In musical news, I just discovered My Brightest Diamond and I CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO IT.

Happy Magical Thursday

Hello everybody!

I don't know about you, but Thursdays are magical for me. Not just because the weekend is fast approaching but because I finally start to feel like I'm catching up on my week's to-do list! Thursday is the first day of the week that I work less than three hours at the Reference Desk. I absolutely LOVE working at the Reference Desk because helping people is my favorite part of my job and hearing their questions helps inform how I conceive of our library and how I do all the other parts of my job.

But.

As anyone who works at a Reference Desk will tell you, you do not get a lot done while you're there. Because of that, every week I panic Monday through Wednesday and convince myself I'll never get it all done! But then Thursday comes with its magical one hour of Reference and suddenly I'm cutting through my to-do list and feeling pretty proud of myself. While never ever remembering this basic pattern of my week causes panic (and some concern over my short-term memory) it also makes Thursdays magical!

As I get back to my magical Thursday of Happy Working, I wish you the same and give you the gift of the soundtrack of my morning

Pinterest Wednesday: Treat yo cuticles!

Please click through to the pin for recipe

Because this winter has been so harsh and because he often works outside, I made some cuticle cream for my boyfriend for Valentine's day. I used the recipe linked above because it looked pretty simple and ordered my supplies from Mountain Rose Herbs with the exception of the essential oils which I bought from my lovely and amazing friend Heather (if you're in the Mount Pleasant area and would like to buy from her, email me!).

In the days leading up to the time I planned to make this, I kept tracking my package from Mountain Rose Herbs and watching it get closer and closer until a major snow storm slowed it down, so it was late and I didn't get to make it in time for Valentines day. Hoist by winter's petard again! When my package finally arrived, I kept checking the pin all day to make sure I hadn't forgotten something. I tend to be the queen of getting ready to make a "simple" new recipe that I have read a thousand times only to discover that I missed the fact that it requires unicorn tears and some complicated piece of kitchen machinery that I do not own. But everything looked to be in order and you know what? It totally was. The beeswax takes FOREVER to melt but other than that, this was no problem whatsoever! I don't have a double boiler so I just melted everything over low heat (FOREVER) and did homework at the counter while I stirred.

Because the recipe makes so little, I doubled it and kept one tin for myself. I love it! I've been using it every night before bed and I've definitely noticed a difference in my cuticles but most importantly my fingers aren't cracking by the corners of my nails anymore, which was happening a lot and is very painful. As the website mentions, it's not so much a cream as a balm: the ingredients are very solid at room temp so you don't scoop this in your hands as much as you rub it with your finger tips until it warms and then spread it over your cuticles.

This is a complete pinterest win and I HIGHLY recommend it. Also, I HIGHLY recommend Mountain Rose Herbs for all your herbal product needs. Their prices are fair and I love their values and mission. I used one of their 4oz tins for each of the batches of cuticle cream and it was perfect.

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday, everyone! Who has big plans for the weekend? If you're in Michigan (and many other places) I'm sure you're one big goal is the same as mine: stay warm. Here's something I used to get my blood pumping this Friday morning:

If you're looking for more of a chill vibe this Friday, might I recommend this interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. This man is amazing.

Happy Friday!

Phoning in the weekend

I started off the weekend with some wine and good friends. We all had rough(ish) weeks and needed a good time! We took this picture to send to one of our other friends who was cheersing us from a distance on vacation.

On Saturday, I did some car knitting (dishcloths are the perfect travel project) on our way up to Houghton Lake to visit some friends. I snow shoed for the first time and it's my new favorite thing! It's so good to get out on a winter's day when the weather allows it.

On Sunday, we celebrated my nephew's first birthday. He won't officially be one until Thursday, but he got to smash his cupcake (verdict: smashing is fun, eating is alright, but less fun) and got TONS of presents. His favorite thing to do was grab a box and scootch across the floor with it.

I have had these cats for 10 years and they still manage to find ways to be cuter than I ever thought possible.

How was your weekend? I hope you got to spend it with animals, activities, and children you love!

Happy Final Catdown Thursday

Happy Thursday everyone! Look at what my sweet friend Liz found for me:

Isn't that THE BEST?!

Today is Liz's birthday! If you know her, tell her happy birthday, and if you don't find a random Liz of your acquaintance and wish her a happy birthday! Confusing, but sweet.

Here are a few fun facts about my friend Liz: ever since I put her contact information in my phone (several phones ago) at The Bird she has been listed as "Liz!" Every year, Liz and I go on a major thrifting shopping extravaganza around the same time every year and we call it Friendaversary.  I credit Liz with my love of Belle and Sebastian, my exposure to the only two (or so?) Tori Amos songs I like, and with introducing me to this song:

Liz has the best tattoos, the prettiest hair color (all of her hair colors), the coolest glasses, the fattest cat (I say it with love, Lola!) and the sweetest heart. I love you friend! Happy birthday!

Phoning in the weekend- Valentine's edition

Hello everyone, and happy start of your week! I hope you had a lovely, restful Valentine's weekend! Mine was very fun.

It started out with Valentine's cards and treats for my student assistants and trying to bribe my APA manual to be good to me while I write a paper for a conference (come to Denver, it's going to be fun!)

After work, I drove to Grand Rapids for a fun filled evening of dinner, drinks, and pin ball!

The next day, we went to the Grand Rapids Public Library (amazing!), a plant store, a record shop, and a local brewery for snacks and drinks. Also, the gorgeous antique store pictured above where I was almost overcome by all of my antique store addictions: sparkly jewelry, bags, Fiesta Ware, and hats. If there had been more Pyrex I would have been truly done in.

Sunday was lazy with sleeping in, pancakes, and dinner with my family. What did you do this weekend?

Happy Favorite Song Thursday

(Disclaimer, I don't know anything about these videos, I just picked them in kind of a hurry to share the songs. So enjoy the songs! And maybe the videos?)

Happy Thursday, one and all! While I can't pick a favorite song for all time, I always have one or two favorites at any given time. 

Recently I came across this on Pandora. I had forgotten how much I love it!

So naturally I ordered the CD from MelCat so I could hear more from this band. That's when I discovered they also sang this song:

That song was on a CD one of Erica's friends sent her when we were roommates on Locust Street. We listened to the CD, oh, a thousand times? A week? It was our fav! It was the soundtrack to the winter of 2007 along with (for me) Against Me

 

Fiona Apple

And the Hold Steady

So now my old favorite songs are new again! It's like being an angsty 23 year old again, except I'm not actually. Which is preferable. Now songs like this are my real favorites:

Pinterest Wednesday- Messy Microwave

Living alone means pockets of grossness can happen in a relatively normal looking house. I'm the only one who sees certain things so I'm not always super picky about how they are cleaned. Especially if, like a microwave, the pocket comes with it's own door that you can shut and forget that you said "YUCK" out loud when you opened it.

It was gross, ok? And I'm not going to post pictures of it here because I didn't take any because I was in a hurry to clean. But I tried this technique (click on the image to see the pin and subsequently the webpage for a full description) and it worked really nicely! You still (if you have let things get as bad as I did) have to scrub a little, but a wet dishcloth was all it took. I highly recommend this!

Phoning in the weekend (only not really)

Here are the three pictures I took this weekend. That is it. It was a super busy and fun weekend, I just didn't document a lot of it. What these three pictures do document is getting ready for a fancy dinner, getting a surprise picture of Roman, and a difficult pattern I was working on which I sent a picture of to Erica to get her to join in on my self pity.

Not pictured activities include: getting coffee and going to the coolest specialty bookstore, the 1939 copy of Jane Eyre I bought there, finding SO MANY RECORDS I've been searching for at the record store (including two Mel Tormes, Jethro Tull Stand Up, Little Orphan Annie for  a dollar, and a Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers Christmas album!), walking around a super cool fish store, knitting, eating dinner with my family, and playing cards with good friends.

Sometimes your just too busy to take pictures, I guess! What did you do this weekend?

Friday FO's Procrastination Buster

Remember my super awesome cast-on? Well, it turned into this hat:

Nate, in all his sassy glory.

Poor Nate has waiting four years for a hat. It was one of those things, I just never got around to it. But finally, it's done! I loved that pattern, it's my favorite basic hat pattern thus far.

I also finally got around to finishing this blanket for my lovely Heather:

I highly recommend this pattern if you are trying to knit a blanket in a hurry. You can see that at one point in time I was in such a hurry that I started my i-cord border before I cast off! And then I let it languish for a long time, for reasons. But it's finished now and keeping Heather warm and cozy!

Another project I finished was this cute Generations Bag for my cousin's Natalie's wedding!

And finally, this scarf which is the first thing I can ever remember knitting solely for myself and not as a gift or for a craft show! I made up the pattern as I went using beautiful yarn I bought at a LYS in Lansing called Sticks and Strings. I used the yarn as inspiration and knit long stretches of garter stitch and seed stitch (which I am currently obsessed with). The interplay between the textures and colors are exactly what I was hoping for!

I foresee more FO's in my future now that classes are done for the semester. I'm going through a major knitting phase so if you have any TV or movie recommendations for while I'm knitting, I would appreciate it. I just started season one of Moone Boy and oh my lord I love it! I'm trying to ration it out, but I'm not being terribly successful.

Happy Weekend!

Happy Thursday Texts from my sister

Happy Thursday, everyone! I present you with this text exchange between one of my sisters and me. It took place earlier this week when I had a weird, wonky eye and a headache. All you have to know to enjoy it is that the dresses for my sisters wedding are a lovely blush pink color, I am something of a hypochondriac, and stroke is the most common medical issue I think I'm having. I have learned to live with it and joke about it. Which, of course, will stop being funny the minute I die of a stroke. KNOW THE SIGNS!

Me: Hey, when you get migraines do they ever affect your vision?

Sister: Yeah, sometimes. Why do you ask?

Me: Because my left all got all weird. Then I got a headache.

Me: Just ordered my Maid of Honor dress! You wanted it in blaze orange, right?

Sister: Hahahahahaahaha, you are so funny! I'm sorry! Do you feel better now?

Me: I do, but you know me, I thought I was having a stroke. Sister. I am the Maid of Honor. If I want to wear blaze orange WHO CAN STOP ME?!

Sister: Lol! You know I think you might be having a stroke if you think blaze orange is a good idea.

Me: I know all the signs of stroke because it's my favorite disease to think I have and I am here to tell you: having amazing color sense is not a sign of stroke.

Sister: If you say so.

Me: A stroke of genius yes. A brain stroke no.

Sister: Potato Patato.

Pinterest Wednesday: Winter Minestrone

This minestrone was a success on many levels. First, and most obvious: soup is great for winter, especially a hearty soup like this one. Second, I made it ahead of time and it reheated really well. Third, it was cheap and fourth, it is healthy. Oh and fifth, it is really delicious.

It does take a lot of chopping and a lot of veg. And it was too big for my soup pot which meant a mid-cooking transfer to the big soup pot, but live and learn. I recommend chopping the vegetables up the day before if you're going to make this on a weeknight because by the time you're done chopping you're going to be too hungry to combine your ingredients. And use your big soup pot from the beginning because this recipe makes a lot of soup!

Enjoy!

Phoning in the weekend 1/13/2014 edition

 The weekend started out on an interesting note when one Ms. Erica, partner in craft and coworker decided I didn't have enough Nick Cage in my life and stuck this to my office door. He lives inside my coat closet now so I can have a heart attack each morning when I come to work.

Then came Friday night and a soothing symphony orchestra concert and soothing dirty martinis to help calm my Cage-frayed nerves.

On Saturday I did the most perfect long-tail cast-on I've ever done! I got all my stitches cast on with just enough yarn left over to weave in the ends! Woo hoo!

It helped that I was closely monitored by this handsome guy.

Sunday was my niece's third birthday party. I had to look my best.

What do you buy for the coolest three year old around? Binoculars, a toy story etch-a-sketch, and glitter bracelets. Obviously.

To top off a great weekend, it was so warm out and so much of the ice and snow melted that I got to run outside TWICE! Woo hoo!

I hope you had a lovely weekend too! What did you do?

FO Friday! Christmas and the Devil's Winter edition

Hello everybody! At long last, here are the things I knitted for Christmas!

I knit this French press cozy for my boyfriend. It keeps your coffee nice and cozy (haha) til you're ready to drink it! This is the pattern I used (and am using for my own French Press cozies (SP?!)). It worked really well! The buttons are because his other French Press has a handle that connects at the bottom. For this one you can just slide it on and off.

My boyfriend is not a weird mannequin head, obviously. He just owns one.

I also knit him this hat using alpaca from a farm we visited this summer. If you're in the Frankfort area, go visit the alpaca. They are TOTALLY adorable, the shop is super cute, and the owners are very nice. I ordered this yarn online and the owner included a personal note letting me know the name of the alpacas that provided the yarn! Such a sweet touch. I sort of used the pattern from this book but with a 1x1 rib. I tried to make the large size first in a stockinette and it came out HUGE:

No good. The hat I mean, my modeling is SUPERB.

So I frogged it and I'm really glad I did. I actually had nightmares about whether or not the finished product would fit (because that's normal) but it did! I love that book as a starting point, but sometimes things come out goofy. I am willing to take the blame, maybe (probably) I'm bad at measuring gauge? Who can say.

I also knit neck-gators for my brother-in-law and my brother-in-law to be. They're like super small infinity scarves with flaps to tuck into your coat or in the case of my dad and bros-in-law, your hunting gear. In the words of my friend Mike, they're basically a knitted dicky. I made one for my dad last year or the year before and he likes it a lot. After I made these my friend Nate asked for one and so did my mom for walking the dog. Probably because we are having The Devil's Winter up here in Michigan and are always cold and covered in snow. Which is great for knitting, but not always so great for other things like driving and not getting frost bite. So it's neck-gators all around! Except for these two, wearing their respective partner's gators:

They have clearly lost their neck-gator privileges.

Happy Linky Thursday

Just some links that made me happy or thoughtful this week. Happy Thursday!

Mighty Girl is a great blog and her lifelist an inspiration. I cracked up at her New Years Resolutions! Such good ones, but also written so well! Snacks! Making out! Etc.!

Oh these super cute doggies and kitties enjoying the winter!

Downton Abbey pickup lines in case you need to woo a fan of the show.

Meditation and mindfulness (particularly in the context of yoga) has helped me with my anxiety immensely and here's a little science to back that up! I like that the article points out that even if meditation doesn't serve a medical purpose it's free, harmless, and can be done at home.

These pictures are stunning, but I have tea at home thank you very much. The most dangerous part of that journey is tripping over cats and that's the way I like it.

More New Years Resolutions, this time from Letters to a Young Librarian. This is one of my favorite library blogs I read on my quest to read more of what librarians are writing, both professionally and in more casual contexts. I also really love her recent post about social media as a graduate student. It was reassuring to see her espouse guidelines I already try to follow about being yourself but being professional. I think they are good habits for anyone engaging in social media, regardless of your profession.

Pinterest Wednesday: Flaunt your flautas

In an effort to make my weeks less hectic, I'm trying to do more meal planning and cooking ahead. Now, that might seem unrelated to this post because I definitely did not cook any part of these ahead BUT I COULD HAVE and might in the future. I mention it because even though I was a bit lax on my prep work, these were quick and easy and done in about 25 minutes baking time included. That is not bad. And the 15 minutes it took them to cook was just enough time to clean the kitchen, which was rad. So the theme of this post is: I was starving, I didn't plan ahead super well, and these still turned out great.

 The first example of my not planning well was that the tortillas were frozen. Oops! But, pro tip here, if your tortillas are frozen and you are preheating the oven, spread those babies on top of the stove and they will be thawed in time for you to fill them with flauta goodness!

Thank you, iphone for these terrible pictures.

 So then I mixed up my business. I used frozen corn from this summer's CSA which was still frozen when I mixed this up and was just fine. I left out the peppers because I didn't have any and I didn't do any sort of "mexicorn" like the recipe calls for (click on the first picture to get to the pin which you can then click through to the complete recipe). It's called winging it, people. I also completely forgot cheese which explains why these were pretty low calorie when I did that calculation. They were good without it but I will add it next time if I remember.

So, you're pretty clearly supposed to use smaller tortillas, because the ends got kind of burny after 15 minutes and there was a lot of extra tortilla but other than that these were totally delicious, pretty filling, quick to make, and there are lots of opportunities to make parts of this ahead of time if you are so inclined. They were also relatively inexpensive, so I'm calling it a win all around!

Phoning in the weekend 1/6

 I started out the weekend by keeping one of my New Years Resolutions and going to yoga. It was a fantastic practice; I'm out of shape and felt my abs all weekend, but that's why I do it!

 Then I was inspired to do a little New Years decluttering. I gave this stack of magazines to my sister for projects with my niece and now it looks like this:

That's where that book went!

 There was a lot of knitting this weekend. A lot. Since I'm working on destashing projects, that counts as decluttering right? Right. My poor old coffee pot finally bit the dust so I'm French Pressing it from now on. I started one of the two French Press cozies I'll need (one for work and one for at home). I also worked on this destashing project:

 which I highly recommend. It's a really fun pattern, great for using up randoms in the stash and won't take your attention away from the exploits of these fine gentlemen:

 (Thanks to Anne for the recommendation!) Netflix it, you guys. If you like British murder mysteries, you'll love this.

I did get off my butt long enough to do a major grocery shopping adventure, complete with meal planning, stocking up on staples, and some apples bossing me around in the fitness department.

Overall it was a lovely weekend! What did you do?