Come Visit the New Space!

I've moved over to Wordpress. Please excuse the dust, as I finish getting everything into place!

Moving to New Digs, I Think

Since I've been hosting my food blog on Wordpress these few months, I've decided I like the Wordpress platform better than Blogger, so I'm nearly sure that I will be moving this blog to Wordpress in the very near future. Hopefully it will be a smooth transition, but if it isn't you'll know why the blog(s) are messed up!

Finished Quilt

I finished the quilt in the nick of time. No really. It was at about 2:30am on Juliana's birthday when I finished! I did free-motion quilting with my machine. The quilt is only about 44" x 44", so it isn't huge, but it was still awkward moving it around. I bound the edges using the backing fabric and folding it under, then hand stitching. The batting is flannel sheets that I bought at Goodwill for another purpose and decided to use for this. The back is also a piece of one of the sheets. It's very soft and cozy. There are some imperfections on the quilt top, some puckering that happened when I was quilting it, but the birthday girl loved it and that's what really matters!

Not Abandoned

Clearly the frequency of posting has fallen off around here, however, this blog isn't abandoned. Yet. Posting to the food blog regularly has been more of a commitment than I thought it would be. I'm really enjoying it though, and it seems like much of my energy has been going towards food anyway, so it's a natural progression.

I've been having a hard time organizing myself, managing my time and basically getting much done. I had been doing fairly well when I had my daily to-do list going, but then my list notebook ran out of sheets and I bought a beautiful new day planner to use as a daily to-do list. Unfortunately, I didn't check the measurements of the planner before ordering and when it arrived, it turned out to be far too large to carry in my purse. So, I puttered along with it on my desk, but not having it hand to write in when I remember something has really not worked out. I've not been using it at all for many weeks now. It's sad to think that the sum of my organizational skills hinge on a silly to-do list, but I think that it might be the truth.

Yesterday, I purchased a cheapo, small, lined spiral notebook with the hope that I will get back into the habit of remembering what I have to do and crossing it off my list.

I'm so behind on things like starting seedlings (probably too late for that) and getting my garden beds finished and cleaning my house.

I got my taxes filed, though, and the quilt is coming along. I only need to bind it now.

I hope that I can get myself in gear soon, so I don't feel like things are falling in around me and I'm becoming hopelessly mired in procrastination.

Birthday Quilting

I'm not a quilter. I've only made two small quilts in the past. They were Christmas gifts for my older two daughters and they were kind of made by the seat of my pants. They turned out pretty well, despite that and they've been well-loved for several years now and haven't unraveled!

My youngest daughter is turning four in just a couple of weeks. She was a baby when I made them for Christmas of 2005, so I didn't make one for her. She needs one. She's currently making the transition out of our bedroom to the bedroom that she will share with Isabel and her very own, cuddly quilt could help, right?

When I made the quilts for the bigger girls, I did simple 4" squares sewn together using eight different fabrics in their favorite colors. Pink for Maddy (not her favorite color anymore) and red for Isabel (still her favorite color). I can't use the same system for Juliana, because she doesn't have a favorite color. She likes all colors. I decided to choose eight different colorful fabrics and border each of them with solid pink (one of her favorites is she is really pressed to choose one). I hope it turns out well.

Here are the colored squares cut out and placed on the pink fabric for visual reference.


I need to have it finished in two weeks and one day. I hope I can get it done!

Waiting for the Fruits of My Labor

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were renovating our neglected compost area into a suitable spot for a plum tree. I've been trying to take advantage of the spotty breaks in weather to finish that task up. Our trip to the coast last week used a whole day of warm sunshine, but it was worth it.

This picture is midway in the removal process. It was too ugly to photograph before we started on it. Those blackberry canes behind and intertwined in the chain link fence were so thick. Some were more than 1" in diameter!

I actually have mostly finished the compost area. I (with the help of my husband and oldest daughter) have removed all the pallets that formed the compost bins, all of the compost that was on top of the pallets, the enormous blackberry canes that were behind the compost bin and also the blackberries that were hanging over the bin and clinging to the chain link fence on both sides of it and removed a whole lot of branches from a flowering quince bush (not the fruiting kind) that is in our neighbor's yard and was overhanging wildly into our space.

This is a huge pile of the quince and blackberry vines that we trimmed.

There is still several square feet of area that is covered with black plastic and compost that was under the bin that I have yet to remove. I just pulled it back enough to plant my Greengage plum tree.

The tree looks so tiny, but it's in the ground and I'm so excited!

In another corner of the yard, in a spot that was once completely shaded by a very large cedar tree (which blew down in Dec. 2006) I have planted a Brooks prune.

The Brooks prune is bigger than the Greengage, but still small. That's our old dog Pepper in the background. Please excuse the messy surrounding yard. It still needs lots of work.

I think I can get one more fruit tree in the space that we have available this year, but haven't fully committed to that idea yet. I better decide soon!

Repair, Not Replace

In this economy where so many are tightening their belts and in an effort to pull back on the reins of our rampant consumerism, whenever we have the opportunity to repair a usable item we should do that rather than replace it. In order to have a usable item to repair, you generally need to purchase a quality item in the first place.

We generally buy good quality shoes. The result is that we adults can wear them for many years and the girls can wear them for a season or more and pass them on to the younger sisters. This week I had the opportunity to take two of Juliana's shoes in for an elastic repair that had been necessary for a while. I also had to have the elastic replaced in one of my Danskos, thanks to a mischievous puppy. Our local shoe repair shop raised their price on this particular repair to $10/shoe, but even at $10 it is still a deal. I give business to a local shop, I get to keep shoes in use that have lots of life left in them and we don't purchase new shoes with the accompanying price tag, packaging and materials.

Buying second hand is also an option, but I never find what I need, when I need it and my Danskos are only 1 1/2 years old, so they are very serviceable. The navy Mary Jane on the left is probably about 9 years old and is being worn by the third wearer. The purple sandal is about three or four years old and is on it's second wearer, having been originally been purchased for the second girl, not the first. The leather and soles on both are still in great shape. With a little cleaning and polish, all three will look nearly as good as new!

Tagged

Jen at Under the Big Blue Sky tagged me for a meme and I thought I'd play along since I haven't done a meme for awhile.

What is your current obsession: my thus far losing battle with trying to organize and clean my house

What are you wearing now: (sadly) a pair of sweats, crocs and a black long sleeve tee

Who was the last person you hugged: Isabel

If you could have one super power, what would it be: The ability to stop time

What’s for dinner: hot dogs, sauerkraut, grated beet salad (our version of a junk food dinner)

What was the last thing you bought: hot dogs, sauerkraut, butter, hot dog buns

What are you listening to right now: my youngest daughter jumping and the wind rustling the trees

What is your favourite weather: temperate weather, so mostly spring and autumn

What is on your bedside table: a water bottle, lamp, digital clock and container full of miscellaneous stuff

What is your most challenging goal right now: finishing anything I've started, within a reasonable length of time

Say something to the person who tagged you: Jen, I really admire you for being so devoted to your daughters and being a strong single mama

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished, where do you want it to be: on at least five acres in the Willamette Valley with meadow and some woods

Name the things you cannot live without: my husband and daughters, books, cheese, coffee

What would you like to have in your hands right now: a Frappucino

What is your favourite tea flavour: I'm not a big tea drinker, but I do like any type of chai when I have a cup of tea

What would you like to get rid of: the extra weight I've been carrying all these years and the clutter in my house


If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go: New Mexico

If you could have your portrait painted/made by any famous artist from any era, who would you choose: Salvador Dali

What is your favorite book? I don't have a favorite book. I read all the time and almost never read a book a second time.

What's the first song on your playlist or Ipod: Die Die Die (The Avett Brothers)

***

The rules:

1. Respond and rework: answer the questions on your blog, replace one question you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.

2. Tag eight (or fewer, in my case) other un-tagged people.

This is who I’d love to play tag with. If they’d like to!

Tonia, Angeleen, Teri


*All of these photos, with the exception of the crocuses, were taken last week on a day trip to the coast.

I've Got Worms

Our weather has been kind of wacky lately. Instead of fairly consistent rain, we've had days where there were glorious hours of sunshine interspersed with rain. It's really unfair because the sunshine makes you gear up to go outside and do some gardening and then the rain is coming too soon.

I did, however, get out on Saturday and do some much needed work. I've got a compost pile that we built about five years ago, but it's been much neglected. Sure, we dump our kitchen scraps and guinea pig droppings, but that's pretty much all we do. Very infrequent turning and no other care has created an unsightly mess. So, we decided to remedy that this year and clean the compost area up and turn it into a spot where a plum tree will be planted. My husband is going to create a better compost system for me utilizing some 55 gallon drums that we received for free from a customer and making a frame for turning them out of scrap metal he already has in the shop. We have one other open corner which will house a second plum tree.

To rehab the compost area, I'm digging holes in my future garden beds and depositing the contents into the holes and covering with dirt. It's a hard-work kind of job, but under the first layer of compost scraps on the pile, I discovered a rich concoction of compost and a numerous population of worms. What an exciting find, because I'd thought that this neglected pile of waste was just that...waste. Quite a bit of it needs further decomposition, but it's already well on it's way and it's inclusion in the future beds will surely create better soil health and deposit large quantities of worms.

By the time I got the camera out, all those worms started digging back into the compost!

This Small Kitchen Won't Stop Me

Several months ago, when a friend came to pick up a kombucha scoby, she was peering around my kitchen and suggested that I post about using a small kitchen to produce so many things. It's a suggestion I would never have thought about and it's also an interesting subject. I think that it's easy to think one needs a large space in order to cook from scratch or do any of the other types of things I do in a kitchen. It would be wonderful to have a large, roomy kitchen with lots of storage space and huge expanses of counter space. It's not a necessity though.

I do a lot in my kitchen, in fact, sometimes I feel like I live in my kitchen. I make dinner six nights per week, daily breakfast and lunches, soap, baked goods, condiments, roast coffee, collect kitchen waste for the compost pile, ferment various things and dehydrate, freeze and can food in the summer and fall. All of these things happen on a mere nine linear feet of counter space and part of that is occupied by a microwave.

When I decided to post on this subject I thought I would get my kitchen all spiffy for photos, but I finally realized that it probably isn't going to happen. My counters are almost never uncluttered and certainly never completely clear. That being said, let me take you for a little tour of my small kitchen and please politely ignore the messy counters.

This is the counter space in my kitchen. There's about five feet of counter space to the left of the sink and about four to the right. The right counter space is kind of a holding area. It's where I store stuff that I can't figure out where else to put, like my two round cast iron griddles and my cast iron skillet which don't really have a home if I have many stove burners and the oven occupied at the same time. I use the long stretch to the left of the sink for all prep and cooking activities, coffee roasting, fermenting and coffee making. The right basin in my sink holds my yellow Tupperware compost trimmings container and is also a holding station for all recyclables before they go to the main recycling area in the basement.

This is the other side of the kitchen. It has one set of cabinets, refrigerator, oven, and a small table that holds onions, garlic, utensils and potholders on the top and my wok, cookie sheets, large cast iron griddle and cooling racks on the bottom. You can see my menu board to the right of the doorway and my open office door to the right of that. To the left of the refrigerator is my pantry, which is small. It's only slightly wider than the width of the door and slightly taller. The kitchen is too narrow for a small island, so there's nothing in the center.

We are lucky to have a basement and I have an extended pantry area down there, where I house my home canned goods, bulk purchases like sugar, beans, rice and canned goods like tuna and coconut milk and canning supplies and surplus jars. I also have a full sized upright freezer and a second small refrigerator down there. An additional storage space is a 3'w x 1'd x 4 1/2"h shelf in my office, right off the kitchen, for my kitchen appliances (mixer, food processor, etc.), a few cookbooks and empty jars that I use frequently for storage.

And that's it. It's not a large area, even all combined, but I do great things in it. I'm not the world's best cook, but I'm pretty decent and I make a lot of things for my family besides meals. You don't need a huge area to do the kinds of things that I do. If you have a small kitchen and it's been holding you back, just jump in and do it. Get rid of the things that you never use to open up space for the things you will use frequently and you might have to adjust to the fact that counter space will never be completely empty!

Menu Board

This is a board that I picked up at Goodwill for $4.99. I decided to to put it in service as our nightly menu board. This helps my family to know what we are having for dinner, which cuts down the questions a lot and assists my table setters in deciding what should go on the table. Plus, it coordinates nicely with my yellow walls, though the color of the walls is somewhat washed out in this photo. (That's the result of copious amounts of sunshine coming through my west windows. Don't let anyone tell you the sun never shines in the Pacific Northwest in the winter!)

Shortbread and Ice Cream for My Sweets

We don't make a big deal out of Valentine's Day here. I'm all about the love, but I think it's far better to demonstrate how much we love each other by treating each other with love and respect every day rather than buying cards and chocolate one day of the year. Those things are nice, but getting and giving them doesn't make me feel more loved. I do usually make a nice V-Day dinner, because that's just what I do. I love to cook. I made the last package of steaks that we had in the freezer, garlic chevre mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus. I finished it off with this dessert:

Strawberry ice cream and this shortbread. It was simple, but so good.

Fresh Chevre

It's not all taxes and filing and paperwork and puppies around here. I made some fresh chevre on Sunday.


Chevre is so ridiculously easy to make. Warm up milk, add bacteria, let milk sit, sieve it and hang it and voila, you've got cheese!

Nothing to Post

I know this blog hasn't been full of interesting things lately, but that's because my life hasn't been full of interesting things. Besides the new food blog and the new puppy, the things that are occupying my mind and time are tasks of drudgery, like filing paperwork, both personal and business, for the past five months or so and getting receipts and bills in order so that I can give all of our tax stuff to our accountant. Another necessary, un-fun task is cleaning my office and getting all the residual kid stuff out of here to make it solely a business office for my husband and me rather than an office for me and a school area for Maddy (she's got her own desk area in her new room). This entails sorting though, tossing, donating, re-organizing and cleaning years of crafts supplies, coloring books, detritus, office supplies and paper work. I'm tired just thinking about it.

But, it has to be done. I can't even contemplate garden planning til I get this burden off my shoulders. I wanted to get it done before my new computer arrived almost a month ago. Obviously that didn't happen, but I need to get on it now, because spring is right around the corner and I need to get seeds ordered and the garden planned!

Another Addition to the Family

This is our new puppy. She doesn't have a name. We are all picky about names and unfortunately can't agree on one yet. She's half lab and half springer spaniel. Like a baby, she sleeps a lot, but she also plays a lot when she's awake. The girls are really enjoying having her around and she's pretty sweet.






UPDATE: She has been named. After weeding through name after name and having many ideas rejected, she is called: Stella. Lucy and Betty were at the top of the list as well, but Stella won out.