enJOY it

summer book report.

August 7, 2012
I've been reading like crazy this past few months. Below are some of the highlights.

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. It took me over a month to read the first half and then two days to read the second half. It was hard, at first, to sink into it, but once I did, it was inspiring. Tharp is a genius. I don't mean that as a compliment, I mean it as a statement. Her book is filled with case studies and anecdotes which is nothing new, but the jaw-dropping part is that so many are all her own. She has lived and created and changed for decades and calls on her depth and breadth of personal experience to write a book of suggestions and methods for creative living. I was so impressed with her and the connections she makes. I also enjoyed her writing style. She tells it straight and there is no sugar coating. She's a dancer and choreographer – neither of those are "feel-good, hug it out" careers and she doesn't try to hold your hand. I reacted well to that.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This was suggested to me when I mentioned I needed summer reading and I am so glad I dove into it early in my backyard garden career. The book is preachy; I don't think there is any getting around that. But I am at a point of my life where I want a little real food preaching, so I soaked it up. It did tell a good story, but it was also packed with information. An almost overwhelming amount of information. The book is a true story that chronicles a family of four's adventures in eating seasonally (and locally) for one full year. It includes recipes and tid-bits and adventures. Many, many times throughout the book Kingsolver mentions how California is basically the produce capital of the world and each time, I felt myself sinking down into my seat when I remembered how often I have bought bananas (which are obviously not grown in the US) or decided to make a tomato salad or chocolate covered strawberries in the winter. Just like Born to Run or Secrets of a Healthy Metabolism, were last year, this book was a complete game changer for me.

Game of Thrones & A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin. Paul and I watched season one of Game of Thrones a few months ago. It took me at least four episodes to feel any connections to the characters (or even learn their names) but by the middle, I was totally hooked. I decided to start the books (there are currently five in the series which is called "A Song of Fire and Ice") and I am so glad I did. They are fantasy (to me, much more Lord of the Rings than Harry Potter style) and make for somewhat dense reading, but I found the first two books easy to get into. I have already started book three.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This was another one that was suggested to me. After I saw it pop up all over the place, I hopped on the train. I found it magical. Totally magical. It takes place over a span of many years at the turn of the century and follows two magicians who are forced to duel. I fell totally in love with the book and finished it in less than 48 hours.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. I think amazon told me I would like this based on my purchase history. It was a dark murder mystery, so very different from my other selections this summer. I was creeped out at times and didn't really like any of the characters, but I was fascinated by the story and found myself rushing through it, appreciating all the twists and turns.

As mentioned, next is A Song of Fire and Ice book 3. I am always and forever looking for good fiction and am going to be working my way through much of what was shared in the comments on my last book post. Anything new to share? I've been seeing Gone Girl pop up lots of places and the Art of Fielding is still on my list…

Other posts you might enjoy:
from the weekend.

August 6, 2012

We had a fantastic little getaway to The Saguaro in Palm Springs. I have been sort of obsessed with checking this place out since we drove by it the last time we were in the desert. That rainbow paint isn't exactly subtle. The colors (and the fantastic restaurants – both Tinto and El Jefe were amazing!) totally lived up to the hype.

Of course we had to drop by the Ace for breakfast and a quick sit in the photobooth on our way home.
around here.

August 3, 2012

It felt like a short week. Must have been all the Olympics watching. How about that Missy Franklin? I love her. I also love every inch of every event. Makes for fantastic e&p bonding and the couch-side commentary is too good.

I made progress on my website (nothing new is up yet, but soon!) and placed an order for samples of the fall line of stamps. They arrived yesterday & I think they are winners (hoping for a big launch in mid-September). I am tweaking my business cards (again!) and coming up with new thank you notes (again!). Those sorts of projects are my favorite.

We are off to Palm Springs this afternoon! The desert is my happy place and this weekend we are celebrating so much good stuff. First, that I turned in my big project this past week (!!!!!!!!!!!). Second, that on Monday, we will have lived together for five years. Third, that Paul left for his deployment 52 weeks ago today and we made it through the year in one, much stronger and more awesome piece.

We're staying at the Saguaro this time. A rainbow hotel in the middle of a heat wave? I'm all over it.

Have a great weekend. I'll see you Monday morning, hopefully with oodles of vacation photos.

ps. I so appreciated your comments on last Monday's post. I didn't realize it was such an "excited" post until I re-read it with fresh eyes. I am in a really good place. Perhaps the best ever. And nope, it's not because I'm secretly pregnant, but more the opposite; it's because I'm embracing what comes, when it comes.
our “local” fruits & veggies experiment.

August 2, 2012

One of my July goals was to buy produce only from the farmer's market. I'll be the very first to say that in Southern California, we have it easy. Our summer farmer's market carries a large variety of fruits and vegetables. Buying only from the market (that we're lucky enough to have set up across the street every Sunday) was not going to be difficult by any means.

We succeeded on this goal with the exception of the jalapenos we purchased from Trader Joe's (that were grown in Mexico) for our jalepeno vodka. Each Sunday, we bought a bunch of fruit and veggies and a carton of eggs that come from a farm in Fillimore (about 30 miles away) where the hens are free range.

I got a few questions on the blog when I first announced this plan and on instagram as I shared my haul each week. What did I consider local? What was the mile radius? How much did this cost? What would I do if my market only sold tomatoes and onions?

I am not, nor would I ever pretend to be, an expert on any of this. I am absolutely not attempting anything new or breaking any ground. I am also not trying to praise or blame anyone else's methods – I can only share my own experience.

We spent $180 for five weeks (five Sundays) on produce and eggs to feed our family of two. That's about $2.57 a day per person. (For the record, we both normally eat three meals a day at home and we went out for lunch or dinner six times in July.) I wish I knew what we were spending on just produce and eggs in previous months to compare, but I don't have that breakdown. We still went to the grocery store about every five days, but I loved that I didn't have to even look at the produce section or worry about what was on sale or what looked good. Without produce, our grocery spending went to dairy (cheese, butter, sour cream, greek yogurt, milk and half & half), cereal, chicken, turkey sausage, tortillas, some canned goods (which is technically a cheat, because we buy crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and olives in cans) and basics like olive oil, spices & flour. (We buy our non-local coffee beans and grass fed beef from Shasta, CA at the farmer's market every few weeks.)

With this project, I chose not to get caught up in what the mile radius was, though we did start asking each stand where their produce came from and most was within 40 miles. I really tried to pay attention to what was in season and plentiful. My biggest take away from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (the book that started all of this) is that food that is grown during its natural season and is eaten shortly after it's harvested tastes better. After this experiment (and my backyard tomatoes) I absolutely agree.

As with anything else, I think the biggest mistake that can be made is thinking this is an all or nothing situation. You (and I) don't have to only shop local. You (and I) don't have to only eat what's at the farmer's market. I fear that sometimes people (including myself) get discouraged and don't do anything because doing everything is too difficult. I really think it should be the opposite of that. Little improvements need not be discounted. Instead, they should be celebrated.

Our plan going forward is to continue buying most of our produce at the market. I am so curious to see how our options (and weekly photos!) change as we enter new seasons.
40 pizzas / pepperoni deep dish.

August 1, 2012

pizza no. 8 : pepperoni deep dish.

occasion : it's Sunday and we've been talking about building a deep dish pizza for weeks.

crust : our whole wheat usual. The first time we made this, shown above, I didn't cut down the recipe enough. We have since tried again and this time and I cut the recipe by about a third and an extra tbsp of olive oil. It was much better, but I bet I could still start with less dough. I just made it, let it rise like normal, rolled it out and then tucked it into a 9inch pie pan. This deep dish pizza we baked for 25-30 minutes at 400*.

sauce : a tomato sauce very similar to the one shown here from Emeril.

cheese : mozzarella & provolone.

toppings : black olives, pepperoni and fresh basil.

notes part one : we build this upside down – cheese on the bottom, toppings in the middle and tomato sauce on top because the recipes Paul found online recommended that.

notes part two : Last time I shared a pizza recipe it was brought to my attention that I don't tell you how long to bake the pizzas. You're right, I don't usually share cooking details and temps for each pizza, but the cooking instructions outlined in our dough recipe (linked above!) recommend baking at 425* for 25 minutes. That was when we had an electric oven. Now we are on gas and bake normal crust at 500* for closer to 15 minutes. I hate to say it, but baking pizza involves a bit of trial and error at first and depends a lot on your oven. Pay attention to those first few pies. You want the cheese to be completely melted and the crust to be brown and hard to the touch.

thoughts : this was a good first attempt at deep dish. We learned a lot (like to cut the dough down) and cook our tomato sauce for longer so more of the water boils off (it was bit too liquidy). But the taste was fantastic.
august goals.

August 1, 2012

We made it to August. July feels like a blur of projects and farmer's markets. I'll be sharing thoughts on our local produce experiment soon – it was an awesome adventure. I got a lot of work crossed off my list in July only to enter August with a whole new list. But this stuff (with the exception of deciding to get serious about my workouts with TRX) is the good stuff. The enjoy it stuff.

Here we go.

And a huge welcome and thank you to the small businesses supporting this blog in August. Please click through the right sidebar to learn more about them. Thank you, as always, for reading.
material 11 of 27 / “leather” into a folded clutch.

July 31, 2012

Oh, leather. Since day one, I knew you'd turn into a clutch, but I didn't know you'd look like this. To be fair, I didn't use actual leather, I used "fake lamb leather" in "leather brown" color and purchased it from this etsy shop. My first attempt to use this fabric was a massive fail. I tried to make a large envelope clutch, but the neither the "leather" nor the lining was very stiff and it ended up looking like a very ugly cape for a very small super hero.

Into the scrap box went the cape, and I decided to forget about it until a better idea came along. While I was doing my reorganizing a few weeks ago, I found a yard of the dyed fabric* that I'd had for months. It was prettier than I remembered and looked like something I would want to have in clutch form. Knowing that I still needed to use leather, I decided to add some of it as a design element on the bottom of the bag.

This is the second clutch I've made (here's the first) and once again, I followed this simple zippered pouch tutorial. Just like the first time, I made the clutch super big so it could be folded in half. It's 10.5×15 inches (and then folds to about 10.5×8).

I think (I hope?) I'll get more use out of this one than my blue one. It's pretty similar to some of the other clutches that I have in heavy rotation…warm colors and patterned. I have to remember when making stuff to pay attention to the things I already have, wear, use often. I made it a week and a half ago and have already carried it out and about three times, so that's good news.

I spent more money on a decent zipper this time and I think the gold makes it look a bit more legit.

Because the patterned fabric and the "leather" are both thin, I used a duck canvas for the inside lining. It's thick enough to give the bag some structure, but not so thick that it's bulky or refuses to fold.

I'm so pleased with how it turned out.

*The outside patterned fabric is something I found at a small fabric store months ago. It says "Designed by Beth Ann Bruske for David Textiles Inc." if you want to look for something similar.

This is project 11of 27. I am attempting to complete 27 craft projects using 27 different materials before I turn 28 on 02.22.13. You can follow my progress here on the blog or on pinterest. Birthday challenges are my favorite. You can see the 26 Projects I completed while 26 here and the 27 materials I have used so far here.
yep, yep.

July 30, 2012

Tossing out the plans and the post ideas and the photo walk today. I'm feeling so good about August that I flipped my calendar over last week. (Yep, I still know we're two days out.) I adore August, this final month of summer (not scientifically, or technically, but in every other sense of the word). Lots of good around here.

I am celebrating a garden that is producing bright red tomatoes in every size daily. These are the best tasting tomatoes I have ever eaten. I am proud of my container garden and my first foray into growing something edible. It's the start of an annual hobby, for sure.

I am grateful for an organized space. It's going to be a crazy few weeks and then a crazier few months. Projects on top of projects. I want to make more. I want to take 10,000 photos. I want to enroll in a ceramics workshop. I want to release new stamps. I'd love to launch a new mixed paper book. I will be re-running the Blog 2.0 workshop. (Edit : My schedule has changed! I'll be doing something different with the blog class material!) I will be working hard on my first class for Big Picture.

I am so looking forward to seeing my college girlfriends at the end of the month. It's been crazy difficult to get everyone together often enough. We tend to rely on weddings to do the reuniting for us. I spent much of last Thursday looking through old photos and remembering the hilarity and magic of that group. We're having reunion t-shirts printed and that about sums it up.

I am paging through Pantone swatch books and learning so much about design, color & printing processes. Every few minutes I want to pinch myself that this has become part of my job.

I am sketching on paper and playing with ideas for my site & shop relaunch. The best way I have found to embark on a revamp is break it all down and start from scratch. Destroy to develop. I have a home page plan and now I need a decent amount of text and a shop layout that makes sense. After that, it's just code. And while I am far from fluent, HTML is my favorite language.

I could have used one of the 50 photos I have taken of my TV over the last few days, but this one tells a better story. Also, my skin color is like a PSA for sunscreen.

I am such a fan of the Olympics. There is something special about them (duh). We signed up for cable for the first time in two years (previously we watched all our TV on the Internet the next day) just to tune in. We'll be keeping it through college football season too. Our method is to DVR all the coverage and then speed through commercials & five of the six hours of bike racing. I so enjoy watching the best in the world complete on the greatest stage. I love the sappy three minute packages that make you fall in love with an athlete you've never heard of and will never hear of again. I love scooting to the end of my seat for the final 50m of any swim race. I love that when one of our guys fell off the high bar & I screamed and sloshed my full mug of coffee into the air and on to the couch, Paul didn't even bat an eye.

I'm in love with the idea that Paul will be home for the rest of the summer, all of the fall and through the holidays. The reward for having him miss this last year is that I get to sigh with relief every time I remember that he's here this time around. Next weekend we celebrate five years of living together. It feels like forever and it feels like just yesterday we dove head first (synchronized diving style) into this relationship. Going for it was by far the best choice I ever made. I'm so excited for what's next.
project life : week 30.

July 29, 2012

Week 30 and I still love this project.

(click to enlarge & the image above will be [somewhat] clearer)

Nothing special this week. Lots and lots of photos as usual.

I have been using the TimerCam app on my iPhone and like that a lot. Very easy to grab normal life "hand-shots" like the two in the page above.

Was moved by the quote from Sally Ride that I saw on twitter this week. Added some extra journaling on a bi-fold card from the Clementine kit and tucked that into a pocket. More journaling about the Olympics on the red Martha Stewart labels.

supplies / Paper Source circle label, Martha Stewart & Avery labels, teal flower pattern is from a calendar that I cut up, American Crafts patterned paper, Elle's Studio journaling tag, Ormolu Tuesday badge, Marcy Penner heart badge, American Crafts thickers, Design A page protectors (which are available in this variety pack), Clementine core kit, Bebas quote font. I use a Fiskars corner rounder (it's not amazing, but it's lasted the longest of any corner rounder I've ever had). I am using a Zig Millennium 0.1 pen and Recollections glossy marker throughout this album.

Confused by Project Life? Start here. Have a question about how I am tackling this project each week (including questions about the quotes)? Check here. See all my Project Life posts here.
on our walls / framing photos.

July 27, 2012

To wrap up this week, I wanted to talk a bit about framing (family) photos and hanging them on the walls. A few years ago, I was all about plastering the house with photos of the two of us. I've pulled up a little bit since then and have worked to incorporate a lot more "art" into our space.

But I still love a good framed photo and decided to create a cluster of them on the wall in front of the garage entrance to our house.

We have been super blessed over the past few years to have really awesome photos taken by really great photographers (The Goodness & Driver Photo). I am so thankful for the photos we have from them and oodles of them have made it into our family albums (here, here & here).

I have also chosen to frame a few, but tend to favor the "less traditional" of the shots. For example, the only wedding photo that we currently have on our walls is a small 5×7 of our shoes (and flowers).

We have a similar shoe shot from our engagement photos framed on the mantle.

And a favorite from the photos we took in April.

Other than that though, I end up framing a lot of imperfect or random photos. Some are low quality – the one above was taken with an underwater disposable camera and others were taken with my phone or even computer camera.

A photo that makes me laugh is likely to make the wall. I've talked about the one above many times before; it was taken in a photobooth set up at our friends' wedding. I didn't see it at the wedding and months later, for a split second, I thought I had taken a photo with Russel Brand. It had to go on the wall (and it had to be our 2011 Christmas card). I wanted something big and fun (and cheap) so I had it blown up at Office Depot for under $4. It's printed on copy paper but because it's just black and white, the quality looks decent. That frame & mat was purchased at Ikea.

Photobooth strips are likely to make the wall. Something magic happens in photobooths and I am not quite sure what it is? Maybe it's the light that seems to blow out any skin imperfections? Or maybe it's just the small cramped space? Or maybe it's just the flurry of activity that comes with trying for four "great" shots? Either way – the results are usually good. I have two strips (both from the Ace Hotel about a year apart) and one collage of them (from a wedding we attended in fall 2010) on our walls.

One of my favorite framed photos is from the first morning of our honeymoon. We were at breakfast and I set the timer on my small point and shoot. It captured us eating (so the photo rests on the counter in our kitchen) but it also captured our new wedding rings. We were in the most picturesque honeymoon site and somehow this random photo of breakfast is still one of my favorites from the trip.

I love framed photos that show the passing of time. I found the two on the left (from 2009 & 2007) while sorting through old photos. When I went to buy a frame to put them next to each other, I could only find frames with three 4×6 holes. So back at home, I found another photo from last spring and ta-da… three similar photos, five years apart.

Most of our framed photos are super normal sizes – 4×4, 4×6, 5×7, 8×10 or 11×14 – so they are very easy to frame. When I know I want to create a cluster of different photos, I tend to stick with frames that are all the same color (usually black). It's unifying without being limiting. (Everywhere sells black frames.) I have read many online tutorials about hanging gallery walls. Most recommend creating templates of each frame out of newspaper and playing around with them on the wall. I totally dig that idea and would go for it if I was worried about spacing, but usually, I just start hammering and adjust as needed.

When I have something that is a non-traditional size, like a photobooth strip that I want to frame, I buy heavy white paper (at an art or craft store), cut it to the size of the frame and mount the photo on the front and center with double stick tape. A large white mat in a black frame makes even small photos stand out and sets them apart as something special.

Recently, I have started to write (in pencil) the dates and locations on the white mats of the frames. This is partly for me, so I remember, but also for anyone who looks at our walls. It's funny – one of my favorite things to do at people's houses is look at their family photos. I think it's fascinating to see what people decide to frame.