fiesta noodle soup

Well it's almost new years eve (it's new years eve day so we are already in the home stretch of 2014) and I am just about to take off from work and get my festive on, but I did want t share this soup I made last week which turned out to be the most happy accident. I had intended it to be chicken noodle but it turned out superbly bland, so I though to myself, what would my mom do? and I dumped in a jar of salsa, a can of coconut milk, and some chorizo, then topped it with cilantro. I even had an avocado that slipped into my basket at the store which was perfect on toast. Anyway, I think I will be recreating this particular dish again soon because I ate it for lunch for over a week and it never got boring! Also perfect for the insanely cold weather that's arrived this week.Alright, happy new year and see you in 2015!!!

holiday vacation

It was a beautiful long weekend in Mendocino and I was of course loath to come back to the city and the noise and work and all of that. I was having such a good time relaxing and hanging with family I actually took hardly any photos while I was there but here are a few from trip. My parents cats were particularly photogenic, everything was spectacularly green due to all the recent rain, and I came up with a delicious new cocktail recipe. And now I guess it's on to New Years Eve and then a whole new year! cheers

Happiest Christmas

Merry merry merry to all from out in the woods at my parents house. We had ricotta filled berry blitzes for breakfast and it looks like that's just the start of festivities here. I hope everyone is having a delicious day full of people you love ( I know I'm making sure to get a bunch of extra hugs while I'm here❤️)

almost there...

I am so ready to be through with work and free to dig fully into holiday eating, libations and family festivity, but until then I will look at these photos of the rainbow pancakes that I made last week for a friend while I plan out all the board games we are going to play, walks along the ocean and probably some naps as well. Counting down the hours...

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I revived my favorite shoes which I thought had to be trashed, by covering the heels with glitter of course! A very festive (and sparkly) fix!

last minute diy gifting

I found out on Monday that I had to bring a white elephant gift to a holiday party I was attending two days later. This is not a lot of time to find a good gift, especially as this wasn't the fun kind of white elephant where odd/weird/funny/novelty gifts were encouraged. After wandering frantically through several stores at lunch and finding nothing I thought would work, I decided to make something instead. Inspired by animal planters I'd seen on pinterest, and odd shaped vessels for airplants, I decided to sacrifice one of my beloved extra large dinosaurs to the cause.

After holding the air plant up to a couple of them I decided it would look best with the stegosaurus, so I set to work cutting a hold in his back.

It looked pretty rough in there after all the cutting was done, and my desk area was a total mess of hot plastic dust, but I cleaned it all up quick and rummaged around in the cupboard with all the spray until I found some I thought would look good with some greenery. Several coats later (which I applied precariously outside under the back stairs as it was raining but I didn't want to set up all the plastic sheeting required for indoor spray painting) and I had this guy!

And of course for the final touch I wrapped him up like a train ran over him with a mess of ribbon and stickers and it's a total mess so hopefully it will not be obvious which one is mine, because that takes all the fun out of it!
(also I think I'm going to need make one for myself)

non-holiday holiday cards

One of the projects that I worked on this fall was coming up with some options for a corporate holiday card. However, to make things challenging, they had to have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, which meant no presents, no Santa's, no trees or snow or snowflake motifs, no deer, and nothing red and green (among many other specific and random 'no's). 

These are a few designs that I came up with that didn't end up being selected, though. It was a fun challenge regardless of their choice, and I'm thinking I might just have to send out the fruity one myself because it's crazy cute and also I haven't gotten a Christmas/holiday card out myself yet!

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Due to the apocalyptic rain that started yesterday my office was shut down and I found myself with an unexpected 'rain day' which was truly wonderful. Not one to waste such a boon I decided to try out some baking recipes I've had in mind. Starting with these scones flavored with oranges and honey. They were great on their own warm out of the oven (which also did a bang up job of warming up the house and making it smell excellent) or with butter and berry jam. My roommate told me he could tell I was baking as he came into the building because it smelled like butter in the lobby. I'll bet less than a week passes before I make another batch.

the non-tree tree

As promised a couple more pictures of my non-tree christmas tree. It grew from one big roll of butcher paper and a fair amount of doodled ornaments and two garlands, one of white pom poms and one of green felt circles. I'm figuring I can just roll it up and use it again next year if I like.

  

changing colors

As planned I have switched out stuff in the living room here and there to change the colors. I was getting really tired of the orange's and coral so I traded it for green and blue. Mostly green, of course, thanks to aaaaaaall the plants (including these beautiful tall paper whites my mom started for me!) I also made the quilted pillow to add to my fur pillows on the couch.

           
























I moved the artwork around a little and the house installation went on the wall behind the table to make room for my christmas "tree." Oh and the wire lights were spray painted white which I love so much more. I think they look excellent against the gray walls.

 I also managed to recover the dining chairs to blend in better. I used some leftover cotton from curtains I made last year which I stamped with gold polka dots using a pencil eraser. I was going to do things right and remove the orange before recovering but then I really liked how the orange underneath made the white fabric look just a little bit, I don't know, warmer? Anyway, I'm really liking the change which, along with the rearranging of the furniture, makes it feel like a whole new room.

         







































( I think I need to find some of those lightbulbs with with the gold top, or perhaps some sort of edison bulb? Because as much as I like the way these bulbs look, they are a bit too bright at night and I would prefer a softer light )

holiday cheer

I decided to finally get in the spirit this weekend. I made a tree for my apartment (just one for the wall since I will not be here for the holiday itself) and couldn't resist adding some twinkle lights. This is just a quick phone snap but I may take some more detailed pictures because it's actually a very pretty little scandanavian inspired tree doodle to which I added some cute mini garlands. Even though I won't be here it's nice to feel festive in the house every night.

 






































I've also been embarking out on a new love affair with my slow cooker. I tend to make lunches for myself for the week on sSundayevening so that I don't have to worry about it, and the crock pot is a perfect way to do that with the absolute minimum of work involved. Yesterday I made this thai coconut curry and it took a total of ten minutes to chop and throw in all the ingredients (I did also have to open one can of coconut milk- so difficult!) and then I let it sit there cooking for four hours and then it was ready! Perfect way to have a delicious meal with the most minimal of efforts.

I'm seeing my winter stretching out before me full of curries, roast chickens and stews and I am totally okay with the plan. I will try to write down my recipes for future use and sharing.

New Work: December

New Work: November

fixing things and thrift hauls

I've been working through my mending pile over the holiday weekend and the preceding week and it was finally the below jackets turn. It was my favorite for a few years, it's faux leather and I got it at a thrift store for a couple bucks, but after going to every bar with me in the city (it's a good bar jacket, just think of all the pockets!) it was looking battered, and had a big mark/tear on one sleeve.

So I decided to see if it would work as a vest and it did!. I unpicked the seams on the sleeves and then used the material from the unharmed sleeve to make binding tape of a sort for the arm holes. I also patched a few bits of lining that were fraying (I'm telling you this thing has been around the block a few times) and now it's ready for it's second (or third?) life.

Also I made a well timed stop into my neighborhood thrift store recently with a friend and it turned out we'd stumbled into some sort of massive sale. All the clothes were just $2. We dug through the racks for a few hours before we had to force ourselves to stop because we just kept finding amazing things. I got five sweaters for ten dollars!!!!!! among other things. It was very satisfying and good to know my thrift karma is still strong. Now if I can just finish fixing the rest of the mending pile....

hello December

It's looking super winter-y in the city right now. Anywhere that held out with the decoration until after thanksgiving went totally crazy over the weekend and now there are twinkle lights and snowmen everywhere. However my weekend felt autumnal none the less as evidenced by all the leaves all over the street. It was a productive weekend to mark the end of a productive month and (surprise) I ate a bunch of yummy stuff. These are just some snaps from the last few days. Here's to a new month, the last month of the year, and a new year on the horizon!