Moved some furniture around. Swapped the dining table & bench/chair and changed the angle of the dining table. More functional now. Bonus “what it usually looks like” photo at the end of the post.
Midge begging Manfriend (out of frame) for loves.
Updated to add: Make Pickled stuff. Recipe via Smitten Kitchen.
First, the picture to the left is of my new pet betta fish. His name is Baby Fish Mouth. Yes, I got the name from When Harry Met Sally. Clip here. And yes, betta fish are awesome.
They notice you when you walk into the room! They even respond to conditioning! You know like Pavlov’s-dog-style. So, when I go to feed Baby Fish Mouth, I do the same actions with my hands to try to get him to associate my hand movement with getting a shrimp pellet. I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
In other news, it’s resolution time again. I gotta say that I don’t usually do resolutions, but for some reason I felt compelled to give myself some tasks for this year. Maybe it’s because last year my folks gave me my first digital camera and that tool lead me to go on some adventures that changed my lifestyle in many ways, e.g. opening my Etsy shop, joining flickr, meeting blogger pals, and so forth.
Now that I have that tool and have these new opportunities, I figured I should hone my focus to get better results that reach beyond my person. In short, I’d like to keep up the momentum and expand.
My List:
1. Support local, small businesses more often. Shop at the small grocery and not the Jewel. Hit up the mom and pop hardware store instead of the Home Depot. You know what I’m saying…
2. Eat more vegetables.
3. Fix my bike and then ride it more often. Work up the courage/capacity to bike to the shop – 12 miles round trip.
4. Volunteer again. Maybe 826Chi will have me back after my looong hiatus.
5. Practice patience.*This will be the biggest challenge
6. Keep The Vintage Bazaar going after our February event.
7. Eat more sandwiches.
What are you guys planning?
Best Sandwich: Tofu Bahn Mi @ Ba Le
Worst Sandwich: Turkey & Swiss @ 7-11
Best Snack: Roasted Fava Beans @ Middle East Bakery
Worst Snack: Tofu Jerky @ I forget
Best Design Trend: Geodes @ Brick House
Worst Design Trend: Chalkboard Paint @ Everywhere (I get that nails on chalkboard feeling when I even think of it.)
Best Market Find: Mannequin Legs @ Chicago Antique Market
Best Picker Find: Weird Upholstered Chair
Best Design Decision I Made: Selling my orange couch and club chairs.
Worst Design Decision I Made: This ho-hum set-up after I sold the couch. In my defense it lasted 1 day.
Best “New to Me” Email List: Backgarage.com and now we’re partners in crime!
Best “New to Me” Blog: Carly Waito
Biggest Blog Crush: Hollister Hovey
The End
Inspired by little to no time for quality gift shopping, meager funds, and my little apartment (via Joy the Baker), I made spiced nuts to give to my parents and a couple of other people this year. Either as a host gift or as part of a gift basket, I think these nuts are super.
I made a batch inspired by the Joy the Baker recipe, but used rosemary and fresh ground pepper in place of red pepper flakes and fennel since my Mom doesn’t do well with too much spice. I also made mild and extra spicy versions of the Spiced Nuts with Bacon via the NY Times because my Dad does like spice.
These recipes are fast, simple, and easy to revise based on your taste. Fun observation: The Joy the Baker recipe uses water instead of egg whites as a spice binder and that method yields a more candy-like coating and glossier finish.
See the guy up there? That’s about 250 pounds of vintage scoreboard that I helped hoist up so we could suspend it from the ceiling at the shop. We used a pulley system and teamwork, but dudes that was some serious heavy lifting.
Then we moved onto a giant surgical light, which was such a tense operation (har) that after the hour it took for us to maneuver the track and light was over, I was left expelling my physical stress in a fit of giggles. Check out a photo of one of the larger surgical lights in stock here to get an idea of the awkwardness of the whole thing.
What’s really funny about all of this is that in my initial email to M about the job, I listed my surprising upper body strength as a skill — mostly as a way to showcase my panache for bringing LOLs to the workplace. I mean, I can back up the mention, but it was more for laughs than to seal the deal.
Other interesting tidbits about today are that I wore some vintage Isotoners as work gloves and did it all in a dress and heels. Seriously. If this was 1996 I might get all Spice Girls about it, but I won’t.
Photo collection inspired by winter weather. Because we’re all super special snowflakes! Also, this chorus plays in my head like all the time — just like the lyrics say. Meta?
So, I have had this aluminum tree and color wheel for about four years now. And folks, I am such a Scrooge slash I am rarely home at the holidays that I have never put it up. This year is different though! My parents are coming to town!
Holidays are odd these days. Sister is in London and the extended fambly is all spread out. Also, Manfriend goes with his folks. So, it’s Mom, Dad, and me. Plus, our two neurotic dogs.
Any way you slice it, it’s still pretty nice to hang out and eat a lot. To celebrate, I hauled the aluminum tree out of storage and put her up. I added a Christmas Pheasant and two creepy dolls under the tree. (They’re waiting for Santa!) Plus, I threw in some hides and doilies because it just made good sense.
Happiness to you and yours, etc.
So, as I have said, I have new job. An additional job. I wake up and head to one job and then I take a couple buses to another job. Then some nights I work on the at-home job, too.
It means I saw my manfriend for 5 minutes today. That the dog is looking at me in this wounded way while I shovel cold/lukewarm cous cous into my piehole. It means I feel really excited when I wake up. Then my chest tightens with the anxiety that I can’t do it all well enough. It is what it is.
About a year and change ago, I was laid off from a pretty cushy and low stress copy job. I wrote ads for an online shopping website. Tiny ads. 135 character ads. I did that and nothing else, well sometimes I blogged for them, but mostly it was the ads.
It was stable…before the lay off, but you know what I mean. It was your every two weeks guaranteed dough in the bank and insurance and Starbucks at 3pm with everyone else that was bored. Now, my life is messy. I worry a lot, but I am pretty fucking happy, too.
I can’t believe I just cussed on the Internet. Time for pictures!
Pow! Pow!
