Tenacity.

As I sit here in my sunny living room, the sound of chirping birds just outside the window reminds me that spring is technically here. Nevermind the incongruous detail that we had a snowstorm on the first day of spring and another small one two days later. It still looks like winter, but there are whispers of spring. Those tenacious birds confirm that winter will not last forever.

I probably should be working on one of the many projects I am in the middle of right now. I am getting ready to enter week four of a very busy four-week period. But I saw this article ("This is what 80 Looks Like") on Gloria Steinem and wanted to share it. So here I am.

Making room for Style.

Often I'll come home from work and do some sort of household task as a way of transitioning from work to home. Many days it's dishes or laundry, but today I suddenly found myself switching out the books in the bookshelf closest to the spot on the couch where I most often sit.

My books were previously organized loosely by category on four bookcases, three in a row on one side of the living room and one on the other side, closest to my favorite spot on the couch. Tonight I came home looking for a place for The Chicago Manual of Style, which I just got in the mail today. I finally ordered it for myself after having it on my wish list and wanting it for 3+ years. The other day I just realized that I write, so I should probably own this excellent resource.

Anyhow, there I was with the thick style book and instead of just squeezing it in somewhere, I decided I needed to rearrange my books in that solo bookcase. Right then.

3 months.

It's been three months since my husband left me for another woman. Completely out of the blue. In those first stunned weeks, I couldn't see how I would survive. I felt like I was dying. I am certain that I've cried more tears since July than I've cried during my entire life before that. Which is really weird because this was the surprise ending to the most wonderful and happy five-and-a-half years of my entire life. (The time I was with my husband, during our dating and marriage...up until the day he came home from that trip where he fell in love with her.) It's mind-boggling. And devastating. And I just don't have the ability to get my head around it. Time hasn't really helped yet with that.

With that I think I will just list some thoughts as they occur because that's about all I can muster right now:

• Last weekend I went to a free open house two-hour life drawing session. It's something I've wanted to do for over two and a half years. I used to do visual art in high school, and have only done it sporadically since getting into theatre. It was fun. I want to draw and paint more.
  

Before and After Birks



Photo credit: Adventures Along the Way

It's winter and I've been thinking about ways to avoid the Season of Splinters in our little apartment. As you can see from the photo, the wood floor is rather worn. We kinda like the rustic look, but we do not like the huge splinters (over an inch long sometimes!) that we get during the dry winter season, which, to be honest, is closer to about half the year here in Québec.

This past weekend, I was reorganizing my shoes and looking for ones that need repairs. I ran across these shoes I got for cheap at the Birkenstock factory in Germany over 10 years ago. Clearly they have seen better days, and they could use some leather conditioning and re-gluing of the inside liner thing. The strap on the shoe on the right of the photo had broken a year or two ago, and I had tied it in a knot to hold it together.

But sitting there on my bedroom floor surrounded by shoes (and soon-to-be splinter territory), an idea struck. Voilà! New and improved indoor shoes! (Though they are not quiet enough to wear at night since we have downstairs neighbors, so it's probably not the final splinter solution. But for now, I am happy to have a no-splinters-in-the-daytime solution.)

Photo credit: Adventures Along the Way



Patching things up.

Over the last few years I have been focusing on being more eco-responsible and really incorporating the reduce-reuse-recycle thing into my daily life. When we moved to this apartment almost two years ago, we tried to look for things we needed at second hand shops first, and that preference has continued, though we don't really need much these days.

I've started re-purposing old things we have to meet new needs. It's been a fun challenge. Learning to sew has opened up so many more possibilities of modifying my clothes or making stuff out of repurposed t-shirts. When I patch up a hole in my favorite shirt or in my most comfy jeans, I get a thrill from the pioneer feeling of it all. I love feeling resourceful and making stuff last longer.

There are more green changes I'd like to make in the coming months. One goal is trying to find somewhere to buy eggs without packaging. I've heard the market in town sometimes has eggs, so I am going to give that a try in the coming weeks. I'm also working on improvising patterns to make some fun clothes I'll wear out of my large collection of unworn, old t-shirts. And I am really looking forward to growing some some herbs and veggies on our back porch again this year...only this year I'll elevate the containers of edible things so the local outdoor neighbors' cats can't get in them.

Anybody else have any eco-friendly goals to implement this summer?

Hibou.

And here's the owl I made this week as a part of a gift for a baby niece. I used the same methods as the elephant and made my own pattern for all the pieces based on my original sketch. With this one, I also decided to put batting on all the base fabric of the stuffed animal since it was not as sturdy as I wanted it to be. That seemed to help a lot!

Making a "toutou" (Part 2)

After elephant version 1.0, I made some changes to the pattern and started working with the actual fabric. Because the fabric I had chosen was slippery and thin, I ironed batting on the back of all the pieces, thinking it might make it easier to work with.

Then I trimmed the edges, pinned the "right" sides together, and sewed. S made marks for me of where to sew for the leg sections, since they had to be precisely sewn for the sections to all meet up.

I trimmed the edges, turned the fabric right-side out, and stuffed. Finally, I sewed on the ears and eyes. Here's elephant version 2.0.

And judging from the speed at which the adorable birthday girl grabbed onto the elephant's trunk, she seemed to like it. Fun!

Making a "toutou" (Part 1)

I recently decided out of the blue that I wanted to learn how to make little fabric stuffed animals to give as gifts. So this past week I did some research and planning, and then bought the necessary materials. On Friday, I made my first one: an elephant for a friend's daughter's 1st birthday. Instead of using a pattern, I decided to make my own since I figured it couldn't be that hard. After researching some images of elephants, I began doing some rough sketches and decided to base the pattern on the above drawing.

I was originally just going to wing it with the fabric I bought. I think I must prefer having a bit of a sense of risk when attempting creative projects: When having people over for dinner, I regularly try out new recipes, and I often improvise with various craft projects. But for once, I decided to do a practice version.

I got some pieces of old t-shirt from my "to re-purpose" collection, and cut out my pattern and pinned the "right" sides together.

Then I sewed around the elephant and two ears, leaving an un-sewn space in the elephant's tummy. I trimmed the edges and turned it right-side out.

Then I stuffed and stuffed and stuffed. And noticed the trunk was as long as the legs....and that I forgot to make a tail...oops. As I stuffed, the elephant shape altered as it became three dimensional.

Looking at the stuffed elephant, I realized my pattern needed some adjustments to make it look less....horse-shaped. I also decided that the two-legs design looked funny on a 3-D stuffed elephant. S explained how to alter the pattern to make four legs, and made the new pattern pieces for me. So I made some changes and started elephant version 2.0 with the actual fabric...and hoped this one would come out more elephant-like. (To be continued...)

Yum.

I am a new fan of sweet potato tacos. YUM.

The next step in the quest for a potty-trained cat.

As I mentioned a while back, we are trying to toilet train our cat, Booboo. After a month of having Booboo's regular litter box on top of the toilet, we made the move to a smaller litter box that sits within the toilet, almost flush. (Haha....) Anyhow, we got the red litter box, but it was slightly too big, so S used a blow torch to melt the plastic to the right size to fit the toilet securely. The box holds in place perfectly now!

We filled the box with litter then brought Booboo in to check it out. Booboo climbed up to inspect the new arrangement, but seemed a little hesitant about the toilet seat aspect of it. He sniffed but did not use the litter box.

After several hours and no evidence that he had adjusted to the new set-up, we decided we should take a smaller step before we introduce the lid. So here is our current set-up:

Since we made this adjustment, Booboo has been using the litter box. We figure we will keep it this way for maybe about a week or so, before we put the lid back down. After he gets used to balancing on the lid, we will begin taking the next steps to wean him off the litter box.

So....slowly but surely, we are making progress.

A healthy muffin that does not taste disgusting.*

Trying to use up some blueberries and one banana, I experimented in the kitchen and came up with a recipe for blueberry banana muffins.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup of buckwheat flour
1/2 cup of whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup of sugar**
1/2 tsp. of salt

1 cup of oatmeal flakes
1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
1/2 cup of wheat germ***
2 Tbs. of flax seed

3 Tbs. margarine/butter melted
1 mashed banana
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup of skim milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup or so of fresh blueberries



I put all the dry ingredients on the first grouping together and mixed. Then I stirred in the more "chunky" dry ingredients and the wet ingredients one by one. The blueberries go in last and I stirred those as gently as possible to avoid breaking them. I used an ice cream scooper to get the batter into exactly 24 mini muffin molds. Bake 15-20 minutes at 425 degrees F.

*I consumed 6 mini muffins as my "lunch" after they came out of the oven because  I could not stop eating them.
 **I used white sugar, but next time will experiment with raw/turbinado sugar. Or maybe maple syrup? Heidi Swanson at 101Cookbooks.com talks about natural sweetners. I also learned about using buckwheat flour from her cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, which I love because it is teaching me about choosing healthier ingredients.
***Leaving out a couple of the things like flax seed and sunflower seeds won't have a huge impact on the overall recipe, just the health factor. Perhaps almonds could substitute in nicely?

Using up the Food, Part 2

Last night, I got in the mood for home-made hummus and wanted to try making this home-made pita bread to go with it. Then I realized pita bread would take too long for my hunger-level. And after I looked through my cabinets, I realized I no longer had any chickpeas because of making this twice. But I did have 3 cans of red kidney beans. And I found a recipe online for some sort of "roti" Indian bread that was quick to make and did not use yeast. So I decided to get inventive. I made up a recipe for red kidney bean "hummus" and tried the wheat roti bread, which was made in the skillet, like pancakes but thinner. The "hummus" was okay, the bread was...eh. Maybe I did it wrong? But I will toast it for dinner and hopefully get it to be kind of chip-like, and that would be nice to use on the huge amount of kidney bean hummus leftovers. Two more cans of kidney beans to go. Any fun vegetarian-friendly suggestions? I guess can always do a non-meat chili 'cause I also have a lot of tomato sauce to use up...