One Fell In

Vegetarian Om Noms Once More

2012-03-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a close-up of some amazing vegetable soup with farro, containing sweet potatoes, red peppers, onions, kale, and chickpeas. Jonathan and I made it from Kate's recipe at Cookie + Kate, originally adapted from Heidi Swanson's farro soup in Super Natural Every Day. It's tasty and filling, but doesn't weigh you down.

And inspired by Alison's post about Savraw Organics, we tried our hand at some kale chips. They were delicious! The flavor somewhat reminded me of toasted pumpkin seeds.

Out of the Box: Custom Box and Other Tales

2012-03-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

Here it is, at last! Our first build-a-box from Out of the Box! We got to start from the ground up for this one and pick just the categories we wanted. Each category is individually priced. The produce box is just one category and contains a similar assortment to previous weeks. We chose the produce box, plus the California Cheese, OJ, Eggs, Fair Trade, and Local Specialty categories, along with an order of those tasty Fat Uncle Farms blistered almonds from a couple weeks ago and a frozen pizza by Full of Life. The box was phenomenal this week! Let's take a look!

The Produce:

3 bananas

1 crate strawberries

2 lemons

6 kiwis

6 oranges

1 bunch mint

1 bunch flat leaf parsley

1 green garlic

1 bunch kale

1 bunch rainbow chard

1 bunch green onions

1 bunch of salad greens

1 bag snap peas

1 head cauliflower

1 large yellow onion

16 radishes (I think they're French breakfast radishes)

2 big potatoes

14 carrots of varying sizes, mostly like this large one

The Other Stuff:

Margherita Pizza by Full of Life (we added this)

Blistered Almonds by Fat Uncle Farms (we added this)

Orange Juice by Friends' Ranch

Eggs by Dare 2 Dream

Pearl Quinoa by Alter Eco (Fair Trade)

Raspberry Spun Honey by San Marcos Farms (Local Specialty)

San Joaquin Gold (California Cheese)

Let me tell you how much we're in love with Out of the Box. When we went looking for a new place this past weekend, we consulted the Out of the Box delivery map. That's not to say that if we found the best place ever and it was outside of the delivery zone, we'd necessarily turn it down, but it would influence our decision. Luckily... Surprise announcement!! Confetti redux!! YAY!!! We're moving in just over two weeks!!! We found basically the best place ever AND it's still in Out of the Box territory. We all win!

This will be the last Out of the Box review for a while, unless and until we try out any new services from them. I wanted to take some of the mystery out of the organic food delivery company selection process, and luckily, this time around, I found a really great thing and I'm sticking to it. In case you haven't guessed, Out of the Box gets my highest recommendation: three golden wookies! Haha, no, I'm just kidding. This blog isn't THAT dorky. Let's decide what to call my highest recommendation... Five smelly hipsters? Two creepy fennel thumbs up? For now, let's call it my highest recommendation.

Out for Brunch at Henry's Hat

2012-02-29T05:30:00.000-08:00

Henry's Hat is a great place to drink and eat dinner, but it's also a great place to drink and eat breakfast! The bottom one is pulled pork hash. I sent my brother this picture and he texted back, "What are you doing in heaven?" That's about the sum of it.

Purge of the Day: DVD Cases

2012-02-28T18:32:00.000-08:00

This many DVDs fit into the DVD storage binder pictured. The cases take up 6.4 times more space than the binder, which will fit neatly into our TV stand (along with a partially-filled second binder), whereas the DVD cases lived in their own shelving unit, which is now being donated. We've known this change was coming for a while, but it was still a hard to let go. Now that we have, though, we can see that it was so overwhelmingly the right decision to exchange extra packaging for more space in our home.

Just a note on recycling those cases: It's hard to find information on the best way to go about doing this. What we did was an amalgam of all the advice we could find.

We removed the cover insert and any inside booklets from all of the standard DVD cases and donated them to Goodwill. We read that people often donate CDs or DVDs with no case, so the stores can put some of those cases to good use and sell the rest. Someone reported seeing bundles of empty DVD cases at a Goodwill location for ten cents a case.

We dismantled all cardboard cases, ripping plastic components from cardboard and flattening remaining cardboard. All paper components of any kind go in the same bag to recycle and plastic goes in a separate bag.

Another idea we found for re-using DVD and CD cases is to give them to a teacher/school to use in an art project. The students get to design cover art! I thought that was cute.

Purge of the Day: Bar Stool

2012-02-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

It was an older version of this Ikea one. We kept it around because it folded up and we thought we'd use it for additional seating if/when necessary, but it was really just getting in the way of other things in the closet, and we already have seating for 14-15 people, which is probably too many as it is.

Out of the Box #5

2012-02-23T05:30:00.001-08:00

The Produce:

1 stalk green garlic
1 red onion
3 sweet potatoes
14 fingerling potatoes
6 carrots
1 head red cabbage
1 head radicchio traviso
1 bag sprouted garbanzo beans
1 head red oak lettuce
1 bunch arugula
1 grapefruit
1 carton strawberries
1 carton blueberries
8 tangerines
2 blood oranges
1 bunch cilantro

The Other Stuff:
hummus and felafel by Baba Foods (Local Specialty)
orange juice by Friends Ranch
burrata by DiStefano (California Cheese)
savory pie crust by Simply Pies (Grain/Pulse)
smoked sun-dried-tomato-stuffed olives by Fuscano (dried fruit/nut)
Moroccan mint tea by Choice (Fair Trade)

First, let me start by saying that although today's box was an insanely awesome return to form, I am even more excited about next week's box, which will be the first box Jonathan and I receive using Out of the Box's brand-new Build Your Own Box feature! You can choose to add or delete any categories, as well as add groceries from Out of the Box's online store, such as milk, bread, fresh pasta, sugar, frozen pizzas, etc... Delivery is free for orders over $100 and $15 for other orders, but there's no minimum. Couples' produce is $45, which is not bad when you consider the quantity, quality, and degree of difficulty to find some of the items. I have no doubt that even if I could find all of these organic items at the grocery store nearest me, I would end up spending at least that much for less-fresh produce. Then there's the added disadvantage of having to get in my car and go to the grocery store, as well as make a plan for what I'm going to buy. And let's be honest. I'm not quite well-food-behaved enough yet to cram this many fresh fruits and vegetables into my diet if left to my own devices.

Did you see that there was thyme in that savory pie crust?

Let's look again!

YUM!!!

Cheese Coins

2012-02-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

These are beginning to take over my life. They're basically super-buttery shortbread cookies made with cheese and/or nuts and/or herbs. The bakery is based just north of San Francisco, but I've seen them popping up in specialty food shops in LA, too. They're basically everywhere you shop in wine country. And you can also buy them online.

Out for Lunch at RUSTIC

2012-02-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

Amazing eats at RUSTIC, Francis's Favorites in Alexander Valley: Fresh Mozzarella (with freshly made donut-shaped bread), Mrs. Scorsese's Lemon Chicken, and Rigatoni & Meatballs.

DIY: Easy and Easy-ish Cards

2012-02-20T05:30:00.000-08:00

Jonathan and I hate greeting cards. A lot of them are painfully unfunny and others are creepily specific. ("Grandfather, thinking of you brings to mind a tall oak tree...") It always takes us ages to find anything even remotely appropriate in the store. So for many occasions we opt to write a heartfelt note inside a blank card. And then comes the problem of finding blank cards that don't look awful. Eeek! We've found some that we love at Paper Source, but in a pinch, we'll throw one together at home.

See? Nicely done, Paper Source.

Here are some easy ones to make. Set yourself up an assembly line and you'll be cranking them out in no time. Make 'em cute enough and they can be a thoughtful gift, too. For all of these, I used pre-folded blank card stock cards like these, which are available at most craft stores. Bigger chains like Michael's or Jo-Ann pretty much always have a current percentage off coupon that you'll get if you're on their email list. I make it a rule not to pay more than $0.10 for a blank card with envelope. TMI? Oh, well. You could also just use a folded piece of card stock. I'm lazy, though.

Just a warning, the last card, the one with the martini glasses, is very quick and easy if you have a Xyron machine handy, but a huge pain in the butt if you don't.

A) Paper Wrap: 1. Find a pretty piece of scrapbook paper, wallpaper, wrapping paper, shelving paper, etc... 2. Cut out a piece the same dimensions as your open card. 3. Line it up precisely and glue.

If you're lucky enough to have a Xyron machine nearby, you can just run the open card through and stick it onto a piece of paper, then cut around the edges using scissors or an Exacto knife and mat.

B) Giant Stamp: This is pretty self-explanatory.

C) Button: 1) Cut long strips of card stock and run them through a paper corrugator. 2) Chop them off into squares. I like to make mine slightly irregular. 3) Hot glue to card. You can arrange multiples on the same card in all kinds of patterns. 4) Hot glue button to square. Apply pressure.

If you don't have a corrugator handy, any textured paper would work.

D) Wavy Punch: 1) Make corrugated squares as in the Button card. 2) Cut out thinner strips of card stock in a second color. 3) Run those strips through Xyron machine. 4) Punch any shape over and over down the strips, leaving space between each punch. With each punch, a sticker will fall out. 5) Cut the strips between each punch, turning them into "negative space stickers." 6) Apply stickers and negative space stickers to the corrugate squares. (Stickers also look good decorating an envelope flap.) 7) Hot glue decorated corrugate squares to cards.

There. Now to send out some greetings!

Purge of the Day: Busted Laptop

2012-02-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

It's so busted that it's going to recycling. No one would want it, even for free. I'll just leave it at that. We should have gotten rid of it a long time ago, but we felt guilty. That should be a flashing red light at this point. If it lives here because we feel bad about it, it has to go!

Purge of the Day: Cork Boards

2012-02-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

Five of them. They were behind our couch in the office. I didn't even realize we still had them. I know it's kind of beginning to sound like we should be on Hoarders, but I promise that's not the case. I think we started out with about an average amount of stuff! I really want to get to a place where I have just what I use and nothing else, and preferably before I have kids. Must keep going!

Beef Stew and Recipes Using Cheese

2012-02-15T05:30:00.000-08:00

Best stew ever. It didn't hurt that the recipe called for an entire bottle of wine and only yielded five bowls of stew.

Unrelated but also appearing in this post, I found this list of recipes that use cheese on Vella's website. I want to make the popovers and corn muffins immediately. Drool... Okay, done being a bad influence.

CSA Review: Savraw Organics

2012-02-13T05:30:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone! This is Alison, guest blogger, interrupting your regularly scheduled posts to bring you a special report. When Molly asked me to do a guest-post, I was thrilled because I don’t know about you guys, but I think this blog is the best. To be part of it is awesome, and I hope this post will be as fun as and informative as Molly’s are!

So let’s get started! I just joined a local CSA, Savraw Organics (www.savraw.com) (formerly known as CSA California), and because the internet seems to rarely tell us the ins and outs of various CSAs, here’s my review, in graphic detail.

Here’s what I received the first week:

2 Ruby Star Grapefruits

3 Oranges

5 Tangerines

2 Lemons

2 Bacon Avocados

1 bunch Cilantro

1 bunch Green Onions

1 bunch Chard

1 bunch Broccoli Greens

1 head Cauliflower

2 heads Broccoli

1 bunch Red Beets (3 beets total plus lots of greens)

1 head Romaine Lettuce

All in all, it was a great haul! There are three sizes of boxes to choose from—Full, Family, and Large, and you can choose every week or every other week. You can pick up the produce at one of their many locations, or for $5 more, you can have it delivered. I picked the smallest box, every other week, and drove to get it myself because I wanted to start off slow and also I am very cheap. So far, it’s worked out perfectly!

The produce was fresh, and everything I’ve eaten has been delicious! Each week, you receive a newsletter listing the items you’ll be getting, some fun facts, and recipes. Truth be told, even though the newsletter came several days before my pick-up day, I didn’t read it. I wanted to be surprised. I may or may not have squealed when I saw the avocados, and I think everyone at pick-up thought I was a crazy person.

The most interesting item I received was the broccoli greens. First of all, I didn’t know that it was a thing that existed or that you could eat, much like the beet leaves we learned about from Molly. Apparently broccoli greens are the leaves that surround the head of broccoli, and they’re totally available for consumption. (The question I have is, what happens to broccoli greens normally? Where do they go? I’ve never seen them at grocery stores. Are farmers throwing it away? Eating it in secret? I demand answers!) As suggested in my recipe newsletter, I made them into chips, similar to kale chips.

Basically you just toss the greens with some olive oil, salt, pepper (I added red pepper flakes) and bake until crispy. Did they taste like potato chips? No. Did they taste better then they look? Yes. They were pretty good! It’s a great snack because it feels like you’re eating something bad for you, when in truth it’s pretty healthy. And isn’t that the goal in life?

Here are some other things I made:

Roasted cauliflower and broccoli with shaved parmesan and lemon juice.

Chicken schnitzel and lemon with a salad of chard, cauliflower, walnuts and roasted red pepper dressing.

Eventually, I may up this to every week, but right now I have my hands full trying to figure out how to cook with everything I received. I don’t think all of this will last two weeks, so for now, I’ll eat very healthy for one week, and then terrible the next. I think I’m on the right track. Overall, I would give Savraw Organics a hearty “recommend!”

Out of the Box #4

2012-02-10T05:30:00.001-08:00

Produce:

1 carton strawberries

2 navel oranges

3 tangelos

4 kiwi

2 bacon avocadoes

16 amarosa potatoes

2 candy onions

6 carrots

1 stalk green garlic

1 bunch heirloom broccoli

1 bunch asparagus

1 bag brussels sprouts

1 bag snap peas

1 bag stir fry mix

1 bag spring mix

1 bunch lavender

The Other Stuff:

1 quart orange juice

Bona Dea Raspberry Chocolate Confiture (local specialty category)

1 snack-size bag dried persimmons from Forcefield (nut/dried fruit category)

1/2 lb Organic Valley farm butter

1 sandwich bag cornbread mix from Grass Valley Grains (grain/pulse category)

4 oz Purple Haze goat disc from Cypress Grove (California cheese category)

2 chocolates from Chocolate Maya (fair trade category)

So... yeah. This seemed like less stuff than the other times we ordered. It came in one box instead of two. The fair trade and dried fruit categories were somewhat disappointing. We're taking a week off from delivery next week, but I'll report back the following week. I'm hoping it picks back up. When it works, it makes life a whole lot easier.

I am, however, very excited about the raspberry chocolate confiture. This week's newsletter suggests serving it in crepes for dessert-- yum! I'm also excited to cook with fresh lavender for the first time ever. One of this week's recipes uses it in a steak rub, of all things. Aaaand that lovely Purple Haze pictured above is so named because it contains lavender, too! I'm already dreaming up possibilities... maybe some involving that honey from a couple weeks back? And who can argue with cornbread? Really, who?

So, it's a split review, which would be a huge step up for some delivery companies, but a step down for this one. But probably it'll be back to extremely positive by the next one!

Stay tuned for Ali's review of Los Angeles CSA Savraw Organics, coming to you shortly right here on this blog. I can't wait to see what she has to say!

BTW, here's some farro salad the husband and I made with last week's ingredients and recipe:

Don't you feel healthier just looking at it?

Purge of the Day: Kitchen Odds and Ends

2012-02-09T01:00:00.000-08:00

Today, we cleaned out our utensil drawers and got rid of a lot of duplicates, along with this set of bowls. In giving them away, we opened up a spot on the shelf for this pretty set of rice bowls that we were given as a wedding gift, which heretofore had been sitting in the hall closet for lack of a better place to put them.

Now that they're within reach, I have a feeling we'll be using them in no time.

It's weird how stuff accumulates in a kitchen and you somehow end up with five plastic ladles. I can't explain it. I let myself get so stuff-numb that I had no idea what was in my home or why. I'm determined to keep hacking away, piece by piece, making sense of it. I just finished organizing the bigger utensils into three compartments: cut, stir/flip, and serve. "Cut" includes everything from knives and sharpeners to peelers to a cake level, but it makes sense to me, so I think it's going to be easy to implement. I think I sometimes hit a roadblock in organizing when I pick a place for something but without a solid reason why. If the reason doesn't resound with me, I forget pretty quickly, and everything gets messy again.

Man, I have to come up with a good way of ending posts.

Fun with Citrus

2012-02-08T05:30:00.000-08:00

Whenever I Get a Far-off Look in My Eye...

2012-02-07T05:30:00.000-08:00

...this is probably what I'm thinking about. Boneless wings, tossed in Hot, and potato wedges.

Brussels Sprouts Tossed in Meyer Lemon Marmalade

2012-02-06T15:21:00.000-08:00

Another great dish from Out of the Box's newsletter, this time by Chef Gabriele Bertaccini (of Culinary Mischief fame).

Out of the Box #3

2012-02-03T05:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday, everyone!! Here's what came in the box this week.

Produce:

1 bag brussels sprouts

1 butternut squash

1 sprig rosemary

1 bunch marjoram

3 cucumbers

15 small potatoes

7 carrots (purple, yellow, orange)

4 beets

1 green garlic (not sure if it's called a head or a stalk in this form)

5 purple spring onions

1 head red lettuce

1 head cauliflower

4 blood oranges

6 kiwi

1 grapefruit

8 tangerines

The Other Stuff:

1 dozen eggs from Dare to Dream Farms

about 1/2 sandwich bag farro from Grass Valley Grains (grain/pulse)

2 oz fennel seed from The Spicy Gourmet (fair trade)

1 oz applewood smoked sea salt from Tour de Salt (local specialty)

8oz Bona Dea Meyer Lemon Marmalade (local specialty)

5 oz blistered almonds from Fat Uncle Farms (nut/dried fruit)

1 wedge of Wagon Wheel from Cowgirl Creamery (California cheese)

Here's the best pork roast ever, made with ingredients from the box:

That crazy-good rub was made with garlic, rosemary, fennel seed, smoked salt, and pepper, per instructions in this week's meal plan.

A lot of the things that came this week are new to me, so I'm excited to see how everything works out. If you can believe it, I've never cooked a beet, green garlic, butternut squash, or four of the seven items in the grocery box. I'll let you know if I discover anything cool!

Valentine Veg: Beet Leaves With Pink Garlic

2012-02-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

Look!! Until yesterday, I had no idea that beet leaves were a) a thing or b) edible, but as it turns out, they are both of these! Jonathan and I noticed right away that they looked exactly like rainbow chard, and after some Googling on the part of my favorite action figure expert, we learned that they can be used almost interchangeably.

All we did to cook these was sauté 2 diced cloves of garlic in a small amount of butter until softened and then throw in the leaves and cook those until softened. YUM!

Beet leaves are tougher and so take a bit longer to cook. They have a slightly more bitter taste than chard, but it's not too noticeable. A huge bonus is that they turn everything else in the pan pink! We made them with some scrambled eggs for breakfast and even those turned pink where they touched the leaves. It would be fun to make an egg-white scramble with sautéed beet leaves for Valentine's Day... an entirely pink breakfast!

Purge of the Day: Action Figure Bases

2012-02-01T11:09:00.000-08:00

And now, a special report from me, Jonathan, on the minutiae of action figure collecting and action figure collecting-related purging (WARNING: there be heavy nerdery this way):

For a long time, Toy Biz packaged their various Marvel Comics figures with large bases. It didn't matter if it was a Marvel Legends figure, or a Spider-Man Classics, or even the short-lived but much-loved X-Men Classics--if you were buying a high-quality, excellently-articulated Marvel figure from Toy Biz, you were getting an unruly, oft-ugly, heavy base on which to display your figure that you would never use to display your figure. Granted, they weren't always some random blue plastic x with a crummy spring-loaded missile launcher attached. Occasionally, you'd get a detached Sentinel hand covered in snow and think, "If I spread this out with the other detached Sentinel pieces, it'd probably look like the X-Men had taken out a Sentinel."

And maybe it would have, but like all of the other even less-promising bases, the Sentinel pieces went right into one large plastic bin or another and never served any purpose but an extra trip up and down the steps during three moves. And the collection grew between each move.

Find out my perfectly logical reason for buying three Bishop figures from the same series after the jump.

By the time we reached our current home, the bases had been--cleverly, I thought--relegated to the garage, where they weren't an eyesore, and, more importantly, I could continue living in the delusion that I needed them. I am a hardcore collector (this likely goes without saying by now). That's why you see a detached Build-a-Figure Apocalypse leg amidst the wreckage in this photo--you had to buy 6 figures that each came with a piece of Apocalypse to build an 18-inch Apocalypse figure. Obviously this sounds amazing and everyone would buy the six figures and build an 18-inch Apocalypse figure. But why an extra left leg? I ended up with two left legs because the left leg came with Wolverine, and there was a variant unmasked Wolverine that just had to join my collection, and with him, another left Apocalypse leg.

I also ended up with three Bishops from the set: one because I wanted another variant, and another because the Apocalypse torso he came with broke twice during construction. It becomes obvious pretty quickly, I think, just how uncontrolled my collecting was.

Now, it's been a while since I've really taken any of these figures out of their large (but orderly and well-organized) plastic bins. But the bases? The bases were always garbage. I don't know if they were meant to fill up the packaging with their girth or trick you into thinking you'd purchased something more substantive with their heft, but if they were truly meant to display your figures, I never got that. And so they were garbage. And some 9 years after the first one of these entered my possession, the few that were very cool and might be enjoyed by someone else have been donated to a younger person's collection, and the rest go back into the fiery pits of hell from which they (probably) came.

I think at this point, seeing how much I've educated you all on action figure collecting, Molly is questioning the decision to turn over the blog, so I will thank you all for reading and step aside. Until my specific expertise is needed again...

MegaPost! Creepy Fennel, Box Contents, Vegetarian OmNoms

2012-01-31T05:30:00.001-08:00

This looks so much like a human hand that I'm kind of afraid to go near it. There's probably some creepy camp story about how some guy's hand got turned into this bulb of fennel and now he's coming to kill me because it's in my kitchen.

Another week, another produce/grocery box! Yeah, it was technically last week, but maybe I'll have a smaller and smaller lag between getting the box and showing it to you as time wears on. Or maybe not. Time will tell! This week, we got the Family Vegetarian Box just to try it out. It's only $10 more than the Couple Box and includes the addition of more produce (thyme, cilantro, and bok choy this week) and butter or eggs (whichever of the two the Couple Box isn't already getting that week). We ran out of eggs, so we thought we may as well give it a try and save ourselves the trip to the store. We're going back to the Couple Box for our next shipment.

A ton more food-related words and pictures after the jump!

Here's what we got:

Produce:

15 baby white potatoes

1 bag of stir fry mix

1 head bok choy

1 head Sierra lettuce

2 bunches broccoli

2 heads cauliflower

chanterelles (don't know how to quantify this w/o weighing)

2 yellow onions

1 small box blueberries

3 lemons

3 blood oranges

2 avocados

8 tangerines

1 terrifying human hand of fennel

9 carrots (in orange, yellow, and purple)

1 bunch cilantro

1 bunch thyme

The Other Stuff:

1 dozen eggs from Dare to Dream Farms

1/2 lb Organic Valley farm butter

1 wedge Vella Dry Jack from C'est Cheese (cheese)

huge bag of red lentils (pulse)

1 jar Avila and Sons walnut butter (nut/dried fruit)

1 jar Lovebirds honey (local)

3/4 lb Green Star coffee (fair trade)

The specialty items were just fantastic again.

We barely used this week's meal plan at all. We slightly altered the stewed lentils recipe, which I posted earlier and you already read because reading this blog is among your favorite daily activities.

Isn't the base cut off of the bok choy pretty? Now, back to the topic at hand!

We did stir fry the stir fry veggies along with the broccoli and some carrots. We added tofu and a lot of noodles and sesame paste! Click on the link and prepare to be astonished.

OMGthosenoodles. They're life-changing. And they have a good amount of peanut butter in them, which significantly ups the protein in this vegetarian meal.

And because I'm in an inappropriate over-sharing kind of mood, here's another insanely delicious vegetarian meal we made with the contents of this box:

I got a little shave-happy. This is the Sierra lettuce topped with shaved fennel, shaved parmesan, and, in keeping with the theme, shaved purple and yellow carrots. It was very tasty. We used the Sweet Om Mama dressing from last week's box, which was spinach/cress/herb flavored, and it was so, so happy-making. And the main course:

Jonathan slaved away in the kitchen making this insane risotto containing one of the onions and all of the chanterelles. He is the most awesome person ever to exist. I'm so glad my elaborate scheme to trick him into marrying me by replacing the guy playing a priest in the musical we were both in with a real priest, a la Miss Piggy in Muppets Take Manhattan, worked out.

That's it for now. I hope it's shaping up to be a great week for everyone!

A Week of Clean Eating

2012-01-30T17:16:00.000-08:00

This is a great idea by Danielle of Sometimes Sweet. The goal is to avoid refined sugars and processed foods for a week. I think I almost did that coincidentally last week, with the exception of some insanely delicious lemon-blueberry muffins that Jonathan and I made with the lemons and blueberries from our box. I still have a couple left, so for me, this challenge officially begins after I run and eat those real quick. We'll see how it goes.

Vegetarian Recipe: Stewed Lentils Over Rice

2012-01-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

Yum! So Jonathan and I were in need of a recipe to use some of the sprouted red lentils that came in our box, and we found a recipe from Out of the Box Collective's March 5, 2011 meal plan. We didn't have a few of the ingredients (like garlic stalks or stewed tomatoes), so we adapted it to suit what we did have on hand, and added quantities to the recipe. We started out by using the suggested squeeze of lemon, but it ended up not being quite flavorful enough for our taste, so we added more. It ended up really, really tasty. We ate it along with some roasted cauliflower, as OBC suggested. I already can't wait to dig in to the leftovers!

Stewed Lentils Over Rice (Adapted from this issue of OBC's newsletter)
serves 4

Ingredients:
2 large fresh beefsteak tomatoes, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed and diced
1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
2 cups sprouted red lentils
3 cups vegetable broth, divided use
2 tablespoons lemon juice
salt and pepper
olive oil
steamed rice (We used plain old white rice this time.)

1) Saute diced tomatoes and garlic in a small amount of olive oil (1-2 tbsp) over medium-high heat until softened. Season with salt and pepper liberally while this is cooking. Add 1/2 cup vegetable broth. Cook until half the broth is left in the pan.
2) Add onion to pan. Cook until soft.
3) Add lentils and all remaining vegetable broth. Bring to boil, then turn heat down to low and simmer, covered, 20 minutes. The end product should be a similar consistency to baked beans.
4) Remove lid. If any extra liquid remains, stir and cook until it has mostly evaporated.
5) Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Serve over rice.

Enjoy your weekend!

Purge of the Day: N64

2012-01-26T05:30:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. We purged game systems a long-ass time ago. For whatever reason, Jonathan couldn't bring himself to let go of the N64 until now. We were getting something out of our hall closet and he saw it sitting on the shelf and realized we were probably never actually going to play with it again. If we want to play any N64 games, we can always download them on Wii, in any case. So he did the brave thing and donated it. We're getting closer to where we want to be. I have a feeling I have a few things at which I should take another hard look... More purges soon!

Two! Two Tasty Vegetarian Meals! Bah ah ah!

2012-01-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

This week's meal plan from Out of the Box Collective was inspired by recipes sourced through Gojee.com. If you haven't checked Gojee out yet, you should! It's a very pretty site that collects recipes from around the internet and allows you to search by which ingredients you have sitting around.

So here you have our attempt at Stuffed Kabocha Squash with Quinoa and Chickpeas:

This was very tasty and very filling. Jonathan and I shared one stuffed squash-half for a meal. It takes a little more than an hour total and is very easy to make. The recipe is from What Would Cathy Eat?

Aaaand this is our attempt at Gordon Ramsay's recipe for Watercress Soup:

Not the best food photo ever, but so, so tasty! We made it without the butter, which probably made it a bit more bland, but a bit healthier. I still thought it was crazy, crazy good. Here is a video of Ramsay himself making the soup, and here is a link to a guy who both wrote out the recipe and added bacon! How's that for initiative?

I'm so excited that our first Out of the Box delivery is already expanding what and how we cook. We're not vegetarians, but we are looking to cook and eat healthier, and this seems like a step in the right direction.

CSA-ish: Out of the Box Collective

2012-01-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

After a bad experience with a CSA almost two years ago, Jonathan and I were a little reluctant to jump back in with another company. That is, we were reluctant until we discovered Out of the Box Collective! It's not a CSA, strictly speaking, but it does deliver a big box of local organic-or-better produce, along with a ton of other stuff to homes in these zip codes in SoCal.

It was the non-produce items that really sold us on Out of the Box. (You can read about everything that goes into the various-sized boxes on their website, so I won't bog you down with that here.) Along with all of the food comes a meal plan with recipes for five dinners featuring ingredients that come in the box! With Jonathan on hiatus at last, we knew we'd have a lot more time to spend cooking together, so we signed up to receive our first delivery on his first day off!

We were very curious about the quantities of food we would receive because the website isn't terribly specific (How could it be?), but we were very pleasantly surprised! This is what came in the Couples' Vegetarian Box this past week:

The Produce:

1 grapefruit

2 limes

2 navel oranges

5 kiwi

8 Satsuma mandarins

1 yellow onion

1 head of garlic

3 Yukon potatoes

10 white turnips

1 green kabocha squash

1 leek

1 bag sugar snap peas

6 carrots

1 bunch gold chard

2 bunches little gems lettuce

1 bunch watercress

1 bunch cilantro

The Rest:

1 bag chickpeas (Pulse/Mix/Grain/Pie Shell Category)

1 dozen eggs (alternates weekly with 1/2 pound butter in Couples' Box)

8 oz Organic Valley raw cheddar (California Cheese Category)

1 jar Bona Dea marinara sauce (Local Specialty Category)

1 quart orange juice

1 x 1/2 pound Avila and Sons lemon pistachios (Nut/Seed/Dried Fruit Category)

1 pound Alter Eco red quinoa (Fair Trade Item)

1 x 12 oz bottle Sweet Om Mama salad dressing in Farm Stand Flavor (intro gift)

We were very impressed by the quantity of food! Between leftovers from the dinners and items from the box that were unused in the recipes, we had to buy only a few items at the grocery store to cover us for all three meals for seven days.

The quality of every single piece of produce was fantastic. We both really appreciated the attention to detail that went into this. One of the biggest problems we had with our old CSA was that we kept getting old, diseased, or squashed produce in our box. The CSA would replace the problem items the next week if we complained, but then we'd just get another box with more squished, old, diseased produce.

We've had a chance to try all of the non-produce items in the box and loved all of them. We were happy to see that Om Sweet Mama dressings are currently available in Out of the Box's online store (where customers can purchase a huge variety of add-ons to their boxes). We were also excited to learn that Avila and Sons sets up shop at several LA-based farmers' markets, so we can load up on more of those insanely good lemon pistachios very soon.

All told, I have not a single bad thing to say about this experience. It's just great. I feel lucky to have found it. I just wish the same kind of business would pop up in other parts of the country for more people to enjoy.

Cute Things from Around the Internets

2012-01-20T05:30:00.000-08:00

Purge of the Day: Ties

2012-01-19T05:30:00.000-08:00

That is all.

Wedding Wednesday: Invitations COVERED in STDS!

2012-01-18T13:51:00.000-08:00

You think that this is neither complicated nor exciting, but you are gravely mistaken, my friend! This took many, many hours of research, planning, and comparison. Then color selection (which you think takes three seconds, but more like three years), word-tweaking, and proofing. Okay, you're right about it not being exciting. By the time we were finished with stationery, I hated the world.

The Save the Date (to which etiquette books no longer refer as an STD, for some reason) you see above is the one we picked. It's from Paperwink. We thought about somehow integrating our color scheme of plum and lime (and by thought about, I mean I looked at color chips until I almost cried, then regained my composure by making mock-ups on the computer until I almost cried again), but then we decided that our colors don't go with the theme of this STD, so we just stuck with the sample colors.

Or--OR--could you beat the Axis using VD?? But I digress.

Wedding invitations bore me, as you may have ascertained from my inability to focus on telling you about them. Jonathan and I wanted to do something fun and interactive with ours, but not the "fun" kind of interactive that would piss people off, like having them cut into 100-piece puzzles. Sorry to anybody who did that. Now you know why I never RSVPed to your wedding, though, and I hope we can move on.

This was the invitation design we picked from Paper Source. This isn't our actual invitation. (I'm just troubleshooting in advance. One person we showed this to told us completely seriously and somewhat snidely that we'd better proofread that date. Which is funny because you'd think the first thing they'd notice is that I'm not Miriam Jacobs and Jonathan's last name isn't Aberdeen. Also, that's not even the right city. It's true what they tell you: When you're getting married, EVERYONE IS HELPFUL ALL THE TIME.) Anyway, we wanted something simple and a bit rustic to go with the aesthetic of the wedding, to set the chill mood. We opted to leave purple out of the equation, as that was going to be everywhere on the day of the wedding. We didn't want to overdo it.

And we fashioned our reply cards in the manner of a Mad Lib!

We wrote something different in the blanks of each person's bottom line, except those belonging to old people who might not know Mad Libs. They got "Your reply is requested by..." But, as it turns out, a lot more people than you think are unfamiliar with Mad Libs, thus adding this invitation to the ever-growing list of things that I do that are actually hilarious, but people misclassify as "weird." I shall show you this list one day. You will laugh, sob, and ultimately grow to understand why I had no choice but to move to California.

We got some very interesting replies. A couple people didn't sign their names. Others wrote their names somewhere other than the allotted blank and then didn't specify whether they were coming. Some people were so freaked out, they avoided the front of the card altogether and wrote a note on the back explaining whether or not they were coming. One person just wrote "happy" really big across the front of the card. I was left feeling like we'd utterly terrorized a bunch of old people.

But--BUT--the vast majority of the cards we got back were from people who either got the joke or figured out the gist of what we were asking for, and their responses were sweet, fun, silly, and even times, I daresay, touching. We put all of them in a little photo album, which now lives in our living room.

Paper Source made our invitations, and we just filled the text we wanted in on the online form. It took a bit of trial and error with the preview tool to make sure the blanks and parentheticals lined up just so, but we were very happy with the end result.

Um... out of material. That is all.

Purge of the Day: Cold Weather Accessories

2012-01-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

I feel bad that I didn't get these out sooner. At least they'll be keeping people warm going forward. A big reason I'm driven to keep going and going with the purges is that I know there are still things in my possession that would do much more good in someone else's.

I've been thinking a lot recently about the meaning of objects, and about the ones that leave me cold (no pun intended). I've been feeling a lot over the last few years like I'm standing next to a wall of static and my real life is on the other side. It keeps getting scarier as I get older and time goes faster. I have to root out the useless things that occupy my time and figure out what it is that I would do if I had a few minutes to do nothing.

I smell pizza. I made lunch and then started writing this and now I'm making myself miserable smelling the pizza. It's prosciutto-jalapeno-pineapple-parmesan pizza, so you understand my predicament. Imma go eat.

Brightened My Day

2012-01-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

Luckily, my mom was driving, so I could take this.

Purge of the Day: Napkin Holder

2012-01-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

Starting this week off slow. We got a new napkin holder for Hanukkah, and so the old one shall be donated.

Happy 2012!

2012-01-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your holidays were as full of family, friends, and tasty foods as mine. I didn't want to give you a pictureless post on my first day back, so to avoid that horror of horrors, I'm giving you two purges in one today! Yaay! (Cue confetti.)

My ever-dedicated-to-the-cause husband Jonathan just cleaned out his t-shirt drawer and came up with a stack of donatables, which should very much be a word. But the real story, the story I can't show a picture of because it's way too sad, is that my mom and I went through some of my remaining childhood stuff and came up with a box, a bag, and a big basket full of stuff to donate in addition to a huge garbage bag of stuff to throw out.

Today, it's over 80 degrees and gorgeously sunny in Los Angeles, so I was in a great mood to take down all the Christmas decorations and put up a few Valentine's Day ones. I'm ready for summer! (Believe me, these things follow in LA-logic.) 2012 is off to a fantastic start and I can't wait to see what this year will bring. I wish you as much fun and productivity as you can/want to handle!

Purge of the Day: Christmas Ornaments

2011-12-20T05:30:00.000-08:00

I gave away a few ornaments whose origins I couldn't remember, and reorganized everything else so that it would fit in fewer boxes. Jonathan and I have collected so many ornaments at this point that we're only able to use about half of them. Bigger tree next year?

Purge of the Day: Yarnstuffs

2011-12-19T05:30:00.000-08:00

I was honest with myself about which things I was never going to use again, and those things have gone away.

My ass-kicking, name-taking friend Ali and I took a knitting class a couple years ago, during which we had to begin making a dishrag out of Sugar 'N' Cream yarn. Neither of us wanted a dishrag and we both hated working with the Sugar 'N' Cream. (It's similar in texture to string and doesn't pass over itself easily the way some other yarns do, which makes knitting with it more strenuous on the hands and wrists.) So, as of yesterday, I still had half a dishrag attached to one of my needles.

In the spirit of purging, I decided to cast my unwanted half-rag off the needle and repurpose it... into a sweater for my pencil cup!

Those pens and pencils are going to be so toasty for me when I stop procrastinating!

Purge of the Day: Shoes

2011-12-16T01:31:00.000-08:00

We cleared out guy shoes and girl shoes. It's always bothered me that there's no equivalent female word to "guy." I welcome suggestions.

Quilt Top Finished!

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

It's 72 x 87.5", made of 240 triangles in nine different patterns. It's a simple layout, but I'm thinking it's not too bad for a first attempt! :)

Wedding Wednesday: Probable Ring TMI

2011-12-14T01:49:00.000-08:00

image by Sweet Monday

I knew "rings" would seem like kind of a non-post, but, I mean, how awesome are those? Jonathan and I get questions about our rings all the time. It's because they're craycray! I get more because I'm a girl! (Isn't that how everything works?)

My engagement ring is a split shank, and the wedding ring drops into it, to make a unified-looking ring. Here's the picture from Bridal Rings Company, where we bought it:

It's insane that we found what I wanted. I wanted a set in which the wedding ring dropped into the engagement ring and the shank of the engagement ring was completely unadorned and the wedding ring had small diamonds with tiny prongs and what a lot of people call "antiquing"--the texture tooled into the edges of the gold. I also wanted an interesting side profile. Then I had a couple of long-shot, probably-not-going-to-happen wants, like center prongs that were integrated into the design of the engagement ring (not just floating in space), the sides of the center stone to be mostly visible, and exactly the "halo" feature you see going around the center in the above ring, also with "antiquing." Don't worry, single guys. I worked in jewelry for a few years. Most girls aren't like this.

Jonathan took the lead on the ring search (after I drew him a bunch of diagrams) and decided to check out Bridal Rings Company because a couple of our friends bought rings there and had a good experience. Lo and behold, this was the only split-shank engagement ring they carried. This was a very lucky shot in the dark.

The first time I noticed Edward Mirell jewelry was a few years before we got engaged, and I completely freaked out over it and had to show Jonathan. I know some ladies (and gents) don't agree, but I find a good deal of men's jewelry to be kind of icky. It reminds me of old people. Or the mafia. Or ladies. So you can see why I'd be drawn to a line featuring Titanium and tires. Luckily, by the time we were ring shopping, Timoku was available.

What is Timoku, you ask? I've decided to tell you! 1) It looks like wood grain, knots and all, and 2) it's forged by the process originally used to make samurai swords. I'll just let that sit for a second.

Yeah, so Jonathan flipped out over this ring. I think he had trouble waiting until the wedding to wear it. I was so happy and relieved that we found something really cool and unique for him, after all the thought and preparation that went into my ring.

And in case you were wondering what the rings were resting on in the first shot...

Yay!!! The Lego heart from our guest book table! Did you think I could get all the way through a whole post without geeking it up? Ha, ha. People with faith in me are hilarious.

Have a solemn and restful Feast of the Immaculate American Horror Story. I'll see you tomorrow! :)

Purge of the Day: More Clothes

2011-12-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

I just found a random stash of maybe clothes in a box in my closet. I'm like a squirrel or something.

Want to Feel Old? Or Want a Gingerbreadtini?

2011-12-09T23:07:00.001-08:00

Guess what came out a few days ago? Guess, guess, guess.

Oregon Trail for Wii, bitches! I'm excited to see the gameplay. The last version of Oregon Trail I played was on an Apple IIe. If it's anything like that, I imagine there's a lot of waiting for the game to load, taking your floppy out and shaking it, idly wondering if today is tater tot day, and dying of dysentery. If there's anything this game successfully impressed upon children, it was the mind-numbing boredom that was the life of a typical American settler. Nothing happened, nothing happened, and then everyone died. Now available for Wii!

But the real news is the reason I withheld the image until now:

40th f-ing anniversary edition?!?! What is that?? On a video game label?? Imagine how upsetting it's going to be when Mario turns 40. Terror! Disillusionment! I'm preparing you now because it's going to be more traumatic if I don't. He and Donkey Kong turned 30 this year, in case you were wondering/weren't invited. Devastating, but on a smaller scale.

This brings me to item number two of the day: I have perfected the gingerbreadtini.

2 shots gingerbread liqueur

1 shot Bailey's

1 shot Kahlua

fill shaker with milk

Then, obviously, you shake it and pour it into something else. And then you drink it too fast because it tastes like a cookie.

Happy Monday!!

Purge of the Day: Vacuum Cleaner

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Good-bye, old friend. You still work after ten years. You should have a badge or something.

I'm sad to see my vacuum cleaner go, but it was a little too rough to use on the hardwood floors in my current apartment. So wedding gift cards bought us a Dyson. (Why do I feel dirty saying that in front of the photo of the old vacuum cleaner?)

My mom had a Dirt Devil when I was a kid. It was kind of evil-looking. It was loud and lit up. The first time she turned it on, my dog ran and hid. My dad and my brother had similar reactions. I always wondered about that thing...

Quilt: rows 3-4

2011-12-09T00:30:00.001-08:00

It's twice the quilt it used to be, and I am exhausted. Eight rows to go!

Comic File DIY

2011-12-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

Looook!! Individual comic book issues are ugly on a bookshelf. Gross, even! We saw a picture on MarthaStewart.com of magazine files covered with wallpaper, so that gave us this idea:

DIY after the jump.

You will need:

a big fold-out or wrap-around comic book cover

magazine files (We used these cheap cardboard ones from Ikea.)

adhesive (We used Elmer’s spray glue for most of the project, then Xyron tape to attach the windows)

newspaper or other covering for your workspace (does this go without saying?)

cardstock

straight edge

pencil

scissors, exacto knife, or rotary cutter

self-healing mat if using exacto or rotary (pretty sure THIS goes without saying)

It’s pretty self-explanatory from the picture.

Because comic book covers are shorter than the height of a standard magazine file, we covered the sides of the magazine files with black cardstock first. The cardstock doesn’t have to all be in one piece, as you can hide a seam behind the book cover.

Trace one magazine file onto cardstock, cut out, then use that piece of cardstock as a template to trace the other strips of cardstock and strips of comic book cover.

Be very careful to cut in straight lines when you’re cutting out the strips of the comic book cover. If you don’t, you will ruin everything, and you’ll be even lamer than a person making super-hero crafts. You’ll be the person who RUINS super-hero crafts!! Be sure to cover your surrounding area if you use spray glue. Nobody likes sticky feet.

We added a little label holder at the bottom of the files by cutting out a rectangle of cardstock to fit the space below the image at the bottom of the file. We cut a window in the square and then attached the square using a thin line of adhesive on three sides. You can leave the top of the square or one of the sides unglued. This way you can slip in a piece of paper noting what’s in the file, and you can swap it out when you change your mind.

Wedding Wednesday: The Clothes

2011-12-07T04:30:00.000-08:00

Here's where to buy everything for your my-wedding reenactment. Pics by Sweet Monday.

dress by Essense of Australia (yes, that's how they spell it)

shoes by Stuart Weitzman Bridal and Converse

bracelet by Kate Spade and garters by Garter Lady

baby shoes by Converse :)

suits by Express and ties by Ben Sherman

bridesmaid dresses by Carol Hannah

flower girl dress by Forever Yours

You think I'm winding down now, huh? Oh, you have no idea. You are about to get so weddinged next week. Stop by tomorrow for some super-geeky non-wedding stuff. TTFN! Happy American Horror Story Day! (This is my discreet way of alerting you that that's the new legal name of Wednesday, because I know you don't follow Congressional news. You're welcome for saving you the embarrassment.)

Prima Donna's Hawt Geek-Out

2011-12-06T04:30:00.000-08:00

Um, so, if you've been reading this blog, you may have guessed that I like-like lingerie. I don't know if I spend enough hours on it in a typical week to classify it as a full-blown hobby... What is the cut-off? Does anyone know? But, yes, we have a storied past, and I believe it knows how I feel.

Now Prima Donna is trying unnecessarily hard to reel me in yet again with their current collection... by naming styles after planets in Star Wars!

Tatooine

Endor

Naboo

And one Lord of the Rings locale:

Edoras

These designs seem to have little to do with their namesakes, but this is the best strategy I've ever seen to get guys to buy bras. (The second best strategy I've seen is the stack of vintage lad mags in the waiting room at Jenette. The third best strategy is convincing him he's a philanderer in an 80s movie.)

While I can't recommend any of these (yet), I CAN recommend Prima Donna's Madison and Deauville collections with several exclamation points, but you won't find them at the end of this sentence, because I'm telling you about the exclamation points in a very calm and serious tone. They're the kind of bra that's comfy enough to laze around in all day, but when you take your shirt off, it will look like you really tried. That's my favorite kind of thing, generally speaking.

Quilt: FML

2011-12-05T04:30:00.000-08:00

Oh, man. I tried to work on a quilt last week, but as it turns out, quilts are really hard to make! And to make matters worse, it was the 1970s, so I just couldn't get anything done!

Here are rows 1-2 of 12. Yes, I still have 5/6 of this behemoth left to go:

Aaaaand I finished the stand mixer cover for my mom:

It has piping and a pocket to store extra attachments! Instructions are coming your way soon.

This week, I have more superhero DIY in store for you, as well as some... uh, never mind. You don't really want toWEDDING!!!! MORE WEDDING!!!! Have a happy Monday!

Purge of the Day: Old Video Game Systems

2011-12-02T12:33:00.001-08:00

I know, I know. This is all very tragic. But we haven't taken these out in at least six years. They're going to a better place. Climbing up a vine to Penny Heaven, if you will.

Gifting is Horrible: Gift Cards, Etc.

2011-12-01T12:15:00.001-08:00

I have a lot of trouble selecting gifts for adults. Even a gift I love might just be clutter in somebody else’s home. Admit it! You’ve opened a present before and thought, “Oh, God. Where is this supposed to go?” No? Whatever. Liar.

Gift cards are great in a lot of circumstances, but sometimes they come off as too impersonal. The worst is when you spend hours wracking your brain for the perfect gift and then run out of time and end up getting a gift card anyway, and it seems like you spent no brain-wracking time at all! So here are some gift cards and gift card alternatives that I hope will make you seem thoughtful without sticking your recipient with more clutter. Also, they're fast and easy for you to check off your list!

More links than you can shake a stick at (though I wouldn't put it past you to try) after the jump.

Atypical Traditional Gift Cards:

Gift cards to local non-chain shops and restaurants are a good stand-by. Brand new or unusual businesses are the best, I think. Local antique or curiosity shops are a cool way to go. Or university bookstores. (Trojans <3)
Hotel or airline gift cards are a fun alternative. Four Sisters Inns in California (love, love, love, love) is a great example of a small, cozy chain with options that offers gift cards.
Has your recipient jumped on the Groupon and/or LivingSocial bandwagons? Groupon offers a straightforward gift card, to be used to purchase Groupons. In limited cities, LivingSocial offers a gift card redeemable for one of a few pre-selected deals.
Or maybe just give a gift card to a store you wouldn't normally consider. Some fun favorites of mine: Fred Flare, Terrain, ThinkGeek, Bake It Pretty, A + R, or Chronicle Books.

Subscription Services:

I like subscription services because they often showcase a wide variety of the same category of thing, so if you’re not totally sure of the recipient’s tastes within a category that you know they like, it’s no big.

GoCoffeeGo offers coffee of the month subscriptions as well as straightforward gift cards to use on their crazy selections of beans from micro-roasters. Obscure is good. We're all hipsters here, yes?
Birchbox sends beauty trial sizes once a month. Which is fantastic if you love makeup or you're one of those beauty junkies who orders from Sephora online when it would be just as easy to go to the store because you need your free miscellaneous stuff, damn it! I won't say either wayYESIAMTHISPERSON. BlackBox does the same thing for guys.
Art in a Box is the Compound Gallery in San Francisco's version of a CSA, but with art. Cool idea for those with empty shelves and blank walls.
Etsy is awash with zany handmade of-the-month clubs. Have it Sweet offers caramel of the month and marshmallow of the month clubs, while Cubit's offers organic seeds of the month. Apple Blossom Kids has a baby/kid's skirt of the month club.There are too many jewelry and soap clubs to list. Also on offer are underwear, tea, cookies, ties, candles... It's worth it to click around.

Give a new skill:

My favoritest thing is learning how to do stuff. I think a lot of people are the same way. Or maybe I'm wrong and this is a horrible gift. Either way:

Craft shops big and small offer lessons in a variety of disciplines. In LA, Hands-On Third gives comprehensive crash courses in a variety of crafty disciplines from knitting to soldering. (I've taken their sewing crash. Thumbs up.)
Wilton offers relatively affordable multi-week cake decorating classes all over the US and Canada. (I've done this, too. Also thumbs up.)
Exercise classes! Yay! Obviously, you can only give this to someone if you know he or she already really wants it. And, in keeping with the first two bullet points, an outdoor bootcamp that I love is Bridalicious in LA and Dallas. It's not just for brides, but it is just for ladies. My friend Jan loves Morning Crunch, which allows guys.
Cooking classes can be useful and fun. A solid knife skills class can be invaluable to someone just starting out.

Charitable Gifts:

How nice of you, right?

One of my favorite gifts to give is a gift of Heifer animals. This is a great last-minute gift, too, as you can print a card with a photo of the animal you purchased instantly from the website.
My other favorite charity is St. Baldrick's. I'm allowed to have two.
Museum memberships allow you to give a tangible gift to the recipient while supporting the arts.

That's all I have for you at the moment. Let me know your ideas. Anything to make this ordeal easier on us all.

Wedding Wednesday: Super-hero Boutonniere DIY

2011-11-30T10:44:00.001-08:00

We asked the groomsmen, ushers, and male family members for a list of their favorite Marvel or DC heroes and/or villains about a year before the wedding and didn't tell them why. A couple of them guessed it was for table names. Very clever, but no. It was for THIS:

First three pics by Sweet Monday Photography

Yes, this totally happened!! Not going to lie! It took several months to find some of the characters, but with persistence and a bid sniper on Ebay, we prevailed!

DIY and more pics after the jump!

All right! Let's make one!

You will need:

-action figures (we used MiniMates)

-grosgrain ribbon

-needle and thread

-iron

-fabric stiffener

-button-style pins (See pic in step 4. I found mine in the kids' section of Jo-Ann.)

-a heavy-duty liquid adhesive (See step 4.)

-hot glue gun and glue

1. Follow the instructions here to make a medallion bow.

2. Iron the bow. Let it sit between two heavy books for a while. I left mine overnight.

3. Place bows on a covered surface and spray them with Stiff’n’Stuff or a similar fabric stiffener. Let them dry completely before moving them.

4. Glue the bows to flat round buttons, like the one shown. In this step, I used Elmer’s spray adhesive, which ended up being a mistake. After a few hours of wear, the weight of the figures caused some of the buttons to separate from the ribbons. Use a stronger adhesive. E6000? Super glue?

5. Let dry flat (again).

6. Hot-glue figurine to the front of the button. Coordinate the orientation of the figure so that the pin back and the figure’s head are both at the top of the circle. (This seems like common sense, but almost didn’t happen a couple of times. I was tired after making 13 of these!)

If you are using MiniMates or Legos, before you glue the figures down, test to see how easily they come apart at the waist. You may have to make sure to glue the figure down both above and below the waist. You may have to glue down any arms or legs that are particularly loose, but other than that, leave the arms and legs unglued to allow action poses!

7. Let dry flat, then store flat until you’re ready to use.

Not pictured are Thing, Dr. Doom, Superman, and Green Lantern. My brother Tim wins the prize for picking the only villain! And Groomsman Rob didn't get a choice of characters, because his last name is Archangel. So he got Archangel.

So who was on Jonathan's boutonniere? Any guesses??

pic by Sweet Monday

His favorite! Jamie Madrox, Multiple Man! Why are there three of him? Google Multiple Man. I'll wait. This was not the first Multiple Man item I've made for Jonathan. Maybe I'll show you the others sometime. What do I have to lose? There's no way you got all the way through this post and DON'T think I'm a total nerd.

That's it! Happy Wednesday!

Purge of the Day: Miscellaneous Jewelry

2011-11-29T09:35:00.001-08:00

This was traumatic because there was a ton of stuff that was unusable that I was keeping for sentimental reasons. Or really ugly that I was keeping for sentimental reasons. I had to be tough. Am I going to wear this again? Yes or no? As per usual, the no pile got divided into trash or donation.

I read a fantastic tip a while back: if you’re sentimental about something you’ll never use again, take a picture of it and give the actual object away. It saves a ton of space. I thought about doing this with some of the jewelry, but then I thought to myself, “I never want to look at a picture of that.” So why was it so hard to purge it? In any case, it’s gone now, and I am the teensiest bit calmer and happier than I was when I woke up this morning. And I’ll probably start wearing jewelry more because I can actually see the things I love when I open up my jewelry box. Yay!

I hope your Tuesday is shaping up well. Tomorrow, I'm gonna bombard you with more wedding, 'cause those are our standing Wednesday plans, yes? You didn't agree to those plans? No matter. THOSE ARE OUR PLANS. And Thursday, I'm gonna try to help you finish your holiday shopping. See? This blog can be nice sometimes, too. I now leave you with one of my favorite Etsy finds this week:

by AlexandraFerguson

I'd like to institute this policy.

Yay for the long weekend!

2011-11-28T05:32:00.000-08:00

We had an awesome Thanksgiving at the Jengs', and an exhausting Black Friday at everywhere in L.A. We did not get maced, which makes us feel both lucky and like we really weren't a part of things this year. Also, our friend Rob visited!

As you can see, there was a tragic sewing explosion, covering the apartment with fabric and various notions. As you may have also noticed in the midst of the disarray, we made a cover for Rob's Kindle!

I taught Rob how to sew! He picked it up very quickly. This Kindle cover is stuffed and has a button-and-bungee closure. Excitement!

Now for a whole five-day week. Yikes. Good luck, everyone!

Wine Cork Recycling (Just in Time for Thanksgiving)

2011-11-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

Look at this! This company in Missouri accepts used wine corks and turns them into tiles. Wouldn't those look great in a bar or kitchen? I wonder how many wine corks are usually trashed in the US between Thanksgiving and New Year's and how many tiles that would make. Is it weird how much I love recycling? I love it! I'm going to start recycling corks.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody reading this in the US (and everybody everywhere else, too)! I'm glad that there's a holiday dedicated to giving thanks, because I think gratitude is is one of the most joyful things in life. I guess you could say I'm thankful for Thanksgiving! I'm also thankful for all of your hits. They make me smile every day. Thank you for visiting me! I have so much to be thankful for this year, and I hope you do, too!

Wedding Wednesday: Fabric Corsages

2011-11-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

Here I am to talk wedding again! You can turn off the lights and pretend you're not home, but I'm on to you. I'm going to stand right here with these pictures until you come out to look at them. I'd also like some tea. Thank you.

Today, I shall share with you phase two of our three-pronged floral attack: the fabric corsages. Jonathan and I put a lot of thought into whether or not to use live flowers at all in our wedding. Something about the idea of killing a lot of plants for one day of enjoyment and then throwing them away made me feel sad and wasteful. That said, I love flowers, and it was important to me to bring natural elements into the wedding. What were we to do? Luckily, we chose a venue teeming with live plants.

Guess who took the pics in this post.

You were right! Sweet Monday Photography!

So it was easy to settle on a bit of a compromise: we'd use some flowers, but replace some of the traditionally floral elements with non-living replacements. First, we decided to make the ladies in our families pretty corsages that would last forever!

We decided to let them choose: wrist corsage, pin-on corsage, headband, or hair-pin. We didn’t find out until after we started assembling them that we weren’t the first to think of this, but oh well. Great minds, yes? Even the wrist corsages could be easily adapted into cute pins to use after the wedding.

We decided to use fun, punky black and white checked ribbons for family members in our generation, and a soft grey tie we made of crepe for the older generations. Luckily, they went with everybody's outfits quite well.

With this challenge handled, we were on to step three: boutonnieres. With super-heroes. I'll show you next week.

Backdoor Gift Idea: Get your crap out of Mom and Dad’s House

2011-11-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

This could be considered a Purge of the (Many) Day(s Ago)... maybe? Last Christmas, Jonathan and I spent two nights cleaning out my old bedroom closet. I hadn’t lived with my parents in ten years, so I figured that anything I hadn’t come back to retrieve in that time was probably something I didn’t need. We filled three garbage bags. Sad, huh? A lot of it was old homework assignments that could have been tossed or shredded years earlier.

I always feel guilty creating trash or recycling of any kind, but I think the way to look at it is this: the stuff in my closet was already trash. It was going to end up in a landfill or recycling center eventually. It’s just a matter of now or later. If I did it now, my parents wouldn’t have to put up with the ridiculously messy closet anymore. It shouldn’t be their problem.

Anyway, I think this is a nice thing to do, and I also think there are probably a lot of parents who don’t want to say it in so many words, but they really wish you would just take your sh*t and go. But in a nice way! What a nice holiday surprise for them to suddenly have more house than they had before. And you can totally do that for them. No pressure or anything.

Toaster Cover DIY

2011-11-21T17:09:00.000-08:00

Look what I made! A lovely toaster cover for my mom! Don't worry. It's not droopy or lopsided. It's standing up on its own with no support because I don’t have a toaster with the same dimensions as my mom’s. It’s definitely the right size. I checked and double checked and triple checked. Here is how I did it.

You will need:

interior fabric

exterior fabric

batting

double-fold bias tape in coordinating color

1. Measure small sides of toaster. My mom’s were 8” tall x 6” wide.

2. Optional: Cut out paper version of small side to use for reference later. So mine was an 8” x 6” piece of paper.

3. Measure big sides of toaster. My mom’s were 8” tall (obviously, yes?) by 12” long.
Determine length of two big sides plus top. This will be covered by one long strip of fabric. For me, this was 12” long by (8” tall + 8” tall + 6” wide). In other words, 12” by 32”.

4. Add seam allowances to each of these numbers, plus wiggle room. You don’t want to make a cover that’s exactly the same size as your appliance, or it won’t slide on and off easily. Usually, when you’re accounting for just seam allowance, you will add 1/4” to each seam, which in most cases, works out to 1/2” to each dimension. I added a full inch to every dimension. This gave me dimensions of 9” by 7” (for the two small sides) and 13” by 33” (for the long strip). These are the dimensions that the quilted fabric needs to be at the time of assembly.

5. Extra allowance for quilting: Full disclosure: I am an extremely inexperienced quilter, so I added another half inch to each dimension, just in case I warped my fabric when quilting. I ended up not really needing it, but my plan was to start with slightly bigger pieces of fabric than I needed, then to cut them down to the sizes in step #4 when I was ready for assembly. So add whatever you need.

6. Cut out fabric in your dimensions from step 4 or 5. I used the same fabric inside and out, but it’s not necessary. If you want the pattern of your fabric to run a certain way, don't forget to account for that when cutting out your pieces.

For same fabric inside and out:

4 pieces of fabric the dimensions of your small sides

2 pieces of batting the dimensions of your small sides

2 pieces of fabric the dimensions of your long strip

1 piece of batting the dimensions of your long strip

For two different fabrics:

2 pieces of exterior fabric the dimensions of your small sides

2 pieces of interior fabric the dimensions of your small sides

2 pieces of batting the dimensions of your small sides

1 piece of exterior fabric the dimensions of your long strip

1 piece of interior fabric the dimensions of your long strip

1 piece of batting the dimensions of your long strip

7. Quilt small sides:

I pinned my pieces together, two pieces of fabric facing out from one piece of batting. I drew a line with a disappearing pen directly in the center of each piece, then drew another line to either side of the center line. I sewed over each line.

8. Quilt large strip: I pinned this side. Then, because the size made it a bit unmanageable, I loosely stitched across the very bottom of each of the 13" sides to hold the fabric in place while quilting down the 33" length. I drew a line lengthwise down the center of the strip, then sewed over it.
9. Round the corners: My mom’s toaster has rounded corners, so I wanted to incorporate that. I took my paper mock-up of the toaster’s side and placed it on one of the quilter sides. I rounded the corner with a marker, careful to leave 1/2” of wiggle room around the paper for seam allowance and to allow the cover to remain loose around the toaster. I cut the corner, then folded the side in half and traced the curve to make the piece symmetrical. I did this with both small sides.

10. Pin small side to strip. Make sure right sides are facing. Start by joining the bottom corner of the strip to the bottom corner of of one of the small sides and work your way around.There will be some overhang, as your long strip should be a little bit longer than you need. You can leave that for now.

11. Sew very slowly. It’s hard to maneuver this beast around, but you can do it. Pull out your stitches and start again if it comes out bumpy or you made any mistakes. I had to do this once, sadly. Turn it right side out to inspect it for mistakes before you attach the other side.

12. Pin other small side. Turn cover inside out again. Again, make sure right sides are facing. Start at the same side of the long strip as you did last time, not at overhanging part. When you finish pinning, the portion of the long strip that hangs over should make a perfect rectangle. We’ll cut if off later.

13. Sew very slowly again. It’s still hard maneuvering this thing. Turn it inside out to check for mistakes. Re-do if you have to.

14. Cut off the extra piece of long strip. It should be a straight shot across to trim this.

15. Measure height to make sure it's not excessive. This is easier if you have the toaster handy. If your cover is too tall, you can still trim it along the raw edge on the bottom.

15. Pin double-fold bias tape around the bottom. Leave 1-2 inches overlapping bias tape.

16. Sew around the bottom toaster cover, using your free arm. Stop a couple inches before the end. Fold the raw end of your bias tape under and re-pin it around the bias tape where you started. Don’t forget to backstitch at the end!

17. Be proud owner of toaster cover! Congrats!

Wedding Wednesday: Flower Lab Fandom

2011-11-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm totally one of those people who's going to show you bits and pieces of my wedding forever and ever after the wedding is long over. A year and a half of planning went into that beast, so deal with it!

Today, I'm showing you the awesome florist we found on WeddingWire, The Flower Lab!

All of today's photos are

by the amazing Sweet Monday Photography.

When I first saw Flower Lab's work online, one of my first thoughts was “way out of our price range,” so you could imagine my excitement and confusion when we discovered that their prices were lower than that of any of the other companies we were considering. Their work is lovely, but modern and cool.

At our consultation, it was clear within minutes that Tweeny totally got what we were going for with the wedding's rustic city/country aesthetic. We had already found these amazing vases at CB2 that had geometric windows cut out of them. My immediate thought was that we had to put LEDs in them and use them as table lighting. Our venue had very strict candle regulations, so this would also do away with that headache. Tweeny had the idea of scattering garden blossoms along the tabletops, and because Marvimon is such a food-centric venue (and we love to cook!), she added a variety of fresh herbs. The smell was amazing.

We had fresh flowers for the bridesmaids, and wanted to include our friend Erin somewhat in that grouping because she was acting as our officiant. We didn’t want her to have to carry anything, but we weren’t sure about a corsage, either. Tweeny had the idea of putting coordinating flowers in her hair. We considered it, but then ended up going with a wrist corsage. The result was gorgeous. In place of the traditional ribbon, she used stretchy pearl bracelets in different sizes.

The cake flowers were gorgeous.

Last but maybe my favorite floral detail, my little niece Izzie carried a rustic basket decorated with flowers and filled with whole blooms for her to throw as she walked up the aisle.

We were thrilled with all the flowers! Now, you may be wondering where all the boutonnieres and family corsages are. We made them and they were not strictly floral... but those pics are coming soon. See? Now you have to come back! Mwahaha!!

Happy mid-week!

Purge of the Day: Old Sheets & Towels

2011-11-15T13:39:00.000-08:00

I know, he's not a sheet or towel. He's my nephew Alex, world champion of cuteness! I'm showing you a picture of Alex to spare you the discomfort of looking at a pile of someone else's old sheets and towels. Wasn't that considerate of me?

I got some new sheets and towels as wedding gifts, so I have no excuse to cling to anything worn or frayed. Believe me, I tried. Yes, I even have sentimental attachments to towels. But it's time to be strong. I'm starting to get a picture in my mind of what it would be like to have a designated place to put everything, and it is a very agreeable picture, indeed. I'm going to make this happen, even if it hurts!

Appliance Covers: It Begins

2011-11-14T05:30:00.000-08:00

Guess what I did this weekend! If you guessed "something awesome," you are right, although I don't appreciate your lack of ambition. That was kind of a safe answer. I'll mark it correct, but I'm giving you the side-eye. Specifically, I started making a toaster cover and a stand mixer cover for my mom.

I warn you that I am not a professional, so you should not do/take/repeat anything I tell/give you, but tutorials are forthcoming.

Check out this awesome fabric I used for the project from PinkCastleFabrics's Etsy shop:

Also, SNEAK ATTACK! I threw something away.

You didn't see that coming, did you? It wasn't even in the title of the post this time! Now you have no idea what I'll do next! You are undoubtedly terrified and running for cover, but it is all in vain because I have proven myself to be an unpredictable adversary. It would be best for all parties if you were to surrender now.

These are plastic things that make video game systems stand on their sides, but they only fit flat in my TV stand, so they're going away.

With that, I wish you a happy Monday!

Recipes To Try!

2011-11-11T15:55:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Friday's turning into Food Fantasy Day around here. Here are a few more things I've added to my to-try list:

Bacon and Cream Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese and Goat Cheese (!) Frosting

Apple Cider Caramels

Buckeye Pretzels?!?!?!

Okay, so the Buckeye Pretzels are kind of a sacrilege because they don't look that much like actual buckeyes, but in their defense, they do they look a hell of a lot like delicious.

Enjoy the weekend! 43 shopping days till Christmas and 39 till Hanukkah, so you better get on that sh*t. 44 days till Kwanzaa, though, so you still got time.

Purge of the Day: Guitar Stands

2011-11-10T05:07:00.000-08:00

Three of these were in a plastic tub in our garage because we've since replaced them with wall-mounted stands. It probably goes without saying...

In case it doesn't, they no longer live here.

Purge of the Day: This Ab Device

2011-11-09T06:04:00.000-08:00

We haven't used this in forever. It's impractically loud on hardwood floors. Out!

Purge of the Day: Vacuum Space Bags

2011-11-08T05:54:00.000-08:00

Remember these? There were some in my garage. They were broken. They had been moved from garage to garage, broken, for five years. Now they're gone.

Give a Book!

2011-11-07T19:47:00.000-08:00

Let's do this fast and easy!

First Book is a charity that, among other pro-literacy activities, provides low-income families with books for their kids. This week, for each person who likes First Book on Facebook, follows it on Twitter, or follows it on Tumblr, Random House will donate one book to the cause.

Now, go!

Purge of the Day: Air Mattress

2011-11-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

Jonathan bought a twin air mattress a long time ago for visitors. I bought a queen air mattress a long time ago for visitors. Most of our visitors come in twos, so when the queen got busted, we replaced it with a super-tall, slightly awesomer queen, then we started offering that to ones and twos and even sometimes even threes...

But we found a good home for the twin, so all is right in the world of our slightly emptier apartment.

Purge of the Day: Remotes and Remote Stand

2011-11-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

This is just a weird display of pack-rattery. We have a leather bin where we keep our Wii games and accessories. It tucks right into an opening of a shelving unit we have, so it looks like we're storing some dignified grown up stuff. I decided to go through the bin to see if we have any games we're through playing that we could sell in our Amazon store, and lo and behold, under the first layer of Wii stuff was a spinning remote holder full of remotes we no longer use.

How this got there, I have no idea. I would guess that at some point when we were moving, one of us noticed a completely useless stash of remotes and stuck them in the nearest non-full box, intending to deal with them later. Or maybe this was part of our secret plan to survive the robot apocalypse, and I don't remember because they've already gotten to me. Either way, I'm getting rid of this stuff.

Purge of the Day: Deathly Hallows Box

2011-11-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

Aww, remember how fun it was, waiting for the Harry Potter books to come out, and how sad it was, knowing you were never going to read a new one again? Me, too.

But we've yet to address why this cardboard box is still taking up space in my apartment.

Awesome Jenette Bras News!!

2011-11-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

Great news!!

Okay, okay. This post might seem a little off-topic, but we're talking about making our lives as easy as possible, right? For big-chested Angelenos (and LA-transplants), Jenette Bras (Hel-Mel, near Scoops) is a godsend. I can't begin to describe the torture I underwent while bra-shopping before this store was in my life.

Even Intimacy, known for carrying up to cup size K, offers a lot of pieces that only go up to C or D. The bigger lingerie chains are worse. In department stores, it's a rarity to find anything over a D that doesn't look like an orthopedic device.

The bras at Jenette (blessedly) start at D and go up from there, AND they're beautiful. Their largely international stock is insanely well-curated. The service is incredible. The employees are sweet and really know their stuff. They keep a card on file for each customer with sizes, likes, and previous purchases. They offer nursing bras and cup-size swimwear! I could go on for a year about how this place is so great it might be imaginary, but I'll just get to the great news.

They just announced that they're expanding! The second location opens next month in Old Town Pasadena. It's an awesome idea for a business executed by nice people and it's really cool to see it succeed. I'm so happy for everybody involved, and I can't wait to check out the new space! And buy everything in it; nobodytellmyhusband.

Put Any Shape in a Cupcake?

2011-11-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

Wait. I'm sorry, but WHAT? Click the cupcake to get Made With Love's instructions for making these.

Purge of the Day: Yaffa Block Full of Notes

2011-10-31T01:10:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I'd gotten rid of our ridiculous mountain of class notes, the Yaffa block emergeth. Ha. Remember Yaffa blocks? College. I still have to weigh it on its way out, but it was approximately something I never want to pick up again in my life. I'm not cheating, claiming it as already purged, though. It's sitting in the designated zone of "heavy crap for husband to recycle," commonly referred to as HCHR. It's a thing. Look it up.

New Fall Recipes to Try!

2011-10-28T05:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!! I'm so very excited to celebrate Halloween and fall, despite the complete lack of leaves and bluster in sunny Southern California. Here are some recipes on my to-try list. Have a great weekend!

Apple Cider Donuts

Caramel-stuffed Apple Cider Cookies

Apple Cider with Shrunken Apple Heads

Pumpkin Pie Creme Brulee

Purge of the Day: Streamers

2011-10-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

Another day, another story of crafting gone awry... A couple years ago, some (dedicated and wonderful) friends and I set out to make crepe paper roses for my unfailingly awesome friend Heather's bridal shower. Little did I know, CREPE PAPER IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND ANYWHERE!

Even at Michael's, an employee pointed me to tissue paper. When I said that it wasn't the same thing, she pointed me to brown kraft paper. When I called Blick, the woman who answered had no idea what crepe paper was and thought I had the wrong number because, you see, "We sells arts and crafts type stuff." When I began, "I, um... I know. It's a type of--" she made fun of my stutter and hung up on me. Wish so very much that I were kidding.

Pearl actually had a package of red crepe paper. One. I needed more. They had no way of finding out when more was coming, but were very friendly and said I could call to check in periodically to see if more had come in. I did that for three weeks, then I started to feel bad about bothering them.

I got desperate. I bought crepe streamers at Target and decided, damn it, if we couldn't make big roses, we would just have to make tiny ones. Then immediately afterward, I found Create For Less online, and just ordered a pile of normal-size crepe paper, and we made normal-size roses. It was fun. I later made some more as a get well present for my aunt. The end.

EXCEPT that I still had these damned streamers until just now. But now they are gone. Isn't it weird how random stuff ends up in your home? The end, for real this time.

Purge of the Day: Two Small Pieces of Furniture!

2011-10-26T05:14:00.000-07:00

Remember way back when I was getting rid of all those files? I got rid of enough that I can now part with an entire empty file cabinet! Are you victory-dancing for me? You're not? Oh, um... Whatever. I'm not, either... or somesuch. Jonathan and I also got rid of enough office supplies and random junk that this Ikea cabinet (also formerly used as a nightstand) was free to go, too.

I can't tell you how good it felt to drag these out to the car. My apartment is getting delightfully emptier, slowly but surely!

Purge of the Day: This Easel

2011-10-25T05:03:00.000-07:00

We bought this easel for our wedding, then realized it was going to require someone screwing it together at the venue and someone unscrewing it apart at the end of the night for portability, and that gave us stress. So we bought this easel instead. But the wooden easel remained in our office closet unopened, mostly because it made me sad and guilty to part with something I'd never used. But I was tough, and I gave it away. I feel much better now.

At Long Last, Easy Knitting Tutorials!

2011-10-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to be good at knitting. I love big, fat scarves and sweaters and I've always been very jealous of people who can dream them up and make them happen. I started teaching myself how to knit from how-to books in college, but never got very far. It is very difficult to understand the diagrams in those things. I mastered basic stitches, but when I tried to do anything more complex, I'd end up with more of a knot than anything else.

I looked everywhere for a good instructional video, but was unable to find anything that was close-up or clear enough for me to follow.

I thought I found the solution a couple years ago when I took an intro knitting class with Alison at LACC. Our teacher was good, but the class was on the big side, so it took a long time for her to get around to everyone to demonstrate techniques close-up or to see if anything was going wrong. I corrected some sloppy technique issues I was having, but I didn't push further with my knowledge of knitting.

Then TODAY, look what I finally found! An amazing website with close up, easy-to-follow video instructions for knitting! I can't wait to dive back in. The kits are on the very pricey side, so that may not be happening, but I may take their cue on knitting a tie for the husband. He already has a couple mass-produced knit ties that he loves. Excitement!

New Online Toy Store!

2011-10-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

The guy and I order from Soap.com pretty regularly, because the toilet paper, face wash, and over-the-counter drug we most frequently buy ALL sell out regularly at the Target closest to our apartment. Soap's prices are comparable to Target's and 2-day shipping is free at $39. It's easy to hit anyway, but Soap's cart is shared with sister sites Wag.com (pet stuff), Diapers.com (baby stuff), and BeautyBar.com (cosmetic stuff), so you only have to come up with $39 of stuff from all of those sites combined to get free shipping.

So you can't even imagine the pandemonium that ensued in the apartment last week when we got an email that they added a toy store! This is probably horrible news for us because now instead of adding household supplies to our cart to hit free shipping, Jonathan is going to start adding action figures. But it's also great news because we're going to have six nieces and nephews come December! Between six kid birthdays, holidays, and Jonathan's general Jonathan-ness, this place is going to become even more of a toy clearinghouse than it already is.

We checked out the new site (YoYo.com) and were pretty happy with it. My favorite feature by far is YoYo Picks Top Ten, the site's top ten recommendations for each age from 0 to 13+. The toys are seriously cool and off the beaten path. The only way you're buying a duplicate gift off this list is if the other giver is also shopping here. This is very appreciated and sets the site apart, as major toy store sites tend to populate these lists with hundreds of random, seemingly uncurated items.

This may be the first time I'm relieved that a website exists. Not that I'm the type of aunt who lives across the country and occasionally forgets to buy a present until the two days before someone's birthday or anything...

Purge of the Day: Messenger Bags

2011-10-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

A quick survey of our bedroom closet revealed that Jonathan had six (!) black messenger bags. To be fair, five of them were free or gifts. Still, he only ever uses a couple of them, so he gave three of them away. Don't worry. He kept the Sterling Cooper and DDB bags. Those will be side by side in our closet to weird out generations to come.

Purge of the Day: DVDs and Video Games

2011-10-19T05:26:00.000-07:00

On their way out the door. We've yet to sift through games for other systems. Someday soon!

Purge of the Day: Baseball Cards

2011-10-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

Q: How do we find room in our big city apartment for the thousands of baseball cards Jonathan and I accumulated as kids?

A: We don't.

Purge of the Day: Photos

2011-10-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

So, I had this big box of photos. It was very heavy. I really didn't want to open it up for fear of how long it would take me to clean it out, but I did anyway. I enacted these rules:

Get rid of badly taken pictures.
Get rid of doubles.
Get rid of pictures of unidentified people or things.

I don't know what I was complaining about. In under two hours, I got rid of 75% of the contents of the box, and I did it while watching TV.

Wanna Flesh Out Your Halloween Playlist?

2011-10-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

Here are a few songs that, though not new, found their way over to my Halloween playlist this year.

I do love me some creepy music. What are you listening to this Halloween?

Oh, thank GOD!

2011-10-14T18:43:00.000-07:00

NOW they've arrived. We can all relax.

Purge of the Day: Files

2011-10-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

Speaking of making the file cabinet lighter, I decided I could part with all of the files you see in this bag, which made the file cabinet 23.5 pounds lighter!

Purge of the Day: Instructions and Warranties

2011-10-13T05:17:00.000-07:00

I threw out all of the warranties and instruction booklets for appliances that no longer live here. Now the remaining ones are easier to deal with and my file cabinet is a little lighter.

Purge of the Day: Medical Paperwork, Etc.

2011-10-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

Jonathan and I are very happy to have our health now, but we weren't as lucky a few years ago...

We were both thinking that all of the medical reports, hospital forms, medical supply catalogs, instruction sheets and various illness paraphernalia might come in handy if he one day wanted to write about it all, so we kept it in our office. But now we've both kind of moved past that. It was an awful time in both of our lives, and we're ready to let go. Throwing this stuff out was cathartic beyond words.

Purge of the Day: These Guys

2011-10-10T22:46:00.000-07:00

They're happy to be going to a new home. You can tell.

Purge of the Day: Comics

2011-10-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

Jonathan's really been jumping in to the purge lately. He cobbled together this stack of comics issues that don't have to live here. It's funny. We have a finite amount of space, but it seems like we keep finding more stuff that we didn't even remember we had in the first place. We're trying to leave no stone unturned, but it's hard because we keep finding more stones!

Purge of the Day: Closet Clothes Again (and Again)

2011-10-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

I'm learning an important lesson (which has now been added to the Clutter-Free Thinking page): Change is a process. I just made pass number four at purging my closet. The biggest purge was still the first one, but there were a few useless hangers-on (Ewwwww, a pun. Gross.) remaining. I needed to come back with a clear head and do it again.

The pieces of clothing that tripped me up were mostly things to which I had formed weird sentimental attachments, like a tan sweater that I would throw on over whatever I was wearing most days in film school. (Avid labs be frigid, mateys.) But now it goes unworn for a variety of reasons. It doesn't go with a lot of my clothes, and the cut looks weird on me now. (My waist migrated downward, probably as the result of an unrelated pact with Satan. More on that another day, but for now, consider me confused and grateful.) So it hurt, but on my second pass at purging my closet, the tan sweater was pulled out of commission. There are other people in the world who need a sweater, and one of them will wear it.

Being brave here. Trying to not go on a rescue mission to retrieve the sweater.

This is also a good example of why I have to do most of my purging when my husband isn't around. After the second purge, he convinced me to keep the sweater. We met in film school (but didn't get together until afterward, which is another story for another day--a bizarre and lurid story, full of complications and intrigue), and when he pictures 18 to 22 year old me, I'm wearing the sweater. So I put it back in the closet, and it survived the third purge because of my enormous guilt over purging it in the first place.

It did not survive the fourth purge. Seriously, I am not going to wear the damn thing ever again. In addition to the new location of my Satan-waist, my boobs are four cup sizes bigger than they were when I bought that sweater, which, now that I mention it, is a little suspicious, too... Here's the thing. I'm me. I'm not more me with the sweater. I'm not college-me with the sweater. There are pictures of college-me wearing the sweater and that's enough. I have me. I don't need the sweater. Someone else will enjoy the sweater and look damn hot in it, and that is final.

I initially felt like doing multiple purges was kind of a failure on my part, like I wasn't able to get it right the first couple of times, but now I see it as an indicator that I'm proceeding with caution, doing this in a way that makes the absolute most sense to me. It seems like the kind of change that's more likely to stick.

I could never have anticipated the magnitude of the results. After I completed the first closet purge, I felt relieved. After completing four closet purges, my life has been significantly impacted. I used to walk into my closet and think I had nothing to wear and that I hated a lot of my clothes. Now when I walk into my closet, I love everything I see, and picking out an outfit for the day takes seconds. It seems like an impossible fairy tale. I never would have guessed that I had enough pieces I liked, because I was so used to flipping past all of the clothes that I couldn't or wouldn't wear to get to something good. But lo and behold, the pieces of an entire me-approved wardrobe were there, hiding behind and under and between.

So get rid of your stuff. And get rid of your stuff again. And get rid of your stuff again. I did it, and I am endlessly happy. Hell-pact notwithstanding.

Fall is for Breakup Songs... or Something

2011-10-08T00:57:00.000-07:00

I'm just sad that there aren't videos for any of these. And with that, I leave you to your angsty dancing. Happy weekend!

Purge of the Day: Jammies!

2011-10-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

This is one of the hardest purges yet. Because, you know, any old t-shirt can be pajamas. So I had five million pajama tops when I woke up this morning. I knew it was going to be hard to pare down the stacks, so I made it easier on myself by putting another rule in place: Not-cute must go. I just got married, after all... Okay, I kept a couple of huge t-shirts for blah days, but the rest had to get out.

The shirts that were nice but I could live without are going to Goodwill. The shirts that were not nice are going in the trash. The shirts I’m attached to but am not wearing will become part of a t-shirt blanket. They’ve been cut into rectangles and stacked into super-compact piles.

I'm now left with an organized drawer of cute jammies (some of which I love and forgot I had) and yet another bag of quality stuff to donate. Our next move keeps getting easier!

The True Horror of Halloween 2011

2011-10-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

Where are these??? I went to my local Krispy Kreme and they were not there! And you know how I like me some these.

Too much to handle. Must put on witch hat and cry.

Purge of the Day: No More Wire Hangers!

2011-10-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

We have too many plastic hangers, too, but I'm having trouble drawing the line at how many is too many. When I figure that out, the extra plastic hangers will go to Goodwill. Not sure how to figure that out, though.

New Mail Rule!

2011-10-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

I always end up with tons of mail clutter and so I am enacting the following, effective immediately:

After retrieving the mail, I will not sit down until the entire stack of mail has been completely dealt with.

This includes bill paying, filing, recycling, decision making, scheduling, follow-up sending, and anything else that day's haul calls for. I anticipate this will be effective, but a pain in the butt. But effective.

Purge of the Day: Paper Menus

2011-10-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

In these parts, it's just easier to look it up online than fish through the folder.

Napkins for Mom

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I made a set of these cute cute cute cute (oops, stuck on a loop) cute cloth napkins for my mom! These signify my first-ever attempt at attaching rickrack, so don't judge too harshly. I said, DON'T JUDGE TOO HARSHLY! Jeez. Some people.

Purge of the Day: Printers Two

2011-10-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Jonathan has been incredibly cooperative with the purging. He braved our vast and treacherous office closet to dig these out for removal.

Jonathan had the inkjet one, but it was really slow, which is a problem when you have to print hundreds of pages at once, so he bought the laser. But that one only prints in black and white, which is a problem for other reasons. We had the two-printer setup going for a few years until we got a magically good deal on a printer that performs both functions better than the previous printers combined. But then we kept these in the closet, in case something happened to the new one. I'm considering adding that to my list of stuff that's never a good idea.

Other people could use these more than my closet could. We took them to Goodwill, which is now conveniently located just blocks from our apartment for our donating convenience, and felt immensely unburdened.

A Few Etsy Wedding Lovelies

2011-09-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

At last, my wedding is far enough in the rearview mirror that I can talk about it with relatively low anxiety. It's going to be a few weeks before the digital proofs come in and I can post many of the amazing photos taken by Sweet Monday.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite Etsy wedding purchases. These merchants were all wonderful to buy from and get my highest recommendation!

1) Chiffon Clutch by Powder Blue Bijoux.

It's so pretty in person, I almost have to take a moment of silence. Okay. I'll be okay.

2) Swarovski comb, also by Powder Blue Bijoux.

My awesome hair stylist (Mitzi from LWB) placed the comb on top of and the veil below a little woven section of hair that went across the back of my head. It was a pretty effect and gave the illusion that the veil and comb were attached. Several people asked me how she was able to get the veil in there! It looks much more complicated than it was.

You may also notice that the little crystal balls on the comb coordinate with the ball at the clasp of the clutch.

3) Garter set by Garter Lady.

I didn't want to spend a lot on the garter set, but I was eyeing Garter Lady's store for a long time, trying not to buy anything. Eventually, these popped up and I loved them very much. It was the hummingbird brooch that made up my mind. I still needed something blue and there it was!

Also, as Jonathan's cousin Adam demonstrates in this photo, you can use it for just about anything:

4) Bridesmaid bracelets by Beazuness.

These had to be ordered in custom wrist sizes and they all turned out perfectly. I was very impressed.

5) Cuff by Leather Made Nice.

This was one of the beautiful, thoughtful presents that Jonathan gave me for our wedding. An excerpt from one of our readings (Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII) is stamped inside.

This also fit perfectly based on custom sizing. I'm always impressed with the level of professionalism and craftsmanship shown by Etsy vendors. You would think there would be more room for mishaps with homemade goods, but I've had the opposite experience.

Do you have any Etsy favorites?

Purge of the Day: Electronics Boxes

2011-09-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Today, I got rid of the boxes for several electronics and freed up some much-needed shelf space. Now I'm left with a tidy stack of manuals to file.

Some things to consider before throwing away:

1) Does the item definitely work?

2) Is the item ever going back in its box? If not, get rid of the box. For me, this included stuff like my laptop and camera, each of which had its own carrying case, and also my cell because there is no scenario in which I would store it in its box.

3) Did you register its warranty yet? If not, do so now in case you need info from the box, like the UPC code.

4) Is there any info on the box identifying either you or the specific one of your item? Obscure your personal info. Cut out and file unique info for your electronic along with its manual and/or warranty.

5) Depending on where you live, it might be a good idea to throw out your boxes in a communal dumpster or at work. Where I live, there are always people rummaging in the trash, and I don't need any of them to know what's in my apartment.

Go ahead and try it out. It's a big relief to see even tiny patches of newly-free space!

Purge of the Day: Email Subscriptions

2011-09-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

As frequently happens with Purge of the Day, I feel like the rest of the post is implied by the title, but I guess I'm going to elaborate anyway. Because, you know, the best kind of blog is a blog written by somebody completely ambivalent to the idea of writing a blog. Really, I could have named my blog "I Don't Care,"but somebody probably already claimed that on Blogger. I wouldn't know because I don't feel like checking.

My eyes are bigger than my inbox. I don't know why, but I can't seem to say no to mailing lists. There's something convenient about being notified of sales or the grilling method of the week, but when I'm waiting for an important email and my phone buzzes, and it turns out that it's just the Kate Spade website announcing the color of the month... no. Just no.

When I (probably never) need any of this information, I can go looking for it. I don't have to be inundated with it every day. Cleaning out my inbox has become one of my least favorite daily chores, and it's one I'm making unnecessarily hard on myself. I'm going with the friendlier alternative of a well-organized bookmarks menu.

Unsubbed to 15+ lists. Moving on.

A Bib for Miss Kron

2011-09-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

I just made this quilted bib for little Miss Kron, who's due to join the family in December. I gave up the title of Miss Kron in July due to personal commitments. Luckily, the position won't be vacant for long, and I know the new Miss Kron will do a wonderful job.

I can't wait for December!