snacky snacks

 I like to make things. Food things. Baked things, cooked things, steeped things. I like the process of chopping, pouring, and measuring. And I really like the part where I take a lovely picture. I'm also quite prone to laziness so that when I'm really ready for a bite but nothing is ready I could easily reach for a bowl of cereal or sneak out to a fast food dungeon. One of the plus sides of living here in SLO is that there are NO drive-thrus. Not a one! And, now that the nose works, I want to take advantage of it (until I lose it again as it is wont to do) and eat good things. So I make sure to hit the market and purchase such things. I still pick up crackers and bread and I still bake (the mister is a major snacker) but so far, I have not hit the cereal or the burger joints, instead I have a snacky lunch. My favorite kind.

A snacky lunch only works when you have the goodness on hand. You want a little sweet, a little crunch, a bit of protein and if you do grains, something whole and nutty. Last week, I was on a pear kick. I would halve a pear, add a handful of pecans, a couple slices of Dubliner cheese and two hard-boiled eggs with cracked pepper. Delicious! Yesterday I had a particularly delightful snacky snack of aged gouda, an apple, handful of walnuts, handful of multi-grain crackers, a slice of poached chicken and a wee square of delicious chocolate. So good! I also discovered that there are not too many of you out there who like walnuts. Interesting. I am so grateful I can eat nuts.

Earlier this week I baked a batch of Valentine's cake-mix cookies. They were fun, smelled crazy sweet and posed quite nicely for pictures. I ate one and was knocked over by the sweet. I'm not sure I mean that in a good way. Mister comes home and sees the cookies and partakes and then partakes some more all the while I holler at him to pace himself. I ate another one yesterday and I think I need to throw them away. They aren't awful but if yer gonna have temptation around, make sure it is worthwhile. They are perfect cookies for a group of kiddos who will demolish them in one sitting but not so Methinks I'm still dosed with a bit of grogginess. Here's to hoping I wake up...

simple things

 At this moment right now, this early morning moment before I head out the door to hang out with kiddos, I am enjoying a cup (thermos, actually) of jasmine green tea. I generally drink green tea in the morning but so rarely do I get to enjoy it. The enjoyment comes from the experience of its scent. When you have a sniffer that plays drama queen you spend more time not tasting anything than enjoying simple levels of flavors and the nuances that scent brings to the table. A hot cup of tea is a hot beverage but a hot cup of tea combined with a sniffer is an experience. There is fragrance and floral and honey notes and green. It is a most lovely experience and I take full advantage of it. I hold the thermos (or cup) up to my face and gently inhale that most lovely loveliness (eyes closed for best effect of course). The blossoms immediately dance into my head, followed by that green, green, green march, ending with a kick of sweet from the honey the mister added for me. And each time I thank my nose, modern medicine and the invention of tea as I sit back to sip, sip, sip away the morning.

I'm also just plowed through two tiny satsumas. The oil from their peels still coats my hands as I type causing small clouds of citrus to puff up around me. The power of scent is not a trivial thing. I hope I can hold onto this super power for a while. The cold that hit me before Christmas seems to finally have decided to move out. I broke down and dosed myself with some powerfully evil medicines. Being able to smell again is a trade off I am willing to gamble with. There is a powerful silence that follows you when you cannot smell anything. I'm not talking stuffy nosed nonsense. I'm talking a true lack of scent. It makes waking up from sleep difficult. It makes the darkness darker and it ruins any enjoyment of simple food. When your nose doesn't work, you lose your ability to truly taste things so you (or me at least) reach for the things that will flavor through. Garlic does not do it, but salt does. A salad with garden fresh herbs won't do but a healthy snowing of cheese on top will. Starchy foods, salty foods all barrel through but they offer no true sustenance or joy. This week, since the sniffer has kicked in I have actually tasted the lemon in my water, the rosemary in my dinner and the jasmine in my tea. Just the awareness of the flavors has me slowing down and slow is a good thing.

Traffic is speeding up on HWY 1 behind the tiny casa. The wind machine at the college is still spinning its ferocious hum and our upstairs neighbor appears to be late for school (man that stompy guy sure can stomp around). I'm almost finished with my tea and the tangerines are done for. It's time for shoes and primping and the looking forward to an afternoon smoothie that I can actually taste!

a peek at a process

 You may or may not know that I gift the mister with a Bert & Ernie portrait each Christmas. The last few years, I had portraits painted by two different artists. This year, funds were low and time was short so it was up to me to get my Bert & Ernie on. I knew I wanted to do silhouettes but I couldn't decide how. Frontal or profile? Classic black and white or kitschy colors? What to do?

Sometime in November I picked up a coloring book hoping there would be a good profile or image of the dynamic duo to trace or enlarge. There was one, of Bert and it was smaller than I wanted. I hopped on the internet and searched, searched, searched for something better, bigger, more! Nothing was working out and so I sat back and let the mulling mull some more.

Things narrowed down a smidge when I scored some wood plaques at the Goodwill Outlet in town. Two matchy-matchy plaques of comparable size appeared and I pounced and it was back to the drawing board. 

 

Suddenly it was the week before Christmas (uh-oh) and I uh...needed to get a move on and I was battling the evil cold that swept through town. It was time for me to brave the pencil and draw those fellas myself. Thank goodness I was going for silhouettes for when I tried to add features the poor fellas looked like they were three sheets to the wind. But buckle down I did and I sketchy-sketched both Bert and Ernie onto their own bit of scrap paper and prepared to make stencil for some sponge painting.

I prepped the plaques with a coat of white paint and then painted each edge in their signature colors. After an excruciating hour eeking out their silhouettes with a sharp blade I decided I was nuts to think I could paint them evenly and hit the suitcase (the big blue one stuffed to the gills with all sorts of paper and scraps) to see if I had any usable paper.

Score! Fate decided the process once again and this time I broke out the scissors and snippy-snipped those happy shapes out. Add a healthy dose of mod-podge and a twisty-turn, flippy-flip, I had myself an awesome pair of silhouettes drying on the kitchen table.

 

I did it!

a rose by any other name...

Back in mid December, us girlie a-go-gos headed out for what we imagined would be a tea adventure. There was a crazy mix-up (all sorts of I thought, you thought, didn't they and all that....) and no tea was adventured but we did finally make it to Ruby Rose, a lovely vintage shop in town.

 

So lovely, I lost myself in taking pictures and chatty-chat-chatting with the shop goddesses themselves. There were globes and lovely paintings and a crazy awesome hot pink wool tapestry that if not for my allergies would be under my feet in the new tiny casa right now. I was not able to make a purchase that day but goodness know I will be back. Everything is all dreamy-swoony and the ladies of the shop are just as delightful. If yer ever in the San Luis Obispo area, check them out.

 

up to my usual distractions

 My to-do list for the new year so far is quite long. And, like the old fuddy-duddy I am, I lean towards adding to the list with a nice medium point pen. A lot of adding...not much doing. Or at least, not much doing that is on the list. Instead, I distract myself with watching 80s flicks and various documentaries on Netflix or I transfer my massive collection of embroidery thread from a metal drawer to an enormous jar because everything looks cheerier in a jar,  or I bake a batch of scones or hard-boil a dozen eggs. I suppose I should have added all of the above to my list then I might feel accomplished, no?

cereal for lunch

happy dishes

they suddenly popped up all over

So, as I work on adding to my list (which gets all the muck out of my noggin, at least) I also work on keeping myself entertained which then encourages me to think a wee bit more creative. I did empty two smallish boxes and move a bag of pom-poms from in the casa to out of the casa. See? Progress. Oh, this reminds me that I have a pile of photographs on the bed and a sleepy mister who might want me to move them before tomorrow. I bid you adieu with a little peek here and there of some of my recent distractions. Happy weekend!

orange bits of happy around the casa

 

 

 

 I've been pinning all sorts of orange goodness for my Tangerine Tango board as a part of a contest with Chronicle Books when I realized, goodness, there is all sorts of orange happy floating about the casa. So here is a wee bit of orange eye candy from me to you.