Operation Organize Life

1. Clean room (really, this time)
2. Get rid of more clothes to giveaway to charity
3. Do the handwash laundry that I hate to do
4. Send thank you letters and emails to all the wonderful people that let me stay with them in Amsterdam, Belgium, Italy, UK
5. Send catch-up emails to those on my list
5. Think about a "real" job
6. Ponder what a "real" job that I would actually like might be
7. Search for "real" job
8. Find more temp work in the meantime
9. Create an online photography portfolio
10. Look for local art fairs
11. Experiment with printing my photographs from different online sources
12. Find an old school darkroom
13. Find out how long it is until Christmas
14. CRAP. Only 13 days and 45 minutes?! Write Christmas list down from the ideas in my head
15. Buy presents
16. Make presents
17. Do stuff on the computer then GET OFF.

Estimated time of completion: 2015.

My motto:


Image source

Really though. I accomplish more this way. Example A: I have 9 tabs open on Firefox right now. You see how much I'm getting done, right?

CRAP. Only 13 days and 32 minutes til Christmas now...

Longwood Gardens

On Thanksgiving day I ran around with some of the family at Longwood Gardens in Wilmington, Delaware.

Isn't it gorgeous? We got to go in a bunch of huge treehouses. When it got dark, everything was glowing in Christmas lights.

Dinner: Linguine with Spinach, Etc.

I've been trying to eat more healthy spinach lately. You can throw a whole bag in the pan and it will wilt down to hardly anything in a matter of minutes. The other day I cooked up some linguine and paired it with sauteed spinach and garlic in roasted red pepper bruschetta topping. It was delicious.

I made a slight variation of that dish for dinner last night: sauteed spinach with roasted red peppers, chopped onions, a bit of extra jarred spaghetti sauce, and some left over red wine. I like to throw the pasta in the skillet before serving it. That way it gets better coated with sauce and picks up and extra juices or flavors left in the pan.

Pair with parmesan cheese and a bit of lonely and delicious prosecco won from a work training the other night, and you have yourself a delicious dinner.

A Calendar for December

I accidentally missed a work shift last week (very bad). To keep myself more in check, and because beautiful/interesting calendars rock, I decided to make my own. OK, so it's not a whole calendar, but it is this month: December.

I set up a work station on my desk armed with: paper, a bone folder (for ripping the sheet of paper in half), blue and silver ink, quills, watercolors, paint brushes, a pen, and a cup for water (Pascucci! Yes. See this or this oldie.) I'm still figuring out just how to use a quill, but here goes...

The process:
-Rip paper to a good size
-Paint "December 2011" in watercolor
-Create ink splatters
-Draw lines for days in pen, spaced about 1cm apart
-Write dates and day abbreviations in ink (distinguish weekends with dots)
-With the extra line add a quote pertaining to December
-Add important days

Not perfect, but I think it turned out pretty well. If I had to do it over (or for next month), I would scratch the watercolor and change the "December 2011" to ink to match the more thin, delicate nature of the rest of the calendar.

 "In the depth of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." Albert Camus (Inspired by this beautiful set of work.)

In Honor of Rainbows

A couple of nights ago I had a hankering (what a word) for something sweet. So, in honor of chancing upon a beautiful, bright, double rainbow, my cousins and I decided to make rainbow cupcakes!

Peter and Kathleen had a blast blending the colors. It was a perfect activity for both a 12 year old and a "5 & 3/4!" year old. With Kathleen's help measuring, we made a vanilla batter from scratch. Then we divided the batter into four bowls and they each picked two colors to create using food dye. They mixed up purple, green, yellow, and a lovely peach color. Then we spooned the batter into the cupcake liners in various patterns: all four in a rainbow, two colors, mismatched, etc.

So fun!

P.S. We also spent the night by Kathleen teaching me the moves to this song they are learning at school. I love it! See if you recognize it too...

Rome

A first look back at beautiful, sun-drenched Roma!

British

Back to the U.K. to spend time with relatives! Hannah and I were met with delicious tea (milk and two sugars, please)... and scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam.

Fun fact: clotted cream must have at least 50% fat. Perfect.

It's great to spend time with the English cousins! Tonight was full of cake, balloons, laughter, and an explosion of PINK. Can you guess which one is the 2 year old birthday girl?

Sorry for the blogging hiatus... reports on Rome to follow, of course!
P.S. What do you think of the new layout? Goodbye Dutch!