Showing posts with label lunchcapades. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lunchcapades. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Lunchcapades

What?! Going outside in the middle of the day?! Have I finally gone off the deep end?



It's true. I left the sheltering confines of my cubicle today to make a quick trip to the grocery and back. I made good use of my short walk across the parking lot to snap a few quick pics of *gasp* blue sky and cracked windows! The first time I've been able to leave my car window cracked in ... uh ... hmm ... I don't know how long!


And here's a look at the passenger seat. Really takes you back, huh? (It's been so long since it has acted as studio to my lunchcapades pics!)


I've gotten SO much into the habit of grabbing my raingear before leaving the house, I just naturally did so again this morning despite the radio comentators making such a big deal about no rain in the forcast! (stuffed on the other side of the box)

I also wanted to show you another organization tool I've implemented. I have about three of these thin expanding file folders around the house, so I grabbed one, emptied out the three-year-old receipts, and started stuffing papers into it. I have a pocket with my idea notebook, a pocket with my current reading list book and journal; and the rest of the pockets are slowly filling up with random papers that I seem to accumulate, throw in my bag or onto the car seat, and re-discover three weeks later crumpled up and long forgotten. Meantime, I usually search high and low for them, figure they've been inadvertently thrown away, and make a new list or create a new document.


No more! Now I can just stuff it in one of the pockets and I'll know where it is when I need to retreive it later.

We'll see how long it lasts!

Friday, July 25, 2008

Note to Self:

22 random lessons I've learned this week.


1: Sometimes a $5 jewelry-and-beads-grab-bag is worth it.



And sometimes it isn't. I used to be a Nurses Aid and I can handle just about any human waste and/or fluid that comes my way except for phlegm, snot, drool, etc... And I don't abide sharing lip balm or public pens. This just creeps me out! I couldn't even touch it when I found out why it was so greasy. Ewww. And sometimes the treasures come from unexpected places.

I could ditch the rest of the strand, but I love these blue striped beads!

2. Read the fine print.


(They get away with it by calling it honey SAUCE)

3. Size does matter.


When I hand sewed everything (like, a month ago) it didn't matter how short my simple little pins were. When I bought the Grabbit, it came with a few of these longer pins and now I won't go back, I hate it when I run out of the longer ones and have to use the short stubby ones!


4. Caffeine Free Pepsi really does taste better in a wineglass at the end of a hard day.





5. Just because it's a farm stand doesn't mean it's locally grown. Or ripe.

This peach was so hard, I had to cut it in four before I could leverage one of the sections off the pit! I still ate it. See Blue Yonder's boy's comment about unripe peaches. I wholeheartedly agree! Turns out, this peach came all the way to New Hampshire from South Carolina! What, South Carolina didn't want it?



6. People care. They really do.


7. The remnant bin is still a good substitute for ice cream.



8. Don't try to get fabric cut on lunch break. I have no picture of this because I didn't have the fabric I wanted cut because I ran out of time because there was THAT lady in front of me with seriously two stacks, STACKS, of fabric bolts about two feet high EACH that she wanted 1/2 yard increments of. Two!!! If I'm ever THAT lady, I pray it's at the least busy time of day! Sorry, those of you who are that lady, I'm sure you had fantastic excuses and really really tried not to go at the BUSIEST time of day. Thank you for letting me vent. Not that you had a choice...


9. No handles = more effective clutter control.



(Note the box, not the pretty stuff inside it.) I used to use a basket for the purpose of corralling all the little things that end up in the car. I'd bring it inside, unload half of it, load it back up the next day, (with 1/2 the basket still full of things I'd brought in the night before) and bring it out the the car, and so on...but a shallow box with no handles = harder to tote back and forth = makes me think twice about bringing things in and out and in and out...


10. Darning socks isn't just something Gramma used to do in the olden days.

It's a really great idea.


11. Crying is good. It's really really good. No picture for this one either. You'll just have to take my word for it.


12. One woman's loose change is another woman's foreign coin. I found this among my shell collection. I have no idea when I stumbled upon it, but it reminds me that I'm now a part of a global network of friends and acquaintances. (Of which I'm incredibly grateful!)




13. Small and thin really is beautiful.


(Although it's not the ONLY beautiful thing on the face of the earth)



14. Men like to get together and look down holes. And when the storm drains fill up, sometimes it finds the path-of-least-resistance right into your next-door-neighbor's house via the bathtub. Oi.





15. You don't always get what you pay for. Sometimes you get more. I found this at a yard sale for 50 cents a few weeks ago and just got around to tracing the symbols stamped on the bottom. It comes from the Lawrence B. Smith Company out of Boston, Massachusetts which was in business from 1887 to 1958.






16. I don't always get what I ask for, but I really don't think it's because I offended God by calling Him "Honey."


17. I really really need to cut down on some of the things on my sidebar. (You know what I'm talking about.)


18. I not only enjoy cross stitch, I miss it too. A lot.

I love the texture of the Irish linen that I prefer to use, I love the softness of the floss, I love the feel of the finished stitches, I love completing the project, I love giving of my time and talent to show people that I love them, that I'm thinking of them, and that they are treasured.



19. And I miss my little Korean sister. I've mentioned her once before, I'll tell her story here since I miss her so much. Hyung is living with my parents during the school year (which runs from the end of August to June here) for three years until she graduates High School. When she comes back next month, she will be in her Senior year! When we first met, we hit it off right away. She says and does so many things that remind me of how I was at her age. This past school year we spent even more time together than the first year. I got a text message from her yesterday while I was on my lunch break. It was so good to hear from her!
She makes me feel good about myself. Not by telling me I'm great and encouraging me, although she does that too, but she laughs when I'm trying to be funny and she asks me hard questions and I manage to answer them and she's so grateful. She tells me she can be herself when she's around me, she is fiercely loyal to me, and so proud to call me her sister.

I miss her a lot, and hopefully the next month will go a little faster than the last one did!


21. A princess never hurries. I don't remember the exact line, but it comes from the movie The Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway. I was moving small furniture items Tuesday night and was told to take it slow or I'd get hurt. I just didn't want to seem like I was working half-heartedly (especially since I couldn't really pitch in like I wanted to) but it reminded me that life is not a sprint.


22. I really REALLY don't like it when people pat me on the head. Right after the older guy (but not much older) told me not to hurry, he patted me on the head. Now I know why my mom never liked that. Since I'm short, I get it more often than I'd like to admit. And when I'm not wearing makeup or dressed professionally, I look about 18-23. Seriously. The head patting thing gets old quick when you're 30+!




So far that's all I've learned this week. I was shooting for 10. I guess I exceeded expectations!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

...and then I found the macro button!

Another rainy Lunchcapades in New England.


And what would I make with all of these?

Lots of stuff! Tonight I'm making a bunch of jars of gourmet condiments. Including gorgonzola stuffed olives, pickled radishes, onion jam, corn & pineapple relish, spicy olives and my homemade creamy caesar dressing!



Of course, I stopped at the farm stand across the street from work for fresh corn on the cob. I'll steam it up, slice off the kernels, and pop them into the relish.



Saturday I plan to picnic with three other ladies I haven't seen in a year and we are all bringing something fantastic to eat! Leah is bringing authentic Puerto Rican sandwiches with avocado, tomato and onions pickled in lime juice or cider. Mmmmm...pickled avocado. She's been to PR twice this summer with her family. I can't wait to hear all about her travels! Mimi says she found a great coconut cake recipe she's been dying to try out, and Jewel makes great iced tea! I'll be sure to take lots of pics and get recipes of everything! I'll be making fresh dough for rolls Friday night to pop in the oven before I leave Saturday morning so they're nice and fresh! (warm rolls with onion jam...)

The rest of my break I spent fiddling with my "made by" tags. I decided to follow the route I've gone with my cross stitching. I'll just do a simple tag with my initials instead of making a big deal out of it. I may do a simple border as well, but no extra words. Not that that isn't nice, it's just not my personal style. I acutally adore a lot of the customized tags out there, but for my stuff I think simple is the way to go. So I started shooting pics of it, fighting with my camera, mad because I know there's some setting I can get to somehow that will allow me to get ubber clear close-up pics but I've changed all the internal settings and it isn't WORKING for me!


Then I found the macro button! And it couldn't be easier if it said "hit this button for close-up shots!" **shaking head**




Then of course I had to take close-up pictures of everything!!





There's something that just makes me giddy about cross stitch. Perhaps I'm spreading myself too thin trying to master every thread and bead artform there is!


I'm so excited! I can't wait to go home and take pictures of my buttons and my shells and this cool silver coffee pot I got at a yardsale for 50 cents, and, and .... *grin* something sunny is happening inside.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Lunchcapades...I did good!

I went to the craft store because I had to make sure the material I was going to use to back the baby blanket was machine washable...and it isn't!! I'm so glad I checked. I don't want it to be one of those blankets that gets tucked away or hung on a wall. It should be used! What new mom is going to want to hand wash the silly thing? So I got a flannel backing in a yellow print to coordinate with the yellow stripes on the front. I was going to need to get the satin blanket binding anyway, I was just waiting until I knew for sure what color the back was going to be. So I got that and a couple ribbons in coordinating colors for the small square I'll also make. (The materials I was planning to make the blanket are in this post, but you have to scroll quite a way down to see it.)

What I hadn't planned on in today's crafting trip was the addition of another new hobby.

: s

I was in search of sewing technique books and passed the "learn to crochet" booklet section. Hm. Those pictures look gorgeous! I'm not talking about the sweater-type crocheting, though it's beautiful, I'm talking about the lace trim type of crochet. The thread crochet. So I priced out the thread/yarn and the hook and away I went! I decided not to spring for any of the $7-$19 learn-to-crochet books because I'm pretty sure I have a book about crochet, embroidery and something else already. (And then I was looking through the sewing techniques books and remembered I already have two of those somewhere at home too!)

Considering I planned to get most of what I got and I didn't get a lot of what I saw and wanted to get, (still with me?) *deep breath*, I think that was a minor victory. Or at the very least it wasn't a complete failure!!




In an aside, I thought I'd share one of my organizational techniques I'm currently using. Actually, it's not so much organizational as it is "in-car clutter maintenance." It's just a small box sitting on my passenger seat. I put my lunch bag in there, loose papers, directions; anything small that would otherwise just be floating around the place, getting lost in nooks and crannies and such. It just keeps it contained. I have to make sure I empty it out at least once a week though, otherwise I'll simply end up with another "box 'o stuff." And it's not a trash bin! That's behind the passenger seat! Can you tell I hardly ever have passengers?!

I don't think I posted these pics from my MIL's garden...



Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Lunchcapades

I didn't take these today, but thought this was a good time to share them. I visited three gardens this weekend, this is all from my Mother-In-Law's.