Again, it's been awhile since I posted. So much has happened, including a big move from Southeast to North Portland, so we were really busy settling in. It's SO NICE to live in an actual house, rather than an apartment. We had forgotten what it's like to sleep through the night, as we'd had horrible upstairs neighbors for the longest time! Now, instead of living around a bunch of self-entitled hipsters, our neighbors are super friendly & down-to-earth. Yay!
Shortly after moving, my siblings & I went on our annual camping trip, this time to Champoeg, one of my favorite camping spots evar!
We took our time at camp, after surviving an indecent rush-hour trek to Champoeg. Sean munches a Tofurky-avocado bagel, in recovery:
Smels was impressed with her mustard skillz, & had to get photographic evidence:
Friday night, we went down to check out the beautiful river.
A confession: my biggest fears in life are drowning, & having big fish touch me in the water(so irrational, I know! I hope to conquer these neuroses before I die!), so I wasn't keen on diving in, but the next day, after we walked a few miles to the Butteville Store, Sean asked if he could swim in the freezing, murky, Willamette. My sister, the voice of reason, said she thought it was okay, so he bravely waded in. This is one of my favorite pictures ever. Such cuteness!
We also walked to an old grave site & found an orchard with pear, apple & hazelnut trees. Smels spotted this picturesque ladybug. Way to strike a pose, gurrlll!
We also found some shelf fungi along the trail, home to behbeh slugs!
I brought a pie, baked from these delish raspberries from Sauvie Island.
We had zero trouble eating it all up. I used a recipe from CHOW as the base, but modified it a little bit, for pure raspberry delight.
Raspberry Pie
- 2 1/2 cups flour (I used half white whole wheat & half white)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons cold, salted butter
- 6-8 tablespoons ice water, mixed with 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 6 cups raspberries
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1 tablespoons lemon juice
- zest of one lemon
- milk for brushing crust, plus sugar for sanding (optional)
Mix together the flour & salt. Cut the butter into it, until sandy, with small, pea-sized balls of butter. Add the minimum amount of water necessary to get the dough to hold together. Try not to overwork it! Divide dough into two disks, then refrigerate them till chilled.
In a separate large bowl, mix together the berries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, & zest.
Preheat the oven to 375*F. Roll out the pie crusts to 1/4-inch thickness. Line the bottom of your favorite pie tin with one of the crusts, leaving the extra dough hanging around the edge.
Pour in the filling. Top with the other half of dough. Trim the edges, but leave about an inch extra around the outside. (Save the extra tidbits for turnovers, or cinnamon-sugar munchies!) Turn the dough under, then crimp/decorate in your own way.
Brush the top with milk & sprinkle with sugar, if you like it that way. Cut a few slits in the top, then bake until the crust is golden & the filling is bubbling out the slits. If the crust begins to brown too quickly. cover it lightly with foil. Let cool before cutting, or it'll be soupy!
Here's the jam I made with those same raspberries! It's made with only three ingredients: raspberries, honey & Pomona Pectin.
Fun! Fun! Fun! I also want to recommend the OMSI exhibit, "Game On", to any gamers out there. We took Sean & had a blast. There were SO MANY CONSOLES, from all around the world, most of which were playable. My brother & I even played PONG, which was projected onto a huge wall. I took a bunch of pictures before I saw the "no pictures" signs that were posted in randomly weird areas. It was hard to notice them through the herds of kids & flashing lights, but I stopped once I saw them. Oops! I feel like an asshole, since people who saw me snapping away must have been like, "This lady thinks she's too cool for school..."
Hello there!
I just had to share this amigurumi schlong that I made for Coral's bachelorette party. A bunch of us ladies went on a limo-driven wine tour around 5 or 6 vinyards (I lost track after awhile), which is hilariously unlike me, but it was fun. The peen is from Anticraft, but I used worsted weight Red Heart yarn. I didn't make the taint. It looked weird, so I frogged it out & just sewed the shaft & balls together. He seems happy, even though he's taintless.
Here's the beautiful bride-to-be. Her feather boa kept shedding all over, ha ha.
Hope everyone is having a good summer! I can't wait to share photos from Coral's wedding! See you soon...
It's Spring Break, all my friends have real jobs, & Ethan's visiting his parents, so to stave off loneliness, I've been super crafty. Because I wanted to challenge myself, I decided to make my second ~*real*~ sewing project, which is a ginormous grocery bag. It's sewn so sloppily (think *seam of allowance of anywhere from 1/8" to 1/2"*, seriously), but I love it. :) It's so goddamn huge, ha ha. Ethan promised to go to the Farmer's Market with me next weekend, so we'll put her to the test & see how much kale she can hold!
It's lined with the same pink gingham fabric that I used on my owl apron.
This space puzzle of Ethan's has been hogging the "craft table" for several months, so I decided to finish it & reclaim my rightful surface. He did about 85% of it, then petered out when there were tons of black pieces left over. It was fun to listen to Car Talk & wrap this up. Then I Mod Podged it, so Eth can hang it in his room. It glows in the dark!
We had this rickety, nondescript shelf lying around, so I tipped it over, pounded about 10 nails into it, then decided it needed to have a more glamorous look. I used this awesome Etsy creation by pixlpshr as inspiration, but changed it up a bit.
I think it's much cuter & works perfectly for my old NES & N64 games. 
Lastly, my obsession with kitchen towels led me to start this cute towel, but I botched the pattern I was working on, so I'm just making a mutation of several towel patterns together...
Inspired by several cool, Perler bead-bedecked trees out there, I decorated our tree this year with NES ornaments.
There are some from Super Mario I, II, & III, plus Duck Hunt. I had to work with what I had on hand, but I plan on adding more, once my Perler bead order gets here. It goes pretty well with my Mario table too, ha ha. :)
I finished this garland this morning, using my handy dandy paper punch, some glue, & white thread. 
It's so festive in here! Even my grapefruit tree is ready for the holidays! We're having a really simple, homemade Christmas this year, so I've got to get crafting!
Lastly...I've really been into making Mind Maps, ever since my meditation teacher taught us about them. They're a great way to illustrate information, as well as memorize important facts. And they're fun to make! This one was for my Meditation for Global Healing class---it's for "Ethics for a New Millenium" by His Holiness The Dalai Lama.
FINALLY!!! This project has haunted me, because I just couldn't get motivated to finish it. I even dragged its components through several moves! The table was found outside a dumpster, back when I lived on Belmont & walked to Movie Madness one night. My brother, Ethan & I took turns lugging it back up the hill to 60th because I saw its hidden potential.
Before:
It actually looked worse, because the shards of varnish were peeling off unevenly. This is about halfway through the sanding process.
And after!:
After sanding off the 70s varnish, I hand-blended a few colors of acrylic paint to get just the right shade of blue, then sealed it with a couple coats of Krylon UV-Resistant Clear Acrylic Coating.
The Mario part was made from bits & pieces of this awesome chart from Sprite Stitch, & unfortunately, I stumbled upon this cleverly badass method, AFTER ironing of the sections individually. D'oh! There are some visible spaces between some of the sections, but I'm not sure I'd be into investing that much moolah on zillions of Perler pegboards to avoid that flaw.
Oh well, if it were perfect, I'd be afraid to use it, right?! I kind of improvised the top section because I was running low on certain colors of Perler beads at that point, & came up with the Nintendo emblem on my own, since the original was too large. The ironed Perler pieces were glued on with Beacon's Mosaic Glue (& weighted down for 24-36 hours, a few at a time), that I found at JOANN's. It says it's suitable for ceramic, glass & plastic, so we'll see how it holds up. So far, so good!
Here's the top tier:
And here's the bottom level:
I LOVE IT!
I've also been working on this owl cowl, which is so cute! The two-handed fair isle method isn't too hard, once you practice a bit. Much quicker than one-handed, in my opinion. I'm using smaller needles than the pattern recommends, because many people on Ravelry thought it came out too big.
Even more craftiness! My sister came over a while back & we were carving stamps & making Halloween cards. I really like this one that I made for a friend's b-day.
Ooh, for my meditation class, we get to do an assignment where we tune out technology for 3 consecutive days! I'm super excited, because I'm way too dependent upon the internetz for entertainment & need to get back into reading. How can I live without watching Hoarders, Hell's Kitchen, & Fringe?! We're allowed to use computers for work or school, but nothing else; no personal e-mails. And phones are to be used as land-lines---no texting, only talking to people when you're actually at home. No radio, no podcasts, no MP3 players, no DVDs, no nothin'!
I can't wait to challenge myself this way & hope it inspires permanent change within me. My professor warned us that we may experience severe discomfort at first, but to be mindful of how we feel. Not to trivialize actual addiction, but there are definitely some similarities between our excessive use of gadgets & other addictions. They can often distract us from the present moment & cloud our awareness & emotions! I'm telling myself that this Friday, Saturday & Sunday will be best, since I can get a lot of homework done & I'll actually be home most of the time. Plus Ethan will be home too, so I won't feel as lonely & depressed, ha ha. :)
I've been squeezing the last little bit out of my summer break by finishing projects & little odds & ends that have been cluttering up my life. It feels so freeing!
Firstly, I've finished knitting my second sweater. The first one didn't fit too well, so I've frogged it. At least I can use the yarn for another one! This is the "Cozy V-Neck Pullover w/Deep Ribbing" from Fitted Knits, by Stefanie Japel. What's so great about this pattern is that the ribbing does the shaping for you. It's really flattering in the waist department & is a great basic sweater.
Another thing I did was repair my Nintendo! When Sage was visiting, we played the hell out of it & it finally started to have problems when we'd switch cartridges. We ended up having to jam a particular book into it to hold the game down far enough to make contact w/whatever parts are necessary for play. I found this great place & ordered the repair kit. Using their photo guide, I was able to get in there, clean it out, & replace the 72 pin cartridge connector, which apparently wears out in 25 years or so, ha ha.
Here's the best picture I took. I was too busy cussing to take more!
It took an hour, at the most, then I ended up w/a happy NES, ready for 25 more years of action!
Another thing I got done was the "butchery" of our tomato plants. Coral recommended I trim the shit out of them, so they'd put their energy into ripening the stragglers. I hope it works! For some reason, I feel guilty pruning plants. :( Here's the latest batch I picked.
Ethan & I have been watching X-Files, but this puzzle got us hooked to the point where we were putting it together WHILE watching it. Horrible! This is from Goodwill, & stated on the bottom that there were two missing pieces. Whoever donated it is so sweet to write that on there!
We came up with the idea of replacing them with cardboard (traced, then cut w/an Exacto Knife), then painting them to blend in. I think it worked really well! You'd only be able to tell if it were pointed out. I Mod Podged it a bunch, then hung it on the wall this morning. Cool!
Speaking of mushrooms & Goodwill: Mom bought these giant garden shrooms for me, when she was visiting last time. I LOVE THEM! They're originally from Target, but our Goodwill gets a lot of their close-out & remainder items, so you can sometimes get new shoes & stuff for a steal.
I also mended my sister's slipper that her kitty chewed a hole in:
Other tasks I completed: cleaned my room, washed 3 loads of laundry, made fruit leather out of a box of pears from Coral, backed up all my photos to Flickr & DVD, plus sold a bunch of old books on Amazon. I am officially declaring my old habit of procrastination OBSOLETE! If it feels so good to catch up on things, imagine what it's like to feel that way ALWAYS!
