The Almighty Pen

Ah, cleaning binges. You never really realize how much stuff one person can accumulate until you see it all out in the middle of the floor in front of you - right before you get the urge to burn it so you can vacuum the carpet. In our apartment's case, the junk happens to be in the form of pens.

Most are getting donated to the local middle school, but a few are dead and gone. Madison's recycling program doesn't cover pens yet; however, in looking around for places I could take them I stumbled onto Terracycle. This company recycles and reuses almost everything other recycling plants won't take. They reward you points/cents for what you recycle with them and then donate that money to whatever school or organization you'd like. It would be almost pointless for one person (as the cost of shipping would outweigh the points earned), but it's a great system for businesses and community organizations. Below is a video listed on their site showing where just one of the items they recyle goes.

Artsy Hangover

This morning has my body feeling like it got a stimulant overload. I'm supposed to be cleaning in preparation for my parents visiting - you know, so for two days I can feign adult-like skills in organization and general housekeeping. Alas the bod has other plans. Here is the combination of factors that led to my current comatose-esque state:

 

 

 - 4.5 hours of sleep. My husband was in Chicago roller derby reffing, and I got it in my head that I could stay up and wait for him. Well he didn't get home until 2:30AM, and the chipmunk ended up reading his morning newscast at 7AM (i.e. "BIG NEWS! I'M A CHIPMUNK! I OWN THIS PORCH AND EVERYTHING ON IT! YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME!? HUH, HUH, HUH? PUNK! I'M A CHIPMUNK! I'M SO FERTILE AND HORNY IT'S INCREDIBLE! MATE WITH ME! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!?)

 -  My mother and father in-law came to visit. My mother-in-law has the energy levels of the aforementioned squirrel.

 - Breakfast at a German restaurant. The waitress confused my order of a vegetarian bagel with vegetarian eggs benedict. It was so good, but I've never wished so much that the myth of the Roman vomitorium would actually come to be.

 - Art Fair on the Square. Madison's annual art festival that attracts artists from all over the country. The plus sides were that two of my favorite artists were there. One is Andrew Carson, a kinetic sculpture artist who makes the most fantastical sculptures out of metal and blown glass. I've had my eye on his pieces for the last five years, and his art has an official place budgeted out for it for whenever I find a house of my own. The other is Juli Adams, whose print, "Winter in Cuba", is hanging in my bathroom. Though it's likely to soon be replaced by my newest acquisition of hers, "Don't forget to brush your teeth." My husband also got a print for a future workshop - this one entitled, "Test Flight Scotty".

 

 - 95 degrees, and two hours of direct sunlight. Sweltering, beating, deadly sunlight. When a group of us asked the sun to come back last Yule, I don't think we were quite thinking about what we were asking. I think next year's Yule bonfire needs to have some qualifiers put on it.

 - My niece's birthday party at Gymfinity. Picture a large gymnastics gym. Now put extremely colorful blow-up slides, trampolines, a foam pit, and swinging bars in it. Now add about twenty kids between the ages of 2 and 6. Awesome. I give the gym major bonus points for the almost military precision they had in herding the kids from one activity to the next. And at no point did any child jump and land on any other child. There must have been several guardian angels working overtime in there.

 - My moment. I told my husband that we could totally make a faerie house out of the nativity we found at Goodwill. He said it wouldn't work out. He said it would still look like a nativity. I hot-glued  and hammered like crazy. I gathered faerie themed items from my drawers and wrapped and bundled. When it came time for present-opening my niece got almost all dolls - the princess from Brave (who all the little girls think is named, Brave), Tinker Bell, Strawberry Shortcake, etc. When she got to our gift (for all intensive purposes it was from both auntie and uncle), she exclaimed, "It's a faerie house!" There was a bum rush of tiny feet to crowd around and see what was included in the kit. The moms were asking us how we made it and half-jokingly asked if we took orders. Total cost of the house: $3.72. Total cost of the Pegasus and faerie figurines I bought to go with it: $15. Cost of being able to turn to my husband and do the I-was-so-totally-right-and-my-faerie-house-is-SWEET dance: well, you know.

And so, this morning I recuperate. Tonight I'm heading out to dinner with the in-laws once more to celebrate my husband's birthday. And in a few more days the chaos starts all over again with my parents. Maybe I should make a little white surrender flag that I can wave at the appropriate times.

Magickal Finds

I stopped by the thrift store yesterday to finally get rid of all the old computer parts we've had lying around the living room (FYI: don't turn printers on their sides. We now have some leaked ink splotches on the carpet to contend with.), and found this little lady. She was so different from the other dolls - i.e. she didn't look like she was attending a southern belle party where the theme was "Ah the children who have chewed on my head." It turns out that she's a handmade creation from Gretchen Lima - a doll artist in Tucson, AZ, whose dolls have been featured in multiple printed publications. Gretchen has some beautiful creations that range from gypsies and wise women to spirits and cactus ladies. She attends quite a bit of art fairs in the Midwest. And for those interested and in the Tucson area, she also teaches doll making workshops using guided imagery techniques. And judging from the photos of her students, it looks like you can come away with quite the creation yourself.

When I saw the doll I was surprised at how cheap the thrift store was selling it for. It looked like it was worth much more than the $1.70 I paid for her. It turns out that Gretchen's dolls go from $60-$250, depending on the detail involved. So I had myself my own little Antiques Roadshow moment. :) But in this case, it's a keeper item. Not like things like butt-ugly antique tables that you know the guy who brought one in, who inherited it from his great-grandmother, is praying to God that it's worth something and upon hearing it's several hundred thousand dollars does the largest victory dance known to man. And definitely not like this Satanic pig toy. That's another one the guy's definitely not going to be keeping around long.

The Blue Faerie: Witch, Baker, Stonemason

Cooking Adventure: 100% Whole Wheat Bread
Source: King Arthur Flour

The Bellydance Soundtrack: Disko Boy by Shantel
Prep Time: 2-4hrs.
Cook Time: 35-40min.

I've recently learned two things:

1. It's more cost-effective and time-saving to buy your bricks ready-made at Home Depot. The time that goes into waiting for a brick to rise simply doesn't make home brick-baking a viable large scale production. Although I will say that kneading the brick was quite therapeutic. And the consistency is dense enough to withstand attack by hamster. In the future, however, I will be buying my bricks at the store or looking for alternative methods of construction. For those interested in the process and in very dense whole wheat bricks, the instructions are listed below. I recommend lots of jam.

2. Looking at my blog's audience and traffic pages is a bad indicator of my target population. My most popular post is the one entitled, "Preteen Hormones Invade My Life", solely because of lonely Russian and Japanese Internet users doing Google image searches for "preteen", "preteen girls", and "preteen doggy-style". Really not sure where that last one came from. Perhaps one of these days I will mess with that portion of the Internet with a cleverly written word association post, but for now all I can do is sit back and say: Ewwwwww....

Ingredients:

 - 1 to 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water*

 - 1/4 cup vegetable oil

 - 1/4 cup honey, molasses, or maple syrup

 - 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

 - 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast, or 1 packet active dry yeast dissolved in 2 tablespoons of the water in the recipe

 - 1/4 cup nonfat dried milk

 - 1 1/4 teaspoons salt

*Use the greater amount in winter or in a dry climate; the lesser amount in summer or a humid climate.

Directions:

1) In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients and stir till the dough starts to leave the sides of the bowl. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased surface, oil your hands, and knead it for 6 to 8 minutes, or until it begins to become smooth and supple. (You may also knead this dough in an electric mixer or food processor, or in a bread machine programmed for "dough" or "manual.") Note: This dough should be soft, yet still firm enough to knead. Adjust its consistency with additional water or flour, if necessary.

2) Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl or large measuring cup, cover it, and allow the dough to rise till puffy though not necessarily doubled in bulk, about 1 to 2 hours, depending on the warmth of your kitchen.

3) Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled work surface, and shape it into an 8" log. Place the log in a lightly greased 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pan, cover the pan loosely with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the bread to rise for about 1 to 2 hours, or till the center has crowned about 1" above the rim of the pan. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.

4) Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil after 20 minutes to prevent over-browning. The finished loaf will register 190°F on an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center.

5) Remove the bread from the oven, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. If desired, rub the crust with a stick of butter; this will yield a soft, flavorful crust. Cool completely before slicing. Store the bread in a plastic bag at room temperature.

Eating Glass

Okay, not quite eating it, but using it to eat. My glass straws came today! Now I get to drink my breakfast smoothies in style. I got all excited at first because I thought of yet another thing that will save me money over buying plastic straws. Alas, doing the math I realize that four $40 glass straws vs. one hundred $1.99 straws will mean a grace period of around eight years... Oh, who cares? They're cool!

The company that makes them, Glass Dharma, has a lifetime guarantee on them. The straws are durable but glass implies breakage if you don't treat them nicely. Should it ever come to that, though, I can send the straw back to GD and they'll repair or replace it whenever I need to. This, of course, would cost me more money to send the straws back... Stop judging me! They're cool, okay!?

The next project? Hm, cleaning again, apparently. Does anyone else feel like they do this all the time? And you know what? I don't even have kids yet! I can't even keep my kitchen table clear for a full 24hrs! If I ever do decide to have kids I'm going to end up losing them somewhere in the swamp of laundry, toys, yarn and belly dance costuming. One day I'll be digging through my kitchen cabinets and find a thirty year old man living off our old spices. "Honey!" "What!?" "Do you remember when we got a kid!?" "Whoa, that was a while back! ...Check the expiration date!"

*Apologies for the overuse of exclamatory sentences. I'm celebrating Punctuation Day a few months early this year.

Huge implying vegetables

I feel like now would be a time to make a great joke involving the contents of someones pants, a grocery store aisle, or possibly the size of things to be found in Texas. In this case, though, I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves.

In a valiant attempt to save the entire planet alone, I biked up to one of the smaller Madison farmer's markets this morning. And yes, Dad, I got a cheap thrill from not wasting gas, and listening to NPR on the way there on my iPod, and bringing my own bag. And yes, Mom, I'm aware I've been living in Madison too long and that I'm becoming a whacked out hippie. Formalities aside, I did enjoy my cheap thrills. What can I say? I enjoy wandering around and gawking at the size of the turnips. I have no idea what to do with turnips, but I'm sure that for a root that's only $1 and is the size of my head I could figure out something. I passed up the eggs for today. Yeah, it's local. But my budget doesn't let me swing $3.75/dozen quite yet. I'm working my way up (And maybe one day having a house where I can raise my own egg-producers. If that one doesn't convince my parents I've leaped over the edge of sanity, I don't know what will). I did end up coming away with a cucumber and a zucchini for 50 cents each that have convinced me that I can never go back to grocery store versions again. From now on I'll just stare at the produce aisle, sigh, and think that they're just not as filling as that local veg. :) That's right. I did that. I went for the cheap innuendo.

I might continue dipping my foot in the stupid humour from time to time, but I will never again try to compare the size of vegetables using our laptop as visual scale. Now that I'm looking at it, having those particular veggies in that spot looks somehow not right to me... 

Making Holes and Mischief

The friends came to the rescue for moral support during the piercing... and for crowns.

Well, were I a betting woman then I shouldn't be. I was positive that my niece would come away with a half-pierced head, tears and screaming. But she didn't make a sound. Not one noise. Didn't flinch. Didn't even shed a single tear. I couldn't even tell when her ears got pierced. And just like that she was done, out of the chair, and trying on every pink item Claire's had to offer.

I don't know why I didn't put more faith in her. When she was one we got into a pretty bad car crash on our trip to California. My niece had been sleeping in the back when a car cut in front of us and we hit it at 50mph. Out of that whole ordeal my niece cried and screamed once - when the paramedic checked her heart beat. If a pretty substantial car crash didn't rile her, then ear piercing must have been absolutely nothing for her.

Speaking of piercings, one of my buddies took it to a level that few people I know would ever go to. A few weeks ago she went to to the Madison Ink Life Tour, got four hooks pierced through her back, swung back and forth through the air, and proceeded to grab my friend, Allie, and swing with her in her arms. She grinned while a group of us watched the video in what I could only describe as shocked confusion. Her reasoning was this: "Well, I like getting pierced, and I like swinging. So it would only make sense that being your own swing would be fun!" What's the written version of making creeped out noises? Aaahhhewwwwgroooosss. Yeah. That's about sums up my feelings on it. But gross or not, my friends are awesome.

Meanwhile, if you're also a mischeivious aunt/uncle/mom/dad/grandma/grandpa/friend with a friend who has a cat, I highly recommend this little book. I found it wandering through JoAnne's last week, and while I was intending to give it to my nieces as a gift... I think it's going to be a "special-stay's-at-uncle-and-aunts-house book" (i.e. mine). The author, Nick Bruel, apparently has a bunch of other Bad Kitty books, including "Bad Kitty for President", and "Bad Kitty Meets the Baby". The original Bad Kitty book tells the story of what can happen when you don't feed a kitten good food (like buffalo burritos and elephant eggs). It's the perfect book for my family in-laws, as they had a kitten that looked just like this not to long ago. They had to give it back to the farm they got it from after it started eating and puking up all their clothes.

Tonight is bellydance practice with a return to veils, zills and swords. I especially love teaching these things to beginners because whipping the sword out usually results in looks of fear before they realize it's not actually sharp. Granted, we have to practice balancing things on our heads first. In the spirit of a sneaky kitty, I might bring cups and fill them with water. How long can a dancer shimmy before losing her balance and drenching herself? No idea, but it's going to be a fun break from the heat. :)