Just wanted to pop in and say that all is well in our camp. We had a good New Year’s Eve with Erin. We played Rock Band on Joe’s new PS3 and had a great round of Trivial Pursuit (I came in last place as usual, but I did my best yet!). I’m sure the neighbors were glad to hear clanking drums and singing that was closer to a cat in heat than any song the game was having us sing. I really should not have been singing in the first place, but I also have a cold, so not only was I off key, I was nasally!

We are still battling ants, but they haven’t been near as bad as the Christmas tree episode. Despite the ant problem this winter, living in this home the past year has been great. We hope 2008 will be even better. I believe this is the first place that really feels like home since I’ve moved away from my family. I have a nice kitchen with enough cups, mugs and plates to go around. I have extra blankets to curl up on the couch with and enough yarn to last me until well into 2009. Oh yeah, and I still get to live with my favorite person- Joe!

I hope you all have a fantastic year (maybe even complete a few of those New Year’s Resolutions, but you know, no pressure!).

Halloween is already here and I’ve not prepared at all. I still have no candy to pass out, not even a carved pumpkin in sight! What’s new?

Oh yes, did I tell you that I am back from Montreal? No, I didn’t? Well, I am.

Well, did I tell you about the most wonderful fado concert that I attended and sat third row center? Nuh uh, you say?

Or that I’m so very very close to completing that hooded baby blanket? No?! I’m really behind.

I’m sorry. I really did have two whole posts written out and lost them both. Really, I swear. No, really!

Joe has been away this week in Anaheim for a work conference and I have the whole house to myself! You better believe the wild parties I’ve been throwin’. Well, there will be cookie baking with Erin tomorrow and the passing out of candy…oh and old scary movie watching! That counts as a wild party right? Oh yeah, get the word out: “Taryn will be passing out full size candy bars tomorrow night”. Last year we got a grand total of two trick-or-treaters, so this year we are trying to bribe more ghoulies into coming to say hello. Parents will hate us, I’m sure, but anything to win the kid’s hearts and minds right?

I’ll be back with more on Montreal and the fado concert soon…I think.

My computer is mysteriously shutting itself down at random. I had written an account of our recent trip to England last night, it was just about finished. I am slightly annoyed at losing the post, because it took me a while to write, but to tell you the truth, it wasn’t very good. So in that sense, I’m not sorry to see it go.

The trip itself was both good and bad. I was expecting the weather to be less than wonderful, but it didn’t really hit me until we had to wander around trying to find our hotel in the rain. I breathed a sigh of relief as we stood in front of the hotel clerk, ready to check in. Only then did the rain begin to really beat down in a manner that is just mind boggling to a California native. It’s July people, the middle of summer and it’s cold, grey and pouring. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.

We also couldn’t manage to get used to the streets running in the opposite direction. I was completely thankful for the big white painted letters on the crosswalks telling the pedestrian to look right or look left, because I swear I looked the wrong way every time.

Our first night we thought the British were completely mad. Our toilet in the first hotel we stayed in would not flush! It would gurgle for a bit and then give up. We tried holding the lever for a while. We tried pushing the lever down quickly…nothing. Joe reasoned that “well, we are in Europe and they tend to conserve more than we do. Maybe it’s just a hyper low-flow toilet”. But we both couldn’t manage to believe that.

Our shower also had about 30 seconds worth of heated water and had only one glass door when it should of had two. Again, we reasoned that we Americans are just used to wasting hot water and proceeded to make record time with the hair washing.

Luckily, it turned out that we weren’t crazy and the Brits weren’t mad (well, not that much…but who isn’t a little bonkers?). We finally figured out that the toilet lever took a very precise amount of pressure to flush correctly. It took skill.

And the shower problem came down to the fact that we failed to read their information on water temp. and didn’t turn up the water heater.

The half glass door in the shower, on the other hand, was meant to be that way. I guess it was just an attempt to be modern and cool, but really it just left me cold and the bathroom floor wet.

One thing that was very strange was that I had a very hard time talking like an American there. I’d keep popping out words with a slight British accent. I had to really pay attention to the way I spoke, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself with a half American/ half battered British accent. It wouldn’t take living there long at all for me to develop an accent. Funny how that works, and even funnier that Joe has no idea why I had such a hard time with that. I don’t really know either.

We didn’t really get to do much of anything. Most of our time was swallowed up at the airport, train station, finding a hotel, finding food or sleeping (never did get over that time difference). The LUGRadio conference was a blast though. It was a mass of geeks and nerds from all over the world. We even made friends with a few wonderful people.

All in all, the trip had many crappy aspects, no denying that, but of course it had some good moments and those will be the ones that I’ll remember most.

^Erin & Justin enjoyed the river view!

Today has been a good day and it’s only 2 in the afternoon. We walked down to old Folsom with Erin and Justin to eat breakfast at Sutter Street Grill and took a long walk down by the American river. We found so many fruits and plants to nibble on our river walk- fennel, dill, figs, pomegranates, plums, and blackberries.

A little ways down a whole good chunk of the trail had been caught in a fire. I don’t think it was from all the smoke Joe and I saw a few days back, this one looked like it had been a controlled burn (but really we don’t know). We felt like archeologists excavating bits of history (okay, mainly old cans). The burnt areas revealed many old flat top beer cans with church key openings. We did a bit of research and figure they must be from around the 50’s because that type of can stopped production by the 60’s.

We even came across an area that was still smoking and eventually heard the sirens of a fire truck that came to take care of the flare up. And among the ashes I spotted a blue-tailed skink wriggling away. I fumbled for the camera, but the little guy was just too fast, but boy was his tail bright! I don’t understand how that helps them survive, if anything, I would think it would be a problem being so easy to spot.

After the river walk, we headed back to old Folsom to the Brewmeister for extra brewing supplies. Did I mention that Joe and Justin are brewing a Belgian Whit? The wort is gurgling in our bathtub right now. The carboy is covered in brown cloth and looks a bit Yoda-ish. It’s kind of creepy.

After some much needed supplies, Erin and I convinced the gang to head over to the corner market for an icee and then down to Comstock street where I had spotted an amazing front yard garden the week prior that I had to show them. When we got a closer look it was actually spanned throughout three homes. Flowers were everywhere and there were several beds packed with every kind of vegetable imaginable! We spotted an old woman amongst the greenery working away. I complimented her on her work and she came right over and talked our ears off. Her name was Gladys Trejo and she was 91 years old (she didn’t look close to that age!). She had lived in Folsom for the last 60 years and was the president of the Folsom Garden Club about *edited* 40 years ago. She’s still a member and apparently the lush oasis she was working in was the club’s community garden! She told us we should join when they start up again in the fall and you better believe that I’m going to. I’m so happy that there is a community garden a stone’s throw from our house. I’ve lived here for 2 years now and never knew!

Dinner and brewing will commence again later today so I’ve got to get a few chores out of the way, but I just had to write about how elated I am feeling right now. What a day!

Monday was an event filled day. Although, I didn’t get much cleaning done. Are all the dishes cleaned from Saturday’s get together? Nope, not yet. I’ll get around to finishing up when I’m not doing something more fun. I picked up Erin from her work and took her to Midtown for lunch (it was her birthday! Happy Birthday Erin!) at Thai Basil (mmm…thai iced tea and veggie filled spring rolls!) and then after dropping her back off at work (boo work) I mosied around midtown for another hour or so. Bike shops, art supply shops, used books shops, antique shops, I browsed ‘em all. Then I made my way to Hina’s new tea shop. It’s really swanky and lounge-like. Much bigger than the old Folsom location (which closed down), but bummer it’s no longer five minutes away from me, it’s a good 30 minutes! So now we have to savor our bags of loose leaf tea.

When Joe got home from work I managed to talk him in to taking me to Lowe’s for some hardware supplies to hang up our floating Ikea shelves. Yes folks, I’m slowly but surely turning this house into a home (or I’m surpervising Joe who’s actually the one who’s turning this house into a home). So I got to watch Joe hang the shelves while I handed the screws and level, just like handing forceps to a surgeon. The shelves look so good! I’m still not sure about what exactly will go up there, but the shelves alone help the walls feel less bare. Next up, the picture frames.

***What’s been killing me is the complete lack of stylish (my kind of stylish at least) rugs for a reasonable price….anywhere. I can never commit to a big rug purchase, because my style changes so often. I can just picture it: a few months down the road I’ll hate whichever $400 (cheapest price for the size I’d like) rug I decided to buy. I’ll be better off choosing a solid color, but which color? I haven’t the foggiest.***

Oh! Right, I was telling you all about my day. I’ll just throw in that Joe and I joined Erin and Justin for a mean round of tennis tonight when the sun went down and the weather finally cooled off to the mid 80’s. There was plenty of ‘practice serve’ swinging, ankle popping, and face thwacking fun. I’m going to be feeling it in the morning.

I would have posted last night but I was wiped out. To celebrate International Knitting Day yesterday, I invited a few knitting buddies over for, of course, knitting, and some snacks. I went overboard as usual with the food and made too much. I really need to work on cutting back. I decided to try out some new recipes (although, isn’t there a rule about not doing that?) from a couple of cookbooks recently purchased. I made focaccia bread from The Bread Bible, shortbread cookies from Super Natural Cooking, and a chocolate & zucchini cake from Clotilde’s new C&Z cookbook. I had Joe cook the “nuggets of happiness” (so deemed by his coworkers) which consist of a small chunk of chicken and a slice of jalapeno wrapped in bacon, skewered and cooked on the bbq. Of course there was a much needed assortment of fruits and veggies because uh, meat and sweets can get a bit heavy on the stomach.

I was surprised that everything turned out pretty successfully. I think my favorite was the Ginger- Amaranth Shortbread from Heidi’s new cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. They were deemed after a taste test, a hybrid of shortbread and gingerbread cookies. We didn’t even get to the C&Z cake because it was just too much food. So I’m sending off a slice to Joe’s parents today (along with a few pieces of shortbread!) so it won’t all go to waste.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Just a quick post to touch bases!

Joe and I had a good weekend. There were two nice dinners spent with friends. I finally made pancakes that I am proud of this morning! The weather is now officially summer weather and it’s only going to get hotter from here on out! Plane tickets were also purchased! We’ll be leaving for Manchester, UK on July 3 and have a week before flying home. We’ll be attending LUGradio Live during that weekend in Wolverhampton (which is a Linux geek event). I have absolutely no clue what we will be doing other than that. We tried to look up information on Manchester last night, but it seems to be pretty dull tourist-wise. We’ll be too far away from London, so we were thinking of doing a more scenic vacation through the Lake District. But really, who knows. We have a month to figure that all out.

I just watched two of the PBS Craft in America shows tonight and I highly recommend watching them. There weren’t many featured crafters that I’d call my style, but it’s still amazing to watch the creation of their pieces. I especially enjoyed the ceramic artist, Richard Notkin’s work. His artwork has strong political themes. Skulls, mushroom clouds, dice, ears, anatomical hearts and destroyed buildings are quite common throughout his work. He has amazing skill and I wish I would have heard of him sooner, now that I know he is a featured artist at the Portland Museum of Art (another site I missed!).

Aside from how interesting it was to watch the sheer amount of skill most of these artists who were featured on Craft in America had, it was nice to see all sorts of people who were doing exactly what they wanted to do with their lives. I want to be like that.

It’s late and I should be in bed. I got home from knitting group around midnight, more than a tad bit later than my usual 9:30pm. After Panera’s kicked us all out at closing time (9pm) a few of us decided that we hadn’t had enough crafting so we went to M’s place that she was house sitting (yes, she had permission and no, there was no giant party…unfortunately) and continued our knitting/stitching for a couple more hours.

I took my Wool & Hoop crewel project to work on and came so close to finishing when, just my luck, I run out of the thread! So now I have to order more off of their website and wait a bit longer before I can officially call that project completed.

Oh yeah, see those bowls in the picture? They are little condiment bowls that I bought from Costplus for a couple bucks. I don’t need them. Joe just shakes his head. I liked them, what can I say? They might come in handy one day! At the very least, they look darn cute in that picture. Four dollars is worth that alone!

Oh and to keep my motivation up for that Amy Butler apron I’ve been working on, I wanted to note that last night I cut out all the pieces needed and labeled them. Okay, I could be moving along faster, but I don’t want to overwhelm myself. Baby steps, or no steps at all!

Despite not having much to show for my weekend, I did do quite a lot. The new fabrics have been laundered and ironed, a crewel embroidery kit has been started, cupcakes have been baked and frosted, the house has been kept clean (miracle!), and I ate a lot of Joe’s cooking. We had his friend Marc over for a smoked whole chicken which was super tasty. So I can now scratch that off my list. I now know how to prep a whole chicken. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, but I still had to have Joe pull out the last couple of ‘insides’ from it. That got a little gross. Other than that, a little rub of garlic and lemon juice, a dash of salt and pepper, throw the used lemon and garlic inside and toss it in the smoker. Easy! I think I’ll have him cook that more often so I have a nice supply of sandwich meat. I also put together a nice strawberry short cake with freshly baked angel food cake (okay, okay, fresh from the oven from a box) with homemade whipped cream.

This is getting embarrassing. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I cannot bake a good cupcake to save my life. I made cupcakes last night to make yet another attempt at baking a decent cupcake. I used cream cheese in the frosting this time and it was the best I had made so far. Joy! But- I destroyed the cake part. I think I overcooked them because they were just way too dry. The instructions said bake for 20 mins in a 400 degree oven which seemed like a pretty long time for such a high temperature, so I shortened the baking time, but obviously not enough.

The struggle continues!

In non cooking news, I really am going to go ahead with making the Amy Butler apron. The fabric is now ready to be cut and labeled. Hopefully I don’t mess it up too badly! The instructions seem fairly straight forward. I think I can handle this.

I also spent the weekend planting more veggies and herbs. I had two tomatoes just begging to go in the soil. They had been neglected for a couple weeks (I’m so bad!) and definitely show signs of wear. Despite all that, one of them already has a tomato! Talk about a survivor!

I’m keeping an eye on them and giving them some much needed nutrients. Hopefully they will bounce back and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to make some yummy BLTs this summer.

Well, let me see here. Tea holds so many fond memories for me. I could say so much! My favorite mentor, Amir, showed me the wonders of drinking tea the Persian way (out of a Samovar with a sugar cube held in the side of your cheek). One of the greatest times I’ve had was sitting on the floor with friends drinking tea the Persian way and singing Sufi poetry accompanied by a sitar.
I also had the pleasure of having my mom wake me up every morning with a nice warm cup of tea! It was the only thing that helped me get out of my cozy bed.

And now, my boyfriend and I are tea-aholics. We have fully dedicated two cupboards to tea cups, tea pots and of course, tea leaves.

Today I chose a nice basic British Breakfast blend from our favorite little tea shop, Hina’s Tea & Sympathy and drank it out of my brand new mug that I scored at a new thrift store down the street for only 50 cents! It’s got pretty little drawings of herbs on it. A blend of garden and tea, a perfect combination!

Also, I can’t help but giggle at saying the phrase “it’s time for tea!” because that happens to be one of my favorite among many) King Diamond songs. Although, the phrase is put into a whole new context.

Anyways, I’m glad I could join this wonderful online gathering of wonderful folk. It’s been a joy to sip tea with you all!