buzzville

Mid-week madness!

I've just returned from a super fast trip to Vegas - in one day and out the next - and I'm totally wiped! I just don't think I'm built for 10 hours of driving in 2 days. In fact, I'd say that my trip to the Las Vegas emergency room is proof positive! While driving out there, I had a sudden sharp pain along the shin of my right (accelerator) leg that felt as if I had been electrically shocked. Immediately following the pain, the entire area went numb. It was pretty freaky, but I figured it was just one of those bizarre random pains we all get every now and then... But, 8 hours later when my leg was still numb I started to get a bit more worried. I called the advice nurse at the local clinic from my hotel, and she urged me to get to the emergency room immediately. I shuddered at the thought, having dealt with the excruciatingly painful ER wait times in the past, but decided I needed to take care of myself nonetheless. After 3.5 hours waiting to be seen by a doctor, I was told I had peripheral neuropathy - really just a lot of jargon for a damaged nerve that was probably a result of sitting in the same position for an extended period. The doctor seemed to think it would get better on its own as long as I took it easy on the leg for a bit. She was right - when I woke up the next morning my leg had returned to normal. I'm always annoyed by these little reminders that I'm getting older, and that maybe I'm not quite as spry as I think I am. I made it back home without further ado, although I used and abused the cruise control so that I could move my leg around a lot during the trip home. I share all of this just to remind everyone out there to take care of yourselves. I hear lots of folks who end up really, really sick because they didn't get something checked out in the beginning. My little trip to the ER was me trying to learn from the mistakes of others and try to keep an eye on what my body is doing.

I also wanted to quickly share a beautiful new online shop that has some amazingly cute handmade stuff: Mahar Drygoods. The site is beautiful, with illustrations by the incredible Jen Corace, and the carefully selected stock is really fun to browse through. Enjoy!

Some days are *really* good thrift days...

Although I don't post about my thrifting much these days, I'm out there all the time, scouring the best spots for all the fun stuff we look for: sewing and crafting goodies for me, clothes, toys and books for Brynne, and vintage synthesizers and odd electronics for Jerry. I rarely come away without anything, and some days I find armloads of amazing stuff just waiting to be re-purposed in our home.

A week ago I had a particularly good day and walked out with these:

9 volumes of The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls! These were published in 1963 "under the supervision of The Editorial Board of the University Society" and they are so cool! Each book has an inset color illustration of the cover like this:

and the end papers are fantastic:

Each volume covers different topics. At first I thought the Index, labeled the Bookshelf Parents' Guide, was intended to help parents use the books effectively, but then I flipped through this volume and realized it's actually a guide to being a parent! Certain sections will certainly come in handy for us in the future: Impudence and Disrespect; Tics, Twitches, and Other Nervous Habits; and Family Meetings to Settle Grievances.

Despite the fascinating topics in this volume, my favorite by far is Volume 5: Things to Make and Do:

Just look at some of the amazing projects:

how to make an apron, "Mexican blouse" and hat!

dollhouse project, complete with furnishings!

paper dolls and tons of different outfits!

a puppet theater!

I am totally overwhelmed with all the goodness in this book alone... it will take me forever to actually get through all of them and get cracking! If I'm really ambitious, maybe I'll try to scan some of the stuff in to share with all of you one of these days... we don't have an operational scanner at the moment, but it's on my list to get a new one!

Don't you just love thrifting?!?

A new friend arrives!

Lisa has been making fantastic things forever, but I always missed out on her creations for one reason or another. I was finally able to snatch up some of her incredible handmade goodness, and this fantastic modbird, who we've named Ingrid, has arrived to her destined home!

She fits right in with our bright green bedroom scheme, and she also seems right at home with a bit of Jonathan Adler by her feet. Thanks Lisa! We love her!

A new member of the family...

... arrived on St. Patrick's Day. I've held off on mentioning our new arrival just because I wanted to be sure that everything was going to work out for her to stay with us. A few days have gone by, and we're still working out some issues, but I think we'll figure it all out!

We first saw Lucky in our back yard in a small patch of clover. She was friendly and inquistive, and Brynne took an instant liking to her.

She immediately showed us her many talents, like climbing trees:

After a lot of goofing off, we chatted about her future for awhile next to the lavender:

We all got along beautifully from the start, but we knew Lucky would have to make a few lifestyle changes when we found her next to an empty bottle of stout.

Despite this, we all agreed (Lucky included!) that she would make a welcome addition to our family. It was even more fortuitous that an Irish kitty like herself managed to find our rather Irish homestead on St. Patrick's Day. Welcome Lucky!

(Special thanks to Hillary and her prototype for making all of this possible! See Lucky's cousins.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We just finished up with our traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage, and now we're ready to sit down and cozy up with a movie and some St. Patty's Day treats. Hope you all had a great day!

 

Bloggy Goodness Abounds!

You know, it's really amazing - in over a year of blogging, I've gotten nothing but amazing support, wonderful new friends, and the most incredible inspiration a wanna-be crafter could ever hope for. Until now. Today I received my very first negative and somewhat inflammatory comment to one of my posts, and while I'm actually quite pleased that something I wrote inspired someone to speak out, I'm also somewhat in shock! Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later!

What I *really* wanted to post about today is the majority of what is out there in this burgeoning craft-o-sphere - the goodness! I was lucky enough to snag one of the subscriptions to Amy's super cool (yes, super cool is the phrase I was looking for!) mailorder project. I experienced such giddy excitement when that treasured red envelope arrived in the mail. I was even more excited (sorry dearest husband!) when I realized that the package provided a fantastic excuse to go and purchase new crafting tools... behold:

I finished this a little while ago, but I'm thrilled to share my completed first project, the birthday calendar:

and, as is warranted for completing said project, the first merit badge:

It's really hard to explain how happy this stuff makes me, so huge thanks to Amy for giving me something I didn't even know I wanted!

And there is so much of this good stuff around lately - fantastic tutorials, resources and inspiration, free patterns, thought provoking posts, and of course, more inspiration than I can possibly keep up with! I'm really hoping to get out of the slump I've been in for a little while, and hopefully give something back to all of you who continue to be so generous.

Automoblox on sale!

I've blogged about the ultra-cool Automoblox toy cars before, but just wanted to quickly post that Garnet Hill has the C9 sportscar model on sale for $25.00. Snatch these cuties up while you can!

Martha's Cake o' the Month - March

I'm so thrilled to be a bit ahead of the curve and to have already completed the March cake from Martha Stewart's 12 months of cakes! It's really not like me to have finished something so early, so I hope you don't come to expect this in the future...

I anticipated that the March recipe, the Cardamom Streusel Coffee Cake, would be much simpler than the January and February recipes, and I was right - no spectacular mishaps, no beating my oven with a sledge hammer, and no tossing the finished product in the garbage! Success at last! It was also a relatively simple recipe in that I was pretty well equipped to bake it with what I already have, with 2 minor exceptions. The recipe called for cardamom pods, and I only had ground cardamom, so I placed an order for beautiful white cardamom pods from my favorite supplier of spices and seasonings, Penzeys. I know that I probably could have used my ground cardamom, but I wanted to replicate Martha's results as closely as possible, so I went for the real deal. I also needed to purchase an angel food cake pan with a removable bottom. (Note: One side effect of completing the 12 Months of Cakes project is that my kitchen will now be prepared for every possible baking scenario... 8 ramekins? Check! Angel food cake pan? Check!)

 

Armed with all the necessary ingredients and materials, I began to make the cake. This cake is made up of 2 recipes - 1 for the cake itself, and 1 for the crumb layer that is on top and in the middle of the cake. Both recipes called for tons a bit of softened butter. I was so pleased with myself when I remembered an old "Good Thing" from Martha herself: to help butter soften more quickly, grate the cold butter with a cheese grater! Lo and behold, it worked like a charm, even with the chilly weather we've had for the past few days!

I toasted and ground the cardamom pods, assembled the components for the crumb layer, and mixed the batter for the cake. Everything went into the pan easily, and I had a little help cleaning up while the cake was in the oven.

We pulled the cake out of the oven and it looked perfect. The only tricky bit was figuring out how to turn the cake out and then flip it over again so that the crumb layer was back on top. We ended up with a bit of a crumby explosion during one flip, but not nearly as bad as it could have been! The cake was finished and cooled enough just after lunch. Jerry made up a capuccino and I my cup of green tea - perfect accompaniments to the warm coffee cake on a rainy day.

The end result? It was delicious... It's certainly not the "wow" dessert like the 2 previous months, but this is a cozy comfort treat perfect for brunch, a tea party, or your stitch & bitch snack. I particularly liked the cake layers; they were extremely moist - almost like a bread pudding - which I think is probably because of the yogurt in the cake recipe. I definitely recommend this recipe as one that is super yummy and not terribly complicated to whip up.

My friends over at Sweet Little Treat have set up the Year of Cakes Flickr group for any other bloggers interested in the challenge. Check out what everyone else has been up to over there!

not much to say...

We're feeling pretty lousy around here - Brynne had about 2 relatively healthy days, and then caught the next virus du jour. This time I've caught it as well... seems as if life keeps getting in the way of all my lofty crafty plans! We've spent the day being lazy and trying to pass the moments until we're not quite so miserable, but here are a few positives I'm up for sharing.

This past Saturday we went to a Noggin (kid's tv network) event in Santa Barbara - Jamarama Live! (I think the exclamation point is required...) Normally the thought of such an event would make Jerry and I cringe, but we wanted to go because Dan Zanes and Friends were performing for several of the dates, including the Santa Barbara show. We saw Dan Zanes last summer at UCLA and really loved it - his performances are genunine, fun, and truly accessible for all ages. His performace for Jamarama was no different, although he was sandwiched between 2 other acts - Milkshake and The Ohmies. Musically, Milkshake was pretty good - fun, poppy rock that could potentially be fun for adults as well, but I think they need to tighten up a bit more. The Ohmies, on the other hand, were terrible. I was willing to give them a chance - they're trying to integrate pricinples of yoga into their performances to breed happier, healthier kids -but, their plastered, plastic smiles, over-the-top makeup, and cheesy dialogue left much to be desired. We could see that not only were the parents in the audience disappointed, but many of the kids lost interest when the Ohmies came on after Dan (admittedly, a tough act to follow). So, I mention all of this just because I really love what Dan Zanes is doing, and I realize now that he's struck the perfect balance between creating music that will be fun for kids as well as their parents. We were thrilled after the show to have a brief chat with Dan and he signed Brynne's t-shirt!

My personal list of blog post ideas is ever growing, but I keep forgetting to show off this beautiful Christmas gift from Jerry. He really is an outstanding shopper, and he's also quite good at taking hints! This is what appeared under the Christmas tree for me:

the necklace is from the Konzuk embellished collection - a virtually custom collection because you can select from 8 different design motifs and 9 colors. Anyway, I pulled the necklace out today because it makes me happy to look at, and it also feels a bit like spring.

are you happily hooking?!?

I finally received my pre-ordered copy of Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker. I've seen some other posts wondering about the book, so I thought I'd post some pictures of a few of the projects in case you're on the fence about picking up a copy. In all, the book features 40 original patterns and also includes almost 100 pages of how-to. It's set up much like Stitch 'N Bitch, with lots of pictures and schematics to help you with the projects.

Here are some of my favorite projects from the book, based on a very quick perusal last night. We don't currently have a scanner available, so apologies in advance for the pictures - some glare was inevitable!

of course, the amazing Camilla's softie patterns!

love this handbag with the orange (right in line with Lisa's post today) by Sarah Davis!

really cute bolero by Angela "La Vonne" Best

I haven't tried crocheting jewelry yet, but I've always wanted to... this is a beautiful set by Laila Korn.

This little cap sleeve top is so cute - complete with ribbon embellishment! Pattern by Laura-Jean Bernhardson.

For a crocheted garment, this little retro jacket looks really well fitted... I think I need to try this one out! Pattern by Fay Lin.

For those of us who just can't get enough of sock monkeys, Carmen Watkins created this incredible baby hat and afghan pattern. Hmmmm, so many cute babies out there right now who just *need* this set!

I'd love to hear about it if you've already started (or even finished!) any of the projects in the book, or if you're planning on it... I'm still madly knitting away on the sweater for my class, but I bet I'll pick up the hook for one of these once I've fininished my sweater!