crafty fanny

friday's confession

I'm afraid.

Maybe saying I'm afraid isn't right. Maybe I should say, I have fears. And insecurities. And things that hold me back -- things that are internal, brought on by myself. I have come to realize that in my life, I'm my biggest roadblock?

About a year ago, I decided that I would not live my life in response to fear. I would not avoid situations because I was afraid of what would happen. I've written about this before, in terms of being the first one to say the big "I love you." {That's always scary, right?!?!}

In my life, every "scary" thing that I've ever done has ended up being one of the most worthwhile life-changing experiences ever. Every. Single. One.

And now I'm at a place where I have ultimate freedom to decide my next steps. I can go any direction I want, do anything at all. I can make that life happen for myself, that one I've always dreamed of.

And I'm almost paralyzed, because taking that step, actually starting to live the life you've always dreamed of for yourself is a REALLY BIG DEAL. HUGE. And what if it doesn't work? What if I can't hack it? What if no one likes what I create? Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif? My list could go on and on.

I saw this earlier this week on Brown Button:

So perfect and sweet and simple.  What if, instead of just sitting and worrying and thinking about all the possible outcomes of my actions, and not doing, what if instead of all that I just thought, "hmm, I wounder how this would turn out?" and then took the steps to find out, to satisfy my own curiosity.

What if I took the power away from the fear and just felt curious instead? What kind of doors would will this open up for me?

A couple of days ago, Essential E asked what are you afraid of and asked people to leave anonymous comments with their fears. No pressure, it's all anon. Here's what I said:

I'm afraid of looking back on my life and being so angry with myself for not trying or doing or making magic for myself.

And I'm afraid of taking that first step toward trying and doing and making magic for myself. Because what if I try with everything I have, but it's just not enough?

So much for being anonymous, right? I really do believe that by giving my fears a voice, by expressing them, by sharing them with all of you, I will regain power over them. I will take control over that voice and I will own my life. This is my first step.

I'm going to be jumping into a whole-lotta new stuff in the coming weeks. I'm going to be trying things, putting myself out there, being vulnerable to a lot. And I'm curious. Curious to see how it all happens, curious to see how it comes together, curious to find out what the Universe has in store for me.

Do you have anything you'd like to share? Anon comments are of course welcome on this one -- or put it out there. Anything you're curious about?

a thursday riddle

Q: What happens when I'm sitting in Pier 1 wearing my bicycle helmet and Tim asks me to hold the back-scratchers he wants to buy?

A: This:

Look out Indonesian Sparkle Frogs: There's a whirling dervish in your midst!

how a crazy girl decides what color to paint her kitchen

I've shared with you guys that Tim and I are in the process of doing some painting and updating at our new place. Being renters, we are very lucky to be renting from my mom who said that we can do whatever we'd like in terms of painting and home improvement as long as we "either make it better than it was before or paint it back."

Remember this post where I showed you some of my decorating inspirations?  Here's the room that I'm using as my kitchen-color-basis:

I really want a yellow kitchen. I love yellow kitchens. I think all kitchens should be yellow. It just makes sense, right?

Yeah, um, it's hard to find the "perfect" yellow for your kitchen.

I have a bowl. It's yellow. I decided that it was the color I wanted on the walls. But, not really, because when I went to Home Depot and picked up the 72 different samples of yellow paint, the one that most matched the bowl was more of a mustard color. And trust me, our house has plenty of mustard going on. And I don't even like mustard!

So, I devised a system. It might be a crazy system -- when I told Tim "the plan," he shook his head and chuckled -- but I think it's going to work.

Here's what I did:

First, I put up all of our possible paint colors onto the wall. This is a wall that is shaded in the evening and gets a lot of sun in the morning. It seemed like a good spot to judge the different light levels throughout the day.

And, no, in case you're wondering, these aren't ALL the paint samples I picked up. There are about 30 more colors that didn't make the cut. After a while, when we were going through them, comparing them to the bowl, they all started to look the same. Hence my method.

Then I taped a "secret ballot" onto the wall near the paint samples. In order to make it secret, I put a blank piece of paper over the one where we were to record our "votes." Yes, it is fancy. Thank you.

Note: I have a thing about being influenced and how that leads one to make a decision or form an opinion. I think that suggestion is so powerful.  I actually avoid movie/theatre/music reviews until I've had the chance to see or listen to whatever is being reviewed. Then once I've seen the movie or play, or heard the record, I look up the reviews to see if I agree. It's a fun game I play with myself. I get points when I agree with the reviewer.

Ooh, votes, you might think? You get to vote. Heck yeah, you get to vote. That's the beauty of my process.

So, yeah, you vote. The nice thing about this is that you get to vote for more than one color at a time. It's just a way to measure which ones you like throughout the day. And if you like four colors at a time, so be it. My theory behind this is that at some point, one or two colors will emerge as clear winners and those are the colors that we'll get actual samples of to put onto the wall.

And, as you can see, it worked:

Here are the colors that have made it through to the final round:

Are you thinking that maybe we should just leave the kitchen walls the color they are? Kakhi? Yeah, me too.

I'm going to Home Depot tomorrow to pick up sample cans of the two colors, and I'll put them up in the same spot. We'll then decide which color to use. But, no worries, it's gonna be awesome.

Now if only I could decide on the perfect place for the chalkboard paint.

paper flowers everywhere

Reason #1,267 that having a gay husband is awesome:
When you ask him if he minds if you make these for his 4th of July party, just 'cause you want to try them out, his response is, "Sure, I'm gay. I love decorations."

These paper flowers were super easy to make. So super easy, in fact, I had extra time to make a corsage for myself and one for sweet Milo.

I really want one of my friends to have a DIY wedding, since I cannot imagine anything more fun than spending a morning drinking mimosas and making tons of these!

have a sparkly 4th, y'all

Happy 4th of July!!

We took this photo in France, and I think it does a pretty good job of summing up how I feel this year on the 4th of July. It's good to be an American! And I like the Obama as Superman motif. I can live with that.

We also came across this image of Obama:

I dig the shoes, Barack!

Last night, Tim and I had a lovely picnic in the park in Berkeley. We had the most amazing picnics in France, almost every day. And why not do that here too?

Picnics are fun! Drinking wine in a park is fun! Laying on a blanket in the grass is fun!

A note to the guy with the battery-powered-airplane-that-sounded-like-a-giant-mosquito-and-interrupted-the-mojo-of-our-picnic: Dude. Your airplane is dumb. And noisy. And rude. Perhaps if you lost the toy, you'd find a girl. Just sayin'.

I hope you all have loverly holidays. And that there's a lot of laughing! I'm pro-laughing!

homemade chicken soup

Remember that chicken soup I mentioned the other day? So good.

Homemade soup is so ridiculously easy to make that every time I make it, I wonder why I don't make it all the time. I always think: maybe that's my thing, maybe I should just make soup all the time. Cause it's easy. And you get to use up all your old veggies. And it's good. And good for you. 4 points for me becoming the new soup nazi! Woot!

Anyhoozy, here's what I did to make yummy, fresh chicken soup. Feel free to try this at home. In fact, I encourage it. And don't worry if you don't have all this stuff. It's okay, 'cause it's soup. And it's impossible to screw up soup. No, I mean it. Impossible.

Oh, and sorry for the lack of photos. I didn't chronicle every step of this with gorgeous, bright shots, a la smitten kitchen or the pioneer woman (both cooking sites are super fun, btw). But, if you read this blog for the photos, then, um, really?

I did find some good shots on flickr that I use throughout this post. They aren't photos of my soup. But my soup is that pretty, really. Next time I'll take a picture.

 

What you need:

Some chicken - I know, this isn't an exact amount, you really just need chicken on the bone. Martha says you need a whole 3-4 pound chicken cut in this precise way into 8 pieces. We had taken about 10 pieces of leg and thigh out of the freezer for the bbq-that-never-happened-because-I-got-sick and I used that. It was FINE. Use what you have.

Some veggies - Again, use what you've got. I used carrots, celery, zucchini, and a small onion I found in the back of the fridge. And some parsley that was about to go to the dark side. Peel the carrots and chop everything. That's all.

Some spices - I used peppercorn, sea salt, and thyme. If you have a bay leaf, toss that in too. If not, no worries.

Water - Are you starting to think, really? Is it that easy? YES.

Time - It does take some time, but you don't have to stand at the stove all afternoon. Next time you're hanging out around the house, make some soup. It's highly rewarding.

 

What to do:

You need to start by making the stock. Essentially to make a stock, you just boil the crap out of everything and it becomes magically delicious.

Add about 6 cups of water to the chicken (just enough to cover -- you can always add more water later), the chopped onion, 1-2 chopped, pealed carrots, 1-2 chopped celery stalks, about 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of black peppercorns and 1/2 tsp of thyme, and some fresh parsley. Bring to a boil and then lower heat so stock simmers.

About 15 minutes in, you need to start checking the doneness of the chicken. Since raw chicken creeps me out, I used a meat thermometer. The thermometer should read about 165 when it's ready, and the chicken will cook a little more when you actually make the soup. As the chicken gets done, pull it out of the pot and put into a dish to cool. Keep simmering.

After the chicken cools, you want to discard the skin and pull all the meat off the bones. You can just put the meat into the fridge at this point. All the bones go back in the pot, which has been simmering this whole time. How long? I don't know -- it's soup, so it's fine! 

Once all the bones have been returned to the pot, simmer for about an hour. NOTE: at this point in the evening, I started to watch a movie, (Made of Honor, it was cute) which made me ignore the soup. To the point that I had the stove turned up too high and almost all the water evaporated out, leaving me with bones, veggies and a super thick kinda-burning chicken goop. And, you know what? I just added a ton more water and everything was great. But, if you don't have to do that, it's probably good too :) 

Oh, and periodically while this is cooking, you'll need to skim the foam off the top. That's the fatty part, but it's bad fat, not good fat. I skimmed and just put the fat into an orange juice can. And then when Tim came home, I asked if he wanted to drink the fat to prove how much he loved me. He didn't.

Now you need to strain the stock. Remove and discard all solids.

I know this shot doesn't have anything to do with soup, but I found it on flickr and had to share: tatertot casserole? How yummy does that sound?!?!

*Ahem* When you're ready to make the soup, add enough water to get liquid volume back up to about 6 cups. Toss in a couple more chopped carrots and celery stalks. And I had zucchini so I threw that in too. Add the chicken from the fridge. Bring back to a boil and then lower to a simmer.

We had some cooked egg noodles in the fridge, so I tossed them in too. I never make the right amount of pasta when I cook, so we almost always have extra cooked pasta in the fridge. It's perfect for something like this.

Simmer for about 20 minutes. Periodically check the saltiness and add salt and fresh pepper as needed.

Eat and enjoy! 

Really, that's all.

Next, I want to try chicken tortilla soup. I loves me some chicken tortilla soup!

photo credits, from top: Robert Couse-Baker, roland, madaise, and adactio.

france recap #2: Provence, pt. 1

A few years ago, my book club read A Year in Provence. The book was good, but more than anything it made me want to give up everything and move to Provence where I could experience things like wacky neighbors, language barriers, and truffle-seeking pigs. With stuff like that going on, who wouldn't want to move to Provence?

On Day 4 of our trip, we picked up our rental car in Nice and headed to Arles (pronounced "Arghghhhh" for those non-French speakers out there. I realized that the French usually only pronounce about 40% of the letters in their words. This one was impossible for us to say and be understood by anyone French.), a sweet and teeny Provencial town on the Rhone River.

Here's our car. Fun and cute, huh? Using this car, and seeing all of the tiny cars throughout the country made me think Americans have a big-car problem. My Honda feels HUGE now!

Our hotel, the lovely Hotel du Musee, was just a block from the bank of the Rhone River. This town was so full of pretty, I went a little overboard taking photos. I loved the pink-lined lanterns all over town.

Um, giggle. I know, I'm a child. But, nord pinus?!? Awesome! (fyi: according to my desktop translator, it means north pinus. Perfect.)

We had crazy-fantastic meals in Arles, and the best pain au chocolate of the trip. This might have been my second-favorite town for food. Our first night, we found this great wine bistro, Chez Ariane. It was soo very good and was well-decorated and super homey.

I want to paint this photo. I love how it turned out.

 

Our first dinner in Arles. That cheese was amazing. That wine was amazing. That salad was amazing, and I don't even LIKE hard-boiled egg or beets. Dining Perfection.

Arles at night. Spooky, huh?

Our hotel had this adorable courtyard where we had our coffee in the mornings. If you looked up the French word for "adorable" (which coincidentally, I think is adorable), a photo of this courtyard would be there.

More pretty.

Van Gogh also spent time in Arles. We spent one day doing a walking tour of some of his more famous paintings. They have these easels set up all over so you can see the painting with what inspired it.

And they have an old Colliseum.

Our second night in Arles, we went to a restaurant right down the street from Chez Ariane, Le 16. Wow! It was so good, we went back there for a second meal!

They had these clams. It's hard to describe how small they were -- each one was about the size of one of those pink pencil erasers. You know the ones you put on your pencil when you've already used up the one it came with? These. They were tiny, but incredible! They were cooked with a butter garlic sauce that made me speechless. That's a sign of good food; there's not much in this world that leaves me speechless!

Then we had this dish: a roasted duck breast with gratin potatoes. OMG. I didn't know what to do with myself after the first bite, it was that good. This definitely ranks in my top 3 best meals while in France. And I ate a LOT of meals while in France.

And the potatoes. They weren't regular gratin potatoes, not like I'm used to here in the States. I think they were cooked more with cream (maybe sour cream?) than cheese. They tasted like heaven. They were rich, but light. And almost melted in your mouth.

So, um, I have more to tell you about Provence, but after writing about all this food, I think I need to go eat! But, needless to say, if you are heading to Provence, I would highly suggest a visit to Arles.

More recaps are coming though! Yay!