Social Norms?

I'm spending the morning working from my local coffee shop. I decided I needed a change of scenery - because apparently I haven't had enough of that lately... No, it's just that my cleaning lady is at my place and I don't like to be there when she's cleaning. I feel like I'm in the way.

Anyway, I'm at a coffee shop. There is music playing as there is in all stores and coffee shops and restaurants these days. As a side note: have you ever wondered what it would be like if there wasn't any music playing? Would that affect you in any way? Would you even notice?

Ok, back to the current situation. So, there's music playing. The shop is fairly busy, most tables are taken. People are working, talking, reading, etc.

There is one woman at one table who is full on dancing to the music that is playing. She has a book in front of her but she hasn't paid attention to it at all, at least not from what I can tell. Instead, she's sitting in her chair, dancing to the music. Smiling, enjoying herself.

Now, what is interesting to me is that everyone sees her, walks by her, makes sure not to make eye contact with her. Everyone seems to be thinking, "oh wow, stay away from the crazy lady!"

Why? Why do we assume that someone who is enjoying the music and is free enough to dance to that music when it moves her is crazy or dangerous? Maybe she's really just having a wonderful time!

I'll admit that I, myself, initially avoided making eye contact but now I can't stop watching her. I caught her eye and smiled at her and she just smiled back and continued dancing.

Maybe she's nuts. Maybe she's weird.

But maybe she is exactly what we should all be: free enough to hear, appreciate, enjoy, and act on her impulse to dance to the music around her.

YUMmmmy!

It has been a long while since I posted anything but this new recipe is too good not to share. I've made it twice in the last few weeks and I just can't get enough of it. It is creamy and nutty and utterly scrumptious. The creaminess comes from the cashews, not cream. I've rediscovered cashews recently. They are amazing!

It's from Vegetarian Times and actually it's a vegan recipe so all of you non-dairy types can enjoy it as well.  Now, those of you who know how I cook know that I use a recipe mostly as a guide, a starting point, a suggestion, so I altered it a bit as I went. I also don't measure my ingredients so I wasn't very precise and it was absolutely delicious.

Anyway, here it is:

Black Pepper Fettuccine with Chardonnay Sauce
Serves 2
Sauce:
1 cup raw cashews
1 cup Chardonnay wine
1 Tbs. nutritional yeast (I use vegetable broth powder, this is where the sauce gets its salt)
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Pasta:
3 oz uncooked fettuccine (or any other kind of pasta, I used spinach linguine the first time, whole wheat penne the second)
1 cup baby spinach (I used more like 2 cups)
6 asparagus spears (the second time I made it I used broccolini simply because that's what I had on hand)
1/4 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips (I skipped this)

1. To make Sauce: Blend cashews and 1 cup water in blender or food processor until smooth. Strain out solids using fine mesh strainer; discard solids (I used the solids as well, they added the tiniest bit of nutty crunch but make sure the mixture gets nice and smooth first.)
2. Simmer Chardonnay in a small saucepan over medium heat 7 to 10 minutes, or until reduced to about 1/3 cup liquid. Stir in cashew mixture, nutritional yeast (or vegetable broth powder), lemon juice, and ground black pepper. Keep warm.
3. To make Pasta: cook in boiling salted water according to package directions.
4. Meanwhile, bring 1/4 cup water to a simmer in a small skillet. Add spinach, and cook 2 to 3 minutes, or until wilted. Keep warm.
5. Heat grill pan over medium heat. Grill asparagus 7 minutes, turning once. Grill bell pepper 2 - 3 minutes (if you're using them) until wilted. Keep warm.
6. Drain pasta, and return to pot. Toss with Sauce, and divide between 2 plates. Top each serving with wilted spinach, asparagus, and bell pepper strips.

Here's a photo of my first finished product.

The second time I made I deviated a little more and added sauteed mushrooms for a nice meaty vegetable. Still delicious. Whatever you do, whichever vegetables you choose to use, enjoy it. And try not to eat all the sauce before you put it on the pasta!

Enjoy!

P.S. For anyone who is interested, here is the nutritional value per Vegetarian Times:
per serving: calories: 386; protein: 15g; total fat: 16g; saturated fat: 3g; carbohydrates: 49g; cholesterol: 0; sodium: 184mg; fiber: 5g; sugar: 6g.

The final piece (for now). Finally!

Alright, I've been posting a lot of home improvement projects in the past few months. It's been fun to finally really turn my place from an apartment into a home. I've redone my living room, my home office, my kitchen, and my dining room.

There was only one piece missing from making this wave of improvements complete: I wanted a bar/sideboard/wine storage thing for the dining room. I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect piece. I initially thought I wanted something like a china hutch but couldn't find anything that I really liked. Then I thought about getting some kind of old desk to convert but again, I couldn't really make it work the way I wanted to (I thought about using the old secretary but didn't like how it looked). Ultimately I decided I wanted something simple, not too big, and functional. But how does one find the perfect thing?

Then, a few months ago I visited friends in Southern California and I really liked the bar they had. And thus began another journey...

I knew they got their bar at a really expensive place and I didn't want to spend that kind of money on it. So I began a very long and broad internet search. You can NOT believe how many different bars, hutches, sideboards, and wine storage things are out there!

Eventually I found exactly what I was looking for at Crate & Barrel. But it still cost a lot more than I wanted to spend. And then I found a coupon! Woohoo!!! Armed with my 20% off coupon, I called all three Crate & Barrel stores in the Greater Bay Area only to find out that they were all completely out of stock. The last person I spoke to said that every store in the country is out of stock and they're waiting for the manufacturer to make more and that they weren't expecting to get more of them until at least June or July. Sadness.

So I grudgingly continued my search. I found the same bar at a few other places for less but they were all out of stock as well. I guess they get theirs from the same manufacturer. And then I found it! A small, family-owned discount furniture place in Ohio of all places. Not only did they have the exact thing I was looking for, they had it for half the price Crate & Barrel did! Plus free shipping! Their website said they had one in stock so I ordered it immediately. I was so excited!

And then came the email: "We're sorry. The item you ordered is out of stock. We will notify you when it becomes available." WHAT??????? AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

sigh...

I called them to find out how long it would be before they expected to get it in again and they said probably May. Well, that's better than June or July and it was half the price so I left my order in their system.

They lied, by the way. They said they were going to notify me when they got it in. They didn't. Instead, yesterday I came home from a meeting to find a big, heavy box from FedEx outside my door. My bar arrived!!! And it's only April!

WOOHOOO!!!!

So, last night I got to spend the evening putting together my new bar/wine storage piece and I love it. Here's the fun and the final product for your viewing pleasure.

Box unpacked, parts, pieces, and hardware separated. Ready for assembly.

Somehow this was part of my process. I can't help it if my legs are good helpers!

The final piece in its various iterations.

The finished dining room. (Yes, pictures still need to hung).

So, finally it is complete! Well, there are still some things that have to be hung and put on the walls but now that the furniture is all there, I can do that. So happy to have it finished!!

still can't get used to it

I saw my roommate from college freshman year on a TV show the other day. It's still so weird to me when I see someone I know on TV or in a film. It happens frequently enough that it shouldn't surprise me so much anymore but I'm not sure I'll ever get used to it.

A favorite pet peeve - or "idiot parkers"

OK, I've been all nice and creative lately. Time for some griping.

I have some pet peeves. I freely admit that. Most of them involve language and spelling but there are some that exist in the real world. One of those is idiotic parking.

Let me explain.

I live on a street where most people do not have enough off-street parking to accommodate their vehicles. I also live on a street where parking is free, which is unusual for the city. I also live in a fantastic neighborhood that people want to visit.

This combination of things leads to people parking on my street with great regularity. What bothers me is when people park so that they take up so much space that another car would have easily fit, had they only parked properly.

Sitting in my living room, looking out of my windows, I just watched three people - yes THREE in a row! - park with so much room between their car and the nearest car that only a motorcycle or a Smart car would fit but no regular car. The result is that there is now only very limited parking available on my street due to these idiot parkers.

Here's a picture of a few of them. There is just as much space behind the red car and just as much space in front of that blue one at the front. REALLY? Come on!

And I'm expecting guests for dinner tonight. Where are they going to park?? I really wanted to yell down at these people to pull up! But, alas, I refrained from doing so, leaving myself to grumble to myself and be terribly vexed by the idiots I observe in the world.

I think this idiotic parking phenomenon is part of a greater pet peeve of mine: inconsiderate people. More on that another day.

window project

I actually finished this project some weeks ago but haven't posted it yet so here it is.

Back in December I had an idea. I knew I would be travelling a lot during the holidays and would not be at home and so I didn't want to go all out decorating my apartment. But I did want to have a little holiday flair. I thought it would be nice to have some sort of art or wall hanging that I could change with the seasons and/or decorate for various holidays or other events. Wouldn't that be nice?

So I thought about what that could look like and here's what I came up with. A window. An old window. Refurbished, painted, some hooks added. Hmm...

A trip to my favorite salvage yard yielded the perfect specimen. One side was this gorgeous blue (it's still that color, I only re-did the boring white side), and the other was white.



The window sat for a while in my apartment before I did anything to it, which is why I just finished it a few weeks ago, but once the work started, it was pretty quick and fun. The only part that really wasn't very fun was scraping the old white paint off the frame. But it was very satisfying to be able to sand the raw wood after removing all the paint, and then repainting it. I decided to leave the inside near the panes of glass white for some depth effect.

Here you can see the boring white side of the window before I started working on it. Notice, however, the very un-boring hardware that really adds to the character of it:


Scraping and painting...



Then, since it was no longer the holidays (these things do tend to take some time for me to get to...), I set out to find things I wanted to use to decorate it. I took some time and kept a look-out for fun little items that spoke to me in my regular daily wanderings. I really like the final product.



Here you can see it in context with the other things on that particular wall:

Super fancy business woman , a.k.a. Crafty Katy

Earlier this week, someone - jokingly? - called me a fancy business woman. Although I would love to take that as truth, here's an example of the less fancy aspects of my business.

I have a client, there's a convention this weekend (actually beginning on Thursday), the woman who usually staffs this particular convention is getting married this weekend, so... they asked me to take it on. No problem!

Except, I didn't know that the whole thing had to be developed and created by... you guessed it! Me! Also, it's all very last minute so I'm not able to order what I want and have someone else make all the stuff like a proper fancy business woman. And so I spent my afternoon making the table top display.

Initially I was a little concerned because it was going to involve cutting paper in straight lines and I do not have a paper cutter nor am I proficient in cutting in straight lines. Ah, but I do have quilting supplies!

Anyway, here's the final product (before and after).



This is just the first step. I have a tack board which is 8x4 feet that still has to be covered with pictures and information when I get to the convention, the pictures and info is stuff which I still need to find and print... it's going to be a long week.

You know what? Actually, this wasn't the first step. The wheel came in multiple pieces and had to be assembled as well. And then there's the step of coming up with the questions and answers for the wheel. Oh man, I'm so not fancy...