New Start, New Year, New Growth

While the new year holiday has long passed, I am still reveling in the idea of it being a new year. For me, a new year always represents a chance for new growth and a renewed excitement for personal development as well as improvement on the way things have been done from the previous years. This Christmas season was rather successful, with all but my Dad's gifts being sent on time. (And yes, I am going to start working on his gift finally tomorrow!) Once the holiday glow seemed to be finally ready to head back into its storage boxes for the year, I looked around the house to realize it was absolutely filthy. I guess with all the hustle and bustle of the holidays my cleaning, as usual, went by the wayside. So, I decided to make good on a promise that I made to myself around this time last year. We were moving from the old apartment to this new one, and upon finishing a 13 hour cleaning day at the old place, I promised myself to never let a place get that way again. Since one of my goals for the year is to follow through on things as well as finish up old projects, I decided to do a top to bottom cleaning of the house.

When I say top to bottom I don't just mean the whole house, I mean every nook and cranny of the whole house. Furniture was moved to ensure vacuuming could be done under every surface and not just around it as usual. This meant taking up the mattresses on the bed and going all under there, moving couches to make sure that was all cleaned. Shower stalls were scrubbed and then scrubbed again. Entire shelves were emptied, items sorted, dusted, and then either shelved again or placed in the donation pile. Floors were vacuumed, dust mopped, and then wet mopped. Papers were organized and either filed or shredded. Cabinets in the kitchen were scrubbed down thoroughly, and the top venting of the microwave was completely degreased. It has been a down right marathon of cleaning that I have not ever performed in a place that I was still going to live in, and I am so happy that I have done this. There was nothing more demoralizing to me than cleaning an old place top to bottom after moving out and realizing that I would not get to enjoy the squeaky clean that I had just created. I am currently enjoying the clean and organized house way more than I ever thought I would. I hope to keep up with the cleaning more in the new year.

Other goals I have for this year are also personal improvement aspirations. I hope to do more fancy cooking and to serve that cooking on the wedding china. So far, I have done it once this past weekend with an in home date night. It was fun, and I am looking forward to another one of them soon. Another food goal is to cook some ingredient that I have never worked with every other week. I worked on cooking a squash type that is new to me, and I still have quite a bit of that to work through. I also want to add some more things to my cooking schedule to remove more store bought items off the list. Yogurt is one of them, and I think that I may have it down to the point where i can share with you all. I also want to nail down that winning English Muffin recipe... it is getting close. I can feel that one being knocked out soon. The hardest thing for me on the goals list is the harp. I really want to be able to play that thing, and I want to commit to it more this year. I have gone through spurts and false starts with it since my husband finished it for me. I hope this year to move past lesson one on the DVD lessons I have. The last, but not least of the goals for the year is to keep in contact with friends better, including the writing of actual letters that you send in the mail. Unsolicited cards and mail from friends showing up out of the blue always makes my day. I hope to do the same for friends and family this year as I try to write more handwritten letters to people. This includes Thank You notes... yes I am bringing them back into my realm of being. I hope you all have not abandoned your goals for the year yet, and if you have perhaps now is the time to recommit to them. The year has just started after all. Forgive your lapses and try to move forward and commit to changing things you would like to see improved in your life.

Rainy Day Yields Inspiration

Today is the third day of rain here in the Bay Area, and I am finding myself rather renewed. I spent most of Thursday working on prepping for teaching Annie sewing as well as working on a special order that I hope to finish up today. Friday was kind of an exercise in frustration and disappointment. Annie and I hoped to make cheese, but we could not find the starter and rennet to save our lives. We licked our culinary adventure wounds and went back to the sewing room to work on aprons. The sewing went well, and soon Annie will have a new apron!

I went to class at Fat Chance Belly Dance this past Saturday and had a great time. Now that I am performing at Rakkasha with the group of students at the studio, I have more rehearsals and classes to attend. I also have signed up to do the student salon, so there is a lot of dance to participate in lately. The neatest thing was getting to attend a class taught by Carolena, the founder of the dance form. It was in a way a huge dream come true. I know it is corny, but she was one of my biggest inspirations when I started dancing. The class was so interesting, and I got so much out of the session. The rain showed up later that evening, and it was a welcomed thing. It made me sit down and just relax a bit and let myself rest. I was pretty wiped out from the dance sessions and all the fun of running around with Annie.

The rest of the holiday weekend was filled with reordering and picking up the house. The china cabinet was reorganized and reconstructed to make it much more functional. I also worked on my embroidery project that has spanned many, many years. I hope to get it finished in 2010, but it may be a stretch.

Today I am feeling like I have lots of energy to get things done despite a bad night's sleep. I am going to go and make a spice cake after this entry as well as finishing up the special order. I also want to dust the house and clean up in general. I am also making my final determinations as to the balcony garden for this year. I hope to make the order for all the seeds today or tomorrow. After all of this, I want to work on making a database to find recipes more easily in our collection of Cook's magazines. I am tired of going through each issue to find the one recipe that I need. Hopefully that will help. Well I need to stay with this wave of inspiration while I still have it. Spice cake pictures and recipe review tomorrow!

Welcoming Fall

Yesterday I kept waiting for the heatwave to hit that was supposed to move into the area. Luckily, though, the sea breeze kept the heat over the Oakland hills on the other side of town from us. The house stayed delightfully cool for my fall housecleaning madness. I cleaned all surfaces. There was dusting of bookcases and tables, wiping down mirrors, polishing plates (Yes we have to polish our plates due to a reaction between the silverware and stone wear.), cleaning of bathrooms, and laundry in the machines. It was a whir of activity and a banishment of dust clouds. I kept the one last remaining good flower in the arrangement as a last hint of summer in the house. Today, it is still delightfully chilly despite blistering temperatures across the hills. I enjoy bay side living.

The only thing that did not get tackled is this:



I intend to get the desk mess in order today. Entropy is a hard force to fight. Just when you think you have it beaten down, it shows itself somewhere else. It will be great to have a fully cleaned house and work space. Today I am hoping to finish off a pair of pants and perhaps more handwork on a belt. There is also a matter of dessert to be made since the temperature is not hot again. I am looking to make a chocolate pie that I saw in my latest Penzey's Catalogue. It looks really yummy. Hopefully this will also be the end to my crust issues I have had as of late. I will report back to see if a new recipe and method worked better this time rather than the disastrous results I have been having lately. The red work boxes are being made, but are not finished yet. More on those soon. There is also the possibility that I will abandon all this to go and get some more tools for clay working. I am working up some new contraptions in clay and hope to have those out for all to see soon as well.

I am going to get down to work on this desk thing... hopefully it doesn't take all day!

Clean House, Hot Tea, Sewing to Commence

The house cleaning was rather successful yesterday. There are just a few more things I need to clean up, mainly the shower and some bathroom sinks as well as give the sewing room a good vacuuming. Overall I am really pleased with how clean I have gotten the apartment, and while there was some dawdling, it mostly happened at the times I hoped. I also worked on aphid destruction and decimation yesterday. The first application over the weekend did a rather good job of cutting down on the population, and so I did another liberal application yesterday. I am going to give the garden today off and hit it with more soapy cayenne pepper spray tomorrow. The tomato plant has gotten so large and top heavy for the pot that it fell over yesterday. I guess some things are really liking the patio. It has even gotten a few small green tomatoes started. I will have to wait and see if any of them actually get red at all considering the cooler temperatures we have had this summer.

Today I want to get a personal skirt hemmed as well as a veil hemmed. There are also a few belt projects I would like to pick up and start to finish. One of those is the peacock and elephant belt that has been a few years in progress. The other is a belt that uses recycled fabric from one of my first costumes. I loved the fabric so much, that I kept this choli around for a long time in order to find it a good home. Since it has not really found one, I decided to upcycle to fabric from it into two beautiful belts. They are coming along nicely, and I hope to have them and a pair of black pants close to finished by the end of the week. I will take quick pictures whenever I get any of them finished. Well I think that I am off to work on some supply hunting and ordering for the shop as well as all those sewing projects.

Weekend Here Yet? No? Really?

I cannot wait for this weekend to finally get here. It is Maker Faire this weekend in San Mateo, and I cannot wait to go. Dan and I have attended this wonderful festival dedicated to the making and crafting of things since we moved to the area two years ago. Many of our friends are not attending citing the sameness of the fair the past two years, but I kind of love some of the familiarity of things. It hearkens back to our trips to state fairs, and how you knew where certain vendors would be each year. I am mostly looking forward to meeting some fellow Etsians in the Bizarre Bazaar. I hope to remember to take some pictures for you all to see next week.

Today is the usual house chores of Friday: laundry, cleaning, straightening, garbage taking out, and perhaps some cookie baking. I also have some gifts for Jozef to make and get ready for his birthday next week. I am taking pictures of this as I am working on the items and will also have those next week for you all to peruse. There is planning to do for our trip down tomorrow, time tables to look up for the train, and tickets to acquire. Lots to do and now I am off to do it.

Inspiring Weekend

This weekend I decided to recharge the creative batteries. I went with my husband and a friend to the De Young museum to see the Chihuly exhibit. It was full of beautiful glass works, and it was nice to see someone else who seems to love vibrant colours. He also has a very whimsical view it seems, and his love for natural forms was also something I connected with. Below is a picture of his glass ceiling. It was a great piece and seemed to be a gigantic "I Spy" picture made of glass. If you go to the above link, you can see pictures of the entire exhibit. I highly recommend it to anyone who can see it when it comes to your city. Pictures just do not do this exhibit justice. It is something that must be experienced in person.



After that, I went with my husband to see Lewis Black in Berkeley. It was a great night. The show was really funny and rounded out my day nicely. On Sunday, it was back to finishing work on some pairs of special order pants. They are finally finished after much wrestling and wrangling, but I think they came out beautifully.

Yesterday was filled with house cleaning. I have let it slide for too long, and it really needed to be done. I tackled it all yesterday. Who knew such a small apartment could take so long to clean. It is great though, and I love having a sparkling clean house. Now, I can mess it all up with pants making! I have some great fabrics I bought a week or so ago and some older ones that I can finally get to. Today I am going to work on the purple moon flower fabric that I have. While the sari binding is only on one side, I could not give it up. I thought it was too pretty of a pattern and colour to pass up. Here is a quick picture I took of it. Hopefully I can get these made today and photographed tomorrow. It is all weather dependent on that. I want to get them up for sale by Thursday though. On that note.... off to iron this great fabric out to get it ready to cut!