A moment for quick creativity

It's not often I find time to be creative in the afternoon. Between chasing/appeasing Mabel, making dinner, and resting my bones (and sometimes squeezing exercise in there somewhere) creativity gets mushed in with making dinner or relegated to a dark corner on the back burner of my mind. Yesterday I took 30 minutes for myself, picked a handful of flowers, one of two of my Alyssa Ettinger knitware tumblers, and took some pictures.


We have a little tiny window in the downstairs bathroom. It must be about 12 x 16" or so, and as a girl it always seemed straight out of a story book. Though miniature, the window fills the room with beautiful light. 


A few feet away, in the kitchen, in front of a window on the same side of the house as the bathroom window {bright! beautiful! soul lifting! light!}we have a rustic desk that I believe was my grandmother's. It tucks right in under the window. Old handkerchiefs stitched together into curtains filter the light for privacy enough.


And one more shot while I had the chance.

You know the old saying about surrounding yourself with the things you love? The benefit of this quick exercise was finding a few square feet in our home of things I absolutely love. Flowers, furniture with history, beautiful light and a favorite ceramic piece. All while satisfying a quiet hunger to be creative.

Of course, then it was time to do laundry and start dinner. Back to reality.

Guildy as charged

I've been working on a few drawings of potential guilds; this is a scan of the first one. I thought it might be fun to print out and color from the ink drawing. If you feel so inclined, you can download the picture here. If you color it, snap a picture, I want to see! And though I think it goes without saying, if you share the image with others, please link back or credit back to me in some way.



From Wikipedia's entry on Permaculture, the definition of guild:
A guild is any group of species that exploit the same resources, often in related ways. Guilds are groups of plants, animals, insects, etc. that work well together. Some plants may be grown for food production, some to attract beneficial insects, and others to repel harmful insects. When grouped together these plants form a guild.

Bits at a time


Ahhh, the porch. Remember that old beast? Here's the progress as we stand now. Lucky you, getting to see the progress in nearly real time. No staging here, you get to see all of the ugly, in-process details, folks.

On the Fourth we got a little farther, then progress halted again. We have to do these projects as time dictates, and sometimes that means taking the weekend off to be a family and do fun things together.  For us, that meant a quick trip to the family lake house to see my aunts and uncles and remind Mabel of the adventures to be had on the lake. Fishing, swimming, playing, experiencing the essence of adventurous summers.


Let it be known, Mabel is now familiar with the sludge sucking creature known as catfish.

Temptation and a Coconut Averted

A mid week vacation day deserves a little celebrating, especially when the temperatures are sticking to the low 100s. Hi-C seemed to think so this past Tuesday and came home fully prepared for a coconutty blowout, armed with pina colada mix, fresh pineapple and rum. Since I'm back on the weight loss wagon, a calorie packed frozen drink was tempting, but out of the question. Instead, I made my own lighter, tasty treat, one I dubbed Rhuby Pome.

Are you familiar with Izze sparkling juice? They're fruit juice sweetened, no corn syrup, no artificial colors or dyes; effervescent and delicious, albeit a bit more expensive than your typical cola. We don't usually have sodas in the house, but I bought a 4 pack of the Pomegranate Fortified* a week or so ago and stowed it away in the back corner of the fridge, knowing some form of temptation would arise and I needed to be prepared. 


The recipe? Fill your glass with ice, pour 8 oz Izze Pomegranate and 2 oz Rhuby (this translates into 4 parts Izze, 1 part Rhuby). Also, it's imperative you let the glass sweat so your perspiration soaked shirt won't be lonely.

For a finishing touch? Make the drink super fancy looking by raiding the party supplies from your toddler's 2nd birthday: stripey straws make everything taste better. 

Take a picture, it'll last way longer than your Rhuby Pome will.

*I should add I generally find "fortified" products to be a marketing scheme, as they usually add little to no nutritional value to daily intake. I think these are probably a way to make Pepsi's Izze competitive with Coke's Vitamin Water and I bought them because I like Izze, not because I wanted extra nutrients. Sugary foods, even fruit juice sweetened, should be the occasional treat, and nothing can replace the way our bodies rely on whole and wholesome fresh foods for proper nutrition.