New Reci-peas

One of my Christmas gifts I got from my parents this year was the cookbook "Peas and Thank You." It is written by Sarah Mathany who keeps a great food blog of the same name. It is a cook book full of great vegan recipes that look and taste like really good versions of your ol' favorites.

Obviously I'm not going to post up any of these recipes, but I am going to show you some tantalizing pictures.

Asian Salad

I will admit that due to ingredient availability and vegan-ism not being on top of my priorities right now some of these meals were downgraded to vegetarian in the process.

Home made pizza. Mmmm cheese.

I've been enjoying trying these new reci-peas as I attempt to eat a little more healthfully in the new year. So if you are looking for a little inspiration, or something new to inspire healthy eating as New Years Resolutions start to be tested, check into her extensive free recipies on her blog. Her Tofu and Mushroom Lettuce Cups are awesome. Even if you are not wild about Tofu.

~Claire Out.

P.S. Italian is going great. I just finished a mile marker that has me 3/4 of the way through my current program. I'm excited to finish up in the next month or so, and then go back and seriously master all of these concepts.

Exciting News

Well my new year has started out even better than I had expected when my boyfriend Mike asked me to marry him. We're engaged!

I am so excited, it has taken me almost a week to trust myself to be able to write about it. I was so overwhelmed, shocked and excited that for several days afterwards I wasn't able to form full sentences. Not aloud, not in my mind, nothing. No a single clear thought could form before it was overwhelmed by my excitement.

First, let me tell you The Story of Our Engagement.

Mike and I went to Disneyland on Thursday in order to celebrate our four-year anniversary. Not only is Disneyland a fun (and magical) place to spend a day, but it is also were we met, working together in Tomorrowland.

Because Disneyland is a special place for us I totally bought Mike's story that we were going there to celebrate four years together and for no other reason. My first clue that something else was brewing was when we went to park. I offered to pay the (somewhat ludicrous) parking fee, and began to search the backpack for my wallet. Mike freaked out a little as I started randomly opening pockets, which made me think there might be something in there I wasn't supposed to see.

I put that in the back of my mind, assuming it was a little card or gift to celebrate our anniversary. I thought it couldn't possibly be a ring because Mike intended to talk to my parents before he proposed, and I knew they hadn't had that chat yet. Instead I focused on having a fun day at the park, not at all a challenging task.

Waiting for the Alice in Wonderland ride, one of my childhood favorites.

About to go on an Adventure in Adventureland

Looking oh-so-cool in my 3D glasses waiting for the new Star Tours

The Matterhorn!

Right around five o'clock we found ourselves in Tomorrowland, and Mike suggested we go on Astro Orbitor, the ride we used to work on together. This was Mike's first ride request of the day and I was happy to oblige.

Waiting in line Mike got quiet.

Those of you who know Mike know he isn't exactly a chatterbox anyway, but he started responding to my prompts of conversation with single syllables. I made a mental note that his blood sugar was probably low and we should grab a snack after the ride.

Mike lead us to a rocket on the opposite side of the control tower, then went to go 'drop off the backpack'. He was gone a long time, and I grew suspicious, something was up.

He did return and we flew around on a rocket ship for our alotted minute or so. The sun had just gone down and you could see all the lights making the park glow. It was beautiful. (The time of day was apparently carefully chosen by Mike).

We struggled out of our rocket ship and Mike said he wanted the cast member to take a picture of us. I followed him around to the place where our backpack had been left and prepared to be photographed.

Mike walked over to me and said something along the lines of, "Ever since I've met you four years ago I've been so happy." And honestly that is the last of the words that I remember because it was then that I realized what was happening. He got down on one knee, opened up a ring box and asked to marry me.

I said yes.

I cried, I shook, I smiled, I hugged him, people shouted congratulations, we posed for another picture, it is absolutely a blur of happiness and tears in my memory.

I had to find a place to sit down and get a grip. It turned out that he talked to my parents just after Christmas this year without me knowing about it at all. Good job sneaky parents! We talked about how happy we were, how different it felt and how odd it was that we were currently inside of a story that we were going to tell for the rest of our lives.

I called my parents and brother and giggle-cried into the phone. They congratulated me politely listened to my babbled happiness. We sat in front of the Sleeping Beauty's castle for a while as I collected myself. We were both emotionally drained and footsore from so much walking. We took it very easy, sitting, shopping for cookies, and enjoying being engaged until our dinner reservation at the Blue Bayou.

For those of you who do not know the blue bayou is a restaurant inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. (It is at the start of the ride, it isn't as if you are seated next to an animatronic Jonny Depp.) It is beautifully lit by colorful lanterns and you hear the water go flowing by. We got a table right next to the water because Mike mentioned when he made the reservation that we were getting engaged.

Please ignore the terrible sound.

Unfortunately, the staff of the restaurant thought that we were getting engaged there and were holding their breath the whole night until (after desert!!) I shared with our waitress that we had just gotten engaged. She told us she was so relieved, everyone was waiting and hoping that Mike hadn't gotten cold feet.

OOPS. Obviously we have a lot to learn about the etiquette of being engaged. She didn't even have the ring as a clue since I was wearing it on my pinky finger. (It is being resized now and I miss it. I can't wait to get to wear it!)

After a delicious dinner, and an all around wonderful day we headed home. Mike had a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge that had had chosen for this occasion. We had time for one small toast before we said goodnight. (The bottle was tackled with more gusto the following day with dinner.)

I have been so touched by the congratulations of friends and family as news of our engagement has gotten out. We have been basking in phone calls, texts, Facebook posts and hugs. I am so grateful for all the people in our lives.

Basically I am thrilled to be engaged. I'm amazed at how different it feels thinking about wanting to marry Mike to having the question asked and answered. I am constantly astounded at my good luck for having been in exactly the right place at the right time to have met him. I am so thankful for all of our years together so far, and am looking forward to many many more.

~Claire Out.

New Coat of Paint

Happy New Year everyone!

Before I get to far ahead of myself talking about the new year ahead (which I suspect will be a great one), I want to take a moment to write about a recent home improvement project I worked on and share a few lessons I learned.

It wasn't my own home I improved this time, but my parents'. You see, as a young woman on a budget I was thinking of things I could give as gifts that maybe made use of my time instead of my wallet. One of those gifts this year was for my Mom.

Though I haven’t lived at home for many years my old bedroom looked pretty much exactly as it had when I was going to high school. My mom has begun using it as an at-home office, but she worked at my old desk and surrounded by Claire stuff. Including (but not limited to) a decoupage wall of magazines and posters.

My parents had to sleep in there during a recent renovation, and my father complained about all of the eyes watching him sleep. Yikes.

My mom is a busy woman and therefore the functional (all be it teenage-claire-tainted) bedroom remained unchanged. So my gift to my dear old mum for Christmas this year was to proved her with a much more aesthetically pleasing guest bedroom and office space.

My plan:

1. To remove the poster wall (my parents wisely had me hang up boards before I started decoupage-ing an entire wall of my bedroom)

2. To fill in any holes left by screws, or push pins.

3. To paint the room.

My Mom and I picked out some colors we liked at Thanksgiving. She decided on the bottom one, “Sierra Monkey Flower” by Dutch Boy. I liked it because it is a pretty neutral yellow and looked great in the sample picture with all of those wood tones, also it has the word Monkey in the name…

(The one on the bottom)

I ended up getting a Low VOC, primer included, eggshell finish, Dutch Boy paint that was color matched to the sample. Which brings me to lesson one.

LESSON 1: Most rooms need a single gallon of paint.

I seriously overbought on paint. I went with three gallons based on some weird internet equation. Seriously overkill.

One of the problems with the room is that it has so much furniture. After moving some of it into another room, we were tapped out of space. So, I decided to push the corner desk and bed into the middle of the room and work around the edges.

LESSON 2: If at all possible remove all the furniture from the room.

Some of the edges were almost too small for me to open up the step stool (sideways). And I had to walk all the way around the edge to get more paint. It was pretty frustrating.

Once the furniture was moved into position, I started taking down the wall. The boards were attached with simple wood screws. I removed them easily and took down one board at a time. Here it is halfway removed.

(Yes that is a Star Wars: Episode One poster you see, thank-you-very-much. I’ll argue with anyone that it is the best of the prequels.)

Once all the boards were down I also removed all the light switch and outlet covers from the walls. Then, I went around the room and patched up the holes with DAP spackle. I got the cool kind that changes from pink to white when it dries.

I even removed the old intercom (that has never worked in my memory) and patched that hole. You can see the intercom in the far left of this picture.

All of this patching, and spackling was done the day before to allow plenty of time to dry before I applied paint.

The next day I began actually painting! This bedroom had not been painted since before I was born. The light yellow color was chosen because they didn’t know if I was going to be a boy or a girl. There were crayon markings in one corner. Needless to say, it was time for an update.

So I prepped the room with painters tape and drop cloths, which leads me to my next point,

LESSON 3: Painter’s tape is for the weak.

Long before my first coat of paint was done, the painters tape had come unstuck. It was difficult to put back on now that wet paint had become part of the equation. I used a small brush to ‘cut in’ around the ceiling, doorway and windows and should have done the same for the bottom moldings too. (I learned to cut in at YHL by watching this video.)

Here is a picture of my progress. On the right you can see the wall with a single coat of paint, and on the right you can see a patched, but unpainted original wall color.

So as you can see the paint was a wee bit brighter than I imagined. I suspect our color matching was a bit off. The color did mellowed out a little when everything dried, and the important thing is that my mom likes the color.

Lesson 4: Check the color match.

I don’t really know how to do this, but I am certain there is a way. Something could probably have been fixed at the hardware store.

After almost a full day spent painting, I had finished.

Lesson 5: Entertainment.

I played “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” on audio book while I was painting. It was a great way to stay entertained without being tempted to look at anything like you would with a movie. (The book is brutal, but very good by the way.)

Here are some pictures of the completed room. Taken at night, because, like I said, the painting took all day.

Ta-Da, poster free!

The room looks pretty good overall. Much more grown up and put-together. With the huge desk sold, and a new one on it’s way in, this room is heading towards being a much more functional bedroom and office. I think the new paint revealed how shabby the ceiling looked. So a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling may be on my to-do list next time I visit. Also there are discussions of new closet doors and perhaps fresh moldings? Oh-ho-ho dare to dream.

Have you tackled any home improvement projects lately? Have you ever tried to tackle anyone else’s home?

~Claire Out.

Blanket

Earlier this summer I found out a good friend of mine from high school and her husband were expecting a baby girl! I was surprised and thrilled by the news. She is the first of my high school friends to become pregnant and I am so excited to be able to meet her daughter someday soon.

Unfortunately for me, they live on the other side of the country, but I wanted to do something for her and her baby girl. (She is expected to arrive any day now!) So I set out to make a blanket.

Now I have never made a baby blanket before. In fact my only experience with sewing outside of disastrous projects in girl scouts was to make a t-shirt quilt. (A project that took three very large rooms, days of work and not a few swear words before it was finished.) The lesson I had learned from that disaster was to keep it simple.

My plan was basically to sew two pieces of fabric together with quilting in the middle, can't get much more simple than that right?

I did a quick internet search for my usual crafting go-to's like Jo-Anne's or Michael's, but all of them were quite a significant drive away. I looked a little closer to home and found Sew Modern. It is a cute, bright little store with tons of beautiful fabric. I was nervous at first that in such a small store I would stand out as a non-craft-doer and be ridiculed by the staff. (I have issues...) But the sales people were incredibly helpful, friendly and non-judgmental. I dug deep into my brain for old crafting terms such at 'yard' 'embroidery thread' and 'batting'.

Here is what I came home with: A yard each of a pink and a pretty light green egg pattern fabric, a yard of cotton batting, and white embroidery thread. I already had on hand needles, pins and white thread from a sewing kit my mom thoughtfully put together for me when I went off to college. (Thanks mom!)

Since I got one yard of everything I didn't really have to cut anything. I just ironed the pieces before I put the two fabric pieces face to face so that the 'pretty sides' were together. (So when I turned the whole thing inside out later it would have the nice sides facing out.) Then I place the batting over both pieces and pinned three of the sides of the square. Then I got to work sewing.

Did I mention I don't own a sewing machine? I don't. So it took quite some time to get around the edge. I used a back stitch, (which I didn't know was called a back stitch until I did a quick internet search just now) all the way around on three sides and most of the way along the fourth side. It took quite a long time is far less regular and straight as a sewing machine would make, but has that cozy home-made look. Then I turned the blanket inside out.

When I turned it inside out some of the corners got bunched up with too much fabric. My solution was to turn the blanket inside out again, snip off the corner of fabric closer to where my stitches were and then turn the blanket right side out again. Problem solved. I then sewed up the hole that I had used to turn things right side out. This was by far my favorite step, because it started looking like a blanket instead of like a hairy thing with pins in it.

However, it needed something to hold all of the pieces together. Otherwise it would have that loose duvet-inside-a duvet-cover feeling instead of that secure quilt feeling. So I ironed the blanket again, and got out my white embroidery thread. (And after a quick trip back to sew modern, my embroidery needle, oops.) I marked out regular points across the quilt and sewed little knots. It turns out I was doing my own version of a "French Knot" to make little dots of white across the blanket and hold everything together.

Then I tried my shaky (and tired) hand at some real embroidery. Now I used to do cross stitching under the watchful eye of my grandmother, but I don't know if I had ever embroidered anything before. But it was important for me to add this little message to the blanket for the my friends and their new baby. I attempted a stem stich, marked out my pattern with a pencil and went to town.

I'm pretty proud of how it all turned out. While I don't think that you could possibly confuse my blanket with one bought at the store, I think that's part of it's charm. It's not-quite-square edges, weird made-up stitches and newbie embroidery show the love that went into making it. Congratulations Petra and David I'm wishing you the best. Happy Holiday's and Happy New Year!

~Claire Out

New Recipe- Shepard's Pie

Over the past few months I've been enjoying trying out a few new recipes for Mike and I to share. It has been a fun way to expand my culinary horizons and a chance to improve my basic-at-best cooking skills.

I don't know why I picked out trying to make Sheppard's Pie, it isn't something I grew up eating, and I never really order it out. Maybe it's the winter months and I'm was yearning for something hearty? Maybe I read too much English literature (aka meat pie propaganda)? No matter the reason, I was determined to try to make this English comfort food.

A Sneak Peak at the Finished Product

So I turned to my trusty friend, the Food Network website for some recipes. I ended up adapting Alton Brown's Shepard's Pie Recipe. His version left out the pie part of the pie (which is probably more historically accurate, knowing Mr. Brown), but I wanted to have a crust of some kind on the bottom. I just used frozen pastry dough rolled out and put into oven safe bowls. Did I mention I was going for individual Shepard's Pies? (Is that the plural of Shepard's Pie? Weird.)

I also substituted ground beef for the ground lamb (which may make it more of a Cowboy's Pie then Shepard's) and a dash of soy sauce and tabasco for Worcestershire sauce. I also made about a third of what the recipe called for, hoping to achieve something more appropriate for two people.

My lovely assistant making the mashed potatoes.

The Filling

Assembly In Progress

It turned out pretty well. It was rich, comforting, and hearty. Half a bowl was enough for a filling dinner for me, and I was able to enjoy the rest as lunch the next day. If I were to attempt individual pies again I would probably go with a large muffin tin instead of a cereal bowl.

As a newbie to Shepard's Pie I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent meat to veggie ratio.

The crust was still a little doughy when it came out of the oven, but that could easily be fixed by a little pre-baking before adding the filling. I also wouldn't make the mashed potato's as smooth on top. I might leave a few more edges so that they could brown up in the oven.

I feel pretty good about my first foray into meat pies. Perhaps I'll revisit this again some time before the winter is over. Mmmm comfort food.

~Claire Out

Calendar Girl

Do you know how days can sometimes get away from you? Some days I am too busy to stop and think, and sometimes I am too tired to even really get out of my pajama's and engage the world. No matter the situation, I find I occasionally go to bed feeling like I wasted a day.

Let me tell you, that is not a good feeling.

But I've been doing something for the last several weeks that has really helped lessen the number of wasted days.

It all starting when I was browsing around on the internet and I stumbled upon this page. Basically it describes Jerry Seinfeld's key to success; which was to use a big wall calendar and put a big 'x' on days when he wrote and simply not break the chain of x's. He credit's his success to working every day at writing comedy.

Now, let me temper the above statement by saying that when I think of huge success stories, Jerry Seinfeld isn't the first person to leap to mind. And I don't think that hours put into something is the only factor in creating success. I do however, know one of my biggest weaknesses in general is consistency, and this seemed like a great technique to help me with that.

The first thing that sprang into my mind when I read this was that I should apply Seinfeld's calendar technique to a work out plan. Then I found this website about a man who was applying this with a slow-building work out routine. So I started slow (really slow) with a routine that looked like this:

1 Push Up

1 Sit Up

1 Squat

5 Jumping Jacks

1 Minute of Walking

And I've been added something small every Sunday since. Nothing overwhelming, nothing intimidating, but very very easy to commit to. It is so easy (and short) that I can find time for it on the busy days and get up the motivation to get it done on the lazy days. Right now my daily routine is looking like this:

3 Push Ups

3 Sit Ups

3 Squats

3 Calf Raises (on each leg)

4 Minutes of Yoga

10 Minutes of Walking

15 Jumping Jacks

A bit more of a commitment, but since I've been increasing by such baby steps, I haven't been able to psych myself out.

However, being the overachiever that I am, I wasn't able to leave it at just a work out. I wanted to improve my writing too. So I committed to writing something every single day. It can be for the blog, in my journal, or for some other creative endeavor. The best thing to come of this commitment is that for me writing is no longer sacred. The conditions no longer have to be perfect, I don't have to wait for the muse to descend, I just write. If it isn't good, that's okay for now, but at least I'm showing up every day.

The other thing that popped into my head as an activity for the calendar plan was my Italian. You remember my Italian? Well I had been plugging away at it, but only intermittently. Basically everyone in the world agrees that the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself. My progress has been pretty impressive since I started working at it ever day. I'm amazed at how much is sticking in my brain since those neurons have no time to fall out of practice.

When I was devising my calendar plan, this is when I came up short. There was no way I was going to divide up each calendar square into thirds... I needed to give myself one more thing to do each day. (Please tell me I'm not the only person who's brain works this way? Even Numbers < Odd Numbers.)

I thought about my activities so far. Physical body, check. Creativity/self-expression, check. Intellect, check. Then it hit me. It was all about me. Surely I could allow one thing a day to be about someone else.

So I went back to something we'd focused on at my elementary school, "Conscious Acts of Kindness". The beauty of this requirement is it can be really big or really small. Some examples I've done so far include, donating some old clothes to charity, picking up trash that wasn't mine, and making dinner for Mike and I to share. My very favorite part of this challenge is that it makes me spend part of every day thinking about what I can do for other people. This is the aspect of my day I look back on with the most fondness when I'm going to bed. How can I feel like I've wasted my day when I know I did one kind thing, no matter how small?

Being truthful here, I have totally broken the chain once already, but I'm back on the horse and I haven't given up.

I love having something to do with my days beyond my work, my friendships, my routine. I go to bed each night knowing I've done something with my day.

And let me tell you, that is a good feeling.

~Claire Out.

Tree in the House!

Ta Da! I'm making my triumphant return to blogging! (Maybe not triumphant, maybe more like embarrassed from being away so long. But the important thing is I am back, and writing.) Hurrah!

To get you all in the holiday spirit, I'd love to show off my beautiful, zero dollar, christmas tree.

I was give this six-foot beauty by my good friends Leah and Chris. I helped the newlyweds pack up the truck as they struck off across the country to the exotic land of Arkansas. In the flurry of moving they offered me their christmas tree that they had to leave behind. (Score!)

I had always been skeptical of fake trees, having had fresh cut trees growing up. We have some great family stories surrounding the ritual of cutting our own tree down. Traditionally, the smallest person in the family was dragged several feet through the mud while trying to 'help' carry the tree. I believe my brother, mother and myself can claim the honor of tree surfing at one time or another as the other family members (crazy with the christmas spirit) heave-hoed the tree back to the car, which was always uphill. Always. With precious memories like that, how could I ever even consider having a fake tree?

My First Christmas Ornament

Unfortunately a bank account like mine has prevented me from buying my own fresh tree for the past three years. I couldn't justify the expense of buying a fresh tree in L.A. when I had a beauty waiting for me when I went home to my parents house each year. But I always missed having a tree to help get me in the holiday mood.

Then Leah and Chris bestowed the greatest gift, the gift of Christmas Spirit. I set up the tree last weekend and decorated it with all of the ornaments from my childhood that had been waiting patiently in a box since I moved out.

I can't believe I was so down about fake trees. What a snob. I see the error of my ways every time I find myself starring happily at the tree in my living room. The only thing missing was the smell. Which is why I bought this from the local grocery store.

Every time I walk by, I stuff my face among the needles and give a big whiff. Ahhhhh Christmas.

Mike and I also purchased our first ornament as a couple. (Awwww) It's a dragon.

Rawr.

I think it's perfect since we're nerds. Skyrim gaming, Hobbit reading, Dungeon's and Dragon's playing Nerds. Nice.

I'll leave you with one last look at this beautiful tree.

What have you been doing to get in the holiday spirit?

~Claire Out.