Saturday, December 15, 2007

Break Plans

Yes, I am seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel (or at least the train crashing into me) and am starting to play seriously for break. Ergo, I'm starting a post that will be frequently updated (I'll put new updates in red, pushing the old ones to black when I do): What I Will Do Over Winter Break, divided into snazzy categories. One thing I'd like to do is a blog post a day, though I don't think I'm that committed to anything to accomplish it. But if I do a post a day, I'll make a semi-commitment to do one interesting thing a day and talk about how it went. So look for that coming Christmas Eve.

Snazzy Categories

Home: 1) curtains for the living room. I saw these nifty ones in the Ikea catalogue...not for sale, using fabric from Scandinavia so I'll have to improvise. I want blue and white horizontal stripes that will tie the living room together. Spring Cleaning Part I will give you a picture of what I did: basically put blue paint on two opposite walls of a long living room and it just kept them separate. So curtains along the wall of windows should pull it together. 2) Organize!! Everything's a mess: my files, the spices in the kitchen, the top of the fridge, and I have no place for anything. So, figure that out. Create actual organization system for academic files. 3) Recipes: When I was a kid, we used to have a make your own recipe book where you'd handwrite the recipe and file it away to use forever. Now, I've started using magazine recipes a lot and they have pretty colors and I really am more likely to cook something if I see it well laid out first. So, I want to make a template for my own recipe book and convert my recipes to this new format.

Shop: Need another chest of drawers (one small one for two people does not work out), an actual wardrobe (sweaters, jeans, cords, etc), a napkin holder and other little things. Wellies. Also, need to develop my own style that isn't based on: it's on sale, it sorta fits, I'm desperate routine.

WritingI've been enjoying writing for Associated Content and have some ideas for a few articles: one on the ethics of fair trade, internet privacy (inspired by Facebook's Beacon), something on the high cost of College Textbooks b/c it's really fascinating what goes into that, credit cards and small businesses (especially credit card minimums) and the ethics of paparazzi-ism

Read Not serious stuff, no. Trashy historical fiction. Suggestions welcome. Suggestions desired!

Sewing I'd like to finish something. Don't like the material I picked out for my last project, so will likely scrap it and start over. Something small, maybe a pillow (I could try learning to quilt for instance, or just use some nice velvet and burnt velvet) to start with. I'd love to make some of the patterns I've seen others make this year (like a cute mock turtle neck dress with nice wool), but I'm not ready for that. So I'll look for an easy pattern I can play around with. I'd really like to find some kicky fabric like the ones that Anthropologie uses and make a cute shirt. But that's hard to find. When I'm in Chicago I think I'll check out the fabric stores. Also, would like to try to make some small items from the various blogs I've been reading lately. If you're interested in what sort of things, just look to the right and check out my Google Reader stream.

Knitting Knitting is supposed to run in my blood b/c Missie was an amazing knitter, but dammit if I can't do anything but cross-stitch. So, goal is to learn to knit, for which I'll need knitting needles and good yarn. Have a bunch of Missie's old knitting needles but none of them match! And I have about twenty of them. :-) But they have private lessons around here for very reasonable prices so I think I'll get an hour or two instruction and go from there. My goal is to be able to make socks and cute hats and adorable sweaters, but I think I'll probably end up trying some scarves. If anyone wants one, let me know!

Travel Chicago or bust! I want to see a few museums, etc. Perhaps visit a cute town in Iowa along the Mississippi. We'll see how things work out.

FoodSo I've lately been reading tons of recipe blogs and a few about ethicurianism, that lovely coined word that asks how we can eat more responsibly. I'd definitely like to start cooking again, since it's been awhile and we're kinda getting tired of vacillating between good food and the local Chinese places. But I also want to start thinking about how to eat locally; it's easier when summer comes on, but in the dead of winter in Wisconsin, we're kinda stuck. But the market usually has squash and brussels and a few people do hot house tomatoes. Chard is frequent, though I don't know for how long, too. All of that gives me some options, even if I can't eat a primarily local diet without canning (which I really can't swing even if it weren't too late!) I also want to learn how to cook -- not just throw things together, but know for instance what to do with barley and when I can substitute all-purpose flour for something more interesting. In other words, expand my food horizons and taste new things.

ExerciseNeed to do yoga a few times a week. It's been awhile with classes and I miss it. Looking at the gym up the street if they'll give me a month membership; wouldn't have to drive and it's just two blocks!

Alright, more later.

1 comment:

k8 said...

Hi Chelsea! I keep meaning to stop by your blog but then I forget (I am overly self-involved).

I use recipe software - Mastercook 9. It comes with cookbooks in it, but I don't use them very often. I use it because I can enter my own recipes into it and I can do fun things like scale according to servings/batches I want to make and it calculates nutrition information. Perhaps not as much fun as making a cookbook, but it is a fabulous tool.