Exploring with Beth

The shortest month

2012-01-24T14:33:00.000-08:00

February is, as we all know, the shortest month, although this year we get a 29th (and my friend Karen gets a birthday!).

I'm toying with the idea of going vegan for the month. Or mostly vegan. Or something. I would make exceptions for my wine group dinner, and possibly for the cream in my coffee. And I am not at all sure I can make it three days, never mind 29. But that's what I'm thinking about doing. Is that nuts? (ha.. the vegan jokes are flowing already)

I've been uninspired in my kitchen, so perhaps adding some constraints will force me to be creative. I've already picked out a handful of recipes to try out, because I'll HAVE to do something to keep it fun.

2012:January!

2012-01-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggy friends! I didn't post the January calendar shot. Without further ado:

I'm quite proud of this picture! I'm not the most technically proficient photographer, but I did learn how to control my shutter speed. In a situation like this if you leave the shutter open longer than it would choose to be, you get to see the path of the fire that the dancer is spinning about her body, illuminating her but leaving her mysteriously hidden.

My friends had these fire dancers come as a surprise entertainment element for their beach wedding in Honduras, and I cursed myself for not having my camera on hand. So I was delighted a few nights later to encounter the same dancers doing a show for the tourists on the beach. I took approximately ten billion photos!

Cupcakes for Jess!

2012-01-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

I helped organize a memorial for a friend today - she was sick for a long time, and her family will have a formal service for her later in the month a few hours from here. But we wanted to do something locally for the people who knew and loved her.

Jess didn't always have a lot of energy, but in 2009/2010 she put together a blog focusing on the cupcakes she created. It was called Have Another Cupcake which was so apt! It was sheer torture to see the plate of cupcakes at her desk, and I bet few people had only one.

When we were planning the memorial several of us said we'd bring cupcakes, and I picked her When the Levee Breaks cupcakes. She was following the Iron Cupcake SF group, and around that time they chose music as a theme. You can read the rest of the story on her blog post with the recipe.

These pictures are of the assembly - I'd already made cupcakes, chocolate pudding, chocolate buttercream frosting, and chocolate cookie crumbs. (Jess didn't supply a frosting recipe so I used one from Joy the Baker.)

To get the pudding in the cupcake, you cut a cone out of each cupcake, and fill the hole with pudding. Then you trim the pointy bit off the cone (converting it into a cap!) and cover up the pudding.

Finally, you frost. Holy moly, amateur alert! I'd never tried doing anything fancy with the frosting bag & tips I got for my birthday. I have a LOT to learn about frosting.

Some strategically sprinkled crumbs helped quite a bit:

And, of course, they were eaten with alacrity. There were four types of cupcake on offer so I think Jessica would have been pleased!

Thanks Jess. We had a party for you today.

Recipe review: Gougères

2012-01-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

I discovered tasty, tasty goodness this year in the form of gougères! They seem to be all the rage in blog-land - even though I "only" subscribe to 27 food blogs (*blush*), I saw at least three recipes posted in the last month.

My first time through, I made the gougères using the ingredients from one blog post, and using some of the tips from another one. The results were tasty and appreciated - I brought some to a harvest party and some to Thanksgiving.

Recently I tried a slightly different recipe, with equally tasty results. It's a rather interesting technique: you boil liquids and butter on the stovetop, add flour, and stir like a maniac. After the batter cools a little, you add eggs, then cheese.

The result is a smooth, gooey batter. You can blop it or pipe it onto a cookie sheet - the ones in this picture are so close together because they're headed to the freezer.

The finished product is puffy, a bit salty (perhaps too much so, this time, but I expect forgiveness!), and entirely delicious. They're also not supposed to deflate like mine have, but I think the batter is too damp, based on some of the pictures I've seen online. I guess I just need more practice!

I really love that you can freeze them unbaked, and then put them straight into the oven without thawing them. I plan to use some of the ones in my freezer over the next week or so!

End-of-year roundup

2011-12-31T10:14:00.000-08:00

2011 has definitely been a year of adventure and surprises. The hands-down coolest and most unexpected thing was learning to scuba dive, and deploying my new skills in the waters of Honduras. The most shocking/saddest thing is a tie in three parts, is all about death, and that's enough said about that for this post.

Slot canyon hike in New Mexico

Travel:
I traveled a lot - to New Mexico with friends, Los Angeles, Florida, Honduras, Greece (yes, on miles), Portland, Ashland, and Yosemite (my sixth visit in five years - go me!).

Yosemite - August 2011

Outdoors:
I didn't hike too much this year: once in New Mexico, once in wine country, and a couple of hikes while at Yosemite (I'm detecting a high altitude trend!). I sort-of camped (as in, slept in a tent on the ground, but didn't hike or have a fire) at a bluegrass weekend event. The garden is limping along still.

Regular events:
- Lunch group wrapped up this year, after a four-year run (April 2007 til about June 2011). It was nice, and taught me a lot about cooking, but I don't know if I want to resume or not. I'm leaning toward not.
- My wine group is going semi-strong. I think it started in June 2008 and I can't honestly say I've absorbed much wine knowledge, but I've gotten to make some super fun desserts and other food offerings, and have had the experience of hosting a couple of times, so that's lovely.
- I still greatly enjoy participating in pub hunts and longer-form treasure hunts on a regular basis!
- This summer's Ashland trip was the fifth and continues to be a pleasure; my December Portland visit marked the 16th version of a cookie party there!

Experiences:
It's easy to forget I ever learned to scuba dive, and already my fledgling skills have shriveled to the point I'd probably want to take a refresher before diving much - but whenever I really think about it and recall the experience, I SO want another tropical diving vacation!

See? I look good in tropical splendor

I also went to cheese school a few times, learned how to process and filter beeswax, joined SFMOMA and got some culture, and got in another round of sea chanties. I almost-completely gutted and re-populated my bedroom. I infused some booze. I started to really get into bluegrass and am looking forward to volunteering at 2012's SFBOT for the fourth year.

And oh yeah, I turned 40. Honestly, with everything else going on it didn't seem like that big a deal! I was so grateful my Toronto friend made the trip to celebrate, and a local friend hosted a barbecue (featuring my favorite dish that she makes, and some killer sliders her hubby made!) (also featuring a hi-LAR-ious hot flash fan and other Turning Forty decorations!).

What's missing?
So, what didn't I do this year? I didn't volunteer too much - aside from a few gigs at February's SFBOT I don't think I did any. My friend/neighbor and I didn't do a BBQ series this year and I got asked about it a few times. I didn't host people at my place very often - I hosted a dinner in February, and a pre-concert get-together in December, and had guests stay a few nights, but that's really it.

So for 2012 I shall: volunteer more (already set to volunteer at The Crucible in January, and plan to do SFBOT in February); host people at my place more; have a few more BBQs in the warm weather months.

Traditions!

2011-12-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite December traditions is an annual party I attend in Portland. It started as a cookie decorating party in 1996, and we've held some version of it every year since, making 2011's the 16th! That's mind boggling.

Counting me, seven of the adults in the picture have been there since the beginning. I've been to six weddings of people in this picture, helped name one of the kids, and got to meet one of the babies on the day of her birth! I feel super lucky to have this richness in my life. Hurrah for holiday traditions!

2011:12!

2011-12-07T07:05:00.000-08:00

December, at last and so soon. It's been quite a year, but I won't get too cocky just yet - there are still 24 days left!

I always have a little trouble with photos for my winter month selections - I'm a traditionalist and think the pictures should at least be winterish even if I don't see that kind of weather much. Add in a desire for a Christmaslike December shot and it's tricky!

This month's picture is the very last of my New Zealand shots. I took it in a cemetery in Rotorua, in the tiny village of Ohinemutu.

Catch-up time

2011-11-29T11:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks off the ol' blog:

I'm wrapping up my beeswax project - and have managed to get wax and/or oil on every item of clothing I own, I swear! I even went the extra mile and found someone on Etsy to make labels for me. I'll link to her shop when I have pictures of the assembled project.
I created and ordered the calendars for 2012. I think the layout will be better this year, though not every page will have a caption. The interface I use was eating up too much photo space with the text block, even though I wanted unobtrusive lettering. Fine, be that way.
Cleaned, made delicious apps, and had a few people over before going to see Pink Martini in concert. I wasn't going to go see them since I've gone to at least 8 shows by them, but Groupon posted a deal for $22 tickets! It was worth way more than twenty-two bucks, too - every time I see them I remember how very happy they make me feel. Their live performance energy is just so very positive!
I made a SUPER yummy side dish for Thanksgiving: Butternut squash, kale, and cheddar bread pudding.
Checked in on my various boozy projects. The nocino is incredibly bitter and undrinkable, which I think is normal for its youth. This summer I wound up making two kinds of cherry bounce; the bourbon/sweet cherry is okay, but the vodka/sour cherry is outstanding, if sweet (you add sugar).
Knitting is also proceeding apace, but those will be held in reserve for post-Christmas posting, if ever.

Stay tuned for the wrap-up on the various projects! I might even write up the end of the beeswax story even though a couple of the recipients may then have their Christmas surprise blown.

International bundt day!!!

2011-11-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

Mary the food librarian is at it again: It's International Bundt Day and yes, she likes big bundts! As it happens, so do I!

This is my third year participating; in 2009 I invented ginger-pear bundt. In 2010 I made Mexican hot chocolate bundt.

This year I played it simple: Spice cake with brown butter/vanilla glaze and yes, that frosting really did make the cake. It was greeted with much admiration and delight!

Do all bakers criticize their products? I thought the flavor was great but the crumb was too dense. I think I overmixed it. Still, it was delicious and I had no leftovers, so I couldn't critique it very carefully!

You'll find the recipe here.

Wax: woot!

2011-11-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

Success, dear readers. I filtered the beeswax and am left with something really beautiful:

How'd I do it, you ask? Well, I re-melted the wax that I'd melted into cans:

Then poured it VERY carefully through cheesecloth I'd rubber-banded to the top of two milk cartons:

and beamed approvingly at the clean results:

I wasn't totally confident the milk cartons could withstand the heat, but they held up just fine. Once the wax solidified I peeled off the carton and weighed the wax blocks: 24 ounces! It's so lovely and I can't wait for the final steps in my project.

Dia de los muertes/day of the dead

2011-11-07T07:20:00.000-08:00

The Bay Area has a huge Latino community and I finally got to attend the Dia de los Muertos street festival that's held here annually. It was actually a couple of days early, as the traditional days of celebration are November 1st and 2nd. I've done just a little reading, and it seems like the 1st is all souls day and/or the day to remember dead infants and children; the 2nd is to remember adults who have died.

Families and loved ones make memorial altars and artwork. Much of what we saw were elaborate works made from seeds, flowers, candles, and chalk.

I thought it was super cool that a Girl Scout troop did a memorial for the founder of the Girl Scouts - someone even demonstrated how to cut the Girl Scout logo into the decorative tissue paper!

Even though it's a day of remembrance, if there's an element of sadness it must be saved for when the tourists go home - I saw tons of families, and people dancing and eating and socializing. I had some pretty awesome food, too! The most interesting thing was the pan de muertos helados: ice cream made with some of the bread of the dead, which looked like an eggy sweet loaf kind of like Jewish challah and Portuguese massa. My ice cream was mostly vanilla, perhaps a bit custardy, with bread crumbs in it. Kind of weird, but definitely delicious!

Play with your food: funky soup!

2011-11-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

I don't even know what to call this one.. suggestions?

Over the last few years I've been exposed to the idea of sticking spaghetti through uncooked hotdogs or sausages, as a way to amuse kids (or the adults who are feeding them). Well we don't need no kids to play with food!

I cut up some nice-ish sausages and jabbed spaghetti through them:

then I dropped them into soup I made up (canned tomatoes, chopped-up onion, carrot and celery, some spices):

And as expected, they cooked into noodle-sausage goodness!

It reheated just fine and made for amusing lunches that week. (well, I was privately amused; I'm not claiming there was general hilarity.)

Occupy Oakland

2011-11-01T18:24:00.001-07:00

It's been five years since I moved to Oakland from Portland. When I handed in my driver's license, the woman at the DMV joked, "You're going the wrong way!" I smiled, but my heart wasn't in it - I had by no means come to terms with my geographical change.

These five years have taught me a lot: primarily, the truth to the saying "wherever you go, there you are" - I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to adapt to my new life. I've also learned that of all the places I could have settled in the Bay Area, Oakland is definitely the best fit for me. It's walkable, has friendly residents, and is full of interesting shops, great food, and wonderful old buildings. My neighborhood is probably the best I'll ever live in, and I appreciate my short commute daily.

But that's not the message the world hears about Oakland. Instead, we're famous for our crime, our riots, and now our activist movement.

I won't be at tomorrow's general strike, partly because I've got a ticket to an event, and partly because I'm a coward - I almost expect things to go poorly after dark. Yet if people like me don't go stand up for Oakland, who will?

I've lived in three cities and Oakland occupies its share of my heart. I hope the demonstrators can keep the peace tomorrow and in the days going forward. Perhaps I'll even make it out to the next demonstration!

2011:10 + 11

2011-11-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

Oops, I missed last month's calendar post. I hope that doesn't mean my brother is still looking at the September image!

October's and November's calendar pages feature pictures taken six months and a quarter of the world away from each other - yet they are certainly autumnal!

Albert Park in Auckland was a great place for people-watching and fresh air after spending the night on a plane. It was very weird to go from spring in the Bay Area to fall in New Zealand, but the temperature was similar, and even though I knew the sun was low in the northern sky, I couldn't get my body to believe it.

Grape vines in real autumn: this was at a winery in Sonoma Valley last November - a bit gray and rainy, just like I like it.

Play with your food: Egg-waffles!

2011-10-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

I'm inspired by a couple of recent kitchen sessions to do a new series (by which I mean two posts.. maybe more): Play with your food!

One of my coworkers forwarded me a blog post about cooking eggs on a waffle iron and I was totally thrilled by the idea. It's just silly enough to make for a fun weekend breakfast. Fortunately I had an amenable houseguest this weekend so guess what we did? Science breakfast!

Mix 3 eggs + 2 egg whites in a bowl (because that's what I had handy). Set the waffle iron on lowish - mine has 5 settings and I had it around 1.5. Pour in some egg and cook it! Since we were doing scrambled eggs I first tried cooking with it open, but decided it was better (and more waffle-y) to close the iron as they cooked. I didn't time it, just gave it a few minutes. I thought I might need chopsticks to pull the egg off the iron, but a fork did the trick.

Easy, yummy, and fun!

Waxy progression

2011-10-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Okay! We left off with a pot full of sludge and me full of skepticism. I somehow imagined that the wax would solidify in a tidy ball suspended in the water. I was wrong, but it DID come together:

I took this picture after I'd dislodged the disk and drained the honey-infused water underneath, but you get the idea. It was about an inch thick or so; its bottom was covered with hardened ... stuff. I scraped it off as best I could:

Then I hacked the disk of wax into bits, which took some serious brute strength:

I put the bits in some cans and set the cans in a pot partially full of water.

I also put some water in the cans to help encourage the wax to melt. I'm not sure that was strictly necessary, but it worked!

I added the contents of the smaller can to one of the bigger ones, just for the sake of tidiness.

So now what? The bottom of each can will have an inch of water or so. Then there will be some miscellaneous crap adhering to the bottom of the wax, and then a column of wax. It could probably stand yet another round of filtering before it gets used, but we'll see. I feel like it's definitely come a long way in a couple of days.

I've also done a lot of cooking in the two evenings in the kitchen: mesquite chocolate chip cookies, curried pumpkin coconut soup, muhammara, and a ravioli-broccoli-tomato-cheese bake (because I needed the can the tomatoes were occupying!). I'm a little sick of kitchen projects for the moment, but look for more wax updates in a week or so.

Waxing skepticism

2011-10-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I got my hands on the beeswax today. I don't know if it can even be called beeswax yet - it's the cappings (ends cut off the honeycomb cells) and other messy bits.

One online source suggested putting the cappings in water on low heat. So, fingers crossed, I gave it a shot. At first it didn't seem like anything was happening.

But after a while the big ol' clump seemed to break down.

And then I could see golden liquid starting to take over.

And even more liquid:

Until finally it all seemed melted:

Now I'm supposed to let it cool down. The wax will allegedly form a block, with the cruddy bee bits and other detritus stuck to the bottom of the block, where I can cut it off. I dunno though:

I find it hard to believe this is going to work. Time will tell!

Wax on

2011-10-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

One if my friends is a beekeeper, among other identities. I've visited the hives once and loved getting to see a queen, and a new bee emerging from its growth chamber, and being surrounded by bees just going about their work. I didn't love getting stung twice! I've heard that bee keepers who get stung regularly become immune to the sting but I find it hard to believe, and would not want to get the regular sting exposure that lends immunity.

Alas, I didn't have my camera when I visited the hives but hope to return some time. For now though I'm interested in the bees for their wax. One of the hives is the most well-established and has already produced a bunch of gorgeous honey. With honey comes beeswax, and I will soon be in receipt of a bunch of it.

I've never worked with beeswax before but have another friend who has, and I've been reading up on it. Apparently it's going to be full of miscellaneous bee bits and other detritus, so you have to carefully melt and filter it before you can do anything with it. So that should be my project this week. If I don't burn down my apartment, I will document and write about it!

Get a swim suit. Use it!

2011-10-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

For years and years I had a bathing suit that I didn't love, but I had it in case of emergency swimming need. As an adult I haven't lived in hot places where swimming happens much, so I rarely if ever used it.

Finally in the fall of 2009, for no reason I can recall, I decided it was Time for a New Swim Suit. I figured this would be rather painful (in that whole moment of truth sort of way) but I learned that Lands End offers lots of sizes and combinations, and you can return their products to Sears. I must have ordered ten billion different bits and pieces, but I found a suit that works for me!

And since then I've gone to hot springs with a friend in New Zealand,

went to an amazing spa in the high desert of New Mexico,

learned to scuba dive in preparation for a week of sun and sand and scuba and snorkeling in Honduras,

swam and waded and swam again in Greece,

and just came back from a weekend in a cottage with a hot tub, where I could hang out with friends in steamy bubbly bliss. Get a swim suit! Make a point of using it!

WHEW

2011-10-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the weekend went better than I thought it would. It even went better than I dared hope! My sick friend didn't die, and my widowed friend was moved out of her house in an incredibly efficient manner.

It was really an impressive amount of work but it was well organized. We arrived at the house to see a big dumpster, a storage pod, and a moving truck. Everything in the house was NOT packed but was labeled according to its ultimate destination (new apartment, storage, trash, donation) so the helpers could work independently. There was also a stack of index cards with various tasks on it (gather chemicals in laundry room and put on Haz Mat pile; remove pictures from walls; etc.) so we could tackle those jobs as well.

My friend held up in what must have been an unthinkably hard day. In some ways I'm sure it was a relief, to be out of the house, into an apartment, and DONE with all that stuff in all one day. In other ways it's a very definite end to a part of her life that was very happy and all too short.

Happy October!

Appreciating

2011-09-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a rough year, and one of my friends is hanging by a thread today.
So I'm focusing on appreciating the world around me.

WIP: alllllmost there

2011-09-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

I probably won't get a picture in time for this post, but remember that sweater that I ripped out in March? Yep, it's almost done. yes, this time I think it fits (though I will stretch it a leetle bit when I block it). yes, I am very excited!!!!! Then maybe I can finish the pair of socks for a friend that I started in May. And maybe do something about Halloween/Christmas...

Recipe Review, or: That's right, I'm a genius

2011-09-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

In August I made Tartelette's Chocolate Hazelnut Meringue cake.

The thing I love about baking is this: if you follow the directions carefully, usually it comes out okay. In this case it came out MORE than okay: I made it for my wine group and received several raves a week later.

The recipe has you make a chocolate cake, bake it for 20 minutes, add meringue, and bake for about 20 minutes more. My only fault is that I didn't realize how sturdy the meringue is - when I pulled the cake out, it was puffed up nearly to the top of the pan, and I thought I had to contain the meringue within the walls of the pan, so I purposely thumped the pan a few times to deflate the baking cake. It tasted fine, but it looked a bit slumpy on the sides:

So next time I'll have greater faith in the power of meringue to stand up without the help of the pan walls. Either that or I'll make all individuals next time - this sample came out great!

WIP Wednesdsay: Coloriffic

2011-09-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

It's not really a WIP since I finished it in the course of a weekend, but this is so pretty I am dying to brag.

All it needs is buttons - and then to be wrapped around a baby!

Garden update

2011-09-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Now that summer is ending in the rest of the world, it's really kicking in here in the Bay Area. Sunshine! 70 degrees! Who cares if I'm in the mood for fall? Not my garden!

I harvested a bunch of cherry tomatoes last weekend. I was home sick but managed (barely!) to summon the energy to halve and slow-roast these. Now I have a jar of slow-roasted tomato goodness in my fridge - great for pasta!

Those tomatoes were from a hybrid plant I bought at the nursery, so I can't harvest the seeds and use them next year (that only works reliably with heirlooms). So I bought some heirloom tomatoes at the market and am saving their seeds so I can grow these next year:

I'm also saving the seeds from some of the massively prolific green beans we grew. I think they're blue lake green beans, but I'm not positive. I just pulled some of the shriveled pods off the vine and pulled out the hardened beans. I don't know if it'll work but it's worth a try!

recipes: birthday cake

2011-09-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

Belated, I know, but wow did I make a great cake for my birthday party! Look at it in all its lopsided beauty!

I was inspired by a post on Sprouted Kitchen; when a friend offered to host a birthday BBQ I told her I really did want to bring myself a cake since it's fun for me to bake it.

The top and bottom layers are from David Lebovitz' excellent cookbook Ready for Dessert - except he said it didn't matter if you used Dutch process cocoa or not, and I swear mine didn't rise AT ALL. In the photo above, you can see that the top layer (which is upside down) did rise some in the middle, but was pretty skinny on the edges. Here are the cakes before and after baking:

See? Can't see any rising action. Drat. So I decided rather than have a short (but flavorful!) cake, I'd make a third layer. I opted to make a flourless cake for the middle, and baked some of the batter in a ramekin for a friend who can't eat gluten - double win! I used a flourless chocolate cake recipe found in some cookbook or other (sheesh, I swear I thought I was paying better attention) and was ready to go:

On the left, the (slightly charred...but delicious!) flourless cake; middle and right are the regular-flour cakes. The one on the blue plate shows just how woefully short they were. The jar is full of pastry cream, which is basically thick vanilla pudding, adapted from this recipe - I opted to use the lesser amount of sugar and greater amount of flour, as I wanted it quite thick but not very sweet.

Okay so we have cake, cake, cake, and pastry cream - all that was left was frosting. Shockingly, I used the frosting that came from the original blog post that was my inspiration - the mascarpone/whipping cream frosting sounded too decadent to miss! Plus it gave me an excuse to use my beloved KitchenAid mixer.

An added bonus was that the frosting didn't have any flour or other gluten-giving ingredients in it, so I was able to frost the flourless cake in the ramekin for my friend. Maybe dessert isn't as important to her as it is to me, but I would really be grumpy if I went to a party and couldn't eat any of the desserts on offer!

All in all the cake came out great. There was lots of focused silence while people consumed it - and there was a goodly amount leftover for me to share at work the next day. If I can figure out the leavening issue (and I really do know I should have paid closer attention) this combination is a keeper!

*** Edited to add links to the cake recipes:
The two layers of chocolate cake came from David Lebovitz' devil's food cake recipe
The flourless chocolate cake came from Ezra Poundcake

2011:09

2011-09-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Last fall I took a road trip with a dear friend who lives in New York City. (Brooklyn now, actually.) We've been friends since we met working at a bookstore in Boston in 1995. When we discovered we lived in the same neighborhood, she gave me her phone number and said I should call if I was ever hanging out in the fun part of town - uncharacteristically, because I hate cold-calling anyone, I DID call her and here we are, road trip buddies fifteen years later. Life is good that way.

Central Oregon Coast - part of the Three Capes scenic loop

We had to refresh her memory for driving stick shift - her only other exposure had been in college when she was the designated driver and only had to lurch a couple of miles home - and we were on our way! I already posted the route we took, so here are some of the pretties from that trip.

Upper Klamath Lake (Southern Oregon)

Autumn color (and a bit of rain!) - somewhere outside of Eugene, Oregon

Mountainous coastline of Southern Oregon, south of Port Orford

As always, we had a fun time poking around. We'll have to do it again someday! We've always promised ourselves a trip cross-country, but so far it hasn't fit into our busy schedules.

Recipe: Birthday muffins!

2011-08-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday last week (yay!) and I made plans to go to Yosemite with some friends. I had my birthday-morning free and wasn't working, so I whipped up some muffins to bring along.

I used the crumble topping from 101 Cookbooks' Oatmeal Muffins - as she warned, the ingredients for the crumble make more than double what you need for those muffins, and in fact I still have a bit of the topping in my freezer. Therefore if you want to make just enough for one batch, I recommend the following proportions:

1 oz / 27 g flour
5 oz / 15 g rolled oats
.8 oz / 22 g natural cane or brown sugar
pinch fine grain sea salt
.8 oz / 22 g unsalted butter, melted

After you've melted the butter, stir in the rest, and scrape the resulting rather firm goo into a flat patty and freeze a bit. I think the idea is that it's then easier to break it up into bits to put on the top of the muffin batter - but I had to hack at it since I froze it too hard. So, be advised.

The muffins were based on the genius recipe called Muffin Madness in the invaluable cookbook Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home. Then I modified it - of course.

Combine:
2 large eggs
1/4 c vegetable oil
1/4 c plain yogurt
3/4 cup or a bit less brown sugar
1/2 tsp or a bit more vanilla extract (I used vanilla paste because I lurve it)

In another bowl, mix together:
2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Stir the dry into the wet. Then add:
about a half-cup or so pitted sour cherries
about a half-cup or so toasted almonds - I buy them already chopped somewhat roughly. In fact they look about like cherry pits which can be a bit disconcerting as you chomp into the muffin.

Pour the batter into muffin cups - makes about 12. Be sure to top with some of the crumble topping! Bake at 350 for 20 or so minutes.

Current obsession: Bluegrass

2011-08-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Allow me to share my latest enthusiasm with you. Over the last few years I've slowly been getting more into bluegrass. For the last three years I've volunteered at the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Music festival (SFBOT to those in the know). It's a super easy gig - I show up, hand out programs, maybe staff the CD-selling table if they need a hand. Then I enjoy free music! Sweet!

Two years ago I was really struck by a group called Huckleberry Flint - to the extent that I bought both of their cds. I particularly loved the performance of the song "On and on" - here's a video of them performing it, though it's not the performance I saw which was completely mesmerizing:

At this year's SFBOT I volunteered at a show that featured multiple bands, all of whom I really liked. My favorite was Windy Hill who finally released a CD a few weeks ago. I was checking their website for CD news when I saw they were playing a festival in the area called the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival (aka GOF). So I went!

It's held in a park and everyone camps out overnight. The stage is small

and so is the audience:

And it was a gorgeous couple of days:

Based on the shows I saw I've added a couple of bands to my to-follow list: Jimmy Chickenpants, the Alhambra Valley Band, and OMGG - which stands for Obviously Minor Guys and Girl. This band is comprised of some seriously talented kids - the oldest is 15!

And now I'm learning more about some of the more-famous players and groups, starting with Chris Thile and Michael Daves.The video on this site is NUTS. Such amazing music, and these guys are so freaking young - they've got years of awesomeness in front of them. I've been listening to the 23-minute performance video non-stop all morning.

homestretch

2011-08-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a busy spring/summer.
- work a conference
- parents visit
- go visit friend in LA
- go visit sister in Florida
- learn to scuba dive
- spend two Sundays driving to the coast to finish the scuba-learning process
- go to Honduras
- go to Greece
- go to Portland
- go to Ashland
<--- we are here --->
- go to bluegrass festival
- have a friend in town
- go to Yosemite

On the one hand it's been nothing short of awesome...but on the other, wow am I tired!

Add to that a pending Zero Birthday. And my sister quit her job and moved to Germany. And a friend died extremely unexpectedly leaving a very devastated wife behind. And another friend is getting treatments for cancer... and I really feel very up in the air about, oh, everything! Am I where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing, living the life I want to be living? If I dropped dead tomorrow would I have regrets?

I don't feel bad, just muse-y. But there's a whole lotta musing goin' on!

2011:08

2011-07-31T22:13:00.000-07:00

I took this picture almost as an afterthought - I spent a weekend camping and hiking with two friends in glorious Big Sur. We'd had an amazingly lovely (and butt-kicking) hike, covering ground I'd previously visited a few years prior. In the intervening years there'd been a lot of fire activity and the new growth was threatening to choke off the path altogether! So I assure you that sitting down and enjoying a beer together felt like a bit of heaven:

Only as we were leaving did I look back and see the sunshine on the glasses and think that it represented a lovely piece of time.

WIP Wednesday: Cherry bounce!

2011-07-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

In talking with a knitting friend lately, I realized I'm a process person, while she is a product type. In other words, I enjoy the time I spend making a knitted object, but am not really motivated by the finished project (and living where I do, I have a limited demand for scarves, hats, and knitted socks). She, on the other hand, is all about getting stuff made and is an amazingly prolific knitter!

It was an interesting conversation, and rather enlightening too. It explained my interest in jamming, when it turns out I don't really eat jam; and my more-recent fascination with infusing booze, when I'm not really that big a drinker.

I made limoncello (it didn't turn out well, but from the looks of the bounty on my building's lemon tree, I may try again in a month or two!); I infused gin and rum with figs; I've made two stabs at nocino, and now I'm making cherry bounce!

It turns out cherry bounce can be either sweet or sour cherries, in any type of booze, with sugar. I am literal-minded and made cherry bounce using the recipe that was my first introduction to the subject. The recipe calls for bourbon, sweet cherries, and sugar - easy! TOO easy, my friends.

I polled people I know about bourbon preferences, and wound up buying two types - Maker's and Four Roses. In separate jars I combined 500 ml of each with 1/2 cup sugar and a half-pound cherries, and now I just wait a few months and see if there is any earthly difference.

...and it just so happens I have a flat of sour cherries in my fridge, so I may be making non-bourbon bounce in the near future. As ever, stay tuned!

Traveling on miles: first results

2011-07-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

In September 2010 I launched my experiment with getting miles in order to fly inexpensively. It's been interesting, as the hoops have gotten a little more tricky each time. In fact I am now realizing that the details are already very vague!

Completed programs:

First, I got two cards; on each card I had to charge & pay off $1500 in six months. No problem. The result? 75,000 miles per card - 125k miles on American! (cards now closed)
Then I got another card - this time around I had to charge & pay off $4000, and I can't remember what the time frame was - probably 3 months, for another 75,000 miles on American. (card open but with zero balance, ready to close)
Oh, and then I got an offer to take out a different card, pay something like $90, charge a couple of times, and pick up 50,000 miles on United. (card now closed)

Pending programs:

My most recent card (Chase) requires that I charge $3000 in three months to get 50,000 points. I went in thinking they were points on United, but it looks like they are Chase points that can be used to buy (among other things) airline miles, so they will likely become 50,000 United miles.
Finally, I've opened a bank account with Citibank. I have to pay 2 bills with their online bill pay for 2 months in a row, and they will give me 25,000 miles on American. I opened the account with $100 and have set it to pay two bills so far. Should be quite doable.

What does all this mean? Once I get my next set of points I will have 138,000 miles on American, and 122,587 on United; I'll pick up a bout 4,000 more miles on my Christmas flights which will push me over 125k on United, the holy grail for first class international flights (at the moment).

So is it worth it? Yes, it is, especially if you can be a bit flexible/creative in your bookings. First of all - it's an excellent adventure: the above picture is my private dining table in first class on British Airways! Each person is seated in a pod-like area with a foot rest and a seat that fully goes flat and can be made up like a bed; a table that can be pulled out and set with linen and real tableware (clearly first class passengers would never endanger anyone by wielding flatware improperly); a private tv screen (though that's not exclusive anymore), and the food was delicious. It's not a free flight - it cost me $700 (you have to pay all the taxes and fees for the flight), but that was about half what a coach class ticket would have cost me.

Of course it's important to pay attention to the details and charge enough (and pay it off, of course) to make it to the deadlines. I'm aware of programs like buying coins from the mint and using them to pay the credit card bill, but I'd prefer to do this in a straightforward fashion. We'll see how it goes - my spending seems to go in peaks and valleys and I'm at a low stage right now. I still have to charge $2430 in the next 2 months, so I may wind up looking for tricky options - we'll see!

I'm going to Germany at least once next year so I'm not worried about finding ways to use the miles - I just have to decide if I'm willing to fly coach class anymore. (I kid.. sorta)

Guess where I've been?

2011-07-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

I've been away, I know! What a summer it's been so far! Just a little show today; hopefully I'll get around to the "tell" segment soon.

WIP: Nocino report

2011-07-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

Almost as soon as I got the walnuts in the vodka, they darkened the liquid to this extremely suspicious color.

I know that this is okay, but it sure is ugly.

Also, I was thinking about my recipe that I posted in my last blog post on this subject: Including grains of paradise is kind of obnoxious. Sorry! I am immersed in foodie land in the Bay Area and was psyched to score this ingredient a couple of years ago. It's kind of like a floral peppercorn, and is definitely not required to make your own delicious liquor. But I just couldn't help myself!

Soon it will be time to remove the solids and then just let this sit and think about what it's done. The earliest I ought to taste it is December. By which I mean, I'll be sure to sample it when I remove the solids!

2011:07

2011-07-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

When I took this picture I knew it was destined for my calendar, and indeed, I think it's my favorite of all the pictures I took in New Zealand last spring.

It's a fence post that we passed when walking into the small village called Ohinemutu. Using a bit of shell for the eye was a brilliant touch!

WIP Wednesday: baby surprise

2011-06-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

I am friends with a lot of great people, and a number of them have produced children over the years. In fact it seems like there's a never-ending supply of pregnant people in my life!

One of my favorite persons is having a baby later this summer. She's a knitter and has a lot of knitters in her life, so I want to make something special, but a little different. I think this is just the ticket. I'm going to remain vague about the specifics until it's completed and mailed off. (which is a hint in and of itself!)

WIP Wednesday: cookie socks, continued

2011-06-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

I've made good progress on this sock! Too bad I need to make two of 'em. On the plus side, it's an interesting, complicated pattern. On the minus side.. yeah, it takes some serious concentration!

Actually, considering how busy my spring/summer has been, this is pretty decent progress after about a month.

Honduras report: The days after

2011-06-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

The trip to Honduras was divided into two parts: Thursday-midday Sunday was wedding stuff; midday Sunday through the following Thursday was bonus vacation time! Four friends and I booked a three-bedroom condo at Infinity Bay, on the other side of the island from our first set of lodging. (In addition, five new friends from the wedding were also staying in the area!)

Infinity Bay was quite nice - vastly bigger than our first place, but it has an infinity pool! And a swim-up bar! And beach access for snorkeling!

To be honest, they had me at "swim-up bar" - some part of me has always wanted to experience this! That little hut to the left if the bar - accessible via land on three sides, and from the pool on the side facing us in the picture. And yes, drinking in a pool is kind of awesome, especially when it's hitting 100 degrees.

An unexpected benefit of moving to the other side of the island is that we got to see the sun sink into the ocean each evening - it was different and amazing every night.

There was also a bit more variety of things to do on that part of the island - for example, we met an eccentric Canadian guy who sold everything and moved to Roatan to build and operate a floating bar. Of course we had to check out the Reef Rider!

Note those clouds - they are not threatening, they are promising a rain storm. Sure enough, we got massively dumped-upon as we water-taxiied back to our beach. Fortunately we all found it quite hilarious (but all had to change before going out to dinner...except the birthday girl, who was kept dry by the overhang on the taxi!).

Our wedding hosts hired some fire dancers to give us a private show on the beach. I was delighted to see them doing a weekly performance one night, so I could actually get a chance to take some pictures of them working their magic.

I was ready to leave when our week was over - mostly because I was tired of continually applying sunscreen and bug repellent - but it was a wonderful week of swimming, snorkeling, hanging out with friends, seeing a lovely couple unite in marriage, and, of course, drinking a billion monkey la-las!

WIP Wednesday: oh yeah, that sweater

2011-06-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I started a sweater around the beginning of the year, and ripped it all out at the end of March. I got right back on the needle (or something!) and have made decent progress.

This is the body, take two:

And here are the arms, so far:

Decent progress, if I look at it objectively. I really really really want to get into new territory with this project, but that's a while away, because I'm also knitting at least two other projects, and sort of stumbled on a yarn sale recently. I love when that happens!

Honduras report: Wedding

2011-06-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in passing, I went to Honduras to attend a wedding! It was my first real tropical vacation ever and I highly recommend them.

Location of the Friday-afternoon beach wedding.

We all went to the island Roatan, 30 miles north of mainland Honduras. It's super easy to access - there are flights from Houston several days per week. The wedding party was the perfect size: the 28 or so of us fully booked the resort, Barefoot Cay.

I think all of us enjoyed the fact that we were all somehow associated with the bride & groom, and we easily fell into conversation at meals or in the pool; no one felt like a stranger for long!

The staff at the resort were super nice and they added all sorts of personal touches, from the couples' initials in the salsa (which no one wanted to disturb!) to cute little towel decorations in our lodgings.

Possibly best of all, I went scuba diving. Repeatedly. You may recall that I found it stressful (to say the least) when I was learning, but I am SO glad I put in the time and effort.

This is "my" boat - I went out three times while staying at Barefoot Cay, and was the only paying guest each time. If you look closely you can see that the seats on the boat are designed to hold many air tanks, so they could take out an awful lot of people if they wanted! My dive master (Delphine, who was awesome) said the policy at Barefoot Divers is that they take a maximum of 8 people at a time - so I was so lucky to be the only one going out. Delphine was especially helpful in giving me quick lessons in how to control my buoyancy better. It's really really interesting to spot something ahead & below, and to navigate down and over it just by exhaling and exhaling some more, lessening the volume of air in your lungs, and sinking accordingly. Scuba diving really is like flying, but it's a bit trippy if you think about it too hard (60 feet below the surface ... breathing through a piece of plastic hosing...yikes!).

All in all I went on seven dives when I was on my trip: it is a world of difference to dive off the back of a boat in warm waters. I still wore a wetsuit, but it was only 3mm and was shorts & shortsleeves, with no (claustrophobia-inducing) hood required. Plus stepping (or, later, falling backward) off a boat into the water made me feel like a rock star!

WIP Wednesday: Nocino 2.0

2011-06-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when I was obsessed with making nocino last year? I don't seem to have reported on the eventual outcome: despite my skepticism, it actually came out pretty tasty! I didn't intend to make any more, though, at least not this year - until I was at the Ferry Building and saw a stand selling blueberries, cherries, ...and green walnuts. Score!!!! When happenstance beckons, I certainly answer.

Since I haven't begun to get through last year's triple batch, I bought enough green walnuts (30) to make ONE BATCH. And I decided to go nuts (heh) and buy some really good vodka this time around. (I bought the $7/bottle crap at Trader Joe's last year.)

I will use the same recipe as last year, but based on my blog-notes, I will also use the technique recommended by this one. I will tone down the volume of sugar a bit, as I'm only using 750 ml, not a full liter of vodka.

1) quarter the walnuts and add to a glass jar
2) sprinkle sugar over and let sit for a day or two
3) cover with the sugary walnuts with booze
4) add the following spices: 2 cinnamon sticks, 5 whole cloves, 1/3 vanilla bean, 1 star anise, 1/4 tsp grains of paradise
5) let steep for a while, shaking occasionally (I'm going to be away for a while and feel silly getting a booze-sitter)

I've got the spices sitting out right now and wow.. .they sure smell like the end product. I wonder what the walnut-infused vodka alone tastes like?

2011:06

2011-06-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hello June! I'm back from an amazing trip to Honduras - I highly recommend a visit to Roatan if you're looking for a sunny tropical vacation with amazing snorkeling!

I took June's calendar picture after a steep walk up into the hills a few miles from my place. The views up there are amazing for sure, and the yards are full of flowers. I'm not sure I would want to be quite so far from a flat place to walk though!

Long after I took this picture, I realized there was a teeny tiny worm in the center of the daisy!

WIP Wednesday: wrap, wrapped!

2011-05-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

I am finally blocking the wrap I mentioned waaay back in November.(Non-knitters - blocking is when you dampen your finished object, lay it out to dry, and in this case pin it to shape it.)

Thanks to Ravelry I know I started this project on October 21 and finished it December 1. Then I let it sit, since I didn't need it until May. Well, here it is May and I am going to my friends' wedding in less than two weeks, and I intend to wear this with the dress I got!

I had a fun time fussing with the wrap/scarf/thingy. I wound up having to pin some of the points onto the carpet, since they stretched off the blocking boards. It's amazing how it opens up the detailed work I did (seemingly a lifetime ago).

See those bumpy-knotty things? I have a friend who did beads there instead. I wish I'd seen her work before I did mine, as the beads look great, but I don't think I'll be making another of these projects anytime soon. We'll see if I feel differently after getting to wear it!

LA report: Watts Towers

2011-05-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

This is my final report on my trip to Los Angeles. On Sunday after we went to the Getty and to Venice Beach, my host and I made our way to Watts. When we were planning my visit and G suggested we go see the Watts Towers, I thought he was kidding. I didn't even really know what they were - I assumed they were tenements, to be honest, since my only awareness of them was that they had something to do with the Watts riots (about which I knew little to nothing).

Well, that shows you what I know. Watts is an entire neighborhood in LA, and yes, it's had a reputation and a hard history over the years. However the towers are NOT a housing development - they're art, created over thirty-plus years by a man who lived in the neighborhood.

Simon Rodia used found objects to decorate the structures, and they've cleverly found a way to identify where the bits belong - so when they fall out, they can be replaced correctly.

The Watts Towers are now a state park. We weren't there at the right time for a tour but I would absolutely go back!

Before-during-after: bed!

2011-05-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

My bedroom project is nearing completion. It is certainly at a point at which I can stop for a long time. I do still want to add an area rug or two, real bedside tables instead of the small table and rolling stand I'm using, different curtains, art on the walls, and probably a different desk. BUT I am done with the bed and no mistake!

For a few months I had just a bedframe, no headboard:

I've actually had the headboard in a box in my room all week, but no time to attach it to the bed. Today I improvised a way to hold up the bed with the headboard removed:

And got the headboard in place. Huzzah! I can't wait to go read in bed tonight.

In fact I think I will go to bed quite early - I am fighting off a case of the blahs, and have to get up before the crack of dawn tomorrow so I can go to Monterey and learn to scuba in the ocean. I'm kind of dreading it and will be glad when this learning nonsense is behind me. But at least I'll sleep well in my lovely bed!

WIP Wednesday: cookie a socks

2011-05-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

I went to Florida this weekend to hang out with a couple of my siblings, so had some quality airplane time on the way back to work on these socks.

I'm making them for a friend; they're In and Out designed by Cookie A. The pattern is really interesting, way too hard to memorize, and it's pulling me right through. I've already more than doubled the sock from this picture, am mostly done with the first leg and will be working on the heel before I know it!

Okay, that's the exuberance of Early Sock speaking, but they ARE coming along.

LA report: The Getty Center

2011-05-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

My visit to Los Angeles was super busy - by the end of it, we joked we'd seen all of LA! I was visiting an old friend/housemate from my Portland days: we were in Portland together from 1996-1998 or so, then he moved to Seattle, and I moved to the Bay Area, and he moved to LA last fall. I wanted to see what his life is like in this very different place!

I arrived kinda late on Friday night and we didn't do much. Saturday was more people-social: we went to a photo/video shoot for one of his clothing designer friends (can you GET any more LA?), went out for amazing Thai food, drove around, and went to a bbq hosted by some super nice people we met at the photo shoot.

Sunday was a more photogenic day. We went out to brunch, then to the Getty Center, then to Venice Beach, to the Watts Towers, and to the airport.

I was entranced by the buildings and grounds of the Getty. We looked at a couple of art exhibits, but the physical space is so amazing I was keenly aware it was ALL art. Even the quality of materials and construction for the garden paths was probably the highest quality I'll ever see.

The buildings were large and modern-looking and really gave the place the feel of a campus or institute - this is a Center and no mistaking it!

LA report: Venice Beach

2011-05-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

One of the places my friend took me that felt quintessentially Southern California was Venice Beach. Even though it was windy, the place was mobbed with tourists and locals alike. You can do ANYTHING there- get evaluated for a medical marijuana prescription for 40 bucks (what a racket!), buy a yummy corn dog, and spend quite some time watching the skateboarders.

The documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys was about LA's skateboarding culture in the 1970s. A bunch of kids skated in neighbors' emptied pools, and you can totally see how (if you could do it!) skateboarding in a pool would be a ton of fun.

I practiced using the "burst" feature on my camera, taking multiple pictures in quick succession. It was still hard to catch these kids in flight.

2011:05

2011-05-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to May, otherwise known as spring in the Northern hemisphere. This month's calendar picture was taken in May but in the Southern hemisphere, on my trip to New Zealand, as they tipped through autumn toward winter. You sure can't tell it's autumn by my picture of Onetangi Beach, though.

The beach is on the north side of the island, giving it the best sun exposure (remember, southern hemisphere!).

Onetangi Beach is part of Waiheke Island, eleven miles northeast of Auckland - a great side trip on a sunny day. This was only our second day in New Zealand and we'd been extremely busy on our first day, but we were up and out in time to catch the morning ferry.

It was rather exciting to watch the skyline recede - as interesting as a city can be, I am exposed to urban life on a daily basis, and I was ready to see something a little different! After about a 40-minute ride the ferry dropped us off on the island and we hopped on a bus tour, since there were limited options for seeing the island. We'd hoped to go wine tasting but settled for beer and fish and chips on a deck overlooking another bay.

The Matiatia Malt by the Waiheke Brewery was the best beer of my entire visit, due only partly to the setting!

Feeling like an old, old dog

2011-04-28T23:07:00.000-07:00

Did I mention I'm taking scuba classes? Wow, is it hard to learn a new physical activity.

I'm not a real fan of learning stuff in general, believe it or not - not if it's hard for me to learn. Bring on the knitting, the jamming, the canning, the baking - those things all make sense (even if I can't yet properly caramelize sugar after all of four or five attempts). It's not that I'm totally out of learning-practice: I have a ridiculously hard job and even after almost five years I run into a wall every single day. You'd think I'd be more graceful about it by now, but most days I have a silent hissy fit ("This is hard, it's stupid, I don't understand, can't someone else do it?!") before I remember that everyone on my team is overworked, and that I'm the boss and therefore should do the hard stuff. (Maybe I need to get over that last bit.)

I do physical stuff too: biking, hiking, camping - admittedly in small doses. There's a lot of silent freaking out on those events, though, and a lot of self-doubt. But at least I have a lot of miles under my belt and know I CAN do it, even if it's hard and I'm not loving it.

Well, scuba is hard. I feel UN-graceful UN-comfortable and UN-adept. I am clumsy and disoriented and a little scared the whole time. When I talk over my lessons with friends I see I am learning and have learned a lot, but nothing about it feels easy or natural or smart. I can never find all the stupid hoses, the dumb buttons don't depress like they ought, the darn vest WILL inflate if I hit the inflate button, even if I meant to hit the DEflate button.

Is it the hardest thing I've done? I don't know - it's for sure the most complicated, given how much you have to put together pretty much all at once. I've done things that are harder in different ways, sure, but this is very very very not-easy.

I will hang in through my course and hope that when I get to do real diving in real water with real scenery that my pity party will be firmly behind me. As ever, stay tuned!

WIP Wednesday: Restoring order to chaos

2011-04-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Dear blog-friends! It's been quite the busy few weeks around Exploring With Beth HQ. I'm getting caught up ever so slowly. Help buy me some time: what do you want to hear about? My parents' visit? My weekend in Los Angeles? My sweater? My favorite blogs?

Here's what I'd like to hear from you, two things actually:
YOUR favorite blogs, and why you like them (yes, you may pimp your own)

Your favorite gin. I got a little interested in the fancy tonic options (and will do a head-to-head tonic tasteoff between Q and Fever Tree some evening when I can tolerate a couple of gin and tonics), but haven't explored the gins out there. I have Bombay sapphire at home, and have no problem with Tanqueray. The ol' Bombay is getting low - what should I try next? It IS gin & tonic season, after all!

what I did this evening

2011-04-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

I was busy tonight!

I made lemon curd, blackberry-rosemary simple syrup, and lemon meringue cookies. The lemon curd is from some Meyer lemons friends brought over - I still have, oh, nine or so left to do something with!

The simple syrup is for a VERY delicious drink called a Black Rose that a friend introduced me to recently. As tasty as it is now with grocery store blackberries, I hope I remember to harvest some berries this summer and make the syrup again. The rosemary is from the courtyard - is rosemary insanely prolific everywhere? It seriously grows in massive shrubs here.

What did I *not* do tonight? I didn't clean the floors or the bathroom, or deal with the miscellany scattered about. Yes, my parents are coming to visit soon (in 32 hours or so!) but I just know they want to see me in my natural habitat. Heck, I'll just run them ragged, then give them booze & sugary snacks and they won't even notice! It's all part of my Genius Plan for Visitors.

Fiscal fitness: Rolling over an IRA

2011-04-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

Like many people who've been out of college for a while, I've worked for a number of employers. Naturally (since I preach the gospel of saving for retirement!) I've enrolled in each employer's retirement plan as soon as I've been eligible, and always contribute whatever it takes to get the full employer match.

So yay me and all, but the down side of this is that I've had retirement accounts scattered all over the place. I always kept track of them (..sorta) but I knew it was a bad idea. It's easy to lose track of account paperwork; it's a drag to have to update your address with multiple organizations; it's hard to figure out your asset allocation if your money is held in different funds; you may be paying more in fees than if you consolidated!

Once upon a time I had rolled over one account, but it was under duress: in 2001 I was laid off (for the second year in a row, thank you high tech) and my ex-employer told me I had to do something with that retirement account. I rolled it into a Roth IRA at Vanguard, which was a good call, but I ignored the rest of my accounts, since no one seemed to mind if I left them intact.

Time flew, as it does, and at the beginning of 2010 I still had three accounts to deal with:
- the software company that laid me off in 2000 - that account was still maintained by my ex-employer, who mailed me quarterly investment reports
- the state of Oregon's public employee retirement system, from my library gig that I left in 2006
- the other retirement savings account from that same library job - if I recall correctly you can't contribute additional funds to the PERS account so you can contribute to a 403b (aka a 401k for public employees) instead

So it only took a full decade, but I did finally begin to deal with those accounts. I contacted my former employer and got the paperwork to roll over the funds from 2000. Of course we'd had a couple of stock market crashes since then - it had fluctuated wildly over the years and still wasn't at its highest when I did the paperwork. I have to say it felt good to finally cut the cord with that employer!

I also closed the PERS account, but that was a little more complicated, involving two checks, one of which got lost, two 1099Rs (which confused me greatly), and one call to American Public Media's Marketplace Money show! The call was to help me understand which tax year I should claim the disbursement in, since I asked for it in 2010 but actually deposited the check in 2011 - the answer is: 2010! he said I could ignore it if I get a 1099-R next year. More likely I'll have a heart attack but I'll let that be Future Beth's problem.

Attentive readers may note that I still have to deal with the third account listed in the bullet points above. It's true, I do, and I will. Soon. I swear.

So, for my future reference - and yours! - here are the steps to roll over a retirement plan:
- Decide where you want the funds to go, and open an account with that institution.
- Contact the plan and tell them you want to roll over your account into an IRA at the other organization. Since you will tell them it is a rollover, they will issue it to your chosen bank/investment house for your benefit. (If you give them the new account number that makes it all the smoother.)
- If they mail the check to you, do not file it!!! (personal experience is speaking here!) - mail it to your chosen bank/investment house.Two of my checks went straight to Vanguard, so chances are yours will be mailed for you as well. Try to pay attention to make sure the money gets there!
- Come tax time, look for a form 1099-R to come in your name. It will list the payer, the amount you rolled over, and should have the distribution code G which indicates it was a rollover and also indicates that you would have been unable to cash the check.
- When you fill out your taxes you'll have to use a 1040 to declare the 1099-R information, but it's not a taxable event - it won't change anything about what you owe.

My resolution for 2011 is to get that last account rolled over. One of my little quirks is that I hate to use the phone so I tried requesting a rollover packet from their site, but I got the wrong thing. I'll try again today though.. here's hoping I have better success!

Before and after

2011-04-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

The gory details on the sweater. Here is the before:

It was cool to finally get this far in the project. As I sorta thought, you just attach the sleeves

and start knitting the rest of the shoulder cap along with the top of the torso.

I think it would have worked if not for the matter of it being entirely too small!

Here is the after:

I didn't rip out the sleeves yet - there's a chance they may fit. Probably not really,

but I guess I'm not ready to totally scrap this sucker.

Even more nuts, I already cast on to start over!

2011:04

2011-04-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

I should probably just get used to the idea of feeling like the year is flying by, hm?

I took this last November (hey, sorry, I live in California! It's crowded for a reason!) when I went to wine country. One of my friends has been a member at a couple of different wineries over the years, and I really love that she opts to pick up her quarterly wine delivery instead of having them mail it. That gets her to recruit friends to go on a day trip - and without that kind of nudge I could go a long time between visits to Napa and Sonoma and those parts.

This flower was at Gundlach Bundschu just outside of downtown Sonoma. They are friendly, gracious, have lovely grounds, and their wine is really tasty. I highly recommend a visit if you're ever in town! If you can go with a member - all the better, as the tastes are free!

EX-WIP Wednesday: Say goodbye to my little friend

2011-03-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

Dudes, I have no idea what happened, but the sweater I've been working on for 2 months or so is a goner. Say goodbye, sayonora, arrivederci, we knew ye well. I got the arms long enough and figured out how to attach them to the body, and finally FINALLY tried it on.

Crud-ola, it does not fit.

I'm doubly frustrated because I did a gauge swatch. Then I cast on what should be the right size. And after 15 rows it seemed like it was going to be WAY too big.. so I decided to rip it out and start over, following the directions for the sweater 2 sizes smaller. And guess what? yeah, it's just about 2 sizes too small.

So now I have to rip out and wind 5 or 6 balls of yarn. Then I have to stomp my feet and tear my hair a bit. Then a good long sulk is in order, and only THEN will I consider casting on again. maybe.

Under pressure

2011-03-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

I've signed up to learn to scuba dive. Eep! Should be fun, though it was never on my Life List. However, I'm going to Honduras in May to celebrate my friends' wedding, and it turns out that's a prime spot for diving! I've got a good bit of free time now so I'd rather get certified here and be able to just enjoy diving while I'm there.

California's dive certification requires 40 hours of instruction, so the class runs over 6 weeks. It starts mid-April so I will barely squeak in the certification before the trip at the end of May.

I'll certainly let you know how it goes! I've already started practicing breathing only through my mouth - I find it surprisingly hard not to hyperventilate! (I suspect I'm being rather dorky... but I can live with it)

Recipe: Skillet granola

2011-03-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

Waffles are grand but admittedly a bit messy. An easier and still delicious-smelling weekend breakfast option is Skillet Granola!

It's very easy and quite flexible:
- melt some butter in a pan
- sprinkle in the oats and toast them a bit
- sprinkle on a little salt, and some flavoring - you can never go wrong with cinnamon!
- add a little liquid sweetener. I use agave nectar; honey or thinned molasses would probably do quite well.
- near the end, if you want, add texture with nuts or wheat germ. I added both this time.

Once it's yummy-smelling and lightly toasted, let it cool off. I like it with plain yogurt.

extra-culturey me!

2011-03-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

Well reader, I bought the membership to SFMOMA and spent a very pleasant 3 hours enjoying the exhibit Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870. I passed briefly through the (not so great) exhibit on wine and design, and took off. I still want to visit the Eadweard Muybridge exhibit in the next few weeks so we'll see! It was really nice not feeling pressure to maximize my ticket purchase by seeing absolutely everything, that's for sure.

I also went to a magical land called Cheese School - yes indeed, paradise is at hand when such a thing exists! I first heard of Cheese School at least a year ago, but they post classes a few times per year, and all of them sell out. Also, as you might imagine, paradise is not cheap. All in all it took a while for the stars to align. I had to be willing to spend the money (thank you, Mad Money account!) and had to remember to look at their classes while some were available, AND coordinated attending with a couple of friends.

The upshot is I attended a class called Fundamentals of Flavor: How to Taste Cheese. yeah, it was awesome. Our teacher reviewed how to analyze cheese using most of our senses - sight, smell, touch, and taste. We had 12 cheeses to taste, two each of six varieties: fresh cow's milk cheese, young goat cheese, slightly aged sheep cheese, aged Dutch cheese, washed-rind stinky cheese, and blue cheese. We ran well over our 2 hour slot and I could have stayed a lot longer. I am not good at identifying what I am tasting and smelling but oh my - I'm willing to learn!

WIP Wednesday: Two-fer

2011-03-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

Still working on the sweater. I've put it down for a moment to whip out a baby hat, since I never did get around to seeing a high school friend who's been pregnant for nine months now. Oops. Well, I'm sure that baby is here and I'll make an effort to go meet it - I'm making the hat a little large to buy myself some time.

But here is where I am with the sweater. You may recall that I got the torso done as far as it was supposed to go, and now I'm doing the sleeves. Both of 'em at once. Yep, I'm cool like that:

They're knit from the wrist up, and at some point you attach them to the torso and keep going. At some point near the end you go back and sew the sleeve-seam, turning these rectangles into arm-shaped tubes. I'm fuzzy on the details but will be sure to share!

Knitting two at a time is not that hard - you use a different ball of yarn for each piece and have to make sure you don't forget and use it across the whole row! It doesn't save any time of course - it really is six of one, half-dozen of the other - but the efficiency pleases me. Here's a closeup:

Just about 9 inches done and about 5 more to go. I might go a bit longer; we'll see! You're supposed to increase every 8th row and I use that green string to the left of the tape measure to help me track my rows. I learned that trick from some clever knit-bloggers I read, called The Rainey Sisters.

Are you a member?

2011-03-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

I've lived in cities my entire adult life, but I haven't spent a lot of time taking advantage of the cultural offerings. I went to the SF opera a few times, but the affordable-ish seats ($28 at the time) are insanely tiny and high-up, and much as I would love to love opera, I haven't found the right one for me. Better seats are 3 and 4 times the price of the cheap seat, and I really don't want to drop a hundred bucks on an evening at the opera!

A couple of different friends have memberships at SFMOMA but so far I haven't successfully coordinated going when they go so that I can get in free. A few years ago I gave some thought to buying a membership to the Fine Art museums in San Francisco (the de Young and the Legion of Honor offer joint membership), reasoning that it would get me in to some upcoming shows that looked pretty cool. Well, I didn't buy a membership and I didn't go see the shows, so there you go. Also, it's a right pain in the neck to get to those museums, which is a factor in my deciding to visit.

I'm thinking of trying a membership - the point of this post! - and I think it's going to be the modern art option. They have two shows on right now that I really want to see; the museum is convenient to transit; and I guess I can call it an experiment - will it be worth my while? I'll have to go five times to break even - I wouldn't ordinarily take a friend and pay their admission, so even if I get people in free that isn't saving money I'd have otherwise spent. (Though certainly it's a very nice benefit I would use.)

Should I do it? Are there unexpected perks of membership? Will I become a smarty-pants egghead (even more than I already am)????

Excavation

2011-03-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Project Bedroom continues. I spent a year fretting about how to get rid of my bed frame and mattress, and managed to do both (with the help of friends!!) in November and February. I spent a lot of time between July and February getting rid of the other non-bed bedroom stuff, so after the mattress was gone I was pretty close to a clean slate.

Next was buying a new mattress - I opted to buy a latex foam mattress from a local shop that has some rather old-school notions of doing business: no deliveries, no returns. Again, with the help of friends I got the mattress up the three flights of stairs to my apartment.

Finally, I bought and assembled a bed frame - I got it from the same place I got my mattress, and got just the four-sided no-headboard model, figuring I can upgrade and get a headboard some other day. No matter my pangs re: headboards and lack thereof, it IS a delight to be in a bed again, after a couple of months of sleeping on a mattress on the floor!

I've had some cause to regret my lack of method in mattress shopping. I am a very decisive but also somewhat lazy person, and part of that means I make a choice and move on, rather than comparing a number of options for a period of time. In other words, I didn't bother shopping around. Instead, I bought a mattress that was very comfy in the store but hasn't been perfect at home. I think it is slightly too firm and will relax over time; for the meantime I've purchased a mattress topper to soften it up for now. My back is still not 100% happy but at least I've stopped thinking about it obsessively! (I'm sure my friends are happy not to hear about it daily.)

I ordered an area rug from Crate and Barrel in early February, but it's back-ordered until May, which is a huge bummer. I haven't really gotten to thinking about curtains and artwork. Actually I HAVE thought about artwork - I'd love to hang my GGB picture above my bed, but am too paranoid in this land of earthquakes to have a heavy glass-covered object over my head at night.

Anyway, the next thing to conquer is bedside tables - right now I'm just piling stuff up on the floor by my bed! I felt a bit like a sociologist this morning, when I examined the pile and thought about what it might say about me. Currently my bedside heap consists of:

book of crossword puzzles & mechanical pencil;
two books from the P.G. Wodehouse series Jeeves & Wooster;
two library books;
a container for earplugs (even containing a pair of said plugs);
box of kleenex left over from when I had a cold in February;
two or three magazines that I've finished reading but want to write down some information from before passing them along to my friend.
and a lamp, of course!

I spent over an hour in IKEA today and didn't find what I was looking for, bedside-table-wise, so I might just borrow from my living room for a while and figure it out later. But my parents are visiting in April and I'd like to have something on each side of the bed by then!

WIP Wednesday: body!

2011-03-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

Confession: I've been posting my WIP pictures about a week after they're taken. This one is actually a couple of weeks old! I've been working on the sleeves (both at once) for a little while but still have quite a way to go.

Most of the torso is finished. I put in a lifeline (dental floss, actually!) in case I decide I need to rip back and make the body shorter, or add short rows, or make any changes at all. I devoutly hope I won't need to do that!

Weekend goodness

2011-03-12T23:16:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting on my couch eating pistachios and mourning the lost hour - spring ahead is tomorrow! I've never learned how to remember the difference between daylight savings & standard time, or whatever it's called.

I went on a hike today up in wine country. I did the hike one other time, but this time my friends and I were in a super hurry and pushed to get to the peak and back down again in just over two hours (for maybe 4.5 miles round-trip).

It was a pretty day for it - and then we went wine tasting! The rest of the weekend will be relaxing, I think, and I'll try to get more blog posts done for posting this week. If I'm ambitious, I will do something with Meyer lemons. Stay tuned!

Retirement musings

2011-03-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

It seems like every article I read on retirement, the experts say every generational group going forward is going to have a worse retirement than the previous group did. For example, the latest article I read says that people in my age group (30-39) should expect to receive a third or a tenth of the Social Security benefits our parents are receiving. None of these articles seem to want to be harbingers of doom, though: usually in the same breath/paragraph they say that currently working people shouldn't panic, they have plenty of time to change their behavior.

While it's true there is always time to do better, I'm not really convinced it's going to happen. Whenever the subject of saving for retirement comes up it seems like few of the people I talk to are saving really aggressively (in my book, a minimum retirement savings rate is 15% and aggressive savings is 20% or more). I know that life gets in the way and expenses are steep, but I'm concerned. And retirement is definitely not going to just take care of itself.

I'm reminded of the housing boom when households making 70k were buying houses for 500k: on paper it looked like a bad, bad idea, and in the end it was. But whereas homeowners can walk away, or get an adjustment, or declare bankruptcy, where does the person facing retirement with less than 100k saved find relief?

I speculate we'll be reading a lot more stories about what actually happens when someone retires and has a cash shortfall. We've got people planning to (or having to) retire with no way to support themselves, but we're not hearing about what that actually looks like.

I sure don't know where we're going as a country and as a society, I've got serious concerns about our lack of a plan, and I think it's going to get really really ugly for a lot of people.

How's that for a sunny Sunday morning?

Here are some of the articles that got me going: (free login seems to be required for the NY Times)
Making the most out of less - NY Times
Retiring boomers find 401k plans fall short - Wall Street Journal

Recipe: Bittersweet

2011-03-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Orangette's blog post last week, I dug out my bottle of Aperol and invented a drink for the Oscars party I attended. I titled it: The Bittersweet (or, keeping a fixed grin on your face while someone else wins the prize!).

I am sure I got the idea from one of the links to her post, but in any case it was extremely tasty and I highly recommend you check it out.

I didn't use the club soda at all, in the end.

The Bittersweet:
3 parts prosecco/sparkling wine
1 part Aperol
splash fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice

I didn't measure when I was pouring, so feel free to do your own proportions! I think it all depends on how sweet the prosecco is.

WIP Wednesday: My abode

2011-03-02T19:12:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think I'm going to be renting forever but only have to look at all the great great things in my neighborhood to remember that it's okay to rent! Short commute, good friends, amazing walkable life - right. It's all good. Plus paying rent instead of a mortgage lets me save a lot for retirement.

But I've been in this apartment for 4 1/2 years - my longest duration ever! - and I'm doing a little redecorating. I've made passing references to the fact that I'm gutting my bedroom (SO many Goodwill trips) and starting over. Well my old mattress is gone and I'm on the couch this week until the new one (and a bed frame) is ready for me. And the rug that I had on back-order is finally in processing, I think - so this may get done sometime this quarter!

In the meantime I framed a couple of pictures.

I had a Groupon that let me save forty bucks on the frames. Let's ignore the fact that while using said Groupon, I got a parking ticket for, oh, forty dollars. That's not very fiscally sensible!

2011:03

2011-02-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

March, my friends! March! Month of my dad's birthday and even some spring for the rest of the continent.

I took this picture during a road trip in Oregon last fall. I was traveling with a good friend from my Boston days and as expected it was quite an adventure. A local friend recommended that we detour through Fern Valley, somewhere north of Humboldt, CA. She mentioned the drive in was long and on an unpaved road, but I didn't realize we were going to go over a RIVER - three times! It was truly terrifying, though fortunately another little car like mine was ahead of us and handled it fine. Still. eek. Alas, I did not take a picture of the river-covered road. I did get a shot of some of the wildlife though.

WIP Wednesday: more sweater!

2011-02-23T07:52:00.000-08:00

I'm cruising along and enjoying this sweater. I like the way the stitches line up in an interesting column - it's definitely an added bonus that I can memorize at least a row at a time so I'm not constantly looking at the chart.

I've only made one little mistake so far (not pictured!) - I messed up one of the cable-ish twists and fixed it, but one row higher than it should have been. Right, well, I'm not perfect. No problem there.

This will likely be finished sometime this summer, unless other (shiny!) projects distract me. Could happen.

I am the mistress of waffles!

2011-02-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

...or at least I made some really yummy ones today. I bought a waffle maker after Christmas and was surprised to learn they're not as easy as my mom's always-delicious offerings led me to believe. I knew they had to be eaten immediately but didn't realize how soggy they could become, and so quickly!

So I've been experimenting a bit. My base recipe is from good 'ol Better Homes & Gardens - that cookbook is a staple on my shelf. I've halved their recipe because even that makes more than I can eat in a morning. I tend to freeze the rest and toast them over the next week or so. (I've had toasted waffles for dinner on more than one occasion!)

Anyway that recipe was a good base but I wanted some ideas for making the waffles a bit more crisp. I did some poking around and tried some techniques this morning with good success. There's still more tweaking to be done (and they still got soggy when they cooled!) but I am well on my way to being a Waffle Star.

Rainy weekend waffles
Turn on the waffle maker when you start combining ingredients, so it's ready to go when the batter is.

In one bowl, combine the dry ingredients:
3/4 c flour
1/8 c corn starch
1 1/2 tsp baking powder*

In another bowl, combine the liquid ingredients:
5/6 c milk **
1/4 c vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla ***

In still another bowl (no, I do NOT have a dishwasher), whisk vigorously until frothy (you can come back to it after you rest):
3 T egg whites ****
[or, separate one egg, use the white here, and add the yolk to the other liquid ingredients, above]
1 T sugar

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ones - stir gently until it's only somewhat lumpy. Gently stir in the egg white/sugar mixture. Make your waffles - they are still best when extremely fresh off the iron, so don't be shy about digging in!

* After reading David Lebovitz's post about non-aluminum baking powder, and because I've often detected trace bitterness when I use a recipe that relies upon it for leavening, I now use Rumford aluminum-free baking powder. You may call me Princess.

** I confess I rarely have milk on hand - it's more often half & half for coffee or sometimes whole milk for tea, and I usually don't want to use all of it up in a recipe. As a result, I am rather cavalier with this bit. Today I used some half & half, some milk, and some water - just make sure the liquid measure is right.

*** I impulsively bought vanilla bean paste at the Bowl a while back, so I tend to use this instead. If I were a scientist I might do side-by-side waffle tastings, but I'm not the Doctor of Waffles, I am the Mistress of them, so I don't have to do things like that.

**** I happen to have a bajillion egg whites in my fridge (okay, 9) after a recent pot de creme episode.

WIP Wednesday: Cookies!

2011-02-16T07:40:00.000-08:00

(not THAT kind of cookie!)

Cookie A. has made a name for herself in knitting-land for her interestingly-constructed and beautiful sock patterns. Like many, I first became aware of her work when I encountered the legions of knitters making her Monkey socks (that's Cookie in the picture!). I didn't make them though.

Then last winter I received a knitting-related book for Christmas, and wound up swapping it for Cookie's first book, Sock Innovation (amazon link). I admired and bookmarked it like crazy, but got distracted by other things (like the six months I spent on a sweater...) and didn't actually create any socks from the book.

This fall I went to a book signing party for her NEW book, knit.sock.love - and yes, bought a copy of the book. And finally I've actually cast some on!

I chose her Gothic Spire pattern. It's fiddly and has multiple charts and lots of things to pay attention to, and I couldn't begin to memorize the pattern, but it's quite fun nonetheless.

Part of the pattern requires slipping four stitches to another needle and wrapping them repeatedly, then knitting them. Some posters on Ravelry complained this reduced the stretchiness of the sock, so I was careful not to wrap too tightly. I also did only three repeats of the leg chart, rather than four, to avoid having snug sock hit the wider part of my calf. So far so good.

Recipe Review: Baked's Sweet and Salty Brownies

2011-02-14T14:57:00.000-08:00

I'm fortunate to work with people who looooove food. Our annual department potluck is legendary, and I always glance hopefully at certain desks, in hopes something homemade is on offer, displayed beckoningly on the corner of a desk.

One of these food lovers turned me onto a great little cookbook: Baked Explorations, written by a team of bakers from Brooklyn.

It's a beautiful book and I've got post-its on several pages. When I offered to bring something to a friend's place for her birthday on Sunday, I offered to let her make a suggestion, but I was glad when she didn't ask for anything specific. A third of the fun of making dessert is picking the recipe (the other thirds are the making & the consuming, of course!). When I turned the page on the recipe for Baked's Sweet & Salty Brownies, I knew I'd found just the thing! My friend is famous for her love of salt, and is a fiend for dark chocolate.

I won't write out the recipe here, though it's certainly available online. Here's what you do:
combine sugar, corn syrup, and water, and get it super hot so it turns golden brown.

Then you add cream and salt and sour cream - and ta da! it's caramel!

Then you melt some butter & dark chocolate, remove it from the heat, and stir in a couple kinds of sugar.

Then you add eggs, and finally flour, salt, and cocoa powder.

When you're ready to bake, you put down a layer of the brownie batter, then some caramel (not so much that it runs out to touch the edges.. they warn it will burn!), and a final layer of brownie batter.

I probably put a little too much batter on the bottom layer, because I didn't have QUITE enough to fully seal the caramel in. When I pulled the pan from the oven there were some little lava spots of boiling caramel. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I forgot to sprinkle on the sugar/salt combo when I pulled the brownies from the oven. But I had leftover salted caramel, so we served the brownies with some caramel on top, and then sprinkled on the salt/sugar combination.

Another dinner party!

2011-02-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

A year ago I hosted my wine group for dinner. There must be something about February, because I wound up doing it again this weekend! Again we had 8 people; this time we tasted syrah. Dinner was wonderful (osso buco, mushroom risotto, sauteed greens, salad, bread & cheese) and so was dessert! I made Meyer lemon pots de creme with sweetened whipped cream and my rosemary shortbread cookies. I also served samples of my nocino, which was met with general appreciation!

lavender from the garden

The lemon pots de creme recipe had a different technique than the one I used a couple of weeks ago - that one had me whisk together the yolks & sugar, but the one I used this week called for the yolks & sugar to be continually whisked (by machine!) for 4+ minutes. I'm definitely going to adapt that when I take another shot at making the burnt caramel pot de creme - it made for a MUCH lighter texture in the finished product (I was also more diligent in pulling them from the oven while they were still quite jiggly).

rosemary from the garden

My apartment looked great, and it was so fun to bring in flowers from the garden and from the tree behind my building. AND it was fun to finally use the small glasses I've been saving for years for just this sort of event.

plum blossoms from the hillside behind my building

WIP Wednesday: sweater!

2011-02-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

I happened to be perusing Knitty looking for sock patterns, but came upon a lovely sweater pattern instead! I am the proud possessor of a sweater's worth of yarn (purchased at a discount as they've discontinued the oh-so-me color).

After the six months I spent knitting a sweater last year, I wasn't at all convinced I'd do another. But perhaps knitting is like childbirth, and you just forget the pain (I hear..but do not believe) and remember only the nice bits. At any rate, I've cast on a sweater.

This one is a cardigan knit from the bottom up. I've only skimmed the directions (bad knitter!) but it looks like you do most of the body, then go make the sleeves, then join the body and sleeves as you knit the top bit. If that's true, I may quite like this project!

Right now I just have a few inches of waistband, so I'm a long way off from worrying about arms and stuff.

(Thanks to AnotherYarn for reminding me about the WIP series!

small tweak

2011-02-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

it's bugged me for the whole time I've had this blog that the center is so skinny, and the blank outsides so very blank and wide. I finally got around to tweaking the design just a TINY bit.

Here's a before & after screen shot to help illustrate the small difference.

yeah, I should widen the header to match, but I don't want to get too nutty. Is the difference even noticeable?

lazy sunday goodness

2011-02-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

Work has been crazy and I haven't gotten much done on the home front lately. However I'm having a lovely productive Sunday so far!

I cleaned the bathroom sink (makes the whole room look better!), finally started some applesauce I've been meaning to make for ages (good thing apples keep so well in the fridge), and made waffles.

Ten billion years ago (or, 15ish) I lived in Boston for a few years. In the summer of 1995 my roommate and I rented a car and did a road trip that included landing in Rangeley, Maine - four hours north of Boston with a population of about a thousand people. I have no idea how we chose that town, nor even how long we were there nor what we did on our visit. The only thing I know for sure is that we went to a place called Blueberry Hill, and I bought a batter bowl almost identical to the one in the picture.

I say "almost identical" because the original was the only thing of all my possessions that broke when I moved cross-country from Boston to Portland. I traveled by train, so most of my stuff got shipped later, and my only casualty was that bowl.

Well, I was both enterprising and rather fond of that bowl. I wrote a letter to the hotel we'd stayed at in Rangeley, and asked them to forward an enclosed letter to Blueberry Hill (since this was pre-internet and I didn't know where it was, exactly). In the letter to Blueberry Hill I guess I enclosed a blank check, I really don't remember - but I asked them to please please please mail me another batter bowl. And they did, and I made waffle batter in it this very morning. And wow, were they tasty!

2011:02

2011-02-04T10:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome, February! Unlike much of the country, the Bay Area has been full of sunshine and spring is in full force. Trees are in bloom, and the hillside behind my apartment building is starting to echo with chirping birds around 7 am. (It's a lot less charming when it's light at 5:30am in a few months, and the birds are going nuts at that unholy hour.)

I took my Feb 2011 calendar shot on my trip to New Zealand last fall. Deirdre and I walked around this small village outside of Rotorua, without realizing we were supposed to donate money for the privilege. The building in the above photograph is the church hall (I think) for Saint Faith Anglican church.

The water is steaming but the swans didn't seem to mind in the least. The whole village was located there because the hot springs throughout the area provided handy cooking and heating sources!

entirely inspiring dessert

2011-01-30T15:13:00.000-08:00

I finally got to go to dinner at a local restaurant that has quite a devoted following. Boot and Shoe Service took its name from the original inhabitants of their storefront - they are a thin-crust pizza joint with amazing desserts.

My friend got a burnt caramel pot de creme that inspired me to do some poking around for the recipe! I found a likely candidate almost immediately, and set to work today.

All in all they came out okay - I don't think I nailed it yet! It's hard to purposely caramelize/burn sugar, and I think I pulled it off the heat too soon. But it was interesting, and I think I'll revisit this - possible for our wine group's dessert in February!

Great Plastic Experiment: I'm hooked!

2011-01-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Back in September I embarked on what I called the Great Plastic Experiment: I was going to finally be one of those working-the-system folks. To revisit:

The goal: free flight to Greece without paying any annual fees or interest on the charges.
The timeline: I'll be there in June 2011
The process: So far I've signed up for one Visa that gives miles on American. I have to spend $1500 in the next six months to get 75k miles. If I also sign up for their Amex, that'll be a commitment of $3,000 spending in six months to get 150k miles, which would be PLENTY for the trip - if I can successfully use them to book the travel.

And now:
The result: I'm going to Greece, baby! It's a dang good thing I signed up for two cards for a total of 150k miles, because my only option is to travel first- and business-class all the way, for a grand total of 125k miles and $700 spent. I didn't expect to pay money, but I forgot the traveler still has to pay the taxes and fees, and the taxes are based on a first-class fare, so they added up quickly. But wow, a first-class international flight is pretty exciting. Apparently you even get pajamas when you fly first class on British Air. I shall be sure to take notes, friends.

As planned I didn't pay any interest or fees. I still have to cancel the cards and will do so as soon as they approve me for yet another 75k mile reward card. Me, hooked?

A fine fine treat indeed

2011-01-17T18:31:00.000-08:00

I went to Ireland and Scotland in 2009, and bought a multi-day train pass for my time in Scotland. My mom and I used our passes to get from Edinburgh to Inverness, Inverness to Glasgow, Glasgow to Gourock (and back again, when the Highland Games were cancelled due to soggy fields), and Glasgow to Edinburgh again. After my mom left, I used my pass one last time to travel from Edinburgh back to Glasgow. I think we probably got our money's worth, but I did intend to do a solo train trip to a randomly-selected destination, Oban.

Oban is a coastal town in the northwest part of Scotland. It's got a distillery there, and a hostel, and I had big grand visions of taking the train to Oban, walking to the hostel, poking about and enjoying the views, and of course visiting the distillery.

Well, I pooped out after 2 1/2 weeks of constant travel. Instead of one last overnight trip, I booked extremely cheap & shabby lodgings in Glasgow and did some solitary exploring.

I didn't even try the Oban distillery's whisky until over a year later at a local bar. And of course I found it delicious! At seventy bucks a bottle, it's nothing to be swilled lightly, but I bought myself some recently, as my official raise & promotion self-present. And yes, it's quite nice. And the next time I'm in Scotland, I am definitely going to Oban!

Creative energy

2011-01-14T18:19:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit light on creative activity of late - I've been working on a complicated pair of socks, but am a little stalled. I tried to make a hat for a baby, but it was big enough to fit me, so I opted to rip it out and start all over.

I have been spending some sporadic time in the kitchen: I made some molasses-buckwheat-whole-wheat-flour bread, but it wasn't very photogenic. I made some chocolate-whiskey cake and am going to make some hard sauce to go on top of it - but I don't expect to get any photos. Oh, I roasted some veggies - Brussels sprouts one day, fennel another - and made some tasty soups.

So I guess I've had at least SOME creativity in my life!

It's true that I'm still sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and don't expect to get THAT sorted any time soon, since I'm off to glorious New Mexico this weekend! perhaps I should say FRIGID New Mexico, but hey, that's what you get when you travel in January. Fortunately I'm traveling with friends and one of them has been doing all the heavy lifting in terms of planning. He likes it, I'm not feeling like I have any specific desires for the trip, and I just want to go and see cool stuff and have fun.

I shall take pictures! and notes! and will make blog posts therefrom!

four hundred sixty point seven four

2011-01-13T18:19:00.000-08:00

or, more conventionally put: 460.74. That's how many miles I rode my bicycle last year! At least that's what I cleared out of my odometer this morning when I rode to work for the first time this year. It could even be a bit more, as my odometer is a bit wonky, but that's good enough for me.

It's a lot less than I've ridden in previous years but it's nice to have a number. And if my spotty data sources can be relied upon, it's more than I rode in 2009 (which seems to have been 389.66 miles).

My round-trip commute to work is exactly seven miles, so that represents 65 commutes - better than once a week! When you factor in holidays and vacations, I actually work perhaps 45 weeks a year, so that's really starting to look pretty good.

I didn't make any New Years resolutions, but I like keeping my car home more days than not, I enjoy biking to work, and am fortunate to get to carpool many other days of the year. So let's see if I can do better than last year for mileage! Here's my bike's mileage so far, since I got it after finishing grad school:

2004: Cycle Oregon #1: got my new bike, put 1561.5 on it.
2005: Cycle Oregon #2: rode 1657 miles (3218.5 total miles on odometer)
2006: rode 340 miles in Oregon, then 113.6 in California - 453.1 season total (3571.6 total)
2007: rode a measly 88.7 miles (3760.3 total miles on odometer)
2008: Cycle Oregon #3: rode 1,199.6 miles (4959.9 on odometer)
2009: rode 389.66 (4967.4 on odometer)
2010: rode 460.74 (5817.8 on odometer at end of year)

I'm so glad I got back into bicycle commuting to work. 2007 was just silly. (and I'll be the first to say that 2004, 2005 and 2008 was a whole 'nother kind of crazy) I'm also supremely grateful I have a bikeable commute!

2011: 01

2011-01-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, it's January - the start of a whole new year! I am going to have to figure out this blogging thing - I enjoy doing it and yet have been finding myself not wanting to turn on my computer in the evening. My work days in my new gig have been extremely intense and the last thing I want to do is waste my precious evening staring at a computer.

But I love you readers and heck, it's time for the calendar shot!

I'm extremely pleased with this picture of San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Bridge. In fact I've had a print made, and if I'm ever done with my bedroom project, I'm going to frame it nicely and put it in there. (It's a big if though... I'm feeling a trifle stalled at the moment. Though honestly my room is not terribly habitable as it is, so I'll resume the project soon.)

Anyway, a friend came to town for Thanksgiving and we took advantage of the stunning weather and walked over the bridge - one of the things on my California Bucket List! Now I can check that one off, though I'd happily do it again with the right company.

I knew the bridge is a cable bridge.. but it was cool to get to see inside a cable.

There are 27,572 wires in each cable! The total length of the wires used measures 80,000 miles! The.. oh, heck. A picture really is worth at least a few more of mine:

Anyway, the whole hour or longer we walked on the bridge I kept looking and looking for the right shot. I shot and deleted a whole bunch of pictures. I even got a few I like pretty well:

But when I took the one at the top of this post, I knew that was it!

So much for the best-laid plans!

2010-12-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

I'm one of thousands of people who got screwed over by Jet Blue. Even though I was traveling from the East Coast back to the west several days after the latest messy storm, I was caught in the ripple effect - my plane was hugely delayed, then they couldn't find crew. Only after making us wait around for 6+ hours did they cancel the flight. And the kicker is, they couldn't get me anywhere until January SEVENTH - more than a week after my initial travel date! They refunded that part of my fare and I bought the last seat on a Virgin America flight on the first, but I'm still fuming about it. I'm not sure what I expect them to do, though - pay for my new flight? ha.

So I'm trying hard to focus on the positives:

I wasn't traveling with small kids, or a pet, or with people in wheelchairs.
One of my friends saw my plaints on Facebook and invited me home to her parents' house, a half-hour from the airport. That saved my parents and me the hassle of dealing with a bus and car ride to their place, 2 hours away.
Another of my friends was invaluable in her long-distance support, texting me about alternate flight times and eventually buying me that last seat.
I have another friend picking me up at the airport tomorrow.
I get to have 36 hours at home before going back to work.
I'm having a quiet New Year's Eve at home with my parents & older brother
Pizza is on the way!

So I'm scheduled to fly tomorrow. And I had better get home!!!!!!

Lessons learned:

Don't fly Jet Blue. Is that too harsh? I'm not sure. I am unlikely to fly them over a holiday, that's for sure.
Always bring my passport! I could've looked into a NYE in Toronto, but didn't have the right paperwork to do it.
Don't feel too smug about avoiding travel messes - at least wait for smugness til the plane is safely landed!!!!

Ready?

2010-12-29T07:28:00.000-08:00

It's juuuust about 2011 - are you ready? I'm trying to decide if I'm going to make any goals or resolutions. Money is going okay, which leaves fitness and health. Which is hard. So, we'll see!

Christmas break was lovely and lasts for a couple more days. Unfortunately I'm going to spend a bunch of time in a plane, and then in a car, so the last few days won't be quite as relaxing as those around Christmas, but should still be fun and hopefully memorable!

See you soon, blog-pals. Be happy!

End of year: Clearing the decks!

2010-12-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

I've been out of college for quite a while now, but I moved a lot at first - eight times in my first nine years on my own! But now it seems I am settling down: I stayed in my last place for four years, and I've been in my current apartment for four and a half years (with no intention of moving), making it the longest I've ever lived anywhere since I was eighteen.

Perhaps, then, I should be unsurprised that I've been oddly motivated to clear stuff out of my apartment: my internal clock knows it's time to upend everything and give it a good shake! Moving is quite handy for that, and without one to motivate me, I've had a hard time getting going on Project Bedroom.

My kitchen and living room are acceptable, but my bedroom has needed a solid going-over for a long time. The woes include:

My bed was a decent purchase ten or so years ago, but it wasn't intended to be taken apart and reassembled as many times as it has and it has been threatening to fall apart for a while now.
My mattress is 14 years old, as my back reminds me frequently.
I have two file cabinets but emptied one of them six months ago.
I've got two plastic bins with drawers serving as a bedside table.
My other bedside table is bright yellow and whimsical, and seemed like a good idea 10 years ago, but I'm kind of over it now.
I have a friend-made dining room table serving as an unused desk/printer holder/crap catcher.
I have a stand-up fan just kinda standing around. I use it a couple of times per year but don't really need to look at it the other 363 days.
The curtains are sun-faded.
The rug was a mistake - it's rough and hurts my tender bare feet.

Clearly - a Major Undertaking! Well, I'm *finally* making significant progress. The bed is gone (thanks to a wonderfully helpful friend). The plastic bins have been sorted and organized and moved to the closet. I moved the dining room table/unused desk/crap catcher to a slightly better spot in the room - though I think we are going to part ways sooner or later.

I've taken a ton of stuff to Goodwill and threw more stuff out (including old ticket stubs and photographs - honestly, if I'm not interested in them, no one else will be either!). I still have more to get rid of (including the empty file cabinet) but I'm starting to get to a good place for a do-over.

I don't know when I'll be done but I have picked out what bed I want. I think I know where I'm going to put it. I envision a room that contains my bed, my bicycle, a small desk, and not much more (my clothes live in a very large closet). It's exciting but tiring and I'm glad I'm going out of town for a bit so I don't have to look at it for a while!

Fiscal Fridays: bills bills bills

2010-12-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

It's Friday! I've got fiscally thoughts on the brain!

Early in this series of mine, I posted a chart of my money flow. (You can click -->here<-- to go directly to the graphic.) I've talked about several of the accounts shown on that screen - mad money, travel, and misc budgeted spending. But I haven't talked about an account that I've had around the longest, makes the most sense, and has freed me from the tyranny of balancing my checkbook: my bills account.

This account gives me peace of mind more than any other I've ever had. The concept is so simple but I haven't run into too many people who have set their finances up this way. Not everyone needs it, but I think it's very handy for anyone who is ever concerned about not having enough in the bank to cover their bills.

The first step is to figure out what I pay in bills every month. Right now this is: rent, land line/internet, cell phone, electric bill, and auto & renter's insurance. Since some of those smaller bills are variable, I rounded them up by 10% to get a comfortable estimate of my monthly bills. Now every time I get paid I put half of that amount into my bill-paying account. For my bills that are set amounts, I have scheduled checks that are issued in a timely manner; bills that vary monthly get scheduled once I receive the latest bill.

In this golden age of internet banking, it's amazingly easy, but I've been doing some version of this since I graduated from college. It lets me know exactly where I stand and if I'm in any sort of trouble. I typically have the next month's rent funded by the middle of the previous month, so I don't have to stress about timing the mailing of the check to correspond with bank deposits. Nowadays I always have a little slush in that account, but I remember when I still lived in Boston, and I was living extremely lean. I discovered a math error in my bills account, and had to call my friend who worked at my bank and ask him to deposit eleven cents into my account in order to fully cover a check that had already been mailed. He gave me a quarter instead, nice guy that he is.

Having a bills account means I can spend what's in my day-to-day account without worrying whether it will affect my rent. I can sleep easily knowing that my next month's rent is already set aside. I can't even really remember what it felt like to live on $8.25/hour in Boston, and I have to say I'm glad.

So to sum up where we've been so far:
I get paid twice a month. The check is deposited in my day-to-day account. I immediately transfer most of it out to mad money, travel, misc budgeted spending, and bills.

What I have left to cover:
short-term savings, longer-term savings, my day-to-day account, and retirement savings. Exciting stuff, huh?

WIP: silly hats

2010-12-15T07:11:00.000-08:00

Actually these are complete - I made two goofy little hats to give to people I know having babies. If you can't put a silly hat on a kid, what's the point of having one?

I hope I get a picture of the hats on the kids' heads. fyi, that means a lot to the knitters in your life!

Weekend over. wah.

2010-12-13T22:22:00.000-08:00

I had a great weekend visiting friends in Portland. That city is still my favorite place, even though it rained and rained and rained this weekend!

While I loved getting to visit, I sure wish I had some weekend left over. Well, one full week of work, 2 days of work, and then I get a chunk of time off - yay for Christmas in New England! I've got my shopping mostly done and am engaged in my annual cycle of regret and recrimination - why oh why did I ship the gifts to California, instead of sending it directly to RI?

I've received a promotion at work (which I think I mentioned) and I'm in the throes of trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with my time. Some days (like last Thursday) are non-stop from start to finish. Today though I had a couple of hours of time when I wasn't sure what I should be doing with myself. I'm also not sure how best to do my job but I guess I'll mostly have to feel my way through it. Usually my big transitions come with all-new jobs at all-new places of work, so this is unusual for me but I suppose it's a nice problem to have - at least I have a fairly good chunk of known quantities for once!

So I'm ending the year on lots of notes of change, but lots of uncertainties as well. But I suppose really I'll just keep going forward and washing dishes and doing laundry and going to work and dealing with what's in front of me... I guess that's what we all do with ourselves. Right? right.

Giving Goals

2010-12-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

Like so many people around me, I have great intentions to help make the world a better place. I feel daunted by the sheer scope of the problems I see, yet when I'm actually asked to give money, I usually say no, or defer the decision until a later which never comes. I confess that part of my reluctance to give is that I'll get on endless mailing lists, but truly the majority of my non-giving is just me wanting to keep my money for myself.

Since I've been tracking my spending for a few years, I was able to see in black and white how little I was sharing with the rest of the world. Since my financial house is mainly in order, I decided that I wanted to change my behavior. The best way to do that was to set giving goals: for the last three years I've made a conscious effort to give money, and have set a target for the amount I want to give away.

This year I set a goal to give away 2% of my take-home pay to charities and organizations I like. While it's not a ton of money, it's not insignificant either! The way this works for me is that I spend the year giving occasionally (when a friend is participating in a fund-raiser, or when I run into people selling raffle tickets for various organization), and then at the end of the year I add up my contributions and then give a bunch of money to make sure I meet my goal.

Last year, I listed the organizations I selected, and I'm mainly going to stick with them this year.

Here's how my giving has broken out so far this year:

January: I donated money to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti
January: I sponsored my younger brother, who was supposed to jump into freezing water to raise money for the Special Olympics (because only people with limited mental faculties would do this?? It does rather beg the question.). Alas, the weather was bad and they cancelled the plunge, but kept the money. That's fine by me - our older brother participates in the Special Olympics every year, it's a great organization, and I've done very little for its benefit.
May: donated money for a raffle for some organization. Didn't win.
May: sponsored a friend running in a race to benefit her local animal shelter.
May: sponsored my local public radio station.
July: joined a local bicycle advocacy organization.
December: contributed to a fund to help a local second-run movie theater reopen (yes, I get benefits for my contribution, but I'm counting this anyway)
December: contributed to a fund to help a local coffee shop move and reopen (again, I get a benefit from this, but I'm still counting it)

... and that's it! They add up to just more than half of this year's Giving Goal, so I have some catching up to do now.

Here are the organizations who will get money from me this year:

My local food bank. I love food, I enjoy sharing it with others, it's a great topic of conversation, I read food blogs, and I can't believe that in this prosperous nation of ours, people go hungry. Every day. It kills me. This is my top giving priority every year.
Doctors Without Borders. I have the Yarn Harlot to thank for this one - she's raised over a million dollars over five years, by asking fellow knitters to give to this wonderful organization. She says it much better than I can, so go read her blog posts about it.
The Kristin Brooks Hope Center, because depression and suicide are unspeakably tragic (and I'm grateful that I've been only lightly exposed to them). I first found out about the center through PostSecret, which I try to read weekly.

At this time of year, when so many messages are about consumption, it really does feel especially nice to be looking for ways to share my good fortune with others.

Two Thousand Ten: December!

2010-11-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

Will you look at that calendar - it's the last month of the year! Without futher ado, here is my calendar shot for the month:

It's San Francisco, at night, from Alcatraz Island. Last fall, I got to spend the night there with a group of 30 hardy souls. Fortunately for me and my not-so-great memory, I already wrote it up. The view from the island was magical, and I am so very grateful that it's been preserved for all of us to enjoy - though usually you can't spend the night there!

WIP: Calendar 2011

2010-11-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

For the last three years I've created a wall calendar using my digital photos, and have used my creation as Christmas gifts. I keep a couple for myself, give copies to my immediate family and one local friend, and sometimes if I have spares I give one to one friend or another. Like anything handmade, it's a personal gift, and it feels a bit risky - I know I typically pick out my own decor, including calendars, and I don't want to force my nice-but-admittedly-amateur art on anyone. Plus, just because I like it doesn't mean they will, and if they obviously reject it (I admit it!), my feelings will be a little hurt.

It's been pure pleasure, however, to do a monthly post with that month's picture and the story behind it, and I will certainly continue the tradition next year.

So it's again time to create a calendar and then agonize over how many to print. I am very good about getting my pictures tagged and uploaded, and as the year goes on I add the ones I really like to a particular group; right about this time of year, I start winnowing! I run slideshows so I can try to imagine what the picture will look like larger than onscreen. I arrange and rearrange the order of the pictures. I try to use images that are roughly congruent with the month during which they'll be showcased; it's hard, since I don't see snow too often, to get anything useful for winter!

This year I'm running into the interesting dilemma of having a consistent style. In other words, there are a couple of pictures I'm thinking of using that are very very similar to pictures I've used in the past...I think! Unfortunately I don't have an intact calendar from the past years - I recycle one, and rip the other apart to use as a rotating art display in my cube at work. (It's quite nice to have 36 photos to choose from - I tend to have three hung at a time.) Work has been a bit busy of late, but hopefully I'll have both time and inclination to look through my folder of ripped-out images, and see what I've used and how it compares to this year's candidates.

I've got it down to 14, so I'm nearly there. Stay tuned!

Fiscal fitness and raises!

2010-11-23T13:56:00.000-08:00

A month ago, I vaguely alluded to the fact that there's a lot going on in my world around career and stuff. Oh, I could share several months' worth of agonizing, but the short and happy news is I recently received a raise. woot!

So now I don't know what to do with it. I'm out of debt, I already spend more than enough on travel, and I'm in reasonably good shape for retirement savings (and since I save a percentage of my income, that savings will be increased automatically). At this point I think I'm just going to save the difference toward unspecified future expenses like a house or car. I'm wondering if I should put something like 10% into a shorter-term account? There are many things I need/want/would like, but they're too big or expensive or recurring to receive as a gift.

We'll see!

WIP Wednesday: wintery goodness

2010-11-17T18:09:00.001-08:00

This is coming out even better than I hoped.

Link love

2010-11-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

I was going to send these to a friend, but thought I'd share with all my boggy-friends!

I don't know if this is a joke or not, but it's hilarious: Six takes at suave
and this is just something great to keep in mind. Nicely written: Being happy with what we have

Laugh, then ponder, and revisit the laugh if you want to!

(ps - got the reader down to 200 and am getting offline for the evening)

I like big bundts.. happy international bundt day!

2010-11-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

Happy International Bundt Day! This critically important holiday has been brought to my attention two years running by Mary the Food Librarian.

Last year I invented the Quadruple-Ginger Pear Bundt (which sadly, after a depanning incident, became bread pudding). This year I used one of Mary's recipes, for Mexican Hot Chocolate bundt. I brought it to a party this weekend, where it was devoured!

Happy eating, all!

Fiscal Fridays: misc budgeted spending

2010-11-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

yeah, it's not Friday this time! I wound up taking Friday entirely away from a computer, so didn't get to this 'til the weekend. Still, the theme works for me.

In September I posted the complete diagram of my money flow. Today I'm going to finish talking about this chunk of it:

I've already discussed the travel and mad money accounts; that leaves the one so descriptively labeled "misc budgeted spending." This is yet another savings account (insert rave for USAA's banking interface here), and as with the rest of my accounts, I transfer money into it every time I get paid.

The real purpose of all this account-having is that I don't have to watch my daily expenditures too much, yet don't have so much money lying around that I spend it wantonly (fun though that may temporarily feel!). This account funds the catch-all spending that I do over the course of a year, but not necessarily on a weekly or monthly basis.

Here are some recent expenditures that were funded from that account:
- oil change & tail-light replacement
- yarn for the wedding finery
- plants for the garden's winter crop
- membership in a local walking/biking advocacy group
- bicycle wheel replacement
- new tires for my car
- flowers for my sister's graduation
- membership in my local public radio station

These expenses fall into different categories in my budget (transportation, hobby, charity, and gifts), can't be predicted in advance, yet always occur sooner or later. I don't have a perfect solution for allotting money for those types of expenses, but what has been working for me is this separate misc account.

So how did I figure out how much to stick in that account every paycheck? Like most things in life, it's part art, part science. I've been tracking my spending for 3 years or so; once I knew where my money was going every month, I could decide how I felt about it, and whether I wanted to change anything in particular. With a reasonably good handle on my average expense per year for all my budget categories, it was a matter of basic math to figure out how much per paycheck should go be allotted for each type of expense.

Now - I have 14 budget categories, and even though I love me some complicated banking, I wasn't about to make separate accounts for every single category! So, I lumped the irregular expenses into this account, and fund it monthly.

The balance is running unusually high right now, but I can even figure out why, thanks to my handy little notebook with my spending figures in it. I know what I plan to spend in each category per year, can add up what I've spent already, and can see where I'm over or under, and use that information to spend or save the money accordingly.

For two concrete examples: I think I'm a bit low in transportation and charity spending. I set a goal to meet for the latter, and it'll be enjoyable to figure out how to spend the last bit of money to meet that budgeted amount. As far as transportation goes - if I determine I did spend less than planned, I'll bring my car in for a tune-up before the year is over, rather than wait til' next year and risk messing up my 2011 numbers.

Finally - actually using the account works simply. I charge the expense and then transfer the money from the savings account to my credit card. Easy!

Clear as mud? any questions?

WIP Wednesday!

2010-11-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I've made some headway on this lace-knitting business. I had to completely rip it out once, and have since successfully completed the lacey bits. There's some extreme fudging going on in a few spots, but I intend to continuously swirl and twirl the finished product so no one gets a close look. How's that for a genius plan?!

Three hundred seventy-two

2010-11-09T11:55:00.000-08:00

Sheesh, you go out of town for a week here, a long weekend there, and suddenly the ol' Reader account has a massive backlog!

I subscribe to lots of feeds using Google Reader - blogs of people I know and/or have found (give me your link if you blog and I'll add you if I don't have you!), personal finance and knitting blogs, and lots and lots of food blogs. It is the latter that is woefully backlogged: 201 of the unread posts are in one of my food feeds. Sigh.

Do I mark them all read and start over? Maybe I'll see if I get in any quality down time this weekend - I can probably plow through a bunch of them then!