Category: Life Posts

Life Posts

In Search Of An Adventure

LSiehLeave a comment

Sadly, only of a literary kind at the moment! But an adventure, none the less. I’ve been thinking a lot about my choice in books, movies, and other media that I choose to consume lately. It’s come up in several different counseling sessions and with friends and colleagues, so I figured it was probably something I should blog about.

This is also sparked by a recent trip to the library, where I think I spent at least an hour, if not a full 90 minutes wandering around book drunk. I ended up with a somewhat eclectic stack of reading materials and pretty much closed down the library. 😉

I was lucky that my parents encouraged reading and didn’t limit too much of what we chose to read. Every now and then, something would be suggested that we not read it yet, or my Mom would have a little chat with me on what I had been reading, but we really were allowed to ramble through all sorts of different literary worlds. Any time there was a new librarian, the head librarian would have to intercede at least once when they objected that my brothers and I had pulled books well above what they thought our reading level was. It’s making me chuckle now, but I remember being very annoyed about the delay in my being able to start reading immediately.

It helped that both my parents are big readers and we had family reading times pretty regularly. My dad is also a published author and a regular magazine column freelance writer. Occasionally, we were even allowed to have reading suppers, where everyone could bring a book and we didn’t have to talk. Although, now I’m suspicious that they really just wanted some peace and quiet…. Hmmm….

Both of my parents pushed us to actually think about what we were consuming media wise and that is a lesson I’ve learned once again after a stint of ridiculously trashy tv. I thought I’d share some of my favorite authors and categories. These are the ones I reach for most often, as they offer a complete escape from normal life. I find, the more I’m helping other people wade through their own messiness and trauma, the less I want to read/watch/listen to it. I need the balance of something peaceful, funny, or just out there wacky.

Today’s authors are in the fantasy and historical romance categories (otherwise known by me as semi-trashy romance.) Disclaimer: I don’t read really thin or plotless romance novels, nor do I read any of them where there is any sort or coercion or confusion about a character wanting to be in a romantic situation. I have been known to completely stop reading any of the author’s works if I come across any of that. Here are some of my favorite authors.

Stephanie Laurens and Diana Gabaldon are probably my favorite romance authors. Stephanie Laurens writes Regency era historical fiction and is a very prolific author. Occasionally some of her later books get pretty formulaic, but her main series about the Cynster Family is pretty good. She writes strong characters and they actually have flaws! That’s my favorite part of her books.

Diana Gabaldon is the author of the Outlander Series, which has been made into a TV shows on Stars. I don’t like the TV show as much. They focus a lot on the traumatic stuff and rush through the healing process and the rest of it. There’s a lot of… um.. intimate moments that are well done in the book, but can be a bit much on screen too. There’s also some sexual assaults. At least in the books, you have a bit more warning and can move past it. This would be one author that makes it clear these are assaults and NOT OK, not someone being gradually “talked into” things. She also deals with the trauma in a realistic way and is not as graphic as a couple other books that I ended up having to stop reading (Looking at you, Jay Green, and your suddenly violent with no warning scenes.) The story is told in a natural way and doesn’t do things for shock value. They are long books and involved time travel, Scotland, and WWII. I adore them. This one is the last one in the series, I believe.

Whenever I’m asked to name my one favorite book, I always laugh, because how in the world are you supposed to pick just one??!! I always start with Terry Prachett’s Tiffany Aching Series though, when forced to choose.

These are in series order from the top down.

The series focuses on Tiffany Aching, who is 11 at the start of the saga. She is just beginning to find out who she is. There is magic in all of his Discworld series and these books focus specifically on witches, although I would argue that their “witchcraft” isn’t really that in the normal sense. Often times, it is simply common sense presented in a different way. But if you are concerned about that, it is something to think about.

They really are appropriate for all audiences though and contain just enough sly humor and really terrible puns that I can’t stop reading them. Forewarning, you will get super attached to characters and very invested in the books. I bawled like an absolute baby, during the last one, and texted my younger brother for emotional support. 🙂 Both my brothers also read Pratchett and I’m pretty sure it was my older brother who introduced me to them. My younger brother once stole my car keys and locked himself in my car with Wintersmith so that he could read it first. That’s how good of a series it is.

Next up is the classic fantasy stack, with a new addition.

You can’t go wrong with Grimm’s Brothers’ Fairy Tales (The bottom). This copy was my Grandma’s book and it’s really pretty inside. Mercedes Lackey has a lot of different series and I love pretty much all of them. She writes a lot of trilogies, which is handy. The two pictured here are from her Elemental Master’s series and her Collegium series.

The Elemental Masters are Victorian England loose retellings of fairy tales. Steadfast has a lot in common with the old fairy tale The Steadfast Tin Soldier. They deal with magic and the theory of elements- earth, wind, fire, and water. I really enjoy them as they do a really interesting job of turning well-known stories on their heads. Each book stands by itself, although some of the themes and characters come back. She writes in a very easy style and really wraps you up in her world.

Foundation is about a magical college and people called Heralds, who basically function as magical based judges/healers/bards, etc, who help keep the peace and solve problems. This series focuses on Mags, who, at the start of the series, is basically a child slave in a mine.

One of the unique things about this series, or really any of the Valdamar series, is the Companions, who appear to be very large, white horses, but as you find out, are much more than horses. They use telepathy to speak to their Heralds and others. There’s all sort sorts of drama, intrigue, and politics. Not enough that you can’t keep up though. She’s one of my authors that I am finally collecting, as I keep running through all the books the library has and getting frustrated when I can’t get the one I need. The book sales we went to last year were a big help in building my dragon hoard of books. I mean.. building my library.

The top book in that picture, called Pocket Apocalypse, is part of an urban fantasy series (Incryptid) about the Price family. They are monster hunters of a sort. They hunt cryptids- creatures that people think shouldn’t/don’t exist. The family is super likable and written pretty realistically for a fantasy novel. I have read some urban fantasy that I have not enjoyed, but these are great little reads. If I have enough time, I can get through these in a day, they move that fast. Sean McQuire is another prolific writer, so I have a bunch more in the series that I am excited to read. I’m allowing myself two at a time to space them out more. 🙂

I told a client recently that “if there’s no dragons, I’m not reading it,” and I think it’s due a lot to the stress of work. Not that I can’t handle it, but with work and everything else happening around the world, it’s nice to be able to relax with something that’s in a completely different time, place, or universe. I’ll show you some more of my favorites later. These were the ones that were close at hand tonight.

I’d love to hear what books you’ve been reading and enjoying lately too! I don’t think there’s ever a state of ”too many books.”

To sum up, I’ll leave you with this quote and bid you adieu.

“Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

Crafty · Life Posts · Monthly Review · Sewing

Christmas Gifts And Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, hello there! Glad to see you’re still around. I went through a bit of a busy time and got a little out of practice from blogging. I did just pay for three more years of the blog though, so you’re stuck with me for at least that long. 🙂

It has been a whirlwind and I did learn a few things over the past year in terms of sewing. I love my serger! My MIL was right when she said it would be a game changer. I’m sewing things I never would have dared to sew before, including hoodies!

I’ve experimented with more fancy stitches, new patterns, and traveled with my serger! I started making A wardrobe for my office dolls, which has been surprisingly fun and stress relieving. Here are my latest creations. The top two are the Riley tank dress from Made for Mermaids and the bottom right are Kelli Kimono Robes, also from M4M. The bubble dresses are the Vada’s Bubble Dress from CKC patterns. I’ve been enjoying using them to try new techniques in a less stressful way.

Of course, there were some negatives. I developed tendinitis from scissor use, had quilt fails, and added some more projects to the WIP and naughty bin. Oh, and I trashed my iron very well. Tripped over the cord and whipped it point down into the floor. Apparently irons aren’t meant to show their insides like that…

Overall, the positives outweighed the negatives though, so that’s always good.

I have a couple of goals this year. Making pants is one of them, as is figuring out undergarment patterns (don’t worry Dad, I won’t put pictures of the finished products on the blog.)

I joined the 52 Week Sewing Challenge on Facebook, which gives you a different theme or idea to sew each week. Each week is sponsored by a couple of different sewing related shops and when you post what you’ve sewn, you’re entered to win the giveaway from the sponsor that week. The cool thing is as long as you post something finished, you’re entered to win, so if you desperately need to finish a specific project, you have that option. The Week 1 challenge was to organize your sewing space and it was fun to see all the different ideas people had. Here is my before and after of my sewing table. The rest of the space is still a work in progress.

If you’re interested and on Facebook, you can look it up by that name and join the group. You have to answer some questions to join, but they’re all basic. It’s been fun so far. This week was UFO/WIP finishing week and I finished the owl quilt I was working on starting at New Year’s Eve.

It is from the book Rainbow Quilts For Scrap Lovers by Judy Gautier and is called “Owls Well That Ends Well.” Isn’t it cute? These are all from scraps, except the white, which needed to be from yardage. I used up a whole bunch of fabrics in it though. It’s backed with a purple and blue tye dye batik and gave me a bit of trouble. My sewing machine tension is off somewhere and the thread is misbehaving severely. The quilt looks cute though, just don’t look at the back seam…

I made a lot of our Christmas presents this year and it has been ridiculously hard to keep them a secret. Since the summer, I had been working on a traditional Finnish Costume for my Mom and will share that in another post as it was very interesting to do. It was my dad’s idea, but the whole family was in on it. 🙂

Another present I made for my Mom was this quilt, which I have been working on since last Christmas. I have enough fabric to make one for myself as well.

Here’s some pictures.

It’s a modified Shining Star pattern from one of my scrap quilts books. I added sashing too it, as I thought it needed a little something extra. It’s tied with buttons and the background of the squares is music fabric. The backing is a plain red and the binding is a glittery white and gold plaid fabric. I got super fancy and made my own bias binding.

Here’s some more closeups of my favorite stars.

I have heard that she likes it! 🙂

My friend K used the fish leather from the Quilt Expo last year to make a wallet for her dad. She said it was pretty easy to work with, so I decided to be brave and got some to play with this year. The end result were two little belt bags for my younger brother and his girlfriend! They are both salmon leather and from Fiskur Leather. The owners were super helpful in helping me figure out what would work best to sew it- polyester thread and a leather needle. I’m pretty proud of them. They’re meant to look a little rustic to match their characters. I used frog clasps to close them.

Their unit colors are purple and black, so I thought that this combo would be cool. I have also heard that they liked their things as well. The fish leather was pretty easy to sew with. It was more complicated to figure out the pouches with no pattern and with limited amounts of the leather. Sewed together fine though.

One of my goals for this year is to use up some more fabric. To that end, I used up my smaller fleece scraps by sewing up mittens and ear warmers for an organization called Night Angels. They work with victims of human trafficking and have a community outreach program. My work was making some Christmas bags for this program, so these were added to the presents. Here’s the prettiest ones:

I did buy some fleece remnants to make sure I would have enough, but they have all been used up. I used the last bits to make sleeping bags for the office dolls. Someone requested beds for them, but I don’t have room for furniture.

I painted these ornaments for my boss and the administrative staff at work. They each got a little set of three ornaments. I don’t have the best picture of them, but here is one of them.

I was gifted this lovely set by my MIL, who made it in one of her embroidery classes. It includes an apron, a pot holder, and a kitchen towel.

I’m sure to be sewing a bunch more things this year and am going to be taking on a few of my sewing fears, so it would be an interesting time. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to learn about!

Have a creative year!

Forgetful Friday- The Many Sleeps of Fancy
Life Posts · Wordless Wednesdays

Forgetful Friday- The Many Sleeps of Fancy

LSiehLeave a comment

Technically I didn’t forget. I updated my phone and IPad and now my blog won’t talk to either of them. Bear with me while I attempt to figure it out.

Sew What’s Up?
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing · Uncategorized

Sew What’s Up?

LSiehLeave a comment

Having an injury that prevents me from sewing is really showing me how much I actually need to sew to keep myself on an even keel. I have other hobbies, like reading, marathoning Star Trek episodes, dancing, or finding all the book sales, but sewing is still one of my top three stress relievers. And believe me, I needed the stress relief!

Also, look, the book sale wasn’t my fault. It was to support a Catholic School! Don’t you want those kids to have a good education?! The Husband graciously drove me and found some good books as well.

I found a couple of psychology books, including a Brene Brown book. She’s fantastic and I still haven’t read most of her books, so I was excited to find it.

This book jumped into my bag when I wasn’t looking! Sneaky book!

Amazingly, I have put the books away already! I know, it’s super weird for me too, but we had a game night and needed the table space. Pictures for proof!

Here are a couple of quilts from one of the books. It has only a few blocks, but gives you at least two options for putting them together. The basic block and then a secondary setting option. It’s pretty cool.

We also went to a quilt show and although I was too shy to ask to take pictures of the quilts, there were lots of fabulous ones. It was one of those weird situations where it was all much older ladies and they seemed very confused by why us young whippersnappers were interested. There was a really cool music quilt that someone had made in high school to take to band camp, a really detailed landscape type quilt, fairy houses, and an amazing sewing themed quilt. That one had tons of appliqué and the Husband pointed out that several of the machines pictured on the quilt were “plugged in” across the quilt! It was so cool! I hope that one won first place. I did see a couple of scraps of fabrics that I have in my stash too, so that was fun.

I found a cool book too and some fun fabrics. They had a scrap table where you could stuff a bag for $5! Here’s my scrap haul and the book.

While we were there, I finally found the weighted rotary cutter that I have been looking for. I thought it would be easier on my thumb and wrist for cutting. You barely have to push at all because of the weight of the blade. Now I just have to get better at cutting clothes patterns out with a rotary cutter and I should be all set.

Speaking of which, I have used it already. I made a comment to a friend about working through my mending pile, since most of those things need less cutting and she replied with something a long the lines of “mending your clothes while mending your body.” I really liked that image and am trying to remind myself of it when I get frustrated with the slow pace.

Today, I cut off the elastic waistbands of two pairs of leggings to cut them down a little, and to replace the elastic with a yoga style band instead. They both hit at a weird place and would gradually be up around my ribs throughout the day. Since they are navy blue and grey, I didn’t want to just replace them. I need plain leggings, as well as plain dresses and shirts. So I added navy blue dpb to both for the new waistbands. I didn’t have any grey and it should be covered anyway.

These tea wallets were in my “to be finished” pile, so I sewed and turned them at least, but will have to figure out how much I can hand sew before I can do the buttons. I think I can probably do them one at a time.

Aren’t they adorable? I think I might try to sell them as a teacher set or something. They look so cute together.

I have also made blanket! It’s a very special sewing blanket and it’s surprisingly heavy. The Husband said I accidentally made a weighted blanket after I dropped it folded up on his arm. The pieces were 2 yards each, so it ends up being about a 100 inch square?

It is made with blue background dpb for the sewing machines and a strawberry red french terry on the back. I serged the edges together and am very happy with it. I was originally going to make something to wear, but the pattern is really big comparatively and a couple of other people made blankets with it on the sewing boards. It’s a little too warm still to use it now, but I think I will love it in the winter, as I am always cold.

I made these dog themed pictures for the September celebration of Fancy’s “Gotcha Day” and still need to put paw prints on one and a picture of Fancy on the other. I think they look cute even without the finishing touches though too. The Husband likes them as well.

So there is my recent sewing update! I’m relearning how to work around things and have also been reorganizing the basement, so it’s been a process. A good process that I will be glad to be done with at some point! I have to get back to that part though. There’s fabric in the wash I just remembered that I forgot about!

Sewcation!
Life Posts · Sewing

Sewcation!

LSiehLeave a comment

We were excited to visit friends a few weeks ago for a weekend. I shared some of the pictures on a Wednesday, but forgot to include these last few. I’m always amazed at just how cool our friends are. They can simultaneously keep both children and animals alive and thriving! Also, they are excellent hosts. I didn’t get pictures of the food we ate because I was too busy enjoying it. One of the highlights was homemade zeppoli for breakfast the day we left, but we also had delicious BLTs and a lovely chicken and pasta dish.

Here are some of the other pictures.

I got to snuggle a baby and it was fun to see their older boy, who we haven’t seen in a year or so. He was talking up a storm, including telling the Husband a long and involved story about “coconuts poofing” away while he was attempt to nap. He was also fascinated by both the superhero stories we brought the boys and the Husband’s grown up book that had only words, no pictures. Fancy stayed with a dog sitter, as we weren’t sure how she would handle a toddler and a 7 month old, but the older boy might have remembered her a little, after I showed him pictures of him and Fancy at our last visit. We have a picture of Fancy and S from last time up on our mantle display at the moment. 🙂

Besides seeing adorable children and our friends, we had an ulterior motive. Well, I did at least. My friend K (technically K 1, since we met in college) has not has not had much experience sewing with knits and wanted to learn, so I brought both my serger and my sewing machine up, as well as fabric, and some of my free patterns. She has a vintage Viking machine that purrs like a kitten. I was expecting a little trouble honestly, since my modern one has issues sometimes, but it loved sewing knits!

We used this really cute elephant fabric to make matching leggings.

Here’s a legging closeup:

We’re both wearing Lago tanks in the picture too. I made both of those, but K(1) made herself a black Lago after making the leggings. We also have matching leggings in this fabric:

Mine are shorts and hers are full length leggings. K(1) was nice enough to share fabrics. There may also be another pair of matching leggings coming when I can figure out how to cut things without hurting my thumb again.

This was the weekend I decided I really did need to get my hand looked at after I woke the Husband up by rolling over on my right hand and whisper screaming when I couldn’t move my thumb. I now know I have sewing related tendinitis and am not allowed to use scissors for a bit. I think I can still use a rotary cutter though, but have been resting it as much as possible.

Regardless of hand condition now, I did manage to make a pj set for K(1) which turned out so cute that it almost didn’t make it. 🙂

I had already made myself a pair of jogger pants with the neon sign material and was able to get a tank out of the mint fabric, so she did get it in the end. It was close though!

I also finished these two Lago tanks, one out of heathered blue tri blend- a mix of cotton, rayon, and spandex, and the dino one out of swim material.

Both are jus t serged on the hem because they are workout or sleep tanks. They are both super comfy. I cannot stop making this tank pattern. I think it’s almost my perfect pattern.

I let K(1) use my serger to finish these beautiful linen napkins that she had started. She sent me this picture after we had gotten home and it made me all smiley and giggly.

Look how pretty they are! I did one as an example and then she did the rest.

She also made myself and my other sewing friend, also a K, these adorable pin cushions and sent me hime with some super cool vintage patterns.

I was a bit jealous of this super cool vintage pattern box that includes everything you need to make this dress.

How cool is that? I’m excited to see it made up in the future.

We had a very lovely time and it was so much fun to introduce her to a couple of my favorite patterns. I’m hoping we can see each other again soon and to be able to finish some of the things I have for her and the boys. Send some healing vibes for my thumb and I’ll try to rest up as well. Otherwise, I’ll have to find someone I can bribe to cut out my patterns and fabric for me!

For now, I’m off to dream of more sewcations!

Recipe and Cookbook Review
Life Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe and Cookbook Review

LSiehLeave a comment

I promise we have still been eating! It’s taking a little while to get back to normal. This week we will be having smaller meals because we have party leftovers and we’re going visiting at the end of the week, so don’t need leftovers for the weekend. We’re leaving Fancy with a friend who’s housesitting for us though, so she might be persuaded to eat some delicious leftovers if need be. 🙂

The featured picture is our Anniversary ice cream. 🙂 The Husband had a Cookie Dough Frostbite (Like a DQ Blizzard,) and I had the Margarita ice cream. They were both good and we were in the store where we took our wedding pictures. 🙂

I haven’t picked a new cookbook to focus on lately, but we did use The Joy Of Chinese Cooking by Lo Mei Hing a few weeks ago. I’ve used this cookbook before, but there were a couple of new recipes that I thought we could try. The book is older, so ignore the part of every recipe where it says to add MSG. It’s got good pictures and very detailed instructions. Oddly, there are only about 10 beef recipes in the whole book, I think. It’s quite a thick book too. We tried the “5 Color Shau Mai,” but only used three colors. We used imitation crab, bok choy, and mushrooms for the color toppings. The recipe also included instructions for scrambled eggs and seaweed, neither of which sounded good.

They were kind of bland and we liked our normal dumpling recipe better. We used chicken instead of pork.

We tried one of the fried noodle recipes and it turned out pretty close to the restaurant version, although we used different noodles.

It was pretty good and we would try to make them again.

We also used the “Beef with Green Peppers” recipe, but I added a bunch more veggies. Also only sort of, maybe, kind of followed the recipe?

It was a pretty good stir fry. We’ll keep the book, because it has some interesting looking recipes in it, but I will need to go with my instincts on when to change things around.

Rounding out our Chinese food journey was a Shrimp Stir Fry and an Asian Meatball recipe from Gimme Some Oven.

https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/saucy-asian-meatballs/

The Husband ate his plain, but I sauteed a veggie mix that I had in the fridge to go with mine. We liked them and might make them again. (So, we didn’t have these on the same night, despite having the same bowl for all three of them…)

We’ve also had some staples, like Tequilla Lime Chicken and Pico, Spaghetti, and Pizza. The potatoes in the first picture were thinly sliced and roasted with the Galena Street Rub from Penzy’s and some olive oil. The chicken looks oddly pink, but I think it must have been a little frozen when we put it in. It was cooked properly.

This pizza is a white pizza with chicken sausage, mushrooms, and onions. It was delicious! I didn’t used a recipe, just made a garlicky white sauce and slapped it on.

The spaghetti was the Husband’s suggestion when I had to go out of town suddenly. He ate for most of the week, so we probably won’t have spaghetti anytime soon.

I tried a couple of new breakfast items. Blueberry Banana Bread from the Pillsbury: Best Muffins and Quick Breads cookbook, and a Cinnamon Coffee Cake Recipe from Baking Unplugged by Nicole Rees. Both were yummy!

I would make both again. The Husband didn’t really care for either of them, so I might only make half a recipe in the future.

We have had a couple of good storebought meals too, which I do need to remind myself, count as actual meals as well. One of the things I’m working on is not beating myself up when I’m just not able, due to scheduling, illness, etc, to actually cook.

Two of those meals were these Panko Crusted Shrimp from Costco and Crab Cakes and a salad from Aldi. I think we had both of these during Shark Week!

Also pictured with the shrimp are Kung Pao Chicken mini egg rolls, cilantro rice, a pear, and a yellow garden tomato.

For a belated Shark Week recipe, we had “Shrimp and Scallops in a Creamy Garlic Sauce” from chef Robert Irvine on Food Network.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robert-irvine/shrimp-and-scallops-in-garlic-cream-sauce-recipe-2014083

It was good, although we used Bay Scallops rather than Sea Scallops. They are smaller and less expensive. I didn’t like it as much as I might have, but I am in a little bit of a food funk and didn’t really want to cook that night, which is probably why.

We did have a party on Sunday, but I am falling asleep, so will detail that post and the Husband’s birthday meals in a different post. For now, here’s a picture of my very alcoholic Shark Week drink, which I have lost the recipe for.

It was pretty much rum, blue carauco, and sprite, I think. Possibly orange juice as well? I’ll see if I can find the recipe. It was pretty delicious, but at one point the gummy shark had so much booze it flipped over upside down… Whoops!

Before I do the same, I will say goodnight!