eat! craft! live!

search box...and an apology

First, you may or may not have noticed that I've added a search box to my blog. Yay! It's over there on the left. Take a peek! Now you can find whatever your little heart desires! (I don't really think that there are hordes of you out there just itching for a search box on my blog, but I kept trying to find things that I knew I'd written about previously, so I know it'll get at least one faithful user...)

Second, I have to apologize for my lack of internetting lately. My blog posts have been written mostly at work, and I've not been able to keep up with other people's blogs as much as I'd like, due to some computer issues. So if you're accustomed to getting comments from me, never fear! I haven't forgotten about you! My laptop decided to stop recognizing my wireless card, so in order to get online from home I need to physically plug in to my ethernet cable, which requires me to sit on the floor of the study. Floor of study = not comfortable. And yes, there actually is a desk not two feet away but it is currently overflowing with yarn and paper and related items. Ah, projects...

Tonight we're attempting to reload the OS to fix the various and sundry little quirks that have been popping up on my laptop with increasing frequency, so wish us luck! (M works for Apple doing tech support so I think I'm in good hands...)

i may be slightly absent...

I know. I've been missing from the interwebs the past few days...and I have to tell you, I will probably be missing for the better part of the next couple weeks. Why? Because of the Ravelympics, that's why! What? You mean you just watch the Olympics and don't try to knit some crazy-challenging project during them? Like maybe a lace stole, when you've never knit lace before? Oh.

more love

It just didn't quite make it..., originally uploaded by aravis121.

Time for some new love... Perhaps unsurprisingly, given my last post, I'm including Sundara Yarn this time. She is a color genius and her yarn is so soft and luscious and beautiful, I just can't help myself. Also, Round Robin Press, a local Austin gal who makes these whimsical little letterpressed plantable cards. (Plantable! Letterpress! I swoon.) Photography-wise, I'd like to give a shout out to aravis121, one of my favorite contacts. Her photos amaze me and her processing is impeccable. SouleMama is wonderful, and not just because she still lives where I want to return to... Last but not least, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the book of the same name. An excellently written and inspiring story about a year of food choices.

Love.

well. now i've done it!

I'm going to start this off with a little ice cream, because who doesn't love ice cream?  (I mean, except my little sister in 1985.  But that's another story.)  So.  Hi!  Twice in one day, you're thinking?  Whatever has gotten into her?

Well.  See, there's this thing.  NaBloPoMo.  Basically, blog every day for a month.  (Check it out if I sound like I'm talking crazy talk.  I swear, I'm not.)  So I participated last fall during the "real" NaBloPoMo, but I haven't done it since, because, well, I'm not that...loquacious.  But I got a nice little email reminding me that the theme for July is food.  Food.  And there's not much I like better than food!  (It's a wonder I'm not pudgier than I am.  Which really isn't all that pudgy.)  So I'm back to take a stab at food!  Although, frankly, I just don't have much to say about food today.  I've told you all about my delicious bread and my adventures in salsa-making.  I haven't made anything worth mentioning in the past day or two, unless you count the ham sandwich I made for dinner.

So, a little at a loss, I searched Etsy for "food" since I was over there updating my shop anyway.  I was expecting to come up with things like this Fauxstess Cupcake or this heavenly looking chocolate cupcake.  But instead I found an astonishing amount of play food and food-themed items.  And then I remembered all the crazy food-related things I'd hearted over the past year or so  - like pocket bacon, loads of play food by MermaidSparkle (I particularly like the broccoli cauliflower blend) and this utterly adorable lobster dinner pin.

So, from now on I'll probably be focusing more on "real" food and less on things like these giant felt grapes. But I'm not promising anything!

love

cocktail hour, originally uploaded by cowboy_montgomery.

I've added a new little sidebar item. There's just so much beautiful wonderful stuff out there that I figured I'd share some of it with you.  First off, Guerrilla Gardening, because, really, how cool is that?  People traipsing about town in the middle of the night...planting flowers!  Seriously awesome.  Then sarahkincheloe makes these really fabulous knitting needles organizers.  I have one, but I think I may need another!  And cowboy_montgomery's photos because they are a truly stunning little slice of life and I adore them in every way.  (That's one up there at the top.  See?  Isn't it wonderful?)  I love La Tartine Gourmande as much for the photos of the food as for the recipes themselves!  (Also, her really adorable French-tinged English writing style.)  And lastly, Dalai Mama, otherwise known as Catherine Newman, whose blogs I have been reading for years, literally years, now, in various places and whose book I bought immediately when it came out, which I never do, and whom I kind of secretly want to be just like when I grow up, in a way.

So.  Love!

a long overdue welcome!

Hi!

...pause...

Well, it's time for a proper welcome. (I'm afraid this one just didn't count...) I figure I should explain what exactly I'm doing here, babbling away like I do. After blogging in fits and starts on a couple different platforms, I finally decided to really get going. This blog is much more what I wanted my other blogs to be. And so far? I'm pretty happy with it.

So! Who am I? I'm a 30-year-old knitter, crafter, bookmaker, baker, gardener, photographer and more! I live in central Austin with my boyfriend, two adorable kittens and a fish named Marvin. I don't have a car, so you may spy my lost-in-thought face on a Capital Metro bus or see me panting along the road on my shiny new bike. I frequent farms and farmer's markets around here and I love to be outside when it's not hotter than hell, which it currently is and is scheduled to remain so for another, oh, 2+ months, at least... I was born and raised by the ocean on the coast of Maine, so living in Texas can be a challenge sometimes! I'd be loathe to give up my breakfast tacos or my Tex-Mex now though!

And...what can you expect to find here on this little piece of internet real estate? Well, a whole bunch of things, quite frankly. I am going to try to include a little bit about all the things I am passionate about - locally grown foods, crafting, knitting, gardening, cooking... You can expect to see book reviews, recipes, gardening tips, craft projects, event write-ups, personal anecdotes...and whatever else I decide is appropriate!

Like, this evening. That photo up top there is my evening. It doesn't get much better! There's a fresh batch of maple-blueberry muffins cooling on the stove and two loaves of bread rising on the kitchen counter. I have my book to read, some basil plants to look at, the latest issue of edible Austin to peruse and kittens playing at my feet. (OK, the kittens are actually biting my feet...but still. You get the point.)

I'll leave you with one last thought...are you ready? It's pretty mind blowing! Ready? Kittens are cute!

new beginnings, and more new beginnings!

Springtime seems like an appropriate time for new beginnings. So here we are!

*ahem*

Or, at least, here I am, and hopefully some of you potential readers out there will join me soon so I don't have to listen to my own voice echoing through the blogosphere...

Anyway, back to the beginnings. (But wait - isn't that where we are? Oh. Right.) New beginnings are everywhere! Here in Texas, spring starts early. Most of our spring wildflowers have long since gone to seed. The trees are leafy and green and the temperatures are now regularly in the 90's. (Though, on a bike in the hottest part of the day it certainly feels like, oh, I don't know, a billion degrees.) Plants are well on their way to producing vegetables, especially if you're not tardy like us and planted them at a more reasonable time than, um, a week or two ago. But, that said, we have our very first little vegetable!

This lovely little green guy is a hot red cherry pepper and will, eventually, be a little round, red pepper about 1.5" in diameter. Yay! He's only one of three or four varieties of peppers we've got growing in big pots lining the front walkway.

Another thing we're growing: zucchini! Because you can never have too many zucchinis. (OK, some people will disagree with that...) But I love them! Enough to warrant my mother giving me The Classic Zucchini Cookbook a few years back. And with 225 squash recipes, I think we can handle a couple zucchini plants, despite us being a little two-person, two-kitten household.

So, welcome!