There are a few things I miss about Santa Fe. My family, green chili (it is roasting season now… I can almost smell it), fresh brewed ice tea in every restaurant, and sopapillas. Actually I didn’t even realize I how much I was missing sopapillas until I saw this post via Tastespotting. What are sopapillas you ask? Delicious pillows of fried dough native to the Southwest. To eat them you bite a corner off and drizzle some honey inside. Some people eat them with the meal as bread, some people after as dessert. What ever way you like them, they are delicious. All I can say is thank goodness I don’t have a deep fryer.
Just Because I Can
I took a picture of my skirt and shoes mostly because I can. (I love my iPhone.) At the moment these shoes are one of my top three favorite. The other two are the same shoes in brown and green. I have always loved maryjane style shoes and these are just ridiculously comfortable. I love this skirt as well. It floats as I am going in or coming out of the subway.
Cooking
I love to cook. There is something therapeutic about taking raw ingredients and putting them together into a delicious dinner. I have spent many a Sunday chopping, sauteing and baking. That said, I am not a very creative cook. That is not to say I am not a good cook. I think I do a decent job choosing recipes and sticking to them. I also have a few dishes I can whip up without a recipe, but I do not stray too much from what I know, which isn’t a lot. This is in part to the fact that there are a lot of basics I skipped over to get to where I am. I found a new blog called Start Cooking which is helping my fill in the blanks. I love all the quality step by step pictures just in case one of the directions is unclear. I am a very visual person so I find this extremely helpful. Posts generally include a brief background on the recipe, instructions on how to make the basic version and then variations. I am excited to learn new techniques.
iPhone Case
My protective iPhone case and screen cover are on the way. In the meantime I wanted to protect my shiny new gadget so I made a case for it with some felt and a button I had. There is nothing that makes me sadder than the first scuff, scratch, or ding. I think it turned out pretty ok.
I Gave In
I have been on the hunt for a new phone for a while now. I had a Nokia e62 and while I liked the full size keyboard I wasn’t thrilled with the sluggish symbian operating system. I am a mac girl so what I really wanted was an iPhone. But I am cranky at Apple and mostly ATT for making us get an unlimited data plan and pay for text messages. The original iPhone users weren’t hit with such penalties… I digress. Well as it turns out, the phones I like require a data plan. So, I gave in. If I am going to pay a data plan I might as well do it for an iPhone. I went for the white. Now I am on the hunt for a case. I found a screen protector and snap on back for a very reasonable price. I was thinking it would be nice to have a pouch for it to slip in as well. I of course did a search on felt cases and turned up these lovely ones by Red Maloo. German, of course. (You may recognize their laptop cover as having made the rounds) Not sold in the US… of course. I am now remembering that I saw their booth at ICFF this year and used all the will power I had and didn’t buy anything. Not that I knew I would have an iPhone then. I do have some felt at home itching to be made into something lovely. You can check them out here.
Pioneering
Sometimes M&I are a little a head of the curve. Getting rid of cable and watching TV on-line is one of those instances. Hardware was pretty easy. A Mac mini running Windows XP so we can watch Netflix “Watch Instantly” movies. A mini wireless keyboard with touch pad is on the way for easier navigating. An LCD computer monitor as a placeholder for a flat screen TV we have been thinking about for a while. Now that we have committed to getting rid of cable, I have noticed how many shows are available on-line and how many programs are available to catch these shows and make watching easier. Unfortunately there is no one program or site that catches them all. In order to keep up with most of the shows we watch, we have a Hulu account. NBC, USA, Comedy Central, Fox… most stations. But not CBS or ABC… so for CBS we have Adobe Media Player, ABC has its own player through their site. Sigh. Both Hulu and AMP offer extras that I wasn’t expected. For instance, I was a late comer to Arrested Development. Fabulous show and now I can watch the whole series on Hulu. If you didn’t run out and buy Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog like me, you can watch in HD on Hulu for free. If you would really love to watch Ghostbusters again, no problem. AMP has a Stephen King series called N. It is basically a graphic novel read for us with stills, broken into 2 min increments. There are still a few shows that don’t seem to be available easily. Does it sound a little weird that we are going through all this trouble? My crystal ball tells me this is going to get easier as time goes on. Summer was a good time to get things in place and Fall should help get the system streamlined. Major, major plus, no more time spend holding or waiting for Time Warner to fix problems.
Knitting Season
I don’t knit in the summer. It is just feels wrong to me to have a huge pile of yarn in my lap when it is 80 degrees and the humidity it through the roof. Today is an especially crisp lovely late summer/early fall day here in NY and I have started to think it might be time to break out my needles again. These patterns for fruit cosies might be just the think I need to get back into the swing of things. via
Soothing Sounds of the City
When we go upstate, since there are no livable building on the property, we camp. M LOVES camping. He loves the sounds, the smells, the whole camping experience. I on the other hand am not a big fan of camping. The sounds are not soothing, they are unfamiliar and they make it really hard to sleep. I end up feeling like I was awake all night. People say how quiet it is in the great outdoors. Tell that to the bugs, the birds and the rain. Well now I can feel right at home with an app for my iTouch called Ambiance. I can be lulled to sleep by the soothing sounds of the subway, or cars, or people arguing on the street outside my window. Ok, I made that last one up, but the first two are for real. If I am feeling like I could use a little more nature in my life there are also the sounds of a stream, waves and a haunted wind. What could be more relaxing?
FFFFOUND!?
Are there any FFFFOUND! members out there who wouldn’t mind sending an invite my way?
Through The Viewfinder
I love these images from ScarletBeautiful2! They are wonderfully gritty and beautiful and have such personality. She uses one camera to take pictures through the viewfinder of another camera. I miss the old days in school back when we still used film and you could use your holga to get this same type of unpredictable results. It just so happens that I have several dozen old cameras on the property (did I mention the previous owner was a bit of a pack rat) and I can’t wait to give this a try. In the meantime I think I am going to put in an order. via
iamlizbeth.com 