Sculpture!

I made a little bolts and nuts and wire bird the other day at work. Timmy took some amazing photos of it. You should check out his latest photos!

Yay! Weekend!

I had a rather nice weekend. I was slightly discombobulated and did a few silly things that only I can do...but lets overlook that, shall we?

Yesterday, Timmy had his last final. We woke up and took Navi for a walk to the grocery store so that I could get buttermilk and satisfy yet another craving for waffles. When we got home, Timmy studied a little bit more while I made waffles. Then we enjoyed the waffles. After that, we biked over to REI so that I could pick up two new badly needed tires for my commuting bike. The clerk asked Tim if he was on east coast time because he looked so tired. It was around 11a! I said that I was the one who would be on east coast time, since I had just returned from Florida. Silly Timmy.

After that, Timmy biked to campus to take his final, and I pedaled home. I went to replace my tires, and I definitely had a few Perry moments. These tires were kind of hard to get onto my wheels so I spent a good amount of time struggling to get the tire on the wheel. Then I got the inner tube in, and spent another good portion of time getting the second side of the tire on. Then I realized I'd gotten the rotation wrong...so I had to do it all over again. Then, of course, I realized the rotation was correct the first time...so I had to do it again. I got the rear tire done..put it on my bike, and started on the front tire. This went without as many problems ... and then I popped the inner tube while putting the tire on. So I had to do it again.

After a long dysfunctional amount of time, my new tires are on my bike and doing very nicely. I decided to make my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough. I had another Perry moment when I managed to put in a very small amount of the flour mixture before I put the eggs in! Argh! It was a small amount, so I mixed in the eggs, then the vanilla extract. I then finished mixing in the flour mixture until just blended. I was nervous that the batter would be dry because of the first portion of flour being overmixed...but we'll have to see! Right as I put the dough in the fridge to stand, I got the missed call from Timmy signaling that it was time to meet him at the BART station! So I pedaled on over with my new shiny tires, and when I arrived, Timmy commented on my new shiny tires. When I started to describe the insane amount of trouble I had putting the tires on, he immediately asked whether I had gotten the rotation wrong. Right on target, bub. We rode the BART into the city while poring over discover magazine and bicycling magazine. Then we traded magazines, and read some more. When we arrived at the first stop in the city, we walked out and I saw the arts fair! I was so excited, and of course, I had to go poke around!! We wandered around all the tables and while we saw a few neat things, nothing much really piqued my fancy. There was a cute large pottery bowl with a fish on the bottom...but I have no use for it. I was ready to leave when Tim stopped at a candle table. I followed him over, and sniffed every candle on the table. I really liked the orange clove candle because it reminded me of the holidays. A lot of people stick whole cloves into oranges around the holidays. It was a nice scent, yet not cloying like cinnamon or other holiday candles. The candlemaker told me that the design of the candle was inspired by the aurora borealis...and I had to buy it because I work for a company called aurora! Funny thing is the candlemaker started out as a mechanical engineer...then went into industrial design..and now he's in fine arts!

Timmy and I then wandered over to chinatown and had a meal of dumplings. Some were delicious. Some were less so, but still quite scrumptious. There was one that made me want to cry.

After dinner, I got a coffee at Starbucks, and we wandered around waiting for dusk to fall. Timmy wanted to take some night photos, so we meandered over to a bright red Christmas tree that we had seen on our way through Chinatown. He took photos...and some more photos...and eventually I sat on some stairs and daydreamed for a while until he was done. He came clamoring over to me a long time later delightedly showing me photos, and we started moseying around again. At some point, I decided that I wanted to go to Williams-Sonoma and then of course when we were there I fell in love with a cookbook, and wanted it. It is a big cookbook for weeknights. I love to cook, but I seem to tire myself out so much cooking elaborate meals every weeknight. I needed some simpler recipes that didn't sacrifice in taste or imagination and this was it! So I got it. While we were walking back to the BART station, Timmy took me into Sur La Table, too, so I could see where he had taken his knife skills class. Then we wandered home. Timmy went to a ugly sweater party, and I was lazy and entertained myself at home with the dog.

This morning, I made some more waffles, and then I decided that we would walk the dog to the beach with our glass beadmaking supplies, and make some beads! We packed up, wandered over, and set everything up! Timmy looks at me and asks for a glass rod...and oh no! Silly Perry moment three! I had forgotten the most important thing of all!! ...So we wandered home instead. When we got home, I made a grocery list and we went grocery shopping. Then I baked my cookies that I had made yesterday.

They managed to escape the curse of being dry as a result of overmixing. Phew! After that, I tried making some expresso caramel. It was a very simple recipe. You simmered a cup of heavy cream, a tablespoon of instant expresso powder, and half a teaspoon of salt. I got my salt from my new salt bowl that I got at Annie's Pots in Princeton, IL when I was visiting my sister over Thanksgiving!

After you brought that mixture to a simmer, you added a cup of honey! Then I got to use my new candy thermometer and I simmered the mixture until it got up to 258 degrees F! Then I put it in the fridge to cool off a little and now it is spread across a piece of parchment paper. It is still setting, so I will see how that is later!!

After all this, I still wasn't done! I started making some Potato and Gruyere Tartletts from my new cookbook for dinner! Timmy got to demonstrate his new knife skills. First he cut up a potato in thin slices!


Then I had him cut up an onion!


After that, we grated the gruyere cheese!


I got some puff pastry ready by cutting halfway through the dough 1/2" from the border and stabbing the inside with a fork!


Then I loaded the puff pastry with the onion, potato, olive oil and rosemary mixture!

I baked them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I also made us some green beans. Dinner was delicious! Yum!

Looks like this cookbook is going to serve me well.

I got a chance to talk to my dad online today. I was telling him about the cookbook I had bought and how I really want to find more manageable meals for the week. I cook and cook and cook and then tire myself out and don't want to cook for a week. He managed to convince me to get my hands on yet another cookbook. This one is called the New York Times 60 Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey. My dad says it has an entre and a side dish on every page. He told me so many good things about it that I bought it off amazon in a heartbeat!! Every single cookbook that my dad has recommended has led me down a path of amazing food, so his opinion is one I have a high respect for. I am excited for the new cookbook to come!!

Silly Navi

A while ago, Tim and I got a steamer to clean our carpet with. It was really, really loud, so I tried to tie a shirt around Navi's head so that she couldn't hear it as well. In the end, Tim and Navi ended up vacating while silly deaf me steamed the carpets unable to hear a thing. I just found this photo I took of Navi and it made me laugh. Enjoy!

While we're on the topic of steamers and carpet stains, let me tell you something. Don't ever spill laundry detergent on the carpet. I don't know how it happened. My story is that Tim left a laundry detergent bottle sideways on the carpet. Tim's story is that I didn't put the top on correctly. The real story is probably both of our stories but lets put that aside. It took us probably 45 minutes or more to get the laundry detergent stain out of the carpet. It would not go away. We steamed it and it just suds up some more and refused to leave. If we ever buy a house, I'm ripping all the carpet up.

Salt and Pepper Grinders!

I got some salt and pepper grinders! Tim and I went to Sur La Table on 4th street to get a candy thermometer, and I saw these! I've been looking at Peugot Salt and Pepper grinders for a while now, and I've really wanted freshly ground pepper! So I caved, and now I own them!!!

Vero Beach!

For work, I had to travel to our site in Vero Beach, Florida last week. I flew out on Wednesday December 9th on a 6am flight, and got home on Wednesday December 15th. All my planes got really screwed up. When I got to SFO on Wednesday morning, I discovered that the plane had suffered a mechanical failure and was delayed an hour. Then it was delayed another hour. Then I had no chance of making my layover. The airport people were quite kind and they rescheduled me on a different flight. So I had to be sleepy and tired at SFO for quite a few hours before I even got to take off. Then I landed in Charlotte...and my next plane was stuck somewhere in the northeast storms. So I got to sit around in airports quite a bit that day. It wasn't as terrible as I thought because I had a good book to read, the airports all had free internet (thanks Google!) and I basically slept the entire plane rides. When I finally landed in Orlando, it was almost 10p and I still had to drive 2-3 hours to Vero! I was so tired when I arrived and I passed out on the bed. The return flights home were also delayed...but at least I got home!

Work was really tiring. We worked dawn to dusk, almost every day. I did get a nice break on Sunday though when the guy I was working with declared that he wanted to spend the day with his children. I couldn't do the work alone, so I went to my hotel and did some analytical work instead. After a while I felt that I deserved a little break too. So I went for a walk, and stumbled upon a little arts fair!

I wandered in, and the first thing my eyes saw was not art, but a DOG. A fuzzy, pleased looking rottweiler. I had been missing Navi something awful, so I went over and asked his owner if I could pet the dog. The owner was fine with it, and I must have hugged and kissed and played with the dog for 10 or 15 minutes. The owner asked if I was traveling and missing my own puppy, and I almost cried when I exlaimed, 'yes!' He was an older man sitting on a bench, so we had a nice conversation while I pet his dog. We talked about planes, mechanical engineering, foreign languages, Germany, art, dogs, and everything in between. It was a very nice conversation, and after a while I set off to wander around the art fair. I didn't really like many of the paintings, but I found this one pottery stall where everything was as bright as metal. It was called Raku. What you do is you make a pottery bowl or plate or anything. You glaze it with a compound that has metal in it. Then you fire that in a kiln and get it to 1800 degrees F. You remove it from the kiln, put it in a metal bucket full of newspaper or another combustible. The heat of the pottery lights the newspaper on fire, and you cover it with a lid. This creates a thick noxious smoke which brings out the luster in the metal. So the end result is a piece of pottery that shines like metal. I fell in love with a swirled bowl that shone like copper. Then I bought it.

I wandered off and found another pottery stall. This was more standard pottery, but it was nicely done. The older man was really proud of his work. As I wandered through his stall he would proudly declare, "I made that!" every time I picked something up. I felt terrible when I considered leaving without buying something. I found a mug I liked...so I bought it. Then he threw in a free toothpick holder! I actually hadn't noticed the toothpick holder and it's cute. It's got a lot of pizazz, and it's not perfect, so I love it even more.


After that, I wandered back to the hotel. I visited an ice cream store on the way. Then I went back to the beach. A boy accidentally skimboarded into me. While he was apologizing, I asked if he'd teach me to skimboard. So I got to learn to skimboard, and I had a few funny falls!

While I was in Vero, I found this little cafe called the Red Onion. It is fabulous. They had this grilled asparagus sandwich that put me in a permanent state of delight. It was on 8-grain bread with parmesan cheese, tomatos, grilled asparagus, grilled onions...and a honey key lime sauce. It was absolutely phenomenal. Later in the week I also had their bruschetta sandwich, which was almost as amazing. It is nice that I have finally found a place to enjoy the food while travelling for work to Vero.

Vero ended up being a pretty good success. I got what I needed done in the time I had. It was the first time I had been sent to Vero without being micromanaged, and it was the first trip that didn't end up in absolute catastrophe. A pat on the back for me!!!

Fused Glass!

Following the rousing success of taking a glass beadmaking class, I decided to take another! I've been seeing so many fused glass beads at crafts festivals and gosh, I love them all! I decided to take a fused glass class at the Stained Glass Workshop on 4th street, and today was the day! Timmy came along once again to interpret for the beginning. He had a lot of work to do, but he took a portion of his day to make my class easier for me.

The class was a lot different than the first class I took. The first big difference was that the teacher gave you a brief overview of the skills, and then let you free. In the first class, the teacher would teach you one skill, let you try it out, then call you back to teach you the next skill. In retrospect, both teaching methods worked perfectly for what was being taught. The techniques that we learned in the first glass beadmaking class require skill that you only get through lots of practice. Alternatively, fused glass seems simpler. You basically cut up sheets of glass and assemble them with glue before you stick them in a kiln to fuse them together. It still requires lots of practice to know what looks good and what doesn't, but anyone can make a fused glass bead. It just may or may not look pretty. There are two types of glass fusion; a tack fuse, or a full fuse. A tack fuse requires a lower temperature in a kiln, and the pieces of glass stick together, but don't meld together. A full fused piece is brought to a higher temperature in the kiln so that the entire piece of glass becomes one big piece of smooth glass. You have three tools, really...if you don't include glue. The first is a glass cutter. It has a little blade and you run it across the glass to score it. Then you use your second tool, which is kind of a ...set of pliers with one raised line. You put the line on the score, and then squeeze it together, and it makes the glass break along your scored lines. This works well for straight lines and slight curves. Then you have this interesting little scissor-ish tool where you can kind of hack whatever shape you want. It doesn't work very well. You end up with lots of sharp little shards. Then you end up with lots of little cuts, and lots of blood everywhere.

So once you give up the idea of making that perfect circle, or that perfect squiggly shape you had in your mind, fused glass is pretty fun. You can't fuse glass side by side, so you have to build in a tower like design. I mostly made small beads, but then I tried to make two coasters, too. One is lots of fun colors, and the other has a christmas tree! They couldn't fuse them while we were there, so I had to pick up the fused glass beads after I returned from Florida. I've included pictures of what I made here! To get these pictures, I had to use Tim's macro lens and Tim's tripod. We had to set the tripod so high up that I had to stand on a chair and I almost fell over.

Ultimate!!

After a lot of deliberation, I finally joined an ultimate frisbee league. I've been really missing a team sport, yet I wasn't happy with pickup. I found out about a lot of different pickup times and locations, yet every single time I planned my day around them, I'd arrive to find 2 or 3 people there. I really don't want to have to put Navi in daycare or rush around taking her for exercise only to show up with an hour free for an ultimate game and nobody's there. It got really irritating, and I stopped even trying.

Then I found this winter ultimate league that takes place really close by. It was pretty cheap as far as ultimate leagues go, and it was a draft league. You don't need a team; you just sign up and are drafted onto a team. So I signed up...and goodness...what took me so long?

Tonight was the first game, and I got home absolutely euphoric. I missed the game so much. I missed the wonderful spirits of the people who play the game. I missed meeting new people, playing with new people, sharing stories with them. My team is wonderful. Everyone is really happy. They all play very hard, yet don't get upset if something goes wrong. I'm really glad I've started playing again.