Author Archives: Annie

About Annie

Welcome to the Curious Mind Garden. My name is Annie, and this is my little patch of cyberspace. I post about things that interest me, and I find a lot of things interesting. :)

365 Somethings Project: Week 3

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As I’m continuing to progress with this challenge while the rest of my life as a homeschooling mom of three on a hobby farm returns to our typical, chaotic pace, I’m slowly convincing myself that I can in fact complete this challenge. I am definitely enjoying the process at the very least. If I can just complete two more weeks, I will feel more than ready to commit my project goals and parameters to blog post and not look back.

This week, it feels as though I am getting in just under the wire. However, that’s still getting in, and I’m going to take that as success. My progress this week is as follows:

1. Rachel Reinert’s Color Workshop: Last week’s start on the burnishing project went from:

Rachel Reinert’s Color Workshop Burnishing Project in progress

to:

Finished burnishing project

 

This project taught me about layering color with wax-based pencils and, less directly,  about creating a color palette. Overall, I’m pretty pleased.

2. Ashley Cowl: I have to say this one was more of an exercise in patience this week. I was so delighted with my progress, only to look down and notice a glaring error which required laboriously removing about an inch of rows. As of tonight, I’m left with this, which I suspect is a zero net gain, but the error’s been corrected and shouldn’t recur. Truth be told, I learn so much more from my mistakes in knitting and crochet than I do from the parts that go seamlessly, so I guess that’s some consolation.

Ashley cowl – week 3

3. WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: The challenge word this week was “weathered.” I struggled with this one, but a quick walk out to the pastures on Friday to see if a predator was making our animals restless revealed ample subject matter. 🙂

4. Writers Happiness Challenge: A friend and I have agreed to support each other in this 30-day challenge, which takes just five minutes a day. The attraction for me is that this will allow me to create my perfect balance. I’m testing out a theory that I am happiest and most creative when I multitask between art, fiber art, and writing, rather than focusing exclusively on one. I am toying with the idea that multiple outlets helps to spur creativity in each.

Tonight, as I’m reviewing this week, I’m feeling a sense of frustration. I don’t feel like I’m creating anything of my own. That said, I am learning techniques and creating important habits, which should eventually lead to my own original work. I suppose a bit of patience is required.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Weathered

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This week’s challenge topic: weathered!

(And another hat tip to my friend, Pierr, whose comment made me laugh out loud when I really needed it this week. Be thankful creativity finally struck, and you aren’t looking at a pictures of my toes. 🙂 )

Knowie, feelng less than impressed with her modeling experience

Project 365 Somethings: Week 2

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(I’ve decided to post the purpose and parameters of my Project 365 Somethings when I’ve reached week 6. That way, I can refine the details and confirm my commitment to myself before announcing it here. However, if curiosity is killing you, I can say that my fellow blogger, Ihanna, suggested the challenge, and you can head over to Sweden and read what she proposed here.)

This week, I set a couple of goals for myself to have opportunities to infuse creativity into my day wherever I am.

1. Rachel Reinert’s Color Workshop: When working on this project, I discovered that I like to focus with good light and few distractions. Therefore, working at home in my office makes the most sense. Unfortunately, two-thirds of my homeschooling sons returned to their normal schedule this week, so I had far less time at home. That said, I still accomplished a little. I worked on Rachel’s burnishing project:

Rachel Reinert’s Color Workshop Burnishing Project in progress

 

At first, my internal critic immediately piped up that I hadn’t accomplished enough for this week . However, some of this challenge for me is about enjoyment, and, although I’d like to finish everything, I enjoyed what I did and I’m going to make the choice to focus on that.

2. Ashley Knit Cowl: If the Color Workshop is best accomplished at home, this little cowl project is perfect for portable creativity. It fits neatly into my backpack and the pattern is simple enough to accomplish in a noisy, distracting environment like my sons’ alternative school. Best of all, I get a lovely sense of achievement and the tactile and visual joy as the yarn runs through my fingers.

Ashley Cowl in progress

3. Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken with Potatoes and Mushrooms: I decided an easy and useful way to add a bit more creativity to my week could be as simple as dusting off one of my numerous cookbooks and trying a new recipe. This week I chose Lemon Chicken with Potatoes and Mushrooms, which was fairly quick and easy. I intended to take a picture of it when it finished in the slow cooker, but, with two male teens and one male preteen in my house, I was too late. Then again, I think that might say enough in itself. I did manage to get a photo before the adults took their portion, so I suppose that is something.

Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker

 

 

 

Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker: Lemon Chicken with Potatoes and Mushrooms

Whenever I make a new recipe, I follow it exactly the first time.  After that, however, I can’t help but start making it my own. In this case, I would switch from a whole chicken to chicken breasts to lower the fat and add broccoli florets and diced bell peppers in various colors to increase the variety of vegetables and add some color.

4. WordPress Weekly Photo Challenges: I decided to join the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenges because it nudges me to play with my Nikon D5000 and a handful of lenses. The topic of the challenge this week was growth, and I was pleased with how my entry turned out.

Overall, I’m generally happy with my progress this week, and I think happier for the 365 project overall.

Project 365 Somethings: Week 1

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I will write more about the details of this project in a few weeks when I’ve proved to myself I am going to stick with it. For now, however, I will record my progress.

Reinert’s Color Workshop

This week, I’m tackling Rachel Reinert’s Color Workshop: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Artistic Effects.

My goals with this book is first, to increase my enjoyment of coloring by being able to get depth and a better color schemes into my pages. A second, longer term goal is to improve my skills for my own art work and possibly for children’s book illustration.

Thus far, I’ve read through the first three of her four chapters covering tools, color theory, and techniques. While the tools were pretty familiar, the color theory provided an easy-to-understand review of basic color theory which I needed, and she included several techniques which I had not previously seen.

I am now working my way through her final chapter where she provides step-by-step instructions to get specific effects. The last part of the book contains coloring pages on which to follow her instructions. I’m really enjoying this. Here’s my first completed piece.

First Project in my 365 Project

 

 

 

 

Overall, a solid start to my project!

Review: Restore and Rebalance

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Product DetailsIn a stressful world, Judith Hanson Lasater gives the gift of deep relaxation through twenty yoga poses. In her book, Lasater provides very detailed instructions for preparing props to support each pose, entering each pose physically and mentally, and exiting each pose. Black and white photos further clarify the instructions to ensure correct postures, although it would probably be beneficial to practice with a partner to check each pose. Special advice for teachers follows each pose as well. In a final section, Lasater offers pose sequences based either on time constraints or particular concerns. Furthermore, a better teacher would be difficult to find, as, among her many accomplishments, Lasater co-founded Yoga Journal magazine and is President Emeritus of the California Yoga Teachers Association. Few would disagree that we live in stressful times, and Restore and Rebalance provides a wonderful antidote.

(Originally reviewed in exchange for a free of copy of book at Netgalley.)

Review: The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner

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The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner is the book every novice homesteader should be seeking. Anne Larkin Hansen divides each of the four seasons into an early, middle and late stage. She then takes the myriad tasks that a small homesteader faces in the garden, field, pasture, orchard, beeyard, barn, coop, shed, woodlot, and wildlife habitat and provides a workable schedule to tackle what should be addressed in each stage of each season. Furthermore, interspersed throughout the planner are useful articles and tables of information on various topics, along with charming pencil illustrations. To make matters even easier, each section opens with a summary page of seasonal priorities that includes space for the homesteader’s own notes. The genius of this book is that it brings together and organizes so many possible aspects of homesteading in one volume. Indeed, Hansen makes what at times feels overwhelming seem very workable. And, who knows? The backyard homesteader might even discover some new endeavors to try.

(Reviewed in exchange for a free copy of book via Netgalley.)

Project: Sourdough Bread

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I am, at heart, a California girl. I was raised in Gold Country, where tales of “Sourdough Miners” were part of my childhood, and trips to San Francisco could only be made better by clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl eaten on the open air as we dodged seagulls on Fisherman’s Wharf. In short, “sourdough” is synonymous with home for me.

I am guessing that is what has been behind my drive to learn how to bake sourdough bread since I moved to the Pacific Northwet almost four years ago. Yes, I can find some decent sourdough here, but something inside me has needed to make it myself. However, to paraphrase the old saying, if wishes were loaves, I would have opened a bakery by now. Truth be told, I am not a great baker. My husband is far, far handier with the oven than I am, while I am mistress of the stove and crock pot. Therefore, despite diligent efforts, I have failed repeatedly.

Until this past week!

I think the stars finally aligned for two reasons. First, this past January, I took a class on making sourdough at the Country Living Expo. There, I found a teacher who convinced me that ordinary mortals can actually do this and provided the class with a seven-day chart derived from a King Arthur Flour recipe to feed my starter and a basic sourdough recipe that she essentially swore we could not screw up if we followed the directions. (I would post a link to that recipe, but I can’t find the original source to give it proper attribution.) Second, I copped a sample of sourdough starter from my friend, Andrea at Farm and Hearth. Although I believe that you can create sourdough starter pretty much out of flour, water, and thin air, I had more confidence using Andrea’s starter since everything she touches seems to turn out delicious.

For the better part of a week, I worked at feeding my starter at the right intervals, then kneading and proofing. And this resulted!

Sourdough Bread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Probably more gratifying to me than the actual loaves is the fact the bread disappeared shortly after the picture was taken as my sons, husband and even diet-conscious mom consumed chunk after chunk. Indeed, my oldest and pickiest son, who would gladly exist on sugar and simple carbs preferably from a box, said that my bread was not only really good, but better than what we have been buying at the store. Now that is what I call a delicious victory!!

And So This Happened. . . .

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I love to knit and crochet, and I think the aspect that attracts me most is watching lovely colors and textures come together. So, when my friend invited me along to a 4H class to learn how to dye and spin yarn a year or so ago, I joined readily. I left the class even more curious but completely overwhelmed. Fortunately, the latter feeling rarely stops me.

Fast forward to last fall when a trusted fiber goat breeder offered some of her kids for sale for a price I simply could not resist. So, Purl and, a week later, her twin sister, Knit(wit), joined the family.

Purl (left) & Knit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since then, I have been tackling a pretty steep learning curve about fiber goats care and yarn spinning. (Hint: do not purchase young animals just before the wettest, most miserable winter on record for Washington.)  Indeed, one of my goals this summer is to process the two bags of fleece I sheered from Knit and Purl this past winter and spring into yarn.

Always being cost conscious, I decided very quickly that I would use the drop spindle method of spinning, rather than use a spinning wheel because a drop spindle can be bought for well less than $20, while spinning wheels run in the hundreds of dollars. Still, there was something intriguing about the lovely wheels. . . .

I’d put the whole matter to rest some time ago, when my husband asked me this week if I’d be interested in a wheel? Apparently, he spotted one in pictures of an estate sale happening this weekend. I jumped at the chance to at least look at it. And so this happened today:

Spinning Wheel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In one class I took on spinning, the instructor warned us to make certain that the wheel we purchased wasn’t just decorative, as apparently novices make that mistake and end up with a wheel that was never meant to spin. At the sale today, the cashier knew that the current owner had only used this wheel for decoration, but I suspected it might have been used for spinning by an earlier owner. So, we haggled a wee bit and settled on a price that was half the asking price and well less than one hundred dollars.

Closer examination at home has confirmed that this wheel was and can most likely be used for spinning, but it clearly needs a great deal of TLC. So, now I’m off to learn about the care, maintenance, and repair of spinning wheels. A new project is born!

Project: Lemon-Thyme Salt

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A few years ago, my husband and I spent our anniversary puttering around Napa Valley. We ended up at the Oxbow Public Market. While meandering the stalls, I discovered lemon-thyme salt at Whole Spice. It quickly became a favorite in my kitchen, particularly in stews.

When we moved to Washington, I carefully hoarded my small stash of salt because I knew I couldn’t return to Oxbow too easily. However, I finally ran out and needed to seek a new supply this year. Price made it impractical to purchase and ship it online, and I could not find it in our local spice shops. However, one merchant was kind enough to point out that it wasn’t that difficult to make myself. Eureka!

Using this recipe for proportions, I substituted table salt for coarse salt and skipped the mincing by hand in favor of using the Cuisinart to dice the thyme and lemon zest to a paste. And I ended up with this lovely jar in a few days. It smells delightfully lemony and amazing and comes with the added satisfaction of having made it myself.

Lemon-Thyme Salt