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Wow

By on November 14, 2018 in Creativity

Hey.
I can’t believe I haven’t been here in so long.
I neglected this space, for a bunch of reasons you may or may not want to hear.
I just can’t believe it has been a full year. This is probably the longest I have gone, well, ever, since updating a blog.
I am here now to say I am going to try to be back.
I am working on a few different creative projects, and for some reason for these past few past years a personal blog just felt too personal. I just felt exposed and detached.
I have been going on twitter again, and am finding myself reading blogs again. Feels good, at least I think it does. What feels better though is being present in my life, and resting when I am tired, and cooking working cleaning and making.

Redundancy in I I I I I I but I I I I I I put so many obstacles in the way for too long, that I lost sense of who I I I I I I was. I am still working on it, and trying to funnel all my anxieties and doubts into creativity. AYYYYYE yi yi . … 🙂

I haven’t had an iPhone since May and you guys its BANANAS how much differently I had to learn to be PHYSICALLY as well as emotionally without that thing. They haven’t really been in our lives that long, we are the last generation to know functioning adulthood WITHOUT one, unless it is a choice that people make in the future, or a society that rises up without digital assistance.

I got burned though, you guys. Like really. Burned by people, burnt out by the process, and my brain fried from all the radioactive waves. Do you believe in that? I do. I know Shannon from RHOC does too.

Oh my gossssh I was creeping my own twit recently (okay that sounds really dirty lol) — anyway I clicked on the ‘Media’ tab and there is SO MUCH GOOD SHIT ON THERE, like my Vines!! I miss Vine and I do miss having a smart phone, dammit, that just made me think of it.

OH but there is this interesting revisit of a habit when I first started using the internet (hello 1998). Without having a cell phone I find myself often CHECKING OUT and CHECKING IN. It’s like I sign on and get to see everything that is there, and otherwise it’s just not an option. We have disconnected ‘devices’ that I can still use as a camera, and to use Instagram(when there is wifi), but I haven’t been on any other ‘app’ in so long.

If only there was an app/website where you could put up away messages. That would be stellar. Who wants to do it with me??

I literally just opened an article that holds this statistic, “Social media usage in the US has grown by from 7% to 65% in the last 10 years.’

Whaaat the.

Oh another thing about just now logging into WP, I miss writing code! I mean it’s very basic what I can do, and it’s all trial and error, but the classics, like BOLD, ITALICS, INSERT LINK, INSERT PHOTO, UNDERLINE .. that is my fucking jam, yo.

YO, I hear something kind of scary outside. Why so many weird noises? How do people live in pitch black areas, are they constantly scared of any and every noise? Oh it is probably the cat let me go look.

No it was the neighbor they showed up.. it’s gotten so cold here these past few days. I have to get all my winter stuff down. Haven’t been up to the beach in weeks. Why aren’t there free INDOOR PLAYGROUNDS, NJ?

Anyway, I gtg write, because I am writing so much more lately and it feels good.

my hutch

By on January 31, 2017 in Creativity, Interior Design

It is time to share the story of my hutch. Which wasn’t always my hutch. First, it belonged to my Great Grandmother, in her home in Elizabeth NJ. Then it was passed on to my Nana, then she passed it on to my Mom (it was in our kitchen growing up), and she eventually passed it on to me, when I moved to my second apartment in Philly.

It eventually came to Brooklyn with Joe and I. It didn’t fit up our first apartment steps (we found this out the hard way ..of course) – so it went back to be stored at my dad’s for a year.. when we moved into our second apartment, the hutch fit through the door… hooray!

After all these movings and all these different owners and locations, the hutch had been worn and torn. Something banged into one of the doors when we moved out of New York, so we had shattered glass on one of the doors, and the sides were scratched and damaged from tape and trucks and years of use.

It’s solid oak, with beautiful details. We got both of the doors re-glassed at Toms River Glass ($37.00) – and then got to work! I purchased a quart of a high quality Benjamin Moore paint, in a pearl finish ($20.00) – washed the entire hutch down with soapy water, let it dry, sanded it, wiped again, let it dry, and then got to painting.

The doors came off the bottom portion (I spray painted the hinges black) – I decided to leave some of the original details raw and natural. This piece has such special corners and curves that I couldn’t bare to sand them! .. I also left the knobs original, because they were so worn in from the hands of my family. They needed to stay that way.

While I was at it, I also dragged an old telephone table out and quickly sanded and painted that the same color. It needed a new life desperately that I almost didn’t want to include the photo of it because its so ragged looking! How did I let that thing hang in my home for so long!?

There was a LOT of cutting in, so this job took me an entire day, into dusk. I listened to the majority of the first Serial podcast. I am so pleased with the way it turned out. My last desire is to go back to the glass place and get three pieces of mirror to affix to the back of the interior of the hutch. I thought about painting it a light pink or a white, but I just think mirror would complete this piece.

What do you think!?






Update – Here are some photos of how it looks currently. See how dark? I need mirrors to reflect all the light. Also, check out that telephone table, upgrade – eh?



Naturally Dyed Eggs

By on March 30, 2016 in Creativity, Food

I am obviously a little late to any Easter related post. But, in my defense, we eat hard boiled eggs year round in these parts, so I excuse myself. Every year when I dye my eggs, I think … this is so easy, why don’t I dye them all the time? Just for fun? I’ve always thought it would be a cute way to get children to eat those protein packed snacks .. got a little girl who loves all things pink? Make her special pink eggs. You can make something really good for you(or them), really fun, really easily. Just a thought. Onto the project ~

I did some naturally dyed eggs with what I had in my kitchen already. So, we’re talking red cabbage and turmeric, which gave me blue and yellow eggs. We had already hard boiled a dozen white and a dozen brown eggs, so I experimented a bit to see how the color would turn, using six of each.

With the brown eggs, the cabbage ones turned a little too gray (not happening next year) and the turmeric turned them a darker version of the brown eggs they started out to be (but with a little orange tint, again, not happening next year) — You can expand your palette with beets (for pink) and spinach (green) and onion skins (purple). Needless to say, next time I plan on using all white eggs.

It’s so easy, too. Follow my instructions, please, because if you look it up you will find about 10 more steps that I really don’t think are necessary. Unless you like to make more dishes and complicate things, which I do not! Have fun .. and enjoy that egg salad! 😉

What to do:

1) put dye source into saucepan with cold water
(I chopped some cabbage* and used about 4 tbs of turmeric)
2) bring to a boil, lower, simmer for 15-20 minutes
3) use slotted spoon to remove any vegetables
4) let mixture and eggs both sit to reach room temperature (20 minutes)
5) mix 1 tablespoon white vinegar for every cup of water
6) submerse your eggs in your mixture
7) cover, put pots in fridge, let sit anywhere from 2 hours to overnight**
8) remove eggs gently with tongs, place back into egg crate, let dry completely
9) enjoy!







* I used a quarter of a head of cabbage (and cooked the rest for dinner!)
** mine sat overnight, for time reasons, which also gave me deeper colors

PS- in previous years I wrapped string around the eggs before dying to create a fun striped effect. Next time, I might rotate the eggs in the mixture half way through dying to avoid the spots on the egg where you can tell they were resting on the bottom of the pot.

PPS- with all this vinegar (between the actual hard boiling process and then the dying), these eggs peeled like a dream!

PPPS- EGG SALAD!!!!

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