Busy B

So... apparently people like my necklaces enough to give me money for them. Which is neat. I have been heaps busy in making product, creating a flickr page, designing a business cars, and getting my etsy shop going. For some reason, the hardest part in all of this has been taking photos of my pieces :( I don't know what it is, but I just can't seem to motivate. I haven't even gotten to photographing my latest necklace (which is getting polemically mixed reviews) to get it onto etsy yet.

I am working on a cute piece right now which I think is going to end up as a hair clip, and then I am going to start my second commissioned piece for a friend of mine. My first commission for my mother, I ended up making 4 for her to choose from. I have 8 ideas for this next go, so we'll see how many actually make it. Then I have another piece in my head that I am dying to see made next. Unless I get side tracked (like I did with the cute hair flower).

In other news, Aion is released tomorrow for us nerdy people who bought it 4 months ago, and Scribblenauts came out 3 days ago and will be picked up on Friday when we start Aion.

In other, other news, my dogs are barking bastards and got us in trouble with the HOA of our condos so now we are having to get up at 5:30am to walk them, give them toys, raw bones, and puzzles, while leaving the TV on and keeping them locked inside the house all day, come home and walk them, and start training just to keep our asses out of court. They are worth it:

Happy B-day Eric!

For Eric's 24th, I made him a Horadic Cube plus all 33 runes from Diablo 2. I also tossed in a couple of gems and a bonus rune (and he also got a copy of The Moose with Loose Poops and homemade cinnamon buns instead of cake which I should have taken pics for the food part of this blog but I didn't.)

These first 2 shots show the images from the game along with the objects I made:

True nerds will pick up on the bonus rune right quick.

The cube is, of course, a box to keep the runes in:

Gratuitous close up:


Since this blog layout doesn't really allow for big pics, click on them for the decent size.

I made this in secret, carting paint, polymer clay, and gold leaf back and forth from work, working on it sporadically over the course of about a month, trying desperately not to get caught by the bosses (I got caught plenty, but luckily my co-workers aren't douchbags). We have a small toaster oven at work where I was able to cure the clay on the runes, but I had to wake up extra early on weekends to do the box itself and the decorative inlays to have them cooled and stowed by the time Eric got out of bed.

I also had to teach myself how to make a mold as I was remiss to attempt to make 5 design panels individually. Instead I only had to do it once, but in making the mold and then the panels, I ruined 3 of them before figuring out corn starch does shit-all for a release agent whereas plain old water worked great.

Part of the learning process led me to believe that there was no bloody way I was going to be able to make a cube by pre-baking panels and adhering them together, so I opted to cover a balsa wood pencil box I had laying around - this box was 10 years old and covered with dust and leaked ink and everything else you might imagine. I got the clay to stick by using liquid clay all over it, and then laying out rolled sheets of copper with black and red swirls, and then baking it. The lid (and the lip underneath that I didn't got a shot of) is just clay.

Octilove

Another completed creation!

I keep hesitating to call this a necklace, as it is quite big. Yesterday I referred to it as a throat friend to someone, and then I immediately broke out into laughter at the sheer naughtiness of that name. I am not going to lower myself to the level of cheese that "Bosom Buddy" would be, but I can't think of anything else, so for now, "huge-ass necklace" will have to suffice (if you have a better idea, tell me!)

Here is a shot of the way it hangs:


And a couple of closeups:


She is made almost entirely of polymer clay. There are 2 real pearls under the face area, and some glass beads that look like pearls in other strategic areas. The eyes are czech glass beads. Everything else though is all clay in custom colors I made.

smaller version I needed to upload for somethign else heee

I had a hankering for some chili a bit ago that didn't come from a can. I found a few recipes online that seemed to look OK, but not quite what I was looking for. Not enough hoit nor toit as Eric would say.

So I Frankensteined this meal together, and it worked (I am always surprised when things work as so many of my "brilliant" ideas are ass in the end - you see what I did there??). The buffalo and the yams were my own doing, and I had no idea if it would actually be decent. You can play around with the proportions and it will still work. I used about twice the amount of chili and jalapeno I listed below 'cos I like it spicy.













Crockpot Chili with Beans and Corn (and Yam and Buffalo and some other crap)
1 lb ground buffalo - pre cooked
1 can black beans
1 can kidney beans
1.5 c. garnet yams, cut up into bite size pieces
1 can whole tomatoes
1 cup of corn - grill or pan sear first
2 c. water
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 bunches chopped green onion
6 oz tomato paste
1 large fresh jalapeno pepper, chopped
juice of 1 lime
1+ TBS chili powder
1+ tsp ground cumin
1+ tsp ground mustard
1 tsp dried oregano
salt to taste

Toss everything into your crock pot and let it simmer on low while you are at work, or for 10 hours, whichever is longer. Presto. How freakin' easy is that?

I honestly don't remember what Eric had for dinner on the night(s) that I ate this. It would not be far from the truth to claim it was chicken strips from the Safeway deli though as we had to go to the store to pick up ingredients for this chili and strips are a standard buy.

Learning is an uphill battle

I am trying to teach myself how to use this polymer clay medium with only the internet and books to show me the way. I don't recommend this way of picking up a hobby. More than anything I want a mentor, or classes or SOMETHING to let me know I am on the right track. The only real input I have is from Craftster, a craft forum I have been visiting for a few years (Eric calls it Craft Porn as I sit there drooling while getting excited for hours on end).

I found a polymer clay guild in the South Bay that I am considering joining, just for the free classes. I guess beggars can't be choosers...

In any case, here is the product of a couple of weekends worth of tinkering around.

First is a dragon that I made following the steps in one of Christi Friesen's books:

I think he is awesome and I loooove the way the colors turned out, and his facial features. Pretty much everything. However, he is a face in the crowd. While my hands did it and the coloring and some decorations came from my brain, it almost feels like this is a CF piece and not somethign original that I did. Kinda like I cheated.

This next item is all from my brain, but I don't like it. There are some elements that I think are cool (the top-down koi, and the pebbles came out amazing - they look real), but I managed to make an item that wasn't my own taste. Can someone please explain how that is possible?


I posted the pictures of this vase on Craftster, and I got so much nice feedback it brought tears to my eyes (can you imagine - 1 person said they aspire to be able to make things like this, and another person said I have inspired them to try polymer clay! That is so amazing to me)
















I had a leftover flower - well, it was my crappy prototype really so I turned it into a barrette:


I had some good ideas come out of -what I consider - this failure of a project. I did some experimenting last night to see if I could accomplish what I had envisioned for part of it and I don't have the skills :( But I am going to see if I can do the project without all the elements Ii had in mind. I am waiting on a Donna Kato book right now, so maybe I will be able to figure out where I went wrong in my experimenting and I will be able to include all the parts of my idea .

Simplicity at it's finest

I go through phases of wanting very simple foods or making complicated meals - although, according to my office mate, anything more than take-out after a day at this office should be considered complicated.

I have a couple of super simple recipes to share in this post, all of which follow under the "I'll just throw in some of this, and a touch of that" category - ie, I had no idea what I was doing but the results were scrumptious. This ended up all being one meal, but it felt more like seperate dishes that I happened to all eat at once, not a coming together of great flavors into a cohesive plate.

First up, a refreshing melon salad, which I think can do just as easily as a side dish, or breakfast, or dessert. I found some melon I had never had before, canary melon, and santa claus, along with a seedless watermelon. The rind on the santa claus was so amazing looking! Both of these melons were super sweet, and were in the honeydew family of flavor. The canary had a lovely bit of tartness to it.

For this dish, all I did was squeeze some lemon over to give counter point to the sweet, and tossed in a small handful of fresh mint. The flavor combo was just delicious!
Next, some lovely baked chicken. I could only find a ginormous package of chicken thighs at the grocery the other day. I can't even remember what my original intent was for them, but a few days went by before I said to myself, "self, you best be doing something with all of that chicken because it is going to go bad and then it will be a waste". In the end, I decided I just wanted to get it cooked and I could have chicken salad sandwich, chicken on some sort of salad, maybe throw some chicken in some pasta salad (I'm now thinking that WAS my original intent), so I needed something mellow in flavor.

What I came up with was drizzling a casserole dish with olive oil, thick slicing an onion and laying those down, and topping the onions with the thighs. I went to my garden and picked some fresh rosemary, and added it to the pile with some salt and peper. Finally, I sliced a lemon and put that on top. The whole thing was covered by foil and put in a 350 oven for 30-45 minutes.

The resulting meat was extremely moist - almost too moist with a texture close to what I would expect had I boiled it, but with loads of flavor. the real surprise was the onions. I am not normally an onion enthusiast, but this dish made me change my stance on that. THey were sweet, and creamy (?!) and delish! I ate them all - and spent the rest of the night tooting, much to Eric's delight.

The final recipe follows the same ingredient list as my veggie salad from an earlier post, but add in pasta and feta.

Simple simple, very delicious, and in reviewing the ingredients, pretty good for you to boot.

On the night where I had this colorful cacophony of food, Eric dined on Top Ramen - chicken flavor. At least it was cooked this time. Of course, that is probably because I cooked it...

The crafting bug

has definitely hit me!

I am trying out polymer clay and so far so good. Well, so far, 50% good I guess would be more accurate. My first project was a turtle. You can search this post high and low for a turtle picture and you will find it lacking. This is because no picture exists as my turtle has a wicked case of the fugs. None-the-less, it is sitting right here being unloved, but holding down the fort in "My First Project"-ville.

My second project was to attempt to make a few jewelry pieces following Christi Friesen's tips and tricks. These turned out much better and to my liking! Voila:


I am aware that I have a long way to go. But - boy howdy - this is a fun material to work with. And my love of color is being totally met. I spent about 4 hours mixing the most gorgeous yellows and oxblood palette for a jellyfish the other day ... actually that is another post altogether once the jellyfish is finished.

I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP ON YOUS YET

I am just lagging behind. I have photos of delicious crock pot chili, and french butter, and a couple of ideas to kick off my craft section of this blog, but for some reason, nothing has made it here. I even went so far as to get a card reader so I wouldn't have to lug my camera upstairs to get the pics off it.

Well, I guess it isn't a single reason why I have been neglecting the blog. There are a couple of contributing factors:



1) EQ2 is going well! We have just about caught up to where we were before we quit last time. My wizzy is 66 as of last night and we have entered the Kunark era of playing. We found an awesome casual guild this is both supportive of newbs, AND raids casually - awesome, hard to pull off combo, but they have done it. Also wtf is with this "great" sig that Sony provides. Only my stupid knees are showing. Grats, programmy-dudes.

2) Plants Vs. Zombies is freaking AWESOME goodtimes fun and I am very distracted playing it in the bits of time between playing EQ2. I am so tempted to download it on my work PC to play it during "break"

3) Work has been really awful lately. I already wear 3 very different hats, and a 4th one, although temporarily, was added a couple months ago and it is just mentally exhausting. All I want to do when I get home is nap (if I haven't already in the car) and then zone out playing for a few hours before going to bed. Bonus factoid: since we work for the State of Broke-Ass California, we just got word that we will be getting an 8% paycut starting in August and lasting for at least a year, and more likely 2. This is on top of already "losing" out on our yearly 4% merit increase last year, and not getting it again this year. Double sucks that we work in the same place so our overall income is being hit, instead of just 1. Oh well, at least we have jobs still. Let's cross fingers that stays

4) consider this a preview to the crafty tag: I am picking up polymer clay again as a hobby (didn't I just explain why I had no time to blog and now I am talkign about starting yet another craft? ISSUES) There has been so many changes and upgrades to the medium since I last played with it. I am just SO enamored right now. I have loads of links, several books, and pretty much all the materials. Now I just need to sit down and DO something with it instead of pining over things online I see like these:

More soon!

Things worth reposting:

I've lost my wallet.

which really sucks. I almost wish it had been stolen - but no charges on the ATM tells me this is not the case. Somewhere, between buying coffee at 9am at work, and getting ready for work the next day it turned up missing. I don't even care that I have to go through a rigamarole to replace my drivers liscense and whatnot. My wallet itself was AWESOME:And now I have to wait 2 week s for a new ATM card in order a new one from Tinymeat and they take for freaking ever to deliver =( so sad...

Have you ever noticed there are food trends?

Lychee is the new pomegranite which was the new blood orange. I noticed these trends while going out to lunch around the city, seeing what odd fruits suddenly appeared in grocery stores, and noticing what the special martinis are on menus. There is one food item that has been a major trend on its own and seems to be taking over the internet: BACON

Oh lordy how I do love bacon. My husband also loves bacon. All my friends love bacon. Bloggers love bacon. Non-bacon food companies love bacon. Geeky gadget companies love bacon! People who don't necessarily want to eat bacon, love bacon! (by the way, all those underlines are different bacon links around the intertubes, enjoy!)

One of the most mortifyingly terrific bacon concoctions I ever came across is the Bacon Explosion. We made our first foray into bacon explosion creation back in March. I was not completely satisfied. I wanted to take it to another level, make it more our style. Enter the Ba-cake Bacon Explosion Breakfast Sandwich.

We took the basic, and I believe original, Bacon Explosion recipe found here. Instead of BBQ sauce, we used maple syrup. Another change, we baked ours in the oven rather than on the grill. Cook the loaf at 325 for about 45 minutes to an hour using a meat thermometer to check for doneness.

The peice de resistance is the addition of Ba-Cakes, a favorite invention we came up with a couple of years ago combining the best of breakfast foods. Precook a pack of bacon; half gets crumbled into pancake batter and cook the 'cakes as you normally would. Our Ba-cakes become the bread of our brekfast sandwhich, which is then genersouly topped (or sparingly drizzled inside) the completed sandwhich. VOILA.

Check out the rest of the pictures from putting this together here.

I think I should submit this badboy to thisiswhyyourefat... On the night this was made, one of our friends whined that he just couldn't eat this heart-attack-waiting-to-happen so I made him an omelette of whatever I had laying around at the time (spinach, shallot, red and yellow mini bell peppers if I remember correctly). Notice what ended up on his plate anyway. Men...

I love surprises

of all kinds. An example of this was when last year when Eric had my birthday present on the kitchen table in a gift bag and I wasn't even tempted to look before the actual day. Another example: I didn't get on the internet, turn on TV or listen to the radio when the final Harry Potter book came out until I had read the whole thing as I didn't want any surprises spoiled (granted I read the whole thing in 2 days, but that is totally not the point).

My love of surprises extends to food. When you can take a very simple dish like chicken salad (chicken, celery, green onions, parsley, poppy seeds), add one surprising ingredient (red grapes) and turn the dish into something spectacular, well, that's what cooking is all about.

My dinner tonight was Sonoma Chicken Salad. This is a dish that I failed twice to replicate. It is made at the deli counter of Bryan's fancy schmancy overpriced grocery in Laurel Village in San Francisco. After trying both sour cream and plain yogurt as the binding agent, we finally had to ask at the counter what it was. The clerk gave us a strange smirk when she informed us, "it's mayonaise". As far as I can figure, the sweetness of the juice from the grapes must counteract mayo-flavor 'cos you really can't tell.
Eric's dinner: nothing; but around midnight the crackers and E-Z Cheeze made an appearance.

Generally speaking, I don't like salad.

Specifically speaking, lettuce is a tasteless waste of my time. However, I love vegetables. This quanundrum has led me on a lifelong quest to find tasty combinations of veg + sauce.

Earlier today I got to thinking about edamame and how much I like it and so I concocted tonight's side veg, which turned out SO good.

The biggest downside:
Shelling all those GD beans! My fingers got all yucky and pruny and it was very upsetting (not really, I am just having a princess moment). I think that Trader Joe's actually carries pre-shelled soy beans, but Safeway does not and, alas, that is where I was shopping.

To the shelled edamame, I added sugar snap peas which I cut into thirds, and 2 cans of whole water chestnuts, which I quartered.

The dressing I also made up and didn't take note of amounts, but the ingredients - with aproximations - are:
Juice from 1 orange
1TBS fresh grated ginger
2 TBS chili ginger oil
Salt
2 tsp soy sauce
sprinkle of sugar as I over salted

Isn't the color gorgeous?! The yield on the sauce is very low, but you don't want your veg to swim; it's supposed to be a light coating of flavor.

OOH! And I have another helpful tip: freeze your fresh ginger! It is super easy to grate it when you need it and you get much more out of your root.

The other great thing I did tonight was my first try at risoto. I read and see so many warnings about how hard it is to make risoto, but I kicked that rice's ass tonight. Heavenly good stuff. I just made sure to stir every few minutes while I was shelling and dicing. I followed the Risoto Parmigiano recipe on Cooks.com for this.

To finish up the meal, I made a really simple broiled lamb loin chop. I rubbed the lamb with a garlic clove, spread on some olive oil, and added salt, pepper and dried majoram. This goes under the broiler for 4-5 minutes per side for a medium cooked chop. The lemon wedge is a necessity for flavor, not just a fancy schmancy prop for my photo. Although it does look dashing up there.



Eric's dinner: re-heated pizza

Neccesity is the mother of invention

and I needed dinner. After a killer day at work I had zero energy to get to the store. But the good news was my mental inventory of the left-overs from this weekends cooking bonanza got my creative juices flowing and thinking about what I could potentially construct into a delicious dinner.

I would say this was a French Provincial Omelet**, but as Eric pointed out, I pulled that description straight out of my ass and I have no idea what "french provincial" really means, although he did say the meal, "sounded both hoit and toit" so that's fairly satisfying.

For the egg mixture, I mixed 3 eggs with a dash of milk, and some S&P. I sprinkled chopped fresh herbs (thyme, tarragon, flat leaf parsley & basil) over the eggs once they had set up slightly in a well buttered skillet.

The filling is 3 kinds of chopped tomatoes that I briefly sauteed with red onion. You have to watch the tomatoes so they don't break down and you end up with marinara instead of fillings for a hearty omelet. Once everything was together, I tossed on some goat cheese and a little more S&P.

Quick interjection: one of the best tricks I ever learned about making an omelet is illustrated in the image above: put all the crap to one side so you can slide that portion onto your plate first, then use the pan / momentum of the rest of the eggs to flip the top portion closed over your filling. I know, I know... any moron could probably figure that out on their own, but it's a good trick! And apparently I am slower than a moron 'cos I never figured it out on my own.

Anyway.

I finished the dish by adding Extra Sharp Tillamok Cheddar on top of everything and waited until it melted with a little help of mother nature the microwave. At first I was afraid this might be overkill, but it really did finish the dish perfectly. The mixture of varying levels of tartness, the creaminess of the goat cheese, and the fresh spring flavor of the herbs made this really astounding - much more then I even really expected. I wouldn't change anything.

Eat with some toast to sop up any remaining juices MMMMMMmmmmmmm. Happy tummy!

Eric's dinner: a box of Pasta Roni.

** According to a very pesty friend of mine who lives in Hong Kong, has a French mother, a Brittish father, speaks fluid French, but despite all this sounds like he is from San Diego, says if I am going to call it French Provincial, I should spell it "French Provençale Omelette" since that is the 'proper' French spelling. He also said that my Omelette was, in fact, French Provencal as it was country style cooking, and no, said country did not refer to Texas. Whatever that means.

I am in an MMO limbo

which pretty much blows considering it's one of my four passions. The last two years or so has been a game of hopscotch jumping between free RPGs - which I invariably quit playing within a week or two - and resubscribing to pay games, most notable, LoTRO WoW and EQ2.

We just re-upped our EQ2 accounts (for the third time). EQ2 is a really superb game and I hope that I gain some of that obsessive mmo gamer attitude for it over time because it has been a long time since I have felt that. This time around I am playing an arasai wizard.

That is not my character and in fact looks nothing like her, but blogs are boring without pictures, imo. That is a picture of what is probably an arasai monk with premade wings that I pilfered from online. Last night, I rolled a gnome inquistor, and everyone who knows me knows I loathe gnomes, but Sony gave the option of Pipi Longstocking hair and I couldn't resist. I named her Gnugget.(update: Gnugget is no more)

One bad thing about going back to a game that has been around for 5 years is that a lot of people are already over it. The information (espcially found via forum posts) is years old and obviously out of date; web pages are no longer updated; UIs are not supported; yadda yadda. Oh well. All I can ask is that it holds my attention long enough for Aion to be released.

Queue epic publicity screenshots:



So yeah.. its really pretty and you can fly. But there is also all sorts of cool mechanics that I haven't really seen before and loads of lore if you are into that sort of thing.

Anyway, release date is set for "sometime this fall" which isn't the most accurate piece of information, but certainly gives me something to look forward to.

In other news, China's first sex theme park, aimed at improving both the sex education and the sex life of its visitors, has been torn down before it even opened.