Dreaming awake

I’m so tired. I’ve been having nightmares all week, and am wondering how long they will go on. Since I get up later and get home from work later than I used to, my new routine is to flickr and blog and browse the internet in the mornings, but this morning I can’t even think of something good for lunch, much less anything else. I love the quiet of the morning, though, don’t you? I went jogging and to yoga yesterday for the first time after being sick, and I think that’s another reason I’m so tired this morning. I also inexplicably have the word “tenterhooks” lodged in my brain. I wonder what that’s about?

I can’t believe this month is going so fast. It’s Thanksgiving next week already. And then it will be December in a blink. I got a look at a printed proof of the holiday card I designed for my company this week, and keep thinking I need to put the finishing touches on my personal holiday card and get envelopes and make sure my mailing list is ready. And I still haven’t put the fake spider away from Halloween. Everything’s up in the air.

Some sewing

I sewed! I’m pretty behind on the last couple of quilt squares for Twelve Square, but I put this one together a couple of weeks ago. Log cabin. Nice and easy. Creams and whites. For Katie. I added the white check and a vintage floral sheet fabric. Now I can send it off. I hope she likes it!

Coming out of the dark

It’s been a whole week since I’ve posted in this space, and I think that’s the longest I’ve ever been away. I think. Partly it was due to the fact that I got H1N1 flu, and was sick as a dog for 4 full days, and then my husband got it and was sick for the rest of the week and I was getting him water and orange juice and making sure he didn’t die from the 103 fever he had on and off for half of the sickness. The other part is due to the job that I’ve been going to for a couple of weeks now, which is actually keeping me busy! And engaged! And I’m tired when I get home and haven’t had much to say. And both of those things also aided in my not processing any photos for a week and a desire to sink into the couch at any given moment and just watch movies. Or Weeds. I watched the first two seasons of Weeds and I can’t believe I haven’t tried watching it earlier because I loved it. Although now season 3 isn’t on the demand list on Netflix so I have to do it the old fashioned way and wait for it to come in the mail. But I suppose that’s ok because I have it on good authority that the first two seasons are the best anyway.

So anyway. Flu. Work. Tired. That’s been pretty much it for the past week. So you haven’t missed much. I’m finally starting to feel better now. I still have the cough, and I hear it sticks around. And thank you for your well wishes. They really made me feel better, too.

I’m hoping to find a groove here with my new schedule (not to mention start visiting the blogs I love to visit again), and start making stuff again now that I’m not deathly ill. And I put a button in the sidebar for the shop, where there are calendars to be had!

The sickness cometh

The first week at the new job went well. And now I am sick. Ugh. I don’t know if it’s H1N1 or the regular flu, but it’s the flu, and it’s horrible. I’m on day 3. I’ve watched alot of movies. Today was The Motorcycle Diaries and Helvetica. And to boot, it’s been really warm this weekend, and I haven’t been outside to enjoy any of it. I keep wanting to compare it to the seven levels of hell, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s a real thing or something I’m making up. But I keep going back and forth between horrible and not so bad and back to horrible, which doesn’t seem quite fair.

It’s also Words to Shoot By day, and there is a new grouping of images over there. The word this week is Gather, and I was tickled by the way we all interpreted that photographically. Do go look. I think I may stay on as a contributor for awhile.

I’ve got lots of photos to process and upload, but just don’t have the energy for tags and stuff, so that will have to wait. I think I need to go take a nap.

‘Roid Week

It’s roid week! And I’m a little late to the party cause this week has been BUSY! But I’ve been taking more polaroids this fall than really every before, and I wanted to share a couple that I seem to never have uploaded to flickr. There are these leaves, of course.

And have I ever told you about my love affair with old volkswagons? When I was 16 I almost bought an old baby blue one as my first car. And now, thinking about it, I think it might have been too much trouble for my teenage life. But it would have been cool. Someday I’ll get me one of these vintage beauties. Or a Kaarmen Ghia. Love.

I’m printing and mailing calendars this morning before I head to work, and thinking about holiday gift tags. I can’t wait for the weekend. What are you doing today?

This one’s a doozy

I highly recommend this soup. Not because I made it. Not because I made it up. But because it’s good. And maybe a little scary, which makes it even better when it tastes delicious. A bit of a feeling of anxiety when making something always seems to make it better when it turns out well, don’t you think?

I purchased a couple of celeriac bulbs a few weeks ago, and thank goodness they last awhile in the crisper, because I didn’t use them right away. I did the same thing last fall and never used them, and sort of couldn’t forgive myself for that, so I really wanted to try this time around. I wanted to make celeriac soup. I also happened to have purchased some parsnips as well, because they looked pretty, and I wanted to buy them from a farmer since the ones at the store that are always oddly covered in wax creep me the heck out. So, celeriac and parsnips. Seemed like they could go together in soup. Even though I’d never tasted celeriac. No matter, I pushed on.

I wrote a recipe up including onion and celery seed, but I had leeks instead so I used those, and realized at the last minute that I didn’t have celery seed. I’m leaving it in the recipe, though, because the one I based it on called for it, and next time I make this, and there will be a next time, I’m going to make sure I have it on hand.

Celeriac and Parsnip Soup
(improvised)

1 tbsp olive oil
3 oz pancetta, sliced into thin strips
1 large onion (or 2 leeks)
1/2 c chopped celery
1-2 cloves minced garlic
2 large heads celeriac, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2-4 medium sized parsnips, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
approx 32 oz chicken or vegetable stock, or however much you need to get the consistency you want
1/2 c white wine
1/4 tsp celery seed (or celery salt, in a pinch)
freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
cream, half and half or milk

In large stockpot, heat oil and saute pancetta until crispy. Remove and reserve. Saute onion and celery until soft. Add garlic and heat for a minute, until fragrant, then add white wine and cook until the wine is reduced by half. Add celeriac, parsnips, stock and celery seed and simmer over low heat until the vegetables are tender. Puree the soup until very smooth. I use a stick blender. If you use a food processor or blender, puree in small batches as hot soup expands. You will need to add a considerable amount more stock at this point, because the vegetables make the soup very thick when you puree them. Season with salt and pepper, nutmeg and lemon juice. Add a glug of cream or half and half or milk, or whatever you have, to achieve desired conistency. Serve with reserved pancetta and sour cream.

Enjoy!

Calendar time

I finally got my 2010 calendar design finished, printed, and loaded into the shop this weekend! It’s a few weeks later than some other calendar offerings, but there are still two months until the year turns over, so that seems like plenty of time.

Each month features one of my photographs that I’ve taken right about that time of year, a clean, simple design, and is printed on nice heavy 100% recycled stock. I like super heavy paper with personality, that you can throw if you wanted. And each page is printed on both sides, to be even more eco friendly.

It feels good to have gotten this designed this year, since last year I was so busy getting my portfolio together that christmas and calendars took a backseat. In addition to the calendar, there are a few new polaroid prints available. Go check it out! I’ve also got a collection of holiday cards almost ready as well, and I’ll let you know when those are good to go! I hope you enjoy the winter collection in the pricklypearbloom shop!

The soup list

I made apple crisp this weekend with the last few apples that were starting to get kind of sorry on the kitchen counter. For some reason I don’t know where my mom’s recipe went for this, so I looked it up online, and then the betty crocker recipe didn’t seem like it had enough butter or sugar in it for whatever disjointed-tracy reason, so I increased both, and it turned out kind of melty and soupy. But it was still yummy, so whatever. I need to make a note to find the recipe I have written down and transfer it to the recipe book on my computer.

Also, my soup waiting list is LONG. I’ve got a big batch of minestrone in the fridge that I made to use the chard that we had to take out of the garden. Which is good. But I think it needed to simmer a little longer. And I have a couple of ugly knobs of celeriac rolling around in the crisper, and some parsnips that seemed like a good idea at the farmer’s market a couple of weeks ago, so those need to get made into soup, too. At the same time, I’m craving chili and chicken soup like nobody’s business, and while I was thumbing through my soup file after a friend asked after something for butternut squash, I came across a recipe for (I think) black bean and squash soup. Or it could have been something else but the point is that it sounded so crazy good and I totally want to make it right now. I think my love for soup has transcended what is physically and emotionally possible to make for one’s small family. Perhaps I need to throw these in a hat to choose.

Today is my last day at my job before I go be what I wanted to be when I grow up. My last day of so many many seven years worth of days that seemed so long and now seems, well, still long, but in a freaky OVER kind of way. I’m excited and super nervous at the same time, and really freaked out over the fact that I won’t ever walk these halls again, likely, and although that is exactly what I want, it feels so STRANGE. It definitely feels like the end of one life and the start to another, in a way. But there are doughnuts, so that takes a bit of the edge off.

Smiling

Thank you, Sarah, for posting this. It made me smile. It’s too good not to put here, if not just to save it for future me, maybe.

Words

Today is the last day of a little staycation I’m taking, a really long weekend before I start my new job. A few days to recharge, regroup, organize the closet. I’m hoping to get to that today. It’s been pretty nice, although it rained for 48 hours straight on Thursday and Friday, but I had lunch with a couple of friends, and it’s lovely to get to do that on a weekday for a change. Today it’s cloudy and kind of dark, and I’m relishing the candlelight and the cats draped over me as I write this. I think I might have apple crisp for lunch.

I was so happy to be invited to contribute to Words To Shoot By for the next couple of rounds. Words To Shoot By is a biweekly photo collaboration between four girls, each of whom puts together their own photography triptych based on a word. This week that word is “Evening.” As much as I love diptychs and triptychs, I guess I tend to forget to put images together this way, so this is a nice challenge for me. And as the days grow shorter this autumn, evening is more often the time of day that I have available to shoot, so this word is so timely. Go have a look at what Steph, Robin, Kristy and Heather, as well as the other guest contributor, Claire, have put together to visually describe evening, and browse back in the archives as well. It’s such a cool group of work. Thanks ladies, for inviting me to play along!