Dear Tif aka Dottie Angel, I have a confession

First of all, before we get to my thriftiest of thrifty addictions, I must say that my heart leapt with joy at the opportunity to win your most lovely 'ordinary extraordinaries' vignette. I must have been so dumbfounded by the prospect of receiving such a beautiful prize that my brain melted out my ears a bit, and I truly had it in my addled mind that your little contest ended on Sunday.

Imagine my sadness to read that you had chosen a winner yesterday, (Oh drats!) when I had been scheming for my 'dottie-angel-esque' confessional post ALL. WEEK. LONG!

No matter. (((Sniffle))) I'll bite my lip to stop it from trembling, be brave and forge on! For you've inspired me to look within and confess my deepest, darkest thrifting obsession...

Anyone who has been reading my blog for some time would know that I hold in high-esteem what I like to call the HOLY TRIUMVIRATE OF ACCESSORIES. I am very rarely seen in public without at least one, if not all three elements in my ensemble. They are:

Over-sized sunglasses



Big earrings




and the root of my closet disorganization/my addiction...
SCARVES
My name is Sarah, and I am a scarf-a-holic.







There, I said it!

I do not discriminate against wearing scarves in warmer weather though...I'll wear knit, jersey, new vintage, handmade, silk! My particular poison is with the combination of vintage+silk.

It started out innocently enough. .50 cents here, .99 cents there. Vintage silk scarves were to be found everywhere, pretty and cheap...calling to me "TAKE ME HOME!" from their prison cells, mixed into caged bins with single gloves, patchwork leather purses from the 80's and loose belt buckles.

I take moments like these as my cue to gently take a corner, slide the scarf out from it's entrapment, rub it softly against my cheek and say "Don't worry pretty one. You kind of smell like an over abundance of grandma perfume now, but I will take you home, give you a bath, then take you out on the town!"

This is a scenario that has played out in thrift stores all over New England.

I knew my addiction had reached a new level when I saw this lovely on Ebay.

"$9.99!" my angelic conscience gasped, "I could never! I usually pay no more than a dollar for a silk scarf!"
"But look at the pretty colors!" my inner thrifty-devil retorted.
"Plus shipping it would be almost $15!!!"
"But it's Vera."
"..."
"Orange and teal, vintage, beautiful, silky Vera."
"..."
"I'd bet you pay much more than that for a new couture scarf at a department store!"
"Sold."

So, I bid. And I won. Of course I did, what other lunatics would be out there spending $15 on a 23" square of material!

The precious was mine!!! Mine!!!



How many scarves do I have you ask? Just as you, dear Tif, counted your stools for your confession post, I counted my silk scarves as well.

31

31 silk scarves live in my closet, as well as countless knit and jersey scarves and a healthy collection of bandannas and kerchiefs.

I have even started to rub off on my fur-babies.



I have gone too far.

Love, Sarah

this is why i don't get things done...

first, she settles...



then she does this cute little nose whistling thing



LOOK AT THAT PUNAM!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!



then she lets out a huge sigh. how can i resist?



sigh. fur baby loooooove.

No Knead Bread

A few days ago, I was catching up on my blog reading, when I came across a no-knead bread recipe on one of my new favorite blogs to visit, Hannah's blog, Honey and Jam. In the past I had seen many variations of this recipe circulating around the blogosphere...but I was too scared to try any of them. Even after working in a professional bakery, and learning quite a bit about the subject, bread-baking at home elusively remained on my to-do "someday" list.

Not any more my friends.



I HAVE MADE BREAD!

(Shouted a la Tom Hanks screaming "I have made fire!" in Castaway)

Not only have a made bread, but it's edible. More than edible, it's delicious! Just as Hannah's brother said, it tastes just like Panera bread.

NOTES: I halved the recipe, to save opening a new package of yeast, and honestly I probably did not have enough yeast. My two loaves were more like mini-boules. I raised the temperature from 450F to 475F, because my oven runs notoriously under temperature. However, since my loaves were so small, I ended up baking them for only 20 minutes, instead of the recommended 30-40. I would love to experiment with making larger loaves...I'm also wondering if these would bake up properly in a loaf pan. Hmm.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be tinkering with bread recipes for a long time to come!

Five Senses Friday

seeing: bright fabrics, vintage things and letters...a veritable alphabet soup of possibility

smelling: a secret first-time baking project...its success remains to be seen.

hearing: a preview of the new Old Edison album.

tasting: too many of those ridiculous brownies that I made earlier this week!

feeling: my cheek pressed up against my hubby's shoulder as we dance around the dining room. feeling content.

Okay Nigella

I'm picking up what you're putting down.

Tonight I made my first ever batch of brownies from scratch. I used a recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, and boy do I feel like one! These little fat-bombs are so rich and delicious!

If you knew the quantity of butter and eggs in this, you would fall over.

Hell, I might fall over, I think my arteries are seizing.

I couldn't think of a happier way to go!

Style File :: HOME :: Sleeping Spaces

1. Happy New Year!, 2. rinnepeek6, 3. Pink December, 4. Stitch Mag projects, 5. Love, 6. bed & bedside, 7. September Bed, 8. the new happy bed, 9. J Rogers Quilt, 10. Selina Lake, 11. Castle, 12. bed500-13, 13. luce, 14. bedroom, 15. Eeeee! , 16. Living as an interior stylist, detail bedroom, 17. ZzZZZZZZZZZzZzZ, 18. hello saturday..., 19. 11_Bed2, 20. 12_bedroom2, 21. sm_ta_house_16, 22. DSCN4853, 23. BEDROOM, 24. 3581898540_59b1c7f2e4_b, 25. 3580254310_a8a7ec4283_o, 26. Untitled, 27. Bedroom detail 5, 28. A Room With A View, 29. Molly's Sketchbook: Sunny Tied Quilt, 30. Quilted, 31. Untitled, 32. New bed sheets, 33. gocco good times, 34. cheerful, 35. installation, 36. warmer clothes

(((You can view the blank spots in the mosaic by following the corresponding link. I encourage you do to do so - there is some amazing purple wallpaper to be seen in those blank squares!)))



1. 7am, 2. wyatt's new bed, 3. applique detail, 4. morning light, 5. the september bed, 6. pillow, 7. happy bedding, 8. Piper makes the bed, 9. Ninja on the Bed, 10. New pillow shams, 11. My bedroom, 12. you are my sunshine, 13. bluebirds, 14. adding winter layers, 15. Two pillows, 16. AT Week 6 Bedroom, 17. bed, 18. ., 19. ., 20. :), 21. ., 22. the prettiest cabin, 23. Ecclectic Bed, 24. peace to you

All culled from my Flickr favorites.

Trends that I see:

Color, color and more color! Particularly blues, yellows, reds, orange and pinks. A mix of cool and warm.
Colorful Vintage Sheets
Quilts
Crocheted throws and pillows
Embroidery
Mid-century lamps AGAIN
Clusters of framed artwork and photos AGAIN
More funky pillows (obviously I have a thing for pillows) AGAIN
Decorative garlands, and/or clothes-line style hanging of artwork and photos
Layers upon layers of texture and pattern

Style File :: HOME :: Living Spaces

Living spaces...



1. Mid Century Living Room, 2. living room , 3. Via Rearranged Design, 4. Annie Schlechter, 5. ♥ Matching shoes and gloves, 6. chillin' for a minute, 7. tufted, 8. today I made a pillow..., 9. Sewing Room TV Cover, 10. living - thrifted brasilia dresser, 11. And the doilies ate my sofa.., 12. They Are In Love, 13. sofa, 14. hallway shelving, 15. Untitled, 16. www.flickr.com/photos/71112133@N00/3842435175/, 17. busy with miss ethel..., 18. The yellow cabinet, 19. alyn5, 20. office, 21. granny love... full view, 22. granny love..., 23. IMG_5569, 24. IMG_5508, 25. IMG_5506, 26. IMG_5459, 27. sofa, 28. 5_hall2, 29. 4_living6, 30. 2_living5, 31. 3_living3, 32. DSCN4801, 33. DSC05159 copy, 34. DSC05151, 35. SOFA CROP, 36. Untitled



1. Untitled, 2. IMG_5462.JPG, 3. New chair!, 4. The North wall, 5. living room, 6. moving things around, 7. Playroom Tree 2008, 8. dressed up dresser, 9. Hexagon blanket in progress, 10. rainy, maybe... pillow, 11. My Living Room, 12. Vintage sofa by Martin Visser, 13. Books displayed, 14. lpony.pauls corner, 15. lpony.entryway, 16. Display, 17. Wall wire, 18. White desk, 19. wall of love, 20. inventory, 21. new pillows i made, 22. studio shelf, 23. Color coordinated bookcase, 24. Living room corner, 25. ., 26. where i'll be..., 27. tv cozy, 28. Heaven, 29. Living room, 30. green & gray (painted dresser)

All culled from my Flickr favorites.

Trends that I see:

Avocado green
Gold
A nice dark grey couch
Funky pillows, pillows and more pillows
Mid-century lamps and furniture
Velvet or textured furnishings
Clusters of framed artwork and photos
Grand book/vinyl storage
Pops of turquoise, pink and orange

Le Freak Granny Chic!

The past few days I have been driving myself insane looking for a craft project to do that didn't involve buying new supplies. I picked out a knitting pattern, only to discover I didn't have the right needles. I went to finish a skirt that I have in progress to realize (like an idiot) that I bought hem tape instead of bias tape.

I had a serious case of itchy fingers with NOTHING to make.

Then I looked at my couch...and saw many sad, sad pillows. Suddenly, I had my A-HA moment!

Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake on meeeeeeeee!
(((Take on me!)))
Take me oooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnn!

Whoa, sorry. Wrong kind of "A-HA" moment. I digress...

I whipped up a new pillow cover with a vintage doily and some material from my stash. It was such a simple, satisfying sewing project.



The bottom pillow illustrates the heinous cover before (inherited from an old roommate...NOT my choice of colors!)



Much more me, don't you think?



I am happy!

What did you do this weekend?

Five Senses Friday

smelling:

ivory soap on my hands

hearing:

This fab Motown mix on Playlist

tasting:

lots of chilled water with lemon slices. the little bit of flavor goes a long way to help my effort to drink more water, less soda.

seeing:

a sparkly clean apartment!





feeling:

happy about sharing dinners with Mr. G+N at the table, and not the television.



That's all. What are your five senses sensin' this week?

And I'm spent!

Last night I decided it would be a good idea to start baking cookies at 9:00PM.



I improvised some rosemary sea salted shortbreads. Not too shabby. Next time I would take more care to chop the rosemary so that it doesn't look like I've wedged a giant pot leaf in the cookie! Presentation-smation...I was in a hurry alright!?

Today I completely ran out of steam. There will be no 9:00PM cookie baking sessions today, I assure you. Instead, I'm cozied up in my yellow chair, dreaming of spring-time gardening. I think that a tower of herbs is in my near future:



And I convinced my husband to build something like this for me:



Fun, no? We have to come up with a few extra dollars to buy the materials, so we'll see if it actually happens. I'm feeling optimistic.

My mom is coming over on Saturday and we're planning on pouring over seed catalogues together. I haven't quite solidified my wishlist. I'll let you know what we come up with!

Phew...I'm way to sleepy to be witty today! Tell me, dear readers, are you planning your gardens yet? What is on your wishlist? Veggies? Flowers? Tell me all about it.

Wintery Spring Cleaning

I've got the spring cleaning FEVER lately, but the great outdoors seems to be disagreeing with my internal clock.







Hey neighbor, want to clean off my car too?!

Sigh, if only!

Storm brewin' outdoors...comfort cookin' indoors!

Whew! Heavy wet snow is coming down with a vengeance here today! My commute home took an hour and fifteen minutes instead of the usual thirty-five. I was one happy cookie when I got to my apartment!

I thought I would share a few of my latest kitchen endeavors with you. Last night for dinner I made root-veggie chocolate chili with honey cornbread on the side.



The chili recipe is from the February/March 2010 issue of BUST Magazine. They started a new cooking column a few months ago called Nickeled and Dimed touting the virtues of cheap and tasty meals. By their calculations, this chili recipe serves six people at $1.87 a serving AND it's vegetarian. I dig it.

The verdict from Mr. G+N?

It got the dreaded "It's okay."

What about the cornbread (which has a zillion fivestar ratings on All Recipes and melts in your mouth!)?

"It's a little...umm, bland."

Cue frowning Sarah. Someone needs to clue my husband in that sometimes honesty is not the best policy!!! I thought it was scrumptious. Oh well, I guess it's chili for lunch for me!

Tonight's dinner fared much better with the Mr.



Those ain't no Hot Pockets!

SIDEBAR: Are you all familiar with Jim Gaffigan's riff on Hot Pockets?



These are spinach feta pocket pies from Lucinda Scala Quinn's Mad Hungry, one of my new favorite cookbooks. This was a surprise hit with Matt, since he claims to not like feta. It only called for 1/4 cup of feta to fill ten pocket pies...so I prayed that he didn't notice, and he didn't! These little babies were time consuming, but delicious!



The great thing is that I have leftovers for another day!

:: sew small ::

Keeping with the idea of completing small projects, I whipped up two more pin cushions.

This mini pillow pin cushion is also going to my swap partner (I'm sending tomorrow, I swear). I figured I would double the requirements of the swap to make up for being, ahem, two weeks late.



The second is the Sweetheart Pin Cushion tutorial at work again. I loved how the first one turned out, so I decided to make one for myself!



There is just something so sweet and wonderful about pin cushions, isn't there? One can never have too many! I have a definite favorite in my collection...perhaps I will show you tomorrow!

Ten Things That I Love Sunday

Ten Things That I Love Sunday is inspired by Elsie from A Beautiful Mess.

1. Pink Furniture

source

source

2. Young and Clumsy Lovers by one of my blog-besties Flossy-P. Buy your own for only $6!!!

source

3. A new to me baking and photography blog, Honey and Jam

4. The cocktail that I had last night at dinner. It was called a "West Indie" and had light rum, orange juice, lime juice, ginger beer and a mint leaf. It was outrageously tasty, and I'm going to try and copy it at home!

5. Dottie Angel's beautiful doily/word banners: one, two, three

6. This awesome playlist called Hazy Shade of Winter

7. Bonne Maman Cherry Preserves...so delicious.

8. Abby's adorable engagement photo. Congratulations again, dearest!

9. Dressing up for a Valentine's date:



10. This guy...best of all :)

:: starting small ::

Sometimes when crafty overload hits... you just need to start small.

This will be sent off for to a very patient swap partner. I followed the Sweetheart Pin Cushion Tutorial over at Happy Together to make this. The construction is very clever and fun to make. I think I'll whip up a few more as little gifts!

:::finding a balance:::

I think if you could evenly divide my life into three pieces of pie, it would go something like this; home, crafty/bloggy and dance.

I have yet to find a happy balance between these three things. I tend to throw myself wholeheartedly into one area, and as a result the other two suffer. Lately it's been dance. Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance! Which is awesome. But my house is in shambles, I'm woefully behind on two swaps, not to mentioned I have not crafted a single thing yet this year, never mind crafting for Christmas... Mix in a heavy dose of financial/car problems/everything in our house breaking around us and this makes for one stressed out Sarah.

Excuse me while I pity party for just a minute, but today Matt and I went grocery shopping for the first time in THREE WEEKS. We had no food in the refrigerator. I had the hungry shakes more than a few times over the past few weeks. Today's shopping trip was joyous indeed!

I have also been staying away because of an e-mail that I received from Blogger about a week ago. As of a month from now, they will no longer support blogs that upload via FTP, like mine. I programmed my blog painstakingly over six years ago, with a code book at my direct side at all time. Computer speak has changed quickly over the years, and Blogger's "helpful" tutorials on how to transition just about make me want to cry. I do not understand them, and yet I have a month to figure it out so that Geek+Nerd doesn't get wiped out.

Enough of that...I just had to air out where I am at the moment. My belly is full, I have projects awaiting me, and Monday is a national holiday! You can bet I will be busting out the sewing machine...and maybe a code book.

Tell me, do you have any tips for finding balance in your life? Or how about strategies to dig yourself out of a winter funk!?

Ten Things That I Love Sunday

I have had a poopy week.

Yesterday I sat down to write about it, which did absolutely nothing but make me feel more whiney and sad.

So, poo on that post! Here are then things that I love, inspired by Elsie.

1. I am obsessing over The Last Time I Saw Richard by Joni Mitchell. It's a new to me Joni song, and I played it about 100 times last night. Choreography ideas are brewing.

2. Speaking of choreography, I did not realize that one of the pieces that I choreographed this summer is up on YouTube! Which means I can share it with all of you. It is not a super quality video, but I would appreciate your thoughts if you take the time to watch it! I present the intro from Ghosts from the Little Black Book



3. I am in love with Graygoosie's Valentine's display:

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4. Green is making me happy:

Tea Leaves Cardigan
Untitled
90 Minute Teal Cassette Pillow (I want to make one of these SO BADLY.
Flicker falls down

5. Drinking tea out of cute receptacles:



6. Camille's Doily Cafe Curtain is making me swoon.

7. New Dress a Day, a blog that I found courtesy of my awesome sister, Renee.

8. This chai concentrate found via Heather looks quite exciting. A can of condensed milk? Count me in!

9. Loving this bright orange ensemble from KeikoLynnSoGreat

source

10. Eating a sandwich made from my mom's chicken salad for lunch.