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Cookies at midnight

Late last night I was the only person awake in the house and I had a sudden hankering for cookies.

At 11:08 the oven was preheating and the cookies were waiting on my new, red cookie sheet (thanks, mom)

By 11:20 they were in the oven and at 11:40 I was enjoying warm, gooey, crispy on the outside chocolate chip cookies with lots of walnuts. The Barefoot Contessa recipe I love most.

I don't know why the concept of freezing my own cookie dough was such a revelation (Otis Spunkmeyer has been doing it for ages) but I never thought to do my own.  This is great, and so easy. I originally made this batch of frozen cookies as a gift for my mom (but I never quite managed to get them to her house).

Since then, I made my non-cooking, city living, vegetarian sister several frozen entrees and packaged them up with a rice cooker for a birthday gift I think she actually liked. Genius I tell ya.

So the cookies were a great boost at 11:40 but I didn't get to bed until well after midnight. It's been one of those weeks. Sorry I've been completely lame at responding to comments but I SO appreciate you taking the survey. Really, so appreciate it. I'll draw the winner on Friday night so if you didn't take it, there's still time. And I'll report back on how we do in the competition. I also appreciated your feedback on tutorials. I think I have a good idea on that--maybe this weekend--when I'm recovered from staying up too late all week.

Happy Thursday!

Do it for the karma

Got a few minutes?  Would you be so lovely as to click on over to the survey I just spent my entire Monday evening on?

Click here for good karma.

If you notice a typo, please keep in mind that Biscuit woke up at 3 a.m. last night and thought it was morning. Very unfortunate.

We're looking for folks who live in the USA and work outside of the home. If this isn't you but you want extra karma, you can send this your friends who are sitting at their desks, bored, wishing you would send
them a joke. Or a survey.

Here's the stuff to paste in an email and send: http://www.eSurveysPro.com/Survey.aspx?id=38e1b6e0-facb-4baf-b9d6-0f10ac6144af

There's also a $10 random prize....

Thanks so much! Tutorials will be yours....as soon as this business plan is submitted.

(In case you care, my friends and I are entering a business plan competition hoping to win start up funds to get this business going.  It's a long shot but we're giving it our best. Or at least our "it's midnight and this needs to be done today" best)

A second life for the seventies embroidery

Wow, didn't mean to leave that "random things" post up for quite so long. But I've loved your comments and reassurance that we're all a little bit weird. I also enjoyed hearing that readers have the exact same embroidery of the bonnet girl and her cat--how cool. 

My mom is one of the most creative, least crafty people I know.  I can't imagine her sewing, knitting or embroidering so when, during my last visit, she handed me this embroidery she did I knew it was special.

I simultaneously decided that Biscuit's crib quilts really don't work on her big girl bed. So in a stash busting move I made this random quilt. I love using fabrics from other projects, the cotton from her bedroom curtains, the linen from her dress, the pink from her cousin's quilt etc.   I also worked in a small, useless, birth announcement style embroidery I did and a paper pieced quilt square from Angry Chicken's Mailorder.

The whole quilt top took only a few hours. It's definitely wonky but it'll do. I plan to back it one of my childhood sheets (the matching yellow check pillowcase is on the front) and I'll fill it with polyester and machine quilt it for maximum washability. Soon.....
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On an unrelated note, if you could check back here tomorrow, that would be great. One of the things that's been keeping me from crafting and blogging is a business plan competition I'm entering with my friends. We're the long shot contestants for sure and we've also waiting until the veeeeery last minute to pull together our executive summary. We could really use some quick'n'dirty market research so I'm going to try to pull together a fun, online survey (with prizes) and post a link tomorrow. Hopefully.
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Back to crafting. Tutorials seem popular and I have a few ideas up my sleeve but need a kick in the pants to finish them up.  Which would you like to see?
How to make a quillow (lap blanket that folds into a pillow)
How to make a log cabin square
Very basic quilting techniques (videos)
Something else I haven't thought of yet
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I've got the Oscars on Tivo and my laundry heap is calling. Happy Monday to ya!

Seven random things

I haven't been tagged but I love reading the "random/weird things" posts on other blogs and I always come up with my own stupid stuff. So now you are subjected to it. Here are 7 weird/random things about me:

1. I refuse to use Starbucks' fancy names for sizes--I order small, medium or (rarely) large
2. I don't like using grocery carts and will stuff a hand basket to ridiculous proportions to avoid them (and I usually make Biscuit walk)
3. I can easily go a whole day without looking in the mirror--makes for some bad hair days
4. I don't care at all about clothes and sometimes wish I had a job where I could wear a uniform--I have a hard time choosing clothes each morning (but I love Project Runway)
5. I have an odd fascination with the "I have a gazillion children" type shows. Like the Duggars or Jon and Kate Plus 8.  I have no desire to have a zillion kids.
6. I step over cracks in the sidewalk with alternating feet (or else I feel off balance somehow). Ok, that one is really weird.
7. I hate when someone "helps" with a project I am working on. Then I feel like I didn't do the whole thing. (Mr. H learned this one early since we met when he was my woodworking teacher

Ok, that was comes across as sort of negative--all stuff I don't like. There is plenty I do like, promise. I'll have to post that another day.

In the meantime, please tell me you're weird about some of these things too...any other Duggar fans out there?  Off balance walkers?  Bad dressers???

I tag all the bloggers I know in real life to do this. Really, I love reading them.

P.S. The photo is of a quickie project I'm working on. My mom did the embroidery!

First trip to the snow

I'm pretty sure that watching this video has been more fun for Biscuit than making this video. (and the sledding was pretty fun)

Despite a bloody nose. It barely slowed her down (but did convince her not to ride on her tummy anymore).

Hope your weekend was equally exciting.

Bloomers and a list'o'random

I had grand plans of submitting 3 ideas to the Pillowcase Challenge and totally kicking Lauren's butt. But... All I got done were these bloomers (which I am pleased with) but I think Lauren has me beat. Her tote is awwwwwwsome (as Biscuit would say) (side note: I have all the folks at work saying "awwwwwsome" in this dramatically drawn out way that Biscuit has perfected. So funny. Must capture on video)

Anyway, the tote is awesome but the bloomers are ok too. The lacy edge of the pillowcase made a perfect trim for the bloomers and the fabric is super duper soft from years of washings.

The bloomers are a little longer than I was planning, but such is the risk of sizing clothing for a sleeping child.  The serger did a bang up job on these and they will be perfect as my tall little girl's dresses all get too short.

In unrelated news:

• It was a looooong week at work and I'm sooooo happy for a 3-day weekend (that probably goes without saying)
• Mr. H has strep throat (bummer) (also, does not make for romantic Valentine's Day)
• Biscuit had what I might call her first "full blown, I'm two"  temper tantrum last night after I wouldn't let her sleep in her sleeping bag that she got for Valentine's Day from Grandma and Grandpa.
• These songs are fun (for kids and adults)
• I read a lot of blogs that aren't on my blogroll. Here's one: Aunty Cookie
• This is what Biscuit's dream sleeping plan looked like last night (except that she wouldn't go to sleep)

Have a great weekend.

Over and out

Neglected

While this blog is being neglected, I started a new "musings" category and posted a video over at my previously "all bad photos all the time" blog and I'm trying to keep up with Thing-a-Day.

Only a few days left on the pillowcase challenge so I'm working on that too.

Luckily, I've been fueled by cupcakes:

Blog-worthy dinner in 30 minutes flat

I had two revelations/inspirations while making dinner tonight so, even though Mr. H was teasing me, I'm totally going to blog about it.

Inspiration #1: Cook it all in one pot.
Here's what I did:

1. start big pot of water boiling on "power boil"
2. rinse asparagus
3. add noodles to boiling water--set timer for 9 minutes
4. with 3 minutes left on timer, toss in asparagus spears
5. with 1.5 minutes left, toss in several handfuls of spinach
6. when timer beeps, drain in colander and pluck out asparagus (3 minutes was perfect)
7. stir pasta and spinach in with jar of sauce, cubes of mozzerella, leftover, cooked ground beef and bake for 15-20 minutes (you could even bake it in the pot!)

(I'm trying to win the "blurry photo award" with this image of butter and buttermilk after shaking)

Inspiration #2: You can make butter

1. We were out of butter and I wanted to make Texas Toast (can you believe that's on wikipedia?) with the rolls we had.
2. We had 2/3 cup of whipping cream left over from another recipe
3. While the pasta was going, I handed Biscuit a tupperware of cream and had her shake it
4. She tired quickly and passed on her responsibility to Dad
5. Dad shook for several minutes to create whipped cream
6. I shook several more minutes to create butter and buttermilk
7. Butter went on toast
8. Toast went in broiler
9. Biscuit drank the buttermilk

(very fresh butter)

Then I threw dinner on the table and sprinted out the door for a really fun meeting of the Sacramento Craft Mafia.

The end.

Oops (and Japanese craft books)

45 minutes later I just realized I put Biscuit to bed a full hour early. She fell right asleep. I'm thinking we all need more sleep around here.

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On a separate topic, as promised, here are some Japanese craft book images for you:
ISBN: 978-4-391-62449-6 Conveniently called, "Book" (in English anyway)

This book has very detailed instructions for 18 projects in a range of mediums from crochet to wire work to sewing. Mostly sewing:

Images from the inside (sorry all these are so blurry)

And another book, ISBN: 978-4-579-11133-6 "All Your Kids Need"

I like the little rubber stamp ideas:


These are all the categories in the book (not sure if you can read them, click to enlarge):

That's it for tonight. Happy Wednesday to ya!

Spy on San Francisco

I can't quite get the hang of taking random photos of things in public without feeling really weird. It all seems so normal in the blogosphere and so abnormal when you're sitting at a table with 4 strangers and a gorgeous bowl of muesli, yogurt and berries.

So in San Francisco this weekend I went under cover--capturing images as I could without being noticed.
The amazing ceiling of Suppenkuche where we went for brunch (corner of Hayes and Laguna, recommended by Sweet Juniper)

I set the camera on the table, turned off the flash and nonchalantly pressed the button. The texture is itty bitty paper butterflies. there were also branches hanging from the ceiling and mirrored balls.

Dang! I REALLY love Anthropologie window displays. This was great close up--colored fabric hand stitched onto drop cloths cut to look like sails. You don't quite get the effect from across the street.

The coffee was awful but the Nutella on offer at the condiments station? There's a concept I could get behind.

Ok, off to work on my Thing-a-Day project. I'm having trouble keeping up 2 blogs right now but tomorrow I'll try to post images from the GREAT Japanese craft books Mr. H bought me for my birthday.

P.S. One last thing, I met Marie in Kinokuniya when I asked her incredulously, "wait, you can READ?" I meant, read Japanese. I am a dork. Luckily, she was very nice and helpful. She has a lovely knitting blog to check out.  I got a big kick out of discussing mutual "acquaintances" with a total stranger. We read a lot of the same big blogs.