New Business Venture

So a couple of weeks ago, a sweet friend of mine asked me to cook dinner for her and her busy family two nights a week. So I started cooking tonight, and it got me to thinking that I can't wait until I've cooked enough things to be able to start writing my own recipes! Granted, I've already made a few recipes that are pretty darn good, but they aren't "OMG MAKE ALL THE TIME PLZ" type recipes.

I bet Joel would disagree, but you know what? He'll eat anything I make.
I've made up my own recipes for

Cheesy Stuffed Chicken over pink sauced pasta (i need a good name for this)
Cabbage Stew with Italian Sausage (very good, very chunky)
Ceasar Chicken with Pasta & Greens

Too many C's I guess...

However, tonight, i'm cooking (as always) out of my tried and true cookbook

The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. *spirit fingers*
SERIOUSLY! BEST COOKBOOK EVER!
It will change people's opinion on your cooking overnight. You go instantly from mediocre (or bad) to, "OMG UR LIEK DA BEST COOK EVAR!11!1!!!1 "

*ahem*
So, for my friend Vicki this week, I am cooking her the Lemon & Herb Poached Salmon with Rice and Veggies for one evening this week for her to reheat as well as the Lemon & Garlic & Herb Roasted Chicken with Mashed Potatoes. I might be joining them for dinner this week. My apartment smells heavenly at the moment while the chicken is roasting.

Not to mention but last is not least, because, Joel volunteered to make his awesome Key Lime Pie for dessert for them too. Another ATK recipe, but he's ramped it up even further than they took it. It. Is. the Best. Ever.

So, not only is cooking now one of my favorite pasttimes, i'm also getting paid for it, and i'm helping a friend.

Time to baste!
Johanna

Moleskine Passions

I have been a proud molekine snob for the past 5 years or so now and any other journal can't do the justice to journal-keeping like Molekine journals do. They lay flat when you open them, they come with a pocket in the back, and most importantly, they are acid free. I deviated from the classic portrait moleskine with blank pages (no lines) to a landscape (short side bound) moleskine journal with blank pages. I hated it. Now, of course I did because I don't like change once I get into a routine.

I am about halfway through my 7th journal and upon buying my 8th, I really want to buy one of these.

The New Moleksine Passions Journals : The Recipe Journal.

It looks too good to pass up!

Elegance in simplicity.

I am an artist. I have a degree in painting and specifically in watercolor. I am going to paint today with someone who does not have a degree, but a love for painting. I am unsure wether or not I have this love for painting at all? Oh, I definitely care, but I don't LOVE the act of painting. I enjoy it, just as much as I enjoy crocheting or hanging out with my friends and watching a movie. I do not understand the one who finds one niche in their art that they want to do repetitively and unending. I want to do everything. I want to solder jewelry while crocheting blankets and sewing quilts and tilling my garden and cooking my dinner. I draw.

I think drawing might be *my* thing. I'm pretty sure all of my other arts are secondary to drawing, but yet, drawing is not my *only* thing. It's just what gets me through it all. It's my expression from my heart. Most of my paintings are just colored versions of my drawings, and often, i have a hard time painting them because i love them so much in their raw form of just pencil or pen on paper. There is something very elegant about simplicity.

Soon enough I'll post some pics with my new stuff in it. I'll post pictures about the foods that joel & I have been cookin' up. And I'll post about our future.

Until then, it's nap time for The Moffin. A beautiful, rainy, sunday nap.

Babies with Laser Eyes.

I don't know how else to welcome the weekend this time around except with a really funny website that I just found this morning! 

Well, off to a Premier Jewelry show/ Birthday party, and then to Michael's to go buy supplies for a few projects i'm working on!

[via http://www.nerdcore.de/wp/]

Falling down on the job.

So, I haven't done Kettle Bells in the last 2 days.
I am quite determined to do a workout before my Church @ Home group tonight.
That way I will have worked out at least 3 times this week.
Wednesday night I had an excuse because I wasn't feeling very well at all.
And last night, well I could have turned down last night's activities but it was to go hangout with my friend heather and her dog and her husband, with my husband, to eat good foods, and watch House & House Hunters, and play this really fun RPG called Dominion.

Funagain Games: Dominion (AKA: Game X)


So all in all. I COULD HAVE worked out 4 times this week, if i work out this evening when I get home from work. We'll see what I can do.

I need to return my library books.

-+{ Encyclopedia of Crafts }+-

Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts is awesome.

Don't be deterred by the hokey picture on the cover of her posing to glue a seashell to an already seashell studded lamp shade, (1990's anyone?).
In the book she has quite a grand variety (in alphabetic order) of crafts with a how-to and a supply checklist. Almost every page spread has a fullsize picture on one side with the other page being the supply list, and the various instructions.

(Image credit: www.marthastewart.com)

For example:
Under beading, she covers how to make beaded wire insects, flower brooches, hairpins, and necklaces.

She also kindly includes the templates for all the projects in her books, free to download and use on her website! {link here}

Library Cardage!

So, I am so freaking excited....because I just got my first library card since I was 12 years old!!!! I raided the craft section for my first visit to get a good whif of what they had to offer. Unfortunately, the branch which is closest to my house does not have a large selection, however, it does give me an excuse to go to the North Branch of the libraries here whenever I go visit my sweet friend Heather!

The books I did check out, turned out to be AWESOME though!

Amazon.com: Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts: An A-to-Z Guide with Detailed Instructions and Endless Inspiration (9780307450579): Martha Stewart Living Magazine: Books

Amazon.com: ReadyMade: How to Make [Almost] Everything: A Do-It-Yourself Primer (9781400081073): Shoshana Berger, Grace Hawthorne: Books

and my personal favoritest



Amazon.com: Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils, and Silk Screens (9781584796725): Lena Corwin, Thayer Allyson Gowdy: Books

I will write a little more about them when I get a chance. (I promise!)

• Now in the comments, please tell me what books I should check out, any genre counts! 

High Standards!

I have just realised that as long as my kitchen is clean, I am some what apathetic about the rest of my house being a complete wreck!

I just completed an hour of washing dishes, and clearing off the 'breakfast' bar which things tend to collect on. Currently now that is on it are my flours, sugar, pastas and grains. So much prettier.

Tomorrow my goal is to finish going through my baskets in my bedroom that are filled with only God knows what!

Johanna

P. S. I worked out today. I did 3 reps with the Kettle Bells and I did 20 modified pushups. Everyone's gotta start somewhere right?

A List if you will.

1. Write more in this blog.
2. Do more crafts in my free time rather than surfing the internet.
3. Delete my facebook permanently, causing more crafts to be done and more posting of said blog.
4. Lose 25lbs (Kettle Bells)
5. Purge my home of things I don't need.
6. Inspire, Help, Learn, Love, Grow. I want to be a better person than I am.

Joey.