{Up Close}

If you read my resolution post, you'd know that fine tuning my photog skillz was on the list. This means taking the beast off of auto and pondering things like ISO, white balance, aperture and shutter speed. Jinkies!



Found Sawyer busy building a marble ramp in the carport out of junk. Take the iPhone away from that kid and he can build some elaborate contraptions. He doesn't get that from me.

Large aperture.

Manual focus. Love it. Not as intimidating as it seems. Wish I would have tried it out sooner.

{Japanese Pickled Cucumbers}

My kids are eager to devour almost any type of Asian-style cuisine--stir fry, sushi, miso soup, you name it. Because of that, I'm always on the lookout for new offerings. Our favorite sushi restaurant serves up a small dish of these cucumbers as sort of a teaser appetizer. The children fight over them, inhale them, and slurp down the leftover juice in a matter of seconds. Literally, seconds. It's embarrassing. 

Gather the friends:
English cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 Rice Vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Sprinkle salt over the cucumber slices. Let them hang out for about 10 minutes and rinse.

Combine rice vinegar, water, sugar and soy sauce in a bowl. Add cucumber slices, cover and refrigerate overnight.

Sneak a few for yourself before they disappear.

{Kid Fun: Shiny Penny Experiment}

Sometimes (most of the time),  it's the simplest activities that end up being the most entertaining. Shine up dirty copper pennies using two everyday household ingredients: salt and vinegar. 

Gather your supplies. Pennies dated after 1982 are only copper-plated and may corrode if they have been scratched. 

Have your child measure and pour 1/4 cup of vinegar into a glass jar.

Have them measure a tablespoon of salt. 

Add it to the vinegar and mix well.

Add the pennies.

Observe and wait. Give your pennies a few hours or let them sit overnight. Take them out, rinse well and let them dry on a paper towel. Shiny!

Other things to try:

• Set some of the pennies out to dry without rinsing. Watch for the resulting patina known as 'verdigris'. 
• Add a quarter to the mixture after removing the pennies.
• Soak a newer scratched penny in the mixture overnight. If you're lucky you'll have a heavily corroded coin in the morning. 

{Winter Blues}

Winter is giving us a quick breath of spring air so we headed outside to catch it while we can.  I am one of those lucky people who gets depressed in cold, dreary weather so days like this are essential to the state of my mental health. I pull myself up out of the dark, frozen abyss just long enough to take a deep breath before being dragged back down.

Winter has me daydreaming of packing my bags and catching the first southbound train to Florida. Rusty also shares this dream, can't you see it in his face? He's soaking it up. 

A quote I keep coming back to:

There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." -- Sir Rannulph Fiennes

----------------------------

Come February, it will be time to start some of our seedlings indoors. I'm so excited to have the space for a somewhat substantial garden this year. We have settled on a plot of land beside the office.

We plan on growing a square-foot-style garden while being mindful of companion planting. 

This layout is so, so rough and will inevitably be expanded to accommodate other scrumptious things like eggplant and melons. More to come on our adventures in working the land!

{2013}

2013: My twenties see their final year so I best make it awesome-sauce. I will be setting lofty goals for my life because as I have experienced in my twenties, the years went by too fast. I am also well aware that the rest have the capacity to go by even faster. And I haven't even scratched to surface of that which I am capable.  


Writing/Blogging Goals 


I will never forget my high school English teacher singling out my dad at my graduation and telling hime that I would make a great author someday--that I have a gift with words. I remember being flattered but it was the pride my father seemed to take in that moment that still gives me butterflies to this day. Since then I have let my gift go. I didn't nurture it, cultivate it along with the rest of me and help it to become something fabulous. Writing and I, well we have a lot of catching up to do in 2013.  
This year, my goal is to spend at least 45 minutes a day writing. 

Create/Craft

Our big move this past fall has severely derailed my crafting aspirations. Now that I have gotten in back into the normal swing of things (for the most part), I'm ready for creativity to find its way back into my life. 

Parenting/Kids

Become more diligent with our routines. I am so god awfully bad at maintaining any semblance of  a schedule in my home. May the gods of homemaking also grant me the gift of time management, list making, and basic planning skills. Please?

Body

Yadda, yadda, blah, blah, exercise, boom chicca bow wow, diet, blah, blah, blah. 

Working out gets a big, fat thumbs down!

Life/Personal/Other

• Travel to at least one place outside of Virginia that is not Disney World. 
• Read 30 books. At least. 
• Get a tattoo. 
• Pull out my guitar and practice.
• Learn Spanish. 
• Have a completely kick-ass garden and put up food for the next winter. 
• Raise chickens. 

Photography

Take pictures everyday. Photography forces me to find the fabulousness in the mundane and the normal. It pushes me to make things beautiful and sometimes I just need that little push. 

{Crispy Chicken Tacos with Avocado, Cabbage and Chipotle Mayo}

This week, I'm putting a spin on taco night. Crispy Chicken Tacos with Chipotle Mayo features fresh ingredients, loads of crunch and a touch of heat. A fabulous departure from the ground beef staple we're used to.


Crispy Chicken Strips:
1 lb chicken breast cut into strips
1 cup flour
2-3 cups Panko
2-3 eggs
Cooking spray

Roll chicken in flour to coat. In a separate dish, beat eggs slightly. Dip chicken in the egg and then roll in Panko. Spray a large baking sheet with olive oil spray. Arrange strips on pan. Spray additional oil olive on top.

Bake at 350° for 20-30 minutes or until crispy and completely cooked through.

Chipotle Mayo:
3/4 cup mayonaise
2-3 chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce

In a food processor combine mayonnaise and chipotle peppers. Puree until smooth.

For Assembly:

Package soft tortilla shells

Avocado, sliced. 

Purple cabbage, shredded

Salsa

Arrange chicken strip on a tortilla shell. Add salsa, avocado and cabbage to taste. Top with heaping spoonful of chipotle mayo. Serve immediately.

{Make: Magnetic Alphabet}

 Here's a project that will eat up even the smallest bits of your scrap collection--you know, the ones you really should have thrown away. Even better, you'll be able to replace those cheap, plastic refrigerator magnets and bring a tiny bit of your fabric style into the kitchen!

For this project, you will need:
-Assorted fabric bits
-Mod Podge
-Wooden alphabet
-X-Acto/craft knife
-Sharp scissors
-Adhesive-backed magnetic strips

Here are the wooden letters I'll be using. I found these buggers at Wal-Mart in the craft section. 

These are thin, so I recommend sorting in pairs and gluing them together for extra thickness.

Poor Q didn't have a partner so I paired him with the extra O. They make a great team! <3

Letters just about to get pretty! 

Apply a coat of Mod Podge and place a scrap on top.

Let dry.

Start cutting around the letters with scissors or a craft knife. The craft knife will give you a sharper edge if that's what you're going for.

Pause for small child to play.

Add the adhesive magnetic strips. You'll need to cut them to size. If you find that the adhesive is not strong enough,  glue them on.

That's it! I hope they make your refrigerator look fabulous!