A little bit of life...

I thought it might be fun to take a break from the kitchen and show you a little bit of life right now.  It's busy.  It's thriving.  It's awesome. 

Before I was a blogger or ever felt compelled to take a photograph of my dinner, I used to create art.  I used to paint, make jewlery, scrapbook, and decorate my house.  Over time I lost touch with these things. Writing and photography has been such an amazing creative outlet for me that other creative projects have fallen by the wayside these past couple of years. 

I think that my brain is so immersed in food and writing projects at the moment that it can't handle much more.  So it's time my hands stepped up.  Over the past month I have become obsessed with making jewelry again.  I used to do a lot of intricate bead work and would make large, flashy, colorful pieces of jewelry.  This is not my style anymore so now everything is simple and delicate. 

A blog friend at Hobby and More recently asked me about donating an item for a fundraiser she is doing for the Visakha Society for Protection and Care of Animals in India.  I was really impressed with this organization and the work they are doing.  It also seemed like the perfect excuse to hit the bead store and spend some time crafting something new.  If you are interested in participating, you can donate items until April 21st (my item is pictured above). The fundraiser will go live on April 22nd and then you will be able to purchase raffle tickets for $10 for items that you are interested in.  For more details, visit her fundraising page.

The sun is finally out here in Seattle.  This means it's garden time!  This year I've decided to keep it simple in the garden.  I've already started some greens and herbs from seeds, but I won't be planting a full garden like I did last year.  Our landlord recently trimmed the giant tree in our backyard so now my garden is getting much more light.  It's been exciting to see beets, kale, and carrots that I planted last summer starting to emerge.  

This week I'm getting more organized!  I've been relying on my iPhone and electronic apps for my to-do lists, but with being busier and trying to balance everything in my life right now, I've really missed my old paper system.  The compromise?  I'm keeping my electronic calendar, but am going back to my to-do post its.   

This week I found something peculiar on my Comcast bill. This is the usage history bar graph showing my internet usage for the last three months.  Since April is shaping up to be roughly the same as March you might be wondering, like I was, what the heck happened in January.  Three words: Hulu Lost marathon.  No, really.  Hulu Lost marathon. 

This is my cat, Frodo, in his favorite chair. Sleeping twelve hours every day is a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. 

It's lunch time!  You didn't really think I would be able to get away without talking about food in this post, did you?  My food motto at the moment is keep it simple and eat more raw foods.  Lunch for the past two weeks has been a giant raw salad with some garbanzo or black beans and snacks have consisted of raw veggies.  I was at Costco over the weekend picking up some paper products and decided to load up on some bulk greens.  You can't tell from this picture that there's another bag of kale as well as a 5 pound bag of peas hiding in the mass.  I think the cashier was a little horrified that this is all going to be consumed by one person this week. 

What are the highlights of your week so far?