Over the last few weeks, I have been doing a major clean of the house and it dawned on me: why keep some of the things that make me smile hidden away?  I should bring them in and enjoy them all week long! It might look odd but all the pieces mean something.  Plus, it has encouraged conversation and I have learned more about my co-workers when they visit my cube as it invites a bit of friendly chit-chat. It’s interesting what different people point out and comment on.  Most importantly, I’ve noticed how my mood has improved.  I can’t banish the fluorescent lighting or the blue-grey cube fabric (it should be banish, even Crayola retired this colour in 1990) but I can grab a cookie from my cat head cookie jar (gingersnaps, the perfect tea cookie) and be at ease in my own space.

(Yeah, it’s crooked.  It wasn’t us that installed it.)

All of our bathrooms came with naked lightbulbs and while they do the job, they aren’t too stylish (or I’m at a loss on how to gussy them up to my satisfaction).  I decided to tackle the bathroom we don’t use and it can easily be hidden from guests if the project went off the rails. It went very slowly. I had found the lights I wanted in August 2008 (that’s two years ago).  I decided on a paint colour and bought an inexpensive brand.  I learned that the cheap paint doesn’t make the job easier and now buy better brands. I found a mirror at Winners, plus I picked up two 3M hooks, cabinet knobs, and a new register cover to match the dark metal of the lights.  This was the result, last spring:

It’s not bad.  I found 40W ceiling fan lightbulbs for the light fixture.  They are a smaller bulbs and fit into the lamp shades properly and gave off enough light.  I was pretty happy with my efforts.  Today, I was poking through the linen closet and found a Sylvania floodlight and when I shook it, I heard something rattling around.  I tested it to see if it still worked and I noticed the quality of light it gave off was different, since I had more bulbs, I decided to replace all the bulbs.

Below is the result of replacing the bulbs, it’s subtle but it makes an impact. I had never thought to change the look this room by changing out the lightbulbs. Honestly, I just want to sit in there all the time now.  For practical purposes, there probably isn’t enough light for showering with a dark curtain, but considering I keep the litterbox in the bathtub and there isn’t even a curtain rod, this isn’t an issue at the moment.

As for lightbulbs, I love incandescent lightbulbs, they are cheap and familiar.  I’m a little concerned by the fact that the Government of Canada announced in 2007 that incandescent lightbulbs are being banned in 2012, strangely, I can’t find any updates since the announcement.  It’s not that I am incapable of adapting, it’s just that I hate the quality of light from a CFL bulb and the time it takes the bulb to warm up to full strength (you should see how long the porch light takes to get to full brightness in the middle of winter).  It was the bright, green-white light from the CFL bulbs (except in the bathrooms, as you saw) that greeted us when we moved into our new townhome in 2006. It was terrible. The lighting was unflattering and uncomfortable. Replacing the CFL bulbs with incandescent ones was the first thing we did for our home. Our new space warmed up instantly being flooded with warm, inviting light. I am curious if we’ll hear any more news on the ban here and what leaps technology is going to make.  I’ve read that incandescent bulbs are improving as well as LED bulbs; I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

p.s. Considering how much my mood can be affected by lighting, I can’t even imagine how much more I would love going to work if I wasn’t stuck under fluorescent bulbs all day.

]]> http://flavouredechoes.lozengy.net/?feed=rss2&p=695 1 http://flavouredechoes.lozengy.net/?p=689 http://flavouredechoes.lozengy.net/?p=689#comments Sun, 08 Aug 2010 02:35:12 +0000 admin http://flavouredechoes.lozengy.net/?p=689 Hello? Mom?

It’s been a while, I apologize, buy me a cocktail* or two and you can get the gritty details.

My efforts in the blog petered out completely before summer began but I have a renewed interest in sharing my thoughts, improving my writing and heck, maybe even contribute to the on-line community that is thriving in Ottawa (seriously, this city is teeming with amazingness).

So new things I am looking to work on.

1) The Lunchtime Tourist. I had this fabulous idea and have done nothing with it.  I even had the fabulousness of it confirmed by the cool group of people who met for Apt. 613 a few months ago.  The basic idea is that I work downtown and live in the suburbs.  How can a downtown worker take advantage of the city on her/his lunch hour?  I’ve had lots of ideas, loads of ideas, and I haven’t completed one assignment.  Time to change that.

2) Photography. I’ve been luke warm in the photography department and my poor flickr account hasn’t been fed in a while. It’s not that I don’t want to take photos, I just don’t.  It’s a habit I need to develop, I see photographs around me all the time, but something stops me from taking the time to take the shot. Hopefully paired with The Lunchtime Tourist, more writing and more photography will be seen here.

3) Just me. I often think it would be nice to have one of those well-oiled blogs that stays very much on topic and garners a huge following and everybody loves them. Yeah, I daydream too. I am going to post when I feel like it and what I want.  Besides, I always know that my Mom will read my blog.  Thanks Mom!

*For the record, I usually order a whiskey sour.

Although new to photography, for the longest time, I have been wanting to play with water and ink and getting up close shots of the action. Not sure why, I just did and on Saturday night, I indulged, with help (turns out I needed a lot of help).  I was introduced to the tripod, the lighting we have (we used doubled-over white silk held on with elastics to diffuse the light), the D300, and camera settings.  The set up isn’t slick but it was a good start:

Set up for the macro play on Saturday night.

Once everything was set up, and I knew what was going on with the camera, I dropped in the dyes and Chris manned the shutter release with instructions to shoot continuously.  For the first round of shots, I played with food dyes and started by using red, then blue.  One colour was not particularly interesting so I tried red, then yellow, then blue together.  Here’s the shot I chose and played with in Aperture:

Red, yellow, blue drops

I used the Club House food dyes that come in the tear drop bottles, very easy to squeeze out a drop at a time.  I am pleased how it turned out. I then pulled out India ink to play with and was surprised at how it reacted in the water, very differently from the food dye.  I got a lot of tiny black tendrils, and the drop became was less puffy and more defined.

India ink drop

Taking the photos was a lot of fun, then the challenge was to pop them into Aperture and choose a few. I have accepted quickly that I need to take a lot of shots (over 200 this time) to give myself a chance to find the couple that I like.  I put 4 on Flickr and even that seems a bit excessive.  Really, who wants to poke through photo after photo of the same subject? I should have chose one from each set but I got excited.

As much as I like going outside and taking photos of the city, it’s nice to stay instead when the weather turns nasty (we had snow at midnight, it’s May 9th) and see what you can do with what you’ve got.

I haven’t had much time to bake or cook or even make pysanky for Easter.  What I have been doing is learning more about photography.  I have been listening to the This Week in Photography TWiP podcast (available on iTunes) every single day to catch up – currently on episode 96.  I’ve been taking the camera out to play around with and can be frequently overheard saying things like “oh, so that’s what that button does”.  It’s exciting and overwhelming; I have a lot to learn.

To make things even more exciting, I am heading to the RA Centre tomorrow evening to attend Steve Simon’s presentation ‘The Passionate Photographer’ hosted by the RA Photo Club. I’ve been listening to Steve Simon on the TWiP podcast, and I am looking forward to hear what he has to say.

Why the sudden interest in photography?  It’s not so sudden.  Photography has always been a part of my life.  My father was a photographer back in the sixties.  As a result, we had great looking family photo albums, I was given a point-and-shoot cameras at a young age, and understood the importance of documenting my life.  For no real reason, my interest waned in photography and I didn’t take many photos for the last 15 years.  I had played with my father’s Nikkormat in the late 90s but it was film and I got frustrated with my lack of knowledge and my interest dropped again.  Along came digital and my interest peaked a bit but I considered it my husband’s interest, not mine.  I asked for a little Canon Digital Elph for my birthday last year but curiously, I found myself getting bored, I wanted more control. My husband bought himself a Nikon D300 this past year and that meant the D70 was all mine, plus access to all the lenses. Yup, all four of them.

This is just a beginning.  I mentioned the overwhelming part but now I am aiming getting over what silly fears I have about grabbing my camera and heading out the door.  I think people will be able to tell that I don’t actually know what I’m doing. This doesn’t work.  I already know that the best way to becoming a better photography is shoot often. At the moment, it’s not happening all that often.

For now, I have a few photos on a new flickr feed under my name: Tamara Manning.

Here’s a shot from Dows Lake this past Sunday from my first photo walk (before the snow):

Pink Tulip found at Dows Lake

I had made ravioli on the weekend and had leftover past dough (1 cup durum semolina, 1 egg, and water to mix) and ravioli stuffing (I’ll post recipe tomorrow). Tonight, I got a kitchen elf to remove the dough from the fridge a little earlier so it was room temperature when I got home and rolled it out in my hand-cranked machine to the setting of 7.  I boiled the water as I worked.

For two, we only need about 7 to 8 ravioli each for a meal.  Any more gets to be too much and you have to leave room for dessert!

The ravioli pockets were sealed using a finger dipped in water to make “glue”, folding over the other side of the pasta sheet  and pressing firmly to seal all sides.  I got to use my crinkle tool, some of the edges were a bit too close to I left them alone.  Nothing sadder than a ravioli deciding to explode in the pot while the water is boiling.

So it’s obtainable, a dish in 30 minutes.  I do think that after boiling the pasta, they should be shoved into a dish and smothered in pasta sauce and cheese and baked for another 20 minutes.

So why not make the ravioli and freeze it so it is ready to go?  I prefer it fresh and using a Sunday afternoon to make enough pasta dough to use all the ravioli stuffing is tedious and I’m just not that organized.  This is a solution that works for me.

On a somewhat related note, stopping to take photos with less than ideal lighting in the kitchen while cooking isn’t fun for me.  There are a number of food blogs I enjoy with awesome photos. Kudos to those who can accomplish this so I can read about all their step-by-step endeavors. I really do appreciate it!

~~~

Here’s the recipe as adapted from Williams-Sonoma: Mastering Pasta Noodles & Dumplings.

2 tbsp. of butter
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1/3 lbs. parmesan cheese
1/2 lbs. ground beef, crumbled
1/2 lbs ground pork, crumbled
1/2 tsp salt (kosher if you like)
1/8 tsp. ground pepper
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 large eggs
1/4 cup breadcrumbs

In a large frying pan, over medium heat, melt butter and add onion.  Cook until onion is tender.  Add the crumbled meat, salt and pepper, stir well and cook until the meat is no longer red and there aren’t any juices in the pan (10 minutes).  Add red wine and bring to simmer, cooking until the wine evaporates (2 minutes).  Remove the pan from heat and let the filling cool for a bit.

Scrap the meat into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped.  Add the 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of grated cheese and pulse until bended.  Finally, add the bread crumbs and pulse to blend.  Scrape the filling into a bowl, cover and chill the filling for at least an hour (or overnight).  This makes it a lot easier to work with.

A quiet New Year’s celebration was held last night, with too. much. food.  My god, I still haven’t had a meal today and it’s past 3 pm.  This morning, I did make a gorgeous pitcher of strawberry lemonade. I had found strawberries in my freezer from the summer. Summer. Remember summer?  Only 6 months to go…

Anyway, I had about 3 cups of cut strawberries which I pushed through a sieve with the back of a spoon to removed the seeds and bits, added 1 1/2 cups of lemon juice, 1 cup of sugar and filled the rest with water to make 2 liters. This is tart and it is best served over a glass full of ice. It tastes like summer and smells like summer.  If only it would stop snowing.

Happy New Year to Everyone!

In 2006, when we moved into our townhome (an Urbandale’s Pacifica) we decided to take the room that was designed for the Master Bedroom and turn it into the Library/Office.  We wanted the back room, which is the quietest and darkest, to be our bedroom.  No problem.  Before long, our Billy bookcases from Ikea that could no longer hold our growing collection of books and our hatred of the wall colour increased.

Quick note on our wall colour thoughout the WHOLE house. I believe the wall colour is Eldorado Tan by ICI (10YY 61/136) and it’s a warm colour with a definite pink cast to it.  With gray light from a cloudy day, our home looks downright peachy.  Not ideal.  It’s gotta go.  If you remember, I had already painted my studio be to bright and light to take advantage of the south facing window and something that worked with our neutral carpets.

With the library, we went in a completely different direction.  We realize that the house might take on a bit of a schizophrenic feel with such contrasting rooms, but they can be contained behind closed doors and changed easily.  Also, the choices serve the room.  A light, bright neutral room to work on projects that need clear light. A dark, cozy room when you snuggle up to watch a movie or curl up with a good book.

Without a great “before” shot, here is the wall of doors before we started painting:

The wall of doors with the last coat of Ralph Lauren’s Stadium Red in semi-gloss (there was confusion on the paint finish, the pamphlet said you needed eggshell, but the boards at Home Depot said you needed semi-gloss).

The same wall of doors with the applied glaze.  If you remember, there had been some confusion on the glaze as well.  What none of us realized at the time was that the glaze is a just a shade of grey.  We expected the glaze to look like ‘Moroccan Red’ but the name is the result of the glaze on the painted wall.  This took a few days and a call from Home Depot to Ralph Lauren Home to sort out.  It seems so simple now.

Applying the glaze to get the Antiqued Leather treatment took a while.  We ended up devising our own techniques and in some cases contradicting the instructions in the leaflet. We didn’t have the luxury of taking pictures which, I realize, would have been helpful.  Instead, bullet points of random tips of what helped us (which will only make sense for those considering using the same technique, feel free to skip). Ralph Lauren also has how-to videos for their techniques.

1. This is really a 3 person job: one applies the glaze with the roller, one rags the glaze off, and one pounces the wall with the fancy brush. Unfortunately, it was 2 of us and since the 2nd job is messy, the other person has to do the first and third job.
2. We got away with not buying the ‘Fitching Tool’ for the corners and trim, we used a wide, flat brush we had.  We wanted to save a bit of money and it worked well enough.
3. You can only do one wall at a time.
4. Instead of ragging on more glaze in a pouncing motion, we ragged the glaze off by rolling the glaze off.
5. Use cotton rags and make sure they are cotton – Lee Valley is a good source for real cotton rags. No polyester
6. It is difficult to avoid ‘picture faming’ and/or creating columns. Don’t fuss too much and remember the wall will look different when furniture and art work is put up to break it up.
7. We worked top to bottom in columns, feathering the sides of the glaze so it didn’t dry into harsh lines, and leaving the glaze on the last 3 to 4 inches wet to work more easily.
8. Work as quickly as possible.
9. We used a 6″ roller for the glaze, it was easier to control than the 10″ and was faster.
10. If you’re doing the ragging, wear gloves.
11. Keep a wet rag around for accidental brushings of the trim, as for the ceiling, see #12
12. Decide to plan on installing crown moulding after you keep hitting the ceiling with the roller and/or rag. (Currently planned for the summer of 2010).
13. Keep your sense of humour, turn the music up, and mind your temper.  It’s just a painted wall, not a masterpiece.

A lot of changes are still planned for this room, from hardware to trim, this is just the beginning.  It’s a wonderful change, it already feels more inviting, more relaxed.  A little bit of luxury for the two of us as we settle into winter here.

I think I received this ornament over 30 years ago. It’s my absolute favourite, the stitches are so tiny and it’s stuffed. Plus, it’s adorned with ric-rac. I need more ric-rac in my life.

My Christmas was quiet and merry.  The morning spent relaxing, the afternoon at the movies, and the evening with my parents enjoying a traditional Christmas meal.

Thankfully, there were no plans to wander outside today.  The rain had done a spectacular job in covering our Christmas lights and our trees with at least a quarter inch of ice.

So I bought some Italian chestnuts at Byward Fruit last week, kept them in my fridge and this evening I set out to eat some of them. I found directions on How to Roast Chestnuts and went ahead.

First, you wash the chestnuts and score the flat sides. I used an exacto knife to make this easy, it’s important to avoid nutmeat explosions, this will let the steam escape.

Next, following the instruction on the website: place in oven at 375 degree for 20 minutes, turning them at 10 minutes), you removed them from the oven and place in a towel in a bowl for 5 to 10 minutes before shelling them.

Then you shell them, this takes a bit of effort but not much, I did it with my fingers.  It is easier once they have cooled down a bit.

Verdict: dry.  As forewarned, they do look like tiny brains. And they do taste like baked potatoes with a slight sweet/nutty taste.  Not what I imagined (I was thinking more nutty like walnuts, not potatoe-y like spuds).  The one thing I can’t be entirely sure of is if I bought the best of the bunch, they were outside and it was -20 and after dark.  I just threw a few in a bag and hoped. They certainly didn’t impress me.

Not sure why they spell ‘Christmas’ to some, they had a guest spot in my Christmas this year, but I don’t foresee them being invited again.