pasta and radiohead

so, my husband, who has excellent listening to his wife skills, brought me a surprise on friday ... the kitchenaid attachments I have been drooling over for a couple of months now. at least it feels like it's been a couple of months. I am not very good at waiting. in any case, I was super duper happy about it and made pasta that was amazing. it takes a bit to get the hang of it, and it feels like once you start squishing the dough from the plates that it will seriously never end, but ...

the coolest part was that there was some kind of wiggy thing that happened at the sears till, and he got the accesories for just $100 bucks. oh yah, baby. fully half the regular price, including a $30 online rebate.

I can already hear myself getting pleasantly pasta-plump.

my one additional recommendation, aside from telling you that if you haven't already considered the merits of owning a kitchenaid, you want one, is that listening to radiohead helps you make better pasta. for real.

animal, vegetable, miracle

I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle on Sunday. I thank Sarah for loaning it to me as it was yet another book on the endless list of "I want to own that's" which, somehow, while standing in Chapters, I never relinquish my cheap genes and "just buy it already".
Sarah saved the day, or, really, the week since it was so meaty it took me that long to digest.

I liked Crunchy Cons better, though, in the end, but perhaps the two shouldn't truly be compared since Barbara's novel included delicious sounding recipes (for the most part) and fewer political statements (which I love reading). She is a great writer, in my opinion.
I also liked reading what her oldest daughter thought about the whole experiment.

I remain unmoved, largely, though the book would be a great addition to one of my shelves.

I simply don't live in a happy sunshine state nor do I have acres (not even one) of land to cultivate. Not to mention anything other than square foot gardening at this point chafes me, as well it should because the whole concept is brilliant and highly successful.

I also have absolutely no inclination to be even as purist as I feel Barbara's family was in their purposing to only eat either what they grew or others had grown (all organically) within a 100 mile radius of their home.
That would get me the following, but only July- September:
green beans
snow peas
zucchini
cucumbers
garlic (maybe)
onions
tomatoes
bitter lettuce (not on purpose)
peppers of unusually small size
strawberries
eggplant (to which I recently converted because I learned to pick them small)
nastutium flowers

from others ... corn. farm after farm of corn. for at least 100 "miles"

ok, so maybe I exaggurate, but my reality isn't hers. I appreciated the fact that she said so in her book several times, too. If she lived where the sun only shines for half the year, and she saw a head of broccoli that looked good, even though it clearly had to have come from Cali, she would buy it too.

I didn't embrace her talk on feminism or evolution, but this I did appreciate ... a LOT

"When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life ... A lot of us are wishing for a way back home, to the place where wear and care and feeding isn't zookeeper's duty, but something happier and more creative ... It's easy for any of us to claim no time for cooking; harder to look at what we're doing instead, and why every bit of it is presumed more worthy."

big, fat LIKE.

Impressed by Impressions of Impressionism

This is one fun project that I did with a group of boys, last year, to present at an art show in our town. The first thing I had the students do was a lesson from one of my personal favorites: Drawing Textbook, by Bruce McIntyre.

It doesn’t look like much on the surface yet it packs a mighty punch of information that you and your family can use from age six to adult. You can read more about it here:

I then reviewed the Seven Laws of Perspective. This is what I taught, in a nutshell ... and you can read the rest of the article over at Heart of the Matter online









Some other related articles, by me:

Fall Into This Idea for Art, Part 1

Fall Into This Idea for Art, Part 2

Summer Art Projects

Saying Goodbye to Summer

should have taken a picture

my youngest thinks our car needs a better hood ornament. It is a Buick, Custom Regal. I can't blame him, though I did make it clear that no one would be fooled. So, e.v.e.r.y. time we go to another junk shop (aka flea market) we have to scour the place for a Mercedes hood ornament "just in case".

Yesterday, while shoveling out the driveway for the third time this week, youngest gets an idea to make a small scale snowman hood ornament. He stuck it on pretty good, too. I had forgotten about it until I had to drive both boys to their rehearsal. Oldest laughed himself silly the whole way to the theatre. They must have told everyone about said snowman, too, because when we went to pick them up, the whole cast flocked to the stairs, hoping to catch a glimpse of the coolest car in town.

alas, snowman jumped ship just as we were leaving the driveway.
I am truly sorry that he lost his head. If only he had known how many faces cracked a smile when they saw him earlier.

I guess it was worth the ride.

cinnamon and things

as much as I am in a blogging slump (more like a blogging-don't-care), I realize that I have to post something so you don't continue to feel sorry for my chalkboard state. Thanks to Anne, I have a fabulous, working - but not cool coffee coloured - chalkboard!
We even hung it on the wall the same night we scooped it from in front of her garage.
don't you just love friends?

and is it weird that my youngest son believes that sniffing cinnamon right before "difficult" homeschool tasks increases brain cells and productivity?
and that I actually let him?

the jury is still out ...