30 for 30 February challenge

So in my effort to dress nicer, I have joined the 30 for 30 challenge for February. Basically what this means is that I have 30 items of clothing (not including coats and accessories) that I wear and remix for 30 days. Every outfit must be different. The second part is a clothing shopping ban, which is always good.

I am new to remixing so I am not sure how this will go, but I want to explore what I have in my closet and what I lack.

As to how this will impact my 365 project, I am stating that the photo I take of my outfit every day will not be part of the project 365 unless I am very proud of it. The proudness factor is for me to judge. Also, I can get somebody else to take my photo for the 30-for-30 challenge.

I've picked out my pieces for the challenge a couple of weeks ago so that I start avoiding wearing them now. Pardon the bad photos and captioning - I was very tired the evening I did this.

Challenges in picking:
-I am always cold. I hope that mass layering will help me through the challenge.
-I do not have a lot of accessories. I own two belts (!!). I am guessing I'll start doing the scarf-as-belt trick.
-I've never done much remixing. We'll see how this goes.

Personal rules:
-If I am going to be skiing or hiking for the day, that does not count as an outfit day. I'll be wearing specialized clothing that day and unless I change into something to go out later, I'll just push the challenge back a day. If I were to include outdoor clothes in this it would not be a fun month.
-I am going to Vegas for a weekend at the end of February. Not sure I have everything I want for the trip in here. I might skip a day in there. Full disclosure ahead of time.

Shoes (5)

Top row: Fitzwell Edeen, Durango Bottom row: Sketchers, Mary Janes (do not remember where I got them), Naturalizers

Skirts (5)

Top to bottom: Boden, flee market in China, Rafella, Boden, Jean skirt (Kohls maybe?)

Dresses(2)

Left to right: Modcloth, Boden

Pants (2)

Top to bottom: Express jeans, Kohls black jeans

Sweaters (5)

Bottom to top: Victoria Secret Boucle turtleneck, Forever 21, Boden chik wrap, Victoria Secret V neck boucle, Rei fleece,

Shirts (11)

Left column top to bottom: F21 cowneck, H&M long sleeve, Gap long sleeve, Kohls green shirt.
Middle column top to bottom: Gap black undershirt, H&M cardigan
Right column top to bottom: New York and company button up, H&M yellow shirt, H&M pink sleeveless, H&M long sleeve shirt, Thirfted cardigan

Daring Bakers January 2011 challenge: Biscuit Joconde imprime/entremet

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

This is my first Daring Bakers challenge. I joined because I want to bake more challenging recipes and this is a great outlet for trying new recipes.

Sadly, I think that this month the challenge was a little too daring for me. Though the cake tasted well, it did not look like it was supposed to and not nearly as well as everyone elses. Tasting great is what matters, right? No trouble finding victims to finish it off for me. 

Lessons? Lots. 

1. Do not use green as a food coloring. Yes it is my favorite color. Yes it looks like mold when combined with food. Bad combination.

2. Use more food coloring. Green combined with little of it looks like even more mold than it would without it.

 

3. Rulers. I should get one. Useful for like... measuring things. 

4. Um... last lesson I am not sure about. Honestly not quite sure why my design turned out to completely fail. So lesson of not understanding?

Linking to recipe over at the Daring bakers site. I do not feel qualified to give the recipe considering how mine did not turn out so pretty. Also - off to Whistler so not much time to type. Hoping I do better in next months' challenge!

More sushi on a beautiful day.

Honestly not sure which to pick as the photo of the day today. I picked the sushi just because I was meaning to have that be a photo last week but it didn't happen, but I love the Rainier photo.

My folks are visiting so I took my mom out to lunch at Japonessa. Yes I love that place. Twenty bucks for two people for lunch and stuffed with sushi? I say yes.

Then I took her up on the Columbia Tower Observation Deck. Amazon has offices in the building so I can get to it for free, but it is only five dollars compared to the twenty some dollar Space Needle. The view is amazing, and you can actually see the needle from there. You cannot go outside but there is not that many people there usually and it is a great place to hang out.

And the evening entertainment finished off with seeing Barber of Seville at the Seattle Opera. I remember seeing it when I was very little in Russia, but it was all fuzzy - I just remember liking it. And if you can get a kid to like opera, it must be good. It is funny, has beautiful arias, and well... is not boring. Lots of laughing to boot. Recommend this for anyone who wants to try out opera for the first time.

And tomorrow... I am off to Whistler! Farewell America! Well... for a couple of days. =)

Spare some change?

What do you do with your spare change?



Personally, I put it all in a jar and let it sit there for ages. Not the best saving mechanism, but I don't really notice that I put change in there and it is fun to see every couple of years how much I save up.

Last time I cashed in I got about eighty five dollars, but that included no quarters (College = laundry machines). Now I have been piling change in the bin for a year and a half and this includes quarters. No intention to empty it out in the near future, but it is curious to see how much is in there.

I remember in high school we did the 'how many pennies are in this jar' experiment. We weighed a penny and the jar and figured out the number of pennies in there. Not so easy now since I have so many different coins in there. Would be curious to weight and estimate based on some average when I get closer to cashing the change in.

Photography lesson of the day: I am tired. I organized my Lightroom catalog and uploaded photos and such for almost four hours last night. I am taking a breath from serious photos tonight.

Lemon braid loaf

Since I keep seeing Angel make braided loafs when there are parties at their place, I've had a craving to make some braided loafs. My parents are visiting this week and love lemon so I took this as an opportunity to try this recipe out.



It was quite hard to get this one right. I was missing a key ingredient for this recipe: a ruler. All I have is a tape measurer and it was not easy to roll out the dough to the specified size. I think if I don't get a ruler by next time I'll just draw out the shape on a perchament paper and roll out there. Note how much extra dough I had left over - I rolled it out too thin so lots of dough left over.



The braiding part was very fun - it is amazing how easy it is to form the braid. It was so beautiful even though my loaf is a lot smaller than it is supposed to be (thinkness-wise).



I let it sit in the fridge overnight before cooking it the following day. Not sure how it impacted rising - I was not sure exactly what 'bringing back to room temperature' means - I guessed two hours. I guess it worked?

To use up all the extra dough I just made a lemon curd roll... which sort of fell apart during baking (you can see the spill over on the side of the finished photo). Oh well - it tasted good. =)

So the photo of the day (the only one actually taken today - as the rest were taken yesterday) is of the cut open load. You can see the layers. I love the pairing of the cream cheese and the lemon. Delish!



Braided Lemon Bread
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen


Sponge
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup (1 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour
Dough
Sponge (above)
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) sour cream or yogurt
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, 1 beaten for dough, 1 beaten with 1 teaspoon water for brushing bread
1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups (10 5/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
Pearl sugar or sparkling white sugar for sprinkling (I used castar sugar)
Lemon cream cheese filling
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons (5/8 ounces) sugar
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) sour cream
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (2 ounces) lemon curd (I used store bought)
Make sponge: In a small bowl, combine the sponge ingredients. Stir well to combine, loosely cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to proof for 10 to 15 minutes.
Make dough in a stand mixer: Combine the sponge, sour cream, butter, egg, sugar, salt and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add flour and mix with the paddle attachment until the dough is a rough, shaggy mass. Switch to the dough hook and knead on until a soft, smooth dough forms, about 5 to 6 minutes. Place the kneaded dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 60 to 90 minutes, until quite puffy and nearly doubled.
Make the filling (while dough rises): Combine all the filling ingredients (except the lemon curd) in a small bowl, mixing until smooth and lump-free. Reserve the filling and lemon curd until ready to fill the braids.
Prepare bread: Gently deflate the dough and roll it out on a very well floured counter to a 10″ x 15″ rectangle. Transfer rectangle to a large piece of parchment paper, please; I did not and it led to all sorts of trouble. With the side of your hand, lightly press two lines down the dough lengthwise, dividing it into three equal columns. Spread the cream cheese filling down the center section, leaving the top and bottom two inches free of filling. Spread the lemon curd over the cream cheese filling.
To form the mock braid, cut crosswise strips one inch apart down the length of the outer columns of you dough (the parts without filling). Make sure you have an equal amount of 1-inch strips down the right and left sides. Be careful not to cut your parchment paper; if you have a bench scraper, this is a great time to use it. Remove the four corner segments. To “braid”, begin by folding top flap down and bottom flap up over the filling. Lift the top dough strip and gently bring it diagonally across the filling. Repeat on the right side, and continue down the entire braid, alternating strips until you are out. You can tuck the last couple that hand off decoratively under the end of the braid.
Carefully transfer the dough and the parchment paper to a baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic and set it aside to rise for 45 to 50 minutes, until quite puffy.
Bake bread: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Brush the loaves with egg wash, and sprinkle with pearl or coarse sparkling sugar. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the loaves are golden brown and your apartment smells like a doughnut factory. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.


I refrigerated my bread overnight after I made the braid. I took it out and made it warm up for 2 hours before it did the second rise.

Lake 22

I have hiked Lake 22 once before - it was much warmer then and more of a spring feeling. Today was much more on the winter side, though with the start of spring sending streams of water down the trail.

Pretty short hike (2.5 hours round trip) and only 1.5 hours drive from Seattle. Win win! Not very steep but hike is covered in streams and rocks which makes going along it rather difficult. The way down was slower than the way up because it was harder to look for where to step.

The lake itself was beautiful - the ice looks very 'glacial' and snowbanks all around. We didn't walk around the lake because the snow was pretty deep and we didn't bring the snowshoes so there was too much chance of falling into a hole. Great hike though.



Photo comments: Hard to take photos of snow - it all meshes together. Lack of color palette. I also got a lesson in taking photos of waterfalls without a tripod. Unfortunately I only figured out how to do it properly toward the end and all the best ones were not taken by me. Next time I know what to do!

Cooks and mountains

Double photo day all around, isn't it great?

The boy does not cook very often, so you bet that when he offers to make dinner I'll make sure to get myself over there to get some of that meal. Mmmm food.



Got to love it when I get a home cooked meal not made by me. =)

Another day at Crystal Mountain with Steve and Ryan. Not nearly as amazing as last time. Started with thoughts of doom as we had to wait 20 minutes for a shuttle and then give up and walk most of the way there from the car and then stand in insanely long mobbish lines. But then as you disperse around the mountain, and people start taking lunch... life gets better.



I never went on the back side of the mountain last time I was there because it seemed icy and I was not sure where the routes were. I met a local on a life today though who took me back there. Pretty awesome - great views and nobody on the slopes. A little terrifying with ice and cliffs, but fine once I figured out how to get around them. Now I just need to get ski buddies who'll go back there with me. Anyone?

I want to fly away

Cheering myself up with thoughts of fun trips after finding that I have lost my drivers license. Have not seen it in about two weeks so glad that this realization comes when I get checked when using my credit card versus when I get pulled over. Not so good.

But trips are on my mind. I get restless in one spot pretty quickly, and the fact that I have not left the US/Canada in over a year and a half is starting to nag me. Trips overseas must happen soon.

The photo of the day is my travel map. Pins where I've been. Chose Europe because it looks the most impressive. =P

Sunsets and Sushi love

Sushi is one of my favorite things on earth. Quite literally. I love sushi. It brings me to a happy place that few other foods do on a regular basis. I close my eyes and disappear into a world of peace and happieness when the small piece of fish/seaweed/rice/wasabi/soysauce/etc enters my mouth.

Today was a girls gathering at Japonessa, which I have mentioned before as one of my favorite happy hours. Amazing deals on rolls - 6 pieces for 5 bucks, and the pieces are not small? Heck yes!

Sadly, all the photos I took of sushi were full of motion blur. I am incapable of holding a camera still. Or incapable of setting the right ISO. Something like that. Just trust me... it looked amazing.

So the photo of the day was taken while I was waiting for the bus from work to dinner. Catching the very end of sunset.



Do you like the lens flare in the bottom right side from the 'Safeco Field'? Looks odd. I did not have a tripod (propped up on a trashcan) and did not have a lot of time so I could have done better here, but I am quite happy with it.

And good memories of my job location - we'll be moving soon out of my current building and loosing the absolutely amazing views of the city. Enjoy them why they last!

Climbing up the wall

One of the first ways that I met people in Seattle was through climbing. It is an inherently social activity - you need others there to keep you safe, and often to help you find the route. Well and to taunt you about how you'll never make it up and that you look funny in the case of my friends.

But still, it is a lot of fun, even if I only go about once a week lately. I prefer top roping, since that means I am tied in and when I fall, I only fall a little bit. Most of the folk I hang out with in the climbing gym boulder. Bouldering means that if you fall... you fall. Well on pads, but still, I do not like falling. =)



It was lots of fun shooting in the gym - I brought the lens I have that is best for indoors (50mm 1.4), but sadly it is not very wide angle - I would have preferred some wider shots. Still I had to crank up the ISO up to 400-1600 area in order to get reasonable shots. Next time I'll bring a wider lens and see what happens. Had a couple to choose from but I liked this one because it is a fun action shot - this is my friend Charlie.

I also had trouble focusing properly - hard to when people are in motion and there is low light. And it seems like the photo is in focus on the small camera screen but then when I get back home I found out it is not. Sad. Here's to getting better.

Colored tights and heels

As a continuation of my attempt to get out of my 't-shirt/fleece/jeans' fashion run, comes a new challenge.



Colored tights. A truly out of the box thing for me. This is the second time I've work this pair - the first time I was convinced that everyone on the street was staring at me. Today I wore a poofier skirt so that I did not notice the tights every time I looked down and could go on with my life. Completely intimidated by them - I think I'll stick to my less bright shades.

I've also been lusting over the heels over a couple of months so I finally got them this month - and am now on a shopping ban until February (I use Mint to keep tight budgets so it yells at me if I overspend. Has been amazing for managing finances, and keeping self 100% accountable). So worth it - they are so comfortable and simple. First pair of closed toed heels I have as well as most wearable. Love.

Photo wise - it is hard to get a photo of feet without a shadow. Tried to get rid of the shadow in Lightroom, but only semi-successfully. Also, only the second shoe is in focus, but I kind of like it that way.

A seal on the beach

In the quest of getting out of the city on the weekend - today was a drive up to Deception Pass State Park. It is home to some beautiful cliffs, a great bridge and some amazing views toward the islands of the sound.



The highlight of the trip for me was seeing a seal playing in the waters on one of the beaches. It seemed to swim along as we walked along the beach. It was hard catching him above water (especially since I only had my point and shoot... I brought my DSLR forgetting the memory card at home...) with the camera, but I got a couple of shots. Curious little fella who kept swimming up whenever a large tide would come in.

He's a bit hard to see in this photo - he is what looks like a piece of driftwood in the middle of the photo. Very sad to not have had my DSLR again... this is the second time I've forgotten the memory card since I've started this photo taking mission. Must not happen again.

Waterfalls on a rainy day

Weekend means going outside - so come hail or high water (in the case of Seattle massive amounts of rain and warm temperatures leading to snow even in the ski resorts) I was going outside.

Today's excursion was to Coal Creek Falls in Cougar Mountain State Park just outside of Seattle. Short stroll down the river armed with my camera and tripod. A couple of small waterfalls and cool looking mines. 

This waterfall was my favorite - a little higher than the rest. There were two problems with taking a picture of it though - 

1) My tripod is less than two feet tall. When you factor in branches and how low the trail goes, this makes things difficult. I also cannot pivot it well because it has trouble holding my camera + lens up.

2) The waterfall had a horrid branch across the very top of it. None of the photos with it looked good. So I aimed at the bottom.

Photo turned out well I think - excited to have figured out how to get the nice water effect. I've always taken pictures where I don't do a long shot of waterfalls and get just the water spots - the strands of water 'hair' are much nicer.

In other news - I just got 10 pounds of cow delivered to me (crossfit gym bought and divvied up half a cow). I am excited. Mmmm cow.

1/13/11 Bread machines - yay or nay?

I got both a stand mixer and a bread machine for the holidays so I have been heavily abusing both.There is freshly baked bread a couple of days a week and I love it. Yet I have found that I am too lazy to deal with the raising and baking of bread in the oven. Yes I know you can do it in '5 minutes a day', but I am forgetful about these things and I don't like stressing that I need to be home to bake the bread a particular evening. In general projects that take more than one day do not work (and since I get home around 6-9, I do not want to stay up super late baking).

So - bread machine to the rescue! Take 5 minutes, make beautiful bread! It will be ready in 5 hours (or more if I set a timer). Amazing! And the apartment smells delicious.

I did love when I made 'real' bread to have the amazing crust and the 'bubbles' from kneeding. Have not gotten those in the bread machine, but I've only been cooking out of the book that came with the machine.

Any good recipes for machines or breads that will not make me go crazy with the number of steps? I really want to make some sourdough, but am intimidated by the preparation. And the cloth towel for raising, and the fact that I keep forgetting to use a glass instead of steel mixing bowl. So much to think about!

Picture of the day - my bread machine bread!



So delicious - breakfast is now always bread with something - grilled cheese, maple butter, peanut butter and bananas. So many possibilities!

1/13/11 Girl geeks through a phone camers

I meant to take photos using a good camera today... but I brought the boy's camera with me which had no battery left... as I found out only when taking it out for a photo. So sad. So trying to see how good a photo (or bad a photo) I can get from my phone camera. To make matters worse - indoors with flashy lights.

Today I stopped by the Seattle Girl Geeks dinner. First time I've gone by and apparently the most chaotic. It was at the Microsoft store in Bellevue and boy was it crowded. The back portion of the store is made for max 45 people.... I would say there was definitely more than 100 in there? More outside. So crowded and with the noises of the store and advertisements all around - a little bit hard to network and hear the speakers.

That being said - lots of fun. Got to chat with some fun folk from other companies, listen to great speakers from Microsoft talking about Kinect development and their women affinity groups. I'll be back to the dinners - though hope they don't hold them in such an insane location again. Also making me drive over to the east side after work is all sorts of not fun.

So lesson of the day: check if camera is charged before bringing it, and when going to events I should bring my own chair. =) Check.



I promise tomorrow I'll take some better quality photos! Seems like everything I have lately is so pixelated/saturated/etc. It'll help when I get outside for photos on the weekend hopefully.

There might have been more snow... but it doesn't last long

Does taking a photo after midnight count as the next day? I am saying it does.

Went out around 12:30 to check out the sledding in Denny since there was a lot more snow than earlier in the night. This is one of the most impressive streets going up to CapHill. It is closed during snow, and so people start sledding.

This year, there was also massive snowing of snowballs on all passing cars. Even police cars (who were surprisingly good sports about it). It was also a shame that they plowed most of the snow off the road by the time we got there - sledding not so possible on cardboard. It was lots of fun to take photos of the shananigans, though well.... pixels.... they happen when you're taking photos at night without a tripod.

Also had lots of fun building snowmen in Cal Anderson Park - the snow was so wet and sticky that it is perfect for rolling giant snowballs (and not being able to assemble them into a snowman since they are just so heavy).

Lots of fun... while it lasted. Yesterday morning it started raining and that washed away all of the snow - left a lot of slush on the sidewalks for people who forgot to wear rainboots that day to get their feet wet in (um... me...).

But a very nice snowfall - people went home early and it didn't snow until late and didn't last that long. Good snowfall indeed. Now if only the rain scheduled for the next 5 days in the area would turn to snow life would be more fun.

Seattle and snow

So last time we got snow in Seattle was before Thanksgiving and the city went CRAZY. I mean people sliding off of hills and getting into crazy accidents. It was insane. So with some snow in the forecast... city goes crazy again! Not even with snow. Just with thought of snow. So many people left work early, school after school activities closed, weather advisories, etc. And what do we have? A little bit of powder. It doesn't even stick everywhere. Mind you, I am not driving, but still... a bit of a freakout.

Since I am never home during daylight hours (well except morning... but I am busy trying to wake up), getting a shot outside from my balcony of the powder on the neighboring building. Sadly I only have a mini-tripod. This means I had to put in on a chair and then put my cooler on the chair and THEN put the tripod. A result was an extremely crooked photo. Thankfully, through the power of Lightroom, I can straighten this bad boy out.

I should try to take more photos off of my balcony. Curious how much I can zoom into the little that I can see of Lake Union.



Oh and today was 1/11/11 - I totally got excited when it was 11:11. Silly.

Thai Tea Ice Cream

I love Thai tea. Let me rephrase that. I LOVE THAI TEA. It is one of my favorite taste combinations. It is my comfort food. Having some sends my heart racing and my taste buds to a joyful simple place.


So naturally, the first thing I did when I got an ice-cream maker for the holidays was... to make Thai tea ice cream. I'd been eyeing a recipe for a while from Use Real Butter. 


I've had some Thai tea that a friend got in Thailand laying around for ages, so I was happy to use it. It took a while (as did figuring out how to put the ice cream attachment on my stand mixer), but in the end it was worth it. So delicious and not something I can get in a store. 





The photo above is of the second recipe I tried, from Ivory Hut. This recipe is WAY easier than the previous one, and the flavor comes out just the same. I think I'll be going with the latter one from now on (since I ordered 3 bags of Thai tea off Amazon because this craving is not going away soon) because why not make it simple? =)


Photo lessons? Not much. I tried taking the photo with various backgrounds, and had trouble focusing on the wood background (though it looks the best on it). What is up with me and focusing? I should also be more mindful of imperfections before I take photos for cooking. It was bugging me when I was editing the photo that there are some smears from imperfect dropping of ice cream on the side of the dish. 


For now - so many ice creams to try. What next? Suggestions?

Simple Thai Tea Ice Cream

Recipe taken from Ivory Hut

1 1/2 cup half-and-half or whole milk (I used whole milk)
4 tablespoons loose leaf Thai tea
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Put the half-and-half or milk in a sauce pan and scald the milk. Add the Thai tea and sugar and stir to dissolve the sugar. Once it comes to a simmer, take it off the heat and continue to stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Let cool, allowing the tea to continue steeping, then add the heavy cream. Put the mixture in the refrigerator and let it get cold. You can also stick it in the freezer to speed up the process.

Strain, then pour into your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. Makes about 1.5 quarts.

Some notes:

-I do not strain my ice cream very well. As seen in my photo, some thai tea leaves are still left. Some folk may not like that. I don't mind. My main problem is that I only have one strainer which is not very good

-I left my mix in the fridge for a good 5 hours before putting it in the maker. I am sure you can leave it longer. Great for 'do ahead'.

Catching up for the weekend

Considering how beautiful the area around Seattle is, I usually try to get out of the city at least once per weekend. That being said, I work for a company that supports on-call for engineering support for each feature that at team owns. Basically - your team (4-8 people) is responsible for the code/machines/service/etc you own. If there are problems - you'll get paged. So we rotate on-calls for a week at a time. My team is great in that we have very low pager load, but being on-call still means that I need to stick around internet-ready areas in case something does happen.

So - I am in the city. What to do? More like... what to choose to do? So much fun to be had - but this weekend was mainly about relaxing and hanging out with friends.

1/8/11


Saturday, my gym had their belated holiday party. A great way to see everyone not in their smelly workout clothes (well at least most people...), eat some delicious food, and do a white elephant exchange with all the gifts that we got for Christmas that we didn't want.

I spent some time snapping shots. My main attempt was capturing the dogs that various people brought running around the place. It just didn't work! Dogs do not stay still at all. I just could not figure out how to focus on them - was learning about focusing on only a part of the screen rather than the whole thing. Nope. Nothing. Well only after I got home did I realize I never upped by ISO from 100. Duh. Lesson for later.

This is the ONLY photo I took of any of the dogs that was in focus. Now thats impressive and depressing. Let this be a lesson I shall not forget. Yet another one.

1/9/11


I have better photos for Sunday, but I cannot post them as they were part of the Daring Bakers challenge for the month, to be revealed at the end of the month.

Sadly I did not take many photos apart from that. I went out to lunch at Japonessa and was going to take photos of the sushi... but I forgot. At the end of the meal Ryan remembered about the camera and took a photo of the full glass of hot sake that I had. Full because that is one of the most disgusting things I have ever tasted. But I had never tried hot sake before (cold sake is good!) and for a couple of bucks and happy hour I was willing to try. Never again.

So then I just have one salvageable shot from wandering around Pike's market before it started snowing from Beecher's cheese. Not interesting shot, and too much extra light reflected in it. But it is all I got. Even with having more fun at Knee High Stocking Co. with friends later and a board game night... camera remained forgotten.

Doing today's photo (1/10/11) separately as it comes with a recipe!

Warming up by the fire

So the plan yesterday was to take the camera to a friend's surprise b-day party, but it was raining pretty hard and it was a 30 minute walk and I already had to drag my laptop with me, so camera stayed home. Regretting not bringing it because it was a charming venue at Liberty Pub. Will definitely be back there.

To make up for that - I played a little bit with taking pictures of fire and some of the toys I have. Was having trouble getting the effect I wanted from the fire - I wanted it more red. Had to stop abruptly when I realized I was going to be late to said b-day party. All of my photos were a little too saturated and I later realized I was using too high an ISO. For next time: lower ISO and maybe a bit of flash? Will try playing with fire again.

1/7/11

1/6/11 = Self portrait day

As the day started off rather poorly with getting back from Crossfit to find that there was not hot water in my apartment. Not a good thing when you're very sweaty and tired and want to get out the door to get to work. I only managed to wash my body - the hair went dirty. Note: must figure out where and how to use the showers at work. 

Project of the day - figuring out how to do self timer on camera. Yes - things I should have learned a long time ago, but alas I did not.

I've been reading a lot of fashion blogs (more like normal people blogging what they wear) lately. Some of my favorites are Already Pretty, Kendi Everyday and What would a Nerd Wear. Trying to dress nicer and buy things that last a while rather than are on sale and don't serve much of a purpose. So today, on a day which started off so poorly I attempt to dress classy to make myself feel better. Dark colors since I was fuming with anger this morning.

Also fun realization was finding the necklace I am wearing in my jewelry box. I got it from my high school boyfriend (hi John!) for a birthday because I was bugging him to get me a necklace. Well... not exactly what I wanted since it is too fancy to wear on a normal basis. But I dug it up today and I really like how it looks with a v-neck. I do believe this is the first time I've ever worn it (whoops), but I think it will get a lot more wear now that I found a use for it.



Boots - Durango
Shirt - H&M
Tights - Hue
Skirt - Boden
Earrings - Claire's
Necklace - gift

No Knead Bread

Since I got a bread machine for Christmas I have been making bread every couple of days. It is so amazing setting the thing up at night and waking up to warm bread and an apartment that smells delicious. That being said, I recognize that a bread machine does not make truly amazing bread.

So for this I have tried my second ever attempt at bread (the first was a horrible failure - the bread could only be used as a weapon considering how hard it was). This recipe is ridiculusly simple, and with a resting time of 20 hours I could easily do with my schedule (not like 2 hour resting time, and then I have to stay up until 2am to cook bread).

The result - yum! Not the best bread ever, but as Ryan put it 'I would be happy if they served me this in a restaurant'. That seems to bode well? I think my bread did not rise far enough - I am blaming this on my yeast which is bread machine yeast (thats what I usually use!). I will try this recipe again with different yeast later.

Another thing I discovered is that my oven is too hot! I got an oven thermometer for Christmas and stuffed it into my oven. 20 degrees too high! Makes sense why I keep burning things.

Photo lessons of the day? Manual focus is hard. I couldn't get auto focus to work so I tried focusing manually. Looked fine on the camera but it was completely off on the computer. The posted photo is the only auto focus one that I took. Whoops.



No Knead Bread
Adapted from Cooking for Geeks

Ingredients
3-3.5 cups All-purpose white flour (390g)
1.25 cups water (300g)
1 tsp salt (7g)
1 teaspoon instant yeast (5g)

The night before you want to make bread, mix up all the ingredients until the flour is moist. This shouldn't take very long since there is a lot of water used in the recipe. Cover with plastic wrap in a non-metal bowl and let rest at room temperature for about 20 hours (I did 23 hours).

Put a cast iron pot into your oven and preheat it to 450 degrees (I left the lid out, was that okay?). Put the dough on a floured surface and fold a couple of times. Let sit for 15 minutes (mine sat for 20....). Shape into a round loaf shape and place on a floured cloth towel. Let rise to double in size (mine only 1.5ed in a reasonable length of time). Plop the bread into the cast iron pot and bake with the lid on for 30 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for an additional 15 minutes (I did 10 because I realized that my oven is too hot). Viola! Bread!

Saying farewell to the tree

I love my Christmas tree, or what is more appropriately called 'New Years Tree'. I have had a tree around holiday time my whole life. As we do not celebrate Christmas in my family/Russia we always exchanged gifts at New Years. At you might realize, staying up to open presents at midnight gets a little old, and waiting until midday January 1st when everyone actually wakes up also doesn't work well, so we've in general switched to opening presents on Christmas, since that is when everyone else does it, though we have also opened on Orthadox Christmas or New Years or just a random day in December before. It is all about the presents and the beautiful tree anyways, not the specific day. =)

So now that I am living accross the country from the family, I have started putting up my own tree - Christmas or New Years or whatever you call it. It must be real, because it is just much more friendly that way (though clean up is indeed rather unfortunate). The only big problem is that I am not in a house and can thereby not just burn my tree when I am done with it in April (how long the tree at my parents house often stays up...). I have to take it out to the dump yard by January 9th, which isn't even to Russian New Years!

So today's photo is dedicated to saying farewell to my tree. It's been fun, but tomorrow you're going to be taken down!

January 4th


From a photo perspective, today made me realize that I need to use the right lens and settings for the right photo. This was not the right lens, and all of the photos I did with various settings were not that great. This is the best one I got and it was only a little salvagable in Lightroom. I got a much better one before with a different lens. Sure makes a different, right?

A New Year - Project photo a day

Happy New Year! I never really do resolutions since I tend to forget about them, but it occurred to me that this can be a good chance for me to force myself to take more photos. I've been trying to learn more about photography recently and the 'take one photo a day' seems like a great approach, as well as a good way to document life and encourage myself to do cool things. =)

I realize that I might not upload photos on the exact day (for example, it is January 3rd, and I am just now uploading photos), but as long as a photo is taken and later posted it counts.

So here is to 2011 and exploring photography!

January 1st

The weather was amazing so I dragged Ryan out early (well anything is early on January 1st after being up so late) to try out snowshoeing. I'd never tried it before, but was pretty sure I'd love it so I went ahead and bought snowshoes earlier the previous day. Went with a very easy trail to try them out. Went to Gold Creek Pond which has a huge winter recreation area - lots of people snowmobiling, snowshoeing and cross country skiing. A little hard to adjust to walking in these shoes - walking with feet further apart is odd. Overall, I am ready to face more adventurous trails next time! Also I forgot to charge my battery so it ran out halfway through the trip... whoops?



January 2nd

Continuation of the amazing weather led to a day ski-trip to Crystal Mountain. I had never been there before and it is definitely my favorite resort in Washington so far. Right next to Rainier, has much faster lifts (and padded!) and on-mountain dining. Lots of wins! It is also larger so people are a lot more spread out. The day was magnificently clear too. This photo is from when I went up to the very top 'expert' section and was trying to go along the rim of the trail to get to the less icy moguls section. The trail was thin and full of rocks - not pleasant. But the view was magnificent.

January 3rd

I subscribe to a CSA - New Roots Organics. They deliver a bin of produce once a week - I get to pick and choose what is in it and it comes from a variety of farms. It is great, but I haven't gotten a bin in a month between the holidays, being sick, etc. Finally! A bin! Excited for intense amounts of kiwi and oranges/mandarins. And have to figure out something to do with lots of onions and spinach.