life+running » des moines

Instagram FINALLY + A Very Blue Bag

chimes — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Happy Friday everybody!

Got any big plans for the weekend? I have a full one ahead — tonight: Livefit day 59, hanging out with my friend Stephanie from high school who’s in town for Easter; tomorrow: getting my oil changed, helping a friend move, working on a TON of zip bags for an upcoming sale and potentially LiveFit day 60; Sunday: Drive home to hang out with the family for Easter. WHEW.

I have to tell you that I found out Android released an Instagram app. Finally. So yes. I’m on the bandwagon. And I’m not ashamed (Steph, I know you’re groaning at least just a little. don’t worry. no blue filters on my food).

I downloaded it. Stat. And I used it to finally capture this poster on Welch Ave. that I’ve been eyeing for a while. LOVE the design on this.

As I walked back to my office, I caught this random balloon man on campus.

I felt a bit stalkeresque running up behind him, but I had to catch it and use my newfound app to post it. I started a new tumblr account for this crap to go so I’m not spamming my twitter followers with all my photos and stuff. I’d like to post this stuff somewhere that’s easily catalogued so I can quickly grab for future use, but not spam everybody in the process. I tweet / facebook enough as it is.

~~I didn’t get in on this in time for this month’s photo-a-day-challenge … but maybe I’ll do May.~~ Screw it. I only missed a few days. I’m doing the April photo challenge. Because that’s what all the cool kids do.

[ image from fatmumslim ]

Also, one of my old coworkers from my previous life at Drake University recently asked if I could donate something to an auction that the marketing department was having to benefit a scholarship.

Why yes. Yes I can donate something to this cause.

Right before I left Drake back in October of 2011, my coworker had a great idea to fund a scholarship from our department — the funding could come from any member of the marketing department, past or present.

To kick it off, they’re going to have an auction / yard sale today to raise some funds.

I used one of my many Drake t-shirts and made a simple market bag with pockets. I hope to see somebody sporting this at Market Day this spring!

Lots of inside pockets. And only took me 45 minutes to create. Mostly because I HATE working with t-shirt fabric. I would bet that most quilters LOATHE it. But, it’s for a good cause and I wasn’t wearing this shirt anymore anyway. Somebody is going to really enjoy this bag!

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BBQ Pork and Southern Style (GF) Corn Bread

chimes — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

I unfortunately can’t share the recipe for this BBQ pork with you. Mark did this. And he didn’t remember what all he put in the pot. I know it was a combination of BBQ sauce, apple cider vinegar, water and various spices. If he does this again, I will make him write it down. We used leftovers from the pork chops and pork loin we had recently made.

Good news! We made this again on Thursday, and I made Mark write it down this time.

BBQ Pork

Ingredients

2 pork chops (previously cooked — leftovers are great)
1.5 c BBQ sauce
2 c water
3/4 c apple cider vinegar
1/2 medium onion, diced
pepper to taste

Directions

Put in a pot and cook over medium/low heat 2-3 hours until the pork breaks apart. Cook until the sauce is the consistency you like. This could easily go in a crock pot.

It turned out quite delightful! Here’s Mark’s plate …

And mine … complete with Southern Style (gluten free) corn bread! Trust me. It’s there. It’s buried under the pork.

I also a recipe to share for the corn bread. I found it on this forum, but I’m posting it here to save you from scrolling through all of the replies. I did that already. I frantically searched for a simple flourless cornbread one day, and finally found this buried in a forum.

Southern Style Gluten Free Corn Bread

Ingredients

2 c corn meal
4 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 egg
1.5 c milk
1-2 T fat / oil (bacon grease = awesome here)

Directions

Preheat your oven to 450° and place an 8″ cast iron skillet in it to heat. You want the pan smoking hot when you pour the cornbread into it so it sizzles and fries upon contact.

Combine corn meal with baking powder and salt. Mix in the egg and milk.

Put the fat in the hot skillet and put it back iin the oven.

Pour corn meal mixture into the sizzling hot skillet and bake 20-25 minutes.

If you cut into 12 or more pieces, the corn bread is 3 points per serving — including the grease.

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Thoughtful Thursday: Two Giant Leaps Back

chimes — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Okay. I don’t often use my blog as a soapbox for political issues. But this has to do with something I cannot tolerate: HATE.

It makes me sick to think in a state / city in which gay marriage is legal that a sign like this would exist:

Now think about this: How is that sign any different from this sign that was recently in the news?

Feel free to discuss. The backstory is that this sign (the top one) was put up, then the pastor received threats to himself and family so he replaced with “Adultery is not okay.” And according to a source who is friends with the pastor, the church’s Facebook page (which no longer exists) was hacked and extremely hateful messages were sent out to people.

I’m not sure what to believe, but my main concern here is the sign situation. How were EITHER of these signs deemed acceptable by anybody in our society today? Haven’t we moved past this? Or do we consistently have to have a group to hate and scapegoat? Or is it just human nature to dislike things that are “different”?

What do you think?

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Le Bebe Party

chimes — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000

I mentioned before that one of my best friends is having a baby in February. So her sister and I put together a baby shower for her at the beginning of the month. We used a lot of stuff from the Martha Stewart Book Baby Shower for inspiration and for artwork for invites and such. I edited the colors to match our scheme a bit better and a laid out the invites a lot nicer. Here is the invite:

And Adria had somebody in her boyfriend’s family make a delicious cake. She matched the decoration to the invite! How cute.

Audry, Adria’s sister went a little overboard with the whole thing, but it turned out absolutely beautiful and everybody had a good time. Here’s the table decorations. FLOWERS. Yes. Flowers. Not stupid rattle confetti. Lovely!

And of course, Adria got a lot of loot. She likes loot.

One of my other besties from back home, Stephanie, brought her little girl with. I haven’t seen her daughter, Bella, since she was brand spankin’ new. She was a lot of fun and super friendly. She helped me take pictures!

Here’s Stephanie, Bella, Adria and me at the party. I don’t remember the last time we were all together … oh wait. It was January 2010 and Stephanie was pregnant!

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Craft Saturday! Be there or be square.

chimes — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:30:00 +0000

The Craft Saturday Holiday 2011 show is THIS SATURDAY from noon-6 at the Fourth Street Theatre in Des Moines.

I will be there. And so will my new wallets. And all my old stuff will be on SALE. Major sale. Clearance. I want to get rid of it to make way for new stuff. So that means awesomely cheap holiday gifts for you!

[new wallets for $30 each — $35 on etsy]

Besides that, there are going to be a TON of awesome vendors there. Check out the vendor preview page. I know I am planning on getting some things from these fabulous vendors. Bean and the Sprout will be there, so will JuneCraft and Florence Oliver.

I hope to see you there!

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FO Friday: New Wallets!

chimes — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:00:00 +0000

A while back I talked a bit ’bout making new wallets. The first one was cute, but not what I wanted.

Well, I sketched and sketched and put together another few before I finally got these down. And I had two days this week between jobs (I’m unemployed for 2 whole days! whoopeee!) so I got to sewing.

Introducing my new and improved wallets!

PS the one in the middle is MINE.

How are they improved from the old version of my wallets? Well, for starters, they are sewn better — all thanks to my NEW sewing machine that I got on Wednesday. This Janome DC1050 solved all my problems of skipped stitches and weird tension happening with my old machine. AND there is a stop/start button, so I can use that instead of the foot pedal. This feature comes in handy when sewing a lot of the same thing in a row. Hit start, feed everything through the machine, then hit stop.

Also, there is one additional feature that my old wallets didn’t have — a divider with card organizing slots. And the closure? It’s not a button anymore. It’s a magnetic purse snap. It’s like my wallets went and got all grownup on me!

[one of my old wallets for reference]

I’m thrilled to have all these wallets ready for Craft Saturday next weekend. I also made a bunch of revamped teeny-tiny wallets. They’re a bit bigger to accommodate cards (which was the ORIGINAL idea … but my math skills got in the way) and they’re more nicely put together. Again, thanks to Ms. Janome. All of my old inventory will be on MAJOR SALE next weekend to make way for the new stuff.

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Tu-tu-tu-Tuesday: Quilt as you go [and more!]

chimes — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

I went to my first Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild meeting last Thursday evening. My friend Doris has been bugging me to go since she is one of the co-founding members. I missed out on their Habitat challenge and their ugly fabric swap, but came last week. They have a guest speaker every meeting and a show and tell where members show things they’re working on (quilts or related sewing).

I introduced myself by showing all my embarrassing works in progress: My coin stack baby quilt, Hello Betty quilt and my Thea’s puzzle quilt — just to name a few (there are WAY more).

And member Eva Marie was kind enough to fill in for a speaker that was unable to attend. She taught us the quilt as you go method. Here are some great tutorials.

Whilst she was showing us the methods I shared above, my brain was spinning on all sorts of ideas. I’d seen this method before and thought it was a great way to make things on my machine because it doesn’t quilt large objects well. I could use this method to make blocks for a larger quilt, make larger bags, pillows, all sorts of things …

… But then I remembered that my machine doesn’t do well with quilt sandwiches — no matter what the size. It even has a hard time with stitch length equality with my little zippy pouches.

I love my sewing machine. It’s a fabulous hand-me-down from my great aunt Willi — so I knew it was a good machine. I got it and it was pretty much brand new, though it was at least 30 years old. It’s done me well and I’m keeping it for threadbanging crafty projects (like quilted greeting cards, mini portfolios, sketchbooks, etc). I got DC1050 from Amazon (because they are the Wal-Mart of the internet of course) — so it should be here in the next week. I cannot WAIT for: Start stop button instead of pressure foot, 50 awesome stitches (perfect for my wallets and bags), computerized (EVEN) stitching and a self-threading needle.

I’m beside myself with excitement! If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that I’ve never had a NICE new machine. I’ve had a new machine (from Wal-Mart) and I’ve had some nice machines (that are 30 or more years old), but not a nice and NEW one — with a 25-year warranty, might I add.

You will see an update sometime soon with a metric butt-ton of new wallet 2.0s, new and improved teeny tiny wallets and little zippy pouches.

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Big News!

chimes — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

So I promised big news last week and I was so busy I never delivered.

The big news is that I got a new job! I’m leaving Drake and heading to Iowa State University.

[goodbye spike, hello cy*]

Besides the obvious commute change (as in NO MORE COMMUTING) there’s another major change: I will probably not be designing so much.

My new job is Communications Specialist II for Student Recruiting in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. I’ll be doing social media, a bit of writing, a bit of design, student recruitment (so some travel) but mostly I’ll be in charge of the first-year student experience. So I’ll be planning events programming for first-year students to keep them engaged with not only ISU but specifically the college.

So are you freaking out? I’m kind of freaking out. I just realized last week I don’t get to pick paper anymore. Or print vendors.

Calm down. I’m planning to enroll in the College of Design MFA in Graphic Design program while I’m there. It’s not my TOP pick for MFA programs *cough cough* MCAD *cough cough* Yale *cough cough* … but it will be free. And really, I want to teach college students. So what matters is that I HAVE the degree. Not where it’s from. It’s not a BAD program either. So I’ll be getting my design in as well as honing some other important skills.

*I realize that this is the OLD Cy ISU athletics logo … but I reallllly hate all the new athletics logos. Which is funny because I always bitch about Drake constituents that feel the same way about old marching spike that I do about old cy.

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twenty-seven.

chimes — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:00:00 +0000

27 is still close enough to 25 to be considered mid-twenties, right?

What will this year bring? Who knows. I already have ONE big change in store, but I’m not sharing just yet (oh the suspense is killing all of my 5 readers). Cat will be out of the bag by the end of the week most likely (those of you with the inside scoop, keep it to yourself please).

I actually started my b-day off on Friday with a Jim Gaffigan show at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. I laughed so hard I was crying! Note — don’t go to a comedy show after doing a killer ab workout the day before. Side note — there was mention of a fork made of bacon.

Of course, there was shopping involved this weekend. Since it’s my b-day, I bought myself a couple of gifts.

Found this fabulous Jessica Simpson bag at Gordmans thanks to a tip from my friend Shelly. She bought one in a neat beigey-pink color. I had to go with red to replace my almost 2-year-old purple bag. I bought the purple bag in January of 2010 and busted it out that year in June. I’ve been too lazy to change bags and haven’t found anything in an affordable price range that I love just as much. Also, I combed the internet to find this bag so you could purchase too … but no such luck.

I also found these amazing shoes. They’re G by Guess and they’re boots. And heels. Obviously. But I don’t wear heels typically. These are really comfy with a hidden platform and they have major traction on the bottom so they aren’t completely useless in the snow. Oh, and they are COMFY. And super hot. When paired with these jeans I look kind of tall (and by tall I mean average height) and super skinny. LOVE these.

And I got a LOT of new fabric. A lot of which for my new wallets. The top row will make great insides for my wallets. And I’m beyond in love with the bottom right — “dropcloth” in plum. I might have to make myself a wallet out of that with the dots on the inside.

To celebrate today, Mark and I went to The Café for lunch. YUM. We haven’t been out to eat anywhere “fancy” for a while — just La Fuente and that’s mostly for free chips and salsa + booze. I picked up lunch because I think it’s kind of rude to invite somebody out for lunch, and then expect him to pay for it. He offered to pick up dessert. Mostly because he knew if I picked it up we’d only get ONE dessert and he wanted something other than my first choice of dessert (they are all amazing there!) … so we got two.

[Mark's pick — the fig & goat cheese cheesecake — my 2nd choice]

[and my pick — chocolate cayenne torte — since I've been obsessing over spicy chocolate as of lately]

I also picked up a new album, which really isn’t out until tomorrow, but I snagged it on emusic early. New Wednesday 13 [he's in Des Moines on the 23rd ... ].

All in all it’s been a pretty awesome day. :) Here’s to another year!

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Tu-tu-tu-Tuesday: Map of the States Quilt Blocks

chimes — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Looking for something to do with small scraps of fabric? Check out this awesome tutorial by Oh Fransson! for map of the states quilt blocks.

For the life of me I cannot find the blog post that I talked about my progress on this project. Which sucks because I cannot remember what size block I was doing (would have been smart to make a template …). I know what size the finished blocks are, but I know there was some trimming involved.

Anywho, I took this project on for all the scraps of my favorite fabrics that I can’t bear to part with. I like things wonky, so I kicked it up a notch. I also love white space (imagine that) so I added some relief to the craziness with some white strips of fabric.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to just be done with this project and finish it up with white on the top and bottom of the quilt, or if I’m going to keep going. I think I’d like to keep going for 2 more rows, but I need to remember what size I was doing first. And I need to get my craft room organized.

Also, did I mention I started this project in March 2010? And I haven’t touched it since … yeah …

WHICH REMINDS ME. I need to start going to the Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild meetings. That *might* actually get me to finish all these poor WIP quilts I have. I seriously have 3 finished quilt tops that I’m too poor to get quilted and 4-6 in-progress quilts.

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