I read a Book!

So one of the books I got at our library a bit ago was called A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg aka Orangette. Of course, when I got the book I didn't know that, I just knew the title resonated with what I've been trying to build for the past few years. (My mother would say for my whole life, I'm sure.) I even liked the look of the cover! So I took it home, expecting an instruction book, I suppose- it's tough to really give a book a once over when you're wrestling an infant.

I was totally surprised by what it really was- a memoir through food, punctuated by truly delicious sounding recipes. She takes you from her childhood in the midwest, through her life in a tiny Paris apartment, to her east coast/west coast romance and makes you taste the whole journey- I made her ratatouille and it was delicious! Definitely putting that into my standard rotation! Her writing pulled me into the stories she was telling, and I could almost taste the food she described. To me, food is such a complicated thing- it's holidays, it's family, it's friends, and romance and warm evenings at home in the winter, and I found all that in her book. Definitely something I'm putting on my want-to-own list.

I love the library, it's like a dressing room for books! :)

I make things!

I could prove it, too, if I could find the camera cable OR the camera's battery charger. I'll have to ask my sweetie, he'll probably know. When we get all these things together in the same place, I could show you all sorts of things! Blueberry jam! And raspberry syrup-soon-to-be-shrub. (I'll explain later.) and blackberry soon-to-be-shrub! and rumtopf. delicious boozy fruity goodness...

Yeah, I'm also on a diet.

BUT! I also dabble in carpentry! I spent some 10 or so years as a theatre tech, you see. Mainly in lighting, but I've done my fair share of set building and welding and so on, so I can do a few small projects here and there. So I've been building a hutch for the kitchen.

What? That's a small project! Let me explain. I took two Ikea bookcases (white Billy ones) that my friend gave me after a move, and I've chopped them up, rearranged them, and put them back together in a new, harmonious way. I have a couple of photos. You know. When I find my camera cable.