homemade tomato pasta sauce

So, our tomato harvest has been pretty crazy.  I planted a ton, and they grew like mad!  Now that they're harvest-ready we've been overrun with tomatoes and trying to make things with them before they all go bad.  I already shared the tomato pesto appetizers that we made, and we just made this ketchup last night (oh my god, so delicious), but we've also made homemade pasta sauce!  Dan bought some old cookbooks from the thrift store a couple months ago, one of them is a cookbook sharing recipes from various regions of France, and the other is an Italian one. I found this pasta sauce recipe in the Italian book and figured if it was a recipe from Italy it had to be pretty good.  I love making things from scratch and it's fun to realize that things you previously only bought pre-made at the store can easily be made at home for a fraction of the cost.

Ingredients:
2 Medium Onions
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 carrot, grated
1 clove garlic, chopped
3-4 sprigs parsley, chopped
2 lbs fresh tomatoes, chopped
1/3 tsp thyme
Several leaves of fresh basil
1/2 tsp salt
pepper + celery salt to taste
1/2 cup meat stock (or veggie if you prefer)

1. In a relatively large pan or pot, cook your sliced onions in the butter and olive oil until they are soft and golden.

2. Add your grated carrot, garlic, and chopped parsley and simmer for 3 minutes.

3. Add the fresh tomatoes, thyme, basil, salt, freshly ground pepper and celery salt to taste and meat stock.  Cover the pan and simmer the sauce for 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours.  When it is fairly thick, force it through a fine sieve.  This recipe makes enough sauce for 1 lb spaghetti.

I grated some parmesan cheese on top of mine, and I also would love to make some meatballs to pair with this sauce!  There are lots of other sauce recipes in the same cookbook, including some meat sauces, so that would be fun to try as well!

back to school

Whew! Crazy full weekend.  Saturday I drove up to Mt. Rainier to shoot a wedding and then on Sunday I took photos of a proposal at a coffee shop!  Lots of love and excitement to capture.  Fall is most certainly here, and it rained most of the weekend, but thankfully it held off for the important parts of the wedding.  The proposal was inside a coffee shop so it didn't matter that it was raining, but holy cow it was a monsoon outside!

The end of summer has left me feeling unorganized.  Summer is so carefree, and then fall comes in and all the conditioning from a couple decades of "back to school" make me feel like organization is nigh and I'll be getting syllabi and assignments and deadlines and a locker where all my things go.  But alas, no such thing exists, just this feeling of wanting all that structure and organization, with no outward framework to bring about such things.  TxSC had that effect, and I'm glad it was near the end of summer, rather than in the spring.  I'm still feeling inspired by TxSC, which is great going into this time of wanting more structure in my life.

Perhaps it's more deeply engrained than just "back to school," though.  When you think about it, with fall's arrival, we realize that food and shelter won't be as easily obtained.  We need to start preparing our lives to make it through the harsh winter months.  We harvest and plan ahead.  We're biologically designed to crave organization and planning at this time of year.

  

dress/via swap :: jacket/modcloth :: scarf/courtesy of earthquake state bag/courtesy of hearts :: tights(similar)/thrifted boots/courtesy of modcloth :: glasses/courtesy of bonlook

For us adults who are no longer privy to the pleasures of fall school induced structure, we have to force ourselves to adopt structure if we want it in our lives.  Since I work from home, it's even harder when working can be done while munching on chips and salsa, or Dusty wants to play (and who can resist that?).  I have a few things I'd like to do in the coming month to get some more structure in my life.  I want to start budgeting again, which is a wagon we fell off of a while ago.  Budgeting is a way to pretty much instantly create some structure in life, at least when it comes to how we're spending our money, which dictates a lot of other things, like what we do and where we go.  I stopped working out on a daily basis in August, mostly because I was burnt out and it was so hot that I was tired of being a sweaty hot mess all the time, but I do like having a regular work out schedule.

I've been climbing quite a few times per week, and it's nice to get back to doing that consistently.  One of my little goals is to compete in the bouldering competition at the end of October.  I haven't ever competed in a comp before, but it looks like a lot of fun, and even though I know there will be 12 year olds kicking my ass, it's still bound to be fun.  The bouldering comp at our gym is right near halloween so they usually have costumes and it's a blacklight comp, which is really fun.  Afterward they typically have a party with beer for 21+ folks, so even if I suck I can at least soothe my wounded pride with beer.

Do you guys have anything you do to organize life during this season?  I seriously miss the school routine.  Getting school supplies, getting ready for class, walking to each building, learning stuff.  I don't miss high school at all (not a morning person, and never understood why I was forced to learn at 8 AM when my brain was still 90% asleep), but I really miss college.  I miss assignments and due dates, walking through crunchy leaves to class, books and book bags, eating at the cafe, studying at coffee shops.  I know I'm idealizing it a bit in my mind, but I feel like I was made for school.  I love learning and college was one of my favorite times.

If I had a million dollars I might just go to school forever.  Of course, with todays tuition I'd probably have to settle with going to school for only a few more years.  The problem with going back to school is that I have no clue what I'd go back to school for!  I would want to do like 5 different programs.  I was an art major in college but I loved sitting in on sociology and other classes.  I took an African Life & Culture class one term and it was so fascinating and enlightening, even though it had almost nothing to do with my major.  I was glad to go to liberal arts college simply because there were so many other classes available than just those in my field.  Being forced to take Gen Ed classes felt annoying at times, but a lot of those classes I had to take for Gen Eds ended up being really interesting and I'm happy, in retrospect, that I got to spend time learning those things.  

Q + A // tips for blogging with a 9-5

I currently don't have a typical "9-5" type job, but in the past I've blogged while working part time, working part time and being in school full time, and also while working a full time job with 10 hour days.  My experience might not be similar to yours, but I'll share my personal story.  I didn't start blogging "full time" until I was out of school, and I didn't blog very seriously during that period when I was a full time student and working part time.  But after graduating college, I worked full time while living at home and also was working towards blogging full time.  I posted just about every day, and also worked almost every day as well.

When I worked longer days, from 7 am to 6 pm, blogging was much harder, especially in Alaskan winters where the sun sets at 3:30pm.  I'd go to work in the dark and get home in the dark, so I would often have to use my lunch break to grab a quick bite and take outfit photos so I could do them while it was still light out.  Then, when I came home I could edit photos and write my post.  I worked in a somewhat industrial area, so there were some cool nearby spots where I could quickly grab a couple outfit photos, and it was relatively unpopulated, so I didn't have to deal with passers by asking me what I was doing.

One thing that helped was the fact that I moved home to Anchorage (after graduating from college), and I didn't have a ton of friends.  I had just one, maybe two, so after work I didn't feel like I needed to socialize with people.  I'd just go home from work, hang with my family and blog.  Plus, being an introvert, I don't need a lot of social stimulation anyway.  My priorities were working and blogging, and since I lived with my family, spending quality time with them was kind of default.  I remember thinking back then that I would never be able to have a typical 9-5 job, blog, and also have a boyfriend because I would just not know how to juggle all those things.  I'm amazed when I see people who do it successfully.


Blogging takes an incredible amount of time, which I don't think many non-bloggers realize.  My photo shoots take at least 30 minutes (unless Dan snaps them super quickly), it takes about the same amount of time to cull and edit, then writing the post can be either pretty fast, or take hours.  Then there's sharing the post on all your social media, maybe sites like chictopia and lookbook, reading and writing emails, managing ads and other blogging business aspects.

The biggest thing, when it comes to blogging on top of a 9-5, is organization.  Fitting in blogging between work and having a social life just isn't going to work very well if you're flying by the seat of your pants.  You'll have to plan ahead when you want to take photographs, edit photos, and write the post.  I know a lot of bloggers will schedule what posts they want to write on each day, sometimes a week, even a month, ahead of time.  Some of them even plan what outfit they are going to blog about many weeks in advance.  For me, I've never been able to function like this and the most ahead I've gotten on my blog is about two weeks.  Organization also means planning your time well, and browsing around on facebook for hours will decimate your blogging time.  Avoid going on time-sucking social media until you've finished blogging.  If I bounce around between social media and trying to blog it takes me probably 10 times longer to finish my post.

If you're working towards making the leap to blogging full time, you're going to want to be putting a lot of work into your blog, which is really hard when you're already committed to 8 hours at another job.  Before going full time with my blog I worked part time jobs that were relatively easy, so I still had enough time and energy during my off time in order to blog well.  I worked part time as a barista, which gave me enough supplemental income that I was able to spend the rest of my time working on blogging, and eventually I (sort of accidentally) switched to being a full time blogger.  Granted, while blogging is a major component of my work, I also do graphic design and photography, so technically I'm still not exclusively a "full time" blogger.  A lot of bloggers I know who are full-timers also have other skills they use to supplement their blogging income.  Some create handmade things and have etsy shops, some sell vintage, some are photographers, some are graphic designers, some write books, etc. etc.  So when you think about making the decision to blog full time, also realize that you can work for yourself in other ways beyond blogging.



For some of you, though, blogging full time just isn't something that is feasible financially, or you just don't want to quit your job!  It's important to realize that you'll have some handicaps when it comes to creating your content.  Full time bloggers simply have more time to create their content, and to make it as good as they possibly can.  They have time to brainstorm and plan and create.  Working with a 9-5, you'll have less time to do everything that they do, which might mean blogging less frequently in order to create great content.  But that's okay.  I'd rather read a great blog that posted less frequently, than a mediocre blog that posted daily.  Some blogs even have multiple people contributing, which means the workload is distributed, which is another handicap you'll have to deal with.  Even I wish I had a "team" sometimes!  Don't overstretch yourself.  Understand that you're just one person and you can't do what they do, simply because you don't have the time or manpower.  Plus, making yourself crazy and working to much on your blog will probably cut into the time you need to maintain your relationships, which should definitely come before your blog, just like your relationships need to come before your 9-5.

Blogging full time can be a little crazy, and having a regular job is nice for financial security and hey, you might actually like your job!  Making the leap to blogging full time isn't for everyone, but lots of people are successful bloggers who also work or go to school full time.

If you're looking for some ways to stay motivated with your blogging, check out this previous Q+A about just that!

a delightful giveaway with bonlook

Hello lovelies!  Today I'm partnering with Bonlook to give you guys an awesome giveaway!  If you're not familiar with Bonlook, they make tons of gorgeous glasses in modern and vintage inspired frame styles.  I recently received the Martha frames and I've worn them almost every day this week!   The color and shape are exactly what they looked like online, which is great. I've gotten glasses online before that were marked as "tortoise," but when they came, they looked basically black!  Plus, Bonlook has a virtual try-on feature that makes it easier to picture the frames on your face.
Enter here for a chance to win $99 to Bonlook to purchase your favorite pair of glasses!  The giveaway will be open for a week, so head over and enter!  You don't have to comment on this post in order to enter, but if you want to, let me know what pair you'd pick.  My next pair is definitely going to be the La Marquise!  I love me a good cateye, but there are so many colors to choose from I don't know which one to pick!

lazy day

I've been feeling a bit of wanderlust lately.  Not for anything grand and epic, necessarily, though I surely wouldn't turn down some kind of international adventure.  Just a hiking trip, or an overnight camping trip, maybe spending a weekend at a seaside cabin on the Oregon coast.  All winter we talk about spending the whole summer going on trips like those, but here we are at the end of September and have done nothing all summer.  Granted, we've nearly completed re-siding our garage, which was a pretty big undertaking.  All it needs now is one more coat of paint and it'll be done!  I'm excited to check that project off the list.  Siding the house was a lot of work, but not quite as fun as other house projects I'd like to do in the next year.   Anyway, I don't think my brain is quite booted up this morning.  So here's a lazy day post, featuring a lazy day outfit, but there's a cute dog in some photos, so at least there's that.
 

top/thrifted :: tee(underneath) + jeans/courtesy of modcloth
boots/courtesy of bc footwear :: scarf/hand me down
glasses/courtesy of bonlook :: hat (similar)/the north face