fields of poppies

So, a few months ago I applied for a stall at my local farmer's market to sell cute homemade artwork and home goods.  I had been waiting to hear back on the approval, and didn't receive an email with any kind of green light so I figured I hadn't been approved and let it go.  This morning I got an email asking if I was planning on showing up to the market, and learned that apparently I had been approved.  The market has been going on for two weeks already and I've missed the first two already!  So in the next 24 hours I have to get my shit together to sell at the Tuesday farmer's market.  Nothing like a last minute deadline to kick my ass into gear, right?  Oh man.  I'm only freaking out a little bit.  Okay maybe a lot.
This is the dress I mentioned in my last post, the "Wizard of Awesome" dress.  Awesome indeed.  I'm currently slightly obsessed with the giant petticoat underneath the skirt and have been scouring my closet for other dresses and skirts I can wear with it.  It's sort of amazing to me that women used to wear these giant petticoats on the regular.  I don't think I'll be pulling it out too frequently, but it certainly is rather fun now and then.  One thing I've learned?  It's kind of hilarious to drive a car with a huge petticoat.  And squeezing into a booth at a restaurant?  Also humorous.  This outfit it a little fancier than my norm, but I wore it out to a cabaret burlesque show, and the dress code read "dress to impress," so I figured poppies and a giant petticoat were certainly in order.  I couldn't find a yellow brick road for my outfit photos, but I figured a field of yellow blooms with a brick building in the background would suffice.

 

dress + petticoat/courtesy of modcloth :: shoes(similar)/courtesy of blowfish shoes shades(similar)/gift :: photos by Dan

wizard of awesome

About a month ago, after months of hard work, the Adventures in Oz cast took the stage in front of a sold out crowd at the Temple Theater in Tacoma.  Holy cow, was it an incredible night.  After the first performance where the entire cast was on stage, we all watched the rest of the first act from the wings and I got choked up with pride as I watched every single performer knock it out of the park.  It was seriously one of the most fun nights of my life.  At the time we weren't sure we'd have any prospects of performing the show again, but we've heard back and will be performing the show again in Olympia on September 27th!  We're hoping to be able to perform it in Seattle as well at some point.  I'm so glad we get to perform again.  Everybody worked so hard it'd be a shame to have done only one performance.  Meanwhile, I'm dreaming up new solo acts.  I just went to the debut show at a new monthly cabaret dinner club and got to see some of my fellow Adventures in Oz ladies do amazing solo performances.  It's a little out of my comfort zone to do a solo performance, but I'm really excited about the prospect of doing one!  I have a couple concepts buzzing around in my head for fun routines...

 

I think the performance actually might be available in DVD form someday soon.  We had a film crew shoot the whole show and I saw the unedited version the other day, so if any of you guys want to know if/when that becomes available I'll keep my ears open for more info (here's a little trailer of the show in the meantime!). Being a fine arts student I grew up with a pretty negative opinion of all things rhinestone and glitter (the herpes of craft supplies).  I'll tell you what, though, I'm a huge fan of both now.  Bring on the sparkle.  The day of the show my whole body was covered in glitter.  My headpiece had glitter spray paint, my hair had glitter hair spray, my skin had body glitter, my eyelids had glitter, my lips had glitter, my leotard had glitter, and even my fishnets had glitter.  I don't think I've been around that much glitter in my whole life.  I don't even want to think about how much glitter I probably ingested that day.  It was awesome.  I'm pretty casual in my day-to-day life, so spending hours transforming into a glitterbomb fancy lady was amazing.  I'll probably still avoid glitter and rhinestones in my everyday life, but I'm excited for my next opportunity to spend hours glueing rhinestones to a costume. Another unintended effect of performing as a poppy in the show is that I'm now kind of obsessed with poppies.  I bought a bouquet at the farmer's market on Tuesday mostly because it had poppies in it, and I just got this dress because it was covered in poppies (it's called the "wizard of awesome dress," so I pretty much had to).  I need to get some poppies to plant in my garden too.  Poppies everywhere!

 



top photo by ebony morris :: all other photos/willow's photography +  heather schofner photography + gerry collen + lock & key photography

homemade chips + salsa

You know what I hate?  When someone leaves the ziplock baggie full of tortillas unzipped, rendering them all dried out and hard.  Unfortunately I also feel like I can't just throw them out, it's not like they've gone bad or anything, they're just a little...crunchy.  I'd been wanting to make some salsa anyways, since the weather has been oh so summery, so I thought I'd try my hand at making the chips to go with it!  Back in college I used to work in the campus cafe, which was a little fancier than the cafeteria, and I was stationed at the Baja Grill, making burritos, quesadillas, nachos, etc.  We'd make our own chips by chopping corn tortillas into wedges and taking them over to the burgers and fries section of the cafe and use their deep fryer to make the chips.  If we had leftover chips at the end of the night, whoever closed got to take a bag home full of them.  Oh man, did I ever eat a metric ton of tortilla chips that year.  


 

Salsa 

(recipe adapted slightly from pioneer woman)

Ingredients

1 can (28 Ounce) diced tomatoes with juice

2 cans (10 Ounce) diced tomatoes with green chilies

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic, minced

1 whole jalapeno, quartered + sliced thin

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 cup cilantro

1/2 whole lime juice

1/2 can (15 oz) corn, juice drained.

This recipe makes a lot of salsa.  If you're not planning on using a ton of salsa, I'd suggest halving it.  If you don't have a big food processor, you can process the ingredients in batches and then mix everything together in a large mixing bowl.

1. Combine diced tomatoes, diced tomatoes with green chilis, onion, jalapeno, garlic, sugar, salt, cumin, lime juice, and cilantro in large bowl.  If you want to have a bit chunkier salsa, take a small bowlful  of this mixture and set it aside.  I like my salsa a bit more chunky.

2. Working in batches (if you have a small food processor like me), add the mixture to the food processor and pulse until you get the salsa to the consistency you'd like.

3. When you're done processing the mixture of salsa, add in the un-blended portion and the corn.  Test seasonings with a tortilla chip and adjust as needed.  If you like a bit spicier salsa, add Tapatio (or your favorite hot sauce) until it gets to the spiciness you prefer.

Refrigerate salsa for at least an hour (while you're making chips!) and serve.  YUM.

Chips

(recipe via simply recipes)

Ingredients

3/4 to 1 cup canola, grapeseed, or corn oil (a high smoke point oil), more or less depending on how many chips you are making

Small corn tortillas, each tortilla makes 6 chips, 12 tortillas will yield 72 chips

Kosher salt

1. Cut each tortilla into 6 triangle shaped wedges.  I use a pizza cutter and do 2-3 tortilla at once.  The chips will fry better if they are a bit dried out first. You can leave them out overnight, exposed to air so they are stale the next day, or dry them out in the oven.  I needed chips, like, now so I used my oven to dry them.  Just lay them out in a single layer on a baking sheet and baked them at 350°F for 5 minutes. You don't want them super crispy, just as if you'd left them out overnight.

2. Pour the oil into a medium skillet to a depth of 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch.  Heat the oil on medium high heat until a small piece of tortilla placed in the oil sizzles, about 350°F. Don't let the oil to get so hot that it smokes, if it does, remove it from the heat and let it cool off.

3. Place a paper towel onto a large plate and have several other paper towels ready (I was out of paper towels so I used newspaper and napkins). Place a handful of tortilla triangles into the hot oil, in a single layer. Use metal tongs to arrange the wedges so they aren't overlapping and so that all sides get coated with oil.  Fry for about 2 minutes until the chips just begin to color and they are firm, no longer pliable. Remove the chips from the oil and lay them on the first layer of paper towels. Sprinkle with salt and lay another paper towel over the top, to be ready for the next batch.

4. Continue to cook the chips, working in batches, placing the freshly fried chips over a new layer of paper towel each time, and sprinkling with salt. When the chips are all fried, pat any excess oil from them with a fresh paper towel, and eat!

BACK TO BASICS // denim top five

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend about how crazy it is that we've been on Facebook for almost 10 years.  September 20, 2005 is when I signed up for Facebook, back in the days when you had to have a college email address in order to get an account.  I guess it's not all that weird that my life is documented on Facebook, since I've also been documenting my life on this blog for nearly six years as well.  It's still funny to look back and see who I used to be all those years ago.  I remember thinking how grown up I felt, as a freshman in college, and looking back I feel like I was so young.  My little brother is now going into his junior year in college, I'm rapidly approaching 30, how is time going so fast?  It's honestly a little disconcerting.  
I need to stop putting things off, thinking, "Oh, I'll have time to do that later."  Next thing I know I'll probably be celebrating my 30th birthday and wondering how I've been on this planet for three decades already.  I know thirty isn't a huge deal, but it does feel like one of those birthdays where you're like, well damn.  I guess I'm like really an adult or something, right?  One year from today it'll have been ten years since I graduated high school, and I'm realizing that I have stuff I want to do that I've been putting off for years.  Goals I've been secretly holding onto, but never diving in and just going for.  And here we are, already almost halfway through another year.  I'm done with the excuses, it's time to dive in, man.  It's time to make it happen and chase dreams even if they scare me a little or if that voice in the pit of my stomach says, "I don't know if you have what it takes, I don't think you can do it."

 

top (similar)/thrifted :: skirt (similar)/courtesy of superstition vintage  petticoat/courtesy of modcloth shoes(similar)/courtesy of seychelles :: hat/courtesy of lulu's

BACK TO BASICS // denim top four

I've been on a do-it-myself kick lately, learning a bunch of new skills.  Sometimes it seems like spontaneity is the best way to learn something new.  Just jump in and you'll force yourself to learn how to swim, right?  I was cleaning the Brave the other day and as I was vacuuming I thought about how ugly the carpet was.  Brown/beige outdated carpet, not even the original green 70's carpet.  I peeled up a corner of the carpet to see what the condition was of the subfloor, and it looked alright, so I just ripped the carpet out.  Sink or swim, right?  I'd never installed any kind of flooring before, but I figured it couldn't be too hard.  Well, it wasn't, but I will say that the next time I install wood floors it's going to be in a room with all right angles and straight walls.  Of course one project always turns into, like, ten.  We turned on the water and one of the pipes has a hole, so today I'll be learning how to repair copper pipe.  My next project is replacing the old countertop, so that'll be a whole other learning curve what with having to take out and put back in both the sink and stove.  I think doing one project that felt like it was a little outside of the scope of my ability gives me the confidence to do more.  After getting a couple quotes on fencing in our yard we decided that we'd just go for it and do it ourselves.  I've never built a fence before, but hey, there's a first time for everything, right?  Building a fence turned into re-flooring the Winne, which turned into replacing the countertops (and an unplanned pipe fix).  Hopefully the Brave doesn't spring any other unplanned projects on me, though.  I mean, I like feeling empowered and capable, but I do like doing things other than fixing broken motor home parts.

 
top (similar)/thrifted :: jeans/courtesy of modcloth :: flower crown/handmade