New Pillows

This is a really bad picture, but I need to post it now so I don't forget. They aren't really this yellow. Last week Trevor got some old pillows from work (there actually ARE benefits to working at Rent-A-Center!), so we decided we'd use the stuffing to make new pillows for our living room. We had these red and green plushy pillows that were loosing their shape, and were starting to seem really blah. So off to Ikea we trotted to pick out new fabric.

The next step was for Becky to learn how to use a sewing machine. I use one so rarely that I have to relearn every time I use one. So after a couple hours of the machine and myself malfunctioning together, I finally got it going smoothly. After that it was actually really easy.

You just sew to squares together with the insides out. You sew 3 sides completely. Like this:

l________l

l________l

l________l

l________l

(I took how-to pictures along the way, but they're on a different memory card, and I just don't feel like dealing with that mess on a Monday morning.)

And then you sew the top like this, leaving a hole to stuff the cotton into:

-----___----

l________l

l________l

l________l

l________l

Turn it right side out, stuff the cotton, and sew up the hole. SO easy (after my sister-in-law showed me how :) she's great).

I figured out another way to make pillows this week too. I've been trying to figure out how to make the pillow cases that you can stuff a pillow into, but for some reason my brain has been at maximum capacity every time I've tried to imagine it, or something. They had the example up at Ikea, so thank goodness.

You take a 20 inch by 60 inch piece of fabric (20 inches because that's how big my pillow is, and 60 inches because you double it and add 20 more inches). Basically, it's super confusing to explain, so I drew ya'll a picture. You can click on the picture to make the picture bigger if you're interested. I like this idea of having a cover because then you can change the cover whenever you want, depending on what kind of mood you're in.

More Food Projects This Month

I thought I'd post a few pictures of a couple things I've been working on lately. I feel a little behind since I didn't post the pictures when I took them. My photography class starts this week, so I need to be up to date on all this stuff before it starts.

A few weeks or so ago I used red potatoes to make a cheesy potato bake thingy, and I couldn't stop taking pictures of the potatoes. The contrast between the red outside and the white inside was so satisfying.

I made a pork tenderloin roast last week with a chili orange glaze, and I also loved the contrast between the red crust and white inside. I liked the sauce but Trevor didn't. Sometimes it really drives me crazy that he's a simple food kinda guy. "Meat, potatoes, and cheese," he says. Pish posh. There's more to life than meat and potatoes! I love experiencing new flavors, and combining flavors I've never tried before--and I can like them even if it's weird. Trevor is kind of the opposite.

I made spinach lasagna a while ago too, and the spinach leaves were so beautiful! Trevor likes all kinds of lasagna, so I didn't have to worry about that this time :)

I also made homemade reduced sugar strawberry jam more than a month ago. I've only made jam one other time, and they didn't set up the way they were supposed to that time. This time, the jam jelled up and all the lids sealed :) AND I felt okay about spreading it on everything since it had half the sugar (as long as I didn't think about the 3 pounds of sugar that WERE in it).

This weekend I made a new cake. It wasn't as complicated as the last one (thank goodness!), but it was fun and really relaxing to make. Unfortunately for my waistline, cooking is very theraputic for me. And spending my Sunday afternoon cutting, layering, frosting, and making a cake look like a big fish was just the balance of "project" and relaxation that I wanted. Plus, since it was fun and silly, it was okay if it didn't look perfect, so I didn't have to stress out over anything.

I was able to find the balance I've been looking for in my frosting. I've made buttercream frostings with butter, which have great buttery flavor, but that's all you can taste, and they don't hold their shape very well at room temperature. I've made frostings with shortening, and they have great consistency; the flavor is good but very "store-bought." Trevor suggested that I do something about that last time, so I combined the two and I think we found the perfect frosting! The only thing I need to get right now making the frosting smoother. I'll figure it out one day.

If you're wondering what I did with all the extra red, green, orange, yellow, and brown M&Ms... yes, I ate them. Our fish couldn't have mismatching dots, after all.

9/11 on a Personal Note

September 11th isn't about a terrorist attack to me. Yeah, I know that's what caused it. But for some reason I just have to focus on letting the fact sink in that it's possible in our world to kill 3,000 people at once just because. I know there have been many many other instances in the history of the world where more than 3,000 people died when something happened; 9/11 is kind of close to my heart though--probably because I was young when it happened, and it was the first time I'd really understood something awful and huge happening in the world on a personal level. To me, 9/11 is an example of the atrocities the world is capable of. Obviously, yes, historically it's important for us to know that on September 11, 2001 terrorist members of the Al Queda group were responsible for crashing 2 planes into the World Trade Center towers, another into the Pentagon, and another in Pennsylvania. And it's important for us to know why they apparently hate America and feel the need to "teach us a lesson." But to me, the most important part isn't the details of who caused it or when, but how American people and the people of the world responded emotionally. I'm glad that the majority of our human society was appalled by what happened. I'm glad that the world isn't so far gone that we can't connect over the horror of 3,000 people being murdered. I'm glad it's still wrong for something like that to happen--with all the crime and hate in the world, all the uncaring people, all the people who have no care what happens to others, or what happens to society as a whole, or how much we degrade ourselves-- I'm glad that we aren't desensitized so much that we can't come together and realize when we've lost something (the majority of us, anyway).

I always want to remember sitting in 8th grade Algebra, doing my morning worksheet, and having something so important come on the TV that my uncaring, basketball coaching, smelly math teacher knew a room of thirty 13-year-olds needed to see--needed to feel what was happening together. All of my teachers let the students talk with each other about what was happening and how we were feeling throughout the day. And I like to think they let us do that not just because we need to know what happened, but because we needed to internalize how it impacted us individually and as a group. We needed to know how we would respond as the younger generation of the world to harm and the psychological, emotional pain of losing something many of us had never seen before--of losing something that to many of us was intangible. I'd never been to New York City, or to Washington DC. I'd never met anyone who I knew may even be IN one of the towers, or even in the city at the time. I'm sure that was the case for the majority of my classmates. And yet, we still cried. I'm proud that we banded together to dive into the new feelings we were having--and to gain an appreciation for the beauty of our human race and complexity. I'm glad we could recognize the loss of life--the loss of a group of conscious people, who were breathing and thinking, and who had families and friendships--and the suffering they all must have been going through--that there are actual people on the other side of the country, living their lives, just like I am. That's what there is to learn from historical events, I think. And 9/11 was the first time I'd really had the chance to internalize that. It helped me open myself to feeling the personal experiences that other people must have gone through during other historical events. I hope experiences like 9/11 do the same for everyone else in the world, so we can be a more humane, sympathetic, and sensitive society as a whole, and that we can think about the people, not just the event.

I love finding pictures of people on historic dates.

September 11, 2001

D-Day: June 6, 1944

Oklahoma City Bombing: April 19, 1995

Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941

Fall of the Berlin Wall: November 9, 1989

Robyn's Fondant Birthday Cake

Made my first cake using fondant. It turned out okay. I don't really know why I thought it would be any different, but molding with fondant is pretty much like molding with clay. If you stink with clay, you stink with fondant. It was a really fun, challenging project for me though.

I did the cake for my sister-in-law's birthday (happy birthday!) and it tasted pretty good, which is the most important part :)

The cake itself was a marble cake made from 2 boxed cake mixes; dark chocolate and french vanilla. It's super easy. You just make the two mixes separately (or, if you're going all out, you just make two cake mixes from scratch), then pour part of one in the pan, part of the other in lines on top, then take a knife and criss-cross through the batter. Don't stir, just criss-cross to make a pattern. Sorry, no picture.

While your cakes are cooling (in the fridge, to make them hard), that's when you start making the fondant stuff. I tried making the candles completely edible by wrapping Pirouettes with fondant, but they weren't stable enough. So I wrapped wooden dowels and then cut strips for the lines on the candles. Fondant is pretty easy to roll out--you just need to have a bunch of powdered sugar and cornstarch to roll it out on to.

I didn't know this, but you use a little bit of water mixed with some dissolved fondant, and you use it as glue to hold stuff together--really neat :) You let the fondant decorations harden while you're getting the rest of your cake ready.

I made a homemade vanilla-flavored butter-cream frosting to build the cake with. Mix all the wet stuff, then add the meringue and sugar in increments.

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup shortening
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 tablespoons milk or water
• 1 tablespoon meringue powder

I bought a frosting tip that is huge for putting a layer of frosting onto the cake so you don't tear it up trying to get it even. It looks like this, only the opening is about 2 inches long:
So you just frost the cake, then roll out your fondant and put it on top, smoothing out all the surfaces and trimming it up. Then I stuck in my candles, made curly-cues, stuck those in, and dotted on some royal icing to hold it all together. Royal icing is different than butter-cream. Royal icing starts out runny, and gets thicker as you beat it, then gets hard a few minutes after you use it. It consists of:

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons meringue powder
• 1-2 tablespoons water

Then you finish by making a border to hide the trim-line of the fondant.

Then you eat it :) And it's yummy. I think next time I'll stick with making less intricate stuff out of fondant--Stuff I can use cookie cutters for and straight lines :) It took me a bit of time to get used to working with the fondant--especially when you wet it down to glue stuff together. So be sure to plan on your kitchen getting destroyed in the process, and your hands being sticky the whole time--then you should be good :) I think I cleaned my kitchen 3 times that day.

If you're looking for good cake ideas, Joann's website and Wilton's website have GREAT ideas and tips and places to start. That's where I got my ideas this time.

Cheese

Before


After


Yay! I'm learning!

No Non-Pregnants Allowed

I think the world is pregnant or something, because EVERYONE is getting pregnant. And frankly, I feel a little like I've been kicked out of a club or something.

sigh

Don't get me wrong. I'm content where we're at, and I'm happy with our goals. But yeesh; all this good news makes me feel like I fell off the bandwagon. I want to share in everyone's happiness and have a blogpost of my own saying "we're expecting!" I hope people start having showers and parties so I can start celebrating with them and get my fill!

I've been up to...

It's been a while. I feel like I haven't done a whole lot of exciting stuff. Here's what's gone down:

• Work has been crazy busy. Busier than ever. That's pretty lucky considering the economy. Let's hope it stays this way, and I may eventually get a raise :) It's been stressful.
• My bedroom has been clean for at least 2 weeks, going on 3. Frankly, that is amazing. Laundry and all. (I have to give a big thank you to Frasier Crane, Michael Scott, and Will Truman for getting me through the rough times.)
• I signed up for a Digital Photography class to see if I can hone some actual talent out of my hobby. We'll see. It starts in 3 weeks. When it was possible I might be getting a raise, I was looking into it a lot, but then it kind of fizzled out. Then Trevor's brother got a really sweet digital slr camera and I think I about died of jealousy :) So here I am.
• Speaking of pictures. Trevor has been (unknowingly) showing me a lot of stuff in Photoshop lately and I've felt much better about that side of my picture-taking. I've never been really great of detailed editing of pictures, and I've always been worried that I would hate the Photoshop-ing aspect. It's not so bad.
• I think I can say this now--it's close enough. Trevor and I are taking a week off work and life for our anniversary in October. We decided we're going to have a stay-cation and use the money we save to pay off an entire credit card. It's both deflating and bolstering. I want a vacation, dang it; with airplanes and hotels, and no chance of interruption. But at the same time, we'll be paying off an ENTIRE credit card--not just paying it down some-- ENTIRELY. So if anyone has any great ideas about what we can do here in Utah within an hour or so from our house, please tell. I'm thinking I'll be making a list of everything I can think of and then we'll just choose something we feel like doing each day. It's going to be great--it'll be like our belated, shortened summer vacation.
• Speaking of debt. In 29 days I will be making our last payment on the first credit card we intend to pay off completely. It is SOOOOO exciting to see the snowball effect actually happening now. We always have room for improvement, but I'm pretty proud of Trevor and I for sticking more to our budget these last few months (excepting the giant size tv Trevor HAD to have; but that's another story).
• Hm, what else? I read Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake and Abbey Epstein. They're the same people who did The Business of Being Born movie. You can go to Amazon.com and read some of it. Trevor thinks I'm crazy for being so interested in pregnancy even though I'm not pregnant or thinking about being pregnant any time soon. I don't really know how to respond to that except to say I'm interested in what I'm interested in, and there it is. I feel like this is such an important subject, I just can't stop learning about it. I've read a lot of stuff arguing both sides of the issue but mostly pro-natural birth. I think now I might try to find some arguments against natural birth (and everything else like it) that I think are legitimate. I have yet to find anything I can really whole-heartedly agree with. (PS on the book: the introductions by Ricki and Abbey use some swear words.)
• Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience by Ricki Lake
  
  My rating: 5 of 5 stars
  I learned a lot from this book about all the options that are out there. There are only a few parts that I had to kind of indulge them on, and I still found it extremely informative in a way that I haven't been able to find very much of. If you ever get the chance, read the flap on the cover and you'll immediately know if it's something you'll be interested in. It addresses the rising c-section, epidural, and medical intervention rates that "often leave mothers feeling powerless as their instincts are replaced by drugs and routine medical procedures." And a whole bunch of other important stuff.
  
  The book is pretty fair and doesn't badger women who've had c-sections or interventions. It's about empowering women and partners to feel free to make the educated decisions they want about birth, even if that includes a c-section and the like.
  
  View all my reviews >>
• Trevor's been looking for some new people to do a band project with. It's going pretty slow since most people want to "get big" and make millions. Or they just know nothing about the genre but think they do. He got promoted to Collections Manager at work and has been doing a great job. He works really hard; I hope it pays off in a really spectacular way some day. He's been really interested in going back to school lately to learn more design stuff. I hope we can make that work sometime soon.
• Other than those things, everything has been pretty normal around our house. It's been nice to see some friends during the summer, and to spend time with family the last few weeks for different things. I've been devoid of all crafty projects mostly because I don't have any more wall-space or money to fund the craft store; I've just been making food I like (like strawberry jam and texas toast french toast). Now we're just looking forward to our anniversary, my photo class, Halloween, Thanksgiving in Idaho with my whole family (YOU ALL BETTER BE COMING STILL!), and Trevor finally getting his iPhone at the end of November he's been "patiently" waiting for.