The glass is half full

I was inspired by another blogger's post.

Version #1

Since falling off of the list in March, I had high hopes of being invited to the oral assessment. Instead, I got the proverbially vague "dear john" letter. That means another round of testing and another round of waiting. ugh and sigh.

Version #2

I'm really excited about what's next for Ben and me. You see, we had decided back in January that if I didn't make it to the oral assessment this year, what I really needed to do was work on a language. So that's what I'm going to be doing. My last day at my full time job will be September 2. After that, it's going to be some non-stop Hindi learning up in here. God is good and I've had people coming out of the woodwork with connections for language learning. None of the local colleges have classes but there are Hindu temples and community centers as well as just really nice people that are willing to help me find resources. And of course I'm going to continue to work on the Rosetta Stone program.

My parents have been amazing and are letting us move in with them. Financially, this makes sense for us and plus I may be one I know who actually likes living with their parents :)

So I don't know all of what God has in store for us, but I do know that we are provided for.

And I think the best part is that I'm not in limbo anymore. I'm not waiting on results or desperately preparing. I'm going to be moving on to the next step. And did I mention that I get to quit my job?

Thrifty finds

I have been a little bit obsessed with estate sales lately. I hit several last weekend and two on my lunch break on Friday. I ended up with some really cool finds but here are my favorites:

At the first estate sale, I picked up this pretty set of yellow and orange napkins for $3.

These pretty yellow framed napkins that I got at one estate sale and the matching placemats that came from another. For $2 for each of the sets, they were a steal. Now I just need four more yellow place-mats to make eight total.

And this beautiful cake plate that actually came from the Garland rd thrift store for $10. With some silver polish and elbow grease, it looks pretty darn good. Sorry about the crappy lighting. I'm going to have to work on that.

I also picked up a couple of "fix me-up frames" which I plan on using for some projects. We shall soon see how that turns out.

Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge

Tonight, I surprised the DH with a cooking class at Central Market. They're usually in the $50-$60 range but I had a fabulous groupon that made it far more affordable. I cleverly kept it a secret by telling him, "hey, keep June the 5th open and don't eat dinner beforehand." I also gave him a choice between stir fry and the basics of soup making. Was it any surprise that he guessed that we were attending a cooking class?

Well, it was really more of a cooking demonstration by Grace Young. She's written an amazing cookbook all about the basics of stir fry. The menu for the evening was pepper and salt shrimp, Yangchow fried rice, beef with black bean sauce & baby bok choy, and sitr fried sugar snap peas with shiitake mushrooms. Everything tasted super fresh and flavorful. She showed us how to season a carbon steel wok and how to give it a Grace Young "face lift". Of course I ended up buying the book and she very nicely told me I asked such good questions. And then she signed my book.

I sometimes wonder if when people tell me that I ask "good questions" if what they really mean is that I ask intrusive annoying questions. I just ask the questions I'm interested in knowing the answers to. I figure for $55 a person, I should get to ask whatever questions I want :).

Grace was very nice to answer all of my questions (even if she secretly found them annoying). and if you should ever pick up the book, you should know that the recipe on the cover of the book is one of her favorites. It is a mixture of Chinese and Jamaican cuisine called Chinese Trinidadian Stir-Fried Shrimp with Rum. Grace spoke about how the Chinese have ended up all over the world but have been discriminated against no matter where they have gone. Their strong spirit can be seen in their ability to find ways to preserve their culture through cooking even though they have often been without financial means.

The recipe that Grace found most meaningful to her, is a recipe called Spicy Long Beans with Sausage and Mushrooms. It is a recipe of her mother's and it looks amazing. I plan on making it in the near future so I'll post about it when I do.

I have to admit that I was halfway tempted to stalk her to tomorrow night's cooking demo at the Fort Worth Central Market. And I'm definitely considering ordering a carbon steel wok with my Amazon prime discount. but we live so close to so many Asian markets, I suppose I should check out their stock first.

Fun night, good food, and good company; what more could one ask for?

Making an ABC book I

We threw my friend Faye a baby shower and of course that called for a suitably fun shower activity to keep people entertained. She nixed playing "guess how big around the pregnant lady is" because, let's face it, it's just mean. After at first deciding on decorating onsies with paint pens and then moving on to tie-dying onsies, we at last settled on making a baby's first ABC book. (not tie-dyed)

So... to the Internet!

My first google hit was a great post on making a paper book and then I found this one that was more of a cardstock affair. But I couldn't find any that were made from fabric. And I'm a fabric kind of girl. So my plan is to come up with something new and daring (I know, but after the helicopter flight, I felt like my adventure blog just doesn't have anywhere to go). So here is my very first ever tutorial. I'll skip all the unnecessary reasoning that went into each decision (such as why I chose sharpies - cheaper than paint pens) and instead stick with just the step by step.

Step One

You'll need about 2.5 yards of white cotton fabric. (nope, don't care what kind you use but make sure it's 45 inches wide)

15 sheets of 9x12 inch white felt

.25 yard of a fun contrasting fabric for the binding/cover

Permanent Color Markers (I used sharpies)

Scissors

sewing machine or thread and needle

Step 1

Wash your white fabric on the hottest setting, dry them, and then iron nice and flat.

Step 2

On your computer, create page of alphabet letters and "Baby's First ABC Book" and "Made with Love by:". Or you can cheat and use this PDF that I created.

Step 3

Cut 13 7x15 inch rectangles out of the white cotton.

Cut 26 6x6 inch squares out of the white felt

Step 4

Use the printed alphabet you've made to trace the letters onto each page. Opposite letters go together. So, for instance, A goes with Z, B goes with Y and so on and so forth. Make sure that you start with A on the right side of the page and B on the left side of the page, alternating as you go down the alphabet.

Step 5

Cut a 6 inch square guide out of cardboard or paper and trace the square on the out edges of each rectangle of white fabric leaving 1/2 inch seam allowance. In the picture below you can see that I folded the sheets in half and the markings bled through so I only had to do this 13 times instead of 26. These are the guides to ensure that guests do not draw into the seam allowance.

Step 6

Create an instruction sheet for guests (or you can cheat and use mine).

Step 7

Set out markers, pages, and box for completed pages. For your less inspired guests, you might have a few ABC books laying around nearby for "inspiration". I used pieces of cardboard cut from an old box and binder clips as clipboards. Sharpies bleed right through fabric so I don't recommend using just any old hard surface.

See Making an ABC book II for instructions on putting it together.

ABC book II

The cake has been eaten, the punch has been drunk, and hopefully the guests were able to draw or trace something on each of your ABC pages. So now it's time to put the book together.

Step 1

Place page 1 face down (page A/Z. Pin two squares of felt to the back of page 1 so that they line up with the 6X6 guides you drew for your guests. Baste the felt to the back of the page. You can remove this basting later or just leave it like I did for the finished book.

Step 2

Now pin the page 2 (so the B/Y page) with right sides together to page 1 (the A/Z page).

Sew around the outside of the pages leaving a 1/4 margin between the felt and the stitching to avoid having puckered pages. Leave about three inches unstitched at the bottom of the page so you can turn the pages right side out.

Cut the corners off the edges being sure NOT to cut through your stitching.

Step 3

Turn the page right side out and top stitch around the edge of the book. Repeat with each set of pages.

Check back later for how to make the cover.