Two Dozen for Two Dozen

I mentioned in my last post that I recently turned 24. To celebrate, I decided to make a list of things I want to accomplish before my 25th birthday. (Eep!) I know I may not accomplish every single thing below, but I am excited to look back a year from now and cross off the things I did complete and add other ones in their place! So with no further ado:

1. Learn to work with royal icing, gum paste, and fondant. I have already made some progress on this one (please excuse the neon pink):
 2. Learn to use a sewing machine. I have wanted to learn to sew for years. I now have a ton of bookmaking and clothing ideas that I can’t stand to keep in my head any longer. It’s finally time to cross this off and move forward.

3. Start my Etsy business. I am so excited for this. All I want to do besides baking is make books for people.

4. Become a better listener. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I can be a rather poor listener. Now that I have acknowledged this, I am ready to fix it and become a better friend, daughter, and partner.

5. Write letters more often. Snail mail is the best. I have so many great friends all over the country, I should be spending more time communicating with them.

6. Finish and send out 25 Blips. This one won’t make sense to most of you, but this is a collaborative art project I have been working on for a little over a year now. I am ready to wrap things up and reveal it to the world!

7. Visit Shannon in DC. I seriously miss her daily. Look how smug we were! But we had reason to be proud, that bread was beautiful + delicious!

8. Get my driver’s license. I refuse to say more about this.

9. Don’t buy clothes for 1 year. Yep. I said it. BAM. I have a lot of clothes. I want to focus on wanting what I have and not accumulating more things. Furthermore, I decided when it is time to buy clothes again, I am ready to invest in quality pieces and not trendy ones. Rules: accessories don’t count; I can replace items if they become unwearable (this might only happen with jeans). I don’t know if this can last a year, but we’ll see!

10. Upcycle/get rid of unworn clothes. This is sort of a continuation of the last goal, but it is a task unto itself. I already purchase mostly thrift and secondhand, but my goal is to upcycle or get rid of any items I don’t absolutely love and donate the rest. I have a tendency to buy “almost perfect” items a lot: something that needs to be hemmed, a button is missing, “this dress would be perfect if I added a collar” type things. I want to complete all of these projects before I add anymore or buy anymore clothes.

11. Finish overhauling the Schwinn I got from Craigslist. This one is coming along a lot faster than I thought, but I am including it because it was part of the original list I made, I am just not really posting this list in a timely manner. Anyway, looks pretty fun, until closer inspection reveals rust, gunk, and flat tires. . . But she is cleaning up nicely and I can’t wait to share before & after pictures!

12. Make more books more often. I hate making nonspecific goals, so I am going to try to make 2 books per month. I haven’t been creating much recently because of the excuses I wrote about last post, but I am ready to change things for the better.

13. Move to Nashville.  Hey. . It could happen! There are more bakeries there and more opportunities for me to get my books into smaller handmade shops. Right now it kind of seems like The Promise Land.

14. Work in a bakery. (self-explanatory)

15. Watch more classic/cult/good movies. I know this is a very unclear statement. Nick and I have a tendency to re-watch Wayne’s World or Anchorman instead of branching out and trying new movies. For some reason these two FINE FILMS are not on this list, which is where we have mostly been pulling from for ideas. I’ve already been enjoying the wide range of movies we’ve seen lately. Maybe sometime when I am not so lazy and full of tacos I will post about them!

16. Drink more water.  I used to never buy soda. Now there is a 2 liter of Peach Nehi in the fridge that I bought today. I want to go back to more water and less sugary bubbly goodness. I am also trying to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and less pizza. But “eat healthier” is so generic, I’m just trying to live more consciously again. Colorful food helps!
 17. Learn a makeup routine that actually works for me. I am pretty simple beauty wise, but I would like to master a classic cat-eye and find a shade of lipstick (or two!) that I can pull off.

18. Learn how to curl my hair. My hair is the longest it’s been in like 10 years. Now that I have some locks, I’d like to learn to curl them real nice. And maybe even figure out a faux finger wave or something fun and retro!

19. Keep a journal again. 

20. Re-read the Harry Potter series. Now that all the movies are out and we finished our second annual Harry Potter movie marathon, I really want to read all the books again. (Originally this one was to “read more” but I really think this is an upgrade.)

21. Grow out my bangs. I am not sure why I have elected this torture, but I am not backing down now. It’s only been like 3 months since I have cut them and I am not about to throw all that progress away.

22. Learn to use Adobe InDesign & Photoshop. I am slowly getting the hang of Illustrator and learning something new each time I use it, but I still have so much to learn. I need to continue to expand my knowledge and I know I will use all of these programs a ton once I am more familiar with them.

23. Collaborate with another artist on a project. Any takers? I know group work in school is the worst, but now that I am out, I am ready for some teamwork.

24. Live more congruently. This is a very general statement, but I have been reading up a lot on self-improvement, living your dreams, and defining what you want out of life. It’s hard for me to formulate into words what all this goal incorporates so I will save more detail for another post sometime, but suffice it to say I am pretty inspired lately and I am ready for some big changes in my life. I really can’t wait.

So there you have it. If I am not blogging, I am either crossing things off this list, working hard for the money, or sleeping way too much. I can’t wait to share it all with you. I don’t think it’s necessary to apologize for gaps in blogging (quality over quantity!), so if you ever feel like it’s been awhile and you wonder what I am up to, then feel free to follow me on Twitter for silly updates or check out my inspiration blog to see what I’m liking lately. Let me know if you’ve posted about your goals lately, I love to meet my readers!

What Not to Do

On Sunday I turned 24 years old! I’m not sure why I feel kind of embarrassed to admit that. . . maybe because 24 always seemed so old in my head and I thought I would have accomplished more by now. But I’m trying to get over those feelings and I am starting with my own actions. I realized that I have been doing three terrible things since the summer ended:

1. Making excuses to push all of the things I want to do into the future instead of the now.

-Not enough time. Here’s a tip: there is always enough time. If you think you can’t do enough of the things you love, then you need to give up the things you dislike and replace them with the things you desire.

-Not enough space. This is what I have been most guilty of telling myself for the last four months, “If only I had more space to make ______ I could do so much more!” And though it is true that when I move in a few months I will have more space to work on bookmaking and sewing projects, it doesn’t mean I can’t work on things I love until then.

2. Comparing myself to others.

To most people this means looks, but not for me. I compare myself to others my age: their job, their salary, where they live. I compare myself to other cyclists: the miles they ride, the gear they use, how much they drive. I compare myself to other artists: what they make and how often they make it.

And here is the thing: this is bullshit. I mean excuse my french, but why should I care what other people my age are getting  paid to do when I would never even want to do what they are doing? I mean, I’m all for getting inspired by others and becoming a better person daily. But this is not the same thing nor is it the right way to do it. I’ve learnt that the only person you should compare yourself to is yourself. That is the only way to know how you have grown as a cyclist, artist, baker, photographer, illustrator, writer, or person.

Think about it: if I compared every poem I wrote to Rainer Maria Rilke, or every mile I ran to Chris Trager, or anything I made to my best friend Danny McClain’s work (which is being featured all up in this post!), then I would literally never get anywhere. In the last year, I have taken poetry classes, done bookbinding workshops, been hit by a truck while cycling, and you know what? I am a better writer, artist, and cyclist because of all of them (even though that last one wasn’t my fault).

Nothing I learned or improved upon in the last year came from me looking at others and getting down on myself. It came from being inspired to never stop learning, never give up, and never quit trying. And that’s what I will keep doing.

3. Not trying out of fear of failing (or fear of criticism). 

Okay, I know I literally just said “never quit trying,” and I meant it. Once I try something, I don’t mind trying again to improve it. But it’s just getting me to attempt in the first place that is the hardest. This ties into what I was talking about earlier. For example, it’s so easy for me to look at someone else’s beautifully decorated cake and then decide that I’d rather not make one at all than to try really hard and then have this super ugly cake. But worst case scenario— YOU STILL HAVE CAKE SO I MEAN WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? The point is: whoever made the beautiful cake I am drooling over— at some point— made a cake that they completely hated. You can’t get better at something you never started.

So we learn and we try and we get better. This post was supposed to be about the goals I set for myself this year, but instead this is what came out. You can’t hope to improve unless you take the time to acknowledge things holding you back. Which, in my case, is mostly myself. This post is longer and more personal than usual, so I will save my list of goals for another day, but I feel fine realizing I can achieve those goals if I just cut the nonsense and do what I really, truly, deeply want to do.

In short, I’d like to quote Yer Heart right now, “It’s so much better to mess up than to do nothing at all.”

A New Way to Follow!

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P.s. I overhauled my blog design. ^This is the old one, if your viewing in a reader then hop on out and have a looksee at the changes I made!

Cloches & Kittens

It might not look like much to be excited about, but considering I’ve been biking well into January with only a hoodie on for warmth means this first snow fall is a pretty big deal for us here in Tennessee. Okay, so I know it pretty much looks like a spring day but I if you squint you can see a few flakes on the ground, I promise!

I wanted to wait for more snow so this shoot would be more magical, but it wasn’t snowing super hard and I needed to snap a few pictures before it was dark (at a whopping 4:30 pm. . . I hate it!) Ahhh well, hopefully this kitten sweater makes up for the lack of magic in the weather. . I cannot wear it without feeling warm and fuzzy from a cute overload.

Speaking of warm and fuzzy, this hat is perfect. I got it last spring from an Etsy shop that is no longer open, so I literally waited months for it to get cold enough for me to wear. I feel like this is the type of hat for those of us that don’t look good in hats. If you want a similar one, I am adoring the handmade ones in this shop and also this stunning red one. I am also a big fan of this one because everything is better with bows— I would just LOVE to own the blue one!

detachable collar: by me
sweater: gift from a friend
aa dress: thrifted in chicago for wayyyy cheaper
tights: gift from my mom
frilly socks: A’gaci
old navy oxfords: plato’s closet

I’m off to watch more Arrested Development (I think we might finish the whole series within a week of starting it, yikes!) and then catch the season premiere of 30 Rock before biking to a Yer Heart! show. Yip yip!

Happy TOFUesday!

And what exactly is Tofuesday, you ask? I think this picture will sum it up:

And the birth of a legend was born! This “Tofuesday” idea happened before I decided to make a tofu recipe every other week, but I wanted to share that screenshot anyway. . my partner is ridiculously supportive of my terrible wordplays.

I decided to try these Tofu Balls from the PPK. I used extra firm tofu that was frozen and thawed. I also had some mushrooms that needed to be cooked so I threw them in the mix, too.

I somehow managed to completely forget a step, so I am not sure I can give a proper review of these Tofu Balls, but I would love to make them again. They were super easy and delicious, but I didn’t roll them in flour before frying them up, so I had quite a few fall apart on me. I like the ease of this recipe and it’s versatility. I almost didn’t post this because I messed up and didn’t get a knock-your-socks off result, but ya gotta start somewhere!

Anyone have a tofu recommendation for next time?

Warning: May Contain Nuts

. . . donuts, that is! Okay, now let me explain:

A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to try more tofu recipes. And what better time to start than the new year? But then I was gifted a donut pan and I decided I wanted to get better at learn how to make vegan donuts. Then I was inspired by the blog Food Coma. Emma has been baking one loaf of bread per week in hopes of  baking 52 loaves by the end of next year. So cool, right?

Originally, I wanted to try one tofu recipe per week, but then I realized I might get burnt out on that pretty quickly. So I resolved to alternate weeks to conquer this goal: tofu one week, donuts the next!

Only I started with donuts! I used this recipe from Vegan Yum Yum to make the donuts and then made a simple maple glaze instead of plain. So here’s the first of my 26/26 tofu/donut challenge of 2012!
I already can’t wait to make this recipe again. It isn’t perfect for me, so I will definitely be tweaking it in the future in hopes of getting my dream donut, but I think it’s a great starting point and will definitely hit the spot if you get a donut hankering. They got an “Oh, wow!” from Nick when he asked if they are vegan, but I am just extremely critical of everything so I still want them to be better.

Isn’t this mini cake stand great? Thanks, Mom!

Let me know what your 2012 resolutions are! And if you have any tips/favorite recipes for donuts (or tofu) be sure to link me in the comments! I am so excited about this food journey!