F.lux is a wee bit of software that has made my life just a little better.
I spend an awful lot of time in front of computer screens and F.lux makes them easier to look at. In short, it changes the color temperature of your monitor to match your environment (but not the brightness, so it's still good to take a break away from your screen). During the day the monitor is cooler to minic daylight, and at night the monitor is warmer to mimic halogen lights. The change is so gradual that I often forget to turn it off when editing photos, so that's something to remember if you ever use it!
Photos of my monitor- Normal, and Halogen settings
Gideon is a Magic card. I know it's horribly nerdy, but I got my hands on one by trading away one of my Baneslayers and I thought I'd share. Yay, Gideon! Yeah.
We all know that this blog is a work in progress. In addition to the content, which obviously gets better with time, the blogging system the content is written with is also improving.
BlogNilsPress (yes, that's what I'm going to call it today) started as one of Nils' side projects- a fairly simple database with a PHP and HTML front-end to support adding, editing and removing of posts. I had been using Blogger for a few months when he was working on this, but that didn't stop me from moving over all my posts (June-Nov 2009) and starting again. It didn't have a comment system, a way to upload images, or even a post archive, but what it lacked in available features it made up for with future possibilities.
I really believe that creating a blogging infrastructure, or any other piece of code, is no different than making clothing or learning to sculpt. It's a creative process that requires skill (that you may or may not have), patience (ditto), and imagination. I know there are obvious differences in the tools, but the processes have such similar roots. It's an important link between the things that occupy the majority of my time.
I think it's fantastic that I write about things I make with a blogging system that Nils made (I can only claim some small additions). Still, there is a lot of work to do. In fact, in the middle of writing this post I accidentally navigated away from the page and lost most of what I had written. As a result, auto-saving post drafts has just been added to our substantial features list. Nils and I will continue to chip away at the list, one lazy evening at a time. While we're at it, I'm going to try to post more (or link to Nils posts) about the process of building ProjectFancy and all the other blogs using the system... which you can find here and here and here :)
On a related note, the Stuff and Etc pages have been populated with a post archive (future work: search, calendar view, tag cloud), and an "About Me" section. The Face page continues to house a ridiculous animation of two friends caught in a clip from a Prince music video.
Since World Cup South Africa started today, here's a song! Check out the link for the video.
A highlight of week four was the lemon balm. It's a beautiful, summery leaf that smells like lemon pastries. Unfortunately, it doesn't last very long, so I wound up drying the majority of it. I don't know if it holds up its flavor when dried, but I hope it'll work for tea. I'll definitely buy some in the future when I have a plan for them. Lemon balm mojitos perhaps?
Box #5
Contents:
Cilantro
Red Leaf Lettuce
Shallots
Chard
Apples
Eggs
Strawberry
Jam
Arugula
This was a good week for the little things. Shallots, cilantro and strawberry jam- how can anything go wrong? As always, the apples were delicious.
Box #6
Contents:
Spinach
Prurple Kale
Nappa Cabbage
Shiitake Mushrooms
French
Breakfast Radish
Fingerling Potatoes
Green Leaf Lettuce
Apples
Shallot Scapes
There you have it- our last box of the Late Spring session. I'm excited about cabbage salads and figuring out what to do with shallot scapes. The shallot scapes are the long, slender stalk in the above picture. They look like flowers, so they're currently in a vase :)
The verdict? Jubilee Farm is an excellent source of produce, and CSA is totally worthwhile. The only downside was the size of the boxes. We were already getting the smaller size and it was just too much for just two people. That said, this is only one of the many farms that do CSA programs, so be assured that the right farm for you is out there.
From here, I think we'll continue to frequent the local farmer's market over the summer, and then revisit weekly boxes in the fall and winter once the markets close. What did I learn from all this? Eat local :D
After felt, Snackluck began
crafting with yarn. Since Danielle is a crocheting fiend, we started
there, but there might be knitting in our futures. The last time I
crocheted was in middle school or something, so I was happy to try it
again.
Instead of hats and scarves, I peeked at a page from Amigurumi
World: Seriously Cute Crochet and made an owl. For the
uninitiated, amigurumi is the Japanese
art of knitting or crocheting stuffed toys- often animals.
The pattern is simple, and the result is pretty cute.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but it was a good start.
Natalie, meanwhile, made a pretty rocking squid from this pattern. I fancied having one of my own, so after a fair amount of cursing and unraveling I eventually emerged from a Lost marathon with a crocheted squid. Once I understood the pattern it was a whole lot easier. I may make another one in the future... I might even remember to take pictures of the process!
Next up I think I'll make some of the little dudes from Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More!. This book has pattern diagrams similar to some I found in Japanese crocheting books, so hopefully it can serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone and help bridge the language barrier.
Since sculpting dolls is a long and difficult process, Snackluck turned to Roz for some time away from the clay (don't worry, we'll go back.) Roz has an excellent collection of craft books. A few weeks ago she brought over a Japanese book on making tiny, adorable felt animals. Since I'm a sucker for tiny, adorable things, I happily spent an evening making a tiny whale, and a tiny dinosaur. The dino is about 3" tall, and the whale is about 1.5" tall.
Totally by coincidence, I came across some more felt fun. I was excited to find this tutorial for making felt dahlia corsages by Megan of Not Martha. Making a Mother's Day gift out of felt and glue felt like such a throwback to elementary school craft projects that I jumped to it and picked up some felt and fabric glue from the craft store after work.
I took some step by step pictures, but I think the original tutorial and the follow up post have plenty of details for the curious crafter. I ended up making three flowers (so far).
The first, in red, was my guinea pig. I rushed to make it between work and painting class so the petals were rushed and poorly spaced. Somehow it still came out nicely, so I've kept it for myself and have worn it a handful of times in the past weeks. There's something about a giant, red, felt flower pin that makes me very happy.
Next I made one in purple. Since I had rushed the red one, I wanted to try doing it properly before using the pink and yellow felt I bought for my mom. I think I was being a little paranoid because the purple flower came out perfectly- nothing to worry about! Nils' mom's birthday is right around the same time as Mother's Day so I sent her the purple flower and hoped it would be a nice surprise.
Finally, I made one for my mom- the original point of my felt adventure! I used some heavier weight wool felt in pretty pinks, yellows and orange. By now I was getting pretty good at this, so I modified the back of the flower for a cleaner edge. I tucked a little Mother's Day message into the pocket (which I of course forgot to take pictures of) and sent it on its way wrapped in dusky pink paper. Crafty!
and made an owl. For the
uninitiated, 
. This book has pattern diagrams similar to some I found in Japanese crocheting books, so hopefully it can serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone and help bridge the language barrier.
