new blog.

24 Jan
I’ve added another new blog to my blog roll on the right – stolen fotos.  You should probably check it out.
It’s my elder brother’s second blog.  And, as the title admits, he is stealing beautiful photos from the web and claiming them as his own!  gasp.
Just kidding.  [The name puns do, in fact, get old but I still engage them.]
[Sidenote: The best name story involving my older brother?  He loses his wallet while in college.  Calls campus security or police or something.  “I’d like to report a stolen wallet.”  “Okay, sir.  What is your last name?”  “Stolen.”  “Sir, what is your last name?”  “Stolen.”  “Sir, I know it’s been stolen but I need to know your last name.”  We often joke that how great would it have been if it was my younger brother – not if he lost his wallet – that would be unfortunate – but the story would have been good.  “Can I have your name?”  “It’s Ben Stolen.”  “Yes, sir, I know it’s been stolen but I need to have your name.” oh har har]
Right.  My brother’s blog.  He travels a lot for work [lucky] and for fun, and his camera is his travel buddy.  This new site is a collection of his photos, often edited in an awesome fashion.  We’ve never got along too well in the past as we live on opposite ends of every spectrum (politics, religion … you know, the big ones, plus the fact that he speaks fluent sarcasm) but I’ll do him this advertisement.  Plus, we like each other more now that he lives in CO and I in MN.  
Moral of the story: new blog.  go there.

[late addition – Matt [the elder brother] brought this video to my attention again.  Obviously, no direct relation to my younger brother.  Except that is his name …]

450.

22 Jan
Feeling overwhelmingly productive and domestic today, and having already accomplished the feat of adhering fabric to my walls (see previous post), I decided to bake a cake.  I have plans for said cake, plans to form them into balls and share in a fun way.  To begin and before we go there, the cake must be baked.
And apparently stirred 450 times.  I bought a store-brand cake mix and found the back of the box to be a bit puzzling.  First, add only water and eggs.  (Isn’t there normally oil in cake mixes too?)  Then, stir 450 times.  

If the cake does not turn out, I guess I will be blamed for not completely following directions.
I stopped counting at four.

liquid starch is my friend.

22 Jan
My new best friend.  One quarter cup of corn starch, added to one half cup cold water, then combined with four cups boiling water.  It’s crazy how in love I have fallen with this mixture and what it can do.
Because I only recently discovered that, using this liquid starch, one can attach fabric to walls and remove it later to leave no residue or anything.  Rejoice much does the renter upon finding sites like this and this.
So this morning I woke up, put on my Saturday sweat pants (I don’t really have Saturday sweat pants – that would be far too pathetic and spinster-like – but Saturdays in the apartment do call for comfort.), and decided to adhere the fabric I bought last night to my wall.  Good plan, right?  
(Quilt courtesy of my quilting friends at Grace!)
Excellent plan.  It worked so much easier and swifter than I ever expected.  Now I have a panel of green/yellow paisley on my wall and it only makes me want to return to the fabric warehouse to buy more so the whole wall can be covered in it!  Left-over starch also led to the adhering of polka-dotted fabric polka dots around the bathroom mirror.  I’m on some sort of starch high – where else can I stick fabric to the wall?

a fabric friday.

22 Jan

A few weeks ago I heard of a mysterious place in a northern ‘burb of the cities.  A place where bolts of fabric are stacked high and cheap.  A place that will capture you in its aisles and only let you leave wanting more.  A fabric warehouse – 30,000 square feet of fabric warehouse.

Fake fur.  
Cotton.  
Ribbon.  
Barrels of buttons.  Vinyl.  
Paisley.  
Knits.  
Everything possible.  So wonderfully overwhelming.

Oh the joy of SR Harris.

We ventured.
We dreamed.
We lost Jenna.  (Only temporarily.)
We all made small but lovely purchases.
And we all picked out our ideal apparel fabric.  How hot are we?

got milk?

20 Jan
In a country that was actually designed to remain anti-partisan, it was the election of 1800 that really ruined that dream.  I sat down with a mug of coffee and began (again) one of the books on my Jterm shelf – A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign.  (My AP US History teacher, Mr. Papendieck, would be proud.)  The book is engaging, brings back much of that Revolutionary history that’s been pushed to the back of my brain, and actually connects in many ways to my current modern church history course; I hesitated to put it down and move on to other necessities of my day. If we were to talk favorite ‘characters’ as if this non-fiction was not, Alexander Hamilton is my man.  That guy was CRAZY. Pushing for an American monarchy [seriously.  who thinks that’s a good idea after fleeing from the tyranny of Britain?], a federal bank, and secretly his own election to office [sneaky.] – not to mention agreeing to a duel – A.H. seemed a bit off his rocker.  Do you know anything about Alexander Hamilton?  If they know one thing, many people remember who killed him.  [Oh.  Did I catch you at a bad time?  Too much peanut butter and not enough milk?]

gnome love.

18 Jan

Looking for a date or two to go see this movie.  Let me know if you’re available opening night.

[I’m so serious.]

jterm shelf.

18 Jan
Genesis to Revelation course.  Check.
Here’s hoping with free[er] afternoons and more time to complete class readings [the top four books, below the pink Message Bible], I can get to some other books on my J-term shelf.  The Evangelical Lutheran Book of Worship?  Woohoo!  [Just kidding.  On the shelf for reference only, not for reading front to back.  And for use in the upcoming Hymn Bracket.  *church nerd alert*]  All of these for-fun books in this stack I’ve started at one time or another, only to stop reading because of other distractions; they quickly get pushed to the back of the shelf and the back of my mind.  Goal: Completion. [Or at least dabbling in a few more chapters.]

confession.

17 Jan
I don’t know if you know this about me but I have a very special place in my heart for redheads.  I envy females with gorgeous natural red hair (I tried it from a box once – in high school.  Didn’t work for me.) and find myself attracted to redheads of the opposite sex.  (‘Tis true.)  And redheaded children?  They are often my favorites.  (Not that I play favorites …)  I’m not entirely sure what it is but they’re just too cute.  I would love to somehow ‘rig’ my potential childbearing so the result has red locks. (Working on it.)
So when a little red-headed girl in a sweater dress – maybe four years old – forced her way into my pew on Sunday, stuck out her hand and said, “Peace be with you,” I melted into a puddle.  Not only was she the cutest to begin with – a petite little redheaded cutie pie – but she wasn’t shy.  I’d never met this girl before; I was visiting my friend, Adam’s, church in Edina, the Sunday he was installed as their new high school youth coordinator.  As the congregation greeted one another, she walked right up to me – and everyone in the general area – to share the peace of Christ with boldness.  

That we might learn to do the same.

link’in.

16 Jan

The sixteenth president of the United States.  Whose head should not be visible when checking the tread on your car tires.

Or, maybe what I was really going for —
Links.  (Kinda like ‘pimpin’ but ‘link’in’ instead?  No?  Never say those words again?  Okay.)  I’ve had a number of people ask me lately where I find blogs to follow; what follows is kinda how it works.  I find a blog or two that I like, stalk their favorite blogs (as listed typically on a side column), and repeat.  Sometimes, you can hit the jackpot of all link’ins — blogs will have a post of their current favorite links – often on the weekends – from the blogging world to click on, explore, and begin the blog stalking all over again.  This is where Google Reader comes in.  Add your new favorite blog to your feed and viola!  
(One great example: This site, OnePrettyThing, is actually a roundup of links to other blogs EVERYDAY.  Some of the projects are kinda ridiculous but there are some good ones/ways to adapt/the finding of wonderful blogs amidst the crazy.)  
Here are my current favorites, my weekend round-up.  It could also appropriately be called “The ways Lindsay avoided studying for her history test.”

I made this for dinner on Sunday evening.  An excuse to use my food processor.  (Always looking for those.)  It was pretty yummy … and crazy to think it mainly consisted of soybeans.  (I used to grow those. Rather, my dad did.  But I played in the gravity wagons that carried them and climbed up the bins that stored them.)

These are a possibility for Monday morning, an addition to an already delicious weekend.

My friend, Sara, and I made our way to northeastern Minneapolis on Saturday and checked two of three off this list.  City Salvage was closed for remodeling.  Bummer.  However, Wilde Roast has a DEE-licious mint mocha and super fun atmosphere.  And we found a wicked-weird “antique” store en route.

Creepy Santa in a cardboard box chimney —  an antique? 

Another link from the blog I’m a tad-bit obsessed with —  This looks like a good project to do while watching a movie.  Perhaps a great Christmas garland for next year?

I might try these to stick in people’s mailboxes this Valentine’s but with something else instead of tootsie suckers.  (Can you guess what?)  Also for Valentine’s … do you have extra candy canes still sticking around?  These are cute and fun.

Another food processor recipe.  Hummus with natural peanut butter instead of tahini.  I’m intrigued.

Are you a one-space-after-a-sentence kind of person or two?  I was taught two … and apparently I was taught WRONG.  gasp.  Read a witty article on the proper way to type and not waste space here.

My new go-to sugar cookie recipe.  Much needed because – I don’t think I’ve told you – I have alphabet cookie cutters!

a story for friday.

14 Jan
I woke up this morning and felt along my beside table to find my glasses.  Found them.  Slipped them on.
I normally go straight for the shower but this morning I was feeling lazy.  It is Friday, after all.  I turn on the lamp by my desk and open up my computer while still gathering my morning wits.  
What’s going on, I wonder.  I can barely see the computer screen.  And it’s kinda dark.
Am I losing my sight?  I have to lean in way close to my computer screen to read my inbox.  And why is the computer screen so dim?
I step back, realizing what is happening, and begin to freak out.  Just a little bit.  Seriously.  I can’t see at any distance.  It should be a lot brighter in my room with the lamp on.  What is going on?!  Seriously!  Is this the beginning stage of going blind?
In my still sleepy, freaking-out state, I reach for my glasses.  Maybe they just need to be cleaned?
(Really, no.  That would not have fixed it unless my glasses happened to have been caked in mud.  But I was still half asleep, guys.  I didn’t want to go blind and was willing to try anything!)
I reach up … and take off my non-prescription sunglasses.
Duh.  Wrong glasses.
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