chitown2beantown

Cleaning House

I did a little cleaning up today on ye ole blog. Moved some stuff around. Switched some stuff up.

First, Matt gave up on Twittering over 100 days ago, so goodbye outdated Twitter feed. He's taken up blogging instead. And what is titled Matt's Rants has become much more about posting his favorite comedic tidbits - videos mostly. Matt needs comedy like I need crafts and time in the woods.

I added some book selections from Amazon, related to crafts, dogs, the outdoors, and Boston. If you buy a book through the link, I get a very very modest commission. I'll be surprised if I make $2. But, I wanted to share some books that I have found helpful. I'll update the list from time to time as I run across a good read.

I also added a poll. I'm going to try to add a new one every month. Just for fun. I also added a search feature, so you can search back through older posts of mine for particular content.

I deleted my flickr link, because I haven't posted to flickr in for-ev-er.

I added a several new blog links, including a couple from old friends I've connected with again on Facebook. Love seeing what they are up to. And a few other craft related blogs I've found recently.

• Elizabeth's blog is very funny, and she has a Picture a Day blog that is inspiring me to take more everyday photos. I haven't yet, but I want and need to!
• Jennifer's blog has cool craft ideas and sustainable living inspiration. 
• I've also added Heywood's Meadow, which shows how to nature journal, something I hope to revisit this spring. 
• There's also (building) a little house in the big woods, by a scrapbooker turning organic farmer. 
• And cloth-paper-string has a similar mix of content as this blog: some knitting, outdoors photos, midwestern stuff and general crafts.

Last but not least, I've been entering photo contests over at Winkflash. Uh, yes, I'd love to win 2000 free prints. It would greatly spur on my scrapbooking. Turns out one of my 'Kaia in the snow' pictures is in the Top 20 for the Winter Vacation contest right now. If you wouldn't mind, head over and vote for me! There are some cool pictures there, so it'll be worth your while. :)

I'm so ready to change up the blog header with the spring edition. Soon, my friends!

Boulder Loop Trail and the Swift River Covered Bridge

On President's Day, we again scaled down my grand hiking plans, and decided on the three-mile Boulder Loop Trail. I was glad for the reality check, because this was enough of a hike for us that day. By New Hampshire standards, this was just a hill hike, but the payoffs were as good as a mountain hike. 

In the summer or fall, if you are in the tourist mecca of North Conway and just want a taste of the outdoors or if you had children with some energy to burn off, this would be the perfect hike.

We started out by crossing the Swift River covered bridge. Every time I see a covered bridge, I want to go home to look through my grandpa's extensive collection of New England travel photography to see if he photographed this one. He is fondness for covered bridges was legendary.

We made it to the top in two hours. In the summer, this would have taken much less time, but we were stopping frequently to take off layers, as it was about 37 degrees out. 

The hiking hound keeps us going at a faster clip than usual, but the trails were snow covered so whoever was holding the leash had to balance while keeping her under control. We'd love to let her off leash, but she has such a predilection for hunting and running that we know we can't trust her yet. Either way, hikes with her are good workouts.

On this hike, she wore her backpack in our effort to slow her down and tire her out a little more. I'm not convinced that worked, because she pulled me down the trail at full speed - when she wasn't stopping to sniff. We think we decided in about forty-five minutes.

At one icy point in the trail, I sat down and slide down for a couple hundred feet. It seemed safer. At that moment, I really wished I'd had a small sled so she could just pull me down the rest of the way.

But we made it. We got in the car and headed back to Massachusetts, wishing we could stay a little longer.

Champney Falls Get Away Hike

I've determine that getting away at least once during the winter is essential. Even if it is to somewhere colder than where you are.

In celebration of my "week off" (which hasn't turned into much of a week off at all), we headed up to New Hampshire for an overnight. This year, as promised after last year's overnight in an unheated hut, we stayed in a B&B with a jacuzzi, and only ventured out onto the frozen trails during the day. 

Initially, I wanted to take Matt on the hike up to Carter Notch, where I stayed overnight last year. It is a beautiful place. But, I've learned over the many years of planning our hiking adventures, that plan B, and sometimes a plan C, helps to prevent my major disappointment when things inevitably do not go as planned. The hut hike was almost 8 miles roundtrip, so we needed to get to the trailhead early. But when we were out the door an hour later than hoped on Sunday morning, and the drive took an hour longer than expected, we both agreed it was time for plan B.

Instread, we took a 3 mile round trip hike up to Champney Falls, on Mount Chocorua. The hike was perfect. Just long enough for a first day out on the trail. Not too steep. And our destination was well worth the effort.

   

 

And of course the husky mutt loved being outside in the snow and ice.

She really wanted to climb up that ice wall, just like the ice climbers who vacated the ravine as we arrived. For a little comic relief, Matt offered some support for her decent. She didn't get the joke.

Later this week, a few more pictures from our hike the next day!

Valentine's sushi lovin' at home

Sorry for my relatively long absence. I've been working way too much lately. But, this long weekend I took off. I didn't do a lick of work for three days and it was magnificent. I hope you got a little time off too. I'm going to share some photos from each day. One post at a time.

Day One

Saturday was, of course, Valentine's Day. Not a big holiday in my book. But, we had reason to celebrate this year because Matt was home with me, rather than on the road as in years past.

On a whim, I decided to make him sushi for dinner, since it's his favorite. I've never made sushi before. I've planned to. I'd even bought a sushi mat (which we seem to have lost in summer pack/unpack episode). 

I looked up a how-to website and gave it a go.

For a first-timer, I was overly ambitious. But it was Valentine's Day, so it seemed like a good time to go overboard.

We made California rolls (crab, cucumber, carrot, avocado), Philadelphia rolls (smoked salmon, cream cheese, cucumber), and green bean tempura rolls. It was probably too many fixings to deal with for a first try, but it all worked out and we had a fun time. I cut up all the stuff, then fried up green beans, sweet potato, and shrimp in tempura batter. 

Meanwhile, Matt rolled up the maki. Without a sushi mat!

And they turned out lovely.

We agreed our suski (I mean sushi! - I've typed suski like 5 times, which must be the Pole in me coming out!) was almost as good as restaurant sushi. Definitely better than grocery store sushi. 

We ate it all, except for a few of those huge, overstuffed rolls on the plate. We learned that the key to one bite maki is to go easy on the rice.

Maybe next time we'll actually try some raw fish. I felt a little pretentious asking the fishmonger if they had sushi grade salmon or tuna. And I was afraid of sticker shock. But now that we know we can make sushi...

If you are feeling ambitious yourself, the one big tip I can offer you is to start the rice a couple hours before you want to roll the sushi, so it has time to cool. But don't put it in the fridge. Apparently, that's a sushi no-no. Matt's would be to line your suski mat with plastic wrap. That is, if you have and can find your sushi mat.

Lastly, The Pioneer Woman as a two pictorials on how to make sushi (california rolls and others). Why a cattleman's wife in Oklahoma has the most vibrantly photographed how-to of sushi-in-the-making on the internet, I really don't know. But, it's worth checking out.

Another thing that lifts my mood...

...a simple and DONE project!

I have a serious problem with unfinished projects. If another month had passed, this project would have been added to the pile of the undone.

Awhile back I bought the insides to a reusable planner with plans to make my own cover. I think it cost about $7. Now in early February, this probably costs about $2 if you can find it.

To make the cover, I picked out a favorite sheet of patterned paper and cut it to size. Then I added the 2009 stickers and the sticker strip. I knew the cardstock would not hold up and the stickers would fall off over time, so I decided to use a modgepodge-like sealant on the front and back. After sealing the paper, I glued it to a heftier piece of cardstock for stability. Then I did a little stitching, because a) I love stitching, and b) I thought the cover would hold together better over time.

That's it. Oh, and I punched holes in it and added rings I got from an office supply store. Aside from the drying time, the project took me about an hour and a half.

My January 2009 schedule will be perpetually free, but February is already filling up.

Nature Photo Monday: Ice Back Into Water

Yesterday I should have gone outside for my Sunday hike but I was in a stay-in-bed-and-suffer-through-my-graduate-school-reading type of mood. Matt made me breakfast in bed, complete with toast, which was very selfless because the very thought of crumbs between sheets makes him shutter.

My mood would have improved if I had ventured out before sunset, because it's been in the 40s for a couple days. That is a veritable heat wave this winter.

Today I sang 'Manic Monday' as I headed out the door. I gave two presentations by 2pm, and feeling much better about life, I came home and took Kaia out for a walk in the woods. I was hoping to find my lost keys. I imagined seeing a glimpse of the bright orange key chain popping through the slush. Unfortunately, no luck.

But, I did see several signs of melting, which warmed my mood further. Since the groundhog saw his shadow this morning, these photos will be my sign that the final thaw will happen eventually.

I was so surprised to look down and see green. I breathed in and the musty smell of earth reworking itself filled my senses.

Tomorrow we are due for another snow storm. But for today, a little bit of melting was precisely what I needed.