Monday, December 28, 2009

day one hundred twenty-two.







Day One Hundred Twenty-one 12/28/2009


Dress: 

Purchased From:  Clothing Swap
Year or Era Purchased:  Fall 2009
Price: Free!
Accessories: Black chevron tights, black knee socks, black boots, slip with pink frilly stuff sticking out, black cardigan, sunglasses, crocheted bow headband by Off The Chains Designs message her for details. 
Hair and Makeup:  double buns, usual makeup
Comments/Compliments/Complaints:  Michael





I've been thinking about this blog all day.  After one hundred and twenty-two days I have realized that I probably could've gone about this differently, added more human events and emotions and personal information and stories.  Later in the day a conflicting thought, the quote, "lighten up, it's just fashion" of Project Runway and Santino Rice fame ran through my head.  When I started this blog it was to prove a point and document it and maybe discover something along the way.  I suppose in the beginning I didn't really have a plan much past the formula of the dress, photo and daily dress information list.  I thought, hey if something is interesting that day I'll write about it, if not, no big deal. Life is often boring day to day and I wonder if a stranger would even care at all about what I had for dinner or watched on television.   I guess I'm trying to figure out where to go from here, what to do with so little left in my dress wardrobe.  There is of course still the terry cloth frog dress I've been putting off, and the lime green business suit reserved for job interviews among a few others but the list is really dwindling.  I have considered starting another blog, a spin-off if you will that is fashion related and not necessarily dresses, though clearly I have a soft spot, or maybe an addiction to dresses.  I spoke about it at length with my best friend today and she suggested I read other blogs about things I don't actually have an interest in to see if which writers/styles/topics/etc. hold my interest.  Maybe that will help me to improve on this and any other future writing endeavors I may attempt.  That is one thing this blog has definitely made me realize.  I want to write.  I want to do it for a living.   I also think I've realized I'm not that great it at.  I am not fishing for compliments here, I'm just having some self realizations and I personally think that's great.   I need to improve my vocabulary, improve my grammar skills and start reading better books to get back into different writing styles.  I also think I need to go back to school in some sort of capacity.  As I said before 2010 or '010 as my roommate likes to call it is going to be all about getting shit done.  I have a few unfinished stories and a mess of photocopied crap that I never fully put together and I will get it done.  I've also considered trying to have some sort of art show, not that I claim to be an artist, chronicling this bloggy experience.  I have no clue how to go about doing that though so if anyone out there in internet land has any insight please comment away! Ok I took two seconds to google some galleries/spaces and it looks like I have some writing to do in the self promoting sort of style.  Weeee.  Tips would still be great though!  Or suggestions on what to actually do to make this into a show.  I have some ideas but I could use some more.  


So the other thing I thought this blog might help with is my insane clothing and messiness affliction.  It has not. Frowny Face. This is my ridiculous room: 


 


This is a shared room but every ounce of crap you can see belongs to me.  Poor Michael. Somehow that whole being an adult thing has passed me by and I can't even shut a drawer let alone hang something up when I am done with it or decide not to wear it.  This is usually because I am late and lack time management skills.  I am such an amazing person.   I like to also blame this on space as I am lacking storage space.  This is partially true and I think my situation would improve with a proper closet set up but really who am I kidding? You have to hang things in a closet to make it work.   I watched two episodes of Hoarders tonight so now I have the burning desire to go shovel up my clothing piles and clean the crap out of the house.  


I suppose the best way to start this is to start going to bed earlier and waking up earlier and using my time wisely.  I guess it's bad that it's 12:51AM and I chose to put off writing this blog until I was ready for bed.  Too many times I let myself procrastinate this until it became my final task before bed, a job instead of a hobby.  I find those days to be  contrived and boring or descriptions of nothing.  Oh bother.  


The dress I wore today is from the clothing swap I attended a few weeks ago.  It's pretty boobilicious and I wasn't feeling like that today so it put me a little off.  It was saved by the amazing crocheted headband by Rachel Turanski of Off the Chains Designs.  It makes me feel young and fresh.  I also love my new sunglasses from Omoi on Pine Street.  They were my Christmas present to myself.  As I said before I am running out of dresses so instead of trying on a few different dresses I tried on a few different looks with this particular dress.  I tried both short and long sleeves underneath, different sweaters and accessories before finally deciding to add a ruffly slip underneath to add some color pop and go black for the rest of it.  I didn't work much today so it didn't matter that I didn't feel super comfortable.  I also felt like crap physically today as I will finally admit that I am sick, fully sick for the first time in almost two years.  Ugh.  Yuck.  I came home from working and grocery shopping and made a pretty awesome Cream of Broccoli Soup  that I tweaked a bit for my tastes into this: 




  • 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, room temperature
  • 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
  • 3 cups (packed) grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese
  • 2 1/2 pounds fresh broccoli, stems and florets separated and chopped into bite-size pieces
  • 1 10 ounce container of white mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 can of hearts of palm, chopped
  • 1 large sweet yellow onion, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon or 1/2 teaspoon dried
  • 6 1/2 cups vegetable broth or stock
  • 2 cups whipping cream or half and half or combo

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add broccoli stems and onion; sauté until onion is translucent, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and tarragon; sauté 1 minute. Add broccoli florets and stock; bring to boil. Simmer uncovered until broccoli is tender, about 15 minutes.
In a sauté pan melt one tablespoon of the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter and sauté mushrooms until done.  Add remaining two tablespoons of butter and three tablespoons of flour to form a roux.  Add a little salt and pepper. Add two cups cream/half and half/milk a little at a time.  Once the cream has been added and the mixture thickens add the cheese in small batches until it has melted in.   Turn off heat.
Once broccoli/ broth mixture is done puree in small batches.  Once the broccoli mixture is pureed add it back to the large pot.  If you don't want mushroom/hearts of palm chunks puree the cream mixture in small batches as well. Add the cream mixture to the broccoli mixture.  Let soup simmer on low for 15-20 minutes for flavor mingling.


  • Anyway so I made soup and we ate it with crusty bread and leftover jalapeno dip from Christmas dinner.  It was really yummy.  I watched Gran Turino; it was good.  I napped and embraced my sickness.  I spent the rest of the night on the couch, a giant waste of space flipping between Hoarders and Cats 101 and playing words with friends on my phone.   So productive.  Yeah. I'm going to get on that.  I did wear my dress during the entire list of events above so there.  


3 comments:

Mike said...

"I also think I've realized I'm not that great it at."

;)

I think you should just start writing about getting projects completed in 2010. I would assume that it would be a bunch of different things and it would keep the blog popping with new things. Plus you can keep on keeping on with da fashion.

I personally am going to start a blog about how booby trapping my car.

jenna said...

A friend stumbled upon your blog a few weeks ago and showed me and I said, "that's my petsitter!" Betty even got a mention, hey, hey. She loves her sparkly green ball, BIG TIME.

My favorite book for figuring art stuff out is "Taking the Leap," by Cay Lang. It is definitely geared towards the traditional visual artist, but you can apply it quite well to any art show. Be sure to drop me a line when the show happens :)

Abigail said...

Woah, that's awesome! Thanks for the tip, I'm going to check out that book. I'm glad Betty likes her Xmas toys :)

 
designed by suckmylolly.com