Neo Indoor Picnic

Well, my goodness, it is just pouring BUCKETS in Boston! Pouring, pouring, pouring rain ever since yesterday. That did not keep me from having a full and busy day though!

This morning the Neo ladies and I visited the artistic directors of another local dance company to audition to be the opening act for their upcoming performance. This company is larger than ours, and their shows are well attended, since they have an established audience here in Boston. My dancers performed their piece well, and now we must wait! We will probably know by the middle of the week whether or not we will be in the performance. Keep your fingers crossed - it would be a great opportunity for my company!

Since we had to meet at a dance studio in the city at noon, this put a wrench in our normal rehearsal schedule. I offered the girls a stop-over lunch at my house on the way to rehearsal in the North Shore. It was such fun!



I absolutely love entertaining, and nothing makes me happier than seeing my dining room table filled with dancers! We had a tasty lunch of Carrot-Ginger Soup, recipe here. This is one of my new favorite go-to recipes. I recommend doubling the batch, otherwise it will be gone in an instant!

I hope that you are staying warm, toasty and DRY wherever you are!

Five Senses Friday

:: tasting ::

orange scones



:: hearing ::

here's looking at you kid by The Gaslight Anthem

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:: seeing ::

so much sunshine for the month of March

:: smelling ::

lemon essential oil, that i sprinkle on my dust rags to make the rooms in my apartment smell nice

:: touching ::

the beautiful yarn and prezzies sent to me by my buddy cyndle (((more on this later!)))

:::

Well, to sum it up politely, this week sucked! (Aside from all of the mail love lavished upon me by my awesome blog friends of course). Today was the cherry on top of a very big suck cake. It started out with a painful stomach flu, moved on to Matt getting a $150 parking ticket ON OUR STREET, and finished today with me realizing that I bounced our rent check. I have never ever done this before, and what made the whole thing worse was that it was entirely my fault. I made a stupid mathematical error when I was transferring money into my checking account to cover things and came up short. The worst thing is, is that we had the money to cover rent, but because of my dumb, dumb, DUMB mistake we've been slammed with fees and now we're in the hole. This is all happening smack in the middle of one of those stellar weeks where I am not sure where our next meal going to come from. I cried my fool eyes out this morning.

During a brighter moment earlier this week, I sat down and wrote my husband a little love note. Part of it said something to the effect of The bills might stack up and the fridge might be bare, but as long as I have you, I am rich. Ahem, FYI, universe, that wasn't some call for a cosmic test of my love, and sanity. You can step off a bit...Jerk.

I bet Matt feels rich when I snot all over the shoulder of his favorite sweatshirt.

SIGH.

I am rich. I am rich. I am rich.

Tomorrow will be a new day.

Random Kindness from Strangers

One of the things that I have always found amazing about the blogosphere, is the random utter kindness of total strangers. A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a sweet woman named Wendy. She had been following my blog since the first round of the Vintage Swap. She said incredibly complimentary things about my ramblings here on G+N, and said that she had found "a few things" she thought I might like while shopping for the round two of the Vintage Swap (which I am sadly not participating in). Could she have my address to send me a package, or is that creepy and weird?

Let me think about this for 2.5 seconds...umm it's never creepy and weird if you want to send me vintage stuff! Oh boy, I just got a funny horrible image of me getting kidnapped by a man in a creepy van waving, not candy, but vintage sheets. I have serious issues.

I waited for days, thinking a padded envelope with my name on it would show up at any moment. Wendy was, in fact, just sending "a few things." What really happened is that I opened my screen door one day and a giant package fell out of my door frame, walloped me in the shins, and came crashing onto my cement porch. That's when I noticed FRAGILE written all over it. Thanks United States Post Office! I reached to pick it up, but my hands were full of other stuff, and I dropped it again!!! Doh! At this point I'm thinking to myself, "Great. Now I have to e-mail Wendy and thank her kindly for the giant box full of broken Pyrex. I am an idiot."

I finally got the huge box upstairs and opened it up. Not a single thing inside was broken, and each little gift made me squeel, gasp or otherwise!

s&p shakers (in their original packaging), a tiny Fire King luster ware dish and a maple syrup carafe



an amazing vintage apron with lobsters on it, what any good New England girl needs for summer time!



a piece of patchwork that is destined to become a pillow for my bedroom



a beautiful table runner embroidered with butterflies



A SILK SCARF! now i have 32, YESSS!



a janis joplin-esque hat, which sits ridiculously high on my head, but i intend to wear it anyways.



a tea towel



a crocheted pillowcase



an amazingly sweet tray!



Also included was a note from Wendy written on a BINGO card (*love*) and an issue of Workbasket Home Arts magazine from May, 1969. The hilarious advertisements in that gem are worthy of its own blog post!

Thank you so, so, much Wendy! Your package was such a thrill to receive!

P.S. You really should start blogging. Maybe you can post about where you find all of this amazing stuff!

CRDF Recap

Thank you for the well wishes for my dance company's performances. Everything went swimmingly!



If you want to read a detailed recap of my dancing weekend, you can do so over at the NEOBLOG.

Unfortunately, I think my busy weekend ran me down a bit, I've been suffering with a bit of a stomach bug since last night. I'm off to get some rest for the evening, hopefully I will be back to my good-lookin' cookin' crafty self soon!

xo!

Dancey-Dance-Dancey Time

Hello Everybody!

Sorry I've been a bit MIA in this space. My dance company, Neoteric Dance Collaborative, is performing this weekend at the Charles River Dance Festival and preparations have been afoot...HAR, HAR! If you live within driving distance of Watertown, Massachusetts you should come check out the show! Two viewings at 3:00pm and 8:00pm.



In other exciting Neo news, after many, many, MANY years I have finally updated the website. There are still a few links to fill in, but my eyeballs feel like they are bleeding from staring at my computer screen for the past two days, so I'm calling it good for now! Please check it out, and let me know your thoughts.

Tomorrow is going to be a full-on dance day, because in addition to my company's two performances, I have a new session of my dance class for children with Down's syndrome tomorrow. WAHOOOOO! I'll meet you back here when I emerge from Saturday night's sleeping coma!

Holiday Handmade Crusade :: March Theme!

Follow this link to find out more about the Holiday Handmade Crusade...



Your theme for March is: Celebrate your heritage! aka I couldn't think of witty song lyrics to describe this month's theme...

Why should Irish people be the only ones to have all the fun in March? Find a way to celebrate your families' heritage by incorporating it into a craft. How about about a cookbook dedicated to ethnic recipes, or trying your hand at a traditional craft? Celebrate the the history that makes you or your gift recipient, unique!

Leave a comment on this post with a link to a blog entry showing your finished item by March 31, 2010 11:59 PM EST for the chance to win a fabulous prize!

Happy crafting,

Your Craftastic Christmas Crusader

P.S. Je suis canadienne!

What's for dinner?

Swiss Chard/Carrots
Brown Rice
Balsamic-Glazed Pork Chops

NOM.

P.S. I tried a new to me beer tonight, Harpoon Munich Dark. I give it two thumbs up! Very tasty!

Dear Tif aka Dottie Angel, I have a confession

First of all, before we get to my thriftiest of thrifty addictions, I must say that my heart leapt with joy at the opportunity to win your most lovely 'ordinary extraordinaries' vignette. I must have been so dumbfounded by the prospect of receiving such a beautiful prize that my brain melted out my ears a bit, and I truly had it in my addled mind that your little contest ended on Sunday.

Imagine my sadness to read that you had chosen a winner yesterday, (Oh drats!) when I had been scheming for my 'dottie-angel-esque' confessional post ALL. WEEK. LONG!

No matter. (((Sniffle))) I'll bite my lip to stop it from trembling, be brave and forge on! For you've inspired me to look within and confess my deepest, darkest thrifting obsession...

Anyone who has been reading my blog for some time would know that I hold in high-esteem what I like to call the HOLY TRIUMVIRATE OF ACCESSORIES. I am very rarely seen in public without at least one, if not all three elements in my ensemble. They are:

Over-sized sunglasses



Big earrings




and the root of my closet disorganization/my addiction...
SCARVES
My name is Sarah, and I am a scarf-a-holic.







There, I said it!

I do not discriminate against wearing scarves in warmer weather though...I'll wear knit, jersey, new vintage, handmade, silk! My particular poison is with the combination of vintage+silk.

It started out innocently enough. .50 cents here, .99 cents there. Vintage silk scarves were to be found everywhere, pretty and cheap...calling to me "TAKE ME HOME!" from their prison cells, mixed into caged bins with single gloves, patchwork leather purses from the 80's and loose belt buckles.

I take moments like these as my cue to gently take a corner, slide the scarf out from it's entrapment, rub it softly against my cheek and say "Don't worry pretty one. You kind of smell like an over abundance of grandma perfume now, but I will take you home, give you a bath, then take you out on the town!"

This is a scenario that has played out in thrift stores all over New England.

I knew my addiction had reached a new level when I saw this lovely on Ebay.

"$9.99!" my angelic conscience gasped, "I could never! I usually pay no more than a dollar for a silk scarf!"
"But look at the pretty colors!" my inner thrifty-devil retorted.
"Plus shipping it would be almost $15!!!"
"But it's Vera."
"..."
"Orange and teal, vintage, beautiful, silky Vera."
"..."
"I'd bet you pay much more than that for a new couture scarf at a department store!"
"Sold."

So, I bid. And I won. Of course I did, what other lunatics would be out there spending $15 on a 23" square of material!

The precious was mine!!! Mine!!!



How many scarves do I have you ask? Just as you, dear Tif, counted your stools for your confession post, I counted my silk scarves as well.

31

31 silk scarves live in my closet, as well as countless knit and jersey scarves and a healthy collection of bandannas and kerchiefs.

I have even started to rub off on my fur-babies.



I have gone too far.

Love, Sarah

this is why i don't get things done...

first, she settles...



then she does this cute little nose whistling thing



LOOK AT THAT PUNAM!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!



then she lets out a huge sigh. how can i resist?



sigh. fur baby loooooove.

No Knead Bread

A few days ago, I was catching up on my blog reading, when I came across a no-knead bread recipe on one of my new favorite blogs to visit, Hannah's blog, Honey and Jam. In the past I had seen many variations of this recipe circulating around the blogosphere...but I was too scared to try any of them. Even after working in a professional bakery, and learning quite a bit about the subject, bread-baking at home elusively remained on my to-do "someday" list.

Not any more my friends.



I HAVE MADE BREAD!

(Shouted a la Tom Hanks screaming "I have made fire!" in Castaway)

Not only have a made bread, but it's edible. More than edible, it's delicious! Just as Hannah's brother said, it tastes just like Panera bread.

NOTES: I halved the recipe, to save opening a new package of yeast, and honestly I probably did not have enough yeast. My two loaves were more like mini-boules. I raised the temperature from 450F to 475F, because my oven runs notoriously under temperature. However, since my loaves were so small, I ended up baking them for only 20 minutes, instead of the recommended 30-40. I would love to experiment with making larger loaves...I'm also wondering if these would bake up properly in a loaf pan. Hmm.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be tinkering with bread recipes for a long time to come!