Things I Made: Lazy Sunday Update #4

Mother’s Day:  that special day where you honor your mother by posting a picture of her on your blog that she would probably hate you for on any other day.

Happy Mother’s Day, to the BEST Mom there is!!!!

And Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! 

This picture makes me long for summer.  Soon, Katie, soon.  

(Side note about the weather, because I have to keep up the “tradition” of complaining, lest my reputation get all foiled by this sappy stuff, IT SNOWED yesterday.  Luckily, I didn’t notice it while it was happening because I was inside warming up ALL.DAY.LONG. after the hour long, 20 mph 35 degree wind-in-my-face mountain bike in the morning.  I love my bike though.)  

Enough of that.

We left off last week on Sunday, so you got an extra day last weekend, due to my laziness.  Which means, one less day this week, due to my on-top-of-it-ness.  

 Sorry.  (No I’m not.)

On Monday, I painted those frames and the test tube rack I mentioned last week.  There were some fights in the comments over what color I should go with.  Fights nearing fisticuffs, I feared.  

Okay, that’s totally not true; no one really cared.  But some people did give me suggestions, which I dutifully ignored.  I went with yellow for both of the frames and the test tube rack.  (Obviously.)

On Tuesday, I made Sunflower Seed Butter Bread.  I didn’t take any pictures though.  

Why did I not take any pictures, you ask?  Quite simply, I made the bread at 4:30 am, a time at which my desire to take pictures of food is even lower than it is at a normal time of day (which is to say, LOW….VERY LOW).  Also?  I kind of expected that there would be some bread leftover.

There wasn’t. This means that I either 1) seriously underestimated the power of free (homemade) food for college students or 2) make a mean (read: super tasty) Sunflower Seed Butter Bread.

This is a picture of Peanut Butter Bread.  I didn’t even plan this, I swear, but I made this bread last year for my Ornithology students.  

There wasn’t any left last year either.  You’d think I’d learn.

On Wednesday, I made this lap desk.  (Lies: I made this on Sunday, but this was one of those “rollover” days, where I didn’t actually make anything, but I used something from a day I made two somethings.  This doesn’t happen as often as you would think.)

I used the tutorial here.  I didn’t have a cool looking hard surface for the top, so I Mod Podged green fabric onto an old cutting board.  It isn’t perfect, and it’s a little heavy, but it is the perfect size for my dying laptop.  

Pretty badass zebra print, isn’t it?

On Thursday, I made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies.  No picture, because as I’ve mentioned once or twice, I’m lazy with the pictures.  I can’t seem to make myself care.  (Or make myself remember before I eat all the cookies.)

On Friday, I made Jamaican Curry Peanut Butter.  

I wish, oh how I wish, I could take the credit for coming up with the spices, but I just bought the peanuts, pre-spiced.  I bought them on a whim, thinking they’d make great butter, and I was right.  This isn’t going to last long, kids.  (The peanut butter, that is.  Not the being right thing.)

On Saturday,  I made an apron.  A gardening apron!!

Again, I can’t take the credit for this (sensing a trend here, are we?); I’m reading a great book on gardening, You Grow Girl, and there was a pattern for a gardening apron.  

I didn’t actually use the pattern, but I did use the idea as fodder for my version.  It’s kind of hard to see, but there are slots in the apron for all the tools that I end up dropping here and there while I am out weeding and lose and then have to go digging through the pile of debris to find.

Not anymore, though.  Tools, you’ve got a home now.  

Speaking of gardening, I need to get some of that done today.  

Look at all my baby tomatoes!!  I kept telling myself all winter that I wasn’t going to go overboard this summer with the garden.  Keep it simple, Katie is what I said.  But, like a kid in a candy store, I had to plant FOUR kinds of tomato seeds.  And not just one or two of each….many.  Lots.

Anyone want a tomato plant?

Just kidding.  You can’t have them.

Alright, time for me to get outside and get some gardening done.  Oh yeah, and go to the greenhouse to buy more stuff to plant because I’m crazy and what is moderation?

What did you make last week?  Are you gardening?  Peanut buttering?  Painting?

Birding. Reading. Planning. Laughing.

I’m having a hard time not writing about birds on here every day.  In May, my life is consumed with birds.  I think about where to take my students to see birds, what to do if the weather isn’t cooperating.  I check the weather even more religiously than I normally do.  I check the bird radars every morning. 

Yes, bird radars are a thing.

Just like the weather doplar, birds show up on radars during migration, indicating “hotspots” of activity.  We nerders (birder + nerd = nerder; I made that up; funny eh?) get really excited when we see a hot spot.

We haven’t seen many of those in the last couple weeks though, so teaching this course has been a challenge for me this year.

I’m making do with what I can.  I’m trying to stay positive.  I’m trying (and failing) to remain excited about the ducks in the water, but seriously.   I can’t look at ducks for another 5 hour morning.  I just can’t.

So today, after a disappointing couple hours in the early morning, we headed to a local wildlife artist studio.  Not really birding in the field, but it was interesting and it was  anice change of pace.  Plus?  It was inside, out of the wind and WARM.  

In the afternoon, I’ve been so tired that it is all I can do to not crash face-first into bed, so I’ve been reading a lot.  

I finished a couple of books this week – Cooked by Michael Pollan and Swimming Home by Deborah Levy.  (Links will take you to my reviews on goodreads.) I also got a great new cookbook – The Korean Table: From Barbecue to Bibimbop.

I have been deep in the throes of a love affair with Korean food for the past 6 months or so, and while I don’t think Korean food could ever get old, even if you eat the exact same thing every day (and I do), I’m thinking it might be time for me to branch out from my standard Korean fare.  

This is a cookbook, sure.  Normally, I wouldn’t really mention a cookbook in reference to something I’m reading, but this reads so much like a book, that I’m even including it in my Goodreads book shelves.  

I actually sat down on my couch yesterday afternoon, while the rain was ruining my afternoon of gardening or biking or doing anything fun outside, and read the first 50 pages.  Every word.  Like a book.

I also read the internet like a junkie.  A news junkie.  And because I’m guessing I’m not the only internet news  junkie out there….

 

This is a great article written by a man who gave up the internet for a year.  Let’s just say that the results aren’t what you (or he) would have expected.

Here’s a fascinating article about the science of junk food.  Spoiler alert: you can be addicted to the flavor, but marketing plays a big role in it too.

Are you “popular” on the internet?  Do you want to be?  Are you willing to pay to gain internet popularity?  Read this to find out how!  (My thought: People do this?  For real?  That’s just weird.)

 

I want to make so many things, and yet, I find myself sitting on my couch planning when I can make them instead of actually making them. Partly, this can be blamed on the time schedule and the cursed mornings in the field which just suck all my energy, but also partly can be blamed on laziness.  (If I am being honest.)

Speaking of birds (from way back at the beginning of what has become a behemoth of a post) this is on my list of things to make.  

Soon.  Very soon.  Because….cute!  Easy!  Birds!  

I was also planning on making these, to celebrate it FINALLY BEING SPRING, but then….I checked the weather and there is snow in the forecast for tonight and I think we all know how I feel about that.  I’d tell you again, but I promised to not drop the f-bombs anymore, so click here and you will know how I feel.

Maybe I should make them anyway.  A sort of ‘screw you’ to mother nature?

And last, because it’s Friday and I am leaving work early today (which isn’t really all that early, since I started at 6 am), and because I can’t end on a sour grapes note, here’s a couple more random things to get your weekend off to a great start.

Enjoy!

 

Happy weekend!!

What are you reading?  Planning?  Laughing about?  Are you birding?  You should be!  Birds are the coolest!