Monday Meanderings

Oh my word, but it's HOT! Here's what we had at midnight:

Note that it FELT like 90! It didn't get much cooler either; I think it only went down to 86. UGH.

The forecast is for a storm, but so far there are no clouds in sight. I think maybe the weatherman has it wrong AGAIN.

Days like this it's hard to get motivated to do anything. I just want to sit directly in front of my fan, occasionally removing the washcloth from around my neck to give it a fresh dip in some icy cold water, while sipping on something equally icy cold.

The morning walk seemed longer than usual, between the intense sun and smelly lake. Not sure what's going on but it smells like rotting fish. ICK! I made it half-way to town before turning around and heading home. Ivan was walking all the way in, to see if he can get the electric company to move a little faster on getting the electric pole installed out by the lot.

Friends who are vacationing in Carlos Paz came to our Sunday night meeting. Marcelo is a bi-vocational pastor and he and his wife are musically gifted. Ivan asked if they might want to teach us a new chorus, and they just happened to have their guitar and flute in the car. We enjoyed a wonderful time of singing together, and we even taught them a new chorus :)  Silvia was actually a classmate of Ivan's brother in Santa Rosa, so the friendship goes waaaaay back.

I'm sure y'all have heard Picnik.com is shutting down. That makes me sooooo sad! They've been my go-to site for making banners, putting together collages, or just when I needed to add text to a photo. I've read several blog posts about other options, but the consensus is that no one site has all the features of Picnik... which means we'll have to use multiple sites, depending on what we want to do. If you're a fellow Picnik enthusiast, you might want to check out blog posts by Centsational Girl and The SITS Girls -- I personally found these the most helpful and informative.

During a search for ice cream and sorbet recipes I came across a Round-Up of Frozen Desserts hosted by Mike's Table back in 2008. Some of the recipes sound very weird and I probably won't be trying them (fig and rosewater ice cream with crushed pistachio and dark chocolate? roasted plums with tarragon? I think not) but I do like the sound of fat free mango frozen yogurt, no-cook coffee ice cream, as well as a host of other entries. Definitely bookmark worthy!

A recent stream on facebook led me to Moody Radio, and specifically Midday Connection. I've enjoyed listening to a few of their programs, and appreciate that their archived programs are available online. I'm always on the lookout for something good to listen to while I cook, clean or sew.

I've mentioned Sew4Home before, but if you missed it the last time around, you really should check them out. They offer a ton of tutorials! Although the main focus is on things for the house, that's definitely not all they offer. Last Monday they had directions for making his 'n her pajama shorts. I've literally gone back through their entire site, bookmarking tips and project ideas for future reference. I really want to make their pretty ruffled glasses case with a handy key ring, to use when we go on walks. They have give-aways on a regular basis, too.

The latest issue of House of Fifty is out. I haven't had a chance to look through it yet (I like to allow myself a decent amount of time to oooh and aaaah over all the pretty pictures, and read each article) but you can count on a good deal of eye candy for the home.

I've recently started reading some sewing blogs and came across this one by a Brit. She offers free video tutorials which is invaluable for a visual learner like me. She also has lots of good advice for beginning sewers. She just came out with an e-book called Fashion Sewers Guide to Great Sewing Project that looks worthwhile, too.

I think that's enough for today, don't you? If you check out all the links, you'll be busy for a while :)

Have a Happy Monday!

Fixing Higher Education

There's been a lot of talk about what will happen to higher education. Burgeoning college costs are pricing a lot of young people right out of the market. Who wants to end up $60,000 in debt and no job opportunities in sight? While I've read lots about what's wrong, I had not seen anything remotely resembling a solution...

Until today. Dr. Wallis C. Metts, professor at a small, private liberal arts college in the Midwest, has written a comprehensive and -- more importantly -- comprehensible post on what we can do about it. Well written, thought-provoking, and exciting! I'm not even in higher education but I kept wanting to jump up and shout "Amen!" and send this to everyone I know.

So that's what I'm doing. I'm posting here and linking his post on facebook. Parents, politicians and those who are involved in higher education NEED to read this!

Some things to share...

I often run across fun (or funny) things and think, "Oh, I should link this on my blog!" But then I never do. Only today I have an abundance of fun, and funny, things so I'm taking a break from housework to post the links...

My SIL sent me to a post called "A True Southerner Knows..." by blogger Syrup & Biscuits. My southern compatriots can nod their way through the post with me, while my northern friends will be left scratching their heads. Sorry my northern pals, it's a southern thang :)

The bloggesphere has been buzzing about Pinterest for some time now, and it won't be news to you how addictive it can be. We're all guilty! But A.J. Willingham said it better than I ever could in her tongue-in-cheek article "The Agony and Ecstasy of Pinterest".

I may be the last one to hear about something called Texture Magic, but boy does it look like FUN! I'm sure I can't get any here, so I'll have to wait until our next trip to the U.S. Meanwhile, has anyone used this stuff? What did you make with it?

I made chocolate cherry dessert bread this morning. It tastes great but looks rather unappetizing. I want to ask my bread-baking friends out there: is it really necessary to make those criss-cross cuts on the top? Because I think if I didn't have to do that, it would look a LOT better.

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On a completely unrelated note... we are having serious issues with our phones; both the land line and our cell phones. Ivan has called Telecom (we have the land line and internet through them) several times and they just keep giving him the run around -- when he gets anyone at all, and isn't just left listening to music forever. For some reason we cannot call a cell number from the land line. Telecom says we should be able to, BUT WE CAN'T. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, but WE CAN'T. They've been extremely unhelpful and it's seriously annoying, especially since they have a monopoly so it's not like we have any other options.

And our cell phones aren't working right either. We'll try sending a text message and it takes hours -- or even days -- to get delivered. Ivan was trying to get hold of me one day we were in Cordoba; he sent four messages and none of them reached me... until two days later. That's when the carrier sent me another annoying sales pitch (BUY MORE MINUTES NOW! GET DOUBLE FOR YOUR MONEY!) and when it came through, it showed I had four other messages. Yep, all the old ones from Ivan. Oh, and those annoying sales pitches come in the middle of the night as well as ALL DAY LONG. Last night Ivan tried sending me a text to open the garage door, since it was pouring cats and dogs outside. He arrived home about 15 minutes later and the garage door wasn't open. He waited... and waited... until the rain let up a little and he made a mad dash to open the gate and then garage door. He'd been inside about half an hour when my phone started buzzing to indicate I had a message. It had taken over an hour for his message to reach me. *sigh* It would be nice if at least one of the phones worked properly.

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For over a month I've been making fabric yoyo's for a Pinterest project; a few here, a few there, and they're adding up. Yesterday I counted and had over 100 of them, so decided to start laying them out and playing with a pattern. I'm so glad I did! Just didn't like the pastel ones at all, so I pulled those out, leaving about 90. So far I like how it's looking but have no idea how many I'll end up needing since I haven't yet bought the canvas on which to mount them. I don't know what sizes of canvas are even available here.

So for now I'm taking a break from the yoyo's and pulled out an old -- a very old -- hand sewing project: Parasol Girls. I started making these blocks about 20 years ago, using fabrics from dresses I made Tina. Since I didn't make her many dresses, I realized I'd need to add other fabrics into the mix, and at some point along the way cut out enough for several more girls. Not sure what happened (I'm easily distracted) but I stopped cutting at seven blocks. Obviously seven is an awkward number of blocks to work with, unless I use one for a pillow. Not sure yet whether I'll cut out enough for a few more, or go with the pillow idea. Anyway, I periodically pull this out and work on it, and then put it away again, but I've decided that it's time to finish this project. I'll let you know how that goes.

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The rain last night really helped cool things down a little. It was a very pleasant 63 degrees this morning at 6 a.m.! Hopefully the rain softened the ground enough for the guys to dig the leach bed out at the lot. A friend helped Ivan track down a crew of guys who take on digging projects like this, and the job will be a lot easier now that the ground isn't so dry and hard-packed.

What a week!

I've been without a computer part of the week since we discovered that there is indeed an Apple store in Cordoba, and the nice tech guy there was able to track down the necessary part and have it sent from Buenos Aires so he could fix it. (How's that for a run-on sentence?!) It turns out the store is in the mall we couldn't find :) But our architect, who told us about the Apple store, was also kind enough to show us on a map where the mall is located. Easy peasy, once you know.

So when we went to Cordoba on Tuesday (a whole 'nother story I talk about on my P365 blog) we took the computer and left it with the nice tech guy.

I spent a good portion of my week in the kitchen, experimenting with different soups, and doing yet more baking. Including an amazing basil garlic bread recipe that I'll share at the end of this post. I also made a batch of brownies to take to the nice tech guy who fixed my computer.

As for the soups, the cold cucumber soup is one of my favorite summer soups. I'll share that recipe at the end of this post, too. A little more versatile, the hearty vegetable soup can be "dressed up" with the addition of whatever you want, at the time you serve it. For example, the first night I added a bit of chopped up chicken, some shredded cheese, a dollop of plain yogurt and a handful of crushed tortilla chips. Another night I added in some leftover vegetables (steamed green beans and roasted butternut squash) along with a bit of shredded cheese.

We put on so much weight while in the U.S., and we really want to not only get those extra pounds off, but just eat healthier in general.

So instead of making more ice cream with our handy-dandy KitchenAid ice cream attachment for the stand mixer, we tried an orange sorbet. It tasted great but was rather more icey than I'd like, so we'll try again with a different recipe.

Our architect sent a preliminary draft of the floor plan, and we loved it but have asked him to make a few minor changes:

One of the bigger changes is moving the house back farther on the lot. We'd like to put it at the required six meters distance from the casita Our street is already a busy one and we expect it to get even busier as the street becomes a main thoroughfare to the new costanera. I'd prefer as much space between the house and street as possible because of the noise. Other changes include a one-car garage door rather than two, moving the toilet and sink in the bathroom (and adding in a bidet), and putting two windows on the long wall in the main living area.

Ivan's spent some time at the lot figuring out that there is indeed a septic tank already in the ground, but we do have to put in a leach field. He's also been trying to track down someone with a back hoe to level out the area on the side of the lot so we can install a fence. He discovered that where we want to put the house is an area that's been filled... to the tune of about two meters. Which means we'll have to have posts sunk every few meters of the perimeter of the building, going down 2-1/2 to 3 meters so it's firmly anchored into solid ground. Not the best of news, but offset by the discovery of the existing septic tank. As anyone who has ever built knows, you can expect to run into the unexpected!

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CUCUMBER SOUP

3 medium cucumbers

3 cups chicken broth

3 cups sour cream

3 T. cider vinegar

2 t. salt

1 clove garlic*

Peel and seed cucumbers. Cut in chunks and puree in blender, along with the broth, in small batches. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in remaining ingredients. Chill for at least four hours. Serve with optional toppings: chopped tomatoes, chopped green onions, chopped avocado, cilantro, slivered and toasted almonds.
*I used three cloves of mashed roasted garlic instead.
(My friend Katie gave me this recipe. She serves it with the most delicious little cheesey scones!)

BASIL GARLIC BREAD

1 cup fresh basil (hard packed)
6 garlic cloves (peeled)
1/4 cup olive oil
1-1/4 cup lukewarm water

 2 t. sugar

2-1/4 t. active dry yeast

1 t. salt

3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Chop basil leaves and garlic finely, or place in a food processor and chop finely. Do not turn into a liquid. Add olive oil slowly. Set aside. In another bowl add lukewarm water and sugar, sprinkle yeast on top of water. Set aside to activate the yeast; about 5 minutes. Add yeast to basil mixture and mix. Add flour 1 cup at a time till dough is smooth. Place dough on a floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes. Place dough into a greased bowl. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap. Let rise till dough doubles in size. Punch down dough. Form dough into a loaf and place in a greased pan. Cover let dough double in size. Place loaf in a 350 F oven for 30-35 minutes. Remove and cool on a wire rack.
(This recipe is from the cookingbread.com website.)