Don’t forget to share your photos with the rest of us at http://www.flickr.com/groups/fabricbookcover/ :)

On a different note, grad school is kicking my ass so theCrafties is taking a side seat for now. I hope to get things worked out and back to quasi normal after I get caught up (boo for late shipments on books!!). Remember that if you would like to follow my grad school adventures, you’ll need to email me because I will not be linking the site here.

I hope you experience great crafting days ahead and continue to share so that I can live vicariously through the internet!

Ranked # 5271
2-4 players
Age 8 and up
Rated 5.71 out of 10 stars

Learning curve: This game is pretty simple: you roll a dice to move. If the number is red, you also get to change one of the cards that make up a fully interchangeable game board. There is a special card in the deck to either help yourself or hurt another by jumping halfway across the board. The idea is to get both your pieces to the center’s “treasure room”.

Re-playability: Because the game board itself is malleable to the players’ intentions, I think it always offers a good bit of competition.

My personal thoughts: I had never heard of this game before, but I got it for my birthday. I was surprised to see how low the game was rated after playing it. We laughed as we played, and none of us would choose to never play it again. It was a good time, and quick paced. Oh, and I won :)

Ruin review at BoardGameGeek.com

Before:
Angela gave me a pot pie filling recipe from her freezer recipe book. It is the same recipe she used when she made me a pie during our renovation. I made enough for six pies total and froze five in freezer bags. I found a recipe for the crust which sounded good: Butter Flaky Pie Crust. To my unrefined brain, butter and margarine are the same so after the fact, when I realized this flaw, I already felt like the recipe was ruined, but I let it sit in the fridge overnight anyway. Then when I began to roll it out, I realized it was not going to be enough to cover the top. As I was contemplating on what to do about that, I also realized that although it was rolling out nicely, contrary what some of the negative reviewers mentioned, it was not so nice on the bottom side. Wherever the flour was missing, the dough just stuck like a gob of wet rubber cement. I tossed it out.
But I was hungry. So I found a quick fix for a cornbread topping. At work, Heather uses cornbread to top off a tray of pulled pork and it is delish. I decided to give it a go, especially since I had yellow cornmeal in my cabinet after the hot cereal making. It turned out alright – the cornbread was a little much for the amount of filling I had, so if I were to do this again, I would use only half as much. I loved how simple it was to pull together though!

After:
(Week 7 was missed because I let Tofer make the pulled pork and Boy the grilled meats for a summer party we threw. Week 8 was missed because it was my birthday and I let Boy make me an Angel Food Cake. Now you are caught up!)

I may post considerably less often. Or nothing may change at all. At this point, I really have no idea just how much of my life will be changing, but the comments I made about postponing house updates or making much cheaper decisions, are all related to this:

I am accepted into a graduate program in a city roughly 2 hours away from home to gain a
Master of Science in anthropology, studying bioarchaeology.
W00t!

Boy and my kitties will stay here, and I will be staying with my gracious mother-in-law during the week. (That may scare the heebie jeebies out of some of you, but I tell you, she is a good friend of mine:) I will commute home each weekend when possible, or Boy will come visit me. It will be hard, make no mistake about it. At least this time, cellphones and the internet is in abundance (we started out as a long distance relationship basically at the brink of those things becoming common household items).

Things I will miss:

Boy, Maya and Sasha, the friends I see every day at work, freedom of my paychecks (good bye great job of over 10 years), not having to go to a bank to make a deposit, my craft room, my huge amount of free time, freedom of living nightshift hours and never using a damn alarm clock, my kitchen, my 10 minute commute, getting gas once a month or less, kitties, kitties, kitties, boy, boy boy.

Things to make up for it:

Education and enlightenment and fulfillment, partaking in real research, pursuing a career that I actually enjoy, opening doors to the future, meeting new friends, hanging out with MIL, a pool and gym and bike trail, stepping outside of my comfort zone, having no regrets about something I never did and should have.

About bioarchaeology:

This article at wikipedia explains what bioarchaeology is. I learned it first hand on my field school to Peru in 2007. It is not archaeology – archaeologist do the digging part and mostly work with artifacts – the things that people made. Instead, it is essentially studying the skeletal remains of past populations to put together a picture of how they lived, what activities and diets and pathologies they had, and how they died. Most of you have probably seen Bones, and that is not it either – she is a forensic anthropologist who’s purpose is to identify an individual for the purposes of law. The two fields are similar in my mind, except I will be working outside of the realm of crime and generalizing to populations.

About the program:

The program itself is brand-new, and I will be among its first students so my cohort will be very small – this is good: lots of individual attention from the specialists in the field. It will take two years so I will be finished around May of 2013. Over next summer, I am required to do another field school, which I am looking forward to. My main advisor seemed really passionate about the work and the program so I feel I will be in very good hands. There are a couple projects that we talked about that I am interested in and can begin research on day one. In the lab is a technology that only exists in one other place in the states, and one other place in another country. That has created a global network of anthropologists for this budding program already.

I hope to start a blog for my academic life, and if you are interested in following it, be sure to email me for the link (I will not be making it public here). calynn ((at)) thecrafties ((dot)) com.

Do you have anything that you could ask yourself “If I don’t do this now, when will I?” ?

Week 6.1: Crockpot (whole, multi-grain) Cereal with Applesauce

Before:
I got this recipe from my cooking pal Angela. She found it here, at Monkeys on the Bed. A lot more things on my list that have never been in my kitchen before: pearl barley, steel cut oats, wheat bran, and ginger spice. Boy keeps flaxseed around, so that I had on hand, but we’ve never used it for cooking. We opted against putting any dried fruit in it (raisons completely disgust me and the other kinds of dried fruit just didn’t seem like it would fit in the recipe – mostly because I am a texture gal and think chunks would create a roadblock for me).

I think perhaps because of the lack of fruit, or maybe my overly-heaping heaping teaspoons of cinnamon, or maybe just my crave for sugar, I did find it tastier when I sprinkled a bit of sugar over it. I know, I know, that defeats the whole aspect of it being so super good for you, but Boy and I both liked it and we would eat it again! (Tofer missed out this week since he is in another state.)

I would love to mix the dry ingredients together to make little packets – just add vanilla, applesauce, and water! Super easy. Thank you Monkeys on the Bed commenter Amy for the superb idea!

After:

Week 6.2: French Toast Souffle

Before:
I’ve had this recipe torn out of a Ladies Home Journal magazine for years and never made it. Can you believe that? I totally can. But anyway, so I finally made it! It may seem odd that I would choose two breakfast recipes in a single setting, and I am still not quite sure what I was thinking, but it turned out okay. Not as fabulous as I was expecting (I really really really love French toast), but definitely good. If it wasn’t just me in this house who eats French toast, I would make it again. It has just the right amount of sweetness to it. Since the recipe is really old, I could not find it on the Ladies Home Journal website, but I did find it re-printed here. I used the original recipe, not the lower fat one printed at the bottom (the article itself made-over someone’s family recipe to be more healthy).

After:

Good news, Keith will be in town in August so I have a solid deadline to get her finished. Sometimes I need that, you know? And thanks to my “step-grandmother-in-law” Ruth for the giant embroidery hoop!

This type of embroidery is new to me. Usually, my left hand is under the fabric and I can feel when my thread gets caught. Couching the yarn, however, means my left hand stays on top to guide the yarn as my right hand works the thread around it. As such, the back of this piece is horribly embarrassing – but to allay any doubt in your mind that I am making the awesomeness that this is and not faking it somehow through photoshop, I thought I’d share:

(By the way, we got our kitchen handles installed! They are made by the Diamond Cabinet company and are style H38 – really cool mix of colors: dark lead, subtle copper, and a hint of champagne. Kick-plate, trim, tile, and paint to go!) We also have the tile picked out and is on order. Pictures to follow soon, I hope!
See, with my new kitchen recently available for use, I have been learning to cook. I’ve been trying to cook a dish once a week to gain some skill and eat real food (read that as not frozen, over-pre-processed, microwaveable, dehydrated “food”). I am on week 5 of this project and I am not sure how long it will last, but I will make posts of my outcomes.

I would like to add that when I was making the family tree, I watched a lot of movies that I ordinarily would not select (they were chosen specifically to not lure my interest so my crafting would reign supreme). One of them happened to be Julie & Julia. Since then, the idea of cooking has been swirling in my head. Then my friend Angela spoke of this magic she found about cooking once a month and freezing it all so that there is always food available. Good food. Check it out at Once a Month Mom. Insert some documentaries about how humans are disgusting in our waste and race to destroy the planet, coupled with some tree-hugging views my fifth grade teacher instilled in me, and I am left with the idea that all those insanely processed and individually packaged meals I’ve been eating for most of my entire life makes me one big hypocrite. Once I had thought that eventually it would be easy to reduce and reuse, much like recycling is pretty common, and I would do it then. Now I realize the naivety of those thoughts – the money isn’t in it for the companies, and with our capitalist society, well, it is up to me to make my own changes. We’ve done a few changes already, such as getting more towels to stay the use of papertowels, buying bulk containers instead of smaller ones, switching everything to efficient lightbulbs, etc etc. More ideas are on the way – recycled oil for the cars, homemade cleaners once the ones we bought are used up, homemade paper from all my scrapping scraps, compost and food garden, and so on. It is a slow process that takes mental effort, but my goal is to one day get there and stay.

But on to the food experiments! I do not have any rhyme or reason to what I’m making, I am just practicing with what the three people in my household select each week.

Week 0.05 & 0.25: No-bake Cookies

I used my mom’s recipe. I owed my bro some cookies for helping me redesign my website. I’ve made them twice and neither time did they set. But mom thinks I just need to boil it longer so don’t worry Bro, I haven’t forgotten about you! I claim this as 0.05 and 0.25 because real cooking hadn’t even occured to me yet. And excuse the blurry phone photo.

Week 0.5: Cheesy Chicken Soup

(Sorry, no photo)

I used a recipe that came with the Costco canned chicken, and modified it. See, I did not have any veggies to add, so I decided to add Cream of Potato Soup to give it something. It was good, but nothing special. Very easy though! A can of this, a can of that, some worchestire sauce, cook, and eat! I claim this as 0.5 because I just made it for myself and didn’t really have the Chez Moi idea developed yet.

Week 1: Cheese Lasagna Roll-ups

I picked this one out and used this recipe at All Recipes. I read the reviews and decided to let the noodles cool, and add some seasoning (garlic powder, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper). Oh, and I did not have any tofu on hand so I simply skipped that. I also smothered sauce on each one after it was rolled, and sprinkled cheese on top before baking. Then I let them cool a little before freezing them. They reheated great and tasted just as yummy as the freshly cooked ones.

If I do it over again, Boy and I were a little dissatisfied with the spinach so we may opt to leave it out or get fresh spinach instead of frozen.

Week 2: Chicken Parmigiana

Tofer selected this (the photo was his lunch for work) and I found a recipe at the Food Network. The reviews all agreed that it makes way too much sauce, but instead of cutting back, I decided we could use the leftovers for spaghetti sauce. It also called for 4 breasts, but Tofer got me 6. And then once I smashed them, they were ridiculously huge, so Boy helped me cut them in half. I ended up with 13 total peices and still had enough of all the ingredients.

I learned a TON with this recipe. I smashed chicken (and was happily reminded of pollo a plancha from Peru:), made fresh garlic paste, cut an onion, cut a pepper, pureed tomatoes, and used breadcrumbs for the first time. Now, it must be said that almost all those ingredients I just listed literally will make me sick to my stomach. So while cooking up this sauce, it was amazingly puzzling for me when it says “add to taste” considering there was no way I would taste such poison. I also had dry bay leaves instead of a fresh one, and the interwebz told me that dry only has a fraction of the flavor, but it did not tell me what that fraction actually was. In addition, I had parsley snips instead of a small bunch of parsley – how many snips makes a bunch? This I do not know. I was nervous the sauce would not be right.

I also decided it was a good idea to leave the handle of my pan over a hot burner so that I could burn my hand when I grabbed it. I called for Boy to finish it up for me by putting it all in the oven. No worries, I had an amazing recovery!

My chicken was topped with the spaghetti sauce I eat, and I loved it! Both Boy and Tofer said theirs were awesome. The sauce was a hit, and my smashed crusted chicken was super juicy with a great crunchy breading. I would totally make this again. I wish I had made more for me!

Week 3: Eggplant Gratin

Boy chose this recipe from the Food Network again. The reviews were mixed. It seemed to be a love it or hate it type deal. I also read that some people decided to bake the eggplant instead of frying it. I decided, since it called for two gratin dishes (I used pie plates) that I would try both ways. I had never had eggplant, and I was nervous about mixing it with marinara sauce, but in the end, it was edible. I don’t know that I would ever choose to eat it though. Boy and Tofer had to reheat theirs, which is always a hit and miss, and Tofer decided he was too much of a ninny to even try it. Boy thought it was really good and ate one whole dish by himself (the baked version)- he especially liked the custard top, but the bottom he thought was a little too soggy for his tastes. Because of that, he was deterred from eating the dish that was fried and we just tossed it out.

Week 4: No-Bake cookies

(No photo)

My mom was in town so I had her watch me make them. Again, they did not set. I decided to add more oats, almost a whole cup more. While letting them rest on the counter, I googled the difference between cocao powder and cocoa powder. The logic seems to be split – some say it is exactly the same, but some say there is a difference. Those people say that cocao powder, which is what I was using to make them good for you, still has a high fat content because it hasn’t been processed to cocoa powder yet. We were discussing maybe trying again with less butter, but in actuality, the cookies, with the added oats, did set! Yippee! They are on their way to Bro as we speak. And…in this heat wave they may yet be a goopy mess when he gets them, but that’s not the point.

Week 5: Carmelized Butternut Squash

(No photo)

My friend Leslie gave me a squash and my other friend Colleen told me about how her dad makes it in the oven with brown sugar. This sounded a little gross to me, but I thought, heck why not? I got the recipe from Food.com. Boy and I made this together on a whim last night. It was scrumptious, and we ate the whole squash! Very quick and easy and I would do it again. Thanks guys! :)

I apologize for the lack of photos. Both the cookies and the squash was kind of a random moment in cooking and I was not in the mindset for blogging. I also can’t upload any images because I converted from Mac OSx to Lion and for some reason it dropped my Aperture serial number and my FTP program is not supported. Those will be fixed soon though, and I have a book cover and progress on Felt Keeley to share!

I was inspired to do a bit of a popcorn party from one of Princess Lasertron‘s series – Mine was hardly as glorious, but it was a good start. Check out her post Have this party: popcorn bar and a movie!

I made parchment invites and left a bottle of Black Root Ale (root beer) for each of the guests on their doorstep.

To make the invites, I whipped out the invitation details for the front, and some Willow movie facts for the back. I printed onto parchment paper then cut them into ragged, bumpy squares. A few hits with a lighter later, and it had an old-timey effect.

“Kael”, “Sorsha”, “Madmaya”, and “Kaiya” were all in attendance. Unfortunately for the rest of us, our names didn’t mimic anyone from the movie. I also noted that the party was taking place at the “ruins of Tir Asleen” since our house was still under construction;)

To make the bottle stickers, I got some full sheet label paper. I designed the labels myself in Gimp, and I am pretty proud of how they turned out. I had Black Root Ale (the aforementioned root beer), Black Root Ale Light (yummy cream soda), and Madmartigan Party Juice (Izze sparkling juice in clementine, grapefruit, and blackberry).

The mega-awesome sketch of Madmartigan and the Eborsisk came from Joel Carroll. I got the parchment look from FantasyStock. Both are found at DeviantArt. Thank you both!!

Feel free to make your own Willow Theme party! Let me know if you do:D