The McArdle Family Chili Cookoff

We were thrilled to have one of Nathan's sisters, Jenny, and her husband, Brandon, visit us the weekend before Thanksgiving. We love any chance to have Eleanor spend time with her relatives. She's growing so fast, we want everyone who loves her to get to spend time with her at each stage, (especially those difficult stages.-Take all the time with her you want. I'll just be over here far away).

This visit was a particularly fun one because we tested out a game (Rapid Recall) during her nap and had a McArdle/Brooks chili cook-off.

The final four looked surprisingly different.

Photos by Jenny McArdle

Shown here in medaling order:

Nathan's Southwest Cowboy Chili courtesy of my birthday gift from Jenny, the Nom Nom Paleo Cookbook (top left)

Jenny's Pumpkin and Chicken Chili (no idea where she got the recipe from-I think this one is it, but she substituted some ingredients) (top right)

Brandon's modified Alton Brown Pressure Cooker Chili recipe (bottom left)

And my exotic Kangaroo Meat Chili [Original recipe from the Edgewater Cookbook (our neighborhood fundraiser cookbook) but with ground kangaroo meat instead of beef]. This is a somewhat similar recipe. (bottom right)

In order to pick the winner, everyone ranked all four dishes in order of their favorites and the ultimate winner was the one with the most points. Even though he didn't even rank his own first, Nathan's was a hands down winner. The broth was so velvety delicious that even when we ran out of beef by dinner, I still poured myself a bowl of broth.

I gave myself a last place vote because I was completely turned off by the kangaroo meat. Raw, ground kangaroo has a very fishy smell, which, though it was covered by the chili ingredients and didn't bother anyone else in the group, did me in. I just could not get behind it. I will say it completely mellowed by the next day.

Homemade Halloween

Not even on my life list, folks, but I still broke out the glue gun and the sewing machine for this year's Halloween costume. Before anyone feels too sorry for Nathan's series of low key, uncrafty costumes, I must add that though it is painful for me to send him out in public this way, these costumes are exactly his preference. I might have managed to get him in a fox costume this year if I had finagled, but he was very excited to get to wear his TSC hat.

 

I Want Wednesday-Tiny Kid Edition

Here are a few of the things I've had to talk myself out of buying for E this week...

A small collection of magnetic blocks with a carry pouch you can have in your purse...genius!

Talked myself out of it: Only thing happening with these blocks right now would be E eating them...



Tablecloth that doubles as an adorable playhouse...gorgeous!

Talked myself out of it: Only thing happening with this cloth would be her pulling it (and everything on the table) off and across the floor...


Marbleworks set that provided my sisters and me with hours of building and marble racing fun for at least a decade...in fact, I kind of want to play with it now even as an adult.

(Why I Should) talk myself out of it: Only thing happening with this is that she would eat ALL the marbles immediately.
(But I really really want it, and I'm having a Discovery Toy party on Friday so I might buy it and store it away for, yes, I know, a very long while.)

Mind. Blown.

I understand what he's doing here, but it still looks like magic to me anyway. Plus the music is lovely and relaxing.

If I am Good to You, Won't You Be Good to Me?

My face is leaking...

Clever Little Time Waster

Something clever and fun I discovered via one of my favorite blogs, How About Orange...

Recently, The New York Times developed an algorithm that automatically detects haikus within the paper's front page articles. A computer scans each article in search of them and then they choose the most delightful ones to publish daily at Times Haiku.

This one just rung out to me as some sort of real life truism, though I'm not entirely sure what it would translate to mean. Perhaps something like sometimes it takes a big effort to find a place to fit in. Any better suggestions?

Confessions of a Craft Addict

UPDATE BELOW

So yes, Eleanor may be born any day now, but I still may have just signed up for this:

Every month's box comes with instructions for an actual project that uses the craft supplies in the box, but you can always go off book and make something completely different with your supplies. Whimseybox's blog is full of DIY Craft Projects that people have shared. Love this idea!
 
How could I turn down the opportunity to not only get mail, but mail that would be a random collection of fun craft supplies?

PLUS, I got $5 off! You can too, even if you only sign on for a single month.
 _______________________________________________________________

I have received two out of my three boxes for my 3-month subscription (April's just never came), and I feel compelled to mention that I'm relatively unimpressed. In theory it's a really cute idea, but in practice it does not feel worth the money. The supplies are minimal, the projects are dated (lip balm and a ceramic planter, both popular on the craft blogs and Pinterest ages ago), and the service is unreliable (though the customer service after is polite and does fix things). Also, make sure to note that even if you sign up for a limited subscription, it will automatically renew at the end and charge your card. (Why have a subscription period option then? I don't understand the automatic renewal.)

Getting Ready

For the past couple of years, we've been throwing a Burns' Night celebration. I have never really thought about how much preparation one takes, but this weekend I made a list of all I did so far and what is to come, and I was incredibly surprised to see how long it was.

And the party's not even until next weekend, so I haven't even started preparing any of the six courses!

My sister, Emily, designed the invitation, menu, and poem layouts for me!

Here's some of my fancy party preparations from last weekend:

Sort out soup tureen and ladle for first course
Iron and fold napkins
Wash and iron tablecloths
Iron flags
Make table runner and iron
Find Nathan's kilt and wool socks
Count out silverware settings
Polish all silver
Order haggis and oatcakes
Buy Scotch
Place order for pork shoulder
Print menus and Ode to Haggis
Write Immortal Memory Address
Order centerpiece
Write shopping list

Amazingly, I still had plenty of time to finish a book, paint the armchair for the baby's room, make cookies, go out for a lovely Chinese dinner with my husband, and make scones too! I never feel this organized.

Sometime this week I will:

Buy groceries/supplies
Whip honey butter (tonight or tomorrow night)
Prepare Angel Food Cake (Wednesday or Thursday night)
Make Vanilla Custard Sauce (prob Wednesday night)
Make Chocolate Scotch Cake (prob Thursday night)
Mix up the Drambuie Vinaigrette (Friday night)
Boil and mash turnips (Friday night)
Boil and mash potatoes (Friday nights)
Pick up the pork shoulder (Friday on the way home from work)
Season pork shoulder for overnight marination (Friday night)
Clean the house (I've assigned this one to Nathan)

It Might Not Be Rocket Science, But It Sure Feels Like It

Anyone who has created a wedding registry will probably initially think that creating a baby registry is pretty much the same thing. How hard can it be, right? You just fill up the list with ideas of things that people can buy, only this time, you're not going to be the one breaking in that new bathtub or outfit...it's going to be the tiny new arrival.

However, when it comes right down to it, putting items on a baby registry (for a first child, anyway) is a bit like trying to set up a laboratory when you're in marketing. I should get some test tubes, right? Scientists use test tubes, don't they?

Anyway, I've been populating our baby registry on Amazon with lots of suggestions from other new moms, from Amazon itself, and from a few stabs in the dark. It feels like EVERYthing requires extensive thought and research though. There's no such thing as even a simple bathtub. Do you want it to be collapsible? What shape? Will you use in mainly in the tub or in the sink? AHHH.

Clothes haven't really made the registry much because that's the hardest thing to predict. First of all, I have no idea how big she's going to be, then I have no idea how many people will go for new born sizes versus 0-3 months or higher. I feel like I'll just leave that open, at least for now.

Except....

Except for the new line from Gap featuring Beatrix Potter's original Peter Rabbit. As the child of a librarian who was also a little obsessed with Beatrix, I am in love with all of these comfy looking outfits. I love how subtle the references are too. I pretty much want everything. How cute is that hat? That sale is making my promise not to buy anymore baby clothes really, really hard to keep.

The Cookie Fairy

One of my goals on my life list was to take cookies to a nursing home, but when I tried that last year, I was told in no uncertain terms that they couldn't accept strange food from strange people because that was a health risk to their patients. I'll still try to meet that goal sometime, but it becomes a bigger goal because I'm going to have to make friends with someone at a nursing home in order to bring them cookies personally (that's still allowed).

In the meantime though, I wanted to do something nice that was related to this goal. A few of our neighbors are older (one just turned 92!), so I thought it would be fun to make a batch of cookies each week (or month, I'm not going to be a stickler about how often I do it) so that I could take a few to the neighbors.

This weekend I made some Oatmeal Carmelitas (though I used more chocolate chips and more nuts than this recipe), which are pretty much the best cookie bar ever invented. You should definitely make a batch tonight. SO GOOD.

I wrapped them up in individual largish servings and dropped them off with a handful of neighbors. It's pretty hard to walk quietly up a wooden staircase when you're six months pregnant, so I'm not sure this Cookie Fairy went completely undetected, but it was nice to think of their pleasure upon discovering their cookies as I munched on the remaining cookie bars.

Barn Project

A few of my Indy friends were in town earlier this fall, and I took them to a neighborhood-wide garage sale. Poor things, they ended up carrying some of my purchases back. I hadn't yet told them that I was pregnant, so my purchase of a wooden barn (along the same lines as a dollhouse) struck them as puzzling. "You could use it to hold your shoes," said one.

My plan was to fix it up and give it to my dad, a farmer and occasional cowboy, to have at home for when his someday grandchildren visited. It looked pretty sad when I bought it, a bit mildewed and weather-beaten, but I had a vision.

One weekend before my dad's birthday, I sat down and got to painting. I used acrylic paint I already had on hand in a dark red, black-brown, grey, and white. It took about 3/4 of a small bottle of each to paint the whole surface, which was lucky because I have no idea if I could have matched that paint in a store since it was leftover from other projects long finished or abandoned. I used scotch tape to make the straight white lines around all of the openings and hand painted the curves.

You can see the paint bottles behind the barn.
I also used the masking tape to keep the red paint off the roof and
floor and to keep the roof color off the walls. I painted the lightest
color (the floors) first so I could be messy with that one.

 

I even bought some tiny plastic farm animals from a market in Italy to help populate the barn and found an old tractor online. I also found some tiny hay bales at Michael's, which I just couldn't pass up. They were super messy though, so I finally covered them in glue (which dries clear) so they'd stop leaving hay everywhere. We took the barn home to my dad on Thanksgiving, and I'm pretty sure it was a hit. (The cats loved it, anyway!)

My little barn cats.

Photo Collage: Last Weekend

Clockwise from top left: Bacon & Blue Cheese Fries; Settlers of Catan card game; homemade cinnamon butterhorn rolls; weird fall flower bouquet from the last farmer's market of the year; a peek at the curtains I finished for the baby's room; and a rare moment of the cats lounging together without the little one gnawing on the other's head.

Lovely Discovery

I came across GrittyCityGoods on Etsy when I was looking for one more thing to hang in my office. I loved so many of these, it was hard to choose.

They are modeled after old educational scrolls that are often biological in nature, which are now incredibly expensive to purchase.

I finally decided on this one, (I loved the tie-in to marketing!) and it is even lovelier in person, incredibly well-made.

Thursday Design

Lunchbreath is one of my favorite graphic designers (other than my sister). His art is always funny as well as incredibly clever. One of my favorite series he designed were patterns using "beasts and their derivative products." Another favorite of mine is his "Sixteen Ways to Use Your Wrist Now that Watches are Obsolete."

 All images by lunchbreath via flickr.

One of Each, Please

I absolutely love this! A New York designer started a curated project where fifty designers created prints around the fifty states' mottoes. A few of my favorites...

New Mexico by Jon Ashcroft

 

Florida by Two Arms

Wyoming by Seth Neilson

Because I Need Yet Another New Project

Have you heard of Kickstarter? It's a great concept that allows regular folk like you and me to support the innovation of other regular folk like you and me. It's a funding platform where people can outline their project and funding needs. Most offer different pledge levels, and depending on which one you choose, you can end up with the product they're hoping to create.

Recently, I've come across some outstanding ideas that were featured there...

I finally committed when I discovered Inkodye, the photo sensitive ink that will let you dye cloth through photosynthesis! They've even developed an app that will let you turn your Instagram pics into negatives to be used on fabric. This project hasn't met its funding goal yet, so it may not end up being a reality (Kickstarter has an all or nothing policy...that means that if the funding goal is not met, you get your money back and the project doesn't go forward.)

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Another project I'm supporting which has reached its funding goal (by over 650%!), is men's dress shirts using space technology that helps keep you cool and dry. Couldn't pass this up since I know how much Nathan hates wearing dress shirts in the summer because of the sweat factor. Plus the company is called Ministry of Supply which sounded very Harry Potter-esqe to me. Made in the US too. I was sold...Happy Birthday, Nathan.

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Beware, it's kind of like a more current version of the infomercial. At least, it leaves me with the same "I need that" feeling as I get when accidentally landing on a channel touting the latest Oxyclean or Bare Escentuals product. And the feel good model of supporting people in making their innovative dreams come true is just more incentive.

Happy 200th!

balloons by Brandi Sims

Today is my 200th post! Not bad for just over two years of blogging. Thanks for reading and commenting and/or emailing, everyone! My next goal is to post 100 times this year! Last year I had 88 posts, so that should be pretty easy to attain.

You Should Date an Illiterate Girl

Girl with Book by Imaekelley via flickr

 I love this piece, You Should Date an Illiterate Girl, by Charles Warnke on Thought Catalog.

"Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold."

Read the rest, here.

Funny and French Illustrations

I just discovered this lovely graphic app by pepillo, a French stamp/stationary/booklet/print/crafty company. It's called Plic, Ploc, Wiz. It starts as a simple puzzle, but then you can use the shapes to create your own picture which you can email and save in your gallery. This is one children's app I don't mind having on my phone and iPad for when the little girls upstairs ask to play on it. The pictures are playful, quirky, and colorful. (One picture is free, to have access to the other nine, you pay $0.99 for iPhone or $1.99 for iPad. The pictures are somewhat different on each).

Almost to Etsy

I've made a few fun pieces of jewelry in the past few months with the plan to finally get something new up on Etsy. Happily though, before I could, I sold them!

I wanted to share them somewhere since I went to all the work to take pictures of them...

How I used the cool vintage metal pressings from Paris I found:

Laure Necklace

Frances Necklace

Now I'm working on some pieces with small colored vintage glass domes:

Stanton Earrings in Emerald