Lately: A Round-up of Projects

Spring GirlSpring is here, and summer is just around the bend, and I am feeling it!

  • Excitement
  • Freshness
  • Allergic to every single thing
  • Happy about wearing dresses

I’m planning plans, and planting plots, and everything feels possible, except when my eyes are running from all this damnable pollen.

I read a lot in the vintage and domestic blogospheres, and so, I bring you some of the things that have piqued my interest lately.

Things I’ve Been Doing Recently

I am currently fascinated by making things at home. I’m baking whole wheat bread regularly, I’m making almond butter in the food processor, I have had soy yogurt success. There is something deeply satisfying about eating a slice of bread with my own jam or almond butter on it. “Look, from these raw ingredients, I have wrought sustenance!” I explained to B the other day.

I’ve also been sewing a lot more. I’m finishing up two pairs of the Smooth Sailing trousers from Wearing History, and I made a pair of shorts from the same pattern–though I hemmed them much higher than is period appropriate. The pattern was great to work with, and I think they’re cute as pie. Pictures are forthcoming.

We went on a massive decluttering mission in April, sparked by my reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. We were able to get rid of all of our plastic storage drawers, some small shelves, and most importantly, our loft bed, which did double-duty as a closet underneath. Our home feels so much more peaceful and airy.

Oh, and I got my ears re-pierced because my old piercings had closed up, and were never that great to start with. This only relates to vintage or domestic matters because wearing a cardigan and capri pants to your neighborhood tattoo shop feels equally square and badass. At least until you get blood on your cardigan.

Things I’m Plotting

Delicious Things:

My plan this year is to make smaller batches of more kinds of jam. We have no need for 12 jars of any one kind, and really, we probably don’t need more than 15 jars total for our household.

This Strawberry Balsamic recipe is definitely happening. It is exactly the kind of thing I will find scrumptious and fancy, and my partner will find a ruination of perfectly good strawberry jam. So I will also make regular strawberry jam. (“With enough sugar?” he asks. “FINE,” I grumble.)

I’ve never met a pickle I didn’t like, and these cauliflower pickles are on my list.

Vintage-y Things

I’m going to make this Bullet Bra. Every time I start talking about making my own underwear, B expresses concern that this has all gone too far. “I’ll buy you some underwear,” he offers. NOT THE POINT, B.

My victory garden experiment continues! Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers go in the ground this very weekend!

Lately I’m Reading…

Dubliners, by James Joyce.  A series of vignettes of turn of the century Dublin, with some writing that’s real pretty.

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, by Jennifer Reese. A woman after my own heart, she tries out a lot of DIY cooking to see if it’s worth the hassle. I love the experiments, but the best part is the warm, slightly snarky, very funny voice of Jennifer herself. I want to be friends with her! And she had a goat, named Peppermint. I would like to befriend Peppermint as well.

Artisan Vegan Cheese, by Miyoko Schinner. I.E. why I have soy yogurt now, and just bought cheesecloth.

Do you have any plans or projects in the works?

 

 

Victory Garden: In the Garden!

Saturday was opening day at the Peterson Garden Project.

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“Woman with Onions” sounds like a Renaissance painting.

Saturday was rainy and cold, and still, I was excited.

The day began with a work day. I helped weed around the fence, and place welcome signs in the new gardeners’ plots (including mine!), and weeding and picking up trash around the fence. My plot came with a surprise–onions! Leftover from last year, they’re tall and fragrant and lovely.

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Spring Cleaning Like a 1950’s Housewife: The Bathroom

I decided to start my cleaning mania with the bathroom, as it is the most annoying to clean. At least it is for me, personally. Our bathroom window opens up onto our dusty fire escape. Like many Chicagoans, our fire escape is actually more of a wooden porch structure, rather than a pull-down metal device. So let’s say our bathroom window opens onto our luxurious patio (which is about the size of a fire escape). Since my partner is on a constant mission to fight mildew and mold in the bathroom, he opens the window frequently. Regardless of weather. Regardless of the fact that this makes it very uncomfortable to get out the shower in the winter time. He does not care, he has a battle to win.

What I’m saying is that our bathroom is dusty. The dust combines with steam, and turns into grime. Sticky, icky, disgusting grime.

I should also tell you, up front, that our bathroom is tiny. Like, about the size of a queen size bed, maybe.

So to clean it like a dedicated woman of yore, I first removed everything from it. I emptied the shower caddy and took it down. I took everything off the shelves, and then took the shelves themselves out. I emptied the medicine cabinet.

And then, I cleaned it all.

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1950’s Cleaning Supplies

The fact is, my cleaning is already rather old-fashioned. It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog that if DIY is an option, I’m probably going to try it. Consequently, I use a lot of castille soap, and vinegar, and baking soda to get things clean. So did a lot of housewives in the past. While the 1950’s was an era of new products and consumerism, lots of people, like me, were pretty cheap. In addition to being inexpensive, these products are lighter on the environment, due to less packaging and fewer things that are harder for the earth to get rid of (I’m not going to say “chemicals” because everything is made of chemicals).

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