An outfit! And I hold a (fake) bird!

On a previous outfit post, my mom commented that the photo was made better by the little bird (a Christmas ornament she sent me, except that I didn't have a tree, so I pinned it to the wall). I was laughing about how I should pretend to hold it, and then immediately after I said that I went ahead and took this photo.



This is an example of an outfit I wore two days in a row. I've never been the type of person to wash my clothes after wearing them just once (unless I spill food on myself or get really sweaty or something). And if I like an outfit one day, chances are I will still like it the next. And I work with physicists, who would never notice or care if I wore the same outfit for a week straight (some of them do). Maybe this is more of a European mindset? I don't really know. All I know is that I wore this two days in a row. And I liked it both days.

Scones!

Sometimes I see recipes posted online that are modified versions of another recipe.

Separately (but which will be related in a moment) my favorite sources for recipes come from Smitten Kitchen*, The Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks, and America's Test Kitchen cookbook(s?).

Neglecting the fact that I've been making mac & cheese from a Test Kitchen recipe without actually following the recipe (only due to laziness, not due to any crazy ideas about being able to improve the recipe), I have a really hard time understanding why you would modify a recipe from any of these three sources. I just feel like... I don't think I'd be able to make a recipe that did that.

Except when a Smitten Kitchen recipe is a modified Test Kitchen recipe. Then I get confused and end up with a lot of really delicious scones in my house. Also, the reason I was looking for scone recipes in the first place was because I found lemon curd at the grocery store and needed a reason to buy it. Now if only I could find clotted cream. Then my tea time dreams would be complete.





*I just went to the page to include the link here. Looks like I'll be making Chocolate Sables in the near future.

Snapshots from a Sunday

On Sunday when I woke up, I had the task of taking one photo. I had decided to participate in the Snapshots from a Sunday project (I don't think anyone else calls it a project, but I like to call it a project). Originally, I was thinking that this would give me a great reason to go exploring Uppsala on a Sunday morning to try to capture some beautiful images. But if the point of Snapshots is to share a glimpse of your daily life, I was certainly not going to embody that point.

So then I started thinking about how I could beautifully capture the ordinary that is my life on a Sunday morning. This is when I got the idea of playing with a long exposure to capture movement and activity in a still image. Normally I don't make the room as dark as possible while I make coffee, but on this particular day, I figured it would be worth it to get the longest possible exposure time.

This is the image that I chose to include in the Project.



I had the 3 am eastern time slot (9 am in Sweden). I loved looking through all the other images from the day, which you can view here.

Fun fact #1: I took eleven photos during my one hour slot. Here are a few of the others.







Fun fact #2: Snapshots from a Sunday is also a good project to motivate cleaning up your kitchen counter. Before I took these photos it was covered in dirty dishes and tons of recycling.

Dancing - my favorite kind of athletics

This is me. I took this photo last night (technically early this morning) after I got home from a night of folk dancing. Folk dancing may sound tame, but it is an athletic venture. Those electrolytes are crucial if you want to wake up in the morning without a headache due to dehydration. (I like to refer to this as a dance hangover, despite no alcohol being involved.)

Last night was a wonderful time. I had many good dances and several really really good dances. I think my favorite of the night was the Finnskogpols, which I danced twice, which was twice as much as I have ever danced it in the past. It is a really fun and spritely kind of dance. Here is a video I found:



Also, the band last night was spectacular. There were almost more musicians than could fit on the stage. They were a spelmanslag, which translates to something like "large group of folk musicians," which means about 20 violins, plus some other fun extras.

7QT

Another round of quick takes.

- 1 -

I don't know how long this has been going on, but on my boss's door, just under where it says his name, it says "Jedi Master."

- 2 -

Earlier this week I realized that it was not totally dark at 3:30 pm. Hooray! The days really are getting longer!

- 3 -

I did some recruiting for the concert and dance on Saturday. I feel so true to myself! Also, it is like a tree of recruitment. I invite one person, who then invites two more people. Big things are happening here.

- 4 -

I watched Downton Abbey. Obviously it was good. The reason it is worth writing about is that I managed to spoil it for myself. I wasn't actually too worried about spoiling it, and guess what, the wikipedia page contains spoilers. Who knew?! It also doesn't help that I accidentally watched an episode from season three first, which was really confusing. It was like the time I accidentally read book two of the Dragon Tattoo Girl series first. I kept thinking about how much I had to focus to figure out who all the characters were and whatnot. At least with Downton Abbey I went back and watched all the episodes. With the Dragon Tattoo books the first one was never available at the library so I figured since I had already read the second I could just go for the third. And the first never ever became available, so I'll just never know how they started. Probably that influenced my rating on goodreads, but whatever.

- 5 -

If you need to work on the muscle tone of your teres major and teres minor, learn to dance the Bakmes.

- 6 -

You were hoping I included a little hockey clip, weren't you?



How crazy is that?

- 7 -

If a recipe name contains the word "skinny" I immediately lose respect for it. Can't we all just agree to stop that now? No one eats a chocolate chip cookie because they are looking for a healthy snack. I think in general I am just not a fan of adjectives in recipe titles.

I am not this kind of doctor (I really need to incorporate this phrase into more of my life), but I do have strong opinions on this topic which I'll share here. Recipes that replace items with all sorts of magical zero-calorie "foods" just sort of freak me out. The only item I am comfortable with consuming that contains zero calories is water. If we put other things in our body that are zero-calorie, it is because our body does not recognize these items as 'food'.

Accessorizing

I couldn't even spell accessorizing, if that is any indication of how infrequently I utilize such a thing. But I'll tell you what I do do. I choose a mug that matches my outfit. Most of the mugs at the office are black or green Ikea mugs. There are a few exceptions, and I have one most favorite mug. It is a really nice color and shape, and it has a cute little handle. But it is a specialty mug. I'm always a little hesitant to take the specialty mugs, because they might be someone's own personal mug (although that didn't stop me from once using the mug that has a person's name on it.. desperate times require coffee, one way or another).

Anyhow, I don't use my favorite mug often, but when I do use it, I make sure it will match my outfit.



Makes for a pretty good accessory, wouldn't you agree?

Stunned

This morning when I woke up (aka when the alarm went off) the first thing I noticed was that our delightful blue skies of the previous few days were replaced with grey. Lately my mood has been pretty susceptible to grey skies. A lot of books like to equate weather and moods. I present to you one of my favorite examples:

Milady derived a consolation of sorts as she saw Nature partaking in the disorders of her heart.
The three musketeers

So, I was sort of expecting one of those days. But when I got outside, the world looked so stunning! There was frost covering everything in a most beautiful way. I considered going back to get my camera when I remembered that I had my small camera with me, so I took a quick photo to share.