Hi there! I moved my blog. You can now find me here. I hope you come visit.
18.03.13 //
Introducing: windward wearables
Finally, after combating the flu and more work than I ever thought involved, I can show you my secret project:
Windward wearables is a range of hand-stamped wearable items made from sustainable hemp fabrics. My first creations are hand-stamped hemp infinity scarves. I carve every stamp by hand and sew the products myself. I love every step of the process.
I’m really excited to finally share this, which has consumed all my time for the past two months. But I’m not going to say any more now; you can better go ahead and see it for yourself!
11.03.13 //
Around here
Hello. How’s it going? I’m kind of back in the land of the somewhat living. Yesterday, I declared myself better and tried to get rid of the restlessness by doing a little work. Two hours later I started to get tired and wanted to crawl back into bed. You probably all know what that’s like, feeling good enough to get restless and to have that feeling that you should be doing something, yet when you do, you quickly realize you’re not actually better yet.
So, today I’m taking baby steps back into life. Going grocery shopping (exhausting!), sitting behind my desk, rummaging around in the infinite depths of my web hosting, drinking my beloved lemon and honey elixir. I’m afraid I’ve gotten quite addicted to it in the past week. I suppose it’s the honey that keeps me craving it – even though you can hardly call it sweet – and that’s kind of the problem with an otherwise healthy drink. A heaping teaspoon of honey per cup is quite a lot for someone who hardly ever drinks sweetened beverages. But as long as I keep coughing, I suppose it’s permitted, right?
As I mentioned, I’m rummaging around my web hosting and in an attempt to tidy up and make space for my secret project (which I hope to unveil sometime this week), I’m going to have to move the blog twice. I’m not sure you’ll notice anything the first time, but I just thought I’d mention it in case I mess up and those who follow me via RSS or whatnot never hear from me again. I hope you’ll think of me someday!
06.03.13 //
This is what happens when I leave the house
So, what do you know? Just days before I could finally share my secret project, I get sick. The flu has finally caught up with me. I hardly ever get sick anymore (I did when I was a kid) and I attributed it to eating healthy and the clean forest air. But it appears it’s just because I don’t ever have contact with other human beings! Then this past Saturday I was at my brothers birthday party, together with around twenty other people and somewhere, somehow a virus must’ve found me.
I think I was an easy target, because for the past weeks I’ve been working long days and not sleeping terribly well. This weekend Joop and I did a photo shoot for my project on both days, but I’m glad we did. All I have to do now is get the website up and running, which is something I can work on during the afternoon, when I feel slightly better. But it doesn’t go particularly fast, since it’s hard to focus and I get tired fast. So I don’t know when I’ll be finished. I guess it’ll be a surprise for all of us, then.
If any of you out there have a sore throat like me, I highly recommend making this wonderful lemon and honey elixir. It really works and tastes good, too.
I hope y’all are feeling better than I am and that I shall be back here soon!
(photo is totally unrelated, except that it also happened when I left the house, in the Summer of ’11)
27.02.13 //
Meatloaf for two
Well, hello there! I’ve been awfully quiet around here. I’m in such a work-mode that it’s hard for me to tear myself away for anything else. But I’ve got to eat, don’t I? So I figured I might as well make us a cute little meatloaf. I love this meatloaf, but usually only make it when I have to cook for more people than just us and make it twice as big. But today it occured to me that I could just cut my recipe in half and make a meatloaf for two.
I’ve also decided to replace my “last week’s dinner posts” with more loosely named “food” posts. The recipes to our weekday dinners aren’t always worth sharing because they are so simple, when meanwhile, chances are I’ve made a worthy recipe during the weekend or have some jummy muffins to share. So I thought I’d just share whatever great recipe I come across, whether I made it during the week or not.
Back to the meatloaf: normally I’d add chopped parsley to the meatloaf, which I highly recommend, but I didn’t have any and that’s why there are no beautiful green specks in there. It’s such an easy and quick recipe, you should definitely try it!
meatloaf for two:
Preheat the oven to 200°C (390°F). In a bowl, combine 500 grams ground beef with 1 egg, 30 grams breadcrumbs, 1 grated or finely chopped onion, a handful of chopped parsley, 2 tablespoons mustard, 3/4 teaspoon salt and lots of freshly grated black pepper. Form into a bread-like shape and put into a small oven dish. Cover the top and sides with bacon, making sure to overlap the sides. Put in the oven for about 40 minutes until the meat is cooked through and the bacon is nice and crispy.
Enjoy!
22.02.13 //
A little update
I’m still working on my “secret project”. It’s no small project and I’m spending all my time working on it. I even dream about it at night! The time to share it will be here soon, but not just yet. Until then I thought I’d share some bits and pieces.
I’ve been looking at:
the birds that fly to and from the bird seed wreath that I can see from my window while I’m working. It’s quite the distraction, I can tell you. I could watch these birds for hours.
I’ve been listening to:
Alela Diane. I seem to be revisiting some old favorites whether it’s music, blogs or images to find what I’ve concluded to be a little bit of magic. Working on a creative project like this kind of brings you back to your core and there is magic in mine. Or at least a need for.
I’ve been reading:
not an awful lot, to be honest. Some of my favorite blogs have gone unread by me for weeks and the same goes for books. But that’s ok. In the spare moments when I do allow myself a little reading time (usually during breakfast and my morning cup of tea), I do try to keep up with my favorites list, which I’ve updated. If you have a moment to spare, maybe this weekend, it’s worth checking them all out if you could use a little magic, too.
I’m looking forward to:
sharing my project with you. And then sitting down with tea and cookies and finally continue reading Wildwood.
18.02.13 //
A favorite quote
Yesterday I went to “meet the tweet”, a gathering of creative people who knew each other through twitter. I actually only knew two people that were there, but I hoped I could change that by going anyway. I’m glad I went, because everyone I met there was really nice and I had a great time catching up with Christine as well.
The gathering was organized by Nina, Rivka and Ria, who gave us the assignment to send in their favorite inspirational quote, which they would then turn into a keepsake for the attendees. I chose one of my favorite quotes by Roald Dahl and made it into the image above. Nina made a beautiful booklet with all the quotes and I love seeing something I made in print.
Some of my other favorite quotes:
Send in by Moniek, print by Kimsey Price. Being in the process of making my own dreams work, I know this to be very true.
By Babette. I’ve really had to learn this one and, to be honest, I still have to remind myself every now and then.
By Sterre. Also very important to remind yourself of once in a while. And so beautifully illustrated!
What’s your favorite quote?
13.02.13 //
Some sketches
I’m working on a secret project at the moment. Only two people know about it and I intend to keep it that way until the day comes when I can reveal what I’ve been working on all this time. That day is not too far away, either! Ooh, so mysterious…
The secret project involves a lot of sketching, I can tell you that. I absolutely love it. These sketches don’t tell an awful lot, but I just wanted to share something I’ve been working on. I do love secret projects, but the not being able to share part is a little less fun. More soon! I promise.
11.02.13 //
More tea
I like the above quote about tea. It truly is a form of art to make a great cup of tea. In my last post about tea I talked about letting the boiled water cool down to 80°C when preparing a cup of green tea, so you don’t burn the fragile green leaves. But you also have to consider the amount of tea you use per cup and how long you let it steep. One of my pet peeves is when people dunk their teabag in their cup for half a minute at call that a cup of tea. You have to give the leaves time to release their taste and, apparently, their cancer fighting antioxidants.
The last batch of tea I ordered from de Theefabriek was gone in no time. I clearly underestimated my ability to drink large amounts of tea. My favorite of the batch, the elven tea, was gone first and I’ve thought about it every day since. It was exactly what I craved after breakfast and in the afternoon. So, this time I decided to order the 400 grams package. It’s an astounding amount of tea, but I think I’ll manage to drink it all before we move to Canada.
Besides some favorites, I also ordered Kukicha tea, which is a Japanese blend made of stems, stalks, and twigs; parts of the tea plant that are excluded from most other teas. I’d never drank it before and was intrigued by it’s look and description. It has a nutty, woody and slightly sweet flavor. I love it.
This is white tea with roses. The tea leaves are large and there are lots of small roses. I love tea that actually looks like it came from a plant, where you can see the different leaves. The addition of these roses makes it even more beautiful and flavorful. This blend is called silence and it does cause me to pause and be silent for a moment. You should try it.
08.02.13 //
We’re going on an adventure!
These are all photos from our trip to British Columbia, Canada in May of last year. More specifically, they depict everything I look forward to seeing, eating, drinking, feeling and doing again when we return this year. Only this time, I’ll get to enjoy it a little longer, because we’re going to be living in British Columbia, Canada for a couple of months!
We’d been playing around with the idea of living abroad for a while, forever. It was always in the back of our mind ever since returning home from New Zealand back in 2008. We were always waiting for the time to be right, which is a tricky thing of course. When is it ever right? But it started to feel like a “now or never” kind of thing and never wasn’t an option. So we finally decided when and where.
When: we fly to Vancouver on May 28th. We don’t know when we’ll be flying back; it depends on how much we like it there, but we’re thinking we’ll be there for at least six months.
Where: we don’t exactly know where we’ll be living yet, but we’re looking at houses for rent in the direct proximity of Victoria on Vancouver Island. We wanted to rent a home in Vancouver, but since we’ll be needing a lot of room for both Joop’s studio and mine, a small apartment wouldn’t cut it. And anything more is, unfortunately, unaffordable in Vancouver. We loved Victoria as well and it offers us a chance to live outside the city, closer to nature, but close enough to enjoy it’s pubs and restaurants. And Vancouver is just a beautiful ferry ride away.
If you live in or around Victoria or know someone who does, I’d love to connect! Maybe you have recommendations on where (not) to live, what to watch out for when renting a home, where to go, what to do, see, eat? Any information is welcome. I’m so excited!
