Here we go...

     Do you know how it is to be in your early forties and feel like you have virtually nothing to show for the time you’ve had on earth? And you don’t even have children to consider a personal accomplishment? Well, I do.

     I’ve tried on a few professions on for size over the last 20+ years as an adult, including artist/painter, muralist, organic farmer, real estate agent, author, illustrator, BBQ food truck operator and retail store manager. One thing that I have learned about myself is that not only do I need a decent amount of creative freedom in my career, but physical-gypsy-nomadic freedom.

     I had seriously considered opening an ice cream shop that specialized in ultra premium concoctions made from locally sourced and fair trade organic ingredients. I even began sampling beautifully decorated cookies and I learned how to decorate cakes with fondant and molding chocolate. It was so much fun! Sounds luscious doesn’t it? It was, and is, but do you have any idea how early bakers have to get up? Not to mention the stunning amount of gov’t agencies, licenses and permits involved in making this type of business legal, it makes the parts of my being that seem to be allergic to restraint, shiver. Early hours, endless sourcing of ingredients, regulations and not unlike hand painting furniture or murals, I’d have to physically make a million cookies or quarts of ice cream to sell that many, does not help to make it a dream come true. *Let us not forget, ice cream sales depend highly on the weather. And after watching my life savings and my home disintegrate while trying to make an organic farm work, I have vowed never again to have a business where success or failure depends mainly on the temperamental whims of Mother Nature.

     Over the last couple of years I have been doing a lot of soul searching, class taking and brain wracking trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, if ever that may happen.

There has always been a part of me that wanted to design clothing. In fact, it was the first realistic career I wanted as a child and late into my teen years. I say realistic because for the longest time, I thought I’d be the Queen. Imagine my dismay when I learned you had to be born into a royal family. I was practically inconsolable. I mean what’s the point if you’re not Queen? What the hell else is there? Anyway, I digress… often.

     I didn’t go into clothing or fashion design because—well a million reasons that seemed important at the time. But in reality the whole concept seemed so foreign to me that I fully believe I needed these last twenty something years to grow enough personally and professionally to be able to handle the challenges that go along with a career such as this one, and to have enough confidence in my own ideas and opinions to put them out in front of the public on a large scale. No more creating once to sell once. I will create once to sell a million times… at least.

     After no less than 48, yes, forty-eight calls and emails to patternmakers, fabric suppliers and manufacturers with NO reply, I finally got someone to message me back! And she led me to a wonderful company that is literally just ten miles from my house! They have demystified the process completely and are so helpful. I believe they are genuinely excited about working on my designs, as they are the essence of cuteness. I've recived a ton of great professional help, feedback and encouragement about my ideas and concept so I'm very excited to start sharing this with everyone!

     Stay tuned…

     Heidi

I always love to see before and after photos of remodeling projects. These are a few from our house. The before photos were taken on the day we looked at the house for the first time. The over all color scheme of the house was, in a word, outrageous.

The layout was dysfunctional, to say the least. Notice the mirrored medicine cabinet? I couldn't even see my entire head in it. The previous home owners must have been really tall, 

and without the need for toiletries.

Above you can see the color scheme has changed significantly, and so has the layout for that matter. We moved the sink to the dead space on the other side of the room and added a vanity with plenty of counter top space for my need of beauty accoutrements.

I am still using the old sconces, waiting to find the perfect pair to find me, and we kept the floor tile. It was fine and fitting for the age of the house and frankly the idea of ripping it out was just too much. Tearing out the wall tile was difficult and messy enough. I replaced it with a white subway tile that is finished nicely with tile crown molding and a rope border under the mirror.

    The toilet is perhaps a smig close to the new uber deep soaking tub, 

but again we kept the flooring so it stayed put.

I love how it turned out and don't mind sharing that it was done on a very strict budget of less than $1000. It helps when you can do most things in-house.

Chocolate Sauce Trials

I've been making ice cream for awhile now and yesterday I decided to try making chocolate sauce. Since I have two wonderful ice cream books complete with sauce recipes, I thought I'd try two: one with dairy and one without.

The sauce with dairy, from David Lebovitz's, The Perfect Scoop, is perfection in a jar. It is rich and thick, with the perfect chocolate flavor. Next time I make it though, I will add some instant coffee. Not for flavor, but an extra jolt.

To see what would happen if I tweaked the recipe a little, I separated the batch into a couple of different jars and added Grand Marnier and Jack Daniels Honey Liqueur to one and Chambor (raspberry liqueur) to another. The jar with the Jack is now empty. Mamasita, that was delicious.

The non-dairy chocolate sauce is from Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream at Home book, which I love and have become addicted to. In fact, I'm thinking of joining some sort of support group. Not to quit eating it, no. We would all sit around and sample our favorite flavors, wiping each other tears (of bliss), and talk about how it has affected our home lives (everybody wants to come over for dinner and dessert) and how people in our office whisper behind our backs about the spectacle we made of ourselves at the Christmas party: ice cream dripping from our chins, crazed look on our eyes etc... OH, where was I?
Non-dairy chocolate sauce, right.

The idea behind the concept is that it tops ice cream, which we all know, is mostly dairy so the sauce doesn't need it. It also works for people unfortunate enough to be lactose intolerant, they will not TOLERATE lactose!! In Jeni's defense, I made the sauce wrong...twice. The recipe suggests (I always consider a recipe a suggestion, by the way) that the water, sugar and corn syrup get boiled first and then the cocoa powder is added, well, I added the cocoa powder at the beginning and it never really smoothed out. I also replaced the water in the recipe with strong coffee, which could have lead to it's deep flavor. It is very delicious and ultra-chocolately. If you appreciate intense chocolate sauce that is more like syrup and you refuse to tolerate lactose, make this one.

I will not be sharing the recipes on this blog. Buy the books!

Here we go...

I've always been interested in everything decorative, embellished, flavorful and whimsical, whether it be a lovely home, a person beautifully dressed, a story told to perfection, a cake that has been masterfully decorated, a cookie that's too pretty to eat but so delicious you find you've eaten the entire batch before your guests arrive, or even an illustration on a Christmas card  that can inspire a sweet smile for the sender and receiver. I love these things so much that I have dabbled in each and every one of them from time to time with marginal success, I guess, depending on the viewer, eater, listener, or reader.
Lately, I've had anxiety about the idea that I should focus on one of my interests over another. But I feel like if I do that, then some aspect of the talent God gave me isn't being used and that's just not right darn it!
In an attempt to treat my interests as the collective work of a creative person vs. some sort of schizophrenic bounce from one thing to the other, I'm adding pages to this blog for the various topics as well as links to my websites. And it you think about it, they are all kind of related. Right?

A weird guy wanted to dance for me

In the mid 1990s I was a busy little decorative painter. People would call me up and I would go to their homes for a consultation. The phone rang constantly. So when a guy named Kris called, I didn't think much of it. In fact, I thought it was my brother-in-law, who is also named Kris. It even sounded like him. But when the conversation turned to decorative painting and setting up a consultation I realized it wasn't my brother-in-law at all but a potential client. Up to this point in my career I was still painting for single men so I agreed to meet him.

The majority of my painting jobs were in the south west suburbs of Minneapolis so when Kris told me his address I thought, "oh good, a new neighborhood to conquer". He lived in Coon Rapids, an area I was not at all familiar with. Pulling into Kris's neighborhood I started to get a little concerned. The houses didn't look like the ones I was used to working in. In fact when I pulled into his driveway I called my husband and told him where I was... just in case. I even left the keys in the ignition of my car, but then thought it might be stolen in the 5 minutes I planned to waste on this appointment, so I threw them on the floor.

The person who met me at the door was a zombie like man in his late twenties, about 5'10" and weighed approximately 180 lbs, I remember that because it's the description I gave to the cops later that day. He was wearing an enormous amount of clothing including a huge flannel shirt, which I thought was strange because the weather was really nice. Walking into the house I knew there was no way I would be working in it. And when he locked the dead bolt behind me, I started to worry a little more about the safety of my car. I thought, "this must really be a crap neighborhood." I was only slightly more worried about my own safety.

I looked around the house and noticed framed photos of a woman and a small child so naturally I thought, "oh good, he's married with a baby. He can't be that weird, can he?" But for all I know those photos came with the frame because as it turns out, he was that weird, and worse.

I began rattling off painting ideas and showing him my book even though I knew it was pointless. His responses were disconnected and irrelevant to the content of the conversation. He started asking me questions about what I liked to do for fun in a tone that made my skin crawl. "Do you like to dance?", he asked. That was my que to get the heck out. As I gathered my portfolio and paint sample deck, I turned my back to him to put the items in my bag. I was shaking by this point because of the strange turn of the conversation and my stuff was being very stubborn. It felt like it took hours to get it in the bag. All the while I could hear a strange rustling behind me.

He was talking during this time about how he found my number in the phone book and how he thought I had a nice name, that's why he called. He was also sharing with me what he like to do for fun in his spare time. Spare time? It was 11:00 am in the middle of the week, he obviously had a lot of spare time. Anyway, I turned to hastily make my way to the door and the reason for the rustling and the large flannel shirt revealed itself. The weirdo had removed his clothing! You ask, "was he naked?" Thankfully, no. He was wearing a full body leotard and tutu! A nice woody brown, no less. "I like to dance too" he said.

The look on my face must have been one of shear horror as I croaked out, "Um, that's nice. Gotta go." Thank God I remembered the dead bolt, and double thank God that I left the keys on the floor of the car, because I never would have found them in my flustered state. I was so shaken that I got lost trying to drive out of the neighborhood.

I called my husband when I left and told him about it. He asked me if I wanted him to go and kick the weirdos ass. I just chuckled because that is so unlike him and probably because I was so happy to be out of that weird house. He suggested that I call the Coon Rapids police so I did. Although I wasn't harmed in any way, I thought it was important to inform them that they had a tutu wearing zombie living across the street from the local grade school.

Would you believe the cops laughed? They thought it was an amusing story. (Oh, I amuse you?) I got called four times that day by different officers asking me to repeat myself. A couple of people I didn't tell were my parents. I didn't want to worry them, until about five years later when I could laugh about it.

This is something I used to think about almost every time I get a call for painting, especially if the caller is a guy. I hate to profile, in fact I'm not even sure it's legal. But I have had too many strange experiences to trust anymore.

So, word to the wise... if a guy answers the door and you think he looks like an over dressed zombie, leave! With no apologies. Another word, if a guy answers the door wearing only his bathrobe, leave! You never know when that thing will just accidentally fall open. Make no apologies. And my final word of advise, if a guy starts to talk to you about his teenage daughter having sex in the hot tub out back but you're already half way through your painting job, finish, collect the check and never go back.

Be safe! Don't worry about hurting anyone's feelings. You never know whats hiding under those huge flannel shirts.

I made a pair of pants.

Ever since I can remember "going back to school" meant having major anxiety. At first, I think it had something to do with what I would wear on the first day, for my sister it was about weather or not she had enough school supplies. Then for me, it became more about who I thought was planning to beat me up, or walk behind me with her minions and voice her disapproval of my very existence. But that's a whole other story.

The summer I'm talking about here was between 8th and 9th grade. I was worried my mom wouldn't flip the bill for my extensive clothing list and that she would state some arguement like, "you can't even fit all the clothes you already own into your closet" or some such nonsense. Never mind the fact that I didn't really try to fit them in my closet. I figured, why bother? I was just going to wear them again anyway. It was the same philosophy I had about making my bed. I was just going to sleep in it again the next night and unless the Queen would be stopping over for a tour, nobody was going to see it unmade.

In an attempt to preempt my mothers arguments I decided to have a garage sale. I invited my neighbor ladies to join me. They brought over a lot of good stuff. Including a set of dusty old drapes for the late 50s early 60s, with the biggest floral pattern I had ever seen. The background was a worn and faded navy and the flowers were bright, or they used to be bright, lime green. My mind started to race. What could I use all that fabric for? I loved to make things and that was a big cheap pile of fabric. I know! Hammer pants!

Remember MC Hammer? He had the greatest pants. Big, crazy harem leg bags.

I didn't even bother to wash the drapes first. I just started sewing. I used the pleated part at the top for the waist band, you know the part where the hooks usually go? Yea, that part. My pants were spectacular! The calf section was so tight it was hard to get my foot through. Just how I wanted it. And the crotch, well it was triumphant! Steatched out, it measured about two feet and rested just at the knees. I couldn't wait to wear them to school.

The problem with wearing them to school was obvious enough. I was already the target of bullying, what were they going to do to me if I wore an old curtain to school? I didn't want to find out that bad.

Then it happened, I found some girls who didn't wish to hurt me, or trick me or make up things about me. They just wanted to include me, laugh with me and have fun. That was all the encouragement my pants and I needed.

The first dance of the school year was coming up. Perfect opportunity to break out the
pants. But what does one wear with such a creation? Luckily, I had been in a play a couple summers back. The Sound of Music. I played Brigitta. There was a little white blouse that had been part of my costume, it worked. Didn't detract from the outfit's focal point.

As I walked down the steps from my room ready to go to the dance, my mother stood there silent. But really, what fashion advice can a mother give to her 14 year old daughter that she'd listen to anyway? None, that's what. Oh, she'd have loved it if I'd been one to wear sweater sets and matching slacks. I'm basing that on the clothes she purchased for me in my absents. The decision had been made, there was no turning back now.

Wouldn't you know it, the rest of the school was speechless too! I don't even think anyone threatened to beat me up. It was a really fun night. The only thing I was asked was, "you made those yourself? Out of curtains? Really?" If you think about it, what kind of ridicule would a teenager have for someone brave enough to wear housewares and call it fashion? It gave me the courage to wear the pants again, this time during the day.

I thought I better wash them first. They had to be at their best.

Here's where the trouble comes into paradise. You can't throw twenty five year old fabric in the washing machine and expect it to come out perfect. Especially if that fabric has been hanging in a window all those years.

My spectacularly triumphant creation disintegrated. The only thing left of my pants was the waist band. You know the part where the hooks go? Yea, that part.

I went to stonehenge

It rains in England. A lot.
Once in her life my sister had a job that came with much international travel. One trip in particular, as you may have guessed, was to England. This was during a time when our parents lived in Naples, Florida. E and I thought it would be a kick to go to the UK, just the girls. So we gave our mom the information, she would meet us at the Minneapolis airport and we'd head for Europe. While we waited for her, a gate agent came on the speaker and announced that there were six first class seats open at $500 bucks a piece. Wow, that would be great, I thought. A twelve hour flight squeezed between a couple of other people did not sound appealing. I wasn't sure how I would handle it. Nobody was biting on the $500 a piece so they dropped it to $300! Even though our mom had not yet arrived in Minneapolis, I couldn't pass up the first class seats. I bought them for us. And boy am I glad I did. You see, our mom's flight was late getting in from Miami and since we were first class seat holders, they held the plane until she got to the gate. Of course when she got there I told her she owed me $300 bucks, but it was worth it. She was pretty happy to find she was flying to England in first class. I think it was my favorite part of the trip. Mostly because I had such bad jet lag, it was difficult for me to function in a foreign country, but also because it rains in England. A lot. It's also windy.

The above photo was of my mom and I in the Cotswolds. I did, absolutely love the Cotswolds and would go back in a heart beat. Notice the umbrella my mom is holding and the pink jacket I'm wearing. These things come in to play in a moment.

My sister worked most of the days we were in England but on this particular day all three of us played tourist. We took a bus tour to the Cotswolds, Bath and Stonehenge. I was happy to take a bus tour where someone told us when and where to get on and off. I had grown weary of navigating the winding streets and metro stations. Mind the gap. It was also driving me nuts that every time I'd ask someone for directions they would end their statement with a question like "isn't it" or "don't you".
Can you tell me which direction to walk to find the closest metro station? It's that way, isn't it? I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. Right, yes. You walk down that street, don't you? Again, I'm not sure, can you please tell me? Right, yes.
If I could write in an English accent I would.

A stop or two in the Cotswolds came first. The air was heavy and cool but the mist lent itself perfectly to the location. It was at the same time romantic and eerie. It could have been the weather but the streets were empty. It felt like a sweet little ghost town.

The next stop was Bath. It was a resort town during Roman times and is now just considered the country. We were fairly soggy by this point in the day. There was much to see, eat and shop for in Bath. It rained the whole time. Remember the umbrella from the photo? The only thing keeping us out of the rain? It was left in the restroom by one who shall remain nameless, but she was holding it in the photo. So the little pink wool jacket I was wearing was WET by the time we went back to the bus. It started to smell like a dead goat. So much so that I was forced to sit alone in a row toward the back of the bus by my mom and sister. It was OK though because the Australian girls in the very back row were pretty entertaining. They actually chose to sit back there and they didn't stink. They did seem to have a bit of a drinking problem however, or at least one of them did. Before we left Bath they had gotten two big hot chocolates and one of them spilled hers all over the front of her butter yellow sweatshirt. The other one laughed the entire way to Stonehenge. It was contagious.

By the time we got to Stonehenge the wind had picked up exponentially and the temperature had dropped. But you can't go all the way to England then drive three hours out to the middle of no where and not get out of the bus to see an ancient druid calender, can you? No, you can't. Thankfully, the bus driver had an umbrella collection from other forgetful tourists. Before we left the bus I dawned my dead goat and headed for the door. As he handed me my umbrella, the bus driver gave me a funny wish-I-had-a-clothes-pin-for-my-nose kind of a look. We must have seemed like a bus full of homeless people. We were wet, windblown, smelly and one of us had been covered in thick brown hot chocolate. He warned us as a group of the wind, but in his English way. It's a bit breezy, isn't it?

Remember in the movie Forrest Gump when he was humping through the swamp in Vietnam describing the rain? I think about that scene when I think about Stonehenge. It was the sideways little bitty stinGinG rain.
The photo to the right is of my mom and sister. Mom is on the right, notice how the borrowed umbrella is molded to her body? Yeah, it was that windy... wasn't it? This photo was taken seconds before both umbrellas were blown inside out. The lovely multi-colored umbrella my sister is holding was found in Ireland a week later. I was still kind of giddy from the girls laughing behind me on the bus, so this was really hilarious to me. That and I have never been so tired for so long in my life, you know how you get... slap happy.

We made a beeline for the gift shop to warm up, which is where everyone else was too.  There were dozens of people in this tiny little shop. It was, thankfully, hot in there. The heat made my jacket smell even worse however. I felt bad for the people with noses, but what was I supposed to do? They didn't sell sweatshirts like they do in every shop on American soil and it was really cold outside. I had to keep wearing it.

I don't even remember viewing Stonehenge while we were there. But I do remember thinking it was smaller then I thought it would be. But that's how I felt about Mount Rushmore. I bought a book in the gift shop about Stonehenge and read it on the way back to London. Three hours of riding in a bus full of wet folks with me now in the back of the bus completely alone.

I think that night I actually slept, after I threw my jacket away.