In which Caroline Quinn experiments with electricity

So I know it's been awhile... I don't really have an excuse... awkward... sooo.... I'm just gonna dive right in.


So I bought a few bell jars on the beach antiquing adventure with AS and have been meaning since then to make them into lamps to match one I already had. I hit a few stumbling blocks though. First I bought two lamp kits from the hardware store. I even had the man in the store explain to me how to do the wiring part because the picture on the back of the kit was a little cloudy on that step, which seems to me to be the most important part. So I got home and a few days later followed the picture on the package and wired my first lamp. I plugged it into the wall and... boom. A couple sparks and all the lights in the room went out and my lamp did not turn on. So being such a smart person, I plugged it in another socket... and the TV went out. Obviously I was doing something wrong. 


On a side note: For about two days, I thought the heating/air in the apartment was broken because nothing happened when I turned it on. Then it finally occurred to me that the air system might have gone out with the lamp experiment. I flipped the breaker on and off a couple times and finally, air again.


After getting all my lights to come back on, I called my dad, expert in all things wooden, electrical or mechanical slash basically everything. A quick convo later I learned that, no, the metal wires are not supposed to cross before you screw them into the lamp. They are actually not allowed to touch each other. Well, that explains a lot, I thought, but why was the box leading me in exactly the wrong direction!? You would think they would test these directions out on someone completely electrically illiterate before they printed them. But I digress.


The next hurdle came when I compared the lids from my jars to the lid from the lamp I already had. The existing jar lid was just medal. Mine were reinforced with what looked like plastic but turned out to be zinc. Very tough, hard, impenetrable-looking zinc.

That put me back several days. I think I was hoping that the next time I inspected the jars the zinc layer would be gone, but alas, no. 


Today though I finally decided to man up and start drilling. Using a power drill I borrowed from APP, I got out my work bench (read: my Ikea tool kit flipped upside down with a flattened pasta box on top of it for padding) and went to work. I got through the metal layer okay with the drill but that zinc was having none of it. And then I started to get worried about inhaling zinc dust (in that a thing?). Not worried enough to actually do anything about it though, obviously. I finally got a big enough opening that I could try hammering a large nail past the hole I'd gotten through the metal and into the zinc. Not exactly elegant, but no one has ever said I was good at using power tools. The nail actually worked though! The zinc shattered into pieces and I was able to drill a large enough hole through the lid!


Shattered zinc pieces:

 Lid with hole, seen on my "workbench:"

Next, I screwed the lamp kit through the hole...

put the lid on the jar...

and added a lampshade... and voila, lamp!

Only took me several weeks of contemplation plus about thirty minutes of actual work. Since I ruined the first lamp kit I still only have two lamps (the one I made and the one I originally found in my basement) but I think they make a nice pair.

Notes from the Twilight Zone

I worked my first night shift last night and therefore currently feel like I'm living in the twilight zone. When I left work at 7:30am this morning to come home, the sky was very gray making it look like it could have been dawn or dusk. I felt like I was walking in the opposite direction of everyone else on the street. Everyone else seemed bright-eyed and energized and I kind of wanted to vomit and pass out. That could have just been some sort of sleep-deprived delusion though.

In preparation for the first night shift on Wednesday night, I stayed up until 4am the night before. I have never felt like I had so much free time to kill in my life.

11pm: Rearranged my entire living room around my new coffee table.

 

11:30am: Considered opening a yoga studio in the new large open space between my living room and hallway.

 

12am: Admired my new happy dish towel. Loving the bright happy kitchen theme. And yes, I am excited about a dish towel.

1am: Iced latte break.

 2am: Made Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies.

3am: Ate Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies.

I ended up sleeping in from 4am until about 10:30am. Not enough sleep. Last night was a little rough. I guess the first shift of a series of night shifts will always be kinda rough because there's no way you can possibly sleep enough the day before. Anywho, got home at 7:30am this morning, struggled to make a bowl of cereal, took a shower, sat down on the floor of the shower and almost feel asleep, and got into bed. I then slept from 8am until my alarm went off at 4pm. That's eight hours of sleep! Holla! So I'm feeling a little better about tonight. And I just had this for breakfast.

 

Hope everyone had a great day!

Bowls and Balls

AS and I both had the day off yesterday so we headed out to Delaware on a vintage/antiques shopping adventure inspired by this blog. Now I know I discussed doing this trip with some other people as well. We by no means went to every store there though and I would be more than happy to go again in the very near future so please please don't be mad! I really can't wait to go again, hopefully when it's also slightly warmer and not gray and dreary so we can actually hit up the beach as well rather than just stare at it wistfully.


The two best spots we hit were Beach Plum Antiques and Millsboro Antiques Mall. I got on a Pyrex kick and now have a lovely set of bowls and dishes to bake with. The best find was a full set of four mixing bowls.

Now I have to bake something that involves lots of bowls. I also got a casserole dish in a lovely blue.

Interesting "farm" theme detail:

I also picked up a Pyrex pie dish for $4.

Unfortunately I am still looking for a pie server. The only ones we saw yesterday were ceramic and we were already making ourselves look enough like 80-year-old women with all our Pyrex.

The other major purchases were Ball jars. My grandparents used to can vegetables from their garden and even now, years after both of them have been gone, we are still eating their delicious green beans. I therefore have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for canning jars. I found this lamp in the basement of my building soon after I moved in. I dusted it off, emptied out the multicolored beans that it was filled with and replaced a nasty red lampshade.

I bought two more large jars yesterday with the hope of replicating the lamp. I also bought  two smaller ones with the goal of spreading the theme throughout the apartment. 

The next step is to use this kit to turn the jars into lamps.

I made the man at the hardware store explain to me how to attach the wires but I'm still slightly concerned I'm going to somehow electrocute myself. Between the jars, the "make-a-lamp" kits and lampshades, the lamps aren't going to be super cheap but I feel like this sort of thing would be pretty expensive in a shabby chic shop.


The best item that we didn't purchase award absolutely goes to this table.

I sincerely hope that I someday own a "tasteful" beach house to put this in.


Overall, it was a great day and I can't wait to go do it again soon. There were a couple Goodwills we passed that we didn't hit and several other antique stores. 

Up next: I'm staying up late tonight in order to sleep in tomorrow in preparation for my first ever night shift on Wednesday night. This means you work form 7pm to 7am. I have never done with before and am super nervous about how to prepare. In order to stay up late, my plan is to drink large amounts of coffee, make carrot cake sandwich cookies, and try to assemble my lamps. Lord knows come 3am though I'm going to totally stress out whether I'm sleeping enough, whether I'll be able to stay awake tomorrow night, whether I'll just feel like I want to throw up the whole shift from being tired, whether my alarm clock will actually wake me up at the right time and hey, maybe I should set a fourth alarm just to be sure. CA is gone right now so I have the whole apartment to myself to spread out the crazy and obsessiveness. It's quiet here without her and when I'm staying by myself, looking at the front door to make sure it's locked is not enough. I have to actually go touch it to be sure it's dead-bolted. Lovely. Hurry back CA! I'll let you all know how the cookies go.



Parting shot of all my pretty bowls.

Strange Dreams

So I'm sitting here eating blueberry mini muffins by the fistful. You know, the kind you buy pre-made from the grocery store and that are probably 99% butter and taste like heaven? I'm craving chocolate for the billionth time today and eating anything remotely sweet in sight. I've made it one week though, hurray!


Perhaps fueled by my chocolate longings, I've had the strangest dreams this week. On Monday night, I went to change my clothes during a dream, saw that they had already changed without me having done anything. That's when realized that I was in a dream. The dream continued and even though I didn't ahve control over it, I knew it was a dream. Has this ever happened to anyone before? I thought it was a pretty strange experience. I imagine it's what being incepted is like.


Then on Tuesday night, I dreamed that I was marrying my senior year of high school boyfriend. The wedding was at the farm (I either want to get married at my parent's farm or on an exotic beach). I was really upset though because I did not want to be marrying this guy. Things were too far gone for me to back out though so I just kept going through the ceremony, the reception, first dance, dance with my dad, etc. After everything, I refused to sign the marriage certificate so this somehow made it that it had never happened. I woke up in the morning so relieved that this hadn't actually happened. I thought graduating from school would finally end my stress dreams but apparently not. I tend to only have stress dreams. I think I've had about two "good" dreams in my entire life. It may have something to do with the fact that I feel compelled to set three alarms before I go to sleep every night out of fear that I won't wake up on time. It's not as though I'm floating off to sleep on a stress-free cloud of oblivion every night.


Has anyone else had crazy dreams this week? Maybe there's something in the air...


On the craft front, I made a set of placemats and napkins for a months-late wedding gift this week. Better late than never, right? Right? I embroidered the initials of the bride and the groom on the napkins (they both kept their last names) and hope they enjoy the results! 

Yesterday and today were my "Friday" and "Saturday" this week so it's back to work tomorrow. Happy Wednesday/"Sunday," everyone!

Weekend Update

Where to start... I guess I can begin with an update on Bicycle Guy. We had out fourth date on Saturday and are still going strong, or as strong as one can be going after four dates. We rode our bikes over to Eastern Market in the afternoon, walked around looking at the crafts and foods available and got lunch inside the food hall from the crab cake place. Best of all, the crab cake place had sweet tea. I'm sure Bicycle Guy was a little overwhelmed by how excited I was about this. I may have mentioned it several times. I couldn't help it; every time I took a sip of my tea I got excited all over again. I mean, I was really good sweet tea. We went our separate ways for a couple hours and then he came over for a home-cooked dinner and a movie. I made salmon with mango chutney and peppers served with cheese grits and tried to walk the line of I'm-a-good-cook-but-not-a-crazy-50s-housewife.

Dinner wasn't finished until after Bicycle Guy arrived and I thought he might be freaked out if I mentioned I wanted to take a picture of our food so that I could blog about our date later. 


Also, there is now a picture of the two of us (available only by email request). It's not a great pic of either of us but what can you do? I'll work on it.


Ever since I gave up chocolate for Lent (four days, 12 hours and 11 minutes so far... not that I am counting), I have been craving sweets nonstop. So over the weekend, I decided to attempt cinnamon rolls. I tried this same recipe (also from The Bread Baker's Apprentice) a few months ago in Atlanta and my dough never rose. My mom remade the dough (EXACTLY the same way, I swear!) and hers, of course, rose beautifully. 


I decided to get right back on that horse though. I made the dough in the morning...

And two hours later it looked like this...

EXACTLY THE SAME

Figuring I had nothing to loose besides some flour, I just left the dough sitting in the kitchen the entire day and reinvestigated late that night. The dough had finally risen some and even made bread in the bottom. I took off that part and formed the rest into one big log roll that was then cut up into individual rolls. 

I was finally able to cook the rolls this morning, a delicious treat after a 8k race. Yay for copious amounts of cinnamon, sugar and powered sugar!!

This wasn't enough though to satiate my vicious chocolate craving so I made some rice krispies treats, something both my roommate and I can enjoy. One batch is the original recipe and one has peanut butter.

Did I see you admiring my new cookie jar? Well, I guess it's a rice krispies treat jar at the moment but I am super excited about it. AS and I made a trip to Marshalls today and saw some interesting items (including a giant chocolate salmon)...

... and I picked up the jar for $5. AS and I spent about 20 minutes in the clearance isle (yes, there's a clearance isle even at Marshalls) just picking up items and exclaiming out amazing and cheap they were but then deciding they were probably not particularly useful. Did I mention I was really excited about the jar? I may or may not have made the rice krispies treats in part to have something to put in the jar.

In Which I Learn that Hand-making Your Own Cloth Napkins is Not Worth It

I finally finished a project today that I started a couple weeks ago. I had plenty of the curtain fabric left over that I used to cover the chair seat a few weeks ago and decided to use it to make a set of cloth napkins. I used a cloth napkin I had to figure out how big to make them.

After cutting out the four squares, I used some a technique called mitered corners to make them look nice and finished. Check out the technique here. There was a good bit of folding, then ironing, and pinning involved.

The website I used for inspiration suggested some boring lines of stitching to add but I decided that little embroidered animals would be much cuter. I did some google imaging to get ideas and then drew animals simple enough to accommodate my beginner embroiderer skills.

Yes, I know the elephant is a little off-center. He was the first one I did. I'll do better next time, I promise. There was some experimentation with a T. rex but it didn't quite work out. Maybe next time I'll do a T. rex, a stegosaurus, a pterodactyl and... a brontosaurus maybe?

I enjoyed doing the animals but making the napkins themselves was totally not worth it. There was far too much ironing and pinning and cutting involved. Next time I'll buy plain napkins already made and add the embroidery.

I also made a flourless chocolate cake today. I'm telling you, there is not much better in the world than flourless chocolate cake and Breyer's lactose free vanilla ice cream. I've decided to give up chocolate for Lent so I wanted to gorge myself on as much chocolate as possible between now and Wednesday. Unfortunately, I just realized that I am working for 12 hours tomorrow and then having dinner out with my dad. So I'm apparently going to have to finish the chocolate cake between about 9 and 10pm tomorrow. Oh goodness. I know it's what Baby Jesus would want me to do though so I'll power through.

Happy Fat Tuesday, everyone!

What Caroline Quinn Made for Dinner Last Night

I'm trying not to make this blog become "What Caroline Quinn Made for Dinner Last Night" but I made something pretty good the other night and thought I'd share. When I was home in January, I copied a few recipes out of my mom's various cookbooks. One of them was a swanky British one full of "new" foods (I can't remember the name at the moment but I can ask). I'm not sure what "new" foods are, other than maybe cheesy blasters, but it had some good stuff. And it called arugula "rocket," which I am always a big fan of.


---Aside: I am listening to my Avett Brothers Pandora station right now and an acoustic version of "Fake Plastic Trees" just came on. Guess what CD it's from? Just guess. Clueless. Radiohead had a song in Clueless?!? That's right, the 1995 masterpiece that shaped my tween years and has had my mother yelling at me for saying "like" too much for the last 16 years. HOLY HELL. Clueless came out 16 years ago. That kind of makes me want to curl up in the fetal position. Also, just so you're aware, individuals born in 1990 can legally drink this year.---


Okay, well, that was just a deep dark hole. Let's climb out... Anywho, the British cookbook had the great idea of making miniature "lunchbox pies." They suggested some odd assortment of meats and vegetables but I just picked my own favorites to go in my pies: chicken, sweet potato and green peas. 


First, I cooked each of these items individually. This took the most amount of time but at least you can have everything cooking at the same time. I then put them all together, added some curry powder, salt, pepper and lemon juice and mixed everything up to make a nice filling.

Pepé the rooster/oven mit oversaw the whole operation.

Next I rolled out store-bought (gasp!) puff pastry. I used the top of a glass to cut out 18 or so circles.

Next I placed a few spoonfuls of the filling on one pastry circle, placed a second circle on top, and pinched the edges together to form a little pie. 

After that, I popped the tray in the oven for about 15 minutes and out came delicious little pastries that I took in my lunchbox every day last week.

My next project is to figure out what to put in this large vase:

For perspective:

I had Christmas ornaments in it over the holidays but haven't figured out what to put in it next. I looked at some potpourri mixes at Home Goods the other day, but I would need a few to even begin to fill the vase and that's just more than I want to spend (read: more than $7). I'm also feeling a little frustrated that I don't live somewhere I can just go pick up some pine cones or rocks and fill it with those for free. So suggestions for what to put in the vase on the cheap are welcome and appreciated. 


My update on the dating front is that my date yesterday with Bicycle Guy went swimmingly. He made lunch for us and we spent the afternoon working on fixing up my bicycle on his front porch. Then we went to Thai food for dinner and watched a movie on his couch. Considering I have a hard time spending eight or so hours with anyone, the fact that I really enjoyed our day is a very good sign. We both have busy weeks so I'm sure when the next day is but hopefully it will be soon!