What the what?! Yes, January is [self-imposed] Be Healthier: Cook at Home month. So in the name of healthiness, it’s really not too challenging (like going raw for a month or doing a cleanse), instead it’s about refocusing on cooking at home, being healthy, and saving money. My once goal of going to more new restaurants turned into a bad habit of going out to eat almost every day, and with so much good/cheap eats in Portland, it’s an easy habit to continue. My one loophole since I work from home, is that coffee shops are ok, where I shall order the largest mug of tea available and stare longingly at the pastry case. Otherwise I would be homeward bound for the month!

How the first week went down:
For my bit of complaining, I’m eating fantastic meals, and having a lot of fun actually cooking every night, and wasting less time on the Internet (yes, seriously).

Breakfasts have been avocado banana smoothie, fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juice, green drink juice, avocado egg chipotle breakfast sandwich, oatmeal, banana peanut butter w/Amazing Grass smoothie, pear custard pie, and fruit/nuts.

Lunch and dinner has seen tasty kale, squash, chevre tacos, slow-cooker veggie & chickpea coconut curry and rice, tomato and feta dill orzo, Spanish tortilla, this delicious avocado citrus salad:

and all the tasty leftovers!

The downside? My limited caffeine intake of 1-2 cups of tea a day (& the resultant headaches) took four days to power through. I’m also missing restaurants, so picking my ONE restaurant for this week was a tough choice.

My only meal out this week. Making it count with a fav… (@ Dove Vivi) 4sq.com/xnQaLa

— Olivia Raymer (@poweredbytofu) January 7, 2012

January 31 at midnight, you’ll find me at Rum Club with an Old Fashioned followed by a bowl of cheese. Kidding… kind of.

What have you been cooking up lately?

Prompt #13: For some people, no matter how much they love traveling, there’s always no place like home. Other travelers make their homes wherever they happen to be. Tell us about your home – where is it and why do you consider it your home?

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow” –Lin Yutang

What is home? I’m over again on my work blog for today’s 30 Days of Indie Travel prompt: My 169,680 Square Mile Home

Where is home to you?

Join the 30 Days of Indie Travel project and share your story.

As mentioned, I decided to take a break from the 101 things in 1,001 days list. My clone started a 30 before thirty list, so like a good clone I’m copying her — let the listomania begin…

30 Before Thirty List

1. Buy a house – this was on my list before I bought a house!
2. Visit Iceland
3. Run a half-marathon (ie. start running again)
4. Attend a cooking class (@Sur La Table perhaps)
5. Carve out a stellar mini-office for work [at home]
6. Go raw for 1 week or do a cleanse ( hi mom, I know you’re going to leave me an inspirational comment)
7. Start strength training
8. Learn to ride my bike outside with my cycling shoes [without falling over]
9. Go to 1 new restaurant (or coffee shop) per week 52 in total
10. Do yoga six days a week for one month
11. Learn the Tittibhasana (Firefly) Pincha Mayurasana (Forearm stand) pose – (hijacked this one, sorry pal)
12. Get an iPhone (did Steve tell you that perchance?)
13. Go actual backpacking (as-in: carrying a backpack in the forest, not schlepping around the globe)
14. Take a silver jewelry class – crafter-alert!
15. Road trip Hwy 101 south & stay in that lighthouse hostel near SF
16. Try a new class that isn’t ‘my style’: belly dancing or zumba (cringe)
17. Ask 20 12 people their favorite book and read it
18. Try kiteboarding
19. Volunteer again
20. Get a car, scooter or new bicycle
21. Visit a spa for a whole day or do a yoga/spa vacay with H
22. Eat [hyper] local for one week
23. Cook a 5-course meal, have a dinner party
24. Buy awesome matching lingerie
25. Start a grown-up alcohol collection and declare a signature drink (mojitos…)
26. Buy a little black dress (note: not navy, grey, or a sundress… this one is going to be a challenge)
27. Visit all 30 breweries in Portland
28. Ask a guy out (I seriously have never done this, what is my problem!)
29. — (I’ll add this before my 29th birthday)
30. — (I’ll add this before my 29th birthday)

Well, well?

photo by 96dpi

Week 4 To Do List:

• Clean up living room and related closets – closets? I wish!
• Declutter books and all media – did in 2007, and have since only added a lovely stack of travel guides. :)
  
• Cancel 75% of the catalogs you receive – I think the only catalogs I get are J.Crew and the occasional Crate & Barrel…
  
• Empty Outbox this week
• Confirm what you need to increase or decrease color in each room
• Identify what you need to increase or decrease softness in each room – bunnies?
• Cook three meals at home this week – does breakfast count?
• Send out your invitations

What I need to + / – on the color and softness scales in each room…

Area: color – to add (subtract)
Hallway/Entry:  warm – nope
Kitchen: warm – hang orange pan on wall?
Dining room: warm – make space for my “office” stuff, possibly get a desk
Living room: warm/cool – already perfect!
Bathroom: cool/warm – change the framed artwork
Bedroom: cool – remove red pillows

Week 4 is even easier than week 3. Oh and I bought a super bright Gerbera daisy this weekend. I think it might need a Liberty of London planter to go in… hmmm….

Cool colors (blues, greens, grays) are contracting and calming; warm colors (reds, yellows, oranges) are expansive and stimulating. Just as breathing is made up of contractions (the in breath) and expansion (the out breath), you want to feel this movement as you walk through your apartment. This is done by alternating warm and cool colors.

According to AT, here are the rooms that lend themselves to warm/cool…

Area:  movement – color { my apartment!}
Hallway/Entry:  contraction – cool {warm!}
Kitchen: expansion – warm {warm}
Dining room: expansion – warm {warm}
Living room: expansion – warm {cool and warm?}
Office: contraction – cool {what is this “office”}
Bathroom: contraction – cool {cool and warm?}
Bedroom: contraction – cool {cool}

So in applying the 80/20 rule, I think my living room is a good example: 80% base colors – brown couch, white rug, espresso accents, with 20% blues and brighter colors mixed in. My bedroom however, is 20% bright Mediterranean blue (only one wall), but I also have a bright painting and colorful planters, so I think it could use some direction. But I guess that’s for next week.

Week 3 To Do List Recap:

• Vacuum/dust
  
• Clean entryway and closet – the closet is my Outbox at the moment
• Declutter entrance
• Move all old mail, catalogs, magazines to the Outbox
• Look into what you would need to create a Landing Strip -  already done
• Cancel any unused subscriptions
• Identify cool rooms and warm rooms
• Apply the 80/20 color rule
• Cook two meals at home this week
• Design an invitation for your housewarming

on to week 4!

I also hadn’t finished the “style interview” from Week 0, in which you list a bunch of your favorites, and then try to recognize some kind of pattern in your style tray. Here are a few of my favorites…

Actress: Zooey Deschanel & Audrey Tautou
Actor: Matt Damon, Owen Wilson, Ewan McGregor, Gael García Bernal,  Brad Pitt
Artist: Matisse, ones I never remember the name of
Writer: JD Salinger, Hemingway, Ayn Rand
Music: Beck, Regina Spektor, Ben Folds, The Kinks, REM…
Restaurant: Petite Provence, a certain taco truck
Automobile: classic VW Beetles (specifically 1953-1957 oval windows) le sigh…
TV show: Flight of the Conchords, Arrested Development, Man vs Wild, 30 Rock, Parks & Rec, The Office
Clothing (designer or store): MIA shoes, J.Crew, Zara
How would you describe your style? eclectic, vintage-y, bright
Where have you lived? Pacific Northwest
Who would you consider a role model? Abraham Lincoln aahaha, sorry, private joke.
If your apartment could speak, what would it say? “Stop buying Liberty of London stuff at Target!”
What one thing would you like to do more of in your apartment? sleep
Eight weeks from now, when this project is complete, if friends came to visit, how would you like them to describe it? So pretty, so very, very pretty. :)

In determining my style, I’ve found it rather difficult to say that I’m either cool/warm. As a person, I identify more with the cool side — I’m a thinker and I don’t get too attached to people/things, but decor/style-wise, I identify more with DIY and excessiveness (*cough, my recent Liberty of London craze) that goes along with warm people. Sooo for now I’ll just say I’m a cool person with warm style? So to finish this up… last time I did the cure I ended up with a defined style of eclectic organic modern, because “organic modern” just didn’t quite describe me. And after finishing my style tray, I didn’t realize I had such a crush on the 60s/70s! I think I can blame my mom for this somehow?

Week 2 Follow-up:

• Fix one thing in your apartment – filled in the nail/screw holes from hanging curtains, pictures etc.
• Clean kitchen from top to bottom – AMAZING
• Water filter
• pretend your apartment is a whale – oh hai whale!
• Designate an Outbox area
• Clear one area using the Outbox
• Buy flowers
• Determine your style
• Find a new recipe and cook one meal at home
• Choose a date for your housewarming

On to week 3!

Week 2 To Do List:

• Fix one thing in your apartment – this will be filling in the nail/screw holes from hanging curtains.
• Clean kitchen from top to bottom – requires its own list…
• Water filter
• pretend your apartment is a whale – oh hai whale!
• Designate an Outbox area – my storage closet is already an “outbox” of sorts
• Clear one area using the Outbox – Use it? Love it? Need it?
• Buy flowers
• Determine your style
• Find a new recipe and cook one meal at home – I already try to cook/eat at home at least 3 nights a week
• Choose a date for your housewarming – in eight weeks you say?

Less blogging, more kitchen cleaning… I think I need to create a Ramones/Rancid station on Pandora first. Ciao!

How to:
Get the book (or check it out at the library)
Sign-up for the weekly cure emails
Start reading the book, and participate as much as you want with the discussions, flickr pool etc

The Plan: (March 15th through May 10th)
Week 1: Creating Your Vision
Week 2: Clearing a Path
Week 3: The Landing Strip
Week 4: Retail Therapy
Week 5: The Thick of It
Week 6: Light Therapy
Week 7: Sacred Space
Week 8: Throwing a Party
Week 9: Graduation

Should be fun, and I may just have an excuse to pick up some new home goods — Liberty of London for Target is calling my name at the moment. Anyone else a little obsessed with this line right now? The LoL (heh) line is like a “few of my favorite things” roundup: gardening stuff, bicycles, flipflops, piggy banks, dresses, tea pots, and all in the sweetest patterns. <3

Who else is doing the Spring Cure?

The plants and seeds made it into the ground two weeks ago and we just can’t contain our excitement. So much so that we forgot to write about the process. But we did document it with photos.  Here’s what we ended up planting: roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, green onions, summer squash, radishes, jalapeno, green peppers, yellow peppers, basil, cilantro, parsley, cucumber, beets, buttercrunch lettuce, arugula, snow peas, and sweet peas!  The following are pictures of one of the three planter boxes.

Week 0: Planted peas, beets, tomatoes, arugula, butter lettuce
Week 1: Sweet peas, beets, and arugula germinated!

Week 2: Sweet peas and arugula growing like crazy!

We edited the original container garden plan slightly to allow for the peas to grow in a north – south line and make the most of the space. As you can see in the above pics, the pea trellis is pretty tall and we’re hoping a wild wind doesn’t take it down (fingers crossed).

Our latest gardening dilemma is how often and how much to water.  We are currently watering every other day, by putting the hose into each box for about 2 – 3 minutes.  Any thoughts on watering?

Supply List (for each 4×4′ box)
2×6 boards* – 40 feet total (if you have to load them in your car you’ll want five 8-foot pieces, or you could cut them in the store)
4×4 post* – 6 or 8 feet long
48 3-inch or 3.5-inch nails (or screws)

* Most people recommend using cedar or redwood but I happened to have a bunch of lumber sitting around so I used plain old 2x6s – probably fir. True, they won’t last as long and they’re already a little beat up, but free is a pretty good price! Any wood will work as long as it’s not treated.

Tools
Tape Measure
Power saw (I used a circular saw, but a table saw would be ideal)
Hammer
Shovel

How To:

1. Get out your tape measure and mark cut lines every 48 inches on your 2×6 boards. I recommend leaving about 1/16″ for the cut or measuring after each cut.
2. Power saw time – make the cuts so you end up with 10 pieces that are 48 inches long.
3. Measure and cut your 4×4 post so you end up with four 16-inch pieces.
4. Set two of the posts parallel on the ground, four feet apart and lay two of the 2×6 boards across them, even with the top.
5. Nail two nails into the end of each board. Repeat with the second set of posts and two more 2x6s.
6. Turn your new contraptions upside-down and position them parallel on the ground, four feet apart. Place one of your remaining 2x6s between them and nail it in place. Repeat with another 2×6 and then with the other side.
7. Grab a friend and flip your box over!
8. Nail the last two 2x6s to the top of your box to be used as benches or “knee rests.” I think it gives it a nice, finished look without spending time making precise diagonal cuts for an “all the way around” border.
9. Dig four holes in the ground for the corner posts.
10. Position your box and make sure it is level before filling in the holes.

Now all you need to do is fill your new container garden with dirt and get planting!

–the Soybean