Basement Upgrade - Week 1

In my last post, I mentioned that I had recently started a new work schedule that gives me Fridays off so that I can work on my latest project. Now that the project is underway, I'm so excited that I just can't contain my elation.

I'm finishing my basement!

The work space ready and waiting for walls.

Okay, to be completely honest, Dad and I are finishing the basement, with him taking point, as he is in possession of the know-how and the power tools we need to complete this thing. And what we're doing is the first of several phases. But I've lived in my house for 5 1/2 years now, and for about 5 years of that (hey, a girl has to settle in first before she starts trying to upend things), we've been discussing the options for making the basement a livable space, rather than just storage and place for bugs to go to die.

I fully recognize how truly lucky I am to have a Dad who is both willing and able to take on this project with me. Extra bonus - he's one of my absolute favorite people on the planet (I am a Daddy's girl, no lie), and this means that I get to spend a lot more time with him than usual!

Georgia playing "The Princess and
the Pea" on top of the stacked
deck cushions.

On Wednesday, we finally "broke ground", though not literally, since it's all interior upgrades, and not an addition. Dad arrived while I was at the office, and proceeded to clear out the space we would need while fending off attacks from Georgia, the four-legged menace who decided that since Dad smells like their boy cat, he must be the enemy.

Wednesday night, it was driven home to me that there were a lot more decisions to make than I had previously pondered (and let me tell you, there's been a lot of pondering in the last five years)! More than just, where do you want the wall to the bathroom to be, there were questions about door size (larger than average to make access to the utility/laundry room easier), closet orientation (important to have a closet opening in the room so that it could technically count as a bedroom), window seats (our answer to a spatial issue), etc. But the outline was laid out, and work was ready to begin.

Thursday, I knew I wasn't going to be able to help much, between my long office hours and my standing choir rehearsal obligation. Dad had been reading the manual for his new hammer shot (for nailing the frame to the concrete floor), and was all set to start. He was still hard at work when I stopped by the house to eat and pick up my music, but there was a door frame to show for it!

Then on Friday, the real fun started, since I had the whole day to help and get my hands dirty. Despite all of the theater, dance, music, crafts, etc., I have no qualms about digging in and getting messy. Growing up, it wasn't uncommon for me to spend hours weeding the gardens with Dad or running around barefoot in the woods. The smell of sawdust is the smell of home. So I was excited to get involved!

Cutting studs down to size.

At first, I wasn't much help, because I wasn't really sure what I could contribute, but when I mentioned to Dad that I'd always been a little nervous around power saws, he put me in charge of the miter saw and measuring and cutting studs. Nothing like conquering a fear (or at least a mild trepidation) head on! Before long, I was whipping out the studs as fast as he could nail them to the header! 

Dad speculated that we had probably done a bit of overkill, and that the wall was perhaps more solid and more tightly in place than necessary. But I think our family motto should be "Built to Last." I mean, my 91-year old grandfather is still living in the house he built himself around 1955, and it's still solid and lovely.

With some troubleshooting, a trip to Home Depot for supplies and brainstorming, and a break for a birthday lunch (he really earned it this year), we got two walls up before it was time for Dad to head home. But the fun continues later this week, where we tackle such challenges as a door! And another door! and a window! And a really long wall!

There be walls here!

I can't wait...

All content and images are ©The Casual Diva, except where otherwise noted. Content may not be republished without prior consent of the author.

New Beginnings

Happy New Year! 2015 is already off to a raring start!

So, I've been AWOL from the Interwebs since before Thanksgiving. A small part of it was laziness on my part. Okay, a somewhat decent-sized portion was laziness. At least half of it was the sheer craziness and frantic pace of the holidays. If you don't happen to know any musicians, you'll have to trust me - between Thanksgiving and New Years is our insanely jam-packed season.

So in the time I've been away, I've been running around like a crazy person, visiting friends and family, rehearsing, performing, and I actually managed to go out on a blind date (which I had to cut short due to the aforementioned rehearsing and performing). I've also...

... performed at the 25th Annual Kennedy Krieger Festival of Trees, in front of this lovely audience. I also got to sing at a mall the week before Christmas, which was less crowded but five times noisier. My choir also recorded a holiday CD, which meant months of prep and a weekend of recording sessions - a very interesting process that I'm curious to try again, now that I've got a little experience under my belt.

...baked. A lot. And now I'm paying for it. But all of the new Christmas cookie recipes I tested this year were hits, so I think they're keepers! First, there was what I like to call "Christmas Crack" - pretzels topped with milk chocolate wafers slightly softened in a warm oven and finished off with a peanut M&M.

Then my brother and I made these delicious Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies that were so amazing and moist and easy that I'll be making them again next weekend for the cookie reception after my performances.

And, of course, it wouldn't be the holidays without eggnog, which is one thing I look forward to with absolute child-like glee every year. So I thought I'd try these Eggnog Meltaways. Lesson learned - I refrigerated the dough much longer than called for, so when I baked them, they didn't quite bake all the way through. Which, naturally, I didn't realize until I bit into one after I had already rolled the finished cookies in powdered sugar. So mine didn't turn out as lovely and powdery as pictures in the recipe, but they still had that fabulous eggnog flavor!

Finally, anyone who knows me at all knows that I am slightly obsessive over cranberries. I put them in everything - salads, scones, pork roasts. I just love them. So when I found this recipe for Cranberry Noel Tea Cookies, I just had to try it, despite my crazy schedule. After singing the late Christmas Eve service at church, I came home, pulled my double batch of dough out of the fridge, and baked long into the night, despite facing the drive across the state to my parents' house the next morning. Yes, I may have fallen asleep on the sofa Christmas Day while watching a movie with my family, but the rave reviews over the cookies made it worthwhile! Never having made a shortbread cookie before, I didn't realize how easy it could be, and definitely see myself playing with variations of this with different seasonal flavors all year long!

... rehearsing for my latest show, a review-style production of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", in which I play Judy Haynes (the dancing sister, for those playing the home game).

The show was supposed to open mid-December, but half of the cast came down with the plague (seriously, I've never heard of people getting both the flu and pneumonia simultaneously!), so out of necessity, we postponed until next week. The show has been kind of a hot mess since day one, but there are some really nice moments, terrific choreography, and some lovely people involved, so I suppose the experience has been worth it.

...cataloguing and reorganizing my book collection. This sounds both nerdy and insignificant. The first I'll proudly cop to. The second... well, you can judge for yourself:

I started with the A authors on the
stairs to the second floor.

The C authors were too numerous for the stairs,
so they got their own room.

This is some of M-V in the sunroom, as due to how I had to wrap
the stacks around, I couldn't fit it all in the same frame.

As always, Georgia "helped".

 I've been working on cataloguing in a database, mostly to keep track of what I have and any reading orders for series. I started that project 6 years ago, before I moved, but I've since gone to writing conferences and bought or received enough to start my own library. I started again on Christmas Day, in preparation for the construction that we're going to be initiating in the basement in a few weeks (can I just say that I'm unbelievably excited for this to happen?). In the week I've been slogging through my stash, I've only made it through the L authors - for my fiction. I haven't even gotten to the non-fiction and reference books yet. And the law and academic texts are still living in the basement, because those boxes are too heavy to move if I don't have to!

I'm sure there's a great deal more, but those are the highlights. Now it's time to look forward to the next year. There are changes a-coming, and truth be told, I'm kind of excited for what the year may hold!

Happy New Year!

All content and images are ©The Casual Diva, except where otherwise noted. Content may not be republished without prior consent of the author.

Soft Pretzel Bites

Last weekend, it was sunny and gorgeous outside, and I stayed holed up on the couch, coughing until I had no voice (amongst other lovely side effects).

This weekend, the weather was gray, drizzly, and just generally unpleasant. My two favorite baseball teams squared off in the ALCS championship here in Baltimore, and my Orioles just couldn't pull it off (seriously, what was up with our pitching?), but my extended family out in KC are all doing the happy dance. And I was off-the-wall busy this weekend! After cooking dinner for my brother, who has the flu, and watching the O's lose on Friday, I dashed off to the homestead on Saturday for a sewing day with my mother followed by watching a family friend make his stage debut at the theater I got my start in. I've known the kid since I was taller than him, and now he's playing Lurch in "The Addams Family"!

But on Sunday, I got down to business. October business, that is.

Georgia played dead.

All around the web, people have been posting pumpkin spiced this, and apple caramel that. And that's all well and good. But to me, October is about all kinds of baking. Whether it's apple dumplings for my birthday (I'm so looking forward to these this week!) or Mexican cornbread or peanut butter oatmeal muffins, I am inevitably bitten by the baking bug as soon as the crisp autumn air swoops through the region.

This year, I decided to try something new. As a kid, I was fascinated by soft pretzels and always wanted to learn how to make them. My mom insisted that they were too much work. Now I have my own kitchen, so I thought I'd (finally) give it a try. They are a bit of work, but so incredibly worth it!

I found quite a few recipes online, each varying just a tiny bit. A work colleague suggested using this recipe, and since Alton Brown is The Man, this was the recipe I went with (you just have to appreciate a man who understands the science behind his art!). Boy was it the right choice! These soft pretzels were amazing! I made them into bites - cutting each of the 24-inch dough ropes into 1-inch pieces instead of the the traditional pretzel shape. I wanted to be able to ration them out a bit more than for just 8 pretzels, which is what the recipe makes. But they're so delicious that they may not last as long as I hoped!

One of the things that surprised me as I was teaching myself how to do this is that the dough, once shaped, has to be briefly boiled in water and baking soda. This struck me as a bit strange, but as I was doing that step, I noticed that it visibly changes the consistency of the dough, which is pretty nifty. Science at work!

Tonight, I'm hoping to mix up a beer-cheese sauce to dip them in, but they're so delicious, they don't really need any embellishment. Last night, I was popping them into my mouth without any extras, and they were mouth-wateringly wonderful!

All content and images are ©The Casual Diva, except where otherwise noted. Content may not be republished without prior consent of the author.

Hidden Treasures

I hope everyone had a gorgeous weekend!  I always look forward to the weekend, not because it means not being in the office, but because it's a chance for me to catch up on all of the things I've let slide at home over the course of the week. I can leisurely fold laundry while watching episodes of Criminal Minds on Netflix. It's not unheard of for me to dance around the kitchen to the tunes on my iPod while drying dishes. I'm sure I keep my neighbors entertained (or slightly scared) by holding conversations with Georgia through the storm door as I week the flower beds.

And it means that I'm not in the office.

Whatever my weekend plans are, they always end up changing. I never end up getting the big stuff accomplished. Sometimes, it's because of the opportunity to sleep in, and then take a nap on the sofa. After all, a girl has to catch up from the week, right? Sometimes it's because a friend calls with a better offer for how to spend the day - last week it was mattress shopping with my brother.

This weekend, I was determined to be productive. I cooked. I folded laundry that, I am somewhat ashamed to admit, has been in the laundry basked for more than a week. I cleaned. I organized. I turned down an offer from my friends to go to the Renaissance Faire (I really wanted to go, and with these particular friends, but I had to resist because of what follows...).

A while back, I had been a victim of a home invasion of the four-legged rodent variety. This was the first mouse I'd seen in the house in the 5 years I've lived here. Georgia, of course, was of no help other than alerting me with her neurotic behavior to the fact that a mouse was running around the kitchen. Once the little devil was caught, I thought I had done a good job cleaning up after him (her? I didn't bother to check.). But here we are, weeks later and still finding little surprises all over the pantry.

So I decided enough was enough! I was going to take back control of my pantry!




The first step was to empty everything out of the pantry which, for a townhouse, is not very small.

I didn't realize until I started running out of space on the dining room table just how much I had in the pantry. As you can see, not only was the table fully loaded, but a chair and the kitchen island as well, with the heavier items stashed under the table. If I had to move next week, the local food pantry would hit the motherload, because there is no way I could pack all of this up!

Not only did I pull everything out, but I had to wipe all of it down. Some of my lesser-used bakeware is also stored in the pantry, and it all went into the stack of dishes to be washed.

Now, when my friends texted me about going to the Renn Faire, I was tempted. I mean, REALLY tempted. But not only was I not feeling 100% due to some mouth issues I'm getting checked out later this week (I'm sure my mother would say that it's not possible for a doctor to cure all of my mouth issues!), I knew my downstairs looked like this. It was reloading day, and my undiagnosed OCD was up for the challenge!

 

I actually loved the opportunity to reorganize, condense, and sort. I'm either super easy to entertain, or slightly crazy!

I didn't notice so much as I was pulling items out and wiping them off, but as I attempted to put everything back into the pantry in some semblance of order, I found a few really cool things that I had forgotten I had, some of which I still haven't figured out what to do with yet.

One of my friends from Europe gave me this chocolate sauce, so you know it's the good stuff. I always figured I'd save it for when I was entertaining, but always forgot to put it out. I have a little fondue-sized crockpot - I'm thinking dipping sauce for strawberries and pound cake at my next craft day!

For some reason, I have four giant cans of pumpkin, each one big enough for two pies, or two large loaves of pumpkin bread. I'm not really sure why I have these - my best guess is that I got a little paranoid about the reported pumpkin shortage a few years ago and bought it when I could. Thank goodness the fall baking season is almost here!

Couscous! For a while, I was on a real couscous kick - I'm the only member of my family who seems to like it. The craze has kind of worn off - I like it, but don't obsess about it now, and this package is the only remnant of those wild months!

I found this intriguing item last year at my local produce market, and could resist buying it. Combining two of my favorite spreads - apple butter and barbeque sauce - how fascinating! And it's a locally made product! Unfortunately, I'm still at a loss for what to eat with it (chicken? pork?), and every attempt to find a recipe that would use it just gives me a recipe for - you guessed it - apple butter.

My four-and-a-half years in South Carolina didn't change my diet astronomically - I resisted attempts to become an acolyte of all things chicken-fried - but it did give me a love of grits for breakfast. While on vacation in Georgia, my parents picked up this bag of stone milled grits as a gift for me, but It got wedged in an unseen corner of the pantry, and I've never gotten around to using it. I'm thinking there may be some variation of shrimp and grits in my immediate future!

As a reward for all of my hard work this weekend, I then baked these amazing Blackberry Cheesecake Bars from The Pioneer Woman to bring to the office. I couldn't resist having some for breakfast (don't judge!), and they are amazing! A satisfying weekend, indeed.

So your question for today is, what odd or interesting items do you have lurking in your pantry, waiting patiently for you to rediscover them?

All content and images are ©The Casual Diva, except where otherwise noted. Content may not be republished without prior consent of the author.

It's All About the Little Things

I've been struggling for a few days, trying to decide what to write about for this week's blog. It's not that I haven't been busy, or that I've put my projects and pursuit of fabulousness on the back burner - that's not it at all! In fact, I've rarely been busier! I think it's that I have so many things going on, a lot of which require a great deal of energy, that I am having difficulty putting it all into words.

And then there are some things that I'm still struggling to define my feelings about.

So in the meantime, I'm going to leave you with a funny anecdote from Labor Day weekend.

Several weeks ago, I decided that I was going to start my holiday weekend a little early, and drive out on Friday to visit my parents, who live a little over an hour away. I knew that Mom would be at work for part of the time, but Dad is retired, and this girl never passes up a chance to hang out with her Daddy! I had some vaguely nebulous ideas about what we'd do, centering around creating furniture for Georgia (so that she'd stop climbing my armchairs), but mostly was just looking for an excuse to spend time with the ones I love.

Sometime after lunch and a jaunt in Dad's garden to pick tomatoes and "albino" cucumbers, we settled onto the porch swing that has hung on the deck since I was a teenager. Surrounded by sunshine, blooming flowers in every color, and sleeping cats, it seemed like a little slice of heaven as we rocked and chatted.

Pearl cucumbers from Dad's garden. They kind of looked
like giant weevils, but were actually quite delicious!

Then there was a creak. And then a groan. And then we were tipped backward to face the sky.

Then the back of the porch swing gave way, and I saw my dad's legs fly up over his head!

I thought I was hanging on, but once Dad's counterweight was gone, the swing decided to spit me out as well. I somehow flipped so that my head was under the swing and my feet were on the deck railing.

Once we could both catch our breath and determined that there were no major injuries that required First Aid or a doctor, we started laughing and couldn't stop. Through gasps of merriment, I kept insisting that it wasn't funny, but Dad was adamant that it was as he shook with laughter. Even recounting it to Mom hours later, we couldn't control ourselves and had tears streaming down our faces in the retelling.

I'm pretty sure she thought we'd knocked a few screws loose.

All content and images are ©The Casual Diva, except where otherwise noted. Content may not be republished without prior consent of the author.

What's this all about?

Wilkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome!

My name is Kelly, and I'm a diva. Okay, lest we start off on the wrong foot, let me explain. A diva is not necessarily a high-maintenance superstar who makes unreasonable demands and cops an attitude with everyone she considers beneath her (generally, well, everyone.). No, a diva is actually "a distinguished female singer" (thank you, Webster!), which can cover a wide range of personalities.

So, I'm a singer - I'm not sure about the "distinguished" part, but I do okay - and actress, and dancer, and instrumentalist ... and writer, and crafter, and gardener, and cook, and handy-(wo)man, and ... and ... and ...

Yeah, I know. I seem to have more interests than I have days in the year.

So why are we here? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm here to learn how to do stuff (and in some cases, how NOT to do stuff). I'm on a journey of self-exploration, if you will, to see what I'm capable of. I like to know things, and know about things. I want to be self-sufficient, self-sustaining, and self-satisfied. There are things that I'd like to learn how to do because they're fascinating to me, and there are things I'd like to learn how to do because I think I can do it more affordably than I can buy it in a store. And then there are skills I'd like to have to make me valuable in the event of the zombie apocalypse that my brother keeps encouraging me to prepare for.

This is Georgia. She likes to think she helps. She's usually wrong about that. She's not always the best roommate, but she does make for a good back-up alarm clock. She also fancies herself to be an expert bug-catcher, but can't be bothered to extend that expertise to mice (which, thankfully, are a rarity in our house!).

So come in and make yourself at home. This blog isn't specifically a food blog, or a craft blog, or a travel blog. It's all of that (though I'm no expert) and, hopefully, more. It's an exploration of how to be independent (somewhat), creative (somewhat), and interesting (somewhat).

This a chronicle one woman's attempts to live a fabulous life, both the successes and the failures, the highs and the lows. Let's have an adventure, shall we?

All content and images are ©The Casual Diva, except where otherwise noted. Content may not be republished without prior consent of the author.