TannieSpace

geekery, drawing and then some

Posts about challenge

Salads

Partially homegrown salad

Today I made another salad, a great way to let of some steam creativity wise. I read somewhere salads look (and taste) better if they have more colours, so I added some yellow and red and brown to my greens.

I've grown some lettuce (cut-and-come-again variety), and today I started eating it. I cut off about 15 grams of it, and added some arugula and garden cress for flavour. I also tossed in a sprout mixture of fenugreek, mustard, daikon and horseradish (last three all fairly spicy). I found some leftover sweet bell pepper (yellow) in the fridge, along with a few cherry tomatoes. After I added those I still felt it needed some more. I chopped up some shiitake mushrooms and grilled them with a sauce of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil (very tasty by itself btw).

When the mushrooms cooled down a bit, I plopped them on the salad and used the small oven-dish to mix up some more soy sauce, sesame oil and rice vinegar. I used this as a dressing over the salad, preparing it in the used oven-dish gave it a bit more of a grilled taste, very nice!

I have sown plenty of salad-greens and decided I could use a challenge (oh yes, another challenge!). I want to try my best at not buying any salad greens in the store until at leas way into autumn. This excludes eating out, but includes all salads at home :D

I should get my box of shiitake mushrooms started soon too. It will take a while before I can use my own tomatoes and peppers in my salads, however, I have a lot of greens already. I like salads, I should manage to pull this one off :)

--p.s. recipes for salads and dressing very welcome--


The drawing habit: day 9.

imgI did do some drawing today, just not the regular kind.

I wanted a handdrawn design on my website for quite some time, and then Michael Nobbs tweeted a site with a whole list of handdrawn designs. This of course meant I should get my act together and do it.

I spent the entire day doodling, and working with my graphic tablet. Soooo tired.

And so very happy with how it turned out!

I think everything works as it should, feel free to comment if it doesn't.


The drawing habit: day 6.

The bowl. For day 6 I drew my late evening food: a reheated portion of Wagamama's stir fried rice in my newly purchased bowl (which turned out exactly the right size, yaay!) I got a bit overly enthusiastic with the grains of rice, and drew them much too small but it looked so cool :D


The drawing habit.

I lost my drawing habit. I haven't done any drawing or doodling in ages. I miss it, and yet I spend more time cleaning up than drawing...

This morning in bed I thought how it takes a month to create a habit, so I figured I'd start drawing one drawing a day in april.

After I got up I thought 'screw April, start today!'.

So, as of today, for at least a month, I will make at least one drawing (no matter what) to kickstart my habit. I'll call it my '30-day drawing challenge'.

I'll keep you posted...


Giving up.

Though I don't follow any religion I have had a lot of Christian influences in my life (has to do with where I live(d)). Growing up we had Carnival (which shows I grew up down south) and only later I learned this proceeded Lent. Ever since the concept of Lent has intrigued me, not from a religious point of view but more from the challenge point of view.

Lying awake in bed thinking about that and my current situation, I've decided to participate. I will give up frivolous spending and TV for Lent under the following conditions:

  • I read Lent is about fasting but Sunday doesn't count.
  • I will fast on TV shows except on Sunday when I can watch all I want.
  • I will postpone watching that Grey's Anatomy episode till the next Sunday and nobody will give me spoilers!
  • I will go for one dim sum lunch on Sunday march 15.
  • Boyfriend and mother have their birthday, will spend some money on that as well as the birthing day of my sister's child (not frivolous IMHO).
  • I will not spend money on anything else unplanned unless absolutely necessary, which means no booze, no craft supplies, no 'fun' stuff, no iPhone apps, no online ordering. Yes to medical things for me and Nano that can't wait.

As far as I know I'll start wednesday, which is exactly payday. It's a sign ;-)