Anyone else have this bug that's been floating around?

Well I do and it's no good! I know I promised you plants but I am just not up for doing a photo shoot and so on today... I wasn't even able to go to class. So here are some pictures from my portfolio for our current course. I have been lightly styling and am still not happy with my photographs but soon I will hopefully be pleased with my work.

I'm Back!!!

I hope everyone has had a great summer vacation. I spent my days cleaning, painting, re potting, exploring and having a great time. Chris, the dogs and I were able to take a long weekend at my family's cottage in northern Wisconsin in July. It was so much fun being able to be out and catching up on all the wonderful things going on in everyone's lives. We went "geocaching," have you heard of it? Basically its a scavenger hunt that is connected to GPS. You're told how far and the direction to walk. Once you are "over the geocache" you get other clues ("look under a rock" or "climb.") It was a lot of fun searching even if we never found it and got a little lost. It reaffirms that you should always take the same path in and out and if you have a cell phone... make sure it's charged. Another highlight from the trip was the amazing finds on my mycology foray. I found SO many mushrooms and other various fungi. I was stunned and kept running back to the house to show them off. The top two would have to be a giant Laetiporus sulphureus or "Chicken of the Woods" which is pictured below. This fungus is a heart rot, meaning it infects the trunk of mature trees through the roots and makes its way up 20-40 feet above the forest floor. That is where the giant blooms of orange tissue usually emerge but I was lucky enough to find 25lbs of it on a fallen tree the day after a huge storm. I was reeling with excitement. I brought a few pounds into class for soup day. It was so delicious and I was trying everyones, I probably ate a couple pounds of cream of mushroom that day. The second best find would definitely be the "Indian Pipes" I stumbled across on the geocaching trip. Now if you don't know about these rare and extraordinary flowers listen up. These are blooming plants that do not use photosynthesis to grow. From the research I have done not a whole lot is known about these miraculous plants but it is believed that they feed off dead fungus. I had always thought that they were always and only pure white. After all this is what I've seen in almost every picture I've looked at but on this trip out, the rarest of the rare was found... PINK Indian Pipes(pictured above.) I was blown away. A) I had just seen them for the first time ever only a few hours earlier and B) I had just found something I had never seen in any book or on any website. Other than our vacation north, I spent most of the summer redecorating our apartment, I won't get into too much of that now as there will be many blogs in the future with more on this. But my collection of plants quickly grew to 75 and I have just started really getting into carnivorous plants. They're super neat. Classes started almost 2 months ago and I am in love with Pastry school. We're having so much fun baking cookies and eclairs and quick breads and learning lot's of new stuff from fabulous instructors. It gets cooler and cooler everyday and I am so excited to be there.
So what's next? Well I have a lot in store for y'all.Autumn crafts, pumpkin and apple picking, tons of decorating tips with lot's of pictures from the "new" apartment and much, much more. I can never understand why people complain about the weather, "Oh I hate that winter is coming..." blah blah blah. I love it all! The idea of the leaves changing and cooler winds moving through gets my heart fluttering. I am so anxious to carve pumpkins and decorate for holidays and spend cold nights cuddled up with a movie and the four I love the most. Winter is nothing to fear, it's beautiful and enchanting and we should embrace it, not fear it. Complaining only creates misery. But all in good time, right? We don't want to speed through and miss out on the glory of autumn, one of my favorite seasons. So YES! Lot's lot's more to follow. We'll get started slowly tomorrow with plants and the benefits they have on the body and soul. Goodnight and hoping everyone enjoyed their summers as much as I did.

yikes!

I thought I had made it large enough but blogger.com likes it small I guess. To see the full picture click on the photo in the blog, then click once more on the new photo that pops up. That should enlarge it so the script is legible.

The Perfect Craft Closet

The overhaul of the apartment is finished! I have spent the past 3 weeks cleaning, organizing and installing important storage components like hooks, bins and racks. The best part is that I finally have the craft room I have always wanted. There is plenty of room to move around and spread out projects, the television is hooked up so Martha can be watched while I craft and everything is put away in its proper place! That is the best part. No longer will I waste time hunting for scissors or looking for one of the 50 glue sticks I own. Now I can just head to the craft closet and glance over the labels for the bin containing the tool I need. It's amazing! Now we just have to keep it this way. Of course there are still improvements to be made (mostly I need to put in a shelf or two so the totes aren't sitting so crooked... you can see it, don't pretend for my sake. But for now it is crafting heaven here in Billy Stewart land.

This and That

I started weeks and weeks ago but the major clean and re-arranging the apartment is almost complete. There really are just a few more drawers that need to be organized, a few more items need to be dropped off to Salvation Army (aka on top of my trash can) and some furniture needs to be waxed. Other than that this place is spotless. Chris had lots of homework and banished me from the apartment. So I took the last 4 baskets of dirty clothes to the Laundromat and spent 3 hours washing, drying and folding which was all supplemented with plenty of Martha Stewart Living's June edition. I'm now sitting around, well frantically pacing around the apartment finishing up mental notes on the next major projects (what chairs need to be re-upholstered? which cabinets need refinishing? Where do we need shelves installed? What plants need to be ordered? And the list goes on and on and on...) The next big step is painting the walls, doors and trim. We've agreed on a sage and chocolate combination which is perfect for the natural, "tranquil forest" theme. My favorite idea for the room is the row of terrariums above the media center. It will have seven 3-gallon glass cookie jars containing various orchids, ferns and mosses. Above that 2 large Boston Ferns in half-dome wall baskets framing glass lanterns from Nepal. Sounds like the perfect tranquil forest, right? I hope so. In the attempt to fill our home with more life and nature, I gathered clippings from all of our current houseplants and began procedures for propagation. I am thrilled to report that all have begun rooting and will be ready for transplant in just a few weeks. Hopefully they will hold me over until I am able to start my bigger projects which most likely won't be until July. But that gives me plenty of time for smaller things like baking, crafts and Dad's gift. And trust me, I need as much time as I can get! Sorting through, organizing and scanning literally thousands of pictures is turning out to be quite the task but good because with the house under control, I need something to occupy my time. I know I owe you a cupcake picture but for now enjoy this one from today's hike.

What a frantic fantastic day!

I never got near the kitchen last night but I did manage to make it to the store. Here's an exclusive Billy Stewart tip; there is no good produce left out at 11:20PM. I don't know what I was thinking and Jewel sells one single vanilla bean for $14.00, CRAZY! I probably could have gotten something done last night but really couldn't make myself and why worry with the whole day to bake and frost and decorate? I should have set an alarm because I woke up at 12:07 this afternoon. After running from store to store to get the rest of my needed ingredients, I started making lemon curd at 3PM. In the future I will have to manage my time better! I ended up getting everything made and assembling them at my parent's house while listening in on everyone's conversations. My piping was sloppy, I didn't grab the right size tips and the butter cream was just a little too stiff and I had no patience. Not the end of the world (they still tasted great) it just wasn't up to my standards. Oh well, I have another dozen naked cupcakes and a second bag of butter cream, without the time crunch and anxiety of performing in front of a crowd, I will pipe a few perfect cupcakes for a photo shoot and get a picture up tomorrow so you can see what these Meyer Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes should look like. The recipe came from Vanilla Bake Shop of Santa Monica, CA c/o The Martha Stewart Show. This is my go to recipe for cupcakes because they are so moist and tender. This was my first time using their lemon curd recipe. It was a much milder flavor than mine which is more tart but still really nice. Anyhow, I had a wonderful night my parents and the Webers. We had a huge dinner (I still can barely move) and boisterous conversations. Anytime with the Webers is always a lot of fun. Now I have to go tackle those dishes... or maybe that's a job better left for the morning.

What is wrong with me today?

My timing is all off. Instead of being productive during the day, I sat on the computer and shopped for a rock tumbler and learned all about the minerals found in Oneida Co. Wisconsin. Now that we are fast approaching midnight, I am realizing that I have just a cup of AP flour, only 3 sticks of butter and no eggs and I have to bake "something" for dessert tomorrow. Why didn't I just do this earlier and surf the net now. Stupid me! I'm gonna head straight for the fruit and see what looks best and just wing the grocery list. This might go terribly wrong. I'll let you know tomorrow if we had desserts or disaster... get it? Like the rap song... no?