Philip and Jenny Cain: InspiredElectrons

Here is my garden, or Little Baia, in phase two of its construction.   Zucchini, cucumber, carrots, lettuce, radishes, and green beans will be planted from seed. Tomatoes, peppers and various herbs will be transplanted in.  I started to plant some seeds today but the wind blew those plans away.

After the plants are in the ground, phase 3 can begin. I can work on the pretty things. I plan to have an arched entrance into this space. I also will move my large wood boxes (used for my previous gardening) into this space. I think a  bench would look nice in there too. And the final touches will be planting various perennial flowers.

Hooray for Little Baia!

When it comes to planting something new, I am not the most patient of gardeners. I rarely use seeds, choosing to buy transplant-readies instead.  However, after planting some sunflower and basil seeds, I am inspired to start from seed more in the future.

There is something magicalicious about tossing seeds into freshly turned dirt. There is therapy in raking the soil to expose its underbelly.  There is beauty in the random fashion seeds fall.  There is hope for their survival. There is excitement for what they will become.

When I plant a seed, I think a little of myself is planted along with it.

In high school, I earned mostly straight A’s. One exception was geometry. I struggled with that damn subject. Yesterday, geometry came back to haunt me. I needed to make a 4 foot square (but turned to look like a diamond) in the exact middle of a huge rectangle space. I tried and tried to get it centered, but each time I failed. Then I remembered there was a formula I knew, once upon a time, to find the diagonal of a square. I remembered that I sucked at geometry, I remembered that the formula had a’s b’s and c’s in it…. a + b = c? No, that’s not it… a + b = c/2? Nope. Finally, I gave in and called Phil who very gently and non-condescendingly figured it out for me using the correct Pythagorean theorem of a² + b² = c² (he also had to tell me that’s what it’s called).  Then he even converted it into inches for me.  If only I had called him sooner. And then I was once again back on the inspiration train instead of the de-inspiration train (that’s an express).

So, as you can see, my little flagstone square turned out beautiful, and, *gasp, right in the middle of the space! I have never done anything of this sort before. I dug out the square, smoothed in the paving sand, arranged the stones, jumped on them real hard to test them out (that was not in the instructions….not that I was using instructions anyway).  I also put a few plants in there to grow in between the cracks. Up at the top corner is mint. Below that is a creeping phlox, and at the bottom is a creeping wire vine. Wee babes as this point, but they will grow quickly.

How is this a garden, you may wonder? It’s the center for my garden. On each side of the flagstone will be a 4×4 raised bed. I am going to make the borders for these out of empty wine bottles. So calling all winos out there….I need your empty bottles. If you’re not a wino, please start drinking wine.

Yesterday I made this necklace from the face of a watch and some random clock hands. While driving home today, I decided it would make a good blog topic. The whole inspiration behind this blog is the different projects I am doing. And the inspiration behind those projects is time. As it is cliché-edly said, “So much to do. So little time.”

I love to make jewelry, and want to make more of it. I found these pieces  at a wholesale location of the gem show.  I could have spent hundreds of dollars at the stand where I found these, but I didn’t. However, I know about it and will plan for it next year.  I realized that I only make a piece of jewelry when I am inspired by a unique piece. Then the problem becomes that I like it so much I don’t want to sell it!

We all have time, no matter what the current quantity. What are you going to do with yours?

Yet another inspiration to bake.  I found this recipe from lifehacker. It was a simple recipe with most ingredients on hand. I did have to make a special trip to get wheatgerm and wheat flour. As I was baking, I thought the mixture looked suspiciously like oatmeal cookie dough and thought, “Well, this is no different.” Even after I pulled them from the oven I thought, “This just looks like a giant square cookie.”  But then I bit into one…heavenliness. They are chewier than cookies and taste like a true granola bar. They also have this delightful buttery taste, even though there is no butter in the recipe.  I put extra cinnamon in them, of course.

This recipe is amazing because you can adjust it anyway you like. Chocolate chips, dried fruit(s), nuts of your choice, flax seed, bran, egg substitutes, honey substitutes…whatever suits your fancy or dietary needs. I decided to be a little healthy and forgo the chocolate chips, despite how tempting it was.

It was not time-consuming at all, and results were fantastic. Phil and I plopped down with one (or two…or three) and a big glass of cold milk. So go ahead, dig in!

Given the praise “The best blueberry muffins you’ve ever had” (by smitten kitchen) they are indeed the best blueberry muffins I’ve ever had. However, I am going to make them better! By the by…no, that is not a stock photo. Yes, those are MY muffinitos. And yes, those are flower pots.

What made these muffins uncommonly tasty was, I believe, the use of plain yogurt, lemon zest, and a substantial amount of butter. My variations to those were the use of unsalted butter, plain greek yogurt (hey, it’s what I had on hand), and a little less lemon zest than called for. There were also some specific directions in how to mix the batter, which through my experience with cookies, does make a difference.

As I munch on these mouth-melting muffins, I am already thinking of adjustments for the next batch. I realize while the lemon zest gives the muffins a unique “zest”, I am not the zestiest lover of zest. It calls for 1 tsp. I used 3/4ths. Next time I will use only a pinch.

My next thought is to use vanilla yogurt instead of plain. Yes, more sugar, but I also really like the taste of vanilla, and I also have a sweet tooth.  I guess a non-sugary option would be to add a generous amount of vanilla extract.  But when writing this, I realized that I do enjoy the thicklyness and creamlyness of greek yogurt, and I wonder if sweetening it with a little honey and/or vanilla extract first would also produce delightful results (because I love the taste of greek yogurt with honey)? Maybe I will split the batter in half and test both.

Last, I absolutely love cinnamon in my muffins. I think every muffin needs cinnamon. So therefore, regardless of the above attempts at adjustment, I will be adding a generous amount of cinnamon to the next batch of batter.

I challenge you to try this recipe – try the original or  try an untested variation of mine or yours!

Since the name of our blog is “InspiredMumblings”, I’m currently  inspired to mumble about my inspirations. And, I think to myself, what a witty theme to flavor my future blogs. Because, yes, I’m going to write more entries.

So, I’ll start with some of my inpirings from the last two months.

Veggies

I have a delightful crop of spinach, although I’m learning you need to plant a lot of it to have a constant supply. I also had one random head of romaine pop up.  Must have been leftover from my attempts last spring.

I also planted a red bell pepper, but have failed to see them reach the large sizes you are used too. While waiting for them to grow more, they end up wilting and dying. I let them just die, hoping they will drop seeds.

I recently bought a yellow pear tomato plant and have lots of greenies on there, so I’m excited for those. I have never tasted a yellow pear tomato (they are grape sized).

I highly recommend a lemon thyme plant. I do not like thyme, but I love this lemon thyme! Delightful to throw into almost any dish you cook! Which leads me to my next inspiration….

Cooking

I have this cookbook, The Naked Chef Takes Off, that I’ve had for years and have never used, mostly because of its daunting recipes and hard-to-find ingredients. However, I finally delved in and found the recipes not too daunting and the ingredients not too hard to find! Such endeavors have included:

Mary’s Saturday Soup: A soup with dumplings that included lamb, sweet potatoes, yams, butternut squash, carrots, coconut milk, okra and chilies! As he (Jamie Oliver) says, “scrummy”.

Pan-toasted almonds with a touch of chili and sea salt: Just what it says. Delightful, except I burned my mouth off with the red chilies. Should’ve seen that coming, since I do not handle spicy well.

Mozerella, prosciutto, and basil pizza: using a pre-made dough from Sunflower Market, fresh mozerella balls, and well, the other ingredients in the title….yum.

And finally… many various pasta recipes using pancetta, proscuitto, and pangritata. All delightful.

One more recipe from just good ol’ Betty Crocker – My brilliant version of chocolate chip muffins. I used 60% cocoa chips in the recipe. Then I took the cinnamon streusel topping from the blueberry muffin recipe and sprinkled that on top. The results? Addictive. I have now made two batches which I have consumed almost entirely by myself.

Bulbs:

For the first time I tried planting bulbs. Guess what are peeking their shoots out of the ground? Irises and daffodils! I currently have four blooming daffodils in a jar on my counter, cheering me up every time I look at them.

No iris blooms yet, but I’m waiting impatiently!!! I planted these bulbs in the fall, but I recently planted the rest of the bulbs into little containers and they are sprouting inch by inch. This was not planned, but will stagger my blooms well into the spring (I hope!).

With so much information available to us, it becomes increasingly important to know how to get the right information. Sometimes that means going to the right places and sometimes that means filtering out the noise.

1. Forward mission-critical emails to your phone’s SMS

If you use Gmail with an iPhone, you probably miss the push feature that gives you instant notification of new mail messages. But even if you have push support with your mail provider / mobile phone, this tip will give you an extra layer of notification. Mission-critical is mission-critical, right?

In Gmail, go to Settings and then Filters. Now, create a new filter based on your criteria. For example, you could filter messages from your boss that are directly addressed to you. If you get a lot of emails from your boss, you could filter it even further with a keyword such as “important” or “due.” Next, choose the Forward option and forward it to the SMS email address of your phone. If you have an iPhone in the US, that number looks like 5551234567@txt.att.net

Every time an email comes in matching that filter, Gmail will forward the message along to your phone. It is usually pretty instant, although Gmail timing can be a little funny sometimes. In addition to the regular email alert, your phone will beep/twirl that you have an incoming text – with a link to a mission-critical email.

2. Subscribe to Google Blogsearch results

None of us wants to subscribe to every blog/news outlet in the world; that would overload our capability to process the information. Instead, we subscribe to the feeds we enjoy. I read Slashdot, Boing Boing and Engadget pretty much daily. But what if you are interested in a particular subject that may span multiple blogs, and want to know what the latest, greatest news about that subject is?

You can use Google Blogsearch (or Technorati, if you prefer) to perform searches across blogs. These results are usually more updated than regular Google web results. For example, I want to know everything that’s being said about Pantano Christian Church (as any good webmaster would). I did a search for that name in Google Blogsearch and then was able to subscribe to the results in my feedreader. Now any time someone mentions Pantano Christian Church in a blog, I’ll know about it.

3. Organize your RSS feeds

There are two primary ways to process RSS feeds in a feedreader – “river of news” method, and “by feed/category” method. A river of news dumps everything into your reader like an email inbox, indiscriminately pushing the latest whatever to the top of the list. I find this method too difficult to handle. Instead, I prefer to organize my feeds into categories and read them feed by feed. For people who need to section or box things in their brain, this is perfect.

Here’s how I have things organized in Google Reader. The blogs I read the most are in a “Favorites” folder. To process and read everything, I start with my Favorites and go through each feed individually. I have all of my feeds categorized somewhere so I can switch to each state of mind when reading. Technology, Lifehacks, Gaming, Software.

Another important key to keeping your feedreader organized is to unsubscribe to feeds if you find yourself constantly skipping content from that feed. Also, when you come back to your feedreader from a long break (or vacation), don’t worry about reading everything you missed. Just mark all as read and start fresh.

4. Twitter: don’t follow the Twitter Spitters!

Twitter can be a powerful communication tool. It can even be fun like a virtual party. But when your friends update too often, it can really muck up the flow of information. When you feel like you have to organize your Twitter reader like a feedreader, you know there’s a problem. Drop ‘em like it’s hot. Seriously.

The nice thing about Twitter is that not following someone is a lot less socially stigmatic than removing someone from your friends list on Facebook or MySpace.

5. Develop your information archive process, and stick to it.

You are going to come across a ton of stuff on the Internet. Sites you need, videos you like, quotes that might inspire something in your next book… what do you do with everything? There a lot of options.

Browser bookmarks: this is the traditional way to save information online. They can get out of hand quickly so remember to keep them organized. I prefer how Firefox 3 and Safari handle bookmark organization.

Del.icio.us: The social bookmark website. You can post any page to your del.icio.us account and have access to the list from anywhere.

Evernote: This is an awesome notetaking, remember everything type of software that works on a lot of platforms: Windows, Mac, any web browser, plus a great native iPhone app. I currently use Evernote to store and sort specific thoughts and ideas. I’ve also been keeping track of every steampunk item I come across on the web. It’s great.

How do you filter out the Noise?

Disneyland is seriously fun. For all ages. Go there, now.

Oh NOES! We look at the Eye!