I don’t know why, but this feels like one of the busiest years of my life. Time is flying by at a dizzying pace. It seems like it was just Christmas not too long ago and yet here we are already in hot-as-hell summer and just a few short months away from having lived in our new rental house for a full year. Time flies when you’re having fun, or when you’re really busy, I guess.

And so, because of said busy-ness, I’ve let so many goings-on go untold. Here’s what’s been up with me lately…

1. Donut peaches are in season! My favorite fruit is a tie between a perfectly ripe strawberry and these squat little donut peaches. I’ve had one of these babies every day for 2 weeks now with no end in sight.

2. Apparently I like olives and mangoes now. I have hated both of these foods my entire life and suddenly I can’t get enough of them. What’s next, cherries? Blech!

3. My car got crunched. It was parked in the street for a day and one of our neighbors backed into it on her way out to work one morning. They were super cool about it and left a note, so we were able to deal with all the insurance stuff right away and get it repaired quickly. Good as new now.

4. Jeff and I have been working on a mobile game app together. He’s gotten into game development over the last year and tinkered with a few game ideas, we’ve finally found one that’s stuck. He’ll be doing all the technical stuff (which is WAY over my head) and I’m working on concept art and story ideas. Maybe in a year or so you guys will be able to download a game we made!

5. The cats are broken. Lucas has been sneezing out giant gobs of snot for over a month now. He’s on his second round of antibiotics and seems to be doing a bit better. Liam lost an adult tooth last week for seemingly no reason. They’ve both needed shots and yearly checkups. These little f%&$ers have been expensive this month.

6. I sliced the crap out of my thumb. I was trying to slice a stale loaf of bread in half lengthwise to use in a book recipe photo and ended up mangling my thumb knuckle. I promptly fainted…twice. Luckily Jeff was home that day to help me or I could’ve conked my head on the floor and bled out. Ok…I probably wouldn’t have bled out, but it was still really scary. And now I have a creepy-looking gash on my thumb that is not going to heal prettily. I’ll spare you the photo.

7. I was supposed to photograph my very last book recipe today, but the recipe was a dud. I made wasabi pea crackers and learned after several batches that wasabi flavor just disappears when exposed to high heat. I think I have something even better planned to replace it though. Here’s another one that sounded good on paper but just didn’t turn out well: Asian pear poached in black tea with honey mascarpone, walnuts, and candied ginger. Asian pears just don’t poach well, it leeches out all their flavor leaving a mealy husk.

8. Jeff has the flu. He’s been miserable for 5 days now and I’ve been doing my very best to take care of him. So far, I haven’t gotten it from him (:::fingers crossed:::) We were just talking yesterday about how completely differently we like to be cared for when we’re ill. He needs to be doted on, touched, and made to feel loved. I need to be alone. All I want when I’m ill is a huge blanket, no responsibilities, no touching, and an alternating schedule of a 2 hour movie followed by a 2 hour nap continuously until I’m well again.

9. After a 2 month hiatus, I’m restarting the LiveFit program somewhere in the middle. I got really busy for a while with book stuff and wedding cake stuff and gym time got cut in favor of focusing on those things. It feels really good to get back to working out regularly. I love strength training!

10. I finally get to make an all-buttercream wedding cake! I mentioned that I’m doing another wedding cake in September. Well, we just finished ironing out the details for it and I’m really excited to make this cake now, especially because I’ve really wanted to try doing a fondant-less cake for once. I can’t say any more about it though because it’s a surprise for the bride (the groom picked out all the details) and I don’t want her to read about it here before she gets to see it on the big day.

Whew!

That’s what I’ve been up to, what about you?

July 23, 2012 Alayna Discussion 16 comments

I am a total slave to the light right now. Everything I do these days is planned around the weather forecast. Sunny days are spent at home shooting book photos, and if it’s dreary or rainy out I go run errands. It’s not fun to spend the pretty days indoors doing work and the gloomy ones out slogging around in the elements.

One perk of writing a cookbook though…you get to eat your props!

I shot some biscuits with miso shiitake gravy yesterday morning and had them for lunch as soon as I was sure I got the shot I needed, along with some green tea that was also in the photo. This isn’t the shot I’ve chosen for the book, but you can see how delicious all this hard work can be!

Yeah, it can’t all be bad when there’s biscuits and gravy afterwards. 😉

It is hard to get any work done when there are nosy cats around though. Liam loves to sniff at my recipes, like this green tea and pistachio frozen yogurt before I put it in the freezer to set up.

He likes to swarm me while I’m setting up shots too, knocking things over with his tail and just generally being in the way.

Almost all of the book shots are being taken at this little table next to a window, with my light box being used as a light bounce and various props used to change the look of the table surface and with different colored backdrops taped up behind it all. I am so proud of the photos I’ve been taking and I can’t wait for you all to see them. You’d never know they were taken on a tiny Ikea table propped up with some old mail on an uneven floor.

Today is a gloomy-ish day so I’m out of the house shopping for ingredients for more book photos to take as soon as the sun comes out. It seems like a never ending cycle, I seriously won’t know what to do with myself when this book is done. In fact, I’m already planning another one!

It will be nice when I can spend a sunny day outdoors again though, so that’s what I’m working towards. Gotta get it done in time for spring!

February 21, 2012 Alayna Discussion 16 comments

How was your Halloween?

Ours turned out to be just the evening I was hoping for – a night of drinking beer and watching Jeff play video games while we each took turns answering the door.

We had heard from a neighbor that they had over 300 kids show up last year, so I dashed to the grocery yesterday afternoon to pick up some more candy. I think we ended up having about 75 to 100 kids, and only went through half the candy I bought. It was really hard to not just eat fun size Twix for lunch today. 😉

It was really nice to feel like part of a community. Jeff and I were talking about how much we feel at home here. Even though we’re renting, it really feels like this is “our house.”

And it’s coming along nicely. We’ve made huge progress in getting things put away where they belong and setting it all up to feel comfortable. We finished clearing out the second bedroom which is being used for an exercise room and place to do our art and electronics projects. It was so filled with stuff that you couldn’t walk around in it.

I got my office set up how I like it…

All the knick-knacks are on the bookshelves, so until we get a full size dining table, the dining room is mostly done.

And the basement, which was pretty dirty when we moved in, is getting much more usable as we clean it out. I’ve got a laundry area set up and we’ve moved a bunch of long-term storage downstairs as well.

And we’re getting a few projects done around the house to make it more comfortable. Jeff hung the curtains in our bedroom and I spent some time crafting a drawer organizer to make the silverware fit better in the narrow drawer.

And the cats are loving it too. Liam has apparently just rediscovered sunbeams (our last place was in a basement so it was kind of dim.) I can be sure to find him in a different patch of light each day.

Lucas gets too hot in all the direct sunlight and has to occasionally take a break by stretching himself out languidly to diffuse the heat.

Handsome devil.

Today I roasted the other batch of pumpkin seeds I had from carving the jack-o-lantern. I tried to do a Japanese flavor using toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin, nori kome furikake, and togarashi spice.

They’re alright, not good enough to share the recipe though. I think the toasted sesame oil is just overpowering the other flavors.

This year is just flying by, I can’t believe that Halloween has already gone by and we’re headed straight into the winter holidays. It’ll be 2012 before I can blink.

November 1, 2011 Alayna Discussion 8 comments