Comforts of Home

What comes to mind when you think of the comforts of home? 

For some, it may be memories from childhood that they think of first.  For others, it may be what they most look forward to when they walk in their front door after a long day of work. 

For me, the comforts of home are a meal made from scratch (and the scent that floods from the kitchen), old music playing, fuzzy socks, a fireplace roaring, and sometimes a glass of wine or a mug of something warm to drink.  A candle burning.  Family photos on the wall.  A game of monopoly.  Opening a jar of home canned cherries from summer.  That big blanket I’ve had for decades. 

But even more, the comforts of home are not things.  They're the people we share that home with.  Laughing, dancing, playing, talking.  What defines “home” for you may be less about the four walls that surround you or the stuff you fill them with.  It doesn’t have to be about the money in your bank account or the newest and best of everything.  These comforts are not complicated, but rather, they tend to be the simplest things.

When I think of the home I want, I picture the atmosphere I hope to have.  One of functionality, yes, but more so of contentment.  A home that is inviting and cozy.  One that is always a pleasure to visit…not because of what is in it, but who is in it and how it makes you feel.  A home filled with laughter, love, and simple comforts that cannot be purchased from a store.  Comforts that take time to build and nourish, but that build you up and nourish you in return, right down in your soul.

On that note, I am announcing that we are moving!  We have been blessed in so many ways to be able to buy a home of our own.  It will be a bit of a downsize from our current 1200 square foot rental that we have loved so much over the past two and a half years, and we are so excited for that challenge.  So many memories built in this lovely space, and so many more to build in the next lovely space.  I am very grateful for these upcoming changes, and even more grateful for who I get to share them with.  

I will be sharing more details in the near future, but as for now, I will be taking a couple weeks off to focus on moving and unpacking our new house.  Thank you for reading.

            

Stale Bread

Do you ever wonder what to do with stale bread?  Or bread that comes out of the freezer and sounds like a brick when it hits the counter, even after it thaws?  If you are like me and prefer to make your own bread, you know that it is really only great that first night and maybe the second day.  But who eats a whole loaf in twelve hours?  Ok, maybe we have done that once or twice, but certainly not every time.  Here are my suggestions for bread that is less-than-fresh:

Egg in a basket.  This is my favorite (and my daughter’s favorite) thing to make with day old homemade bread.  Cut thick slices, butter each side (Earth Balance for dairy-free peeps), and use a round (or other fun-shaped) cookie cutter to cut out the center of the bread.  Place the bread, both pieces, into a frying pan on medium heat.  Crack an egg into the cut-out part (the one with the crust) and cook the egg, flipping once, to your preferred texture.  By the time the egg is cooked, your surrounding bread and the cutout piece should be a nice golden brown.  

The second thing to do with stale bread is to tear it all up into crouton-sized pieces and fry it in a pan over medium heat in a generous amount of olive oil and salt until golden brown.  Best.  Croutons.  Ever.  And so simple!  Top salads, soups, or just eat as a snack- these babies will last a week in an airtight container, unless you eat them all first. I particularly like making them in a scallion infused olive oil, but plain or other infusions would be great too. 

If you don't want to make croutons before your bread seems unusable, toss it into a blender or food processor and make homemade breadcrumbs.  Store these in the freezer until needed in your recipe.  

And if the bread has no hope in transforming to something edible in your kitchen, you can always take a trip to a park and feed the birds.  Just make sure it isn’t moldy.  

I hope these ideas are helpful the next time you think your bread has seen its day.  Thanks for reading!

Overhaul

Whew- Friday blew by me this week and it wasn’t until this morning that I realized I forgot to post a blog entry.  However, it may have actually been good timing since I spent this evening working on something a little unconventional for the capsule wardrobe world: a mid-season overhaul.  I decided that the Spring capsule that I have been wearing since March 20th was much too scattered.  In trying to plan for the unpredictable weather we have throughout the season, I ended up with a few of each type of clothing (pants, tees, sweaters, etc) and no real depth or personal style in my outfits.  Having too few of each item made for wearing the same few outfits over and over again in a week if the weather stayed at a constant temperature. For example, I had one pair of jeans and a few tees.  If it was cool weather, I would end up wearing the same jeans and tees over and over again, while the other thirty pieces in my closet sat untouched. 

One of my favorite capsule wardrobe bloggers suggests that when you get in a bit of a wardrobe rut, sometimes it is better to take things away rather than to add things.  So that’s what I did- I switched out some of the tops and skirts for dresses, and removed items that I had not touched in the past 6 weeks.  I ended up going from 40 items down to 32 items- a 20% decrease that I am happy about.   

You may be wondering why I chose to swap out some items for dresses, and my reasoning is that I believe dresses to be very versatile.  A little bit of layering, like leggings and a sweater or jacket, and they are a great cool-weather option.  But by themselves, they are also a complete outfit.  A complete outfit, and it only occupies one of my 32 spaces?  Awesome.  When I think about my long term goals for my capsule wardrobes, I really see a handful of nice quality dresses, a few layering pieces like cardigans, leggings, and a jacket, and a pair of jeans with a few tops, all of which I hope will total under 16-18 pieces per season.  I feel like this little revamp will allow me to experiment to see if that is a feasible goal for my current lifestyle.  I really love how Jennifer over at the Daily Connoisseur Blog structured her 10-item Spring wardrobe; eight out of her ten core pieces were dresses.  I would LOVE to have a ten item wardrobe…I hope to get there someday.  

Have any of you started your capsule for a season and had to give it a makeover before the season was over?  I’d would love to hear what you did.  I hope you all have a great week, and thank you for reading!    

Spring Capsule Check-In

I want to check in with you about your Spring Capsules and see how you are all faring.  I know several of you have begun to take on the capsule wardrobe challenge, and I have heard fantastic feedback about how it’s been going so far.  I can’t tell you how ecstatic I am that so many people are getting excited about this more minimal and, over time, more frugal way of dressing.  I have had the great privilege of helping several of you with the beginning stages of clearing out clothes and planning for shopping trips, and it is so encouraging to see the piles of cheap clothes move out to make way for fewer, but better quality, staple pieces that you have carefully chosen to represent your personal style.  I love seeing clothing in our closets that are all color coordinated and lined up neatly rather than all crowded together and shoved willy-nilly onto bowing, creaking rods.  And I hope you have been enjoying the freedom from shopping and the ease of dressing yourself that comes with creating your capsule wardrobe. 

On the home front, the weather has been starting to warm up a bit, and most of my warm, cozy winter sweaters and my down jacket are tucked away in a storage bin, and my lighter layering pieces are taking the spotlight in my airy closet.  I have decided that I needed more color this season, not only because everything is in bloom around me, but also because I have gone so neutral in my Fall and Winter color palettes.  So in addition to the grey, white, and ivory hues that usually occupy my hangers, I have added jade, olive, navy, and more blush pieces to my color palette for Spring.  I hope to carry these same colors over to Summer too.  I am so excited to have a full year of capsules under my belt after Summer so I can focus on maintaining what I have now.  I am sure there will be items each season in upcoming years that I will want to purchase as new core pieces, and I am sure my style will change too.  But I have a much better grasp of my likes and dislikes, what fits and what’s not for me, and what my personal style really is.  And instead of work, I am hoping that maintaing my existing capsules will become fun.  I also hope to challenge myself in cutting down my number of forty pieces (including shoes) for each season; I would love to eventually see the twenties or even (gasp!) the teens.  

Here’s what I learned after putting my Spring capsule together:

-Because the weather is so unpredictable in Springtime, it was harder to incorporate enough of each type of piece so that I can layer and remove pieces as needed each day.  And this goes for shoes too- I needed to keep a range from warm rain boots to summer sandals.  I found that I used all 40 of my slots this Spring.  I hope to learn a lot after the season is over so I can adjust what I did and didn’t need for next year.       

-Choosing timeless colors that are also flattering is very hard.  When I commit to a piece now, I am committing to wearing it for years to come, so I know if I choose a color that I will think is crazy or boring in future years, it will mean more work.  Jewel tones seem to be pretty safe for every skin tone and they also seem to be somewhat timeless in the fashion industry.  We will see how it works- only time will tell.

-I have a desire to be more bold this season, but I have found that accessories can sometimes be all I need to accomplish this.  A belt, hat, or bag can be just the ticket to get the overall look I want.  I hope, as I get into future capsules that I can find a statement piece or two for each season that is a little edgier (I love Marissa Webb’s line, for example).  

Here’s my 40-item breakdown:

4 pairs of pants

2 skirts

3 dresses

2 layering tanks

2 tanks

7 tees

3 short-sleeve sweaters

4 long-sleeve shirts

3 long-sleeve cardigans

1 chambray

2 jackets

3 pairs of booties

1 pair of knee-high boots

1 pair of flats

2 pairs of sandals

I decided to purchase another handbag, which is not included in the capsule number since it is an accessory.  I had only one (my brown tote) but I decided to get a black satchel that zips closed; it will be better for travel too to have something that closes securely.  I also added a leopard print clutch- I have always loved how they finish a look and I found a great sale on a good quality one.  

What I am currently ISO (in search of): a floppy hat.

Thank you for reading, and please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions or comments!   

Excitement!

Exciting things are happening!  Like the arrival of a sweet little "honorary" nephew within hours from now, a potential move (and downsize!) for our family, clearing out of even more of our belongings, and planning...lots of planning.  And all while spring has finally appeared to have sprung here in our beautiful city.  More to come on these things in the near future, but for now, we relish in the beautiful changes that are happening all around us.  And we are thankful.    

Game Changer

I love coffee.  And I used to be one of those people who bought a coffee every day, maybe twice a day.  I was that person who charities would be talking to in their commercials when they said “for less than the cost of one coffee a day…”  Yep- I was a guilty coffee consumer, all day, every day.  I didn’t like that I had this habit, both because of cost and also because (being dairy-free) that meant I was consuming soy every day.  But we had owned almost every kind of home coffee maker- regular drip, keurig, french press, espresso machine, and a chemex, and I still couldn’t seem to make the perfect cup at home.  The espresso machine was the closest, and by the time I got the machine cleaned after using it, my coffee was cold anyway.  

But then our friends introduced us to the little contraption that saved our bank roll: the aeropress.

Photo: Firebox.com

The aeropress is not only the easiest coffee maker to use and clean up, it is also plug free.  All you need is your favorite ground coffee and boiling water.  It is small too, so it takes up very little room in the cupboard (less than your bag of ground coffee).  It is very portable, so it is perfect for taking on trips, especially camping.  It’s paper filters are reusable- the inventor of the aeropress has reused his paper filters up to 20 times, and a deployed navy seal used his up to 30!  Or, like I did, you can buy a reusable metal filter for about $7 on amazon.  The aeropress costs only $29.95, so it is one of the most affordable forms of making coffee.  And, what was probably the biggest benefit to us, it is now my only coffee maker; we freed up so much space in our cupboards when we purchased the aeropress, aiding in the minimizing of our possessions.  

On top of all of these awesome benefits, the aeropress is self-cleaning and best of all, it makes my perfect cup of coffee.  I use Peet’s house blend coffee- it’s not organic, but the company uses fair practices and I just can’t top the flavor.  Since I prefer to drink lattes, I use heated organic almond milk with a touch of organic honey, and then I froth the milk just a tad with the $2 ikea milk frother.  Pour the almond milk over two shots of coffee, and hello perfection in a cup.  The coffee that comes from the aeropress is just so smooth, and I don’t even need to leave my kitchen.  You can make espresso for lattes, but you can also make regular black coffee.  The invention of the aeropress is pretty awesome too.  I will share the link below so you can read about it for yourself.  I hope it is a game changer for you as it has been for me.  

https://medium.com/backchannel/first-alan-adler-invented-the-aerobie-now-he-s-created-the-perfect-cup-of-coffee-c5e94ccc538e

Thank you for reading!

My Favorite Breakfast Smoothie

I have been really enjoying my morning smoothie (that is, what I actually get of it after my daughter drinks most of it).  I thought I would share the recipe with you, although these measurements are just an estimate.  Also, I love how well the Vitamix blends this into such a smooth treat.  

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

1 tbsp organic chia seeds

1/4 scoop Garden of Life Raw Organic Green Super Food powder

1/4 scoop Garden of Life Organic Raw Meal (vanilla flavor)

3 tbsp organic peanut butter (make sure there are no hydrogenated oils)

2 tbsp Organic Cacao Nibs 

1 large frozen organic banana

Enough original unsweetened organic coconut milk to cover the ingredients

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend on high until smooth.  Add more coconut milk if needed to reach desired consistency.  Enjoy immediately.  

You could change up these ingredients.  Try almond or sunflower butter instead of peanut butter.  Or use another non-dairy milk, like almond, hemp, or rice. You could even use flax seeds instead of chia.  I just love chocolate peanut butter cups, so I prefer this particular recipe.  It tastes like dessert for breakfast, but it is so healthy.  Of course, you don’t NEED to use organic ingredients, but I prefer it for our family.  Here is a picture of the powders and cacao nibs that I use, just for reference.  

I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.