View from Urbannight’s Apt

Decorative Salad

This is the story of salads.  Or of the salads I think I ought to be eating. Because every time I go to Lauritzen Gardens I think about salads. They always have planters planted full of things that look like salad. Many types of salad greens make decorative plantings and a number of flowers are actually edible.

On any given day I kinda crave a good salad. But I’m terrible at it. I don’t eat it fast enough and salad fixings end up going to waste. A bowl of greens with a tiny bit of dressing isn’t to difficult to do, but a really good salad takes a lot of work. Cutting up cauliflower and broccoli into really fine bits, mincing sandwich ham, onions, chives. My mother makes very fine, very meticulous salads. It it is going to be for more than her an my dad, she puts the different salad ingredients into different bowls so people can put what they want into their salads. I love having my mom’s salads. Only she lives in Idaho and I live in Nebraska.

I have been thinking about salads and wanting them a lot more often lately as I keep thinking about losing weight, getting my blood sugar and blood pressure down, just getting more healthy in general. In fact, I mentioned several times today, to my roommate, that I wanted a salad and wanted to get salad ingredients at the store. I thought it was clear that I liked the idea of a trip to the store. He ended up going through the drive through on the way home.

Now, I can eat fairly okay at this particular fast food place. If I’m careful, I can keep it weight friendly and stay in my bounds for my blood sugar. I have to avoid soda thought. My roommate is also diabetic and his latest doctor visits have seen a great deal of improvement while mine have somehow gotten worse. It doesn’t help that CHI and BCBS didn’t renew their contract and now everyone is trying to find new doctors and the waiting lists are 2 months long to get in to see anyone.

Needless to say, no salad, no salad fixing for tomorrow, and going through my photos makes me want a salad even though I am no longer hungry. I am also wanting to find cooking pumpkins, because cooked pumpkin tastes yummy.

Cooked pumpkin is yummy. It is just another type of squash or gourd after all. But sometimes, some squash can look a little obscene. Or do I just have a dirty mind?

Welcome to the Hot House.

It was a good thing that the new building was open when we went to Lauritzen Gardens. We were thinking that Sundays were free. They used to be. A coworker used to like to go walking on Sundays and would ask my roommate to come with her and he would take photographs. She went because it was a free day as neither she or him had memberships. Either way, this meant we got more value for the price. The main exhibit was very small for the cost of the entrance fee.

We went into the building and felt an initial blast of hot air. But we went down into the front section, which you can’t see much of in the top photo, and it was nice and cool. There were interesting little places all around.

There were orchids everywhere….

There were other plantings as well…

Cyclamens

Pansy

Not to mention water falls and pools…

More orchids….

And a fuzzy looking plant…

And interesting design features…..

And interesting design features…..

We then went into the central unit and hit the heat and humidity. This was the hot house and it was totally covered in orchids among some other tropical flowers and plants. The main entrance view was impressive.

The path went around batches of what I believe are succulents, orchids and various tropical flowers.

There was one area of plantings that didn’t look like much. I’m guessing they are new or look better at a different time.

Overall, it was pretty impressive and worth the trip. According to the info, they are expanding the Koi into this tropical area so some of the odd pond space will probably become Koi ponds.

The third and final area was cooler again but oddly empty, with only a few items scattered about and no real layout or design features at all. It was rather strange really. Perhaps it is simply not finished yet.

Marjorie K Daugherty Conservatory, or the Tropical House and Temperate House as the flyer calls it.

A Garden of Textiles

Scarves, color, and spices were these theme.

Today, the roommate and I went to Lauritzen Gardens down in the old part of Omaha.  The indoor display was described as a fairy garden.  It was actually all about India, scarves, shawls, sashes, everywhere, draped to make tent like structures around benches and other displays.

It is probably the first time I’ve taken more photos of fabric that flowers at a garden.  There are some flower photos, but that is another story.  Well, two other stories. I’ll focus on this display for now.

Halloween colors and a slightly harvest feel.

It should come as no surprise that the black and orange display was one of my favorites. I’m sure everyone has seen grass grown long enough to go to seed and the while motif on the orange fabric very much looks like grass seeds or some other grain seeds.

Another favorite of mine.

You can see, there is a reason this looked more like India than a fairy garden. Fall chrysanthemums were everywhere but I didn’t really get and photo of them. I was too busy looking at fabric. There was even a spice market.

The spice market.

Actually, this display made me want to go to a spice shop and since the roommate wanted to go to Rockbrook to get a back up camera battery I did get to go spice shopping. I was out of ground mustard so I got that and two blends, one for meat and a Cajun one I intend to use on pasta.

Yummy!

Hanging over some of the secluded benches were flowers strung up like this….

Hanging from the ceiling were more sashes….

There was even an ornate elephant…

As you can see, not a fairy was in sight. Nothing felt or looked like a fairy garden. But India was well represented. So were salads but that was one of the other stories.

About Sushi, Raspberries and Cameras.

Yesterday I had the most amazing volcano roll for lunch. It seems like every place that serves sushi has a volcano roll but it is different at each establishment. It was also beautifully made. It really wasn’t as fancy as some. It was basically a California roll that was wrapped in thin layers of crab with a more spicy than usual spicy sauce and then sprinkled with some kink of crunchy flakes. It was also just a little bit salty.

I finished off the sushi with a cup of raspberries. They were on sale. Anytime I see them for 2.99 I buy some.  It is what I think of as the ‘normal’ price.  Sometimes the same sized containers can go all the way up to 5.99.  Far to high.

I would loved to take a photo of the delicious and beautiful food but I cannot.  My camera will not charge.  It works perfectly fine when plugged into the wall. This is why the people to whom I took the camera say that it must be a completely dead battery that will no longer take a charge.  Only new batteries, which were very hard to find, also didn’t charge.   I do not have a separate batter charger.  I’m wondering if I should try getting one and seeing if the batteries will charge when charged by an external charger.  Maybe something is wrong with the camera charger and not the batteries.

The only thing is that I’m not that happy with the camera.  It never was as good as my old camera.  But it was the closet one to what I had before.  That camera still worked but the view screen was damaged.  I had the camera in my pocket when I closed the door of the car.  Apparently it crushed something in the viewer.  I could take photos but I could not see what I was taking a photo of.  So I couldn’t see if I was pointing it correctly to get the image I wanted. The repair to that was going to cost as much as the camera was worth.  The part wasn’t terribly expensive but the labor to replace it cost twice as much as the part.

So my mom bought me a new one that was okay but not great.  And now I can’t find batteries for it and it won’t charge properly.  I didn’t think it was that only, only about 4 years.  But everyone else thought that was old for a camera.  Who goes and gets a new camera every year?  It isn’t like an iPod or a smart phone.

According to my roommate, new cameras are released about every 6 months.  His camera was only in production for 3 months and they stopped selling them about 8 months after the initial release date of that model.  So basely a 5-year-old camera would be like a 10-year-old car.

So now I’m thinking that I really want a new camera.  My oldest niece is getting married in June and I want good photos.  So maybe it is time to get a more expensive camera.

The irony is that my all time best camera was a 60$ film camera I picked up at a drug store before going on a vacation many years ago.  Eventually I had problems with the door to the film compartment.  It was my last film camera. I still miss it to this day.  My mom grumbled all through our Hawaii trip one year because my 60$ took better ocean photos than her 300$ camera.  It was funny.

So, until I get a new camera, I’m going to have photo problems with my blogs.  I might have trouble finding the photos I need from my collection of personal photos.

Cat Blogs

I currently read Cult of Otis, which is very amusing.  It has me thinking about trying to do a blog from the point of view of Puck.  My onry (this can’t be spelled right but the computer thinks it is) cat.  He is named after the Shakespearean character and has the same personality.  But it could be a lot of work, constantly taking pictures every day to try to capture the view-point of both cats.

Obsession

I signed up for a Pinterest page.  I now understand how people say it can get obsessive and one can get lost in it.  Hopefully I will emerge from it soon. 

Things I’ve found on it:

Books, Movies, Food, Art, Decor, Homes, Style, Space, Science Fiction, Star Wars, Comics, Daleks, Tardis, Doctor Who, Nature, Scenery, and pretty much everything under the sun.

 

Projects Update, No Tardis Today

I haven’t been working on my Tardis project because I’ve been doing a couple other things.  Here is a sampling of them.

One of the stitching magazines came out with a great Halloween pattern issue. This one shouldn’t take to long.

I’m changing the colors.

Here is a teaser of what it will look like.

This is a rather huge design. This shows about 4 pages of the pattern stitched. The pattern was made by Heaven and Earth and they specialize in turning paintings and artwork into stitch patterns. This is about 200 hours of work and it just a fraction of the pattern.

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Elegant Pumpkins. After I took the picture, I finished the purple swirls and have started filling in the spaces. They are filled with a silver braid.

Teresa Wentzler’s Futurecast is almost done. Just the last of the black border and then the back stitching, and last of all, the beading. I wanted to get a feel for the dragon so I started the back stitching already. It sure made the clawed back foot pop.

The fabric name is something kind of ordinary like “pretty in purple” or “princess purple”. I can’t really remember. I was thinking about doing two matching Halloween patterns in reverse colors. You will see why I picked that green fiber in a moment.

The green fabric was called “Tortured Toad”. I had to buy it for the name alone. I got some purple fiber to go with it. A friend said that instead of doing anything like a couple of pumpkins or cat shapes, I should do two more Tardi in the reverse colors and have a matched set of ‘Halloween’ Tardi.

After taking a ton of photo’s, I’ve decided my cubicle is not a good location for taking pictures of stitchery. I had a TERRIBLE time of getting good photos without glare or blurring. My chair isn’t flat but it had the nice black background. But spots that didn’t lay flat tended to blur. I’m going to have to lay things on the table with a black cloth if I want to get good stitched photos. And in a place with enough light to turn my flash off. Some of the fibers and fabrics get a little shiny and reflect the flash.

Inspiring Blog Award

Wonder

Hey, I got nominated this!  WOW.  I never thought of myself as inspiring.  The thanks for this nomination go to storiesbywilliams who has an amazing wealth of knowledge about science and science fiction that just puts me in awe.  The amount of research it must take, with the amount of writing and blogging he does, I don’t know how he finds the time to do things like work, eat, sleep, and generally live.  He always reminds me of things I’ve forgotten and challenges me with things I didn’t know.

Now is the part where I talk about myself.  Ouch.

1. Canon.  To the annoyance of some of my friends, I sometimes get a little too caught  up in the idea of ‘canon’ and get annoyed an non-cannon stuff in films based on books, comics, or older films.  I’m not good at pretending it is an alternate universe. I have no problem with suspension of disbelief until the universe contradicts itself.  Then it all comes crashing down on me.

2. Tea.  I drink a lot of it.  I am, at this moment, sipping on Pumpkin Spice Warm up the Day Tea from The Republic of Tea.

3. Cosplay.  My unit at work wanted to go a group costume idea for the Halloween contest.  But I didn’t care for the idea.  It wasn’t elaborate enough.  Over the past years, I’ve set an expectation of fairly elaborate costumes.  The Fairy Goth Mother, A Kabuki Ghost, Marie Laveau – Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.  I didn’t want to go dressed up as a computer, a headset, a mouse, a new loss form.  So I am doing my own thing.  Either a representation of The Raven or a Death Maiden.

4. Cooking.  I love to cook.  Lately, I haven’t been doing too much of it.  The budget has been tight, so elaborate dishes have gone by the way side for a while.  I really want to post some more cooking blogs, but I’m just not here with it right now.  Maybe after I meet a few other goals I’ll get back into it properly.

5. Temper.  I have one.  It doesn’t come out to play much.  But one morning, a person I actually value ticked me the hell off and I sorta unleashed.  He didn’t like it and deleted and blocked me on Facebook.  I’m a little sad but I admitted I over reacted.  I could admit that but he is the one who decided to take his ball home and not play with me anymore, to use a childhood metaphor.  It will probably take another 10 years to reconnect again.

6. Cats. I have two.  They are almost as anti-social as I am.  But the one likes to lay across my boobs when I’m working on the computer.  This requires me to use both arms to hold him so I can’t get anything done.  He had gotten me killed many times in online games.  Maybe I ought not to have named him Puck?

7. Tarot Cards.  I have a Tarot Card addition.  I love to accumulate them.  There are so many lovely sets out there.  So I stay away from places that sell them when I have no money.  I think I have about 8 sets right  now.  I just love seeing all the different interpretations of the cards that people draw.

Here is the part where I nominate a bunch of other people who inspire me.

1. Fogs’ Movie Reviews. This reviewer is one of my favorite all time movie reviewers.  We have a blend of similar and dissimilar tastes in films.  He reaffirms some of my thoughts on movies while also, occasionally, getting me to give something a try that I had planned on skipping.  Even when we disagree on a film, I can appreciate where he is coming from on his assessment of it.  My movie reviews are nowhere near as detailed and in-depth as his and me makes me realize how I could do so much better an makes me want to improve my style of reviewing.

2. Gin & Lemonade. This lady writes some of my favorite posts about everyday life.  She reminds me that nothing is to big or to small.  It all deserved to be valued and appreciated.  But perhaps the small things need it most of all.  Because the big things are all made of small things and we tend to ignore or brush aside the small things most often.

3. Kloipy Speaks.  This gentleman fluctuates between movies and life, much like I do.  His focus is a bit narrower and he comes across titles that I haven’t seen and really should.  Although I think our taste in horror is a little more divergent than, say my taste in movies when compared to Fogs.

4.  Madame Guillotine‘s amazing quality of research reminded me how much I used to like researching things.  (right after college, I continued to research stuff just for the fun of it.)  The really weird thing is that I want to write fiction and I keep getting really great ideas for non-fiction projects anymore.  She also posts about things she buys or her husband has given her that I drool over; weird and wonderful gothy sorts of things that the average person just doesn’t get or understand.

5. Meanwhile, back at the farm. . . .  This blogger is probably on with whom I have the least in common.  Her photography is wonderful.  Her blogs remind me of home despite the fact she is from the Dakota plains and I am from the mountains of North Idaho.  Her blogs often make me think of my father, who grew up on a farm in South Dakota.  She makes me miss my old camera that broke when it got caught in a door and hate my new camera which was the closest in comparison to my old one but simply fails at taking as good of shots at that one did.  Still, thanks to her, I’ve started carrying it with me at all times, like I used to do.

6. Rantings of an Amateur Chef is my favorite food blogger.  Not only does he post the most amazing things, his food has even gotten me to try food items I normally hate.  Oddly enough, I still hate them, but I keep on trying them.  He is better than a lot of the cooking shows out there.  I’ll take his blog, any day, over the food network.  Well, over anything except Without Reservation.  But that isn’t a cooking show so much and an interesting food and travel program.

7. Sweet Mother has to be the funniest blogger I’ve come across.  She cracks me up.  I appreciate this a lot because I just do not think I can do funny.  And we all really need a good laugh at least once a day.  More is preferable.  And she is guaranteed to produce at least one good laugh, if not more, out of nearly every posting she does.

 

Most Viewed Post

Image of a Crow Indian has officially become my most viewed item.  I’m not counting homepage/archives.  That is over 2000.  But it doesn’t tell me which archived items are getting viewed.

Over the past two months, I’ve seen Indian and Crow Indian pop up more and more in my search terms.  Over this last month, those two terms are now a daily occurence. 

I’m wondering how much of it has to do the Lone Ranger movie coming out, with Johnny Depp, or with Indians in general or an interest in Crow Indians in specific.  I’m inclined towards the latter two because I’m not seeing Johnny Depp or the Lone Ranger popping up in my search terms.

I’m doing more research on the Crow for another article and if I had some idea what is motivating people to look them up, I would have a better idea of the direction to take. 

I’ve also had a significant upswing in viewers from some very interesting countries, a lot of them being former Eastern Bloc nations or once were part of said nations as some broke apart and became different countries.  I wish I had a way to determine what they were most interested in.  That way I would have some more ideas of things to write about.

I’m a rather strange girl who likes research and am happy to have new topics to dig into.  This blog is somewhat random already so I don’t mind adding some things I normally don’t talk about.

As I’ve said before, the stats page really makes me want more information.