 is Sunday morning, March 18th. We have the kids over for breakfast this morning. The, as I said in last week's vlog, we were up until very late last night watching movies with friends and I don't think I got to bed until like, I don't know. I don't know, it was really late, maybe even later than that. So I need some more coffee. They're coming over, we're gonna have pancakes and waffles and bacon and yeah. So it's gonna be a lot of fun and I think the rest of the day is just relax and chill, which is a good thing. All right, I've got some sewing projects lined up for this week, as you can see. And yeah, that's it for the moment. I'm hoping for a quiet Sunday, but we'll see how that works out. All right, I'll be back. Hey guys, how are you? It is Monday, it's like one o'clock. I honestly haven't gotten a lot done today. We had kind of a lot of stuff happen over the weekend including hanging out with friends and going to their house to watch movies and have dinner and we didn't get home Saturday night until like one o'clock in the morning and there was just a lot of stuff going on and I didn't get much sleep and today I'm just dragging. I don't think there's enough coffee today. I'm just, yeah, I even look, I look tired. I'm just, yeah. So I did get my writing commitments done this morning. I did get some cleaning around the house done this morning and I will probably get a little bit of sewing or something done in the art room today, but right now, I'm gonna head out to go run a couple of errands and of course get the mail and that sort of thing. So, hi guys. So it is noon, I think. Anyway, it's Tuesday, March 20th. I only know that because tomorrow we have something going on Wednesday the 21st. That's why I know today's the 20th. Anyway, I spent the morning getting my workout in and chatting with my friends, the Zoomers, doing a couple of little things around the house, nothing big. I'm headed out right now. I've gotta go pick up some art parts. I need to go to Joanne's and I need to get something from there. I need something else too and if they don't have it, then I'll stop at Michael's. I do have a coupon for Michael's and then I need to get some groceries because we don't have anything decent for dinner tonight. So I need to do that. I'm hoping they have some good sort of protein thing I can put in my salad. I need to go back to eating salads. Yeah. So anyway, there's that. And changing up my diet a little bit. So that's it for the moment. I don't know. There's not a lot going on. It's gray and gloomy outside, which is fine. It looks like it's about to rain, which we've gotten a lot of rain lately, which is good. So I'm gonna go out and do my thing. Hopefully the mail will be sorted and I can get that up before I come home and yeah, I'll be back. So we're at the grocery store and I just wanted to get on camera really quick and say how funny it is. So it's 54 degrees outside. It's overcast and drizzly. Everybody's dressed in their snow gear and here I am in my tank top. This ought to be interesting. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna try to do this quick because my husband's too home any second and I'm cooking dinner all at the same time. So I got this free pattern download from Caroline Fairbanks Critchfield. I'll include her website in the description. It's called sokenshi.com and this is the Zola Pen Case, which is super cute and was pretty easy to put together. It looks like this when it's all closed up and it's based on a Japanese style pen case and hang on, open it up, it becomes a tray. It really does open up all the way, which I thought was pretty cool. So I thought I'd try to make one. It's not really a beginner pattern, I don't feel. There's a lot of little fiddly bits to it but that being said, it's not super hard and it's all straight stitches. So yeah, I thought it was pretty cool. It's like maybe intermediate pattern. So I had a hard time getting into snapping because of all the layers of like interfacing and stiffener and yeah, so anyway. Pretty cute. Anyway, I'm gonna go back to cooking my dinner before I burn everything. Yeah, because that's happened before. And anyway, alright, I'll be back. Hey guys, it is Wednesday morning, March 21st. I knew that, see, because we have an appointment later today, that's how I knew, don't get all excited. As you can tell, my hair's wet, hello. I got my daily writing in and social media postings. I got my treadmill time in, of course coffee and breakfast and a shower. I'm gonna head out to Hobby Lobby now because I need to have some more of that cactus fabric. I just need to, I love it so much. And I need a few more bits and pieces for some sewing projects. So yeah, we're gonna go do that. Okay, so I am in this, I don't know, mood to experiment with a bunch of different pencil bag patterns basically that I've been finding on the internet and on YouTube and they just have me intrigued. So I've been making bags. Bags, first a bag for my traveler's notebook by Sheik Sparrow, then I made another, the other pencil bag I already showed you guys last night. I have another one that I wanna make and then I just heard about another one. I'm getting my sunglasses, sorry. I just heard about another one on YouTube this morning that I'm going to, after I get back from Hobby Lobby, I'm gonna sit and watch the video. I don't know, I don't know what the deal is. I told my husband a couple of days ago that I really needed our next house to have an art room big enough for me to have stations. So I need a mixed media station, a painting station, a sewing station, et cetera. And some place where I can have my, not only my brushes and paints and journals out all the time when I wanna work on them without emptying a closet, but also my sewing machines so that I don't have to dig equipment out of the closet anymore and that's getting really old. Right now, I'll insert a picture here somewhere and this is just a partial picture of the part of the room I could photograph this morning on very little coffee. It looks like a sewing bomb went off in my office because of course I had to drag out the box of all the thread notions and then I had to drag out the different bins of cotton fabrics and the interfacing and yeah. So it looks like a sewing bomb went off. I've been doing some more sewing today. Right now, sewing is just consuming my mind. I have no idea why. It hasn't been this bad in a long time. I made this, it's called a retreat bag. It looks like an old fashioned men's shaving kit and it is by Emily in bags, the pattern. It's called the retreat bag. The pattern is free, I believe. I shouldn't say that because I'm not sure. Anyway, I've got a few of these patterns. Some of them were free, some of them weren't. Anyway, I'm pretty sure this pattern was free. Okay, I was right. So the pattern is free but you need some wire frames to make the bag and have it look like this. You could make the bag without them that it would be obviously wouldn't fold down like this. The frames you have to get from Emeline. And that's my computer restarting because I don't know what was wrong. Anyway, I'm looking here. I don't see a picture of the frames, hang on. Okay, so here's some other of the metal frames. They're these big metal handbag frames. So I'll put the link for the pattern and it has a list of what parts that you'll need in the description below. But it's a super cute bag. Again, it's called the retreat bag. There's two sizes in the pattern. This is the small one. There's actually one that's even bigger. And we're gonna see if I can open this one-handed. It's gonna be challenging. You know, I could get the tripod out, but I can't be bothered. So closed, it looks like that. And then when you open it, it opens up nice and big. So, and there's lots of room in there. Plus there's two pockets. So yeah, I can't wait to make the bigger one. Super cute. And not honestly, not super hard. There's a lot of really good YouTube videos out there on how to sew the retreat bag by Emeline bags. If I can find one, I'll link them below. There is one favorite channel I have that has good directions for sewing this bag. That when I did this bag, it wasn't super hard, but I thought the pattern was a lot more fussy than this one. This one was very straightforward. The directions were literally easy. On this one, when I printed the pattern, I had to also print her blog post to figure out what she was talking about. So there's that. All right, and I downloaded, of course, another bag pattern today. I don't know what the deal is with me in bag patterns lately, but anyway, got one more to do. And yeah, that's the state of the corner of my art room. It's still a big, giant mess. Anyway, I'm having fun making bags. All right, that's it for the moment. I'll be back. Good morning, everybody. It is still technically morning. It's 11.42 March, Thursday, March 22nd. I only know that because I'm sitting at my desk. Oh my gosh, there's so much going on right now. Yeah, anyway, there's a lot going on right now. So issues with my online pharmacy and them getting, they refill prescriptions from my doctor, which for some reason this month seems to be an issue. We refinanced the house recently, and there's like a bunch of email and phone calls about that this morning. And there's just one thing after the other this morning. I did manage to get on the treadmill and get a few minutes of peace and quiet time. And then I'm now, I'm drinking my bottled water and then a minute, I'm still in my pajamas. So I'm gonna go take a shower and get dressed and maybe get some sewing, more sewing done, or at least get stuff cut out that I want to sew so I can get the fabric bomb that has happened in my art room off the floor. Cause yeah, can you see over my shoulder? Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. So anyway, there's that. So that's the plan for today. I do need to start filming for April commitments and I have the secret project I can't talk about that involves, have I even said who I'm involved? I don't even know now what I've said, so I can't say too much. Anyway, it's a secret project I have to work on and that date for that happening is April 16th. So if I can film anything and sneak anything in, little clips or whatever, you know, I will, I might not be able to do that. I might not be able to say much, except tell you where I'm going, you know, like the city that I'm going to might be all I can do. So we'll see. It involves me being in front of the camera, which you would think me being on YouTube, I'd be okay with that, actually not so much. So we'll see, we'll find out. That's it for today other than getting the mail, nothing exciting and yeah, so I'll be back. Hey guys. Okay, I'm out of interfacing. I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I'm enjoying my rediscovering sewing. I haven't done this much sewing in forever that didn't involve something mixed media. Yeah, I don't know. But anyway, today I made this cute little, it's called a Wonder Clip Bowl. And when it is zipped up, it actually look, I think it looks like a little fortune cookie or a little taco. I'll insert some pictures here, but the hardest part was getting the zipper pull back on. And if you wanna try, if you know how to sew and you wanna try any of these patterns, I'm gonna try to remember to link the patterns or video in the description below. One of my favorite new channels that I have found is called Thread and Bird Cajun Thread, I think. Yeah, Bird Cajun Thread. Anyway, I'm gonna try to link their videos below. This pattern is hers, she sells it, sorry, right there. She sells it in her Etsy shop. This is another one of her patterns that's a free pattern. So, but I'm out of interfacing. I haven't used this much interfacing in like 20 years. My stash is gone. So anyway, and I also have to get the mail. So I'm gonna go do that. It is Friday, March 23rd. Anyway, it's like 3.18 in the afternoon. I've had time just fly right by me, closets wide open. Let's close that. This is a guest room, by the way. I have been working on more sewing projects. I did a project for my friend Cindy Utter, which I filmed, which is a sewing project, but also has to do with chronic pain and physical health issues. So you all stay tuned for that. I have to edit it and make something that makes sense out of the video footage that could be used as a tutorial. I also have to write up the pattern and there is gonna be a free pattern that goes with it. Yes, it's free. I also made another one of these retreat bags. I made the larger size. And other than the fact that that's okay, I like it anyway. And the small one is inside of it. And then I have the pencil bag that I did yesterday and the other one I did the other day. Anyway, I'm going to sit and do, a lot of the seamstresses here on YouTube do monthly makes where they share their favorite patterns and the things they've made over the month. I don't think I'm gonna do one every month because generally I don't do a lot of sewing. This week has been the exception to that role, but I have one more project to do and then I'm gonna film a March makes for you all and share what I liked and which patterns I thought were easy to follow if you read all the directions, which, yeah. I made one, the first one went flawlessly. I was just distracted on the second one. So anyway, that's it for the moment. I'm gonna go get the mail. It's family dinner night and I am making corned beef and cabbage. So that's it. I'll be back. I just wanna go do something. We need to go grocery shopping, maybe go to Costco. I talked him into taking me back to Hobby Lobby again for some more fabric, for some, because I'm out of a few things already again and I have more projects to do. I do need to stop sewing for a while in a few days and film for April, because I haven't even started that yet for the April art commitment, so. And April's next week. I know, right? So that's gonna be an issue. So I need to take a day off from sewing and film a bunch of stuff, but anyway. That's it right now. It's really rainy and gloomy here in California, but that's okay, because we need the rain. It always is, right? Right. So anyway, we are headed into Morgan Hill and yeah, we'll take you with us. But it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow and the rest of next week, so. That's so weird, because it's so dark and gloomy today, I don't know. All right, we'll be back. For dinner, it's called a beef noodle bowls. And it is like a meal in a box. You have to cook it. It has all the ingredients in there and the recipe, like idiot proof, hopefully idiot proof recipe. So, but he's had two rum and coax. So we're not letting him touch the sharp pointy things. You got some cock sauce. I mean, rooster sauce. Okay, watch your words. We gotta like. Let's get a rooster on. We're a child friendly channel. What's a, what's a, what's a meal chicken? I'm gonna get demonetized. What's this? I don't know. I'm thinking of maybe soy sauce. Hoisin sauce. Soy sauce? Hoisin sauce, this must be the- Hoisin sauce, sriracha sauce. I bet that's a sriracha. No, no, that's a sriracha. This sriracha, this is probably the oil. The sesame oil. Oh, maybe. Okay. What's it? Oh, maybe. Okay. Okay, here. I'm slicing mushrooms. I'm getting out of the way of the camera because that wouldn't be seen. Since when you don't wanna be seen? Okay. Heat half of sesame oil in a large, high-sided pan over medium heat. Okay, we'll use this one here. Medium heat. That's about a five. When oil is shimmering at garlic and ginger and saute, stirring until fragrant for about a minute. We want some, we want fragrance. Yeah, but I gotta smush the garlic up. Does it need to be crushed or diced? What is it saying? That's part of it that's under preparing the ingredients. I know, but I don't remember what you said. I know it's still stuck in the mushrooms. Minced garlic. Minced. Okay. Can you mince? Yeah, I'll allow you to. Don't mince any words with me. Give me a minute. Let me try this. Hopefully it's oil. Hopefully. I forget it's not. It's not. Well, it's the only one that's not labeled, so. Oh yeah, it is. Look at that. I got oil. Okay, good. You turned it on already too. Oh yes, it's on five. I know, but I'm not done with the mushrooms yet. One of them's just gotta heat up. It's not gonna take that long as you think. This is only half of the oil. Okay, the rest right there. The rest will set you up. Yeah, yeah. So you want the garlic and the ginger to saute for about a minute. They need to both be minced? Yes. Garlic, trim into the star skin of ginger and mince. Yep. Perpeche? Yep. I mean the ginger. Is that ginger? Good job, dear. I barely got started. What do you mean, good job? You're mincing. You're doing a good job mincing. Well, you are crazy. You're married to me, of course you're crazy. I should just make this the whole vlog. It's kind of funny. What? The whole like, ginger and ginger. Careful, you don't want to like, cut yourself. I'm not gonna cut myself. I'm not the one who's been drinking. Except for where I'm gonna keep hitting that. My kitchen's not big enough. Kitchen, what do you mean your kitchen's not big enough? I kept whacking my knife on the pot. Stack the leaves and slice or tear them into bite-sized pieces. You can do that while that's mincing, while that's heating up in the pan. We are minced. I'm gonna let you put it in and give it a stir or whatever shit you need to do. Well, I'm not gonna do that until you're ready for that. Get the kale. Okay. Why do they say kale? What kind? Dinos, it's got a dinosaur kale. It's a dinosaur kale, that's what it's called. I'm in Hawaii, Papa. It's like Tyrannosaurus rags, or a fake-saurus rags? I don't know. Dinosaurus, Dinosaurus, Velociraptor, dinosaur, okay. No idea. The case to put the kale, well, something to put the kale in. What is the last one? That works. We got tons of bowls around here. Yeah, but the kitchen's not big enough. No. What's the scallion? Did you do that yet? I didn't do that yet. No. What am I supposed to do with that? It's supposed to rinse and trim in this card, the roots. Yeah. It's normally sliced. So you rinse the kale, stack the leaves and slice a tear into bite-sized pieces. Yeah. Okay. I think the scallion's the last thing. Once you've got the scallions done, you can drop the garlic and ginger and saute them for about a minute, for fragrant. So we add mushrooms to the pan with aromatics. Aromatics, and that's these. Aromatics? What are those? That's the garlic and ginger. Oh yeah, okay. Oh yeah, saute aromatics. Aromatics, kind of, romance. That's not a word. Posse, I'm tossing, man, I'm tossing. I'm gonna get the little thing here. You know. I didn't do anything just for about a minute. The mushrooms in, we do that for about two minutes. Mushrooms next? This thing's gonna be full of dirty dishes. Oh, I know, because you're cooking. Yep. Well, we are cooking. It's not just me. You're cooking. What am I doing? Stirring. That's right. That's not cooking. A couple minutes, then we throw the rest of the shit in. I mean, suck in. You mean the kale? Yeah, kale and scallions. Oh, okay. Season with salt and pepper, and let that cook for another three minutes. And transfer it to a plate and set aside. Well, you could just turn the pot off, setting the flame, or do you need the pot for something else? We're gonna brown the beef. Oh, okay. And we need another. This is a messy meal. Take all the stuff here, take it out of the pan. Cook it, take it out of the pan, cook the meat. Put it back. Cook the meat, yes. And with the rest of the sautéed oil. Got it. You're supposed to pat dry the meat with a paper towel. I'm not gonna do that. I like it bloody and red and I like juicy. I hope there's no vegans out there or vegetarian or something. If you're a vegan, please shut this off, please continue, go to the next video. We don't want to offend anyone. We really don't. Well, I don't. It's your friend and call 1-800-E-A-T-S-H-I-T. Did you just say that? I'm gonna have to say, oh, yay, yay. Don't listen to him, he's had too much alcohol. Okay, go to jail at it, it's been two minutes. What happens when I let you be on the vlog? All right. Oh, the scouting's too. When you brought up the stuff, oh, getting offended. You know what I mean? You're gonna get offended over this? We can put all this in the glass bowl, what do you think? Oh, yeah, instead of dirtying it in the bowl. Yeah, we can do this for about three minutes. So it's seven-eleven, so at seven-fourteen we'll take it out. I'll put some salt and pepper on the end. Pepper's not back there. The noodles. You haven't done that for yet. We're still sauteing veggies. See, that's a picture. We're selling them free. Same. All of it? Oh, he says, I'm sorry. My guess is people are gonna be abused, so. Don't let that give you a license to have free reign, though. Wait a minute, my name is Fred. Yeah. Okay, that looks pretty wilted. Okay. Should we take it out? Okay. Okay, so then we have to add the rest of this. And then we wanna add the beef. Add some salt and pepper, too. We want salt in this meal. I love salt. It's not good for my blood pressure. Yes, I know, Mr. Perfect, who has perfect blood pressure. Sometimes you're selling one 10 on the 70. Right, right. How many do you got, one 15, maybe? Add the beef simmer with a quarter of a spoon of salt, breaking it up, beef is brown. Breaking up here, breaking up is hard to do. I'm just talking about that. Ooh, I'm seeing a bunch of them. So if there's a trick to that, you get this thing out. Well, let those things get as white. I know, so wait, it's loose. It's easier, though. Yes, I know it's a potato masher. But when you're crumbling ground beef, while it's cooking. We're gonna have to add the hoshim sauce, the soy sauce, and the sriracha. So the meat? Yeah. Ooh, I like to do that, I'll do that. That gets all the big chunks off, got that. Hoshim sauce. Hoshim. All of these. Yep, just put them all in. Said, add hoshim, soy, and sriracha. Oh, yeah, and the soy sauce, too. Skip or use half for less heat. For the sriracha? Well, no, just skip or half for less heat, but I like heat. So put the half sriracha. Hoshim. Hoshim. So we'll do half sriracha. It's gonna light hot. I like it, my intestines don't care for it too much. Well, hey, it's in the morning. We always, we have that sauce in the fridge, so. Same rooster sauce. Do we? Yeah, there should be some. This is when we set this aside. So we still have some raw meat in here. Look at a browning beef. I think it can stick. That doesn't look raw. There's this whole piece out of raw. It won't take long to cook. It's all nicely crumbled now. When do we add the veggies back? So then we brown the beef, so we got another. We move from pan and set aside until step six. So we can move it over there, okay. Well, beef browns over a clean dry surface, use a hand to gently separate the long strand noodles, uncover boiling pot of water, season generously with salt, more salt. Add long-life noodles and cook, simmering occasionally to prevent sticking until al dente, about two to three minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water for 30 seconds to stop the cooking, then you plate everything. Yeah, I would just leave that cook. I wouldn't turn it off, let it go. The noodles won't take very long. And as soon as they're ready, we'll put everything back on that bowl, that plate. Want me to set the side of these? Will I keep cooking them? Well, turn it down to low to that juice because that's supposed to flavor everything. Sure. We need some big bowls. But we're gonna take a shortcut. We're not gonna rinse this with cold water. Really? No. We have these two nice Asian square bowls. We use those. We use those. I think that noodle's pretty good. Do you think it's al dente? I think so. Okay. I like it. You want to just put one in each? Or are you just gonna put in this one? I'm gonna just mix it up in here, right? Okay. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? Put it all back in. Well, what is safe to do here? It says... I'm cooking it like spaghetti because you know I'm Italian, so... Add the long-life noodles to the sauteed vegetables to pan. Just put it all together. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm just gonna put it all together. All together now. I'm gonna move the... Put the kale in there. Put everything together. Isn't that for two people? Holy shit. It's too much food for two people. We're gonna have leftovers. Holy shit. Kale looks interesting. Yeah. It's an adventure. What is it called? It's by the company Plated. Not sponsored, by the way, but if you want to sponsor, you can. And this is their beef noodle bowl. Dinner kits are available at Safeway, at least in my area. And yeah, the gentleman who is from Plated that was at the store today helping advertise, described them as like Blue Apron or those other food subscription boxes only without the subscription. You can just get them when you want. So that's it. We are gonna... This was, I think, $17? It was, I think, $17, yeah. Yeah, $17. So we're gonna enjoy our Saturday night dinner beef noodle bowl, and I hope you enjoyed this crazy ending to the vlog. Don't forget to have a great weekend, have a great week, and above all, go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. And we'll both see you next week. Bye. Bye, guys.