Tips – Page 8 – Life In Limbo

Best Travel Carry On Backpack

May 11, 2013

Turns out, my innocent-looking May goals are considerably more difficult to put into practice than I thought. I’m getting ready to leave my apartment of 2 years and also plan a 3-month-long adventure in Europe and it feels like I have a really bad case of crazy brain and yet not much is getting accomplished. “Spinning my wheels” is a phrase that keeps coming to mind. There has been small progress – never did I think I’d be so elated to sell a piece of furniture on Craigslist – on both fronts, but it is still slow-going. There are about a billion unanswered questions that I’m going to need to find answers to in the next 50 days before I leave, but I’ve figured at least one thing out: my bag.

I decided very early on that I wanted to do this trip with only one bag, carry-on sized. I had so many reasons for doing so, but here are a sampling: I never wanted to need help with my bag, I never wanted to pay baggage fees, I never wanted to risk losing my stuff, I didn’t want to have to wait for my bags. If you want more information about carry-on travel, check out Rick Steves’ guide to packing light or One Bag.

So, once that was settled, I just needed to find the right bag. I fell in love almost instantly with Tom Bihn’s Aeronaut, but unfortunately it was just a little too steep for my budget (that didn’t stop me from lusting after it for weeks, however..). Once I wrapped my head around the fact that the bag would cost me as much as an iPad mini, I focused on researching other bags. I wanted a bag without wheels (so I could more easily navigate with my hands free), and that was a “convertible” – in other words, had backpack straps that could be tucked away so it can also be carried like a suitcase. At the risk of exposing just how much of a planner/researcher I really am, I’m showing you my spreadsheet of convertible carry-on sized bags. Maybe it’ll save one of you some researching.

You can access the spreadsheet directly (with clickable links) here. You should know that this list is by no means complete, there are quite a few other contenders that didn’t make it on. Check out some other great bag recommendations at One Bag One World. (I got lost on that site for a couple of days, by the way!)

After a lot of consideration, I decided to go with the LL Bean Quickload Travel Pack. It was the right decision for me: it is an incredibly light bag, it is unassuming and comes in black, it hinges open like a suitcase so I can get at all my stuff without taking everything out and rummaging around, and it has a pretty big capacity.

As you can see, I’m pretty excited about it. As soon as it was delivered (which only took 2 days, which was wonderful), I promptly packed it the way I am planning to for my trip, and started testing the weight by walking around wearing it and holding it above my head. So far, so good. I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot of that kind of stuff right up until the day I leave.

Now that I have my bag, and my plane tickets to Europe, things are starting to feel very real, and scary and exciting at the same time. I can’t quite imagine what it’s going to be like or how I’m going to feel, but I’m ready to find out. The hardest part about packing my bag so far has been that once I packed it, I was totally ready to go to the airport and leave all my other belongings behind. Realizing that I still had to deal with all the other stuff in my apartment was a bit of a bummer.

Other equipment shown in the above photo: the personal toiletries organizer from LL Bean, which I’ve had for years but is similar to this model, Toms shoe bags that come with your purchase of Toms, and a cube from Eagle Creek’s Pack-It system (I have the regular and half-size cubes).

Blue Velvet Cake

November 14, 2012

Strictly speaking, decorating this cake was a major disaster.

Protips: don’t roast vegetables in the same room while you’re trying to whip cream cheese frosting. Don’t decorate a cake in that room either. Don’t be too prideful to cut off the tops of your cakes to make them even – people do that for a reason. Namely, so that their cake doesn’t come out totally lopsided.

Not my best effort. I set this cake goal hoping I’d learn something about baking and decorating cakes, and I think after lots of near-disasters, I have learned a few things. Basically, I have learned how to problem-solve in the face of panic.

This cake is “blue velvet” because the white frosting was just not working out. I was running back and forth between my living room and the fridge to make this cake chill out, and the frosting was pulling up crumbs like it was its day job. So the white icing was looking decidedly sloppy, to say the least. I just decided – heck, let’s dye it! I was out of red food colouring, so I tinted it blue and just dealt with it. I originally piped icing roses onto the top of the cake, and then spent a good ten minutes laughing out loud at how ridiculous it looked. Wanna see?

In retrospect…NEVERMIND I STILL HATE IT. At this point, I was laughing and saying “YOLO” to myself. Life’s short, it’s cake, whatever. Besides, the recipient of this cake is a wonderful person and I know he wouldn’t have minded if it stayed looking exactly as it did in the above photo.

In the end, I just spread that blue icing all around, tried for an ombre effect, and ultimately just tried to make sure the frosting was smooth and not showing crumbs and then called it a day.

This is a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The cake is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, because it’s my go-to book for amazing, moist cake that always come out of the pan easily. The recipe for their Crimson Velveteen cupcakes is here – I doubled the recipe to make 2 8-inch cakes. I made the cream cheese icing recipe in Joy the Baker’s cookbook, but I was sad that it didn’t come out. I followed her instructions as closely as possible, leaving the butter and cream cheese out until they were approximately the right temperatures, then doing each of the steps carefully. But my frosting came out runny, not at all like the photo of thick, spreadable frosting in her book. And even after adding more than the recommended amount of icing sugar, it stayed melty and drippy. I was very disappointed, and am still stumped as to why it didn’t work! Her recipes are usually right on. A similar recipe to what I used is here.

Wanna know the best part? It turned out to be, by definition, a blue red-velvet cake. Or, you could call it a blue velvet cake. The person I made the cake for? Blue Velvet is a movie by one of his favourite directors. I only wish I’d actually planned that..I would have been so fly!

So. It’s not going to win any prizes for looks: it’s lopsided and blue and hilarious in many ways. But it “has character”, and was made with the best intentions and a full heart. So that’s gotta count for something, right? Right?? Plus, it tastes good, if I do say so myself.

Sunburst Painting

October 15, 2012

Remember that general feeling of malaise I was telling you about? It’s still kicking around, but I’m working really hard to shake it. This weekend, I tried bibimbap for the first time (in an authentic stone bowl, in a tiny Korean restaurant that looked like someone’s wood-panelled basement) and fell in love. I ran a race that made me into a rainbow! I shared a few good bottles of wine with good friends (after finding out that good wine can be bought on the cheap, I’ve been making an effort). I baked cookies at a party. I read my book, and got caught up in its magic, whimsy, and sadness. I had a long shift at work, punctuated by watching that crazy guy jump out of space on a customer’s iPad. I had some nice talks. I found out about an awesome knitting store in the area. And I made this painting.

Practicing gratitude like that always makes me feel a million times better. All of those things, at the time, may not have felt like much – but they truly were all special and it’s nice to recognize that.

This painting was inspired by this photo and this version, though I liked the colour scheme of the first much better than the second. I’m all about bright, happy primary colours after all! I read in the comments on one of those two posts, someone suggesting an off centre midpoint, and I instantly loved the idea. I immediately saw a picture in my head of the way I wanted it to be laid out, and got the stuff later that day. I already had some paint leftover from this project, but I bought some orange and pink to go along with them. The canvas was a 12×14 canvas I got on sale. I used regular painter’s tape, but I had some problems with it. It didn’t like to stick down to the surface of the canvas, so not all of my lines were as clean as I would have liked them to be. Boo!

These projects always seem to be an exercise in patience, calm, and letting go. I always get into a “flow” state, where the time is passing and all I’m thinking about is how to solve the problems that are arising. It’s so calming to see a project take shape, regardless of how frustrating the process might have been. And I am always reminded to let go of the need for perfection. This painting is nowhere near perfect. The lines aren’t all clean, the colours aren’t all exactly what I wanted, some of the painting turned out a little patchy, the center where all the points meet is a bit messy.

But guess what? That’s not the point of this painting. The point is that I needed something fun to do. The point is that it’s bright and cheerful and lightens up my space. The point is it will only be seen from across the room, and from there it looks perfect.

I taped out the triangles one at a time. I mixed paint colours (on a pad of paper) using turquoise, yellow, orange, pink and white. (Creativity was needed, and I was happy about that). I went back and touched up sections. I learned a quarter of the way through to paint much thinner layers of paint, so it dries faster. I also learned to press the tape down very carefully. By the end I think I mastered it!

It fits absolutely perfectly into that space on my wall that looked unfinished. The colours look dull in this photo, because I took the picture late at night, but trust me it is stunning, and brightening up my whole space. Easy, simple, happy.

Happy Monday!

9/10: Heart-Shaped Nail Art

July 30, 2012

I mean no offence to my other DIY projects, but I think I have to say that this one is my favourite. Probably because it’s simple, bright, graphic, and colourful. It makes me smile each time I look at it. And although it was both the most frustrating and most soothing project to create, overall I did enjoy the process.

The frustration came from trying to hammer these itsy-bitsy little nails into a thin sheet of particle board, and it not working, the wood almost cracking, my thumb almost getting smashed. I now have a couple tiny holes in my desk – oops. The soothing part came from painting – something I haven’t done in far too long. There’s something lovely about trying to get even brush strokes, and it is the perfect activity for while I’m watching a movie (I have issues sitting idle and just watching a movie).

Me, painting while watching Howl’s Moving Castle for the first time!

I took inspiration from Elise’s ampersand nail art, which I love. But I wanted to make a more colourful version for my home! I had some bright pink string leftover from my hanging plant DIY, so when I saw the beautiful turquoise paint at the store, I knew it was perfect. I bought the yellow, not intending to use it on this project. But once I put the nail/string board back into its black frame, I knew it wasn’t quite “me” yet. I had to go ahead and paint the frame yellow! I should have just gotten the unpainted frame at the store, but live and learn I guess. Here’s what it looked like before I decided to paint!

It took me about three coats to get the yellow dark enough over the black frame. It was great fun while watching other movies and Olympic events!

Let’s talk materials. I got my paint and a frame and board set from my local craft store (Deserres). The frame/board cost about $10, and the paints were $2 each. I got the string from my Dollarama. The nails are gold, and came in a “picture hanging kit” that I also found at Dollarama. It ended up taking me two of these kits to have enough nails to create a good heart-shaped outline.

The heart I cut out of regular printer paper. I sketched a heart, then went around with a ruler and made sure that each point of the heart was an inch apart. Then I cut it out, taped the heart to my dry, painted board and then went to town, working up a sweat nailing those little buggers in.

The next step was to carefully wrap and twist the string around the nails in a way that I liked. This is the most fun part! Let your creativity guide you. Once I was happy, I wrapped and tied off the ends. Slipped it into the frame. Nailed another nail into the wall. Hung it up where I can see it and where it’ll always make me smile. :)

Yippee-kai-yay! I’m thrilled at how it turned out, thrilled that it came into being pretty naturally, thrilled that this is project #9. As I write this, I’m glancing around my room, spotting the DIY’s that I’ve made this year. They really have enriched my space, as well as my creativity. I’m very happy I chose to create this goal for 2012.

This makes 9 DIY projects I’ve created this year. To see the others, click here!