Beach Clean Up
Today was my first day back in the ocean after a two month hiatus. It was exhilarating and sad.
When I first paddled out, the water was warm and the waves just the right size. When I made it to the lineup, I took a deep breath, looked up to the blue sky and settled my eyes on the water surrounding me. This was the dirtiest I’ve seen my surf spot at Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach, CA.
My friend and I, being the responsible surfers and ocean lovers that we are, picked up whatever floated by us and tucked it into the cuffs of our wetsuits or strapped it to the ankle with the velcro from our leashes. It is our duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves, such as the dolphins we see every time we paddle out. They swim by and do their jumps as if to greet us. When we are lucky, there will be a baby learning how to do its jump too. It’s the most magical thing to watch. I feel honored they are comfortable enough with us to pass by as close as five feet away. My biggest fear is one day I will paddle out and there won’t be anymore personal dolphin show.
Once we got to shore, we inspected the trash: Frito Lay potato chip bag (in English!), a straw, pieces of a balloon and some shiny type of plastic. It’s probably safe to say, my suspicions were correct.
Now it will be my goal to pick up trash and document it with my camera every time I head out for the beach. My goal is to share with you what people are doing to our beautiful beaches. I’m sure we will find plenty of trash and, if we are lucky, maybe lots of shells instead.
It’s time we free the beach of the debris and it just takes a few pieces at a time!
Homemade Vegetable Broth
Over the years, I’ve become more aware and conscious of what I’m feeding my body. I obsessively read the ingredients list on packaged foods before buying anything.I have a few rules:
1. If I cannot pronounce the ingredient name. Generally, they will be preservatives or flavor enhancers.
2. If it has uncommon ingredients that are not traditional to the food, such as monoglycerides in baked goods which are used to bind the oil and water.
3. If it contains Partially Hydrogenated Oil or Hydrogenated Oil, a trans fat. Google this ingredient and there’s plenty of literature breaking down the process and it’s negative effects on our bodies.
By simply eliminating these items from my diet, I’ve feel healthier and have maintained a consistent weight for the last 11 years with an average amount of exercise and no diets, while indulging in many of the sweets I make at home. They end up tasting so much better as fresh versions, like chocolate chip cookies, than the store bought Chips Ahoy variety. It’s not about losing weight, but simply maintaining a healthy vessel for whatever life may bring. However, weight loss eventually becomes an advantage to this method since I end up eliminating a lot of process foods.
You can only imagine how surprised I was to find at the supermarket that something as simple as canned chicken broth had so many weird ingredients. So my brain started to spin about the hormones in chicken and now this broth of hormone chicken also had dextrose, autolyzed yeast extract and monosodium glutamate. Thus, to avoid another processed food in my recipes, I’ve started to make my own broths for all my soups from Vietnamese Pho to Mulligatawny.
My standard recipe for vegetable broth simply consists of the end cuts of vegetables or other various bits and pieces of them. For example, I cut an onion, garlic, bell peppers, broccoli, carrots and green beans for stir fried vegetables. Instead of wastefully throwing out the straw-like end of the onion, the paper skin on the onion and garlic, the stem of the peppers and broccoli, and the ends of the green beans I will save them in a ziplock bag and freeze them until I’ve collected a large gallon size bag full. Then I simmer the contents for 2 hours and it becomes a vegetable stock. You can use pretty much any kind of vegetable, even the Asian varieties like bak choy leaves that are starting to yellow or their connecting bottom stems. I typically have 2 bags in the freezer at the same time, so that I can divide up the ingredients. I cook with onions a lot, so I don’t need to have 4 onion bottoms in one stock bag. Once I’ve cooked out all the flavor, I let it cool and use it for the recipe. You can freeze the stock and save it too. You will always have a homemade stock ready to go and know that it was made with care, low salt, and no weird flavor enhancers (MSG) or artificial flavors.
One key thing to do is strain the stock when you’re finished so you don’t get any of the cooked veggie pieces in your recipe. I like to cook the veggies to the point of them losing color, but 2 hours of simmering on low is a pretty good average cook time for great flavor.
Turning 33
Beautiful Sunrise on my 33rd birthday
Orange Sunrise
Feathered Clouds
I’m not one to celebrate my birthday, but this year feels different. Maybe it’s because 3 is my favorite number and 33 makes it double the luck? Or maybe it was the sunrise I saw on my drive to the beach for an early morning surf. The pictures above are just a taste of the beautiful shades of purple, orange, red and yellow. If texting and driving is illegal, does that make taking pictures like this bad too?
My favorite part of the drive was seeing the feathered Cirrus clouds, which are thin and wispy clouds blown by high winds into long streamers. They are considered high clouds forming above 20,000 ft and move across the sky from west to east.
This year I’m going to do things differently. I want to explore more of my creative side and see what creations will emerge. I’m not going to limit myself to jewelry design and venture into more photography, then screen printing some of the pictures on to tee shirts or bags. This is year I will give myself time to explore life as an artist versus my previous life as an accountant.
Therese Made will have a diverse collection of fun and useful things, that is for sure!
Time is Our Only Real Asset
I remember in my later years of college, the “grown ups” telling me to enjoy my time because when you get older, it goes by fast. Before I knew it, college was over and I was out of the house 12 hours a day, 3 of it for commuting and 9 at the office. The years flew by from 22-25. Every time I sat in traffic, all I could think was how wasteful I was being with my time.
It was the November before my 25 birthday that I decided any down time I had was going to be used the way assets are used: to generate money. I was done going to Happy Hour and definitely over the nightclub scene. My Fridays were spent creating new jewelry designs and teaching myself various techniques for working with wire. Fortunately, by that Christmas, I started to see the returns on my investment of my time and money, while making my first profit in life. The experience was so eye opening. That was the moment I realized, time was my only asset. I can spend money, but I can also always make it back. Time, however, cannot be made back. Once it passes, it is gone and so is that moment. From that day on, I chose to always use my time and money wisely. How can one fall behind in life if we just applied that simple mentality? I discovered that year how much I enjoyed designing jewelry and how I enjoyed even more making women feel good through my jewelry.
Now at 32, I’m still building that dream and not wasting my time. By immersing myself in shows and festivals during 2011, I have met so many wonderful women who appreciate my work and this keeps me going. This Christmas and every month after, you can purchase and view more of my work on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/theresemade.
The Holidays on a Budget
Like most people in this country, I am also on a strict holiday budget this year. A couple of things I’m doing to save money on gifts involve using my creativity in a much more thoughtful way. As cliche as it may be, the positive thing about our current economic situation this holiday season is we are reminded what Christmas is truly about: family, love, health–the simple things in life. I’ve encountered quite a few people working on much more thoughtful, sentimental gifts in order to save money. I hope it’s not just a trend of economic times and that it becomes a positive change from pre-recession consumer mentality.
For example, I am making black and white real photographic prints of loved ones who were subjects on some of my projects. Of course, my female friends and family will get my Christmas special design that I come up with every year. This year will be a ring and earring set. I’ll post the final jewelry gift design and the photo prints after Christmas, for surprise reasons!
On the other hand, many people like to give out mixes of Christmas cookies, but I honestly don’t have the time to bake hundreds of cookies. Sometimes it’s hard to keep in my what I can realistically give, until I get started and it’s too late to turn back.
Sometimes people have the money, but lack the artistic skill to bring a special gift to life. I’m working on a couple of extra special custom gifts, requested by friends. These are involving personal effects that they want to give to their loved ones, but in a much more unique and special way. I’ll also post these finished custom gifts after Christmas. I have one that involves Love and it’s the most special thing I’ve ever been asked to help create.
No matter what we give this season, let’s be thoughtful about it and practical. The best way to save money is just simply not to waste it.
Stop in at http://www.etsy.com/shop/theresemade for some unique gift ideas that you don’t have to make yourself!