Apartment Tour

I decided to go ahead and make a video tour of my apartment last night. There is much work still left to do on the common areas, but my room is basically all unpacked and even decorated minus a few items. I apologize if the video is terribly shaky, I obviously was walking around, and have never claimed to be the best videographer, especially with my little camera. Enjoy! 

Crafting

After drooling over various projects on Pinterest, I finally decided to make something that I saw on there. I saw a project for putting a decorative backing on a bookshelf and I knew that I already had the perfect bookshelf. I found my backing at Michaels for $1.80. It was vinyl shelf paper that was on sale. It was probably not the best thing to use, because it ended up getting a little messed up on the overlap part, but that is hidden by a shelf anyway so it wasn't a big deal. 

Bookshelf Before = boring

Supplies: Vinyl Shelf Paper, Rubber Cement and Scissors. I didn't really need the rubber cement, but I added a little bit to the corners and where the vinyl ended up overlapping in order to provide  a little extra hold. 

After! There are some bubbles and creases after applying the vinyl, but they aren't that noticeable especially with stuff on the shelf. 

After with shelves on. 

In my room with the books and random supplies. I really think it adds a little bit of color to my room. 

Close up of the backing. The pattern isn't really that noticeable because it's so light and small, but I think it's really cute. 

Once I have finished organizing and unpacking everything, as well as cleaning up the boxes I plan to do a little video tour of my new apartment! 

Smithsonian

I have finally ventured out of my apartment! I decided to go downtown to my absolute favorite Smithsonian, and one I hope to work at one day. The National American History Smithsonian. Full of all things American from pop culture, wars, people, and presidents. It took me about an hour to get there. I left my apartment later than planned and after a 15 minute walk got onto the metro. From there it was maybe a 20 minute ride to the Smithsonian station. I then took a wrong turn out of the station and walked around the USDA building (an entire block) finally found my way to the Mall and found the building. By that time it was about 10:30am. I got a free map, and the woman asked me what I wanted to see. My answer: everything, and I did just that. I was in the Smithsonain until 6:30 ( a total of 8 hours) and I was exhausted afterwards! I completely fell even more in love with this new city that I lived in. I just love the fact that I can take a trip downtown and basically have a free day to wander around a museum for free!

Some of my favorite exhibits were of course Julia Child's Kitchen, The First Lady Exhibit, The American Presidency, and The Price of Freedom: Americans at War. But by far I think my favorite exhibit was For All The World To See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. It combines two of my loves: history of the civil rights movement, and how media shaped and influenced it. That is what I love studying in addition to of course Women. I thought the easiest way to share my adventure was through some random pictures I took. I did see everything, but there are some items like the Civil Rights exhibit, and the Star Spangled Banner where for preservation reasons pictures are not allowed. Also I apposition for the quality of the pictures. I took them with the flash off (because I believe in conservation), and my camera died so I also used my phone.   Enjoy my favorite things at the Smithsonian. 

Lunch counter from Greensboro, N.C. where the first Civil Rights Movement sit-in occurred. 

Women factory workers during WWII

This is a shoe that a Chinese woman with bound feet would have worn. 

I thought it was funny that a van similar to what my family had when I was little is now in the Smithsonian.

Cartoon of the Scopes Monkey Trial. 

Atomic Fire balls, part of American after WWII and how the atomic bomb and plastics began to change and influence our lives. 

Modern 1950s kitchen, plastic is everywhere!

1950s living room.

The invention of "The Pill" I personally liked the header 

Julia's Kitchen 

Julia's copper pan wall!

Julia's cookbooks and videos

Another view of her kitchen. 

Me and Julia's Kitchen!

Vintage lace from the late 1700/1800s

A very blurry picture of one of Martha Washington's gowns. It still looks beautiful and pattern on the dress was actually hand painted! 

First Lady Michelle Obama's dress!

The Red Slippers! They are not as beautiful as they once were.

Fifinella! The WASPs mascot during WWII. 

Vietnam nurse

Vietnam nurse

Vietnam POW bracelets. People used to buy them, and each bracelet had a name of someone who was MIA/POW.

A piece of the World Trade Center from 9/11

Freedom of Americans to petition. Civil Rights Era

Vietnam War protesting poster.

March on Washington button. 

Votes for Women button. 

Hope you enjoyed this extremely long post about my recent adventure. More to come!

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Vlog

So I decided to make a video during our first day of travel. The sound seems to be a bit wonky, and I totally look ridiculous, but whatever. Enjoy!

Random Topics

Well tomorrow I'm off to the District! There will be many posts about that in the next coming weeks! However, I have some new foodie items and recent knitting projects to show off.

First, my favorite part the food! When I went to the farmers market I had already decided that I wanted to buy eggplant. I have never been a huge fan of eggplant stemming from a bad experience as a child. The kind of eggplant that I bought was considered Asian eggplant, and supposedly has smaller seeds. So I searched the internet for panini recipes because I also wanted to use my beautiful foccacia bread. I didn't really see one I liked so I made up my own.

I pan "grilled" eggplant, sauteed onions and peppers, put tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese on the sandwich and stuck it in the toaster oven. 

I also made roasted broccoli, so yummy! I used a recipe from the Food Network. 

A few days later I also made Eggplant Parmesan, but unfortunately never got around to taking a picture of it. However I used a recipe from Weight Watchers, so including pasta I believe it equaled out to about 9 points or so. 

I also completed a first birthday gift for "A". I decided to knit her fruits and vegetables to play with. Her mom also made her a bunch of felt food, so we had some overlap in items that we made, but I think A will have a lot of fun playing with the items, and I loved making them. 

The banana was the funniest thing! She recognizes bananas and tried to eat it. She was very upset when she realized it was not a real banana. 

Celery 

Pear

Broccoli

 Apple

Pumpkin 

I'm also planning one more special item to be sent a little later, because well sometimes I'm really slow and behind at what I do. Well that's all, if you are reading this over the next few days, please pray for safe travels to D.C. and prayers of peace and direction once I'm there! 

Farmer's Market

Saturday, I decided to hit up the local farmers market with my friend Meg for the last time. I went in determined to buy some different vegetables than I normally would. We got there and went straight to the Anastasia Kitchen booth and got sweet potato and black bean burritos which were awesome! Then we walked around, and just kinda looked at what was there. I ended up buying quite a few things, and Sunday I did my first round of cooking with my farmers market items.

Pretty peppers, and a red/purple onion.

Apparently these are Asian eggplants. They are supposed to have less seeds in them. 

A beet!

Goat cheese!

5 beautiful peaches.

Delicious Garlic and Rosemary Foccacia bread from Maria's Bakery

I decided to make roasted peaches with goat cheese, honey, and toasted hazelnuts. It came out pretty well. However, I did have a couple mishaps. First, I totally burned my first batch of hazelnuts, and secondly, the goat cheese I used was not as soft as I would have liked. Therefore, I am going to try this again with a softer goat cheese. It was really good though!

I also made a delicious roasted beet, peach, and goat cheese salad. I have come to adore roasted beet, and really should come up with more uses for it!

That concludes my farmers market adventures. I am still looking for something to make with my eggplant. I just haven't narrowed down the perfect item. And in other news I move out of my home for 3 years, in just under a week and a half. I can't believe it, and I'm going to miss it so much!