Des Moines Swap-O-Rama

Last night Sylvia and I along with Jessica and Sabbath went to an informational meeting for the upcoming Des Moines Swap-O-Rama. The original Swap-O-Rama was started by Wendy Tremayne in Seattle in the 90's.
For the Swap you bring a bag of clothes and 10 dollars(8 if purchased in advance) and your creativity. Clothes are layed out and sorted, everyone grabs what they want and goes to stations to rip and embellish. There will be demos and workshops and knowledgeable volunteers to help with all your creating needs.
This event is happening August 1st at my new favorite hangout....the Des Moines Social Club. If you haven't been to the DMSC yet and are in the area I highly recommend checking it out. Ping Pong and Bubblegum Martinis....just saying.
The women who are putting on the Swap here still need volenteers to work the event, be part of the street team and to do demos and workshops. If your interested you can contact them here. They are also still accepting sponsors for the event. There are three levels of sponsorship each with some cool perks.
And I bet you thought Des Moines was boring!

Bounty

Yesterday was a day of bounty!
It started with a call from my friend begging me to come take some lettuce and spinach off her hands. Apparently her garden was growing faster than her family could consume it. I was happy to oblige. I scored two large bags of lettuce and one of spinach....thanks Traci!
After a quick stop off at the park near our house, we picked up Sylvia and headed over to Brandy's house to cook.
We made homemade pasta then stuffed it with fresh ricotta cheese purchased at Graziano's, mozzarella, fresh herbs from her garden ,parmesan and feta cheese.
I was surprised at how easy it was to make the pasta. Messy, but doable. We used the left over pasta and cheese mixture and some Graziano sausage to make a couple of lasagnas as well.
We also made bread and chocolate chip cookies.





After we finished cooking I went to another friend's house and picked up a very large box of produce and a 2 dozen farm fresh eggs that she scored from another friend's father's farm. (whew! say that ten time's fast)
Since this farm is further south than me the box contained several tomatoes, which I used to make my sauce for the fresh ravioli's.
It has been a little while since I made homemade tomato sauce, so I used this recipe to refresh my memory. It never fails to amaze me how easy it is to make delicious homemade tomato sauce! Granted, Joe hates tomatoes so this dish ended up being more for me than him, but sometimes I have to cook for my taste too.

This picture is of Brandy's finished dinner.....delicious!

Mountian Man

Joe spent most of yesterday working on cleaning up branches. There is still a bit of work to do, but it's coming along. I'm excited to do some more found object creepy lost in the woods inspired art in the yard.

Today I decided to make an asparagus tart,inspired by this post to bring with me to a potluck. I pretty much followed the recipe, but I used some basil pesto as well. I had to cut into it to try it....I mean I would hate to feed people something gross :)

Moving but Stuck

I'm feeling like there is a lot of things going on in my life lately and many things left untouched. My house for example is a mess. Clean laundry is wrinkling in the baskets or near their respective drawer, toys are strewn about the house, papers are piling up. My yard is full of branches that were cut down from our magnolia tree Saturday. I don't know what the hell I'm doing with those. My 'gardens' are really weed patches with a few well placed interesting flowers. I'm sure it's an incubation ground for deadly mosquitoes. I haven't feed the birds for at least two weeks. I'm down to mice and raccoons as the main wildlife in my yard now.
We are still in the process of purchasing MC Ginsberg. All the wow I started out with has turned into annoyance and 'head in the sandness' ( ?). It's hard to want to put together something when
A. You don't know what your doing and B. You don't know if it's happening. The first part isn't that big of a deal, I often don't know what I'm doing and yet somehow manage to get shit done. The second part is the one that really has me immobile. I have a lot of places where my energy can go right now and I want to focus it on places that are productive.
I did do the Iowa Metaphysical Fair last weekend. I had a booth and did Reiki, I even have a website now www.reikiforabundance.com . The fair was fun and draining and the website needs a lot of work(ideas/suggestions appreciated). By the end of it I was pretty certian that I need to spend my time helping Joe construct MC Ginsberg and not focusing on Reiki. Yet, I still come back to this problem of non ownership....of what the hell is going to happen. UGH!
Anyway, that's my crazy life today.

Friends

While I haven't been blogging here much, I have been reading them. I'm hoping to get inspired to make meal plans again. I've been falling behind on everything around here. Cooking, cleaning, caring.
Here are some places I've been recently. Inspired? Feel free to share.

• Kitchen Parade - This site is awesome. The photos make your mouth water and the recipes are easy and fun.
  

• FoodBuzz - Be careful you might get lost in this world of blog links.
  

• The Farmhouse Table - I have been using the grandmother's bread recipe for hotdog and hamburger buns.
  

• Broke Ass Gourmet - I haven't used any recipes from here yet, but I like how she breaks the price down. The section on sex and food is fun too!