Monday Morning Staff Meeting

Good morning everyone and welcome to the weekly staff meeting. if you're new here At Home you'll find that this meeting is where we get together and share what's going on in our lives, meet new blog friends, find out about cool new stuff, and EAT.

Yes, we'll get to the good stuff right away. This morning we're going to be sharing some delectables from Potbelly's. Do you have one near you? It's a sandwich shop that features live musicians during the busy time of the day. I love their sandwiches but I've never tried their cookies or shakes, at least making a lame effort to avoid the dessert stuff.

Well, my friend Amy (the GM of a very successful local restaurant) mentioned Potbelly's Sheila Bar. I confessed that I'd never heard of it, to which she said, "Seriously? Seriously!! It's absoluting addicting." Her restaurant serves a really wonderful carrot cake so she ought to know sugary goodness when she meets it.

This meant of course that I had to pop right over to the nearest location to check it out.



I bought some to share at our meeting this morning but in the interest of not dropping over from heart attacks I'll ask that each person only take a small piece. Why? When you check out the back label the first ingredient listed is "butter". You know what that means. Butter is the primary ingredient, by weight surpassing anything else. YIKES!!



If you take a bite I'll bet the butter thing doesn't deter you from wanting another.

Unlike other cookie bars that have a definite "bite" to them, these bars are very soft, I'd say even underbaked which adds to it's appeal. For me, it's like eating cookie dough. Gosh, there you go..... one of my all time weaknesses. You simply cannot trust me near a bowl of cookie dough.



Try it and let me know what you think.

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Last Friday my sister and I met up at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair. It was a wonderful collection of fiber enthusiasts, weavers, spinners, knitters, crocheters, tatters, shepherds and shepherdesses, artisans, craftspeople and related businesses. It was tactile heaven. Anyone who works with yarn simply cannot resist touching those lucious skeins....especially the cashmeres.

There was inspiration galore and I was taking notes. Have you ever thought about how the creative process works? It starts with an idea, sometimes from inspiration and sometimes out of thin air.

One of my favorites challenges to myself is to make something using only what I have on hand, upcycling or reusing items to make something new. When I make my aprons from men's dress shirts I'm left with pieces of fabric. It simply kills me to throw fabric away and so I develop other items to use up those bits. Only the smallest bits of fabric are discarded. All buttons are cut off before decommissioning any items of clothing. This is a lifelong habit that was taught to me by my grandmother and as a result I have literally thousands of buttons.

One of the most wonderful and inventive people we met at the fiber fair was Kris, a young wife and mother who is a great upcycler. What's an upcycler, you ask? It's someone who takes an item that has fulfilled it's original use and creates something equally useful out of it.

Kris scours garage sales and resale shops for wool sweaters, which she resells to crafters and others who create wonderful things from them. Kris also makes upcycled wool diaper covers, dryer balls and other cool things. My sister bought one of the dryer balls. All the bits and scraps of leftover wool are combined to make the ball, which is covered in a colorful wool shell. No plastic, no fumes, nothing but natural fibers.

RESWEATER

If you visit Kris's blog and poke around, you'll find plenty of tutorials in which she shows you exactly how to make some of these wonderful items. She's the Pied Piper of wool sweaters!

WOOL SWEATER TISSUE COVER HOLDER TUTORIAL

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Have you seen the commercial for the Dyson fan? I think he calls it the Dyson Air Multiplier. The Farmer and I are both fascinated by that commercial and would actually like to see one in use. That James Dyson is a very smart inventor and his products are pretty amazing, albeit expensive. The "Air Multiplier" runs $300, so we'll be sticking with our large, noisy box fan.

Imagine my surprise when my sister and I used the bathroom at the Fiber Fair to discover a related Dyson invention, called the Airblade. It's a hand dryer but unlike anything you've ever used.

DYSON'S AIRBLADE

Follow the link and take a look at how it's configured. You dip your hand down in the space, the air starts moving and you slowly pull your hand up. Voila. Your hands are dry.

I confess that my sister and I stayed in that bathroom playing with the hand dryer until a line started forming behind us.

Have you ever seen one of these?

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Thanks to everyone who participated in the Six Word Memoir. It's an interesting challenge to clearly convey an idea in six words.

Thanks also to Alyssa from Smith magazine, who left a comment on that post, inviting everyone over to Smith to publish a memoir there.

SMITH MAGAZINE

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I've been blogging for quite a few years - five or six I think. On some level I'm aware of the incredible expanse of the blogosphere but in order that my mind doesn't fry out, I mentally shrink the blogosphere down to a manageable level - my little bloggy community. This includes my two blogs, those on my blogroll and the few that I allow myself each week in blog hopping sessions.

Recently I landed on something called The Daring Kitchen. It's a food blogger, bakers/cooks, who come together once a month to challenge themselves in the kitchen.

THE DARING KITCHEN

They have a blogroll of bloggers who particpate in these challenges.

The

blogroll

is

staggering.

STAGGERING.

DARING BAKERS STAGGERING BLOGROLL

That's only the list of BAKERS!!!

DARING COOKS STAGGERING BLOGROLL

I don't DARE click on any of those links. I'll be here till 4 a.m.

These huge lists of blogs make me very nervous for some reason. I feel very small I guess. It's like looking up into the dark night sky, realizing that I'm just an insignificant dot in the vast universe.

The blogosphere is a universe unto itself I suppose.

I still prefer my own little bloggy community.

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Thanks to all my readers who participated in the Postcard Project. I'm getting e-mails that they are arriving. Those of you overseas will be waiting a little longer, but they will arrive!

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Thanks for attending the meeting. I hope you're not in sugar shock from the Sheila Bar and I hope you won't be spending your day clicking around those blogrolls.

I'm not turning the meeting over to you.