Postcards from Korea & Belarus

I really must speak to Postcrossing about the fact that I send off two postcards per week (on Monday and Wednesday) but often the postcards sent to me arrive on the same day!
This is from Oksana who tells me these three facts:
I’m from Russia, but now I live in Korea
I’m married and having daughter
My hobbies are reading, cooking, baking and postcrossing and stamp collector-ing.

This is from Katerina who is 23 years old and live in a small town called Smolerichi.
I love this little bird. He’s super cute!

Oscar Party Food

Kelly provided the house and the TV plus the prize for correctly predicting and the Oscar BINGO. I provided the food.  We had one item for each best picture.
For Dallas Buyer’s Club: an antioxidant salad
For Nebraska: Mac & Cheese
For Philomena:  Buttered Cabbage
For Captain Phillips:  a traditional Somali Lentil dish
For American Hustle: Vegetarian Pigs in a Blanket
For 12 Years a Slave: Vegetarian Collard Greens
For Her: Jello Jigglers cut in heart shapes
For Gravity:  the Cosmonaut, which was Tang and Vodka, shaken.
For Wolf of Wall Street: Mini Quiche 
(which were not available, so I bought Nancy’s Quiche and cut them up)

Card from Russia

What’s weird about this card is that it is a Papyrus card, that looks exactly like any Papyrus card I could buy in any store that sells cards here in the USA.

But inside (and apologies, Picasa isn’t uploading to blogs anymore so I have to do it myself and sometimes the orientation thing is off) is Cyrillic!  Crazy!
What was written inside said, “Here is written: harmony and piece!”
So great!

Postcards from Russia, Virgina and Virginia

This is from Vladimir.  He hopes I like his postcard.  I do!

This is from my friend Sara (of Pike Schemes fame) to represent the “real” postcard world.

She also sent this postcard, which she made herself.  Astute readers with long memories might remember this picture from this post back in 2012.  I had the photo displayed prominently at my house because I loved it so, but Matt was not as much of a fan and was making noises about throwing it away, so I tucked it into Sara’s Christmas present that year.  And she loved it too.  But now it has come back to me as a beautiful postcard I can hang on my wall.  I love it!
Note from the future.  Several WEEKS after I received this post card, I was weeding out front when the mail carrier came by.  “I just loved that picture of you in the denim overalls at the wedding!” she told me. “I laughed and laughed.”  It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about, but then I put it together and told her that it wasn’t me in the short-alls, and then gave her the background.  Well done Sara!

Postcard from Portland

It’s true!  At times, I get postcards from Portland, because I have a friend and we sometimes communicate via postcard.  Why send postcards to people in your own city?  It’s fun!  Plus you can pretend you live in those pre-telephone day, when there was a morning post and an evening post and that was the only way to make plans.  In this case, making plans was exactly what this postcard was all about.  Plus, a quick review of Lone Survivor.

Wardrobe Architect: Your Color Story

I was held up by this week’s installment of the Wardrobe Architect.  The color thing I wasn’t really interested in doing.  But I buckled down and here are the results.  I think one of my things is that black is the main color (although khaki is creeping in a bit more) and then I wear something that pops, meaning I like a lot of bright or strong colors.  Bright orange is my favorite, but I like bright blue (aqua) or bright green too.  I used Kuler to create these palettes.  As for base colors, I never wear brown, grey or white.

Vintage Cakes: Gingerbread Icebox Cake with Mascarpone Mousse

Or make that “mascarpone” mousse as I had plans to make my own mascarpone, but the shop that sells the cultures was closed due to snow.  I needed a pound of mascarpone, which would have cost me $10.00 at New Seasons, so I went with the Internet cheat of cream cheese, a bit of sour cream and a bit of whipped cream.  Viola!  “Mascarpone”
I made the cookies on the Friday of the snow and the party was moved from Sunday (because of ice) to Monday.  So Monday I assembled.  Ten layers of gingerbread cookies with the mousse dividing them.

“But how will you cut this cake?” every single person at the birthday party asked me individually.  The plan was that the mousse would soften the cookies and it would be easy to slice.

And it was!  Isn’t it fun?

Delicious too!

Wardrobe Architect: Proportions and Silhouettes

I hated this exercise.  It involved spending a ton of time clicking through images and not finding what I wanted.  It’s everything I hate about shopping, but with no actual clothing to wear in the end.  Plus, my pictures are very large and I want them to be smaller.  Alas.  Onward we must go.

Let’s start with the names I gave to each picture.  They were something like Winter 1, Fall/Winter 2 etc. But really, when you get right down to it, in Portland for about 51 weeks of the year I can wear the exact same thing.  I don’t wear shorts, so the dresses and skirts and short sleeves get augmented by tights and cardigans and the sandals switch out for shoes with socks or boots and there you have it, a 51 week wardrobe.  There are four days in the summer where you wear the super strappy dress and there are three days in the winter when you have no clothing for the incredibly cold temperatures, but other than that, it’s the same thing year round.  So ignore the Winter/Fall/Summer designations I gave.

Here’s my first combo.  Bright dress, (and why the back view, I have no idea) tights (though not in summer,) black shoes I can walk in.  I like bright colors, or fun prints in dresses.  Dresses need to be at least knee-length, should be fitted through the bodice and flared through the skirt.

This is the usual weekend thing.  Jeans (or pants,) fitted shirt, black shoes I can walk in.  The shirt can have most any neckline, the sleeves need to be long for winter, but shorter for summer.  I like stripes a lot, but solid, bright colors are good too.

Here was something I remembered while doing this.  I like FUN clothes.  I particularly like plaid pants.  So this outfit is the “oh yeah, I like fun things” reminder.  The shirt has fun detail, the pants are a fun print.  Again the shoes are black and I can walk in them.

Here’s the dress in the summer variety.  Fun print, good color, black shoes I can walk in.

Here’s my last one.  Black skirt (but with fun detail) bright shirt, which gets tights and a cardigan in the winter, black shoes I  can walk in.

So that’s it.  I know I like fitted uppers, with flaring skirts, that I can do straight pants with fitted tops.  That I like fun clothing and black shoes I can walk in.  There’s probably more, but I’m tapped out.