365 Self-Portrait Project (week 51 & 52)

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas time and very relaxing start of 2013. This post is massive and I am sorry for that. Please grab a cup of tea or coffee and take your time to go through it. 
With all what was going on around here I had to skip one post. I have been taking self-portraits I just didn’t have the time and energy to put it all together and publish here.

Those are my last days of this project. There is only few days left, and I am feeling a little nostalgic about it. It was a tremendous challenge sometimes. Now it is nothing but a pleasure to be able to look back at all those pictures and remember day by day what  I was up to.

It’s been a journey! Really!

There is a few more pictures to be taken and it is not the last post from this series, so I won’t get all nostalgic here… not yet!

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Last Friday it was raining and inspired by some of the pictures my friend took in the rain, I decided to go out and try something with the rain, too. I just got wet, and ended up with an arm’s length  head shot.

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The next day, on Saturday we left for Christmas. It was raining and I had plenty of opportunities to do some “rain shooting”, although it had to be from the outside of a moving car.

The trip did not go the way we had planned it and at some point we had to stay at a hotel.

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The next day, before getting back on the road we had to run some errands … and while doing it those pictures were taken.

and we hit the road again

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Merry after Christmas, my friends. I hope they were full of joy and happiness.

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Gifts, gifts, and more gifts… not a big fan of this part but, oh well… at least kids were happy!

Later the same day life had gotten very bitter, and while each year I think that my Christmas can not get any worse… the next year it actually gets worse, and worse, and I right now I don’t want to think about the next year.

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Back on the road. This time following the u-hauling husband. 360 miles home with not very happy kids on board.

and while driving I took some pictures of the amazing landscapes are we were passing through.

It wasn’t the first time we were driving those roads but never before I had seen snow there, so I was pretty excited about it. We stopped just to let No.1 to touch the snow but she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. She was pretty scared… I have no idea why.

She said “she is scary”

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When we got back home, this is what was waiting in our mail box. 

Post card from one of my clients. I couldn’t be any happier. It took my mind away from all that stuff that was going on in my head, and it made me smile. 

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Just a quick snap. Nothing special. After we came back from our trip it was nothing but feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work that has to be done around our place. I wasn’t really feeling like being extra creative with the self-portraits.

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Then I got an eye infection, or whatever that was. Very painful and uncomfortable. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared, though. 

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Last Sunday I had a family photo session after witch we went for a lunch.  

And this is a sneak peek of this session. What a great day we had! 

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Shower

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The First day of the 2013 we spent on a beach. 

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Not in a mood for pictures

First of all I spent all day in my pajamas.

Second of all, the day before I had this big plan for the next day. You know the one in witch I rule the world; I clean the whole house, go grocery shopping, maybe go for a walk with kids, etc. 

Then I got up, looked at the piles of laundry here, boxes there, and I knew I need a coffee first. So I had my coffee and feeling a little bit better I vacuumed. And that’s how I ruled the world yesterday.

 

 The last few pictures I am going to post next week. I want take my time to sum it up although I should say, I already did it with a post on BonBon Break “365 Self Portrait Project – A life changing Resolution“. It was published today. So far I can’t think of a better summary, sure, I should have said “thank you” more but this part will be here, on my blog. 

This essay is my second piece written for BonBon Break. The first one “Portraits of a Mother” was chosen to top 5 posts in 2012. What a great way to start the New Year and to finish this project.

In addition, if I can say I helped at least one woman to change her approach from “running away from the camera” to “willingly staying where she supposed to be” (and I know I have!) I will call this project a success of my life! 

Warm hugs!

Memories, Dreams and Reflections (remembering 2011)

This past year was full of ups and downs. More downs that ups I would say. I had a breakdown and I stopped blogging for two months. The most important thing is that these days we’re all happy and healthy and that’s what matters the most.

Linking up with Ashley. Thanks to her I was inspired to put together that post which brought so many memories.

1. Me

This year was definitely a self-portraits year. I hadn’t taken so many self portraits in my entire life as I took in this single year.

2.  I Love You

My Valentines card for my husband

3. Still laughing

A month ago I spent all day chasing my daughter with a camera while trying to make her to say all the words that she knows. It wasn’t an easy job. I still laugh when I remember that day…

Her favorite GOP plan

…but especially when I watch this movie:

4. Winter Wonderland

This picture was taken a year ago on January 20th. This is California, so I can’t provide you any pictures with snow. This year it looks just like a year ago. Beautiful weather with almost no rain as well. I know it’s not good for us if we do not have the rain but honestly I don’t miss it. The only time I miss snow is Christmas time. For me Christmas Eve and New Year without the snow is the weirdest thing ever… . You would think that after more than 4 years in CA I got used to to having Christmas without the snow, but it’s not that easy. It’s still weird and unnatural for me. lol

January 20, 2011

5. Birthday

Our Little One 1st B-day. Just her and us and an ice-cream b-day cake. What else would you ask for. We had such a blast trying to convince our daughter that this big hat won’t hurt her. You can read more about it here.

1 Year Old

6. Friends

Me and a talented Polish photographers from Bay Area. We spent May 3rd, 2011 together shooting Polish Mass Celebrating Beatification of John Paul II.

My family and our friends from East Coast visiting us in November. Such an amazing time we had!

7. I was inspired

This year one of my biggest inspiration I got from Polish Mama on the Prairie which gingerbread cookies made me to want to make something very christmasy myself. You can read about it here:

While looking for a good recipe I discovered one of the best cookies ever which I think will be on my table more often that only once a year for Christmas

Gingerbread cookies

8. Spring Fever

Last year we had great opportunity to watch mamma dove hatching eggs and later taking care of her little two babies until they flew away a month later. It all happened on our patio. She used one of my pots to make a nest out of it. More pictures here and here:

Patio Doves, April 8th, 2011

9. Travel or Vacation

Being able to hop on a back of my husband’s motorcycle is always a great thing. It does not happen very often, though. Not since our Little One was born.

This year we went for a funeral of Jethro Pettigrew – the president of the San Jose chapter of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club who was killed this Fall in Reno. The funeral was in San Jose so we didn’t have to go far but still… it was great to get out on the motorcycle and to see all those biker hanging out in one place. Amazing experience!!! And this time I didn’t hide my camera while riding and I’m really happy about that.

For more pictures from this event you can go here.

10. Summer Days

Our daughter for most of this summer was walking barefoot. She wasn’t very good at walking, yet, but when she got the rhythm it was almost impossible to catch her!

May 8th, 2011

We visited many local parks and gardens. One of them became a favorite place of mine! – Nola’s Iris Garden. Such a beautiful place!!!

June 1st, 2011

And we’d been learning how to swim.

11. A day in my life

12. All smiles

Now when I look at those messy days I smile.

Even these days, my daughter is not the cleanest eater. She makes mess and she likes to play with her food, but it’s nothing like it used to be months ago. I wrote a post asking: “When is the right time to start teaching your kid manners?“. When I did that I wasn’t in a good mood, and I was getting really tired of my daughter eating habits. It was July 21st.

Today she is great with handling the spoon but she still prefers her fingers. Using them she is not that messy anymore. Yeay!!!

and one more picture that always makes me smile is our daughter doing yoga. She still does that but not so often. She used to do it all the time a few times a day.

13. Autumn Harvest

14. Family or Home

At the beginning of this year, on January 13th my husband got me a coffee maker. It came in with a bunch of stuff and a two packages of coffee. I was the happiest mamma ever.

Why coffee maker (and coffee) where I should be talking about family or home. Well… where mornings begins with relatively big cup of dark coffee there my home is.

My family like cemeteries and graves. We’re weird like that

So this year we went to Colma, the city of which motto sounds: “It’s great to be alive in Colma”. Why? Hmmm… With 17 cemetaries for humans and one for pets, the dead population outnumber the living by thousands to one. Awesome place!!!

15. Celebrate!

Of course, 4th of July, 2011.

16. Let’s do it again/17. I miss you (it)

I join this two themes together.

One word: pierogi!

I love pierogi and I hate making them at the same time. They are so delicious, easy and simple to make, but to make them takes too much time. (easy recipe how to make pierogi from scratch here). Whenever I make them it’s always not enough. Since I moved to U.S pierogi are the most craved and missed dish. This year those feelings are even bigger as a pregnant me crave Polish food much more than normal.

18. Beautiful

I know it might sound weird but I find beautiful big dogs. The bigger the dog the more beautiful it seems to me! And I find beautiful rising kids with animals around. Can’t understand (other than allergy) why people don’t like and want their kids to be around animals… . This doggy is not ours. We met him this year in my doctor’s waiting room. This doggy was hers as well as one more, tiny bit smaller, rottweiler.

And I find beautiful hand written letters and a package with a good book from a good friend which I am very thankful for.

19.Dress Up

This year for Halloween she was dressed as a dragon.

20. Macro

I like this macro a lot. I think one of the best I’ve taken this year.

And I like this one because it’s a shot of a letter from my friend in Poland.

21.Holidays

This year my husband had planned to make a surprise Valentines dinner for us. We ended up cooking it together but still, it was really nice of him.

and we spent September 11th watching 9/11 Memorial March.

22. My favorite

My favorite drink:

My favorite lotion:

My favorite pastry:

My favorite time of the day:

My favorite shot of my pregnant belly (so far):

23. Don’t ever change

I don’t want many things to ever change. One of them is my love to my family, and how my family loves me. 

The second place on this list in my passion to photograph. This year I went through a period when my camera lied untouched for two months and that was the most sad and depressed time in the entire 2011 year. I don’t want that to happen ever again!

24. Just because… So there!

April, 2010

Just because we’re expecting another one. Judging after my heartburn it will be as much hairy as the first one and it will come almost on the same day as the first one!

25. Hopes and Dreams

I hope for a good health for my growing family.

I hope for staying as happy as we are these days.

Picture taken by our friend Sam, while visiting San Francisco this year

Taken by our friend Sam.

Happy New Year, My Friends!

At least I’ve got my smoothie!

Uffff.

Aren’t you happy that Christmas is over?! I am! Now I can’t wait till those stupid Christmas commercials on tv are over with as well.

Most of my Christmas time I was too exhausted to enjoy it, and not very happy with what was going on around me. At the end I welcomed Tuesday with such a big relieve. At least we had a great weather on Christmas Day and we spent our morning in a park testing new playing tools.

As for Christmas without gifts we ended up with bunch of stuff, mostly our daughter’s, I’m tired of cleaning and picking up off. Yep, I’m grumpy like that. I’m really happy she likes every single piece of what she got, but the best thing she got (in my opinion) is a big teddy bear. In this case there is almost no space left in her crib for her to sleep on. Everything is covered with teddy bears, and books. One more thing and she will have to sleep outside.

... and that's only a small part of what she always goes to bed with...

We ended up with a tent even!!! I was hoping she wouldn’t like it and I will have a reason to pack it up and store it in our garage. I was wrong. Not only she loves but our dog as well. Example!? She slept all night in this tent – the dog not our daughter. Our daughter was about to do the same, but I wouldn’t let her.

Those few toys make the least mess. They take space but nothing more. I can live with them around. After our in-laws left I pack most of new toys and and hid it – for further use, of course (mhm!). We both got tired of walking around our home like it’s a minefield. I left her a few things to play with and even with those few every morning I go through a heartbreak when I see our living room… .  I’m just weird like that. You would think that after almost 2 years with a kid in the house I finally got used to to living around toy mess.  But the truth is different… .

At least I’ve got my smoothie!!!

frozen strawberry and pineapple smoothie with a hint of honey!!!

Gingerbread cookies change everything

So, I complained today: for the holiday there is no snow, no rain, no tree, no moczka, no poppy seeds roll nor bigos. I didn’t have that last year neither or two years ago… . Since I came to U.S Christmas time always reminds me of Polish food more than on any other time year round.

Back in Poland my mom would always cook moczka and layer gingerbread cake. The entire house was filled with the aroma of gingerbread spices, chocolate and cooked moczka. I know, I’m talking about moczka like it’s something that everybody knows about. In MY Christmas this is the main dish. I don’t have to have anything else to feel like Christmas is here. Just give me a cup of this chocolaty-fruity-nuty-gingerbready pudding like something and I am the happiest person on the entire world. Every single household who makes it has it’s own recipe. This dish is magic and I can not make it… . I’ve tried once and it didn’t turn out tasty. Only my mom knows how to make the best moczka. So it seems that I will have to wait for Christmas in Poland to finally taste my favorite Christmas dish. How many years will that be?! I think it would be much faster if I learned how to make it – lazy me.

Anyway this post it’s not about moczka. It’s about gingerbread cookies I finally made today. They were inspired by Polish Mama on the Prairie after I read one of her post in which she was sharing her gingerbread cookies recipe. Before that I wasn’t planning to bake anything Polish.

I’ve decided that if I want to make gingerbread cookies they need to be fluffy and thick and reminds me, at least, a little of pierniczki toruńskie. While looking for a good recipe I found out that a good gingerbread cake or cookies should be made at least two weeks before the day you’re planning to eat them, sometimes months before. It’s because they get very hard after they are baked and they soften after resting for long period of time. So as you probably figure it out, there is not time this year to experiment with those kind of recipes.

Finally I found something that I thought will work this year (go here for original recipe in Polish). Funny enough this is not recipe for Polish gingerbread cookies but for German called Lebkuchen.

It took me two days to make them. On the first day I made candied orange and lemon zest and gingerbread spice mix.

Ingredients for the gingerbread spice mix:

2 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

3/4 tsp cloves

3/4 tsp cardamom

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 allspice

10 seeds of star anise

To make candied orange and lemon zest took me a little bit longer.

Zest from 2 peeled oranges and 1 lemon. Cut into strips, boiled for about 10 minutes. Drained and dried. When they were dry I cooked them in a mixture of:

1 cup of water

1 cup of sugar

until the liquid was almost gone.

Stirring occasionally.

Left on cooling racks overnight.

Ingredients for gingerbread cookies:

1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

15 Tbsp blended almonds (make almond flour)

3 tsp gingerbread spice mix

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup honey

3/4 stick of butter (6 Tbsp)

1/2 cup candied zest*

Directions:

In a medium bowl mix the dry ingredients: flour, almonds, gingerbread spices, baking soda and powder, cinnamon.

Heat the honey and butter in a sauce pan over a low heat until the butter is melted. Let it cool down until lukewarm and pour over mixed dry ingredients. Add candied zest. You can use spoon or mixer at this point and mix it well. Cover and leave to in a cool place.

The dough may look very sticky and hard to shape any cookies from it. Don’t worry after it cools down it gets harder and easy to work with.

When the dough is ready preheat oven to 355 F. Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Roll the dough into a small balls not bigger than a medium size walnut. Place them on baking sheet about 1 inch apart. They will rise and spread.

Bake for about 15 minutes.

Transfer to a cooling rack and let it cool completely.

Decorate the next day.

I have never had them before but as I can assume they are going to be better and better the longer you keep them. Tomorrow I’m planning to cover them with powder sugar icing or melted chocolate. Can’t decide, yet.

Anyway, I am happy that something feels like Christmas, finally. It more smells like feels but it doesn’t matter. I’ve been so focused on baking and preparing sweets that I actually forgot that christmas dinner is something more that fudge, pies and cookies only. I need to change it tomorrow or we will end up eating pasta on Saturday… .

* In my opinion (and my husband’s) those cookies have too much candied zest. They taste really zesty. I am not sure but I might boiled the candied zest for too long and that’s why they came out too hard as for my taste. They might be ok if you want to eat them just like that, but if you want to use them in those cookies (or any other cookies) they seem to be to hard and stick to teeth (a lot). Next time I will use zest made the way I always make it.

Happy Holidays, my friends!!!

Related articles

• Authentic LEBKUCHEN, Gingerbread recipe from scratch. Wonderfully simple. (heypaw.wordpress.com)
• Gingerbread Cookies (thecooksnextdoor.com)