The Unsavory Chore Board & To Do List

It's still astonishing to me how dusty and dirty a room can get through the course of daily living.  And cleaning is just such a tiresome chore that is procrastinated (inevitably) until the next weekend... and the next... until "all of a sudden," everything is dirty!  Not to mention, most people who work a full time job just don't have the time or energy to spend a day cleaning everything only to have dust settle back in quite comfortably within the week. Since I'll be starting business school part time in addition to working full time come fall, a few weeks ago, I set out on a mission to find a system that limits the time spent cleaning and breaks it into manageable 20 minute tasks.  After all, I don't want to spend what precious little free time I've got cleaning!!

I call it, The Unsavory Chore Board:

The whole idea is to break chores up into 20 minute (or less) tasks and to rotate through the board by completing just 1 task per day.  With 10 chores on my board, I rotate through them all in just under 2 weeks.  Underneath the chore board is my Post-It To Do list, which I love because I can just grab the Post-It and go if there's a grocery list or the like on it.  I also thought about how you could go down the Y (vertical) axis with names if you have more than 1 person in your household that need to share chores.

So far, with 3 weeks into the chore board, it seems to be working!  My apartment is certainly cleaner than ever and each chore is actually easier now that I clean everything more frequently, so dust doesn't have a lot of time to build up.

Instructions are below, unfortunately no pictures of the process, I got distracted by the TV while laminating the cards.  The best part is that it's highly customizable and you don't have to go all crazy crafter and print/laminate.

The Unsavory Chore Board:

Materials:

• 13" x 18" magnetic board - can vary depending on the wall you plan to mount it on
• magnetic clips or magnets to glue to the back of each chore - 1 magnet per chore
• chores printed or written on each card
• Optional: colored card stock or construction paper, laminating machine & laminating pouches, glue stick, hot glue gun & cartridges, Post-Its for the to do list, white erase markers for the board

Instructions:

1. Print or write chores onto separate pieces of paper.  This can be done directly onto the cardstock or like I did above by printing on white paper, laminating the entire sheet, cutting it into the chore squares, and then gluing to the colored cardstock to make it more cheerful.  With my lamination machine, the cardstock was too thick and would separate the lamination, which is why I just laminated the white paper
2. Attach to the magnetic clips.  In my case, I have clips so I just clipped it together.  You could also purchase magnets from the office supply store and glue these to the back of the chore cards.
3. Mount it somewhere visible! I have mine right next to the door.  You could also get a larger board and make the To Do list part of the board itself, but I like having that part just on the wall.

On a photographic note - I upgraded to the D3300 body and didn't understand why the max shutter speed I could get with flash through this series was 1/200.  After experimenting and playing around with different settings for a solid half hour, I turned to the Internet and discovered that that is the max shutter speed with the built-in flash because any faster and the shutter would actually click closed before the flashbulb, basically resulting in the same effect as no flash.  Looks like I might need to get an external flash!  The "if you give a mouse a cookie, he's gonna want a..." problem strikes again!

Active Shooting: 0.5 hour

Review / Book Learning: 0.5 hour

Hours to Date: 166

Mmm... 2kids Beer...

I realize that it's a little early in the morning to be posting about beer, but it is Hump Day, after all. Not to mention, my latest life goal is to go to bed earlier and get up earlier than the masses to get more of what I want to do (i.e. reading, blogging, plotting world domination, etc.) done. At least for the past two weeks, I've been successful at that endeavor and once past the initial alarm-induced groan, haven't regretted getting up early at all.

Anyway, back to the wort of the matter. I spent the past weekend in San Diego, which is never quite complete without a stop for craft beer. Moreover, in my opinion, no trip to San Diego is complete without a stop specifically at 2kids Brewing Company - a nanobrewery with a flair for unusual ales, but none of the pretense that typically comes with that kind of self-description.  I've known brewers Sam & Rob since high school and have watched them go from beer connoisseurs to prolific homebrewers to successful business owners with the opening of their tasting room nearly a year ago. And had the privilege of drinking some tasty and wittily named beer all along the way.

While I've been to their establishment previously, it was early on in this project and I felt that I didn't do their beer justice with the pictures I took then. It was exciting to return with camera in tow to properly capture some of their brews.

Photographically speaking, the challenge I experienced here was the indoor lighting. In the past several months, I have found myself increasingly preferring to shoot in natural, outdoor light, but that presents a major limitations when the interesting stuff is actually inside. To make this even more of a challenge (she says as if the following was intentional), we went to 2kids directly after dinner out and I had forgotten to bring my flash bounce along. I only had my trusty 35mm lens and built-in pop up flash at my disposal. No matter, I managed for the most part with some guerrilla flash diffusers improvised from my hand, a coaster, a translucent envelope, and a dollar bill.  Unexpectedly, the best results were obtained between my hand and the back of the coaster.

In any case, if you find yourself in the San Diego area, you should go check out 2kids, taste their brews, and have a chat with Sam & Rob yourself. Address and tasting room hours are below - they also come up on Google and Yelp searches for anyone like me who relies almost entirely on various device(s) to navigate through life.

2kids Brewing Company
8680 Miralani Dr. #123
San Diego, CA 92126

Tasting Room Hours:
Thursday:  3:00 - 9:00pm
Friday:       3:00 - 10:00pm
Saturday:   1:00 - 10:00pm
Sunday:     1:00 - 8:00pm

Its 5 o'clock somewhere!

Taps

The beer is so clear, you can see the effervescence. Almost poetry. Diffusing the flash didn't work so well here, unfortunately.

Dat foam.

My favorite: Winning! Chocolate Stout.  All I need is some vanilla ice cream...

I really did buy a growler and a half. And then some. These just happened to make the photo.

More Cheers

Active Shooting Hours: 1.5 hours
Review Hours: 2.5 hours
Hours to Date: 138

New Recipes and a Weak Attempt at Flash Photography

The whole Friday BBQ session totally inspired me to try another take on a summer BBQ classic: pulled pork.  Now, I'm sure all the barbecue purists out there will spend their time arguing and defending their method/sauce/style of choice, be it Tennessee, Carolina, Texas, or Kentucky.  As far as barbecue goes, I'm an equal opportunity eater - I love it all (as I have previously stated, I fully believe barbecue should be its own food group).

But, I wanted a new twist.  A spicy twist.  And a low carb one, now that I'm back on the watching-what-I-eat wagon.

Enter: Korean-inspired Spicy Pulled Pork Tacos topped with a quick cucumber pickle

This photo does not do this justice - I got impatient and just wanted to eat at this point

Cucumbers, pickling away in rice wine vinegar

And a southern-inspired Bubbly Bourbon Mint Sweet Tea to accompany

These photos are all pretty awful - the cucumbers probably came out the best.  This was the first attempt both at using flash and photographing food made in my teeny kitchen.  Given the practically non-existent counter space at my apartment and the awful light, it's no shock to me these came out the way they did.

Also, I just don't focus well on anything when hungry and surrounded by tantalizing food...  But at least the food came out delicious!!  Recipe below, because I hate it when people post something tasty without sharing how to replicate.

Korean Inspired Spicy Pulled Pork Tacos:
Tools: Slow cooker, some mixing bowls, mixing utensils

Pulled Pork:
~2 lbs Pork butt/shoulder
 Sweet Onion
4-5 cloves Garlic
Cayenne Pepper
24oz Root Beer

1. Cut up the onion and garlic and layer half in the bottom of the slowcooker.
2. Coat the pork in cayenne pepper and any other seasonings you want & place in the slowcooker.  Cover with the other half of the chopped up onions/garlic.
3. Pour root beer over all.
4. Cook on LOW for 8 hours or so.
5. Drain off the liquid, remove the onions and garlic (I saved it for toppings later), and shred the pork.

Spicy BBQ Sauce:
2 tbsp Gojuchang (Korean spicy pepper/miso fermented business - found at Asian markets)
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tsp Sesame Oil
2 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Rice Wine Vinegar

1. Mix the gojuchang, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and 1 tsp of the rice wine vinegar together.  Dunzo!

Quick Cucumber Pickle:
2 Persian Cucumbers (the teeny seedless ones)
Red Onion
Salt
Sesame Seeds
Crushed Red Pepper
Rice Wine Vinegar to coat
1 tbsp Sugar

1. Slice the cucumbers thinly and chop the red onion into a bowl.  Coat with the rice wine vinegar.
2. Add in salt, sugar, crushed red pepper and sesame seeds.
3. Toss and let it sit for half an hour.

Assemble onto a tortilla and try your hardest not to inhale it like a starved hyena.

Bubbly Bourbon Mint Sweet Tea
To be fair, for drinks, I never measure, I just kind of pour until I'm pleased.

~2oz Bourbon (I'm a Maker's girl myself)
~4oz Iced Tea
~4oz Ginger Ale
Fresh Mint
Lime

Mix and pour over ice.  Add a spiffy straw if you're so inclined.  I love drinking out of straws, but apparently the action of drinking out of a straw causes mouth wrinkles over time :( so I've been trying to wean myself of the habit.

Hours to Date: 9