Tag Archives: Around the House

Gluten Free, Lactose Free Vanilla Cupcakes

Cupcakes always hang out with succulents, right?

My middle kiddo, Felix, turns four today. So, it’s a day to celebrate.

I don’t talk much about the kiddos on the blog, except to say how much work they are. But Felix so amazing. He loves the alphabet and numbers and drawing people with faces. He likes animals and playing outside and water. He likes to work beside me when I’m writing at the dining room table. He sits at one of Brock’s old computers and types words like “sunny” and “pizza” and some amalgamation of letters that I think is supposed to be purple. He’ll get it soon.

One thing Felix loves, even though it does not love him back is chocolate. So we avoid it now, which has been throwing me for a loop because all of my go to deserts have chocolate in them. I mean, if there’s not chocolate, why bother, amiright?

That’s where these vanilla cupcakes come in. The are light and moist and just the right amount of sweet. Paired with a rich vanilla buttercream, I don’t even miss the chocolate.

I adapted these from a regular old gluten and dairy filled recipe. So you can totally make that version too. But, if you’re like me and half my family, wheat and dairy only make you sick, which totally takes away from the sugar high, you know. So I made mine with gluten free flour, buttery sticks, and lactose free kefir, but if you want to completely avoid the dairy, just substitute your favorite dairy-free milk. I used kefir because the recipe called for buttermilk, and I was trying to approximate the taste and effect buttermilk has in cake. Like buttermilk, kefir adds depth of flavor and makes the cake fluffy.

For best results, these are the products I used in these cupcakes (some of these are affiliate links):

Pin the recipe for later!

And now onto the good stuff:

Gluten Free, Lactose Free Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

  • 2 3/4 cups Bob’s Red Mill One-to-One Gluten Free Flour
  • 1 TBSP Baking Powder
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 2 sticks Earth Balance Buttery Sticks (1 cup), room temperature
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 5 large eggs, room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cups lactose free kefir (or sub your favorite non-dairy milk)
  • 1 TBSP Vanilla

Directions:

  • Preheat over to 350
  • Line and grease two muffin tins
  • In medium bowl, combine dry ingredients and whisk until blended. Set aside
  • In large bowl, beat buttery sticks on medium with hand mixer (or stand mixer, or, if you’re using a whisk, do like Bob Ross says and “Beat the devil out of it.”) Seriously, beat the butter for like, three minutes, scrappin’ down those sides. Buttery stuff should be light and whipped looking
  • Add sugar and beat for another two more minutes until mixture is on the fluffier side of doughy. (About two minutes)
  • Beat in eggs one at a time.
  • Mix Vanilla in with Kefir
  • Add 1/3 of flour mixture, beat until combined
  • Add 1/2 of kefir mixture, beat until combined
  • Add second 1/3 of flour mixture, beat until combined
  • Add rest of kefir mixture, beat until combined
  • Add rest of flour mixture, beat until combined
  • Using 1/4 size measuring cup, portion out batter into muffin tins. Will make about 24-30 cupcakes.
  • Bake for 14 minutes or until edges start to brown and middles are set
  • Let cool for five minutes in tin, then move to cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

Icing Recipe

  • 2 buttery sticks (1 cup), room temperature
  • 4-6 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 TBSP vanilla
  • 1-2 TBSP almond milk as needed

Direction:

  • Beat the devil out of the buttery sticks again
  • Sift in powdered sugar 1-2 cups at a time, beating until combined
  • Add vanilla after 4 cups, adding almond milk as needed to thin.

Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

Enjoy!

 

delicious

In Case I Didn’t Mention it, The Last Few Months Have Been Hard

Yesterday I did something out of the ordinary. I took some time off.

I have a history of trying to work something productive into every moment of everyday. I am constantly cooking or tidying (not that you’d notice), writing, reading, knitting, etc. I don’t sit still very well. It’s part of the reason yoga is such an important part of my day. It’s the only time I try to decompress, and most days, I don’t do that very well.

Since Felix was born, and especially since we had Rufus, I haven’t been away from my kids (outside of work) for more than a couple of hours at a time. Mostly, I didn’t want to be. I like my kids, and I don’t like interrupting their routine, but since January, when I became a stay-at-home mom, I have been with my kids All. The. Time. And I needed a break. So did Brock.

Anniversary celebrations well under way. 4 years with @hashtagphysics. ????

A post shared by Marla Dawn Holt (@tinydinostudios) on

For our fourth anniversary, Brock and I made it happen. We left the kids at home with grandma went out. We drank our coffee hot, we ate too much Indian food, we saw a movie. Then, after all of that, instead of going home and putting the kids to bed, we went to a hotel for a little peace and quiet.

At our first movie since Rufus was born. We'll be seeing Wonder Woman.

A post shared by Marla Dawn Holt (@tinydinostudios) on

It might have been too quiet. We’re used to the hubbub of 2.5 boys and the near constant sounds of traffic and sirens and neighbors. And even though this hotel is probably less than two miles from our house, there was none of that. The suite was a cocoon of silence and privacy. I have had a baby living in my bedroom for the last three years, I don’t get a lot of privacy. I was so out of my element, I was unnerved enough to dig out my white noise app and think about turning on a thunderstorm just to have something to listen to–because apparently the music we had playing wasn’t enough for me.

Our home for the night has three rooms. And a hot tub. Because this is the first night we've ever spent away together. Ever.

A post shared by Marla Dawn Holt (@tinydinostudios) on

While the quiet was surreal, having an evening with my husband without a baby waking up in the middle of the movie and then again just as we’re going to bed was just as magically restorative as I wanted it to be.

Helping Felix make the transition to starting pre-school no longer feels so daunting, even though it means establishing a new daily routine for everyone, and dealing with some intense three year-old emotions. And there are other things I have been putting off (writing synopses, querying agents, finishing drafts, etc.) that don’t seem so scary today as they did yesterday, even though yesterday they felt a helluva lot more doable than they did six months ago.

I want to hang onto this feeling. I want to capture this sense of renewal and invigoration and seal it into capsule somewhere inside me where I can open it up whenever I feel bogged down by endless to-do lists, or when the baby wakes up an hour after I finally got to sleep, or when I have to be an extrovert at my service industry job and all I want to do is sit in a corner and read a book.

I know I can’t. But I can be better about taking care of myself. When I feel peaceful, it’s better for my family, it’s better for my writing.

Even though Felix’s school doesn’t start for two more weeks, tomorrow morning we’re all getting up early so we can practice getting out of the house by 8. That means my alarm goes off at 5:45. Despite opening the coffee shop for years, I am still not good at getting up in the morning. But I am getting up this early so I have time to do yoga. Because if I take care of myself first, maybe I can maintain a little bit of this energy.

Meet Rufus, Our Tiniest Dino

He's about one week old in this photo. And, Hey! That's the blanket I knit him.
He’s about one week old in this photo. Also, taken at night.

We added a new member to our family two weeks ago. On August 17th, 2016, Rufus King was born. He weighed 10lbs 9oz and was 21.5 inches long, making him my biggest baby by 1 whole ounce. (If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll also know that August 17th is my wedding anniversary.)

Rufus was born at our local freestanding birth center. We were privelaged have a lovely water birth with zero complications.

Both he and I are doing fantastic. We’ve spent the last two weeks getting to know one another and nursing nearly non-stop. He and I are working on easing back into day-to-day life.

I’m still working on all of my projects from soap to novels to freelance writing, and Rufus will be my constant companion for the next few months. I am so excited he is here!

Meet Rufus, Our Tiniest Dino

He's about one week old in this photo. And, Hey! That's the blanket I knit him.
He’s about one week old in this photo. Also, taken at night.

We added a new member to our family two weeks ago. On August 17th, 2016, Rufus King was born. He weighed 10lbs 9oz and was 21.5 inches long, making him my biggest baby by 1 whole ounce. (If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll also know that August 17th is my wedding anniversary.)

Rufus was born at our local freestanding birth center. We were privelaged have a lovely water birth with zero complications.

Both he and I are doing fantastic. We’ve spent the last two weeks getting to know one another and nursing nearly non-stop. He and I are working on easing back into day-to-day life.

I’m still working on all of my projects from soap to novels to freelance writing, and Rufus will be my constant companion for the next few months. I am so excited he is here!

Decluttering: Studio Progress

Through this whole decluttering process, my beautiful studio became a dumping ground for all things that fell into the “art supplies” category. In my house, that’s a large category: candle-making supplies, misc. soap stuff, yarn, looms, wool, markers, fabric, paint. Anything that didn’t go in the kid’s art supplies got tossed in my studio to be sorted all at the same time.

Getting through it all was a huge job. It has taken multiple passes through my little 8 x 15 sun room, but over the last few days, I have made major progress.

Here’s the Before:

The other side of my studio, filled with badly stacked boxes, leaving just enough room for my bike and indoor trainer.
The other side of my studio, filled with badly stacked boxes, leaving just enough room for my bike and indoor trainer.

One whole side of the room was covered in boxes and the bike trainer was set up in here, taking up the rest of the floor space. I couldn’t get to my sewing table because of the bike, and my desk got so covered up in stuff that didn’t belong anywhere else, that there was no using that either.

Here’s what it looks like now:

From the doorway, a place to spin
From the doorway, a place to spin (and mint from the garden tied to the ceiling fan to dry)

How I Cut My Art Supplies in Half

  • Paired down my yarn so it would fit into my large set of rubbermaid drawers and put that in the closet. This still leaves me with TONS of yarn. I’m a little afraid I’ll never knit it all.
  • Paired down knitting needles, sewing notions, weaving supplies and shipping materials so that they fit in one of the smaller set of rubbermaid drawers. That fit in the closet also.
  • Also in the closet are my Ashford SampleIt! loom and my homemade Inkle loom, my Foldio.
  • Sorted through all of my WIPs and frogged the ones I was never going to complete and rewound the yarn
  • Organized my spinning fiber and accessories into two baskets. If I can see it, I am more likely to spin it.
  • There is a third set of small rubbermaid drawers in the corner where the iron is living. Inside are candle making supplies and a few misc. packaging and shipping supplies like raffia and tissue paper that didn’t really fit anywhere else.
  • Threw out any paints, ink, or markers that were old and dried out.

Getting rid of any art supplies is an emotional journey. To admit that I was never going to use some old, crusty fabric paint again was a hard decision. And trying to part with spinning fiber? Gut-wrenching. But in the end, I only kept the things I really loved and actually saw myself using in the near future.

 

The Sewing and Art Table
The Sewing and Art Table

I contemplated putting the sewing machine away and making this into a soaping table, but I came to the conclusion that this room is too small to house everything, though that would be fun to do someday! There are a few projects that could contribute to my soap business where I could take advantage of the sewing machine and the printing supplies. Little draw string bags with my logo on them maybe?

The desk
The desk

I’m still using my old Luke’s Diner table as my desk. I love the clean white work space. It’s perfect for spreading out with notebooks and devices, and when I keep it clean, it’s easy to clear off and use as a daytime photo backdrop. In fact, the green bowl in the lower right hand corner of the has a pile of stuff waiting for me to photograph.

Not pictured is a wire wrack next to the desk stuffed with notebooks and business guides and my file folders. I’d like to get a bookshelf for that eventually, but right now we’re working with what we’ve got.

I’m so excited to have this room in working order again. It’s lined on three side with windows, and has beautiful natural light. I hope to spend plenty of time in here over the next few months as I get my soap business off the ground and continue writing.

My next project for this room is decorate it. I found a photographer on etsy, and I’d love to cover my walls with her work.

Decluttering: Paper

Before I started going through all of my papers, I never would have claimed to be a paper hoarder. I thought I was pretty good at throwing old junk mail out a couple times a week and filing things that are important…and forgetting that a lot of time I tend to shove paper in file just to get it out of my sight. Now that I’ve been through it, I have to admit that I had a problem.

Case in point:
awful paper

Did I even know what I kept in this file? Not at all. It was just junk that had probably accumulated on my desk. I think I found one useful file in all of this. Same for my other three file boxes. I found some business receipts, some old W-2s, and other once useful documents, but mostly, I found junk. Wadded post-its, old syllabi, the orientation folder from when I worked at Target from approxiamately 5 minutes back in 2008… Readers, I found Japanese homework. I haven’t studied Japanese since 2005. I don’t even know how that got filed since I didn’t buy that folder until I started Tiny Dino Studios in 2011.

And my file folders weren’t even the worst part. Check out my craft drawer:

messy paper in messy drawers

1. The drawers are just plain messy, but I’m not organizing yet, I’m still in the decluttering stage.
2. What even is that jumble? I don’t even know.

I think things like this are a symptom of not spending enough time in my studio. I give myself just long enough to complete my project, but not enough time for clean up, so when I go in to start something new, I just shove the leftover stuff from last time out of sight. Also, I don’t have a trash can in my studio. I really should remedy that.

I don’t have any pretty pictures to show you, because even though my files boxes are functional and I know where all my important stuff is, the rest of my studio is still a disaster. The files boxes and binders are waiting patiently on my desk for their turn to find a home.

What was important in this project was gather all of the paper into one place and sorting it one piece at a time. Like the books, it was a bigger job than I expected. It took me a few hours to find and rifle through all that. In the end, I threw away four bags of what was essentially trash that I had been carrying around for years, which was extremely satisfying.

Decluttering: Books

Books are the number one hardest thing for me to get rid of. I thought it would be yarn or fiber arts related goods, but selling my drum carder taught me that I’m just fine without it. Books though. For more than half my life books have been my identity–I was a reader, a writer– it was mandataory that I have a large book collection.

Our bookshelves were messy
Our bookshelves were messy

Because of that, it took me a few weeks after purging my clothes to make it over to my bookshelves. That’s right, shelves. I have one in the bedroom, two in the living room, and my husband has three in his office. (I didn’t touch his books, and he flat out refused to get rid of them on his own. He even rescued a few volumes from my discard pile.)

Yes, that is a doorknob and a half-knit sock you see.
And the tall one had become a place to keep things out of toddler’s reach.

I had two rules. in discarding.
1. I had to really love the book, and want to reread it and / or use it in future.
2. If I loved it, but had the eBook, I had to get rid of the paper copy.

For whatever reason, I didn't think this would be such a huge job when I started...
All of my books sorted into piles

Out of about 300 books, I only ended up keeping 100, most of which fit on the one bookshelf in the bedroom. The rest are all art/business related books, so they will live in the studio, and even then, there are only about a dozen. Most of the books I am gettind rid of are old books I either couldn’t or didn’t want to sell back to the college bookstore. For some reason, when I was in college, I wanted to keep all of my English-major related books.

He's been very helpful through this whole clutter culling process, so much so that I've accidentally thrown away some important thing Felix decided we didn't need anymore.
Felix is helping sort books.

I haven’t cracked a single one of them in the five years since I graduated. Obviously, I’m over it.

Not surprisingly, the books I kept were by the authors I love the most, John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver, Thomas Hardy, The Brontes, etc. The rest are about gardening and farming–all of the things that make me dream and give me joy.

Secret, most of the discards are still in boxes on my back porch as I slowly find places to donate them.
The Final Sort. The keepers in the front, the discards in the back

One surprise was that I kept only two knitting books. I am discarding some gorgeous pattern books (interested in snatching one up? Stay tuned, I’ll have them up for grabs in a few days), because I almost always knit from indie patterns on ravelry. Downloading patterns takes up so much less space.

Now I have all of my books in one place, organized by author and subject, and easy to find.

There are roughly 60 books here. Most of the young adult books and the Harry Potter books went to live in the kids' room.
The end product

I expected to me be sad to see so many volumes go, but I feel lighter for having pared down my collection to only my favorite books. And, next time we move, we’ll have 200 fewer books to haul.

What are the books you can’t live without?

PS, You might have noticed that I didn’t blog about purging my closet. It’s always been easy for me to get rid of clothes, I have little emotional attachment to most garments, and generally only buy what I need to get by for awhile. I would like to be more intentional about what I bring into my collection in the future, but being in the middle of a pregnancy, clothes only cross my mind when I complain about how all my maternity pants are still too big, and all of my regular pants are way too small.

Mission: Tidy & Organize

When we moved into our house a little over two ears ago, we thought we were going to have to much open space. We were moving from a 900 sq ft apartment to a 1900 sq ft house. There was no way our stuff would fill it up, and I was worried about the house feeling empty.

dinning room before
our dining room the first morning we had the keys

We were so dead wrong.

Turns out, we had our apartment so jam packed that we should not have worried.

dinningroom after
our dining room on our first weekend in the house

One mistake I made when moving in was to not take any time off work to get the house unpacked and put away. I wanted to, but I was pregnant. Any days I took off would count against my paid maternity leave, so I hoarded those days. That means I put our stuff away here and there, not really finding a permanent spot for anything, because I was cutting in to my usual clean up and maintenance time, but we were making it work.

new studio wide
my studio the first month we lived here

Fast forward two years, a few holidays, and one toddler later, and our place is a never ending mess. The clutter has taken over. Between toys, coats, bags, books, hobbies, etc, I feel like I will never get the place under control. I never feel like my house is clean, because I have to organize and tidy before I can clean.

I don’t mind cleaning. I loathe tidying. I like everything to have a place, or to get the hell out of my way. I have better things to do than constantly be spit shining my home. I would like to live, thank you very much.

Sometime a year or more ago, I found Mari KondoThe Life Changing Art of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. I bought it and didn’t read it because I wanted an excuse to not put in the work. Then I kept seeing it pop on various blogs, and the little bits I saw about it reminded me why I bought it. So I cracked it open, finally. The book is all about getting rid of all the things that clutter your house and your life and finding places for all of he things that matter most.

Kondo encourages the reader to recognize when an object has fulfilled its purpose in their life, even if that purpose was to only give joy when they bought it. Then thank it for that joy, and get rid of it. I love the idea of acknowledging the emotions inanimate objects invoke in us. Emotion and potential are why I hold on to things I am never going to use, and saying it aloud is an affirmation of those feelings that lead me to hang on.

I want to purge this house of all of our clutter and find a place for everything before this baby gets here. Since we’ll be moving bedrooms around in preparation, the KonMari method feels like it makes sense for us and our house.

current state of my studio work table
current state of my studio work table

I’ve already started on the clothes, and am mentally preparing myself for the books. I probably spend more money on books than anything else. These days they are mostly eBooks, but I still collect my fair share of paper books, and they have accumulated.

The other side of my studio, filled with badly stacked boxes, leaving just enough room for my bike and indoor trainer.
The other side of my studio, filled with badly stacked boxes, leaving just enough room for my bike and indoor trainer.

I’ll be sharing my progress every Monday to help keep myself accountable. Wish me luck!

Curb Appeal

One of my favorite parts of our new house is that there is a yard. Yesterday morning I spent an hour and half outside enjoying the warm weather and sunshine while supervising the cat. (She loves to run and play in the yard, much to the chagrin of the neighborhood squirrels, but I don’t trust her to stay inside the fence when left to her own devices.) We do this with each day when the weather is nice. Wondering around the yard gives me a good opportunity to think about how to improve it through gardening.

We have our five little beds that should be ready for planting vegetables in the coming weeks, and while I’m still deciding what to plant and where, I’ve been thinking more about the rest of the yard. Our house has absolutely no curb appeal.

Curb Appeal
This is the left side of our house, which has been a rental house for at least the last ten years. There is no landscaping–of course all the grass is dead right now, but that patch of dirt next to the foundation runs all along the house, and was like that when we moved in last November when there was still just a hint of life left in the yard.

Since we moved in in late November, I didn’t plant any bulbs in these places like I wanted to, because I figured it would be too late. I figured we do some petunias or something, maybe some wildflowers later in the summer, and plant some tulips and gladiolus earlier in the fall for next year.

Imagine my surprise when I noticed this little bit of greenery coming up just to the left of the drainpipe in the photo above.
bulbs
Two little patches of some sort of bulb! These look to me like they’ve been neglected for a few years, and probably should have been thinned last year, so I’m hoping they still flower, because until they do, I have no idea what they are. I’m thinking hyacinth or narcissus from the shape of the leaves, but I could be totally wrong.

more bulbs
And then to the right of the drainpipe, I found these little guys who look like they must have just popped up through the soil. They’re different from the others, but I’m still not sure what kind of bulb they are. My guess is crocus, but really, I know nothing about flowers, other than I’m really excited that I don’t have to wait until next year for spring blooms.

ETA: They turned out to be day lilies and daffodils!

Bedroom Brainstorming

A few weeks back I shared some pictures from the mostly unpacked portions of our new house. Most of the photos took place in the dining room, which looks like this:
dinning room before
Green walls, white trim, hard wood floors in great condition, and a lot of natural light. The photos I shared give the impression that that’s how the entire house looks. The rest of the house is great! But the upstairs has some features that aren’t really my favorite.

For instance, here’ a quick shot of the corner of my bedroom.
bedroom
Still has the great floors and natural light, but almost all of the upstairs has this dark, dated wood panelling–and as you can see, most of our furniture is all wood-colored. We collected our furniture (and registered for the Cherry crib) all when we were living in spaces with white walls, so there was some contrast. Now our bedroom feels like one big brown blah except for our quilt–and since we rent, painting is out of the question.

The other thing to note about the bedroom, is that it is huge. I haven’t measured the square footage, but what you see really is a corner of it. There is the other half of the king bed and a couple of dressers out of the picture, plus room for more. When we moved in, and told Athrun the baby would be staying in our room, he said there was room for his (double) bed as well as all our stuff and stuff for the baby. He was right, we could make it a family bedroom if we wanted. (We don’t, for the record.) There is just a lot of wall space to cover in there–so it’s no small task to brighten this room up.

bedroom south wall
I want to start on this wall, where the baby’s stuff will be. (This isn’t the final arrangement. The crib is sort of just sitting there for now, but it will be in this general vicinity.) The small dresser on the left is for the baby too.

I have a few thoughts about how to add some color and brightness to the room, as well as make it look a little bit more up-to-date. First, linens for the crib will probably be white with some sort of brightly colored pattern on them–including a crib skirt. The dresser needs to be painted, though I haven’t decided on a color yet, and the drawer pulls updated. I would also like to find a way to raise it a little bit, because it could also double as a changing table in the room.

I know curtains would be a big help, but I really don’t want to put up the only ones I have that will fit these windows, because they’re, you guessed it, brown. They were purchased when I lived in a tiny apartment with no blinds and needed dark curtains to keep the light out in the mornings, and they’ve followed me ever since–and chocolate brown curtains look pretty nice on a white wall, I think. All that to say that I don’t want chose curtains until I know what I’m doing to the walls.

I have been thinking about something like what I found on this blog

Fabric Wallpaper DIY from The Golden Girl Blog
See post here


Spraying fabric with starch so it acts like wallpaper–but is completely removable. Since I have so much space to cover, I am thinking about doing just one wall at a time and working my way around the room. To make it affordable, I am thinking of buying a bunch of white or natural fabric and printing my own designs and colors onto it. Right now I’m thinking about teals and turquoises and greens, because I find them tranquil, and they match our quilt.

I have some simple fabrics on order. When they come in, I am going to try the fabric wallpaper DIY with a scrap in a discreet place to make sure that it won’t damage the paneling. I’ll let you know how it goes.