Things to do in Indy

Wine and Canvas
Do you ever wish you could paint a piece of artwork that you would be proud to hang on your wall at home? (Without going to art school and/or being born with a natural gift, that is.) That's kind of the idea of a new activity available in Indianapolis called "Wine and Canvas." It's been in the Indy area for about a year, and I first heard of it through the magic of Groupon.

The concept is pretty clever: Come spend three hours with your friends, create a new piece of art for your wall, and drink while you do it. You head home at the end of the night with a finished painting.

I gave this a try for the first time last week with some girls I work with. I'm a big fan of the paint-your-own-pottery shop in Broad Ripple, so this was right up my alley. Each person is handed a blank canvas when they check in, then you're directed to choose an easel and pre-set palette of paint. A local artist takes the stage (your leader for the evening), and through the course of the next three hours, that artist walks you step-by-step through a painting while you follow along.

It's a bit like paint-by-number for adults, except the lines aren't already drawn on the canvas. (Below is my painting in progress.)

My review of the experience? Lukewarm overall.

For starters, I felt a little misled when I learned that my pre-paid $35 did not, in fact, include my glass of wine. A "bartender" was on hand throughout the evening, serving beer and wine for $3-4 a glass. Combine the name, Wine & Canvas, with a pre-paid class fee, and all of us in my group expected one glass of wine to be included.

Secondly, I think I would have enjoyed it more had I chosen one of their sessions that were not held in the actual company's studio (at Keystone on 86th Street). They host these events at various places around town, mainly restaurants and bars, and there are enough spaces for about 15 people. At the studio, there were more than 60 of us crammed into this space. And I do mean crammed. I think a more intimate setting would have given the atmosphere and entirely different feeling.

At the end of the night, I did come away with a completed painting (see below) that I would not have known how to do on my own. I got to hang out with friends from work, which doesn't happen terribly often, and we had fun together.

I'd be up for doing this again, but it wouldn't be my first choice, it would have to be a painting I was really interested in, and I wouldn't go to the studio.

I think the concept is great, though, and I love finding new things to do with my friends in Indy. Give it a try if it sounds like something you'd enjoy!

When did I become a grown-up?

Sometimes I find that time can be most easily marked by seeing milestones in the lives of the people around me, as opposed to feeling time passing in my own life.

For example: One of my best friends from college is pregnant with her first child. I think back to my view of age as a kid and a teenager, particularly the way that the teachers -- the grown-ups -- who were in their mid-twenties seemed so... well, grown up. Mature. Wise. Adult. Being twenty-six years old seemed to be light years ahead of me, an age that would take forever to reach. It was an age where people were established in their careers, married, having babies, buying houses, and doing all those other iconic grown-up things.

Now? I'm there. It's my friends who are now the ones getting married, having babies, buying houses, and being real grown-ups. And even though I'm at that age, too, most days I still don't really feel like a "grown-up." I still feel like it's those who are 10+ years older than me who are the adults. Seeing the people around me -- the friends who I grew up with -- mark these very adult milestones is often mind-boggling. It's a clue that I'm there, too. How did that happen?

I also realized recently that I'm crossing a job-seeker's threshold: the five-year mark. When I was searching for both my first job out of college and my current job (where I've been for more than two years now), I was continually frustrated by job ads that said "5 years' experience required." After getting turned down for many jobs for being under-qualified in that sense, it was frustrating to think, "well, how am I going to get that experience if you won't hire me?" But this year marks my five-year anniversary of graduating from college. My five-year reunion will be this fall. I'm crossing that threshold and am now in that 5 years' experience box -- I'm now with those people in the "5-7 years' experience required" category.

When did I become a grown-up? What day did that happen?

And why do I still feel like I'm not old enough to have friends starting families?

What about you, all you grown-ups: do you feel like a grown-up? Do you remember when you realized you were one of them? 

Changing things up on SightSalad

Time for some spring cleaning! What better time of year to try something fresh and new?

I'm ready for a change. Fresh air. New growth. Variety. New challenges. Different perspectives. With that spirit, things are going to change here at SightSalad.

I've been doing Project 365 since March 15, 2008 -- exactly three years to the day, which is purely a weird (very weird) coincidence. After 901 posts, I've decided to try something different.

I'm going to continue blogging here, but it won't be focused on a daily photo. (Let's be honest, life has been getting in the way recently, and I haven't been very good about "daily" photos anyways!) Instead, I'm going to open up the blog and allow more freedom for myself. I want to see where it takes me.

What might you see? Plenty of photos, that's a given. You could see cooking and recipe posts. Perhaps some cookbook reviews. Commentary about life in general. Reviews of books I've read recently. Happenings around town. And who knows what else? That's the beauty of it -- even I don't know.

Where and how will inspiration strike?

I'm excited about this new venture, and I hope you'll stick around with me while I explore this new road.

Away we go...

156/365 Spicing up vegetables

Garlic seems to be one of those things that divides people between love-it and hate-it. I fall into the love-it category, and I've been trying to use more of the fresh stuff lately. I add it to just about everything I cook, from soups to scrambled eggs. One of my favorite new soups from this winter -- Tuscan Chickpea from Cooking Light -- calls for eight cloves of garlic.

Yep, you read that correctly. Eight. Cloves. It's fantastic, and I honestly don't find the garlic flavor overpowering or dominating by any means. (Same goes for the two cups of onion: it doesn't make the soup overly onion-y.)

Add to its resume the fact that garlic is incredibly good for you, and I'm sold.

Are you a fan? Do you fall into the love-it or hate-it side of the argument?

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and 430EX Speedlite, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 500

155/365 New theme: vegetables

A new theme of 'vegetables'? This theme is right up my alley! In one way, it's an easy one for me, because I love to photograph food. But at the same time, I've done so much of it, I need to get a little more creative and not just repeat a photo I've done before. A challenge!

This one's new in the fact that 1) it's the edge of a collard green, which I've never photographed or 2) eaten before. It arrived in my latest bin from Green B.E.A.N. Delivery, and rather than substitute it out for something more familiar (like my go-to favorite, baby spinach), I kept it. I'd read on a couple blogs (one good how-to example here) about using a collard green in place of a tortilla or bread to make a wrap, and I wanted to try it.

The verdict? It's good! I didn't feel like the raw green by itself had a whole lot of flavor, so it easily worked in place of an also-bland tortilla.

I love when the trial of a new vegetable ends up with a thumbs-up review!

Have you had collard greens? How do you like to eat them?

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and 430EX Speedlite, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 500

154/365 Newness: pencil erasers

Buying these made me feel like a kid again, shopping for school supplies in August. I loved that time of year! Fresh pencils, new erasers, perfect white notebook paper, untouched crayons of every shade... makes me want to run to Office Depot now and go on a shopping spree.

I was helping Mom to clean out my parents' basement this weekend, and we were particularly focusing on my old college and kid's-room randomness that is still there. We ran across a stash of my old notebooks (which I had a lot of, as an office supply-obsessed child/teenager/person), and you never quite know what you'll find when you open the cover!

Take, for instance, a notebook started (yes, I dated it) during my freshman year of high school. I only made it through making seven lists before I quit (pathetic!), but the ones I did get done are hilarious. Mom was laughing so hard she could hardly stand up. Care for a couple samples of the mind of this 14-year-old girl?

Things I Require in my Husband
Courtesy
Courage
Initiative
Intelligence
Ability
Resourceful
Imagination
A great smile
Friendliness
Respect
Honesty
Values like mine

It's funny to see what my priorities -- ahem, requirements -- were at 14! I must have had marriage on the brain, because there's another list along the same lines:

Things to Remember When I'm Married
I will NEVER put my children in daycare.
I will NEVER cuss (say bad words to) at my children or around them.
Fighting is normal in a relationship. The key is resolving and moving on.

Wise words from someone not old enough to drive yet, ha!

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and 430EX Speedlite, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 640

153/365 New sprouts

As promised, here's part two of the soaking and sprouting series of photos!

No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you: these are different foods than were pictured in my last post. On the left are sprouting lentils, and on the right are sprouting wheat berries.

I was thrilled by how quickly the wheat berries sprouted. For one, these wheat berries have been sitting in the pantry for more than two years. Seriously. I wasn't sure they'd be good anymore, but voila! A day of soaking, a day on the counter, and evidence of life was unmistakable. See those little white "tails" on the grains?

Sadly to say, my experience cooking these two foods together wasn't as wildly successful -- my lentils turned into mush. Still edible, but they weren't nearly as good as the sampling I got in the actual class. But I forge on, undeterred, ready to tweak the approach and try it again!

Who knew whole grains could be so much fun?

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and 430EX Speedlite, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 640

152/365 Newness: new cooking class

This post in the "newness" theme is the first of a two-parter that will give me the chance to share with you something new I've learned recently and am trying.

I took a cooking class last week from a group in Indy called Fermenti Artisan. I found them through the local blogosphere, stumbled upon their Facebook page, and signed up for the first class in their "Sprouting & Soaking 1 - Whole Seeds, Grains, Nuts & Legumes" series. I went with one of my girlfriends, and we ended up really being the only two people in the class. It was a little odd but gave us lots of time to ask questions (and take leftovers at the end of the night!).

The class focused on the benefits of and ways to go about soaking and/or sprouting your whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds. By planning ahead a little, it's a way to 1) take the nutritional value of these foods to the next level and 2) make these foods more easily digestible. Sounds good to me!

We started with an informational 30 minutes (here's a link to the Wikipedia page on the subject, if you're curious), then dove into the kitchen and started cooking. Through the next 90 minutes, we watched the chef (and helped a little) make a series of five or six different recipes that used sprouted whole foods. We made everything from walnut milk and walnut butter, to oatmeal, sprouted salad, porridge, wheat-butter crackers, and fruit/nut snack bars.

Maybe it's partially the fact that I'm excited for spring to get here so I can put in my new garden, but I'm kind of fascinated by this. (It's a bit like gardening on my counter top.) Part of what's so great is this can be really inexpensive -- the supplies aren't expensive (and you can even get by with what you probably already have), and by buying dry beans or grains in bulk, it's an easy way to save money. I immediately borrowed some spare wide-mouthed glass jars from Mom's canning stash, filched some tulle fabric off her for straining screens, and got to work!

Pictured above are dry garbanzo beans starting to soak, pearled barley, and brown rice. I soaked all three for 24 hours. The beans expanded to about double their volume, then they started sprouting after about another 24-48 hours. The barley won't sprout, and I didn't take the rice to that point, but by having soaked them first, I cut down on their cooking time by about half. I made a salad out of the barley and rice, and I'm going to cook the beans and just use them in meals here and there over the next week.

This has opened my eyes to an entirely new world of cooking. If you're curious to give it a try yourself, the website I keep seeing recommended and trusted is sproutpeople.org. They have starter kits, seeds to start, recipes, articles, instructions, you name it.

Have you ever tried this? 

My next post will show you some of the results of my sprouting experiments!

Camera: Canon 40D with 24mm wide-angle lens and 430EX Speedlite, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 640

151/365 New theme: newness

Time for a new theme! This one is "newness."

Pictured here? Brand-new eyeshadows. Very girlie of me, isn't it? Getting new makeup is as much fun now as it was when I was a kid playing dress-up. I place it just about on the same level as getting new shoes or new clothing: when you wear it that first time, you feel fresh, special, and you go about your day wondering if anyone else will notice.

They rarely do, but it's still fun! 

What do you love to get and wear that first time? What gives you that special boost of confidence?

Camera: Canon 40D with 24mm wide-angle lens and 430EX Speedlite, 1/125s, f/4 at ISO 320

150/365 Spirits

I took this photo in the liquor aisle at Target (classy), and honestly had to come back and look up "spirits" on Wikipedia to make sure it counted as part of my "spirit" theme! I wasn't totally sure if the alcoholic spirits had a more specific definition, but good news -- these count.

Does that say something about how regular my consumption of alcohol is?

I tend to be a beer girl, myself, who's molding her tastes into going for a glass of white wine more and more frequently. One of the great Groupon deals I snagged last year was a "language of wine" class at a winery in Carmel. For $10, we learned the basic vocabulary associated with wine, how to properly pour and hold a glass, and we finished off with a tasting. It was well worth the $10! Since then, I feel like I'm better able to appreciate different wines, and I'm more educated when I sample something new.

Maybe the next class will be "Bartending 101?"

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000

149/365 The spirit of Valentine's Day

Remember the exciting but awful time of year in grade school when the time came to decorate a "mailbox", hang it on your desk, and wait and see who gave you a Valentine? Would the girl/boy you liked acknowledge your love and like you back?

Is being a grown-up better or worse?

Most of the Valentine's Days in my life have been spent solo, but I've never really been one to feel down about it. Today was going to be pretty much like every other day. Or so I thought.

Our Cheer Committee at work announced on Friday that we would be having our very own mailbox-decorating contest. We all had until noon on Monday to decorate and display our white paper bags. People bought or made Valentines and distributed them throughout the day, filling everyone's bags with sweets and happy notes.

I walked around the office before the judging began to check out the competition. I'd love to think that I could be a contender in the contest, but I work with people who are designers and creative for a living. Competition was tough! Each person's was completely unique, and I was really impressed with how much everyone got into the spirit of the friendly competition.

Mine is the bag in the photo above. Below are a couple more samples, and you can see more (of the photos I took) on our company's Facebook page. 

 

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope your day was filled with lots of love.

Camera: Canon 40D with 24mm wide-angle lens, various exposures

148/365 New theme: Spirit

What better way to start a new theme -- "Spirit" -- than with some school spirit?

I went to a Butler University basketball game on Saturday night with some fellow alumni (go dawgs!). I've attended a shamefully low number of BU games since my time in school there, and this was my first as an alumna. Oddly enough, I went to a Pacers game with some other friends the previous weekend -- that's more basketball games in eight days than I've been to in five years. By going to the two in such quick succession, I was really struck by how different the two games really were.

Even aside from my affiliation with the school as an alumna, which definitely makes me biased, the atmosphere of the Butler game was ten times more energizing and fun than the Pacers game. To start, the Pacers have struggled with fan attendance for the last several years, following the infamous brawl on the court in Detroit. They've had to resort to selling tickets for $0.75 recently to fill seats and draw fans to the games. I'll give the management credit for making changes to improve the team, but they have a long way to go before they regain a crowd's loyalty.

Now, when you go to a Pacers game at Conseco Fieldhouse, at least half the seats are empty. Most people seem to be there for the socializing aspects of game-going rather than for the game itself. The arena is pretty quiet.

Now, in contrast, your experience with the BU basketball game starts before you even walk in the door. Traffic lines the streets near Hinkle Fieldhouse. Parking is at a premium -- we paid some students $10 to park in their yard. And as you walk closer to the Fieldhouse, you can hear the pep band inside playing the school song.

Then, when you actually enter Hinkle, the atmosphere is absolutely electric. 80%+ of seats are occupied, and the crowd is wearing a sea of blue and white. Everyone is truly into the game: with every point, the crowd erupts in a loud cheer. With every ref's call against the home team, the crowd collectively boos in perfect unison. It's difficult to carry on a conversation with the person next to you because it's so loud -- not that you want to be talking, anyways, because the people there are actually there for the game.

And, of course, you have a solid student fan base. They don't hold back when it comes to supporting their team, even if it (oddly) means wearing a green suit to the game.

Fans know the players, their stats, their hometowns, and they're proud of the fact that Butler basketball players actually graduate from college.

The cherry on top? A youthful coach who exudes good-guy-ness and led the team to the NCAA Championship in 2010.

School spirit is not hard to come by. Who wouldn't want to root for these guys?

Camera: Canon 40D with 70-300mm IS lens, varying exposures at 1/160s

147/365 Tired: cozy lap time

I love this little guy. So. Much.

Since he and I no longer live in the same house, I have to soak up every minute I get with him. I remember years (and years and years) ago, when I was preparing to go to college, one of the things I feared was that Buster would forget who I was. I feared that I'd come home to visit and he would greet me not as a family member but as a guest in the house. The thought almost brought me to tears.

I should have given him more credit, though. Every trip home was like no time had lapsed at all. What a relief!

Mom brings him to my house to visit about once every couple of weeks, which I always look forward to. I've loved watching him become more comfortable in my house, which means he'll leave Mom's side to come see what I'm doing in a different room.

But he always returns to her side, preferably in the big, comfy chair. Can't say I blame him!


Camera: Canon 40D with 430EX Speedlite, 1/80s, f/4 at ISO 800

146/365 Tired: make me sleepy

On nights when my brain is still too active to quickly fall asleep, I find that reading for just a few minutes helps me to totally relax and fall asleep faster. It usually just takes a page or two before my eyelids are getting heavy and I'm ready to call it a night.

For this reason, I know I can't be one of those people who reads in bed and can actually make serious progress on a book. It would take me half a year to finish a book if I only read at that time! These days, I do most of my reading at meals -- breakfast, lunch and dinner. It seems like I don't give myself much opportunity at other times of the day anymore to just sit, relax, and enjoy reading.

When the weather warms up and Mom and Dad's screened porch is open for business again, I hope that will be an entirely different story!

What about you -- what's your favorite place to read?

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/125s, f/4 at ISO 1250

145/365 Tired: bedtime

Do you remember the day when your opinion of bedtime changed from a child's "I'm not tired! I don't want to go to bed!" to an adult's "God, I'm tired, when is it time to go to bed?" I don't remember that subconscious switch being flipped for me, but I'm sure it happened somewhere along the line!

As much as I would love to get eight hours of sleep every night, I can never seem to get to bed before 10:15 or 10:30 every night. I'm always busy doing something around the house, doing something online, doing something that I don't stop doing until 10:00.

At the end of last year, my office offered all of us the opportunity to try flex time. The caveat was that we had to choose our schedule by a certain date and then stick with it for the next year. The options for Tuesday through Friday were 7-4, 8-5, or 9-6. Starting work an hour later didn't appeal to me in the least. Starting earlier and heading home an hour earlier was more tempting. But honestly, the reason I chose to stick with the standard 8-5 schedule all week was sleep: I knew it was very unlikely that I'd be able to get to bed early enough (by 9:30) to be able to get up an hour earlier.

So 10:30 it is. Bedtime as usual.


Camera: Canon 40D, 1/20s, f/4 at ISO 1600