What I Did on My Mini-Vacation

The last few weeks have been a little stressful at work so I decided to take a couple of days off. My friend/office-mate is going on maternity leave starting March 19. As there are only 2 people who know how to do our job (Wen-Shu and me) it will be a little difficult for me to take a real vacation over the next year so my plan is to take mini-vacations which should give me a break without making it too difficult at work.

Anyway... in photo essay form: here is how I spent my extended weekend/mini-vacation:

-experiment in faux batik dyeing. I first saw this idea on the Craftzine blog last week and obsessed about trying it all week. It works well, but I don't know how practical it would be for a large piece of fabric. (Instructions found here: http://thatartistwoman.blogspot.com/2008/07/kid-friendly-batik.html) I used a scrap of white cotton and some Rit dye. It washed out a lot (somehow I don't have a pic of the finished product).



-baked bread. Over the past year or so I have been discovering how much I enjoy baking bread. I inherited my Mom's Bosch Universal Machine (not sure if that's the proper name for it). For the last 15 years or so Mom always made her own bread and we all were the happy recipients of it. Since we cleaned out Mom's house in August, her Bosch machine has been in regular use as has her bread recipe.



-sewing a secret project for my friend Wen-Shu's baby. She occasionally visits here (GET BACK TO WORK WEN-SHU!!!)(hahahaha) so I'll only give you a glimpse of the secret. This sewing gave me such a feeling of accomplishment and stress relief, this alone was a vacation for my brain.

(full project details & pictures to come when the gift has been given)

-more baking. Onion studded hamburger buns this time. I used this recipe from Coconut & Lime. These buns are so delicious and sturdy without being tough. I made pulled pork in the slow cooker today (but forgot to take a picture) and these were perfect for pulled pork sandwiches.


I feel sad that my mini-vacation is over now but I am so glad I decided to take the time off. I needed a break. I needed to just sew and bake and read and... breathe. Here's hoping I can continue to breathe when I get back to work.