new things

One of the things I like to do in my own little no tv, no internet world, is try out new things. In addition to keeping me busy, I like exploring new things so I can continue to learn and challenge myself. This often takes the form of new recipes or little craft projects and I've had a few good new things lately.

The first involved an eggplant. Eggplants are one of those vegetables that always show up in vegetarian dishes but that I'm just not that sure about so when I was in the farmers market last week (yay!) I decided to pick one out. I think eggplants are kind of weird. They are so oddly light yet dense and just so purple. Anyways, I turned to my trusty Vegetarian Bible cook book (Thanks Nancy!) and cranked out a pretty tasty baked eggplant dish. I'm not sure I am going to become eggplant fan though, the texture kind of weirds me out a little bit.

The second involves perhaps an overly ambitious craft project. The floor of my new bedroom is a ridiculous shade of maroon plus scrap marks and green, blue and white paint drips and desperately needs to be covered. Inspired by a friend of mine, I decided to make my own rug out of old tee-shirts. I've been working on it for a while and I thought it was going pretty well so I layed my tee-shirt braid out in rug shape only to discover I have a lot more braiding to do to get the size of rug I want.

The final new thing is neither foodie or crafty. Today I am moving on to a new store within my restaurant chain to start learning new things on the road to becoming a shift supervisor. I'm a little sad to leave behind the people at store number one who have become friends but this is very much a good step in my restaurant career (little c).