craft + cook: boutique bedroom and breakfast burritos

I used to get sad that the day after Sunday is Monday, and so Sunday felt like a getting ready for work day as opposed to weekend fun day. However, Sunday is still a day off, and I need to appreciate the present and be "Easy" like the Lionel Ritchie song. And so yesterday I put on my outfit for being "easy like Sunday morning" and played some tunes to feel like there was no schedule.                 

Recently I declined to work my regular summer job of reading essays for 7 days of the AP English Language & Composition exam for College Board. I used to love that annual summer trip to another U.S. city. I got to become acquainted with Daytona Beach, Florida; Louisville, Kentucky; Kansas City, Missouri; and Tampa Bay, Florida. What I miss about traveling for work--either reading exams in Iowa City, Iowa or attending a workshop in Dallas, Texas or a conference in Orlando, Florida are the accommodations in a 4-star hotel. Their hotel rooms may be boring and consistently bland, but I do love me a Hilton, Westin or Sheraton. I appreciate a spacious hotel room with premium furnishings, lavish bedding, and lovely-smelling bath products. Freshly laundered, crisp white sheets on a firm mattress and housekeeping to make that bed before I return from work and play is the upscale comfort I miss. 

And I've stayed in more modest but modern boutique hotels which maybe did not have the concierge services, bell hop, fine dining, valet parking, spa services, multiple pools and fitness center of the bigger chain hotels, but still had beautifully decorated communal spaces or a hipster lobby and equally tasteful furnishings and fun, quirky art in the hotel room. I miss you Brooklyn, New York! Washington, D.C. you're next! That relaxing vibe of serene yet interesting is what I'm going for in my bedroom. And so yesterday my new nightstand was delivered. I wasted no time in tricking it out with my wireless speaker, bedside reading and writing and drawing implements for journaling.              

I'm not normally a matchy matchy furnishings kind of person, but I do love the midcentury modern look of my new nightstand which I got to coordinate with my dresser that contains even more bedside reading and ambient lighting. The lamp base colors of blue and gray fit into a relaxing scheme. I’m very much feeling the tranquility.

My bed is likewise dressed in neutrals with a flax linen duvet and white sheets to suggest calm. At some point I'll swap out the pink and peach which verge on the yellow, red and orange which agitate or stimulate though they do coordinate with my blush rug tapestry. And there’s a little pink in the seashore canvases above my bed.

My dog, Sadie is what I look forward to after a trip though yeah I miss the hubs too. And I've cultivated the habit of making my bed after getting up. The hardest thing about styling a bedroom to look like a hotel room though is getting rid of clutter. My sleek and minimalist Eames chair is buried under sewing projects. And even more of my sewing detritus is on my home office cabinet aka craft center. 

 

Now I commence the search for a lower profile and minimalist platform bed and mattress. Headboard or no? No more boxspring mattress, but should I opt for inner spring and a little foam or not? But there was no time to make more design decisions as my neighbors were coming over because they had asked me to demonstrate how I make my breakfast burritos.                    

While I had Nancy tear aluminum foil into sheets and lay a tortilla on top of each one, I fried the potatoes and the chorizo in separate frying pans, scrambled and soft cooked (because they'll cook more when you reheat the burrito) 10 eggs with heavy whipping cream and black pepper, opened the can of white chili beans, chopped some mild pickled jalapenos, put the Cheddar and Helen's Monterey Jack into a bowl and set all the aforementioned ingredients out along with a jar of ranchero sauce (which I told them was a can of diced tomatoes whirred in my blender with charred onion, charred jalapenos, charred garlic, chipotle in adobo sauce, and cilantro). Luckily Cecilia already had experience rolling lumpia. The concept for rolling any food is the same. Line the ingredients in the burrito. I tend to line the ingredients along the edge rather than in the center.

Also I told the ladies, there doesn't have to be any specific order of laying down the fillings though I do like sauce down first to envelope all the ingredients as you roll.

And yes fold the right and left edges toward the center first and roll until seam side down.

Also as you’re rolling, keep tucking in the sides and tightening the bottom to keep the filling contained. And my breakfast burritos are different every time. This was the first time, I added potatoes. And I've used soy chorizo or added sour cream and more fresh onion in the past. I think we must've rolled 20+ burritos, and I've enough tortillas left to make some dinner burritos. I'll be taking carnitas out of the freezer to thaw and turning that can of pinto beans into porky refried beans. 

I thought I would have time then to sew. But nope, it was time to walk the girl, feed her, walk her again and check out hubby realtor's open house, then cook dinner, then evening ablutions, then make lunch and decide what to wear the next day, and get ready for bed. However, I’m hoping to run my sewing machine as well as roll some slabs of clay this week.                

I’m using Kitty (Janome)because I need to bring Katherine (Babylock) to the sewing machine shop. I did after all sew a lot during the pandemic. I stitched Michaela’s king size quilt, but that was a lot of duress on my machine. I really need to learn the quilt-as-you-go technique.