I confirmed that Venice is still the most magical city I've ever been to and discovered an abiding love of the cafe latte, the coffee my grandma made for me as a child given legitimacy with an Italian name. It was nice to know that I can still use most of my Italian and could probably get very proficient with a teeny bit of study next time. Good to be home though and we've roasted a chicken, also confirmed that our bed is the most comfortable place I can imagine. I made a big stride already upon homecoming by finishing a project that had been languishing for a year: put snap tape on the duvet cover I made for the couch snuggling blanket. Project completed and snuggles in progress!

At least when we come back Fall will be here and I plan to celebrate and get over jet lag with Thomas Keller's roast chicken, I already cleaned my oven and everything! Ms. Orangette's salad looks like the perfect thing for leftovers and I'm sure we'll be craving salad after traveling.

Well my weekend was not blissful or relaxing but very annoying. It seems that Thad's car is now well and truly dead so we have to decide what to do and where the money will come from for a new house and a new car. This is not how I like to feel when getting ready for vacation.

A blissfully relaxing weekend awaits and I intend to celebrate with champagne and picnic food, maybe a bitter greens salad with goat cheese. We will watch many dvds and I hope to can something, either tomatoes or another kind of jam depending on what looks good and cheap at the farmer's market. This is my last weekend since I am afraid summer will be over when I get back from Italy. I can make some cookies for the flight.

We have been having fun watching dvds of the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica in preparation for the third to start next month. It is great sci-fi and very addicting. My sweet Thadeus enjoys using the swear word they've developed for the show. There is some pretty sexy content too to keep things spicy.

Last night I cleaned the kitchen and even scrubbed the stove top. Then I took a long shower and washed my hair and exfoliated with my extra special body scrub that smells like the most yummy coconut ever. Afterwards I watched a Jane Austen (novel inspired) movie and felt quite a bit better than I had before I began the whole exercise.

Great article about the "food divide" in the Bay Guardian: " how do you make shopping in farmers markets and cooking for your family more of a way of life rather than a lifestyle."

yesterday at the farmer's market I picked up some fresh black-eyed peas. They made a nice soup last night loosely based on this epicurious recipe.

I omitted the red wine vinegar becuase I forgot. Instead I just sauteed the onion and garlic, threw in 4-5 chopped up roma tomatoes leftover from sauce making, then dumped in a storebought carton of chicken stock, the black-eyed peas (a regular sized baggie-full), oregano and chili powder, and simmered for maybe an hour. Later it looked too chicken brothy so I threw in some quinoa and that made a very nice mushy soup for an almost fall Sunday evening.

craving the next step:

Pouring over books, photos of beautiful houses painted in bright colours, with kids and dogs running through them.

move to Uruguay?

new home in Astoria

I am not good with liminal times. Everyday I wonder if I should plant seeds for a winter garden.

I like these two hanging lights from Dutch by design, especially the Icarus with it's giant angel wing. Very cool name too. The Delight would make a nice bedside hanging lamp but you have to use an energy efficient bulb. I would want to make sure they had some besides the compact flourescents because you cannot use those with a dimmer, which is a deal breaker in the bedroom.

So far 3 people have been by to see the house. Not that many. Meanwhile I am starting to doubt how badly I want to sell. As autumn approaches my instincts tell me to dig in and get under a blanket for winter. I will not be able to buy a better kitchen for roasting chickens or simmering stock. This is the time of year when Thaddy first came into my life. I remember our first date when I leave the windows open day and night and my feet want slippers in the evening. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. I wonder if I will recognize this feeling in another house.

I am obsessed with having a place where I belong. I want a home where I wake up every morning and think yes, this is it, what a beautiful place. Now I will grow something in the garden or make dinner or a quilt or a fire. I will belong there always and years from now remember things as they happen there. Now where is this place, should I make it myself or take over someone else's memories? It must be in a location close to my family and under a lot of trees. A small orchard would not hurt. Am I asking too much? Perhaps the orchard is a bit much.

we had a good salad on the weekend which I will record here for posterity. It included:

1 heart of romaine, chopped
1 shallot chopped up very fine
1 lemon cucumber from the garden
some of orangette's red wine vinaigrette
1 can of tuna packed in olive oil
tons of chopped up cilantro and salt & freshly ground pepper

Apparently tuna and cilantro love each other. This was the perfect salad for coming home from a week of wedding festivities on a day when we had neglected to eat breakfast: light and nutritious but substantial.

raped by color = scientific proof

The New York Times has an article on how color in the home can make you happy:

"a maximalist, color-saturated approach to interiors is a secret to happiness — maybe even the secret"

it goes to the root and makes hair grow

Well the realtor's list was not bad at all. I love his outlook on how people buy houses and hope to god he is right. His take on the craptastic backyard: people want something of their own to personalize when they buy a house, so they will like an unfinished pit of a backyard. Handy for us because our backyard is just such an unfinished pit. The most daunting of the tasks is to clean up the garage, but we would've had to do that to move anyway.

I have started to keep a journal where I can write down my little ideas about our new home and dream away to my heart's content. This has kept me from trolling the house listings so I don't get my heart broken by falling in love with something we can't buy until we get an offer.

In minorly related news I love these coffee cozies popping up here and there. Something similar is what is needed for my kitchenaid. Of course I have to wait to see how we will decorate the new hypothetical kitchen before I can make one. You see how sick I am?

We have chosen a realtor to help us on our journey. He won my heart forever by telling me our home has "pizzaz." I also really like how every time he talks about how we will handle offers he says "when we get an offer, and we will, . . ." to reassure me that it will indeed sell, we will really get offer(s). Tomorrow we get the to-do list for everything that we should do to get the house ready to show people. I am braced.

Thaddy and I have decided to put our house on the market so we can move downtown to be closer to our family and part of a real community. Suburbia has been good to me but I am feeling it's contraints more every day. I am of course obsessed with putting down roots, roots, roots, and I hope the new place will be our family home for good. It should take our current house a good long time to sell but I already have the whole garden planned out for the new house, wherever it may be. I hope we will be there to rake the leaves this Fall and to make eggnog for Christmas but it could take even longer than that. Remind me to be patient.

proof of dorkiness:


kitties love quilts and I love them both!

In other dorky news, I am super excited that I get to stay home from hanging out with friends to instead paint trim in my house and repair the kitchen floor. How to make this weekend complete? Soak some chickpeas for soup.

words of the Pie Queen ring true:

What is this life I'm living here? It feels like I'm just marking time, somehow, waiting for the life I really want to start.

My new favorite thing in the world is this Strawberry Frozen Yogurt from Mr. David Lebovitz's website. It is the most delicious and refreshing, most summeriest, wonderfulest thing in the world. I've made two batches this week with plans for more this weekend. Thinking about doubling the recipe and putting some in little popsicle molds.

This is the abomination pieced together (decided to go with it to be practical, it's my new middle name!). I think the main problem is the small stripe fabric. Any opinions? I was trying to go with a style I am not comfortable with but I think I went too far. I hate that little flowered fabric, I'm actually pissed to have the leftovers in my stash now. Actually something in deep purple would look cool for the small stripe.

I decided to do my sister's wedding quilt like this beautiful and classic squares design instead of that modernist abomination. Well, it's not that bad but just too boring to make. I think the recipients will like this squares design in the pale blue plus cream and beige color scheme I had already planned. But now I will have to scrounge a bunch more creamy-beigey fabrics, looks like she used about 10 in the inspiration piece. Somehow don't have any in my stash, sort of like I never use those colors. . .

Experienced a very unpleasant crafty block this weekend. After getting my crafty room into tip top (well, pretty good) shape on Saturday, I then had trouble crafting anything on Sunday. Here's what happened:

1. I have decided to do this type of modern quilt for my sister's wedding present. The style of her home is very restrained so, to say the least, it is very difficult for me to come up with something which I will be happy to make and that they will be happy to use. The bulk of the quilt will be beige with a larger blue print at the top and a strip of some little flowery stuff separating them. The problem is I hate working with big pieces of fabric. Shouldn't take long to put the top together, but I'm not looking forward to it.

2. I made two skirts and wanted to finish the hems on both this weekend. Unfortunately one is pretty tight and makes an uncute crease at the top of my thighs so I may have to pitch it. (Or I could hold onto it until I lose some weight in my butt, Hah!!!) The other is a half circle skirt in some squirrely fabric with a muslin lining sewn into the side seams. For the life of me I cannot figure out how to hem this thing with the outter and the lining, one keeps bunching when I try to do them together and I can't do them separately because of the side seam situation. Maybe I can get Thad to pin it while I am wearing it but he was busy playing Dungeons and Dragons at the time.

3. My Mom made the brilliant suggestion that I should put a quilt up over the mantel where I need a nice big piece of art but have no budget. Perfect, just my style and free! So I pulled one million scraps out of the scrap bin to make this wall hanging quilt but felt so guilty about the other two projects that I didn't even work on it.

I am feeling rather poorly today because I started a kickboxing class on Wednesday. Of course, I was trying to be tough, but I've kickboxed myself into a state of near total paralysis. Laughing and sneezing are completely of the question.

This past weekend was the first one in a long time that actually felt like it was two full days. I got to work on projects, cuddle with my husband, eat at my favorite restaurant, lounge for hours in front of the tv (the next season of project runway starts next month!), hang out with friends, and oggle kitties. Heavenly! Plus it was nice and hot, ok maybe too hot at 109F, but it felt like a real summer vacation. That's a feeling I've been chasing for months.

Apartment Therapy: Week 3

I ran into a little momentum problem in week three. Since our home started feeling so much better I became less motivated to work on it and more motivated to relax in it. Have to stay focused!

1. Vacuumed all the floors again, so addictive. This makes your home feel so clean and happy.

2. I already have a working system instead of a landing strip so I nixed that idea. Instead I decided to knock down all the cobwebs in the outter entrance to our home, replant the succulents from their broken down plastic pots, and sweep that area and the driveway to cut down on tracking crap into the house. It is very nice now.

3. No repairs were done this week. Minus 16 points!

4. The only subscription we have was a gift from my mother-in-law. I decided to take this to work every month to share on the coffee table in the office instead of letting it languish somewhere because I feel like I should read it.

5. Apply the 80/20 color rule. Yeah . . . this is not really for me. My Apartment Therapy partner (Hi Mom!) commented that I use the 80/20 rule backwards, meaning I have 80% color and 20% neutrals. This is how I like it, it's my personal style. See week two for ambivalence on whether this personal style can be considered stylish or not.

6. This week I made lamburgers with tons of herbs from the garden. They were very delicious and Thad claimed he loved it (his comment was "I love this"). I also made arugula pesto which was quite pungent, but I still ate it all and really enjoyed it.

7. I failed to design an invitation for my housewarming, but I think I'll be doing photo postcards from a service. Does that count?

Since I know at least one of you is into this kind of debauchery, here's another installment of kitty porn.

Last week and on the weekend I made some pillows for the futon. My theory was that if the futon was more comfortable we would start using that room more and improve the flow of our home. I was right! We flop on the futon constantly since the pillows came and Thad even napped on the futon this weekend. There actually may be a couple too many. As you can see, he is rather surrounded.

Apartment Therapy: Week 2

This week I finished doing the grout on the kitchen counter! A mere one year after remodeling the kitchen and tiling the counters, but running out of grout and the store running out of the right color of grout, only 1 linear foot from being done, I am finished! This is a wonderful weight to have off of my shoulders. Here's the rest of week 2:

1. Fix one thing yourself, this is my grouting triumph.

2. Clean the whole kitchen. I got rid of two big grocery bags of food (crappy crap) and pulled two big bags of cookware type stuff out for goodwill. Hung up an upside down flute holder for our tall champagne glasses and reorganized a lot of stuff off of the counter so there is more space and less clutter. Still waiting on a few more repairs to the kitchen since this was a big remodel with a lot of little loose ends left.

3. Bought a big Brita water filter dispenser. Nice to drink out of, but we'll see how much I like filling it.

4. Cleared off outdoor table which was in the kitchen area and moved to outside. Now that it is in business we have eaten a few meals on it.

5. Have not had much use for the outbox. I just put it wherever it goes including in the trash or goodwill pile.

6. I cooked this warm chicken salad this week and we loved it. Good for me too because I pretty much never cook meat.

7. I have chosen 7/14/2006 for the housewarming, but not quite decided what kind of party it should be yet.

A couple of things left out this week, but I'm kind of ok with that. Still very happy with the program. I will not be doing much of the style stuff because I already have a very strong style that I'm happy with, whether it's good or bad is another story . . .

what would make me happy:

affogato
bossa nova music
going in water
being tan
getting rid of lump in tummy
relaxing
true love cafe
hair cut
good book
trip to tahiti
exfoliation

seems like I could manage a few of these this summer

Apartment Therapy Week 1 is complete!

Here's what I did, or how I earned the nickname Crapsterminator:

1. Made a complete list of repairs. This is the part of the program I am most afraid of since our remodeling never really gets finished: a lot of loose ends here.

2. Vacuumed and mopped all the floors including busting out the vaccuum attachments to get in corners and under things. This felt very refreshing when complete.

3. Instead of removing one item, we took two big loads to the dump! We also cleaned up the porch including removing all spiders and their webs. This has been awesome. For my offering to the world I put an old butcher block cart out on the street and it was taken by the next day. I offered and the world accepted! Then the world gave us two more gifts: 2 donation pick ups in one week. I put out almost all of my books yesterday and have a big trashbag to fill for pickup tomorrow.

4. Bought two bunches of white Gladioulus that look stunning.

5. I sat on the futon in the outer kitchen area. This made me realize that this space is very important for my goal of entertaining. Since I don't have a budget right now to buy better seating, I think I will make a bunch of throw pillows to make the futon much more comfortable to sit in.

6. I didn't need to get earth friendly cleaning products since that is already what we use with the exception of bleach for mildewy shower grout.

It was a great start to the project and I feel very energized.

Recent Favorites:

Apartment Therapy the book - we will be doing the "cure" starting this week!
Strauss Family Creamery Plain Whole Milk Yogurt - "tastes like pudding"
Red Wine-Mustard Vinaigrette - perfect for warm weather salads
Veggie plants from the Tomato Man
In My Kitchen Garden blog, very inspirational!
I like this Rebecca Normal Silver jewelry

Update: Sacramento Region's Bike Commute month. So far I have commuted a total of 21 miles or a total of 7 days home and back. I am aware that it doesn't sound very impressive but I live in SUV central, it's very subversive!

This is a great page about raising chickens, including about butchering! I do not think I have the guts for this but I wish I did. The girls are here! Eggs should start coming in October.

Now that I have upgraded to flickr pro I just don't know if you guys will be able to handle the cuteness in my life! I am truly blessed. Cheesy but true.

By popular demand! Ok, only one person asked. This is the baby Wesley Snipes (some people call him DAYWALKA). Actually he's about a year now but we still call him the baby and he still acts like it. He prefers sparkle balls to the Total Gym but my sister thinks he bears quite a resemblance to the movie star Wesley Snipes. He is easily one of the cutest cats you will ever see. Please note the white puffball on his tail.


This is a more accurate representation of Wesley Snipes' head. He has a very small head.

Last night I made a soup that I was immensely proud of while cooking. It included:

Homemade chicken stock that I made using the leftovers of an organic free range bird that we roasted;
Ranchogordo flageolet beans which I made on the weekend and have been loving this week;
zucchini that came in the box last week from Capay which I caramelized for maximum flavor;
rosemary from my garden

I think you see where I'm going with this. Could the ingredients be anymore fresh or local, should I not feel like an extreme goddess of the hearth?

It tasted like you took your Thanksgiving stuffing with a ton of gravy on top and whizzed it up in the food processor and ate it as a soup. And not in a good way. It was edible, but pretty gross. And for the warmest day of the year so far it was not exactly refreshing.

Very nice Spring weekend, we:

Painted my new room 'manilla tint' sounds horrifying but it looks like pure sunshine mixed with butter.

Shelled, and shelled again, and ate fava beans. Yum.

Tried to get chickens two more times to make a total of three. I don't remember this being so difficult before. Also, apparently you cannot arrive two hours late to an auction and expect to win anything.

Made the heaviest doorstop of an attempt at sourdough bread ever.

Planted berrgarten sage, golden sage, chives, italian parsley, fernleaf dill (sorry Julie), and only one sweet basil plant.

Used my thriving mint to make a spritzer. It was very spritzy.

How wonderful:

Between the overripe berries, the outdoor showers, the droning of the bees, the wisteria-covered arbor at sunset--are we really going to pretend that gardening is not an inherently lascivious activity?

Notmartha bought a house and I am jealous. Even though we are really settling into our space and have some fun projects coming up I can't help but envy that feeling of liminal stage and extreme clean slate.

In other news May is the month of the Eat Local Challenge and the Sacramento Region's Bike Commute month. I am declaring it my own little hippy party month.

We need some chickens. The City Chicken is the best info I've found so far about how to have chickens in the city/suburb. I love the chicken trailers, perfect for five chickens or less in a mild environment like the Sacramento area.

Now that it's Spring we will have:

special cake held on outstretched hands.
barbeques at dusk with that cut grass smell
shiny eyed snuggles in the grey when the day has plenty of time
good showers after getting very dirty planting
smooth sheets, not fuzzy anymore
strawberries soon
sandals and no socks

I got a KitchenAid as a wedding present! In color Ice, as in bling bling! But I don't want to be ostentations, nor do I want it getting dirty while it sits out on the counter ready to make cookies at a moment's notice (did I mention I'm getting fat). So I'm thinking it needs a cover. I was planning on sewing, but look how cute is this little rainbow knitted number. For a teapot of course, but same basic idea.

And speaking of unctuous potions, I've really been enjoying Luckyscent. You can buy samples of most of the perfumes and I got the coconut body scrub which is incredible. Also they recently opened a store called Scent Bar! Now why didn't I think of that name? Oh wait, I did.

I've been getting a tad fat lately and I'm really enjoying it. After all of the wedding stress and wedding working out I now have the luxury of becoming quite fat and lazy. My bottom is always big so I don't notice that too much but my belly and breasts are growing. Between you and me I think I'm pretending that I'm pregnant, that's what you do after you get married right? And pregnant people are entitled to lay around eating rich foods and slathering their round bodies in unctuous potions, no?

this is one of my favorite feelings and something I think about constantly with my own home:

Everything soft and gradual. And the rain falling down. And strangely, my sheets and covers even felt like Swedish ones. Sheets and covers always feel a specific way to me in Sweden. It’s like they’re all some uniform weight and texture there, that they are not here. My body feels different under them. I had shaved my legs recently and the smoothness felt different. I felt a bit like a child. Protected and calm, the way I felt at my grandparents’.

I think back to my friends’ houses when I was little and even friends’ houses now. They all have such a specific feel to them. It's neat how everyone's space has its own feeling. And it’s not that I would choose to furnish my house the way my grandparents did. But I still loved the feeling of their house because it felt like them. It was filled with them. I’m sure sights, smells etc. will remind me of them and the feeling in their house, like the way my room reminded me last night.

this is nice:

I'm calling my theory the Goldilocks Theory, in honor of that other searching girl, and it's about finding a thing, a size, that is just right for you. Whether it's a house, a yard, a city, a store, a group of friends, a number of blogs, a job, an amount of work, a number of emails you can answer well, a number of handbags, a number of new product lines for spring, even when people are yelling at you for more, and for more faster. There's just got to be a size, a pace, a place that's "just right," within all these genres, don't you think? And if we try to find the things that are just right, do you think that adds up to happiness and peace?
I'm not sure. I might just pretend that it does and see what happens.

Good to remember when you feel like a lot of things went wrong.

The classic question: Kirk v. Solo

Han might have been like "hey, Leia ain't so great, I can snag any babe now that I'm outta that carbonite. I'm freakin Han Solo!" Then he gets sorta trapped by that revelation that Luke & Leia are siblings, she tongues him, he takes the sure thing, and agonizes through that ending bonfire like the rest of us. Kirk would have tapped her on Cloud City and cut her loose before he got froze.

see full comments here

I can't believe that in 32 days my life will be bound to a boy. A boy who's favorite topic is bowling, to be superceded only by video games. This is a lesson in be careful what you wish for: I always said I wanted a dork and now I'm in love with a real one.

I just realized I have a friend in nursing school, doctoring school, lawyer's school, and business school. I must be very attracted to budding young professionals.

I really don't know what I was talking about yesterday. I have no time right now for delving into my crafty recesses. There is one very important crafty item, though, that I need to complete in the next couple of weeks for my wedding so at least I will keep my hand in a little. Pictures to come in my usual slowpoke fashion.

I like this post at loobylu about how important projects are and blogs. Mine has been neglected lately as have my projects in real life. Reminds me that I am an artist and should start acting like it. Planning a wedding and starting a life with someone are important things but so am I. Times in my life when I have ceased to be crafty are not, upon reflection, the moments I am most proud of. I think this weekend will be time to return the crafty closet and the crafty table from the refuse bin.

Yesterday I went out to breakfast, changed the bed, rented a tuxedo, bought wedding rings, went to the gym and jogged my little heart out, made chocolate gelato, had green beans, leeks, Humboldt Fog cheese, and orange fizzy water for dinner, followed by a candlelight interlude with my love, and then The L Word!

2006 promises to be a wonderful year. This year I plan to:

1. get married

2. make 4 quilts!

3. organize all of my crafty materials so they will make me happy instead of sad

4. be terribly in love

5. eat vegetables and bake

6. go to the gym at least 17 times per month (the most times I went any month in 2005)

7. frame and hang all of my beautiful pictures

8. fix the front yard (I mean it this time)

This year I am doing my first very own family christmas since college. I think I will make simple bags to give gifts in instead of wrapping with paper for the most part. One thing I can never really decide about: white xmas tree lights or multi colored? Also, I have a big bottle of rum so I think we will need some rum flavored holiday food, like rum balls, hot buttered rum . . . the only ones I can think of sound sort of sexy.

The dinner party went great! I made this yummy pear chocolate clafoutis for dessert. Since I didn't have the time or money to go looking for pear eau de vie I just used rum and I used Scharffen Berger 60% dark chocolate (because they've had it at Trader Joe!). I would like to make again using raspberries and maybe some syrupy red wine. On the flip side Thaddy said he wanted more pears so it's a matter of taste.
The other internet recipe I made was this red cabbage from Orangette. You should read this chick's site, I have made about 80% of the recipes, well maybe less, but a lot at this point. I really liked the cabbage and will definitely make again and include maybe some allspice? I remember the cabbage in germany being even warmer and spicier.
We are now proud dinner party veterans and ready to entertain again.

Tonight Thaddy and I are throwing our first ever young adult style dinner party. I am very excited but some problems have arisen:

1. Thad has been working a weird job and not had any time at home, I have been handling everything, with a new kitten.
2. Our house is a pigsty.
3. I planned an Oktoberfest theme and then remembered that I have never seen these people drink beer and the only beer I've ever seen in their home is Corona.
4. For our virgin dinner party I chose to invite the wealthiest/most professionally decorated/foodiest/wine expertyist/neat freakyish friends that we have. We are none of these things.

happy home weekend:

1. car and garbage disposal and dishwasher are now fixed

2. cleaned the house and got rid of about 10 bags of clothes for goodwill

3. made squash soup, vegetable stock, roasted potatoes, and apple cake from a family recipe

4. got new kitten, life is good with a new kitten

5. boyfriend talked to me about something I needed him to talk to me about

6. came in dead last in bowling, well actually that part was kind of lame

7. watched Wayne's world parts 1 and 2, pretty damned funny, still

8. had coffee with my grandma

Maybe this isn't the most exciting list ever, but it means things are going right, and my hibernation schedule is proceeding nicely.

So anyway I was trying to figure out how many calories were in the Giant Salmon Burrito I ate for lunch at Dos Coyotes when I stumbled on this page where a few people are really scared of breathing calories and extremely paranoid about how many calories might be in their diet coke for the following reasons: 1) it's too good, it couldn't be low in calories; or 2) the fountain syrups were hooked up incorrectly and you just never know what you're getting. My favorite line is this one:

I think all diet drinks taste healthier than the ones full of sugar. Anything that isnt diet tastes bad 2 me. thats just what I think.

This is the best explanation I have ever seen on how to lose weight! The moral of the story is that if you consume 500 fewer calories per day than you burn, then you will lose one pound per week. No problem.

Half of me wants to be a farmer. How cool is this person who raises chickens and pigs for people who want tasty happy meat!

Continuing my chickeny saga, I roasted two (oh yes, two) chickens on the weekend. I got them on sale for a really good price at WholeFoods, since my local grocery store does not sell whole free range organic chickens. It was brilliant: smelled fabulous, tasted great, loads of leftovers! But now I'm not so sure what to do with the leftovers.

Somehow I did not feel better when I picked up my new bc prescription today to see the pharmacist think twice about giving me the pills. Apparently she did not agree with the new prescription provided by my doc (not my OB/GYN?). Hormones are scary.

to make myself feel better, tonight I will:

1. go to the gym
2. buy new sneakers so my feet don't hurt anymore when I work out
3. maybe get new vegetables

Also, I took the liberty of asking my doctor for a different birth control pill so maybe I can stop being so crazy every month. Could be kind of nice.

Well last night I made my very first real chicken soup! It wasn't completely from scratch in that I did not have time to roast or boil a whole bird, but I did start with just onions, garlic, chicken, stock, carrots, celery, rice, and thyme. It turned out great! And I didn't use a recipe, I just used what seemed the appropriate amount of ingredients for where I was trying to go. I am very proud of myself and excited for fall with soup. My grandma always told me I would be a good cook because I come from a long line of good cooks (she is the best!). I never believed her until recently, it does feel sort of like I have tapped into a stream of memory.

Last night I received my first very own shipment of organic fruits and vegetables from Capay Farms! I am planning a vegetable feast with the bounty including this soup with 20 cloves of garlic. This is part of my new plan to spearhead the loss of the extra 20 pounds I've gained over the last year. Ah Love! it makes you fat.

At first I thought it was an interesting description, but now I'm getting a little irritated at the amount of times the term "shard" is used in food writing around the web lately. Of course I'm too lazy to site sources but let's just say that all of our throats should be permanently scarred if we are eating as many shards as have been mentioned recently.

Every year I get at least one perfect fall evening. I can't wait for this year's and I think I would like to celebrate with an organic roasted chicken.

This whole food chocolate mousse sounds really cool to me. I am liking the idea of making desserts out of unrefined foods so they are sort of good for you. I have made these cupcakes with zucchini and coconut fat two times now and they are excellent!

Alright, enough of the pity party. I feel much better now. Back to the regularly silly items I like to post here. For instance, these cookies look very nice to me.

When you start out the morning trying to decide whether to call in because you're afraid you won't be able to stop crying but decide to go and end up crying in the bathroom by 8:30, it's probably not going to be a very good day. On the plus side the weather is really nice.

Flickr is holding an auction to benefit Katrina victims. Looks like a great way to buy some original artwork and benefit humanity.

the time feels right for apples and some darkness

Oh weblog, you should see the quilts I'm making. But you can't because they're surprises!

In case you're getting married soon like me, here's an awesome article about how to deal with wanting the white dress you always thought you never wanted. On Indiebride.com

Plus diamonds! I always said I would never get a diamond and now I want one. Actually, lots of them! It's an archetypal experience.

I think this Casual Friday blog is pretty fun. The format seems to be silly things to do.
Highlights:

9. Ran up and down my hallway yelling "Ready or not...here I come!"

1. Aggressively sniffed my fingers in a crowded elevator

2. Yelled "Mission accomplished!" after stopping to tie my shoes on a busy sidewalk

5. Began using the salutation, "Boobs are great," at the closing of each e-mail and letter I write

10. Began selling wrist bands that say "What Would R. Kelly Do?"

7. After further review, the phrase "Pimpin' Aint Easy" is complete bullshit...that has the be the easiest job in the world

No. 7, um, do you watch Dave Chapelle

oh hi internet, I've been in a very introspective mood and well, I can't tell you everything.

This is such a peaceful sandwich idea:

Middle Eastern Peace Bagels - Spread halved bagels with cream cheese and store-bought hummus or baba ghanouj, thinly-sliced cucumbers, chopped lettuce and tomato, and toasted sesame seeds.

from this website

Notes from lately:

1. I like it when Nigella Lawson tells me what to eat.

2. I bought some Rose Syrup at the persian market and have been drinking little sodas made out of it. Sort of like perfume soda, but I sort of like it.

3. Beauty and the Geek is excellent, they had a marathon on Sunday and now Thaddy has the biggest crush on Mindi.

4. I love the farmer's market! One of the vendors gave me free squash blossoms to try in eggs. Also, did you know that daylillies are edible and tast like sweet lettuce?

5. Summer is the best.

this Rena Tom jewelry makes me want to do some more beading (actually it makes me want to buy it, but since I don't have any money it makes me want to bead)

Here's a shot of how the kitchen looks now, it turned out awesome and I love it. Incredibly talented contractor-friends took out the walls, did electrical, and installed the peninsula and sink. I tiled the counters and backsplash and helped paint. My Love did the floors in the whole joint and painted a bunch. My roommate jumped in whenever we got in trouble. Kim convinced me to stop being so stubborn and Jaya loaned me his truck for dump runs. Thanks everyone!

I need to figure out how to do a slideshow of all the before and after stuff.

My idea of a perfect Monday night:

1. Double up at the gym with step class followed by yoga with favorite teachers.
2. Thai leftovers reheated with love.
3. Margarita on the rocks with salt.
4. Extreme faux drunkenness brought on by a single margarita after the gym.
5. Long massage including hand and scalp massages.
6. Make out until you fall asleep.

coconut cake sounds really good, huh?

guess what I'm buying for my current summer music conundrum:

one which people will listen to while they fall in love with each other, and then the world will onced again be a sugary dark place shot through with jungle-green rings of light in unlikely places.

I'm looking for something pretty and dreamy, but not sad. Let me know if you have any ideas.

so far the Citron looks sort of modern creepy in the kitchen. We still have the tape up and everything a mess so I guess it could look good when everything's tidy. Also it is still very cloudy today so the light is not helping. I got semi gloss since it's a kitchen but the shininess makes it look bad. I might get a white glaze and wash it over to mute the color and the moderness. I like clean lines but this looks like Germany in the 90's gone wrong. Something about it looks a little gorey. You know what it looks like? that slime/gak crap on Nickelodeon.

It is raining today in June: ridiculous. Tonight we will paint the kitchen Behr Citron, I'm going for sort of a Florida/garden room look with all the white tile and silver metal. This weekend I will have my first brunch party for which I will have to get some chairs for people to sit on.

summer makes you feel good!

There's a nice thread on Apartment Therapy about Method cleansers and it gets into using Dr. Bronners which I have a big jug of the peppermint kind. I want to use it in the shower but find it very drying. Does anyone have a special way of mixing it with oil or something to get the tingle without losing all the moisture in your skin?

Tia posted this info about using it as a spray cleaner:

My favorite all-purpose spray... reuse a spray bottle, add a squirt of Dr. Bronners, 10 drops each of lavender, tea tree, and coriander EO, and fill to the top with water. Cleans, disinfects, smells great!

What is the difference between "clean" and "cleanse"?

Over the long weekend I had a little time to get my final plantings done for the season. All of the plants I've ordered are in the ground so that's good and I think I only lost two due to delay but I planted them anyway (the clematis Ramona and the President). Due to the craziness with the front yard and the house I have about 20 seed packets that I never planted and now I feel like it's too late. I might still try the sunflowers though.

The house is coming together again and I feel like I can breathe. Sabine is acting sort of like a normal cat which is a good sign for a variety of reasons. We are squashing some new dressers and definitely a new computer into my little house, but I must say it's nice. I am told my back porch is the perfect spot for playing Dungeons and Dragons. Here's our newest addition.

I got a chance to visit the Tomato Man this weekend. Since I grew my own tomato plants from seeds this year, and I feel like five varieties is probably plenty, I did not get any tomato plants. But I did pick up a few pepper plants so I can try to make salsa this summer if my plants produce at all. I got three different kinds so we can do taste tests to see what we like: Jalapeno, Habanero, and Garden Salsa. (I don't know how to do the little dealy bop on top of the N's) Also got a sweet pepper, Blushing Beauty, for grilling or whatever. I love this page on the tomato man's site with growing tips for our hot summer climate. I think it will be fun to further mortify the neighborhood by mulching my front yard tomato plants with straw. Also really liked to hear that I don't have to take the suckers off the plants, I hate doing that and don't really see the point.

My greatest wish is that I will be able to sit on my couch and watch Buffy on dvd this weekend. My second greatest wish is that I will be able to eat snacks prepared in my kitchen while I do this.

I hate it when people give you that condescending smile and tell you everything is attitude. Their cat obviously did not pee in their bed last night.

This Spring cleaning project looks pretty fun and I have a perfect candidate project for participation. I am told that my life could become normal this week. If that is the case 14 days should be plenty of time.

Look how pretty this fabric is. Week two of pathetic self pity is in full effect boyee!

p.s. Dave?

I feel like Dave Meyers in So I Married an Axe Murderer: this blog . . . Sucks?

I think I could make this ottoman and I have some pretty cool fabric. The laminate project has finally turned a corner and it now looks like I will come out of this with my house intact. If I am friends with you and have been out of contact, please forgive me. I can't function without a home and that includes using a phone.

We are going on day 4 of complete demoralization, complete annihilation of the home or any sense therof. No one in my household has anywhere to eat or rest or relax. The cats are covered in what is probably asbestos. I feel like I am trying to run underwater and have started eating heartburn medicine like candy.

I'm back and you should see the house, or you will see the house whenever I get it together to post pics. The kitchen is about done so I figured we should rip out the carpet and if there's any disgusting brown institutional linoleum underneath why not rip that out too. My house is more of a war zone that it has ever been and will remain so for the entire week. I am very grumpy today so that is all I will post.