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.