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.