cherry tomato

the harvest

Our blackberry bushes are now producing a bounty of juicy berries. I picked these on Friday evening, a day before things got crazy. I spent both Saturday and Sunday nights in the emergency room suffering a mystery affliction that hit me on Saturday. I seem to be on the mend now, but it's difficult to tell. I expect it won't be a very productive week for me, so you won't be hearing much from me at least for another week.

As for the berries, they're in the freezer awaiting their mates. Once I get a large enough number of them, I'm going to make some blackberry and apple preserves from this book. I love making preserves, and this book is filled with recipes for pickles, mustards, jams, compotes, cheese and more. Stunning photos compliment the recipes, and every time I look through it, I feel an overwhelming urge to make every single thing in there. We keep eating the berries as we collect them though, so it may be a few weeks before I will have enough for the preserves.

lazy days of summer

Things are feeling pretty hectic around here, and I’m beginning to wonder if it will ever slow down. My life has been disheveled for so long, that it actually feels odd to have the time to do normal things. Eric and I had the most wonderful weekend of just staying home and being sickeningly domestic. We sat out in the yard in our lawn chairs and watched the sun go down until we finally surrendered to the bites of the mosquitoes. We made pesto, mowed the lawn, picked some of our ripened blackberries, barbecued fresh wild salmon, hung clothes on the line to dry and sat on a blanket in the yard.  It was like we tried to cram every summer cliché into a single weekend, and well, I think we succeeded. I’m so glad we did too because it has been dreary and grey here the past couple of days.

Last Thursday during my weekly trek to Kinokuniya, I found what I believe it is a new Lotta Jansdotter book, Lotta Jansdotter Handmade Project (it's much less expensive at Kinokuniya). It’s published in Japanese with easy to follow directions. Finding the book was an unexpected delight. It's just the sort of treasure I hope to find every time I go there. It is filled with some great little projects and ideas including instructions for printing your own designs onto fabric. Her patterns are simple and beautiful, and the book is filled with images from her home. I’ve looked through it many times now, but I still haven’t been able to commit to a project. Instead I’ve opted to work on a design of my own.

I’ve had so many ideas caught up in the design phase. So much so that I’m starting to feel out of sorts about not being productive. I worked on my studio on Sunday and got it in a condition where I can at least accomplish some work in there even if it’s not quite where I want it to be. I’ve begun work on a new stuffed, and I’m already feeling more calm. If all goes well, I should have it finished by the end of the week and promise to share it with you (if it turns out okay).

I'll leave you with a cute photo of Vedo. I was trying to snap a picture of this plate I bought last week, and Vedo had to make sure there wasn't any food on it for him. So typical...

the next level

i have been in a painting frenzy for the past few days. And I have at least three different colors of paint on my hands to prove it. i've dropped paint in my hair, on my glasses, and, of course, my clothing. fortunately i'm smart enough to wear a smock.

Yesterday I focused on painting our mudroom. it was this terrible, dingy, peachy-looking color. We have a windowed door leading from the kitchen into the mudroom, so I really wanted to paint it a warm, sunny color that i would be happy to gaze at from the kitchen. since i seem to be obsessed with yellow these days, i went with yellow.

the sky is gray, but the mudroom is sunny, and i couldn't be more pleased. the shelf in the foreground was a green color, but i felt it would fit in much better if i just slathered on some white. I'm going to put some sort of printed paper on the back of the shelves to give it a splash of color.

there is still much to do, but i'm really happy with it so far.

for lunch i had yellow food.

warm chickpea salad from Orangette and butternut squash soup with walnuts. it's normal to match your food color to the colors you're painting, right?

wonderful, glorious bread

I'm still plugging along on the blanket, but I haven't made much progress today. i hope to get through several rows tonight. I really is addictive. I thought it was pretty funny that Alicia is working on a similar project. Her's, of course, is so much cuter than mine, but with mine, I have little choice about my colors since I just using my stash. Regardless, this project is addictive, and I think I'll love it no matter what it looks like in the end.

I went to the fabric store today to pick up some fabric for the quilt I'm making for baby Alice. I'm really looking forward to putting it together. Her parents are very minimalist, so the quilt will be in line with their aesthetic. I think I enjoy quilting more than just about anything else because I can use the fabrics just like paint on a canvas. I never know exactly what I'm going to do, but I've never been disappointed with the results.

I saw this as I was walking up to my house with my fabric store goodies.

This little pink balloon got stuck in the leaves in the yard next door. I immediately dropped my bags and snapped this photo. There was something so thrilling and yet so sad about this balloon. It was loved by someone while it was inflated with helium. But the helium is gone, and so is the love. When I came across it, it was struggling to break free from brown, dead leaves on the ground. I'm sure the wind has carried it somewhere else by now.

When I got home, I settled in to make some bread. Now, I love bread, but gluten free bread really leaves something to be desired...like air. GF bread is known for being as dense as a brick, and it's really almost not worth eating. However, I came across this recipe on gluten free girl, and was inspired to make a loaf of my own. I got started on the bread, marinated some pork and cooked some carrots with shallots in butter.

mmmm. Of course, I couldn't make a proper dinner without a lovely cocktail. Eric made me a delicious Manhattan, which I joyously sipped while making dinner.

He always gives me two cherries. What a dear.

So I followed the recipe, and was extremely pleased to pull this glorious loaf from the oven.

oh, bread love. hooray! A gluten-free success!

back at the machine

As Seattle gripped for yet another winter storm, I stayed inside today and got busy. Ever since the holidays, I have been spending most of my free time cleaning and organizing. Before I could get to any new crafting projects, I had to clean up the mess I made of my poor studio during the crazed holiday season.

This is a small tote bag I made for my little sister, Emma. She spent Christmas and New Years in Germany, so I've been waiting to send out her gift until her return. Since I spent most of December sick, I had to put off this project until now. She loves bright colors, and I think this will be a great bag for her to carry all sorts of things. I filled it with various colors of polymer clay and a few hair bobs and other fun little things. It was a great project for me to get back into sewing, and I've already designed a pattern for a new project to work on tomorrow. I'm feeling that creating inertia hitting me.

Since today's weather was so icky, I thought it would be nice to make a warm, cozy lentil soup. I had so much fun chopping up the onions and carrots as the wind raged outside. The lights were flickering, and I had the candles out and ready for a power outage were it to hit. Fortunately it never did, and the lentil soup was a success.

Mmm. It was exactly what I had been craving.

Now I'm hunkered down for the evening and waiting for the snow. Hooray for snow!!

balance

Yesterday was a rough day. With the sad news about James Kim, it was difficult to transition to celebration-mode. Yesterday was not only Eric's birthday but also my dad's. An eventful day, indeed. I actually thing that the sad news helped to make their birthday's more poignant, and although I was never able to really make it to the "celebration" mindset, I was grateful and happy to be able to share the special day with my husband.

Above is the organic, gluten-free, vegan cardamom chai cake I got for Eric's birthday. I made a gluten-free, vegan pizza with caramelized shallots and peppers for dinner. It was my first successful gluten-free baking experience, and we were both pleasantly surprised to actually enjoy the pizza. I didn't dare attempt to bake a cake, so I got this from a local bakery. It's so nice to live somewhere where options like this are available.

I have had a bit of a setback with my health, and I realize I wasn't being quite as vigilant about what I was eating as I needed to be. We (I) have now placed a moratorium on all gluten in the house. I didn't realize I needed to be so concerned about cross-contamination, or that I can't really "cheat" and eat a piece of bread. This is still all so new to me, and there is so much to learn.

I won't bore you with any more details about my illness. Instead, I'll show you some of the things I've been working on this week. I've made a couple more stockings:

And we're nearly finished with decorating for the season. My great aunt gave me a beautiful Christmas village last weekend, and I was thrilled to get it set up in our living room:

I've also strung up the garland I made last year. I had to do a bit of adjusting and divide it into two garlands instead of one long one.

I STOL want to make a wreath for the front door with some of the greens I collected last weekend. I've been busy getting ready for the sale this weekend, so I haven't really had the time. It looks like the wreath will have to wait until this Sunday.

Be well everyone.

the holiday season:: oh, it's on!

We had a lovely thanksgiving. We had to take a ferry out to the Olympic peninsula and drive out into the country to get to my mom's place. It was the first time we drove there on our own, so we took a wrong turn and ended up on the Pacific Coast Highway for a bit. That was actually the best part of the drive because there were so few cars on the road there. We finally made it to the house just before it started to snow. I LOVE the snow. I mean, it makes me giddy. I started jumping up and down with glee. Unfortunately, it only snowed for about 10 minutes.

Being at my mom's house is like being in a museum. She and my stepfather collect 18th century American furniture and  accoutrements. My grandmother kept walking around the house, pointing at things and asking, "How old is this?", "Where is this from?"  It was so cute. I told my mother that she needed to start putting little tags on everything so everyone can knows what they're looking at.

Here is just some of their pewter collection.

I love how it used to be popular to have paintings of one's dogs in their homes. This is not a painting of my mother's dog (a golden retriever). It is a painting of a dog belonging to someone who must have loved it very much. Now, it hangs in my mother's house beside her bed. This is the first Thanksgiving I have spent with my mom in about 8 years, so it was really special. Unfortunately, I have not been feeling very well in the last couple of weeks, and I couldn't finish my mean, and I had to lie down for a bit. I'm really trying to take care of myself and do everything I'm supposed to be doing to be well. I have my moments of weakness, but overall I feel like I've been doing well. It looks like I just haven't been doing well enough because I'm having all the old symptoms again. Very frustrating.  I think I have been unwittingly eating gluten in places where it hides, and I just have to be far more diligent about making sure I'm not consuming this poison (to me at least).

We were going to wait until next weekend to decorate our house for Christmas. I usually don't decorate until we have a tree, and we are going out to cut our tree next weekend, so we weren't going to decorate the house until then. However, it snowed yesterday, and I simply could not restrain myself for one moment more. Out came the camera and the decorations.

I  bought this tree on Ebay a couple of weeks ago, and I'm completely in love. It is a vintage aluminum tree made in Japan. I have no idea when it was made.

Oh, but that is only the beginning! More holiday decorations to come...

my enchanted september

I almost don't even know how to begin this post. It's so nice to be back after such a long hiatus. It's hard to believe that I didn't look at a single blog for 3 weeks. I've been slowly reintroducing myself to blogland. I can't begin to tell you how strange it is to get out of the city away from phones and the internet after becoming accustomed to having them in my life every second of every day. I think I was in shock the first couple of days, but when you wake up to this, it doesn't take long to forget all about phones, computers, traffic, shopping, etc.

I did not have an exciting time out there. What I did have was the single most relaxing 3 weeks of my life. Eric took care of all our obligations back in the city, and the only thing I had to do was focus on my health. Although it wasn't exciting, every day was different from the next, and it was exhilarating to wake up in the morning. I couldn't wait to go out and see what the lake looked like. Some days there was thick fog on the lake.

Some days were bright and sunny.

And it even looked different as the day progressed. It was pure bliss. I loved to take my magazines down to our float and read while the dragonflies playfully zoomed past me. Once and awhile they even took a break and to hang with me. I'm sure they were just interested in my Domino and Blueprint magazines, that I, quite literally, scoured at least 10 times a piece. After all, I do have a new house to decorate.

I don't remember the dragonflies being out there when I was young. It seems like the sort of thing I would remember because I've always found them so fascinating.

I was sick for most of the time I was out there, and I just promised myself I would listen to any messages my body was sending me about how it was doing. I took naps every day. Sometimes I took two naps in a day. Most of the time I worked on craft projects I could accomplish while lounging. I embroidered, knit a sweater, and got halfway finished with the never ending quilt. I'm SO CLOSE it's killing me, so I have to finish it this fall. It will be read for next summer if it kills me.

One great thing I was able to do was to experiment with cooking for my new diet. It gave me a wonderful sense of satisfaction to eat the foods I need to eat, and most importantly, to avoid those I need to avoid. After being there for almost 2 weeks, I finally mustered the energy to go out and gather some fruit so I could try out baking a crisp leaving out the offending foods. I picked apples and blackberries and set to work.

I had to use what I had available, so I just made up a recipe and used gluten free flour, and instead of using oats on top, I used some crystallized ginger and chopped walnuts. I was quite pleased with the results and will definitely be trying some other gluten, dairy and egg free recipes. I honestly didn't miss a single thing.

I recall one day when I was soaking up one of the last days of summer while out on the dock. It was silent except for the rustling leaves, and the tiny leaves falling from the trees and landing onto the lake. I just thought to myself, "this is what life is about". I kept telling Eric and I wanted to buy a yurt and live out there. I'm only half kidding. I don't think I could handle a yurt for full time living, but I was just trying to get the idea across. I think I'm just feeling a little tired of being so disconnected from the earth. I swear to you I am not a hippie. I just feel like I get so much value and satisfaction from these simple pleasures. I'm paying more attention to what I'm putting into my body and the affects of the world around me. I think my body has been trying to tell me to do this for over 3 years now, and I'm finally listening.

My time at the lake in September was one of the best times of my life. I will keep the memories close to me so I don't forget the lessons I learned while being out there.

And one more thing: Thank you so much for all of your kind, supportive, loving emails. Your comments mean so very much to me, and I'm so lucky to have connected with so many wonderful people. Thank you. xoxo

home sweet home

hey ya'll!

After getting off to a rough start, I ended up having a pleasant stay in South Carolina. My luggage got lost on the way down there, but I finally received it nearly 24 hours after my arrival. After spending two days wearing the same clothes, I was so thrilled to get my clothes.

I lived in Alabama for approximately six years, and I always feel a sense of nostalgia when I return to the South. I took full advantage of the abundance of southern cuisine that was so readily accessible. I love it all, grits (especially with cheese), fried okra, collard greens, sweet potato pie, red velvet cake, etc. I seriously gained 3 pounds while I was down there because I never really eat three full meals a day, but I went a bit bonkers down there. There were large white rocking chairs outside the building where I was in training, and I went out there and enjoyed the views of the red brick buildings, pine-needle mulch and beautifully manicured lawn while absorbing the day's last bit of sunshine. I only wish I could have done more touring, but I just didn't have the time. I'm sure I'll be returning, so I'll be able to take in some of the history of Columbia.

After returning home, I had a nice lazy day on Saturday. Then Sunday, Eric and I had my mother and step-father over for a mother's day dinner. We had a lovely day. This was the first year I have been able to treat my mother on mother's day, and Eric and I had a great time putting the meal together. We made grilled wild king salmon, mushroom risotto, steamed asparagus and a salad with baby greens, goat cheese, walnuts and raspberry vinaigrette. For dessert I bought a lemon meringue pie because I'm lame (for not making my own), and my mother loves them.

My mother is such a sweetie though that she brought us some absolutely delightful pink frosted cupcakes:

yummy...

here are the gifts I made for some of the moms in my life:

my mother:

for my mother-in-law:

my aunt-in-law's apron:

It's good to be back. I have much more to show you, including some lovely packages I have received recently. I'll share those with you this week.

slowly making progress

These are some baby cupcakes i made for a collegue who's last day was on friday. I used the magnolia bakery recipe for the cupcakes and frosting. I only had a recipe for the vanilla frosting, so I modified it a bit to add the chocolate. most importantly, i got a canister of four different types of sprinkles whick included dinosaur and star sprinkes as well as the standard sprinkles. i had great fun making them and a bit too much wine which resulted in a lovely evening.  my collegue was really touched, and i'm so happy to have put a smile on her face.

i had a lovely weekend visiting my mother who lives a couple of hours away. now that my mother has received her birthday present, i can show you a picture of her gift:

she'd had a smaller knitting needle roll for awhile, but she had mentioned too me she felt it was too small. this one is almost twice the size of her other one and even has room for her circular needles.

short post this evening. since i was gone all weekend, i have lots to do to prepare for the week. i'm still feeling incredibly overwhelmed right now by all the things i want to do. there just aren't enough hours.

anyway, i hope you had a lovely weekend and adjust to the time change as well as one can.