Beauty in the Oddest Places

Yup, the day has come where I am showing pictures of my dirty dishes on my blog, but I couldn't help myself as the morning light came through the window the color of these bowls drwe me in. The bowls are recent additions to my dish collection from Anthropologie. They come in the loveliest colors. I swear they make food more enjoyable.

Ahhh Color!

I was drawn in by the gorgeous color of these primroses!
Sure we've been having a bit of a pseudo spring lately here in the Pacific Northwest...but that doesn't mean that my color cravings are being met. I can't wait to get these in the ground in front of our house. A little bit of color goes a long way right now.

Have a fantastic weekend, it is going to be a busy (but fun) one around here!

Laundry Day

There is something refreshing about laundry day. It's not that I like the chore aspect of it, I just like having lots of options. Sometimes when all of my clothes are freshly laundered I feel like I just went on a shopping spree. This time it was the colors of my tank tops all hung together that caught my eye. It was so pretty that I stopped what I was doing to get my camera.

Fresh Cut Flower Friday - The Week of the Fern

With the season changing I am trying to be a little more creative with the fresh cut "flowers" I bring in the house. As long as I can find alternatives to paying for flowers at the grocery store I will keep looking. The ferns are now all over my home, bringing a touch of fresh green inside. They were easy to find, a huge plot of them is growing on the edge of the woods on our property. Mixed with some remaining rose colored dahlias and sunflowers, the effect is quite nice I think.

Happy Friday!

Fresh Cut Flower Friday, Welcome to Fall!

In honor of the seasonal change this week I have two fresh cut flowers photos to share...the top photo is three bud vases filled with crimson dahlias on my autumn themed runner in the dining room. The second is more dahlias, this time rose and crimson mixed, in a ceramic pitcher on a crocheted cloth I inherited from my Oma, set in the breakfast nook of the kitchen. I guess I have been in a nesting kind of mood this week, even with a busy schedule, I can't seem to help it...changing colors on the trees outside, made from scratch meals, and of course fall flowers have been making the transition to fall very cozy.

It's crazy to think, but in exactly three weeks I'll be heading down to the airport to catch the first of two flights that will eventually land me in Cairo. This will be the first time that I've flown anything but coach overseas, thank you frequent flyer miles for the upgrade! I'm traveling the first leg of my trip by myself because the husband will have already been there for ten days for his Habitat for Humanity build. His departure date is less than two weeks away...it will be weird to be away from each other for that time, we dated long distance for the first couple of years of our relationship, so it's not like we've never been apart, but since we've been married we've never been apart for more than a couple of days. Another odd piece to this situation is that his birthday happens while he is in Egypt. He will be traveling with his oldest buddy then, so at least he won't be alone, the two of them are planning on doing some diving in the Red Sea. As for me, my friend and neighbor has assured me that she will be around for lots of girl hang out time. I think it will also be a good time for me to focus on getting my routine of work, housework, exercise, sewing, etc. all established. The past few weeks I've been pretty productive, but I haven't settled into a predictable schedule yet. It's been more like that game at Chuck E. Cheese where when the little furry animals pop out of their holes the goal is to bonk them on the head. Tasks kind of have been popping up in front of me and I've been able to stay on top of the head bonking, okay that sounds weird, enough of that analogy. The point is that I want to take the time to evaluate what it is that I accomplish each week and come up with some kind of predictability to it all.

Okay, enough said for a Friday! I'll be around here a bit this weekend, probably doing a bit of "power blogging" - it's not my favorite way to manage this fun part of my life, but at least that way I can still share what I want to, even if it isn't in real time! Hope you have a great weekend!

Fall Pastels

The shades I typically think of for fall are warm - reds, oranges, yellows - but interestingly though the colors I'm being drawn to right now along with the expected fall shades are these blue and green pastels. The squash above is a hubbard squash that I found at the farmer's market in Yakima. I am going to make a point of preparing it with dinner sometime this week, but right now it's beautiful to look at in my kitchen. The eggs are adding up now...one more since I took this picture. It is still just the one chicken laying, I'm sure the other six are going to begin in the next couple of weeks...I can't wait until I get two eggs (or more!) when I check!

A Weekend Away In Review

On our getaway this past weekend we...

Had a weird situation where part of the dash by the cigarette lighter on my current car popped out when I was trying to take the unit that charges our iPod out as we were heading into a restaurant for lunch. We ended up stopping by the service department at a nearby dealer and they fixed it for free, but the delay made us miss our chance to check our another vehicle at a dealership on the way to the concert by 25 minutes. Random strange things like this have happened several times over the last week as we've been going through a vehicle transition, at this point, we both feel like there's some kind of reason that we haven't been able to find the right next car yet. It's been frustrating, but it's one of those times where you have to believe that there is more than coincidence going on.

Visited my favorite place to buy fruit. They had 25 lb. boxes of nectarines for $7.50, so we bought two along with a box of peaches and a box of pears. None of the fruit is quite ready for canning yet, a few more days are needed for ripening. It is more than I'd planned on, but it was all a fantastic deal. A hundred pounds of fruit for about $35. I also bought my first hubbard squash, a beautiful specimen in the most gorgeous shade of blue, I will definately share pictures sometime soon.

Went to the DMB concert, with more of an intent to see G-Love and Special Sauce. It was raining pretty hard at first, though eventually the clouds did part some and we had a beautiful rainbow and a fantastic sunset to enjoy. I also bought my first pair of TOMS shoes at the concert, a little souvenier. They are a very comfortable pair of red canvas shoes, the design on them came from the creative mind of Dave Matthews himself, kind of cool! I love wearing them and I'm convinced that they will be my first but not my last pair of TOMS. By the way, TOMS is a very cool company, check it out if you've never heard of them!

Visited the farmer's market in Yakima on Sunday morning, there was an abundance of beautiful produce, we picked up a few things there to make dinners this week. It was also nice to be on the other side and be a "shopper" at the market. I've enjoyed being a vendor, but I'm glad that I decided to wind down my season early. I've appreciated my time to myself on the weekends much more.

Went to four wineries along the "Rattlesnake Trail"...it was my first time there and I enjoyed it. The wine country reminded me a little of the wine country in Livermore Valley near where I used to live. For about two years I worked part-time there in the tasting room of Murrieta's Well. I miss the atmosphere of wineries and the fun of being around other people that enjoy wine. Even though it's not really the husband's interest, he does make a point of suggesting we take a wine tasting trip about two or three times a year. So the wineries were beautiful, the wines we tasted were mostly really good. Most of the wineries specialize in late harvest sweet wines, I'm assuming because of the temperature there in the late fall and early winter. It was fun be able to try several sweet wines in a flight, I'm used to there typically being just one. It makes it easier to compare and decide what you like best when you can have them one after another or side by side.

So I'm back to the grind now. In the last day I've finished up 5 more nursing covers which fills 3 more orders. I have two more to make later in the week. That will bring my total since I started making them to 10. They get easier and easier to put together. They are not the most exciting thing to make, but because I've been making them for friends, it has felt special. I've found that when I know who it is that I am making something for, I end up thinking of that person as I do the sewing. A little bit of my heart goes into it every time I make something for a particular person...

One last thought, I wanted to thank those who have posted ideas and advice about my chicken situation...I read every comment, learn new things, and appreciate the feedback very much. It is all very new stuff to me, I've been learning as I go and gleaning information from folks who've had chickens longer than me...the waiting is frustrating, but I do like being able to share what is going on here.

Bloomin' Artichoke

This was interesting to me, so I thought I'd share. The picture above is of one of the artichokes that's been growing in my garden this summer. I've already picked and enjoyed several, man those things are yummy with some olive oil or butter and garlic! But, I actually didn't eat the very first one that was ready for picking. A little grub had taken up residence in it by eating his way towards the heart. I had pried him out with a popcycle stick and fed him to the chickens - he deserved his unfortunate fate for ruining one of my hard-earned summer treats. I left the artichoke he'd ruined on the plant for a couple more weeks as a decoy for anymore grubs that may have come along...there were several smaller artichokes growing at the time that I wanted to protect, so sacrificing the largest one even further made sense to me. Well, eventually I did pick a few of the un-lived-in artichokes and at the same time picked the ruined one and threw it in the general viscinity of our compost pile. The chickens like to visit the pile when they free range, so I figured they'd get it eventually. Well, about 3 weeks later I went out to throw some kitchen scraps out to the pile and I saw the most gorgeous bloom in a shade of purple off to the side of the compost. Maybe this is ordinary to some folks, but I've never in my life actually seen in person what an artichoke looks like when it blooms. I suppose I shouldn't be suprised, I did know that artichokes are flowers, but the seeing just how pretty this prickly but tasty little plant can be was amazing.

The green of an artichoke is one of my favorite colors...I guess because it falls into the "earth tones" that you see people use to decorate with in Tuscany, I love those colors. But the vibrant purple of it's bloom is in a whole different category! The picture below only somewhat does the color justice. It definately stuck out in a pile of decaying vegetable scraps and dead plant stocks from the garden. It's suprises like this that truly make gardening interesting to me.

Four!!

Today we have a family reunion taking place at our house for some of my husband's extended family. This will be my first time meeting many of the folks coming, though I have met a few over the past several years at different events and holidays. When they have had reunions before, they took place in Oregon with a different family member hosting. In years past they had a multi-generational baseball game. We decided to do things a little differently, the husband's idea was to make a 9-hole golf course over our field. We've collected old golf clubs and balls from nearby junk stores. For each hole we bought metal construction stakes and I sewed hole flags from felt. It was pretty easy, just two layers of felt sewn around some heavy interfacing. Each flag has a number sewn on. Originally I thought I'd do all of the flags in white with black numbers. But, I love color! I think they turned out quite nice!The husband and stepson weren't home when I finished the flags, but they'd already set out the stakes...so I decided to suprise them by having the flags on when they returned.Figaro decided to join me at the 3rd hole, he likes going for walks around the field with us. Bambino was out with me too, it didn't take long before the two of them were chasing around the field...the shot makes me laugh, that's pretty much an everyday sight around here. At least these days it's all in good fun for both of them, that wasn't always the case...

Beautiful Peas

Nature is so amazing, even in the small things.

A rainbow to start the week

To start the week...here are a few shots of a rainbow that appeared with the rain yesterday. These were taken from the back of our house. My favorite shots are the two with the rainbow over my green house.

Busy like a bee...

This weekend has so far been fun, suprising, and busy! I started it Friday afternoon heading to a couple of thrift stores in search of material and other sewing goodies. I scored some vintage zippers - several still in their original packaging - a few of them sold way back when for 45 cents - that's exactly what I paid. I've been wanting to try making purses, pouches, bags, etc with zippers, now I have a nice little stash to get started with! I also picked up some very fun fabric, a pretty purple linen and a couple of funky vintage fabrics. A couple of the fabrics are peeking out in the background of the zipper picture. Friday night I cut fabric for my next project - owls! The fabrics I picked up were perfect...I cut out enough for 15 owls, they aren't all sewn up yet and I still need to pick up stuffing for them, but here's a little preview of a few of my little "hoots".

My other project this weekend was to try a new bread recipe - I found it online - it seemed easy enough and was...the bread turned out wonderful! Soft inside and a crunchy crust, yum!

I started the bread on Friday night, the dough sits out (covered) all night as the yeast reacts, it's supposed to sit for 12-18 hours.In the middle of the morning on Saturday I turned it a bit and then let it rise again for 2 hours. The dough then went into my cast iron dutch oven (which had been warming in a 450 F oven for 30 minutes). It baked for around 40 minutes (about 30 minutes with lid on and 7 without the lid). It was easy and fantastic! Just as it was coming out, the husband and his offspring were just coming inside for lunch - we hadn't planned it that way, it was just one of those incidents of good timing. They had been outside for a couple of hours burning brush - perfect day for it, no wind, no rain, ground still wet from recent rain. Bambino (our miniature Austrailian shepherd puppy) even got in on the fun, he loves running around outside when we're doing yardwork or any kind of outside project. The husband reported that Bam was trying to herd the tractor (from a safe distance), I guess the shepherd in him is bored.

When they came in they smelled the bread and we decided it would make a good lunch - with cheese for them and avocado for me (the California in me loves avocado with almost everything). I told you I was into color lately - things have been jumping out at me lately, the greens in this picture made me want to drool!

The final thing that's happened so far this weekend is a very big deal for me...the husband found out that Uncle Sam is being a bit nicer to us this year that he has been before (especially last year - he was just plain mean), and because of this, one of my wishes has been granted...I'll give you a little peek and explain more later (promise!)Until next time! -D