Ólöf Arnalds – Surrender from Arni & Kinski on Vimeo.

Sesame Street vs Beastie Boys

NEEDLE-FELTED PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!!!!

http://www.mycozyclassics.com

and that one day i loved the shoppers on amazon…

I took this recipe: http://southernfood.about.com/od/pancakesandwaffles/r/bl60123b.htm

Mushed it a bit with this one since i didn’t have any buttermilk in the house: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/03/again-with-the-pining/

(her yogurt/sour cream and milk trick works wonderfully)

And added in slices of banana like this one: http://goop.com/recipes/breakfast/pan-cakes

(this is the only other pancake recipe that has turned out well for me in the past but i was out of a couple of the ingredients so couldn’t make this one exactly)

and they were AMAZING!

and not burnt! and not gloppy in the middle!

 (two things which usually are involved in my typical pancake making shenanigans…)

Woo Hoo!

May – spring came around. prepped for an event at work. went to a schwanky bike event. got ready for my first (and hopefully last) trip to las vegas.

June – vegas work trip.

my 34th birthday.

one of many friend visits over the summer.

began exploring a new-ish part of town for us, NW and the pearl, due to a couple errands taking us over that way.

visited our friends in their tiny house. helped out at the disaster relief trials. began to consider moving as our apartment needed some MAJOR foundation and structural repairs that we (and the kitties) were not too keen on putting up with all summer. wrote our rental company to see what all they had available coming up in the next few months (throwing in half jokingly we’d especially love a gas cook stove and claw foot tub…). They wrote back and asked how we felt about NW 21st… went to look at an apartment…

July – two weeks after looking at the apartment, we were in. yes, 2 weeks. i’m amazed we both made it through with no major breakdowns. downsized belongings again. hired movers due to no transfer fees or new deposits, yippee! will never move without them again. went to see Fiona Apple preform (she’s wonderful)

August – settling in. decorating. exploring our new part of town. saw Sigur Ros at the Edgefield amphitheater. taught my first class on tea at work. said goodbye to some dear friends.

September – said hello to more visiting friends.

had our 10th wedding anniversary. had a lovely vacation.

wow i love this handsome boy!

Whew! how is it already autumn!?!?!

I’m currently reading (about 6 years late!) Apartment Therapy: the 8 step home cure and Parisian Chic, both of which are giving me a jolt of energy and motivation to clean out, simplify, re-define, and focus for both me and the apartment. In addition, Dave and I have begun talking about the possibility of The Netherlands again. If that possibility becomes reality, being as paired down as possible will make everything go a lot smoother.

too much stuff!

What i really would love is a home that is easy to clean, comfortable, cozy, pretty but lived in, calm, with room to be creative, to cook, to read, that the useful things we own be beautiful and the beautiful things we own be useful, and that the only things we own are ones that we regularly use…

For me i want to be able to go into my closet and have anything i grab pair with most other things in my closet, be beautiful and well made, fabrics that are lovely to touch, things that are timeless and fashionable, easy and comfortable but never frumpy or dowdy, work well on my body and shape, make me feel classy but not fussy or rigid…

So this is our spring focus and goal: a thorough cleaning, a ruthless evaluation of everything we own, and for me a long hard look through my closet…

This will be our first week of the 8 week home cure. The assignment for the week is:

- vacuum/sweep and mop all floors

• vacuumed the living/dining area before the allergies forced us to quit, so good start

- remove one item from your home. what we’ve taken to goodwill just today (of course i forgot to take pictures to document this productive awesome afternoon!):

• wedding dress: almost ten years after getting married the space hog is finally gone!
• set of HEAVY vintage luggage
• folding luggage trolly
• several cute but torn and unpractical vintage umbrellas
• a huuuuuge old dictionary
• a broken vintage alarm clock
• several dust-catchers nick-knacks
• several old Toast catalogs (sigh)
• old Selvedge issue (double sigh)
• cream winter coat with black buttons that just doesn’t quite fit flatteringly (the shoulders bunched and the lining would never stay laying flat)
• several pairs of arm-warmers
• few lightweight knit hats
• vases and candles
• 2 old cell phones and 2 old ipods and cables (one iphone to replace them all!!!!)
• broken cell phone cover (ordered, arrived so cute, but was broken. then the comapny told me to just send pictures rather than the item back for refund. one less trip to the post for me)
• small garden gnome
• 4 wood under bed boxes that have sat empty, save the dust bunnies, for months
• a once lovely soft amazing cable knit over-sized wool throw (purchased on SUPER sale a few years ago), that now resembles a dirty, matted down flat sheep more than a throw (this one truly hurt, man i loooooved that thing! but in all reality i was never going to get around to trimming off all the nasty matted pilling bits, which i have been intending to do for over a year now. and even if i did the cats who adored kneading it and our propensity to actually use blankets would have never kept it looking good)

here it is on our bed when we first got it, before it started looking like a giant matted hairball of fuzz

- buy/pick flowers

• the lilacs in the courtyard have begun blooming…

- spend 10 min in a room you don’t normally spend time in

• the plan is to sit in the craft room and ponder its purpose and function and any needed editing later this week

- make a list of all needed repairs and turn in work requests to the apartment manager

• stove burners don’t heat properly
• front window shade fixed, 1 broken cord
• bathroom and kitchen hot water faucets need looked at. they have to be cranked to turn on at all
• spare room wall needs fixing (the building/floor is apparently sinking and causing a gap to appear where the wall meets the floor)
• spare room window (because of the sinking, the window cannot be opened or it will never shut again)
• and on a purely cosmetic note, find new faucets and knobs for the bathroom tub and sink. the current ones are terrible ugly and discolored

and my own added goals:

• finish filling and labeling new spice jars
• go through the cleaning supply cupboard, re organize and refill homemade cleaning concentrates
• purchase bottles for cleaning concentrates
• take returns back to the store
• check for new faucets at hippo hardware

I’m going to make an effort to post here each sunday when our new week begins. Hopefully in 8 weeks i will feel like something good was accomplished!

So we’ve entered a contest and we’re kind of excited. We’ve never really done anything like this mostly because we’ve never really felt settled or happy with the place we were living. Also, we’re kind of messy normally. So this was also good motivation for spring cleaning to actually happen. We haven’t heard back yet if our entry has been accepted but as soon as we hear I will let you know!Then you can go vote for us if you’d like.

So here’s a little home tour… (you can also find more pictures here and here)

We love our home. It’s someplace we spend a lot of time so i suppose that’s good.  So far this is the only place that has really felt like it reflects us well. Our last apartment was huge and we just about drowned in it. It was cavernous and the rooms we’re awkward and hard to arrange. The things we owned were mostly free finds, thrifted, from craigslist, things left in our basement from friends needing to store things that they never returned for… but almost nothing did we really love. So when we moved we purged… and purged… and purged some more. We emptied our 1500+sqft apartment of almost everything and moved into our current little lovely 1927 stucco nest of 850sqft.

We only kept the things we loved, the things that had personality, the things that were useful and beautiful… and maybe most importantly, the things that you could store things in. You see, this lovely little dream apartment of ours had one downfall… one small closet… in the whole place. No place for linens, towels, brooms, cleaning supplies, coats and barely enough room for two grown adult wardrobes. So we got trickey and organized…

We installed a coat rack.

The small sweet table by the window is perfect for sunny breakfast and a prime spot for kitties when the sun hits. In it’s drawers we keep practical bits like kitty toys and treats, light bulbs, batteries, cords, candles, matches…

It even folds out to seat 4-6. Or with a little rearranging, it can be placed end to end with the matching one from the craft room for parties.

We divided the room to be both living and dining with a nifty sideboard where we store dave’s cameras, film negatives, shoe shine kit, paperwork, and a few table linens and napkins.

The trunk by the chairs holds the vintage Raleigh dave is working on, the coffee table has extra blankets and old nintendo & atari plus games (which we are currently trying to find new homes for so if you are interested in video games…)

the expedit became home for books, extra plates & wine glasses, movies, craft supplies, and photography implements. Folding chairs hide under the couch.

An old radio case next to the desk holds our turntable/small stereo set up and hides away all our cd’s. We’ve put all our music on a hard drive so we don’t have to mess with the actual cd’s or make them accessible and have that, the record player and our laptop hooked up to the stereo.

We bought bins and baskets for the closet

a beautiful old wardrobe so we each had our own closet space: he got the pretty but small-ish wardrobe and i got the closet (which i promptly filled up!).

The trunk by the window holds all our christmas decorations and gift wrapping supplies.

A small bookcase is my tiny vanity and is plenty of room for all my makeup and jewelry.

The tiny hall nook is just the right size for some art and a small bookshelf for cookbooks and craft books.

A small wooden shoe rack fits perfectly under the bathroom sink as a shelf and a small wall shelf with hooks works as a shaving center for dave and a place for a hand towel.

Pig Hat print from Obara.com

The kitchen was the room that really made us swoon… we cook a lot. Indian, thai, japanese, hungarian, german, polish, lithuanian, persian, italian, french… Our last kitchen was tiny so this large expanse really made us giddy.

 before moving things in. IT”S HUGE!!!!!

The addition of a shelf and a couple small kitchen islands expands the counter space nicely and gave us room for all our most elaborate meals, experiments, and dinner parties.

Sneaky little cart between the stove and fridge makes oils, vinegars, salts and peppers handy

The small room off the kitchen (probably a laundry/washroom set up before) became a space for tools and home supplies, the air conditioner when not in use, the drying rack & ironing board, and most importantly, a place for me to make stuff!

We put in some terribly useful shelves from ikea, another slim folding gate-leg table, along with a nice long table for sewing and fabric cutting.

So yup, that is our little home and we love it.

Julep- April

Julep skipped my march box so no fancy oil or shimmery purple polish, but i did get april’s box, which i think was better. The taupe is a really beautiful neutral color and the red a lovely bright bombshell/pin-up raspberry red. (both look awesome with my essie Luxeffects “as gold as it gets” as a top coat). The pedi creme is pretty nice. The cosmetic bag was ok, kind of flimsy feeling and i have a nice one already so it went away. The pedicure thingies i have never tried before so i kept them to see if they help, and the chocolate eggs, pretty waxy and bland, but heck they were chocolate so i ate them. Hey, I may have high standards for chocolate but i will not look a gift chocolate in the mouth.

Julep, you are tempting me to stay on for one more month…

Birch Box- April

Full size yummy lipbalm, a portland company even! I love “Yes to” products and have used their cucumber facial wipes traveling before. They are great for freshening up on long plane trips. Night creme, sure i’ll give it a go, it smells fine and i have heard good things about Weleda. Ditto on the J.R. Watkins foot salve. The perfume sample upon first sniff isn’t anything to write home to mother about but we’ll see how i like it after wearing it. My gut feeling is that it won’t be anything exciting but, eh, who knows. Not a bad month at all.