Pinterest.

Have I mentioned pinterest before. 

If I haven't I'd be suprised. In fact, I'm sure I have.

Anyway I'll be participating in The (1st) Pinterest Challenge hosted by these lovely ladies.

Sherry from Young House Love

Emily from Style by Emily Henderson

Katie from Bower Power

Lana from Making a House a Home

There are no winners. It's just a challenge to take one of our many pins and good intentions and bring them to life and then share them with eachother. I'm not telling which pin I'm going to do ( mainly because I haven't decided yet). But this is a great jumping off point and a good excuse to break in my new workspace. A full post about that will follow tomorrow.

Look for the post on Tuesday for the final results and visit the blogs above for more pinterest fun!

You can follow me on Pinterest through the button in the sidebar. I'd love it if you would.

Happy Pinning!

Heat Wave.

Again I have to apologize for my silence. We are (as most of this country is) having a heat wave to rival all heat waves. 102 degrees in the shade to be precise. And I have mentioned on this blog once before that we are sans air conditioning. Yeah, I know. 

So I did what any mother would do to protect her child's health and comfort. I packed up our car and headed to Grandma's and then to the beach (where it was a cool 89 degrees). 

Here she is waking up from her nap on the beach. Jogging strollers are the way to go. Everyone needs a good all terrain vehicle.

So here I sit on a saturday trying to make it up to you. But now I must go and tackle that dressing room before my sleeping nugget wakes from her slumber.

Stay cool!

Sneak Peek. #9

I can never seem to get a post out before Wednesday. I blame summer. Here's what I'm up to.

Ended up buying Expedit bookshelf new. More on that later.

Here it is in the room (still a total disaster). I picked the desk up and I (and by I, I mean G. Daddy) am currently rigging it to work with the bookshelf in this configuration. I'll post full details and pics soon.

{ this moment }

a friday ritual - a single photo - no words - a moment I want to pause - savor - and remember

inspired by soulemama

Another Update.

 In case you missed it the first hundred times.

2011 TDL

1. purchase mushroom growing supplies and make preparations for logs

2. pot rack for kitchen
3. organize phone and message center in kitchen
4. clean and organize under kitchen sink
5. purchase supplies for maple tapping for next spring
6. new couch for living room and general living room design
7. paint dining room
8. figure out a better situation for shoes/recycling by the front door
9. finish reorganizing and clean dressing room
10. clean windows

11. start and finish handmade gifts for Jenny, Helen, Becky, Melissa, Allison, Carol, Sarah and Pat.

12. new lighting for Iris's room

13. organize and backup iphoto

14. clean out pantry and wipe down shelves and bottles (ANTS!!!)

15. find and purchase vintage ceramic egg holder

16. sort through wardrobe and donate, trash or repurpose

17. learn one new knitting pattern

18. learn one new crochet pattern

19. paint giant urn and candle stick holders

20. finish mending and repurpose projects

21. plant salad greens, tomatoes and kitchen herbs

22. keep blog up to date

23. start etsy shop

24. buy more vintage/secondhand goods and hand make more of our clothing

25. run in at least two 5k's 

26. organize baby's outgrown clothing

# 7 is officially off the list and you can read all about it here.

We are making strides on #9 as well. I have had major light bulbs (idea light bulbs that is) going off in this room. Initially I was going to work with what I had storage wise and continue to use the dining room as my space to sew. But having it all prettied up (the dining room that is) forced me back to the drawing board. Not to mention nugget is on a mission to explore and discover and pull on every cord in this house so the dining room was becoming less appealing in that respect. Anyway, I bought an Expedit book shelf from ikea for nugget's room a while back and thought about getting another for the dressing room. I was going to place it in the center of the room (in place of the storage ottomans I got rid of) so that it could be accessed from all sides. But when I went to the website to research price and possible sales I saw this. Eureka! This solves some much needed storage issues and creates a (if not temporary) workspace for me. To take it a step further and to keep in line with #24 I decided to take a peek around craigslist and JACKPOT! There were soooo many of these expedit bookshelves for sale in every shape and color for half the price. I found the shelf for $50 and the desk for $20. Wait it gets better...so I have this Trofast storage thingy in there now which houses alot of fabric/sewing/block printing materials and is perfect condition. Well I put it out on facebook that I was looking to get rid of it and would sell it for $50. A friend jumped on the offer and it's sold. That means when all is said and done I've only spent $20 and a little sweat equity on what I think is a pretty damned good idea (that's right I said it)!!

You can read more about #9 here.

Just to be clear I was not paid to mention any of these products and never am. I mention them because I like them.

Dumplings.

I haven't shared too many culinary adventures here yet.  A few but not many.

Last time I was grocery shopping I picked up a copy of Food and Wine. Something I hadn't done in a long time due to the growing household expenses. But I just couldn't resist this one. The cover featured mouth watering spicy grilled shrimp ( I don't even really like shrimp) that were not to be ignored.

I have yet to make the shrimp but another article/recipe caught my eye. The article is written by Frank Bruni, famed former NYT Food Critic. He takes his turn in the kitchen and writes about the triumphs, tricks and sometimes fails.

The recipe is Ricotta Gnudi with Chanterelles from Nancy Silverton's Mozza Cookbook

This recipe was easy and adaptable. The first batch I followed the recipe to the letter. It was lovely. The second batch I employed my mixer to do the "heavy lifting" and this time I rolled and cut them without the rolling-into-a-ball bit. They looked a bit more rustic and gnocchi-like but tasted just as wonderful. I also had some fresh peas and cherry tomatoes on hand and added them to the mushrooms. These dumplings are delicate so the less stirring and handling the better. Even though I'm not a fan of non-stick pans I found sauteeing the gnudi with the mushroom mix a better choice than stainless because the gnudi tend to stick to the stainless pan tearing your delicate little dumplings to bits.
 A squeeze of lemon really lifted the flavors in this dish.

I topped with some freshly grated parmesan and poured myself a glass of cold white wine.
I suggest you do the same.

The full article and recipe can be found here.

We're Back.

We would have been back yesterday but with more house guests, a request for a trip to Target (twist my arm) and a computer that had a mind of it's own I had to let it go. So here we are back on track.

And yes, we finally completed #7 . If I'm going to be totally honest it was a little dark for what I had in mind at first. But having lived with it for a week + I like it alot now.  I've already been scouting fabric for curtains (but that's not on this year's list so it is also not a priority - there's no harm in looking).

Here is the dining room before in all it's chaotic glory

 ( I also sew in here which makes it 10x more chaotic)...

Prepping...

During... 

Posing...

and after.

A couple of notes at this point - I plan on taking down those dated curtain rods and replacing them with black rods instead, reframing the artwork (brought back from a gallery in Australia by G.) in black gallery frames and possibly rematting them and I always wanted to make small pillows for each of the parson dining chairs, but again, maybe next year.

This is the fabric I'm considering for the curtains.
Also want to try to make an area rug I saw here with this canvas.

I designed this buffet (below) and had it made by a furniture maker with wonderful results. It really didn't cost much more than a store bought item and it came with all of my specs (fits perfectly under the window) and customization (drawers, metal feet). Well worth it in my opinion. It houses our fancier glassware, an extra set of silverware and many other various item ( too many to name). I placed these books here to get them out of Iris's reach but really like how it looks and will probably keep it like this.

Yes those swollen wood doors and ugly fan are due to the fact that we don't have air conditioning (mountain weather suits us just fine).

2012's To Do List is just dying to get out.

{ this moment }

a friday ritual - a single photo - no words - a moment I want to pause - savor - and remember

inspired by soulemama

Sorry for the silence. We've been relaxing after the holiday weekend and working on some projects around here. We'll be back on Monday!

{ this moment }

a friday ritual - a single photo - no words - a moment I want to pause - savor - and remember

inspired by soulemama