Oh my stars!

Blue

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1.Blue Stone Rings
2.Blue Lattice
3.Blue Roof
4.Passionflower
5.Suede Shoes
6.Flowerpots
7.Dolls
8.Scotland Rail

A Hike

Okay, not really much of a hike. But a beautiful walk and some nice time spent drawing with the girls.
We walked up to one of my favourite groves in Annadel. Oak trees and mossy rocks. Ilove this time of year for the millions of shades of green. And all of the growth on the bark of the trees. It gets so thick and deep that you could lose your carkeys in it.

We sat on a hillside and drew pictures for about an hour and a half. E was farther down the hill from us and she sat so still that she looked like a rock, herself!

Post-New Year's Party Wrapup

We had a New Year's Eve Party. We are in California but celebrated it on New York time so that our friends could come earlier and leave earlier. Everyone seems to have gotten home safely. It was great that our friends with small children were able to come, too. The house was full of kids and people. I had a lot of fun, I got some nice emails the day after, so it seems to have been a success.

My house was totally and completely trashed afterwards! Thank Heavens for eco-groovy paper plates :)
Some little vignettes of post-party trauma:

We had paper and coloured pens at the ready in the hall bath for our friends to put down their new-year's resolutions or things that they're grateful for from 2008. It was so sweet to see them all hanging there the next morning. It almost made DH cry. That's sayin' something!

Scandinavian Clogs, Latin Tradition

It's been a mostly lovely Christmas season. We celebrated on Eve, Day and Boxing Day. I am going to add Epiphany officially to our family season. I've sewed the All Sorts elfin clogs. They will be set out on the evening of the January 5th for the Three Kings and filled for January 6th with goodies. Very, very small goodies! I have also  sewn a bit of embroidery floss between them so that they can be turned into ornaments for next year.

 

Bread

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Spent all day making bread. Actually, watching DH make bread and then eating it. The girls got into the game as well. In all, there was 9-grain, bleu cheese & pecan, jalapeno & cheese and some delicious bread rolls.

The house was warm and cozy and smelled wonderful. It was a total carbo-load.
I had to take, like 4 fibre pills in a preemptive strike against the gluten. Now that you are filled in on the condition of my bowels, I bid you a good day!

Look, it's an Action Shot of the bread rolls baking...

Bye-Bye Birdie and Painted Mushrooms

Outside of our living room window.
Little monkey was out of school the other day with the cough/sniffle and we were messing with the tree when she said, "Oh my gosh, look at the birdhouse!"
At some point in recent weeks a bird has started to build a nest in the house.
We went out to investigate. I couldn't see inside it because it's too hight. But I could put my camera up into the hole and snapped a shot. Doesn't look like we have any eggs or any real concerted nest-building, but I'm excited to see who appears.

Interior view:

This past week my DH discovered a hilarious new thrift store. It's totally hidden in an industrial part of town. I don't know what he was doing there, since he works at a grocery store on the other side of town. I think he was stalking the motorcycle salvage place ;) Anyway, he took a bunch of pics on his camera phone and came home raving about this crazy, little, rambling thrift store. I say little because it isn't a warehouse like Salvation Army or Goodwill. It does, however, have all this rabbit-warren rooms. Scottish tweed suits, perfect furniture and an amazing crockery collection. They also have a lot of antique silver cutlery and nice teapots.

I scored. Scored! these two vintage wool needlepoint pillows with velvet backing. They're nasturtiums. Same pattern, so they look flippin' awesome on my bed. I'm totally in love with them. I plan on picking out the stitches on the bottom seam, installing an invisible zipper and making new inserts for them.

DH insists that they not be on the bed as-is. He has terrible dust/mold/old fabric allergies and they sent him into a choking fit. Onto the floor they went. But I will have my revenge! Once zippers are installed, they go straight to the dry-cleaners.

My small monkey needed a new cup for her hook at school. I scored this Staffordshire (authentic) cup at the thrift store. It's perfect and it was 75p.

These are supposedly DH's new lunch containers. Yeah, right. He says he will take his lunch, but never does. These are Pyrex and just right for lunch. I may have to make quilted, zippered holders for them.

They're fabulously tan and brown. I'm thinking 1981..?

A gift to our friend for her birthday. Picked and assembled by little A.

Okay, here's the Waldorf-thrift motherlode. It's a wooden spoon painted in a forest scene with mushrooms. Like the  Sybille von Olfers drawings from the '30s. I love her artwork. The person who painted this captured it beautifully.

Ode to the '70s

A couple of old things around my house.

The stool came with the house. It has a padded seat that makes a great stool.
The Tupperware bowls are from my SIL. She couldn't resist them, but didn't have room.
 I'm sure that my Mom & Dad received these exact bowls for their wedding in 1974. The tops are missing but that's what Saran Wrap is for.

Totally New Invention!

I am writing this post in Green because I had an epiphany the other day...
I have a lot of guilt about the amount of energy we use. Do I have CFLs in most of my light fixtures? Yes. Do I drive a car with pretty good mileage? Yes. Am I constantly turning things off? Yes. But the electricity portion of my power bill is TWICE that of the gas portion. We have gas water heater, heat and stovetop.
How could my electricity be so high? Maybe the rates have gone up? That could be part of it. I haven't really paid attention to the rates. In any case, it's immaterial because I simply cannot afford a $185 PG&E bill every month. Sadly, the really cold months haven't even arrived. That is the part that terrifies me. We're simply using too much electricity. And heating the house has only begun.

So, I bought a fabulous new washer and dryer last year. While the washer has all of the energy-saving bells & whistles, a dryer is simply a dryer. There's not a lot you can do.

Except to NOT USE IT.

How in the hell do I not use my dryer in the middle of winter? There's barely enough sun in my North-facing backyard to make a clothesline worth it this time of year.
Then I realized that I was turning on the forced-air heater twice a day. In the evening for about 2-3 hours. I only set it to 68 degrees and I turn it off before I go to bed. I turn it on again in the morning for about an hour. Again, it's only set to 68. However, this is enough (combined with the time overnight) to dry a rack of clothes. If I set the clothesrack DIRECTLY OVER THE HEATER VENT!

Et, Voila!



You can even see the rainbow-striped shirt is blurry on account of the air.
The only 'problem' with this new system is that my awesome new washing machine holds enough clothes to fill three of these clothes racks. So it takes three nights to get a load of laundry dry ;)
But maybe, just maybe, it's worth springing for another $25 rack to save some big change on my power bill. I should do this for a month and compare my electrical usage.

The other change I've tried to implement is to turn off my TV/stereo and computer/monitor/printer power strips off when I leave the house. Especially when I'm gone all day. This can be annoying when DH and I have weird, opposing schedules. It means that we want the radio and computer on at different times. But there are definitely days where no one needs the damned things plugged in.

Phrase of the Day: "Action Shot"

Nearly always used when photographing an inanimate object. I.e., "Here's an action shot of my dogwood tree in all its glory."  Or, "Here's an action shot of my new teapot."
I just like the phrase. It makes the mundane sound somehow jaunty. Like my life is maybe more interesting than it actually is.

Being Good...

Lately I've been weirdly obsessed with my legacy. Like, if I were to die tomorrow what would people remember about me? I'm not sure. But I am sure that whatever it is right now, it could definitely be improved-upon. I know I could be more patient, less snarky. I don't know how much less sarcastic I really want to be. I could be a little  lot more fun. Like, more 'go with the flow'. I could obsess less about  undercooked meat an accidentally touching a poisonous mushroom while hiking. Definitely.
Like, what exactly is my problem. I'm pretty happy. What could I change about myself to become really, really happy. And fun to be around?

I think I need to remember to:

1. Be grateful!
2. Excercise. I'm too crabby and creaky without it.
3. Think of others before I think of myself.
4. Just breathe.
5. Make do and MEND!
6. Let go and allow more messes from the kids when they're trying to help.

Tonight was a little bit of a breakthrough moment. DH is at work. Instead of just throwing some ol' food in a pan and being cranky about dinner, I had one girl grating cheese and another in charge of warming tortillas on the griddle while I cooked the chicken and laid out the salsa etc. It was great! We got dinner ready in 20 minutes and I had fun with them in the kitchen. After we ate our tacos, I suggested a walk down to the video store to return my movie. (Baby Mama--one day late. Had to watch again). They didn't want to go. Little one thought I should just drive there, but seriously, it's three blocks. Not NYC blocks, either. Suburban blocks. We walked down and talked about all of the Christmas lights in the neighbourhood and what trees we could see through the windows.

It was fun to just walk, chat and get some fresh air.

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Since they've been in bed,  I have finished a couple more of my mini-stockings. When they're all done we will have 24 hanging from the mantle for Advent. I'm a little late getting them all done BEFORE Advent, but I'm up to eight and it's only day 2, so I guess I'm okay. Hoping to finish them by the weekend.

Here are some early pics

 

 

They are quite small. Maybe 3.5 X 3.5 inches. Not big enough for the small bricks of Sculpey I was going to put in some of them. Perfect size for small chocolates. GRRRREAT! Just what they need right before bed! If I get time I will try to find some cute button cards and things that they'd like.