amazing race

this is for my friend carissa. carissa just finished her SECOND marathon on sunday in atlanta. and she did it in less than 4 hours! we on the west coast (that would be pixel, steve and i) are so incredibly proud of her! i personally find it astounding that any person can run 26.2 miles in one spell. the most i've ever done is 5. but carissa has been training for the last few years. she set a goal and stuck to it... incredibly inspiring! way to go carissa!

i lifted some photos of her finishing the race from her facebook page. hope she doesn't mind!

i love a surprise

i've written about my friend janna before. she makes beautiful jewelry and sells it in her etsy shop. i recently saw this piece in her shop. gorgeous.
janna's also my go-to gal for advice. she responds to every email i send. she listens to me rant about the injustices of the world... of my small world that is. she gives me advice. she's a good friend. so when she ordered some cards from me recently, i also enclosed these puppies. i lifted that beautiful photo of that beautiful necklace and designed some calling cards for her.
i love a surprise!

I could seriously...

be lounging, no sleeping, in this space right now.

from here

i'm tired. and we're having a heat wave. and we don't have air conditioning.

the weekend was extremely busy. i spent friday replenishing my stationery between farmers markets. friday night we had company for dinner. we had burgers, zucchini hash, corn on the cob, and these guys.

image from here

yum. this is our go-to dessert for the summer. my husband loves building a fire on a cool summer night.

i was up bright and early saturday morning to head to the farmers market to sell. long day capped off with a gym workout, sushi, and pixel's play date with the neighbor's puppy.

buddy

i spent sunday preparing for more guests. we had these two showing up from driving cross-country!

jared and sarah and steve and pam

they visited a month ago on a job-hunting trip and were successful. now they're here permanently. they're our guests until they find an place to stay. they drove all the way from atlanta. hmmm... maybe they brought the heat. and they got to meet our friends who live in the same area as where they wanna live. so now they have a connection in hopefully their new neighborhood.

steve made homemade pesto for pasta.

image and recipe from here

we had grilled salmon, salad, and this for dessert.

rustic fruit tart from here

and now i'm ready for that daybed above. for a long, long nap.

but i'll wake up in time for this.

image from here

does she pick ed or kiptyn? my guess, neither.