the weekend

in no particular order, my weekend....

i made cauliflower soup sunday afternoon. it was perfect. my mother-in-law made this recipe first, told me it was good, so i tried it. she lied. it was great! loved it. steve loved it. you'll love it too.

image via here

we had it with these burgers. can you say yum? i did, several times, during dinner.

image via here

sunday night, the oscars. star of the show, for me... miss sandra bullock.

image via here

first of all, beautiful. secondly, witty, funny and amusing while giving best actor award.

friday night, my first book club meeting. we talked about this.
it was a mixed crowd in reviewing the book. some liked it. some didn't. i liked it. i thought it was good, not great, but good. it's the story of a 90-something man in a nursing who recalls his days as veterinarian for a travelling circus in the 1930s. there's some animal abuse, some people abuse. that's why some people didn't like it. i thought all that was secondary to the story and didn't focus on those elements, but i can see where it would be bothersome to some. but, hostess dayna put out a spread of some awesome food and we had a lot of laughs. a lot.

saturday afternoon, i walked across the street to my neighbor's house for a clothes party. we viewed CAbi clothes. i'll be sporting the tee shirt on the right in 7-10 days when it arrives in the mail.
i have never laughed so hard. i was there for 4.5 hours it was so much fun. funniest part of the whole evening... after a trying-on-clothes-session, a couple of women were telling another woman not to purchase that jacket she had on because "it didn't fit right, it looked like something from the 80s,....". the woman with the jacket replies "um, this is my coat. i wore it here this evening.". open mouth, insert foot. thank goodness they were all very close friends and even coworkers and it resulted in a lot of laughter.

hope your weekend was just as great.

new stuff

there's some new calling cards in the shop. i got a lot of requests for double sided cards in the past, so now i'm making both single sided and double sided. just for you.

ferns. inspired by spring. no it's not spring yet where i live. i'm staring at snow. spring will come july 4th, with summer, here in seattle.
poppies! my favorites.
loads of ikat. bright colors.
more ikat.
and remember, any square card can be made in standard business card size.

ready for the weekend? i am. it's been a stressful week. glad it's over. first book club meeting tonight. we'll be discussing this. i'll tell ya all about it next week. and introduce my next book.

musical rugs

pixel would like to model our new rug for you. remember this bargain? well, it arrived yesterday. this is today, with the rug in place by the french doors in the dining room.
this was yesterday, freshly unrolled in the hallway. with goofballs.
i love it. even steve likes it. i love split leaf philodendron. they're one of my favorite plants. (those are split leaf philodendrons on the rug, aren't they? well, even if not, it's good enough for me, because they remind me of them.)
it's the perfect rug to pick up the greens from outdoors. and remember, $50 for 4x6' from anthropologie! it's sold out now.and remember how i asked for your opinion on a foyer rug? well, here's what i got. (that front door is screaming to be painted black.)
i really like this one. it's taking me a little while to get used to the "persian-ness" of it, but i like it. i think it'll be great for not showing dirt.
and this is what you see coming back up the stairs from photographing the foyer.
more rugs. we also had this jute upstairs in the "junk room" waiting, just waiting to put it down. i love it here in the family room because pixel now has a soft spot for chewing her bone, besides her dog bed she got for christmas. this one came from pottery barn years ago.
and finally, we moved our bedroom rug to the area between the family room and kitchen island. another soft spot for you-know-who.
so there you have it. the rugs of the first floor.

huh??

it's the most gorgeous, sunny day (albeit only 42 degrees) of the year. this little one found the sun. excuse the shoes. she obviously doesn't mind them. although i don't think you'd catch me laying my head by steve's sneakers. this is supposed to be delivered today. i tracked it earlier and saw this on the ups site.
huh?? it's beautiful out. no rain, no sleet, no snow. only sun. is that the adverse weather? maybe in seattle, yes.

happy weekend. steve and i are going here tomorrow for breakfast to celebrate our anniversary. it's just around the corner. i love their breakfast. salmon hash, here i come.

perhaps she wouldn't have cried all night long...

had she been trapped in this beautiful laundry room instead of my 6x6' claustrophic laundry room. she could have lounged in the sink, played with the scarf, slept in the pet bed. in my laundry room she only had dust bunnies to play with.

here's the prisoner in comfier sleeping conditions.
how it all went down...

10:30 pm i went into the laundry room just outside of our bedroom door (only one step in, remember it's just 6' deep and 3' of that is washer and dryer) and pulled my pajamas out of the dryer. they'd been sitting dry in the dryer for 2 days. i'm really really good at starting laundry, really terrible at finishing it.
10:45 pm steve brings pixel up to the bed. this is her 4th or 5th time sleeping with us in the bed vs her crate. i hear a cat crying. i ask steve to peek his head into the hallway to see if he sees the cats, cali and beauty. he said he did.
11:00pm more cat crying. i figure cali's upset because pixel's in the bed and she knows if she comes in the bedroom she's at risk of being chased. i figure she's upset because she can't curl up and share my pillow like she usually does. she can be a whiney cat. and a pillow hog.

1:o7 am more cat crying.
2:13 am more cat crying.
3:45 am more cat crying.
5:16 am more cat crying. i think "maybe i should check on her. no, don't get out of your warm comfy bed. steve told you she was ok. plus, you'll wake pixel."
6:42 am more cat crying.
7:13 am more cat crying.
7:17 am steve and pixel get up and go downstairs. more cat crying. i finally get up to investigate. sounds coming from laundry room. i open the door. what! there's cali. poor little thing. she snuck in there when i got my pjs out of the dryer. "steeeeve!"

me: you told me you said cali and beauty were in the hallway last night! cali's been in the laundry room all night!
him: no, i said i only saw beauty.
me: no you said you saw both of them.
him: no, i said i only saw beauty.
me: no, honey, she said you both of them were in the hallway.
him: no, i said i only saw beauty.
me: hmmmmpppph. (meanwhile i flash to kyle and camille's you said/no i didn't say that that went on the entire rhobh season)

poor cali.

update: it's worse than i thought. steve doesn't think the laundry room is as big as 6x6'.

4 years

it's 4 years since we got married. hard to believe. hard to believe that it's only been 4 years. we joke that it seems like 4 DOG years. but only in the best of ways, right, honey? yes, time has flown by. but i'm glad it's flying by with this guy. i'd have it no other way.

happy annivesary, honey. i wish we were back there, on the beach, in maui, with the warm sunshine.

seriously?

i love ya, rh (we look at this on the walls, we eat off of this, we sit on this), but seriously, would this even be comfortable?

saturday night's dinner

the recent issue (march 2011) of the martha stewart living magazine had some recipes for salmon baked in parcment paper. steve and i created our own version saturday night. and it was awesome. seriously. the best dinner we've made in awhile. i loved it. i'm still thinking about it. i've never cooked with parchment paper before. i don't know... something about paper and heat that doesn't sit well with me. anybody else like that?

anywho, we start by layering salmon, asparagus, and red onion on the parchment paper. then drizzled with olive oil, lemon juice and sprinkled salt and pepper. topped the pile off with the lemon slice.then folded and tucked and creased the parchment paper so no steam would escape. steve had the grill going at 400. but you can also do these in the oven.
final product. yum! he cooked them for about 20 mins. martha's recipe called for 12 - 13 minutes for a 5 ounce, 1 inch thick filet, for medium doneness. other recipes i found said bake for 20-25 mins. i think 15-18 would be a good compromise.
we added baked potatoes to this. again, it was awesome. and incredibly healthy. and inexpensive. total cost of the meal was about $10 for the 2 of us together.

goodies

i just received these in the mail from little brown pen, one of my favorite places for photographs, since i got these and loved them. it's a set of 4 5x5" photographs. these are just as gorgeous as the others.
i'm surprised i picked red because i have an aversion to red. but these i love. i had a coupon. a coupon that i won along with some other goodies in a giveaway last december on little brown pen's blog. she paired with real simple to offer a box of goodies to 10 winners. i was one of the winners. and the box of goodies was great.

here's part of the stash. essie nail polish, color.... 'real simple'. i took it to my last manicure and it's a great color. a mini calendar and coupon from little brown pen. a mouse pad, letterpress cards, pottery barn photo frame.
and this thing, that came in the little velvet bag. i studied it, steve studied it, my neighbor studied it. we couldn't figure out what it was. so i wrote an email to the kind lady who sent me the package. she replied. and it's this.what'll they think of next.

these caramels were good. steve doesn't know how good. because i didn't save him any. bad wife.
a couple of books were in the box.
and of course, the latest issue of real simple.
like i said, great box of goodies. thanks little brown pen and real simple!

bargain of the day

this anthropologie rug, size 4'x6' was originally $348. it's now $49.95. and on the way to my house. for only $6.95. good deal. great deal. it's gonna go by the french doors from the dining room to the patio. gosh, hope steve likes it.

today

i've been busy the last week. busy revamping the calling card section of my shop. making it easier for you to purchase. and giving you more color options and font choices.

and busy making new patterns for the cards. here's a peek at some ikat cards being added today.
they're double-sided. and come in six colorways.
and these guys, your favorite....
are now going to be offered in all these color choices for the stripes and fonts.
it's so exciting!

now i'm off to put my nose to the grindstone. it's finally a somewhat sunny day so i can take product photos today.

moving right along

i just finished reading middlesex by jeffrey eugenides.
middlesex is a pulitzer prize winning book (2003). and in 2007, oprah chose it for her book club. i had the book in my possession for a few years, probably since 2007 when oprah named it for her book club. i finally read it. and i'm glad i did.

according to wikipedia, "middlesex is the story of narrator and protagonist Cal Stephanides (initially called "Callie") as an intersexed man of greek descent with a condition known as 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which causes him to have certain feminine traits. the first half of the novel is about Cal's family, and depicts Cal's grandparents migrating from Smyrna, a city in
Asia Minor, to the United States in 1922. It then follows their assimilation into the American society. The latter half of the novel, which is set in the late 20th century, focuses on Cal's experiences in his hometown Detroit, Michigan, and his escape to San Francisco where he comes to terms with his modified gender identity."

it took me a little while to immerse myself in middlesex. but once i did, i was hooked. i found eugenides writing exceptional and extremely articulate. his descriptions of callie's angst-filled pre-teen and teen years were phenomenal. i struggled through the section where callie escaped to san fran. mostly because i wanted a different scenario at that juncture. that aside, i really loved the book.

so, now i'm on to the next. water for elephants by sara gruen.
this is our first book in our book club. did i tell you i'm in a book club?! yes, my neighbor and i started one. i've always wanted to be in one. when i told steve that we were starting a book club, he asked if we were meeting once a week. seriously. steve's in the fast reader's club. i'm not. it's annoying when we read in bed at night and my reading is distracted by how fast he's turning pages.

and perfect timing for reading water for elephants. the movie version comes out in april, so i hear. and look who's in it. that's right. twilight boy.

***

overstock.com discount for you

you've seen my foyer. here. this is the focal wall.
it's hard to get a good photo because it's a little cramped with stairs to the left and front door to the right. but this is it. dark blue chest with pink glass knobs and gallery wall of photos. camel walls. this is my current rug in the foyer. heed my advice: never put a light colored rug in a foyer in the pacific northwest and expect it to look nice, especially after a rainy new year's eve when you hosted 20 people and their 40 wet shoes. my rug has seen better days. it's time to replace it.

i've been searching high and low. my latest search brought me to overstock.com. i have to admit.... i've never bought from them. other bloggers have. in fact, camilla just posted this that she bought from overstock and is repainting it. so i'm off to search their rugs for the perfect one for my foyer. here's a few of my choices, all found here.

i love this traditional one. but are the colors too muted for not showing dirt?


this geometric pattern wouldn't show dirt.


i love love love the persian. your thoughts?


or should i just play it totally safe and go for seagrass or a licorice hemp? and never have to worry about dirt showing again?
help! what is your opinion? tell me which one you like the best. and for your trouble, enjoy a discount code for 10% off at overstock.com. ok, fine, you don't even have to give me your opinion. just take your discount code and run. the code is 121745. it's good for 10% off overstock products (excluding movies, books, and electronics). the code never expires, however, it can only be used once per email address. and if you need electronics, use this code, 202234, for free shipping on them.

*disclaimer: all ideas and opinions expressed are my own. no monetary compensation was received for doing this post, however, i was provided with a discount code.