experimenting with color design in lunch

Decided to try a little something different today. Instead of a range of color, I thought it might be kind of cool to pick a design palette. Because a meal is just like decorating a room.

It was kind of cool to do, and pretty in a way, but as I look at it to eat I just keep thinking, "Needs green."

lunch, deli club:

• 2 (badly) molded eggs (with a small container of sea salt on the side)
• carrot chunks
• red d'anjou pear
• satsuma
• cashews

I didn't have a bento yesterday. But! Thanks to Guy, I did not go without a delicious, homemade lunch! Grabbed one of my pasties from the freezer and a gravy packet on my way out the door in the morning, enjoyed a delicious -- and wow, very filling! -- lunch in the afternoon. And it was quite the talk of the lunchroom. There may have been drooling.

handmade christmas

Uncle Sal, showing Miss M the proper way to wear her new bike helmetAt last, the long-overdue post about all our handmade gifts from our delightful Christmas!

As most of you know, several years ago, we started opting out of the gift-giving hoopla during the holidays for a variety of reasons. It has made the holiday season infinitely more peaceful and enjoyable for us. (::waves at mom, who isn't convinced this is true but we love her anyway::) We do make exceptions for kids -- our nephew and nieces when they were younger and now for the Fabulous Miss M, and of course for Toys for Tots and the like -- because hello, party time!

For the Hall-Smiley Family Christmas this year, however, we decided we'd make homemade gifts for each other. Aside from being homemade, the other rule was that our gifts had to be made with things we already had on hand, if possible. So no going out and buying a bunch of supplies or some kind of paint by numbers kit or whatever. And you guys! As with everything that the Hall-Smiley Family does, our Handmade Christmas seriously kicked ass!

Guy's handmade gifts:

    

• for Sal -- a case of beer composed of each brew Guy's done over the years
• for me -- a half dozen of his homemade pasties, complete with packets of organic brown gravy mix, frozen and packaged so that I have an easy, yummy, homemade dinner on those nights when time is a hot commodity OR to go in a bento. AND! He even created a little treasure hunt for me to find them on Christmas morning, because he is an evil genius.

Sister's handmade gifts:

    

• for Guy -- making and decorating (with Miss M's help) a ceramic mug for his morning coffee (no pic, sorry)
• for Sal -- a wooden recipe box containing not recipes, but her memories of the meals we've shared as a family, everything that was served at the meal, and why it was memorable to her, along with blank cards to include the many future meals we'll share
• for me -- a handmade card, which explained that my gift is a Girls' Art Weekend together, complete with an itinerary and meal plan, and including activities like a visit to an art museum, shopping at an art supply store, an afternoon of arty crafty time together, and then staying up late to watch movies and eat (good) junk food

Sal's handmade gifts:

    

• for Sister -- a full quart container of homemade fresh mozzarella
• for Guy -- his own special blend of a spicy nut mix, including a blend of different nuts that he toasted and lightly caramelized with brown sugar, then tossed with a carefully-tested combination of black pepper, coriander, thyme, sea salt, and Worcestershire
• for me -- a little pencil sketch he did of garlic cloves, framed, with the words "Not just garlic, but also love" (it's a long-running inside joke/term of endearment)

Brittney's handmade gifts:

    

• for Guy -- a book safe made from an extra copy of a book I had, complete with a bookmark made from ribbon and a little key (I can't remember how I acquired it, but it was already well-loved by the time I got it -- a big chunk of middle pages had come undone from the spine, it was missing its dust jacket, and had obviously been loved hard by its former owner, and I was only using it for a shelf display so I didn't feel too bad about cutting a big hole in the middle of it)
• for Sister -- a collage piece about the what she means to me, done on a blank canvas I already had and other odds and ends from my various collections of crafty things (the quote is the KJV version of the "whither thou goest, I will go" verse from The Book of Ruth)
• for Sal* -- etched beer mugs; I bought some inexpensive 20 oz. beer mugs from IKEA, so it wasn't technically using something I already had on hand. The rest of the materials were, however. Using some old contact paper, I made word stencils for the four basic ingredients of beer: water, yeast, grain, and hops. (I drew the words on the contact paper, stuck the contact paper to the glass, then cut out the letters with an Exacto knife.) Then I used this glass etching stuff I'd bought several years ago to use on the bathroom window (that I ended up deciding not to do) to etch the words into the glass. I'd never used it before and it was pretty old so I wasn't sure if it would still work or how well. Turns out, pretty great! The stuff is seriously scary so you have to be careful with it, but it works fast and was actually pretty simple.

*[Sal's was the hardest because there was no way to do it without him seeing it during the process, so I just had to lie to him that it was actually Guy's gift, that the book safe was Sister's in addition to the collage, and that his gift was the mysterious box that made a satisfying thudding noise when you shook it (thanks to the weight I stuck inside the empty box to make it realistic). (Seriously, do not mess with me about gift-giving subterfuge: I come from a long line of women who have made it an art form.)]

pizza pockets, bento style

We had some pepperoni leftover from our coast trip last week and a big block of cojack cheese, so I had a thought last night to make pizza. And then I thought, "Hey, I could make little pizza pocket thingies for my bento!" And then I thought, "HEY! I could make a bunch of little pizza pocket thingies and freeze them for future bentos!"

Pizza's an easy enough thing to make but I wasn't sure how well it would work so I decided only to make a few pizza pockets to freeze and then a small pizza for dinner last night with the leftover dough. I didn't try any of the pockets but the pizza was tasty, so I felt pretty confident about packing it in today's lunch.

Now that I've thought of doing this, I'll try to plan to do it more often, since it can be used for a lot of different ingredients and would be a great way to use up things, as well. I've been trying to think of some good things like this that I can make fairly easily and then freeze for a "bento stash" to make lunches easy when I'm pressed for time. (It was actually Guy's homemade gift for me that gave me the idea for the pizza pockets, which will make sense when I finish the post about our homemade Christmas.)

lunch, laptop lunch:

• two pizza pockets -- organic pizza dough (courtesy of New Seasons), homemade pizza sauce of caramelized tomato paste with fresh garlic, Applegate Farms pepperoni, cojack cheese
• steamed broccoli
• satsumas
• cashews and a few small pieces of cherry-almond dark chocolate, with yogurt-covered raisins in the little condiment container

ETA: well those were a success! They heated up quickly -- just a quick minute in the microwave -- and were tasty and just the right size for a lunch.  Each pocket had two teaspoons of the pizza sauce, a tablespoon of cheese, and two thin deli slices of pepperoni, and the pocket was made from about a quarter cup of dough, so I think the overall lunch portion of two pockets was probably reasonably healthy.

when you throw down the gauntlet to the universe...

...it responds with a resounding, "HAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN BREAK YOU FOOLISH ONE." Did I say something yesterday about our Not-Resolution to reset boundaries and reclaim time from the crushing maw of obligation and responsibility? I came home last night with my neck, shoulders, and back gnarled like an ancient oak tree, eyes tired, ready to lay my head down and sleep until spring. But there was website clients' work to be done, cats to be fed, dinner to make, bento to pack, dishes to do. Well and other things, but considering dinner was sort of thrown together and I skipped the dishes entirely, those other things obviously didn't get done. That'll teach me about taking an extended vacation, egad.

However! I successfully whittled down those 216 emails to 150, of which only about 50 are left to respond to or follow-up on. (Note to future self: plan a work from home day the first day back from vacation since you're going to spend it dealing with email anyway.) It was orientation at the school today so Sally had a 9 to 5 day instead of his usual noon to midnight day (yes, really), which meant we could at least eat together and spend some time together. Curled up on the couch half-asleep, but still.

Also, when did we turn 87 years old?

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• baked potato with sour cream, cheddar, and monterey jack
• steamed broccoli (for the potato)
• Bosc pear slices, satsuma orange, and more of Sallly's "bento animal cookies"

vacation's all i ever wanted

Hello, internets!! I have returned, you may rejoice! Or roll your eyes, that works, too.

So vacation is officially over and I am officially depressed. (not really) Nineteen days away from work is really the bestest invention ever and should be something I do every month. Ha ha, I kid. (no really, nobody fire me, kay?) The downside of nineteen days of vacation is the coming back part, which is decidedly not part of the bestest invention ever, but I knew that going into it, so.

yes, it's really a screenshot of my Inbox (we don't count the Sustainability folder since it's all from automated online mailing lists)But you know what else is also not the funnest thing ever invented? THE TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN EMAIL MESSAGES WAITING IN MY INBOX THIS MORNING. Jesus H, people! Email in the workplace is srsly of the devil. I suppose I should be grateful(!) that I was gone when many people were also gone for various lengths of time for the holidays, because holy buckets I would not even want to contemplate the horrors. I'm hoping that half of that will be variations on "hey everyone I will be gone for the next 3/5/whatever days so long losers" and "oh yay vendors have brought holiday treats don't trample each other on the way to the kitchen" and thus deleted with no further effort. I AM VERY OPTIMISTIC IN THIS WAY. I kind of don't know yet how bad it is because I am feeling particularly avoidant today and thus haven't delved too deeply. Well, and I had meetings from the moment I walked in the door until, well, right now. Let's see, lunch or cleaning out my inbox...hmmm....

So, vacation! Was, as I mentioned, totally badass! It was a little more hectic at the start than either of us would've preferred due to some scheduling obligations, but nothing too traumatic. Things That I Did On My Vacation: A Thesis:

• completed the creative room, woot woot! (now renamed officially to the studio, except on the web pages here because it would break all the links and I don't feel like fixing them all)
• created our little hearts out in our creative room studio, woot woot! and left projects half-done, and all our stuff out, and it's totally okay because it's not in the middle of the kitchen or the living room and the cats can't get into any of it to chew on things and barf them back up and just generally yay for dedicated creative spaces!
• did some writing on Book 2 in the new creative room studio; also, at the coast
• made some way awesome presents for the homemade Christmas with our Smiley family, as mentioned in the last post (and yes, I still owe a write-up and pics of that...coming soon!)
• finished Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which makes me sad because ye gods and little fishes that show is goddamn freaking awesome and joins the list of great shows that died too soon and I may now be madly in love with John Connor and his almost-human Summerbot and also also ALSO Sarah Connor the mother of us all and Derek Reese of the Reese clan and omg Shirley Manson still a Scottish badass and also in addition I need to see more John Henry playing D&D oh woe why why why was this show cancelled
• went to the movies (saw Voyage of the Dawn Treader but still haven't seen Tangled so we're hoping we can fit it in next weekend before it's gone from the theaters)
• played utterly ridic amounts of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii; in other news, we are hilariously behind on gaming trends (hahaha as if we have ever been up-to-date on gaming anything, we are srsly 124 years old)
• got my website clients updated for January (those who sent me their updates, anyway) -- not really a vacation-y thing, but a considerable accomplishment considering my general attitude throughout vacation was "if it looks like work, then I'm not doing it, damn it"

a winter storm raged like a banshee the entire time we were at the coast, and of course the morning we left, it looked like this

• spent four quite glorious days at the Oregon Coast
• went out to eat at a new restaurant (Tasty & Sons); well actually, two, since we tried out Little Big Burger for the first time, as well
• went to brunch on Alberta -- hahaha Tin Shed on any day of the week what was I thinking trying to get in for brunch? god bless Alberta's many coffee shop alternatives or we would have been hungry and thus cranky otherwise -- and then to Collage with Sal and managed not to buy everything in sight
• started (finally) Wheel of Time: The Towers of Midnight and spent much happy time curled up with a satisfactorily heavy book either at the coast with a terrifically ferocious storm raging outside or at home in my terrifically cozy library; also, I have an addiction to adverbifying adjectives
• slept in...like, a whole lot
• did silly time-wasting things like playing an embarrassing amount of Angry Birds on my phone (what I don't even), for which I make no apologies because I freaking PWN that game, dude
• oh yeah, and spent every available moment with my dear and beloved Sally Bear which was still not enough but way, way more time than we've had together in a long, long while

Our vacation clearly rocked it, I think we can all agree. There were a few things not done that we'd hoped to -- no LOTR marathon this year, unfortunately -- but there's no reason we can't do them anyway. It's going to take some time to get back into the routine of things, and there's always that period of the doldrums following a vacation, but it was worth it. Also, the cats have gotten WAY too used to having our attention practically 24/7 so I expect retaliation when I get home tonight. In other news, we live with terrorists.

And you know, we actually aren't planning to get back into the routine of things. We've long since decided -- and vacation was partly used for the planning of making this happen -- that we need to refocus our efforts on boundaries with the demands on our time versus spending our time in a way that's important to us. That refocus is something you just have to do on a regular basis, that resetting of boundaries, and we just haven't had a chance to catch our breath long enough to do it. So we did. Will. Are.

New Years' Resolutions? Nay nay, for we do not believe in them! Instead, these are Our Goals That Just Happen To Coincide With The Beginning Of A New Year No They Are Not Resolutions Shut Up. Anyway, 2011 will hopefully be a good year, better than 2010 was and it better be a damn sight better than 2009 or I'll demand a refund because holy crap, 2009 sucked it.

Anywhoodle, I'm back to work, back to posting, back to catching up on the past house projects so I can post on the creative room studio project, back to folding laundry and doing dishes and other illusions of responsibility, but in a new and revised format in which responsibilities and obligations get a portion of the pie than they were getting prior to vacation.

I'm also back to bentoing. I missed doing it, and I didn't. It was nice being all free spirit-y and lackadaisical about mealtimes and such, but I sure enjoy my pretty packed lunches, lo they give me great joy, Charlie Brown. Still, it's good to take a break sometimes, just so it stays fun and enjoyable instead of becoming another obligation, non?

lunch, Paris slimline:

• jasmine rice with a stripe of peas
• orange sections and Rancho Royale apple slices
• Sal's custom blend of flavored nut mix (part of his homemade Christmas gifts)

special treat, cute animals sidecar:

• sugar cookies Sal made for me last night as a special treat for my first day back to work, which he presented to me as bento animal cookies I KNOW RIGHT HE MADE ME HOMEMADE ANIMAL COOKIES HE WINS ALL THE AWARDS IN EXISTENCE

lol somewhat homely bento I maybe didn't put much effort into it. The protein part of the equation is a tad, um, lacking, but whatever, it's still a bento and it's still one more meal I'm neither skipping nor resorting to less healthy means for.

whale sighting!

snapped on our way into Oceanside yesterdayHello from the stormy and extremely wet Oregon Coast! It's been raining no-stop, with intermittent bouts of wind, since we arrived. It is fabulous.

We braved the rain and slight (though not terrible) chill for a bit of a walk this afternoon. Down to the public lot/overlook just below our cabins and just above the beach, and up and down the length of downtown Oceanside proper (all two blocks of it). The tide is too high to go down on the beach itself, but the lot/overlook provides a terrific viewing point for enjoying the beach in lieu of doing so from the sand.

Since it's about 30 feet above the water, you get a little further view out past the three arches than you do from the sand. And despite the leaden skies and rain, visibility was good enough to spot a whale about a mile or two out from the beach, just past the southernmost of the arches, moving northward. (I know they're currently migrating south, but this one was definitely moving north. Perhaps one of the 400 gray whales that are said to live off the PNW Coast instead of moving between Alaska and Baja?) We of course didn't have our camera, so we just stood and watched with great glee and awe. Our first full day here and already this vacation is a win!

This is actually the second time we've had a whale spotting. The first was during a visit to Cape Meares about four or five years ago -- we saw two small pods migrating north about two miles off the point (three miles off the shore proper). (I still need to catch up on posting old pics from trips like that one, so I'll have to look to see if we had a camera with us then....) Since Cape Meares is such a high vantage, you have a good view all up and down the coastline, so we were able to watch that pod for more than half an hour before they passed beyond our view. And since it was a spring migration, they had several calves in tow, which made it all the more amazing and inspirational.

Anyway, Whale Watching Week continues through the 1st, so if you have a chance to get to one of the designated watch spots, I highly recommend it!

boxing day

a sneak peek at the much talked about creative room; or, a pic in which the kitties prove that they do in fact own every room in the houseI have the "Christmas Time is Here" theme from Charlie Brown Christmas running through my head. I was never a fan of that soundtrack when I was a kid, but it's one of my favorites for Christmas now. (It also contains the only version of 'O Tannebaum' I have ever liked.) I love the introspective, melancholic feel of the music, even though I don't feel that way at all. It seems to suit a grown-up Christmas mood more than a kid's; maybe that's why I didn't like it then and love it now.

We've had quite a vacation so far. We finished the creative room a week ago Friday, amidst other obligations -- including an evening dinner party down in Oregon City -- and have been spending pretty much all our time since then in there, playing. I need to finish updating on the work from three years ago and then I'll have posts and pictures about the work we just finished. I'm so excited to show it to you! I have a gazillion pictures, so be prepared.

We've also been to the movie (Voyage of the Dawn Treader) tried a couple new restaurants (Little Big Burger in the Pearl and Tasty & Sons on North Williams), mainlined more of S2 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, made gifts for each other and Sister and Guy (we exchanged homemade gifts this year), shopped for the Fabulous Miss M, passed new levels of Zelda on the Wii, slept in a lot, and traveled to Salem and back to celebrate Christmas with our beloved Smiley family.

We headed to Salem Friday afternoon, to arrive to a warm house that smelled yummy and smiles and hugs from Sister, Guy, and Miss M. We had seafood chowder for Christmas Eve dinner, then bundled up and headed to their church for the candlelight service. (And oh man, talk about Charlie Brown Christmas...I can never listen to someone reading the traditional passage from Luke without thinking of Linus' KJV reading.) Then it was home again to get Miss M in her jammies and off to bed, set the coffee table with plates of cookies, and relax on the couch to visit. We brought our Wii controllers so we could do a fun foursome of Wii Sports Resort, but just never got around to it. No complaints here...I love just visiting, and especially around the Christmas tree. Guy read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, we shared our favorite Christmas memories, stuffed each others' stockings, and went to bed waaaay too late.

Christmas morning was opening our stockings, then breakfast of egg dish (a traditional casserole-type dish from Sister's family), orange sweet rolls and pecan sweet rolls (all homemade, of course!), and then we opened gifts from under the tree. Miss M was commendably patient for a three year-old, waiting her turn to open packages in between the opening of the homemade gifts among the adults. (More about the gifts in the next post.) After a bit of play, it was time for a much-needed nap for everyone, Miss M to her bed and the adults crashed on the couches and recliner in the living room.

We enjoyed a late afternoon snack-lunch of cold honey-baked ham, cheeses, veggies, bread, and cookies, and watched a couple of the old Rankin/Bass Christmas classics together with Miss M while we ate. (You forget how scary the Abominable Snowman was to you as a little kid until you watch it with another little kid for the first time. Miss M had to check a few times that Sal was still sitting beside her during those parts, in case she needed protection from the monster.) Before we knew it, it was time to head home to be sure the cats hadn't burned the house down, with Sister cramming plastic containers with leftovers for us to take with us and Guy making sure the beer was all packed safely for the trip home, and Miss M refusing to say goodbye because she didn't want us to leave. A good visit all around!

Hobbes is exhausted after a long day of sleepingWe came home to a house still standing and no immediate signs of destruction, which was perhaps the best Christmas gift of all, considering the state we've come home to at times in the past. The kitties were glad to see us instead of refusing to get near us as punishment for being gone, there wasn't a lot of unpacking to be done (we'd packed light and of course there weren't a lot of gifts to be unloaded) so we were able to just kick back on the couch in contented weariness to watch a couple of movies and then go to bed.

So today is a play day, a do-whatever-we-want day, a this-is-an-awesome-thing-about-being-an-adult-because-you-can-do-anything day, and then ProcrastiGirl arrives tomorrow to watch the cats and the house while we head to Oceanside for our winter coast vacation, a much-needed dose of Oregon Coast. It's supposed to be rainy and yucky, which means it will be awesome. The New Seasons grocery delivery arrives later today so we'll have plenty of deliciousness to munch on (along with everything Sister sent with us), we have a couple of shows to marathon, a new book to read, another to write :), and of course wi-fi and our laptops to keep us entertained if we need it (no seriously: what did we do before the internet??) in between walking the beach, visiting Cape Meares, or simply staring out the window at the beauty of waves crashing on the sand. God bless us, every one.

t-minus two days and counting

Vacation begins in two days and it's a race to the finish whether or not Sal and I will drop dead from exhaustion before it gets here. But after this weekend, I like our odds. We worked our tails off but somehow managed a smidgen of R&R in there so we're refreshed for this final stretch. And yesterday was a particularly lovely day. While we both worked (more on that in a minute), we had the radio tuned to the local station that switches to a holiday music format for December and had such a pleasant day together, laughing and singing along. In just a couple of days, we'll have nineteen days of time like that.

My company holiday party was Friday afternoon, and although I couldn't afford the lost time for what I need to get done before I'm gone, it was a welcome respite and loads of fun. Probably the best holiday party we've had in all the time I've been there. We've sure had some doozies so that's saying something. Oh, and I won a $50 Home Depot gift card. Which is kind of funny, since the $100 Home Depot gift card I won at the company picnic bought all those smoke/fire detectors last weekend.

The party finished an hour earlier than scheduled and rather than be the workaholic I'm sometimes accused of being by going back to my office to finish up some things while there were no interruptions, I instead decided to hit Collage finally, after Kim told me about it when we met for coffee last week. I really almost wish she hadn't, because the last thing I (or my bank account!) needed was another terrific art store on my list and within my immediate area. Well of course I spent a ridiculous amount of time there and came out with a ridiculously overstuffed bag of goodies, but what can you do, right?

The dark clouds were just starting to release the flood as I was headed up the stairs to my front door. We've had some real toadstranglers of late, so it was another in a recent spate of them. I had things around the house to be done, but the perfect weather for being curled up on the couch combined with a week of late nights, I ended up falling asleep watching a movie and I blame the rain. Cue Milli Vanili.

We spent the weekend working on the creative room, getting the painting done and most of the furniture together. Woohoo!! We'll finish up the furniture and putting the room together on Wednesday, then decorate and put things away in the room on Thursday, and by Friday, we should be able to use it. Arty crafty days, here we come!

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• hazelnut crusted chicken breast
• jasmine rice with sweet & sour sauce
• Honeycrisp apple, celery sticks
• satsumas

The weather's been positively biblical all weekend. Rain measured in inches, records broken, that kind of thing. AND freakishly warm. Like, high 50s, low 60s. We had to open the windows to air out the house a bit last night -- Sal baked an apple pie (OMG SO MUCH LOVE) and something from a previous meal started smoking in the oven -- and ended up leaving the windows open most of the evening, it was that warm. Torrential rains and unseasonable temps? That kind of wildly erratic weather doesn't bode well. Because, in the words of the venerable Lewis Black, "I know what comes next...

...locusts."

scenes from an art store and other paint-related adventures

Proof that we totally weren't kidding about the Pepto-Bismol thing.Less than a week until vacation, holy crap! So much to get done, but I'm so excited that the OMG CRUSHING WEIGHT OF IT ALL isn't even stressing me out. Well not much, anyway. And poor Sal...well, he's just got his head down, plowing through this final week and then I expect he'll reward himself with one of his bigger bottles of homemade beer.

I've got another update posted on the work we did two years ago -- this time, the painting in the library. Yep, we finally, finally exchange the heinous pink for a radically different -- radically awesome -- color.

Also, the Lord of the Rings wins all the things.

lunch, black strawberry:

• two molded eggs, both the star AND the heart
• roasted yam
• celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins
• satsumas and pomegranate seeds as gap fillers

Following an appointment downtown last night, I took a detour to an art store nearby that I like. As I was browsing, a woman came in and asked the clerk at the counter for advice. Her husband wants to become a painter, she says, but he's never painted before. She wants to get him paints and brushes for Christmas, but isn't sure what to get. Acrylics? Oils? Watercolors?

After some discussion, the clerk helps her figure out that the type of painting her husband wants to try isn't watercolors; more back and forth and she finally settles on acrylics (easier to clean, recommends the clerk). He shows her to a nice starter package that includes a good set of paints in a nice wooden case that can hold 9"x11" canvases. She wants everything her husband needs to get started, so the clerk smartly loads her up with gel medium, gesso, brushes, canvases, palette knife, and an easel. Dude is gonna be set.

The whole time, I'm quietly amused as I listen to the conversation (they were loud, I wasn't eavesdropping), imagining the husband and his newfound passion for painting. I'm thinking how sweet that his wife wants to encourage this new interest and what a nice Christmas gift he's getting under the tree this year. And I can't help but wonder: just what has prompted the sudden desire to be a painter?

I'm behind her at the checkout counter so while the clerk is adding things up, I motion toward all the supplies and say, "That will make a really nice gift. I'm sure your husband will be thrilled." She smiles and agrees, saying that he's always been hard to shop for so it's nice to finally have something really special to get him. I take the opportunity to ask my question: "So what prompted his interest?"

She grimaces, then laughs a little. "Well you know, they've been showing that guy on PBS again, and I think my husband just got inspired to give it a try."

"Oh, Bob Ross? I'll bet he's inspired a lot of people like your husband. That's pretty cool."

"Yeah, but if he starts talking about 'happy little trees', I'm having him committed."

once you've been to serenity, you never leave

I've been rewatching Firefly thanks to Mark Watches, whom I was first introduced to via cleolinda when she pointed up his Mark Reads series on Twilight. Well of course I had to check out his site because hello, Zombie Shame Parade, and anyway, who doesn't love a good game of Horrify the Twilight n00b? So when he moved on to Harry Potter, I was already hooked. With HP, though, it was a matter of love instead of hate, which is even better. Man, there's nothing like watching/reading someone experience something you love for the first time. It's the closest you can get to recapturing that first-time feeling. It's downright addictive, I tell you.

He finished up Harry Potter a few weeks ago and started his own sites, one for books (he's doing the Hunger Games trilogy right now) and one for TV shows and movies, to continue the project. So, as I said, he's moved on to Firefly, and Eru bless whoever suggested that as his next thing, because as we all know, my love for Firefly knows no bounds and I will be a Browncoat to the day I die.

I was already mulling a rewatch since it's been awhile -- I haven't watched since the last Browncoat Day, now that I think about it. So having that feeling of love refreshed, a rewatch was inevitable.

But it's always a bittersweet thing, because as I said, LOVE, but there's also the inevitable WHY WHY WHY and even eight years on, I'm not over the cancellation. (The hardest thing about the WHY WHY WHY is that even when the show was still on and in danger, we knew they'd eventually regret cancelling it, yet despite a positively Herculean effort, we couldn't stop the cancellation from happening. So to have it so universally loved and recognized in the intervening years is one hell of a Pyrrhic victory.)

Anyway, if you're a Firefly fan and you haven't watched in awhile, I recommend both a rewatch and the Mark Watches Firefly series for a bit of diversion.

lunch, laptop lunch:

• sandwich of herb roasted turkey breast and cheddar on buttermilk bread
• steamed broccoli and roasted potatoes
• celery sticks with a bit of ranch for dipping
• satsumas
• chocolate milk in the drink bottle for a special treat

"Once you've been to Serenity, you never leave. You just learn to live there."
-- Zoe, Firefly

from a distance, we look like paragons of efficiency

Smaug and Hobbes, being their usual productive selves, which is to say IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY WHATSOEVERProductive weekend, I'm happy to report. Which is a relief because I feel like there's a countdown clock hanging just over my shoulder -- as previously mentioned, I'm taking off the second half of December to coincide with Sal's winter break from school but there is much to be done in the next week and a half. Nonetheless, I feel like a kid looking forward to Christmas, or perhaps the way I did in college: excited to have a breather from the stress and homework and tests, but a shitload of difficult finals to get through first.

It started off on the right foot: not with work, but with fun. Friday, I met up with my friend Kim for coffee (well, hot chocolate, actually) and we spent a few hours catching up and trading info on cool creative things, tools, and new places to spend way more money than we should shop for all the things that make an artist's heart go pitter pat. So it's thanks to her that I was feeling energized enough to focus on website updates when I got home.

So I've completed a few more updates on the guest room and library projects from a few years ago. We're getting into the exciting stuff now, like neato decorative window films and painting the walls at last:

Library, Part 4: Fixing the Window & Wall

Guest & Creative Room, Part 4: Fixing the Windows & Ceiling

Guest & Creative Room, Part 5: Painting the Room

Note that the text is not the same for these posts, nor will they be from here on out.

I hope to have the painting in the library posted tonight; that was a far more dramatic change. It was fun to look through the pictures for these phases of the projects and remember all the little snags and interruptions we had to overcome, but to look at them knowing about the end result and how much we love the outcome. Or to relive the sense of accomplishment when we'd successfully completed a particularly challenging part (wall patch ftw!). One of the reasons I've been documenting all our home improvement (mis)adventures is to be able to go back and see how far we've come and to remember what it took to get to this point. As I've gone back through these pictures to get caught up on these two projects, but with a few years' distance, I'm reminded of all the hard work that went into them and each time I go into those rooms now, I have a renewed sense of pride in them. Also, how thankful I am that we got rid of that heinous pink.

Saturday, we got the paint for the creative room and I did the preliminary work on the aforementioned sooper sekrit project in preparation for (probably) painting this coming weekend. Sal had to do the transfer to secondary fermentation of his latest batch of beer (brewed last weekend). He also fixed the dripping faucets in the kitchen and bathroom, the broken handle on the toilet, and put in much-easier-to-use faucet handles in the utility sink in the basement. His trip to Home Depot for the hardware also included the purchase of nine(!) smoke/fire detectors and two carbon monoxide detectors so that we don't literally die in a fire. So yay, no house-induced death for us!

AND! We spent Saturday evening going through several boxes of papers and mementos that had accumulated in the eave closets, the product of needing to clean in a hurry -- for company, more often than not -- and throwing stuff we didn't have time for into a box "to go through later". Well "later" came Saturday night since I had to drag out some mementos boxes anyway to put away the things from the guest room that had been on display and stored in my old desk. We're not done, but we put a respectable dent in it.

Despite our weekend of industry (or perhaps because of it), the house looks like a wreck, but I should have time this weekend to instill some order. Nothing too catastrophic, thankfully. I do have to wrap up my website clients for the month (statistics analysis, final report, and invoicing), and I expect I'll be working some late nights right up until vacation starts in order to get the end-of-year programming done on the billing program, but at this point, I'm not in freakout mode. The fact that I'm still thinking I can fit in housework in the evenings indicates that I'm in not-yet-overwhelmed-but-possibly-a-tad-optimistic mode. Don't try this at home, kids.

And just to round out the list of accomplishments for the weekend, I got a breakfast AND lunch packed for today. I've been away from bento for a couple of weeks and I'm feeling it. There was the week of the holiday, of course, and I worked from home in the days leading up to it so no bento. Last week was occupied by visits from Corporate (the COO on Tuesday and one of the members of the Corporate IT Team at another division on Thursday) so I either was too busy in preparation to even get a drink of water (Monday) or joining them for lunch (Tuesday and Thursday). So again, no bento.

It's a testament to how little I go out for lunch, how infrequently I eat at chain restaurants, and how accustomed I am to my bentos that I didn't feel well at all last week. The restaurants were decent as chain restaurants go, but nothing about the meal felt good. Way too much food (I ended up leaving most of it on the plate, unfortunately, and I absolutely hate waste), much too heavy (even though I ordered a salad!), and the fruit and veggies didn't have as much flavor as I'm used to. Yes, I fear the worst has happened: I've become a food snob. :) I think in the future when I inevitably have to go for these Corporate lunches, I'll plan to pack a bento anyway to eat before/after and just order a small side of something for lunch.

Anyway, it's a relief to be back to a bento schedule. As I was packing today's, I initially felt a little rusty, like I was getting back on a bike after being away for awhile. Once I was done, I felt the familiar sense of comfort and assurance that I have something to eat tomorrow that I know will be good for me, that won't make me feel like chugging a bottle of Pepto afterward, and that gives me enough energy to get through the day. I know I go on and on about the wonders of bento and the difference it's made to my well-being, but I just can't overstate it enough.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• satsuma mandarin
• red grapes
• plain yogurt with a dollop of marionberry preserves

lunch, deli club:

• chicken that Sal made for dinner Sunday -- he tucked slices of lemon under the skin and roasted it
• roasted potates (olive oil, salt, pepper)
• kiwi slices and red grapes
• satsuma mandarin and the last of the dark chocolate covered raisins

Oh how I love the satsumas. Sal came home from the grocery store Saturday night bearing an entire box of them for me. I'll probably give myself a rash of canker sores from eating as many as I possibly can while they're in season, but it'll be worth it.

we have color!

We've just returned from the paint store with the paints for the creative room. We're keeping the wall color, we'll just be...ah...complementing it with a few more. Behold:

clockwise from top: Pink Explosion, Cut Velvet, Wonder Woods, Au GratinThey're not quite as vibrant in this pic as in person, nor does the image do justice to the creamy pale yellow of the wall color, but close enough for horseshoes and handgrenades, as my dad used to say.

We've got some organizing and putting-away to do this weekend, and a preliminary project that's sooper sekrit (not really), so we won't be painting quite yet. Probably next weekend, though!

for home and hearth and ever-giving hand

pumpkin pie made by Chef Salvatore; you can't see it well in the pic, but the banners say "Hall" and "Smiley", respectively

Thank ye the gods, O dwellers in the land,
For home and hearth and ever-giving hand.

     -- excerpted from "The Seeker in the Marshes" by Daniel Lewis Dawson

Wow, a week since the last post? Where does the time go?

Well, into the busy activity of the holidays, obviously. Not that we get too wound up in the holidays per se, and we are staunch supporters of the stay-in-your-pajamas-all-day tradition of celebration, but even a relaxed holiday is a change of routine that can turn things upside down a bit.

Uncle Sal and Miss M clearly making up for lost timeThankfully, Guy and Sister both subscribe to the same celebratory philosophy, which meant that our family Thanksgiving was delightful and fun with none of that pesky stress nonsense that no one needs anyway. We ate a ridiculous amount of food, visited and laughed and played, took naps, ate some more, watched a bunch of Friday Night Lights (which they loved, because hello, awesome), and ate some more. (Cute moment of the holiday: when they arrived Wednesday night and Miss M was eating a bit of dinner before bedtime, she asked Sister, "Where's Uncle Sal?" Sister explained he was at work and wouldn't be home until after she was in bed but he would see her the next morning. To which Miss M asked, "Why isn't he here to play with me?")

Before they left Friday, Guy very graciously helped move the guest room furniture (my old bedroom set) to the basement where it will be stored until Miss M is ready for it*. Getting the room cleared out was important to getting started on the work in that room, since we pretty much can't do anything until the room is emptied out. We don't have to completely repaint the room, thankfully, but we are going to be doing some painting, and of course putting up new furniture and decorations.

*Miss M thinks of the guest room as hers, since she sleeps there when she stays the night. She (and we) call it her room. So we were a tad concerned what the reaction would be when we started dismantling it. Sister kept her occupied in the kitchen as we started taking the bed apart, but the jig was up when Guy passed through on the way to the basement carrying the headboard and footboard. Which elicited an alarmed cry of "You broke my bed!" from Miss M and sent her scurrying to the guest room to find the other furniture already dismantled and ready to hauled downstairs. "What did you do to my room?!" she asked anxiously. But the opportunity to run and slide across the now wide-open wood floor seemed to ease her distress.

Saturday, we spent a wonderful few hours with ProcrastiGirl, enjoying a quick brunch before catching a matinee showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. The three of us seeing the newest Harry Potter installment at the theater has become something of a tradition; it'll be sad when we'll do it for the last time this summer. We enjoyed the movie, especially the animated "Three Brothers" sequence in the middle. (If you've seen it, you know why.) But I think my favorite part was a scene when Harry tells Hermione, "You're brilliant, Hermione," and she replies, "No, I'm just highly logical with an ability to see past the extraneous details." At which point, ProcrastiGirl and Sally patted each of my knees from either side as a way to say, "Yep, that's our Bitty", and then we all started whisper-giggling. I am, apparently, the Hermione.

After we said goodbye, we figured it was late enough in the day to brave the holiday weekend hordes at IKEA, who were hopefully dissipating enough to not chew our faces off like starved zombies while we gathered the numerous flat packs of furniture we'll need for the creative room. I compiled this list after many hours of careful research and measurement and...yes, I admit it, some 3-D modeling with Google Sketchup. Shut up. Okay, go ahead and mock me, but it meant that we could make a beeline for the warehouse area make a list of the aisle and bins for each of the items on our list, and load up the three pallet carts with our various flat packs, all in the space of about 45 minutes in the midst of a only-slightly-diminished-from-peak-shopping-hours swarm of people. The checkout line was long and the wait at the delivery reservation desk, too, which is why our total trip was about an hour and a half, but considering it was 20 minutes there and back, that's pretty darn efficient.

just a glimpse of the stack of boxes full of furniture waiting to be assembled...Even though we won't start the project for two more weeks, we wanted to get the IKEA trip out of the way as soon as possible since the crowds will only get worse the close we get to the holidays. And, we figured if there was a waiting list for having things delivered, we'd have plenty of time. Turns out, however, that they prefer to get deliver sooner rather than later so they don't have to store stuff, so we ended up having our stuff delivered first thing Sunday morning. Good thing the room was already emptied out! Otherwise, there wouldn't have been anywhere to put all those big, heavy boxes.

So the guest room has been emptied of old furniture, with a few odds and ends to be put away still, and there is now a big stack of furniture-to-be occupying the middle of the room. I'll make a trip to the paint store this week for the bit of paint we'll need and we may even get a head start this weekend and next. Which means...it's coming together!

Guess I'd better hurry up and finish updating the guest room and library renovations. So here, have the next installments: scraping the trim! Oooh, exciting!

Guest & Creative Room, part 3: scraping the trim

Library, part 3: scraping the trim

This is another case of the text for both being the same but the pictures are different so be sure to at least check out the two different picture galleries. (Future phase updates will have different text for each, since the projects began to diverge after this point even though they were done at the same time.)

I have the pictures done for the next couple of phases but haven't yet done the write-ups; hopefully those will be up in the next couple of days so keep an eye open.

art journal bento

This is the lunch I packed Sunday night for Monday that I ended up not eating yesterday. I'd intended it for today's lunch instead but got too busy for lunch, so it's dinner tonight. Which is nice, actually, since we're low on food that isn't for the Thanksgiving Extravaganza, and I'm in the midst of an art journal project tonight so I didn't really feel like making a big production for a meal. It's kind of like a TV dinner except, you know, awesome.

dinner, blue bunny & moons:

• dry rubbed pork chop (from Saturday's dinner Sal made for Kurt's visit)
• pureed parsnips -- roasted parsnips with leeks and fresh parsley, then put through the ricer so they're like mashed potatoes (also from Saturday's dinner)
• green beans sauteed with nions, garlic, and mushrooms
• red grapes
• Granny Smith apple with cashews for gap fillers

i cleaned all the things!

courtesy of the always spectacularly hilarious Hyperbole and a Half, taken from the all-time best post ever (except possibly The God of Cake) and you absolutely must click to read or an asteroid will hit the earthWhat a jam-packed and productive weekend!

Friday, I worked a half day and then spent the afternoon poking around downtown, splurging on a few art supplies for me and Sal and then playing with my supplies when I got home for the rest of the evening. Saturday, we got our New Seasons delivery of all our groceries for our part of the Thanksgiving menu (more about this later in the post), which means yet another year where we do not have to brave the scary grocery store crowds for the last can of Who Hash. So because we didn't have to play Killer Shopping Cart Grand Prix, we instead did some straightening and made a great dinner in honor of our dear friend Kurt who was visiting from out of town.

Kurt is the bestest. He shares my geeky love for intricately programmed Excel spreadsheets and has the best joke delivery of anyone I know, except possibly Sal. He and his wife, Sylvia, are from South Africa so he has the most wonderful accent, and he says delightful things like "Cheers!" instead of "goodbye" and "Howzit!" instead of "hello", which is my favoritest Kurt-expression ever.

Sal (who was taking the picture one-handed with my cameraphone, which is tricky as hell), Kurt, and meKurt and Sylvia share our love for pretty much the greatest TV shows in existence, and Kurt will gladly fan-squee with me over whatever show they're currently watching. And he and Sylvia's stories about their kids are not to be missed. Oh, every parent tells their funny kid stories, and some of them are funny (and some, I'm sure we can agree, are only funny to the parents). But Kurt and Sylvia's kid stories are the stuff of stand-up comedy.

So over another excellent meal courtesy of Chef Salvatore of dry-rubbed pork chops, roasted parsnips pureed with leeks and fresh parsley, and creamed brussel sprouts*, and later, a dessert of tart tatin, we talked non-stop for hours and laughed enough to come close to someone snorting a liquid through their nose at several points. We talked about the awesomeness of Portland, and the good things that Texas has, after all (that's where they live now), despite not being Oregon, and politics and the housing crisis and Arrested Development and the merits of Buffy vs. Angel. Goodbye came too soon, of course, but we were glad to get to see him for a bit.

(Kurt, upon hearing we were having brussel sprouts, proclaimed he would try them but admitted that he'd always hated them since he was a kid. I'll note for the record, as proof to Sylvia since she was on the phone with him when we said that there'd be brussel sprouts, that Kurt did indeed have seconds on them.)

Yesterday, with the prospect of the lowest temps of the year and the forecast of snow, we were finally motivated enough to get outside and do some kind of nominal winterizing. We have seriously been the most procrastinatory (NEW WORD AHOY!) slugs ever for the last few months, blithely ignoring the lovely fall weekends we could've been working outside and not freezing our fingers off, opting instead to go to apple festivals and walks in the park and concerts in the middle of the city square. So waiting until the last possible minute, when it was colder than hell outside and starting to rain, was probably our due punishment for being so lazy.

We didn't get the veggie garden cleared out (I KNOW), nor the leaves raked and put into the raised beds (I KNOW OKAY), and the zebra grasses still need to be chopped back (YES I GET IT WE SUCK AT PLANT CARE) but! We did get all of the various decorations brought in, the twinkle lights in the trees taken down, the potted plants that are still blooming sheltered on the back porch, the porch swing and rocker removed to the basement, and all the stuff that gets stored on the back porch packed away in the steel bins or covered with plastic sheeting as appropriate. We also got the three potted trees on the patio and the two potted shrubs on the front porch covered for the next few days of below freezing temps, so we're feeling pretty proud of ourselves for being actually on top of things for once. Sort of.

I carried that sense of accomplishment inside with me and folded and put away the four (!) overflowing baskets of laundry while Sal ran more loads (I refrained from pointing out that Sisyphus and I have something in common, lest I seem to be an ungrateful wretch). And then! We made a full pan of enchiladas to freeze for Wednesday night's dinner, when the Hall-Smiley Family Thanksgiving Extravaganza officially commences.

For those just joining our program, the H-SFTE is an annual family celebration of food, slothfulness, and inappropriate humor, in which obscene quantities of good food are cooked and consumed continuously, games are played, Wii records are shattered, laughter is heard, dishes are washed, and new shows are marathoned. In pajamas. It is the very best holiday ever invented.

Sister, Guy, and the Fabulous Miss M arrive on Wednesday night (hence the enchiladas, which can be thrown into the oven for a quick and yummy dinner), Miss M is put to bed in the princess bed (aka my old canopy bed*), and pies and casseroles are baked while we wait for Sally to get home from a long day. Beer is consumed by Guy and Sally and we all stay up way too late, the aero bed is put up in the living room, and we all finally go to bed at some ridiculously late hour.

*(this will become her bed later this year, but it will be the last time she sleeps in it at our house...awww)

On Thanksgiving Day, we have a simple breakfast and get started cooking, but there's none of that putting-the-turkey-in-at-5-AM nonsense. No ma'am, we sleep in and get cooking when we damn well feel like it, as god and nature intended. Other dishes are prepared while we nosh on bread and cheese plates and then crudites, all while playing with Miss M and watching movies. And usually, there's a walk in the park somewhere in there. A literal walk in the park. Hee.

We eat late, depending on Miss M's schedule and whatever's easiest. We laugh and we play and then her bedtime comes and we either eat after that if we haven't already, or we eat again if we're hungry (we usually are). And then comes the marathon of whatever new show we're introducing them to (Friday Night Lights this year). When Sister starts to get a little droopy, we liven things up with a Wii tournament (Wii Sports, Wii Resort, and Raving Rabids are the family favorites) and end up eating and drinking even more, and then at some point we realize that Miss M will be up in a few hours and we all finally say good night.

Friday is the late morning brunch of some wonderful elaborate family breakfast usually involving pancakes or waffles, and dishes are done, and leftovers are packed up, and at some point in the early afternoon, goodbyes are said. And thus, another fabulous H-SFTE comes to a close.

(I'd normally stick a pic of today's bento here, and I actually did have it all written up last night after I packed it, but ended up coming home early to get a jump on the inevitable traffic snarl that happens when snow starts to fall. Since I knew I was going to come home before lunch when I left this morning, I ended up not bringing my bento with me. I could've eaten it here, but opted instead for leftover enchiladas so I guess I'll eat it tomorrow.)

these memories we make, these bonds we forge

Had the best, best weekend. Sister arrived Friday evening for one of our famous Girls' Weekends, in which much sleeping in is accomplished, much delicious food is consumed, much conversation is shared, much laughter is heard, and much fun is had.

While eating pizza in our PJs Friday night, we caught up on our most recent goings on, squee'd about the creative room, talked excitedly about decorating ideas for the Fabulous Miss M's room when the time comes to give her my old furniture and convert it from a nursery to a little girl's room, and rounded out our healthy meal of pizza with big bowls of Tillamook Mudslide ice cream. As one does.

She got a Droid X for her birthday in August, so I showed her some neat features and applications she hadn't yet discovered on her awesome new tricorder phone. Including Swype, which I seem to be on a personal mission to evangelize about because hello, it is brilliant. We practiced with it by texting and Google Talking until a late bedtime.

We got up late (a real luxury for her!) and were treated to a brunch of potatoes O'Brian thanks to Chef Salvatore. We'd had some different ideas for how to spend our day, including knocking around with a bit of window shopping followed by a spot of lunch someplace. But since it was drizzly and foggy out, we opted to stay in and do arty crafty things in our comfy clothes. Which was lovely, because it gave us some time to really visit and enjoy just being together. (I mean, we obviously would've done that no matter what, but it was nice to do so without any other distractions.) We both love that kind of gray, misty weather, which is why we're sisters, because we both understand that the proper thing to do in such weather is to be cozy and have fun.

I worked in my art journal while she made a card for a friend's birthday, then worked on a neat little collage piece for herself (that I unfortunately forgot to snap a pic of). When we were done, we weren't quite ready to quit playing with art supplies, so we played around with watercolors and crayons for a bit and then markers and pens. Grand fun all around.

We headed to New Seasons to get nummy smorgasbord-type items for the evening's activity of movie watching. By eight o'clock, we were snuggly ensconced on the couch in our PJs with blankets and cuddly cats, the coffee table spread with more food than two people could possibly eat (though we were going to do our best to put a big dent in it). We hugged and kissed Sally goodbye (who was off to meet a friend at the neighborhood bar for drinks) and then proceeded to watch Auntie Mame (the Rosalind Russell version, of course!), which Sister had never seen. I KNOW RIGHT. Obviously, that tragedy had to be corrected. And then we started her indoctrination into Pushing Daisies. She loved it, which I knew she would, and is well on her way to another fandom that we can share.

We slept in again this morning, and again were treated to brunch made by Chef Salvatore (omelets this time), which we ate while squeezing in one more episode of Pushing Daisies before she had to go. Goodbye came too soon, but it was so, so wonderful to get to spend some quality time together and we're very thankful to Guy and the Fabulous Miss M (and Sally!) for making these Girls' Weekends possible.

So it's back to the grindstone today with many urgent tasks needing to be done. Aren't Mondays always like that? Mine are, at any rate.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• garden vegetable soup
• rainbow carrot sticks, hard boiled egg wrapped in a French sorrel leaf, honey peanut butter in the cup for dipping the carrots and apple
• Pinova apple slices, dark chocolate covered raisins

Also, I posted the next round of entries about the work we did on the library and guest & creative room. Because both write-ups were about refinishing the floors, the text is the same for both but the pictures obviously aren't.

guest & creative room, part 02: refinishing the floor

PHOTOS

library, part 02: refinishing the floor

PHOTOS

this is what math tastes like

Oh man. I have wanted fractal cauliflower (aka romanesco broccoli) in my bento for years. How could I not? It's math in a vegetable.  Who in their right mind wouldn't want that?

So imagine my delight when I was checking the Wealth Underground blog Tuesday to see what would be in the week's share and there in the picture:  A FULL HEAD OF FRACTAL CAULIFLOWER. Did I voice an audible OMG FRACTAL CAULIFLOWER that caused both cats to stare in alarm at the crazy human? Did I immediately envision my next bento, featuring said fractal cauliflower? Did I entertain the notion of eating my lunch in the company lunch room for the first time ever simply to show off my fractal cauliflower?

You can't prove anything.

So I think it's safe to say Best. Share. Ever. And featured heavily in today's lunch.

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• Panko breaded chicken breast
• mashed potatoes
• FRACTAL CAULIFLOWER OMG
• rainbow carrots & two leafs of French sorrel* underneath
• purple grapes with pomegranate seeds as gap fillers

*This is one of my favorite things I've experienced in the share so I'm glad to see it back as we near the end of this years' share. You can eat the leaves just as they are and they have this wonderful sour taste. Not bitter -- it's kind of like sucking on a lemonhead (though it doesn't taste lemony). And you can imagine the wonderful dimension it adds to a salad!

decorating my nest with bits and bobs and shiny things

Planning and preparation continues apace for the creative room project. I've been spending ridiculous amounts of time on Etsy, ordering handmade treasures for our new room to make it a place of joy and inspiration and creativity. Little packages arrive on my doorstep every few days, and it's become such a lovely thing to come home to, some little package from someplace far away specially wrapped with a little extra thank-you surprise tucked in. My most recent package arrived Monday from Norway, a small packet of a thing that was wrapped beautifully by an artist whose love for what she does shows in her painstaking attention to even the smallest detail, like the illustration scrolled around the return address on the envelope. It makes me want to keep ordering things as a regular state of being, just for the sheer delight of it all. My adamant anti-consumption-ism be damned.

And there are other special treasures that I've gathered for some time now, waiting for me to unpack them and discover them anew. Altogether, it may sound like there will be a lot of clutter and things to dust, but no. Altogether, there will only be just the right amount of things. Altogether, just enough to make it a reflection of us. Me, mostly, but us, too.

As requested, I give you the various prizes of my recent Etsy spending spree. Well, spending sprees, if I'm being completely honest. I, um...may have given in to a list of long-held wants. I don't buy things often, certainly not things for myself, so I'm telling myself it's okay. That I'm supporting individual artists in a sustainable form of commerce. That it's just this one thing, that's all, and then I'll stop. I can quit any time I want, really.

Oh, the dangers of addicition...

It all started with the hunt for a unique pencil cup for my desk. I've long been on the hunt for something that was special and different and fun and handmade. This one fit the bill perfectly:

Unfortunately, my case of The Wants turned into a full-blown fever. I have things for this room already, carefully tucked away. But perhaps it would do no harm just to look for a few more things? Things I've been seeking for awhile for this room, that I've pictured in my mind when I envision it? It couldn't hurt to look, could it?

Oh, how naive I was.

My vision included a big letter "B" to sit on top of a cabinet or shelf. I love decorating with words and letters. Such a surprise, I know. What I saw in my mind was some wonderful cut-out letter, or something delightfully knocked-about and weathered from an old sign, perhaps. It wouldn't have to be a "B", necessarily, since one cannot be choosy when it comes to random letters reclaimed from old signs. But if I found something that didn't cost a ridiculous amount of money, then perhaps...?

There were several that fit the bill, ones made and ones reclaimed, and happily, a great one that was made to look reclaimed. And a "B", no less! AND! They were happy to oblige when I asked for it in dark turquoise instead of gray (shown here):

And speaking of decorating words, how about this oh-so-appropriate sign/decoration for Sal's creative area in the room?

I was on a roll with no intention of stopping by that point. Such a worrisome turn of events! What more could I find to fulfill my envisioned little room? It became a challenge, a sort of treasure hunt -- how many items from my imaginary list could I find? This is never a good sign.

Because I have a thing for stars and suns and moons, I wanted some rusty metal stars hanging from a shelf support or sitting on the door lintel. So imagine my delight when I came across someone in Nebraska who was selling rusty metal stars made from the roof of her great great grandfather's barn (built in 1912) after it was dismantled. Don't you just love stories like that? I do. I got a small one and a large one:

    

Oh how I love those rusty metal stars. So when I found another one made from vintage ceiling tin, I had to have it, too:

And there was the artwork. So much I would love to have, and so many Etsy artists I adore! One of my favorites is located in Norway, and she has so many pictures I want that I simply couldn't decide. But alas, my poor checking account! I couldn't afford to buy all that I wanted in the larger sizes, especially with the cost of international shipping. But! She offers postcard prints of her work, and in packs of 3, no less. Huzzah! I thought to myself, Wouldn't they look so sweet in small frames, sitting on narrow shelves with a few other favorite little things? A sign that the Universe wants me to have them, surely! It was still hard to decide which pack to pick, but I consoled myself that I will absolutely can always order others later. I settled on the pack that included a print of one I wanted in a larger version, the one with the little girl who's floated up into the air so that only her blue-stockinged legs can be seen:

Oh, and the photographs! So many of books, of overstacked bookshops and battered typewriters and other writerly sorts of subjects! How to choose?

There was one photographer in particular who had so many photos of so many subjects in such a lovely, aged vintage-y way that I could fill walls and walls with his framed photos. But I do not have walls and wall on which to hang them. And there are other things that I also love which must find space on those walls and walls I do not have. Such a quandary!

But The Wants care not for my quandary of walls and things to hang on them. I found pictures for Sal that I knew he'd love and would be a piece of him in this room and would fit in with everything else, too. Oh dear, but so expensive, even limiting myself just to the two I knew he'd love the most, nevermind all the ones I could choose for me. But this crafty photographer, you see, he anticipated such a dilemma. He offered a special -- a package of any 4 prints from a specific selection upgraded to a 12"x12" size for a significantly reduced price. Be still, my heart. You sure have to look out for those cunning artists and their plan to fill your home with so many wonderful things! And the two prints for Sal were available in the selection, as were my two favorites. So I couldn't really pass it up, could I? It would be like kicking karma in the shins. I couldn't do that to karma. I dutifully ordered, two for me, two for him. Hmmm...I wonder which is which?

    

    

I had sworn off more purchases, though there were still so many I wanted mightily. Wait to see what space you have left, I told myself. You don't want to clutter up the room, after all. And you already have a nice collection of things you've been saving up for awhile. And you'll want space to hang your own creations. No need to be greedy. Remember your mantra about consumption? Besides, your account could use a rest. This fiscal irresponsibility is so unbecoming!

But then I found Elly MacKay. I spent an hour or more just looking through her portfolio. Her process is amazing and her images capture something...magic. I read her blog and a bit about her fascinating, inspiring life. I looked through her portfolio again. The little boy with the whale. The little girl making shadow puppets. The little boats at the edge of a waterfall. The little girls doing crane poses. I showed them to Sal. He fell in love, too. A sign, surely, that I needed to order just this one more thing? How I picked which one, I have no idea. I want them all. But I did decide on one, and I can't wait to see how it will look in my room of inspiration and creativity.

There are other artworks sitting in my shopping cart, just waiting for me to click "Checkout". I'm hoping for the fortitude to resist pressing that button. We'll see if I can restrain myself.

remembering our accomplishments, one step at a time

As promised this weekend, I've begun posting write-ups and picture galleries of the work we did a couple of years ago on the library and guest (& creative) room. It's been interesting looking back through pictures and remembering all the work that went into those rooms. And a challenge to remember the particulars, the hang-ups and obstacles and delays. Which is why I've been documenting our home improvement projects here, so we'd have a record of all the work that went into it. Note to self: that record is much more complete when you don't wait three years to write it down.

Anyway...part 1 of each of the projects (basically the "before" pictures) is now up for your reading pleasure and entertainment:

guest & creative room, part 1: getting started

library, part 1: getting started

When I wasn't busy skimming through old photos on my computer and trying to remember exactly what we did three years ago, Sal and I managed to fit in an excursion to the Portland Opera for a matinee performance of Hansel and Gretel. One of his co-workers helped cater a function for the opera and received two tickets as a thank you. She wasn't able to go so she offered us the tickets.

After the show, we went for dinner at Pizza Fino in Kenton, and what started as dinner after the show before heading home became a three course meal lasting a few hours. We haven't been out to dinner like that for a couple of months so it was lovely to converse over a wonderful meal in a nice but relaxed atmosphere.

Lunch today consists of Saturday's leftovers, namely chili. Saturday was a series of downpours, some of them downright biblical, so it was the perfect day to break out the crockpot to make that chili I'd been thinking about last week. It's probably the best chili I've ever made so I'm glad that we made a huge batch.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• chili: chili and kidney beans, several red and green peppers of various degrees of hotness and sweetness, onions, garlic, tomatoes, beef, seasonings of spicy deliciousness, with a garnish of (melted) cheese cubes
• small mixed green salad, with radishes and rainbow carrots and a small container of dressing tucked in
• Honeycrisp apple
• orange cheesecake made by Chef Salvatore

Unrelated to anything, other than being cool news on an otherwise ho-hum Monday, I see that scientists have successfully created a "mini big bang" at the LHC.  How indescribably cool is that? (It'll take weeks (months? years?) to analyze the data, but one of the things they hope to find is evidence of the Higgs boson particle, otherwise known as "the God particle" (despite scientists' preference otherwise).) They generated temperatures of ten trillion degrees and created sub-atomic fireballs. Sub-atomic fireballs, you guys! You don't even have to be an astrophysics geek to get excited about that.

the sooper sekrit projekt revealed

I told you I couldn't keep it secret for long. Once I'm taken with an idea, I can't shut up about it to save my life. And in order to save my husband's sanity in the next month leading up to the start, I'm just going to have to blab about it here. That's the whole reason I have a blog/site in the first place: to spread my crazy around a bit, so no single person has to bear it alone.

So, the Sooper Sekrit Projekt is this: we're turning the guest room into a creative room! Well that's not precisely right; it still needs to function as a guest room since we're frequently blessed with friends who visit for extended periods. But we want to make use of that room when we're not hosting guests. We want a room where I can write and be inspired, work on arty crafty things, and where Sally can do the same.

This has been our plan for some time (I've been collecting things for this space for a while), but I wanted to enjoy the guest room as it is for a bit since we only got it done a few years ago (which I still haven't posted here -- more on that in a minute) and we needed to save up for it anyway. And then there's old-fashioned nostalgia...the furniture that's in there is mine from when I was little, and I haven't quite been ready to give it up yet. It'll go to the Fabulous Miss M soon, but until recently I wanted to have it around just a little longer.

As Hall House projects go, this one will be comparatively minor. There's no drywall to hang/tape/mud/texture, no floor to refinish, no trim to strip/sand/paint, no doors to refinish. A few days, with probably some additional hours here and there to wrap things up (since we've learned every project requires unanticipated extra time). There'll be a bit of painting -- the really way awesomely fun kind! -- and lots of furniture to put together and some decorating to do. So, you know. Pretty much my favorite sort of home improvement project.

I can't wait to start and I can't wait to post pictures as we get underway. BUT! I can't very well post about a change to the guest room when I still haven't posted about the renovation the guest room has already undergone. Three years since we did those projects and they're still not updated on the Hall House section of this site! Inexcusable!

So in the runup to starting the creative room project, I'm going to work on getting the posts about the phases of the guest room and library renovations done. I hope to post a project phase each day, give or take, complete with pictures, and I'll link each day's post here so you can see the pictures and read about the trials and tribulations of those transformations.

And of course I'll be posting about the creative room. Because, as I said, I have to spread my crazy around.