Kitchen Ramblings

One thing I was reminded of this week is that we tend to take for granted the small things that make life easier. Our refrigerator went out. It is only six years old and only had a one year warranty. This kind of surprises me, but I guess a short warranty period is pretty typical. So for the past week we have been using our back porch as a temporary refrigerator/freezer. Yeah, lots of milk slush in our cereal.

Luckily the refrigerator was able to be fixed and we did not have to drop a grand on a new one. And the whole incident forced me to clean out and organize. After tackling the fridge I completed my now fully functioning kitchen by hanging my new mobile from the mobile swap I participated in. One good thing about having old banged up cupboards is that it is OK for me to pound nails into them!

The mobile is from Ellen whom I have no idea how to find out in the vast expanse of the internet. So, I hope she reads this so I can say THANK YOU - I really love it! The colors go great in my kitchen and it is so nice to have something pretty to look at while I do the dishes.

very happy with my first swap (and my new refirgerator)

Weekend Recap

Friday

We went to see Justin's brother Brian play at a coffee shop. I have been such a hermit lately - the February blues I suppose. It felt good to get out. I guess I figured coffee shop music would be appropriate for Connor's age, i.e. some nice acoustic guitar. Well, I was wrong - it was so loud!! All of the tables and chairs were cleared away so it was more of a crazy college party with coffee instead of beer. I am definitely not a prude and would have stayed and enjoyed it all thoroughly, but I do not want to be responsible for my child going hard of hearing. I read somewhere that children's eardrums are much more susceptible to loud noise - I am sure that by the time he hits his teenage years he will be doing plenty of damage to those ears without any help from mom and dad.

Instead, Connor and I walked down the street to a quieter coffee house and had a piece of carrot cake by candlelight.

Saturday

We were supposed to go to a 30th birthday party on Saturday evening, but it did not work out. So Justin says, "since we are not going out I am giving the cat a bath." What an exciting alternative! He has had this whole bath thing in his head for awhile now. Being allergic to cats - I had the cat long before the husband - he thought a bath might help out a little. Polk actually did much better than expected. I thought it would be more traumatic. I was picturing drenched cat clawing frantically, hissing - even though he never hisses, having some kind of spastic outburst, but this was not the case. Polk was a little frightened at first but I think toward the end he actually enjoyed the warm water being sprayed on this back.

After his bath he took a long rest - lots of commotion for an old kitty.

He is so soft now!! We spent a good portion of the rest of the evening stroking his shiny clean coat - and he smells like "tropical breeze."

A Swap

This mobile was made for Elsie's mobile swap - my first swap! Finished the day before the deadline, this procrastinator will have it shipped out right on that deadline.

The mobile is a combination of fabric, porcelain beads, wooden beads, and some pieces of potpourri (yeah that's a little strange but I really liked the way they looked against the leaves). I guess my theme here is spring - I am getting ready!! - with the leaves/flower buds.

It was fun - and a little nerveracking - making something for someone I do not know. Hope she likes!

Super Silly

Poor Justin had to work late last night. So Connor and I had date night. I turned on some jazz and we did lots of dancing. I'm a big fan of twirling around the living room when no one is home, or when just Connor is home. Come on, we all do this don't we? Maybe not, but if you don't you should try it - it beats running on the treadmill. It's probably a good thing that I live at the end of a dead end road. This way I only have a couple of neighbors who think I am a complete nut.

To the dancing we added hats and silly faces which turned into a game of trying to swipe the other person's hat - a combination of dance, running, and jumping.

At one point Connor was laughing so hard that he started snorting uncontrollably. In the end he ended up doing some sort of crazy gymnastics - one sock on one sock off.

Yeah, I'm that mom - the crazy kind. It is the middle of February - I think we are starting to feel a little cooped up.

Love Day

Valentine's Day - what in life is better than love and chocolate? xoxoxoxo

New Dos

We got some haircuts this weekend. Connor likes to keep his hair nice and short and now insists that Papa cut it with the dog clippers.

befores:

and afters:

The frog got to look in the mirror and have a sucker when the barber finished with his mohawk. Maybe it's mom's turn now - no mohawks or dog clippers for me. I will take a sucker though.

100 Days

Happy 100 days of school to Connor. Wow that went fast! Mrs. Rose has lots of exciting activities involving 100 for her kindergartners today - how fun! One of the teachers brought in her grandmother who turned 100 in August. All of the classes - grades K-5 - are going to take turns meeting her. What stamina - the woman is going to sit in the library for the entire day and greet hundreds of children. I get tired being around all of those kids for only two hours! My job this morning was to help the children count out their 100 snacks - pretzyls, chocolate chips, peanuts... I did my best to keep the little guy whose finger seems to be permanantly attached to the inside of his nose toward to end of the line (yeah that's a little gross).

So, on that appetizing note, here was last night's dinner! Currently, I seem to be in a cooking phase. These phases generally last about two weeks and then I tire of the whole thing. I love eating fabulous food (don't we all) but don't always enjoy the whole process that it involves. Don't get me wrong, I do like preparing meals, just not three times a day (sometimes more with a six year old's constant growth spirts), seven days a week. Last night was fun though!

The joke around here is that I should have been born Asian and Justin should have been born Mexican due to our tastes in food. When I cook it is typically Chinese, Thai, Japanese. When he cooks it is almost always tacos. Since I do most of the cooking (!!!) we eat far more Asian cuisine. I usually win when we go out to eat to.


Very tasty!!

B is for Bag. Bag is for B.

That title sounds like sentences from Connor's kindergarten reading books, but this bag was made for "B" - my brother-in-law Brian. The strap broke on his backpack and he wanted to replace it with a messenger bag.

I'm not quite sure if people ask me to make them things because they really like my work or because they want to be nice. It seemed like he was really pleased with it though - so maybe he actually likes the bag and wants to be kind!

This is my first male bag and I really enjoyed working on it. It was a change of pace to focus most heavily on the the small details and pattern and not give much attention to fabric combinations. And simple is often most beautiful. Sometimes I forget that.

(I told Brian that if he didn't like the bag I would be happy to keep it for myself - no such luck!)

Noticing the Little Things

So I have this one light fixture in the house that really bothers me, for Justin it is a different fixture. Since we both disagree on which is the most hideous, we will probably never change either one. Oh well, now that I think of it I never even notice it - until the other day. I was sitting on the steps waiting for Connor to get his shoes on. This can sometimes take awhile so I layed back to stretch out my back and when I looked up I saw something rather striking. That ugly light fixture makes some pretty nice shadows!

And on a completely different note, I wish my hair would decide whether it would like to be straight or curly. This is even less likely to happen than getting a new light fixture. Dual personality hair, much like the inside of the head it grows out of - hah!!


Just some random midweek meaningless ramblings and observations I guess.

Fun Inside

With the subzero temperatures last week we stayed busy inside. My favorite: painting.

Some little bees. They were tricky - really really tiny, so definitely not perfect but still pretty cute.

And some play people/snowmen. You can't help but love the little wooden people! The green guy was dressed properly for the weather.

All in all it was good cozy winter fun!

(blue yo-yo = blue water, blue shirt, blue fingers, blue blue blue...)