Goal for 2010: Blog More!

I could make these little dresses with my new sewing machine - I know I have sequins and lots of pretty thread (thank you Jan), I might even have some felt....we'll see what I come up with.

Quick Update- More soon I hope

Hello blog readers,

Life is going well, but the Internet at home is still just really slow which has preventing my blogging regularly for some time. Tyson is going to look into upgrading us to faster Internet soon. With hope it will be a Fall and Winter of blogging unlike any you have read before.

Until then, here is a brief update:

Tyson's new job at The Harvest Vine, they make food like this.

My letterpress class at the Pratt Fine Arts Center is in this building.

We have already pickled some peppers at home. (These are not ours, but ours look just as good)

I attended a cheese making class and have a delicious goat cheese home project I need to try.

Ps. Goats are now considered a "pet" in Seattle and you can have them at your house. How cute are these little guys? Check out the dachshund in the background for a size comparison- tiny!

Over a month since my last post...

We are alive and well I assure you. In fact we have even been doing some very blog worthy things (new projects, bike club and vacation to name a few). Back in May the computer spent about a week not letting me upload things, and then we were getting ready for vacation, and then we were on vacation and now we're back and wishing that it was still vacation.

I will try and get some update posts up by this weekend. Thanks for checking back in on this.

Coconut Lemon Quick Bread by Sarah

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

Blue Beach Bungalow Kitchen

I came across this picture the other day on the Internet and I have mixed feelings about it. I LOVE the horizontal board wall in the background and the giant open window on the left. I like the color but it kinda seems like a LOT of blue.

Maybe you would love it at first and then slowly you would start to feel like you were always in the water when really you just wanted to cook up some dinner. I mean the table, floor, cupboards and wall are all that exact same shade of blue. It kinds makes me wonder why they stopped at the ceiling- I mean at this point you are pretty committed to the color- why not finish it off and paint the rest of the walls and ceiling as well?

Anyway, I'm sure it is a conversation starter when they have company.

He works hard for the money- so hard for it honey!

These are some of the fun pictures of Tyson's work I found on flickr when I searched Le Pichet, Seattle.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mama's out there

I should have done a Mother's Day post yesterday but I was too busy hanging out with the mama. I met Mom down in Olympia on Sunday for lunch and a girl movie. We had super yummy food at Red Robin except wouldn't you know it,no good movies out right now- we weren't in the mood for Wolverine just then. So we did a very Sarah and Sharon thing and we went junk shopping.

Mom remembered this fun place over on 4th Avenue in downtown Olympia and it was just jam packed with all different kinds of cool stuff. There were probably at least 30 different little vendor areas. In one of them I found items that mark the start of a new collection for me- floral frogs. You know those cool metal things they used to put in the bottom of vases to arrange flowers before there was that green foam stuff? I found three great ones and am officially collecting cool old metal ones if you come across any let me know.

Martha uses frogs not only for flowers but also for organizing odds and ins on her desk top. The large green one could hold pens and pencils at the ready. The spiky ones without the over cage (I don't have one of these yet) can hold papers up and in order and any of them would make excellent paperweights.

A close up of the original members of my collection. Thank you mama for the super fun day. We will have to go junking again soon!

Wish you were here?

How about now?

(The beautiful flowers came from Tyson's mom's garden, thank you Jan!)

White cake cupcakes with chocolate chips and chocolate sauce on top!

Tyson has had three already, you better get here quick!

Spring Harvest from Tyson's Garden

Mixed lettuce greens, spring onions & varieties of radishes

(Left to right) Swiss Chard, Giant Red Mustard and Mizuna greens

French Breakfast and Easter Egg Radish varieties*

*All veggies grown by Tyson, all pictures by Sarah, shared billing for art direction of photo shoot.

Settler Beans by Sarah

BEFORE

AFTER (with salad)

Farm Stalking!

Another great farm up North, this one is actually for sale!


It is just shy of 12 acres and near Bow, the house is on the bigger side, there is a 55x60 barn and some established fruit trees in the yard. I know it won't be for sale in a few years when we are looking, but our farm-life dream is sure easier to imagine with this as a backdrop. I am hoping to sneak up there and have a look in the next few weeks.

If for some reason you are interested in buying this house I am not the agent selling it and am not advertising his listing as if it were my own (because that is again the MLS rules).

This little guy is going to help make our Bike event GREAT in September!

Trece de Mayo BBQ

The Summary: Good friends, great food, a field trip to Tyson's garden, a half hour hail storm and one of the world's smartest and most well behaved and cuddly dogs- a Sunday afternoon thoroughly enjoyed by all.

The Story: We enjoy having friends over and since Tyson loves to cook we usually plan our parties around a delicious meal. We had been hankering to get folks together and with Tyson's old roommate Garrin headed to Montana to cook at a Dude Ranch until fall this was the weekend to do it.

Per custom we kind of put off all party preparation until that morning.

Tyson headed out to collect ingredients from Frank's Produce (for avocados,tomatillos, etc) and De Laurenti (delicious snack salami) in the Pike Place Market, and Uwajimaya (giant shrimp with the heads and legs still on) and the QFC for the basics.

I headed to my local Goodwill to try and find some festive table dressings. SCORE! For $15 a got a lime green table cloth, 12 aqua cloth napkins (remember this for later in the story), a flat green basket for putting out chips in and crepe paper streamers which were later decided to be-too much (I will just save those for next time). I headed home threw all the new linens in the wash and by the time they came out of the dryer my mom and dad were there.

Mom and Dad had been up North visiting some friends and delivering a very cool and very large piece of art mom had created for them. They stopped by on their way home to say hi. Blessed with impeccable timing they arrived as we were rushedly trying to sweep, dust, and hide the general mess of the apartment. Being the troopers they are they jumped right in and helped with the cleaning but not before mom handed me a gift, get ready for it, napkin rings (I didn't own any)! How does she know these things? I immediately put them on my new napkins to a great result.

They were on the road again too soon and we were left with a spotless apartment (well about as good as it gets) ready and waiting for our guests to arrive.

It was a wonderful party and we will be plotting and scheming to throw another one again real soon!

Catching up on my bloggin'

Last Monday night: All aboard for the Admiral Theatre! Great little half price theater in West Seattle with a nautical theme. I wish I'd had the camera we were in a 400 seat movie house with only 2 other people- a sight you don't see that often. Although to be fair it was a late movie on Monday night. It's great that these little theaters out there. With 1st run movie ticket prices around $10.75 and climbing, we would much rather see a show at the $5.50 Admiral Theatre in West Seattle or the $3.00 Crest Theatre in North Seattle. Fun times.

Sunday before last: Tip Toe through the tulipsWe got a nice late start to the day and headed up to Mount Vernon in the sunshine to see the Tulips. I have been suggesting (nagging) to Tyson that we go see the Tulips for the past five years. Since he grew up in the Skagit Valley and has dealt with the onslaught that is tulip traffic for most of his life he was less than thrilled at the prospect. But because he is a very nice husband, this year we went. It was a great drive and we stopped and had a delicious lunch with his folks before heading to the fields. We went to Rosengarten which is one of two main areas where you can walk around a look at a whole variety of tulips. Above are some of my favorites. We didn't stay too long though since it was crowded. We bought some cut tulips to take home and some planted bulbs to enjoy for the next few weeks. All in all it was a very nice Sunday and if you haven't seen the tulips I would recommend that you go- just maybe on a weekday.

Saturday before last- Free tickets again!!!
We had been planning to catch last Saturday's Sounder game at a local pub, then 2 hours before the game we got the call.

A co-worker has friends with seasons passes and they couldn't go again, this is the second time the have been nice enough to pass on their tickets to us. We rushed down to the pitch and saw first hand Casey Keller's triumphant return! It was a great game and the Sounders won 2-0, they have got our full 90 every time. If you are not watching the games you are missing out.

Friday Night before last- Farm to Table
We made homemade pizzas from some delicious dough Tyson baked up, odds and ins from the fridge and some lovely treats from the garden. Yes, you read that right in the same month we had snow we were able to harvest and eat food from Tyson's garden.

Happy Earth Day

I urge all of you to reduce, re-use and recycle.

However, the post I want to today is more about decorating your home- your own personal earth. Today, we are talking about wallpaper.

Wallpaper has recently made a resurgence back into "young" decorating. For the last 10 years or so while the hip kids have forsaken wallpaper in preference of using every possible color combination and faux finish paint job you can think of some very talented artists have been busy creating beautiful wall papers.Content no longer with covering every inch of wall with the paper, decorators are coming up with great ideas on how to use wall paper to enhance the feel of a room without overpowering it.

In the above photo part of intricate wallpaper pattern was meticulously cut out to add a burst of pattern that comes across more like a piece of art- then the busy feeling it would give if it covered more of the room.

The bold pattern and color of this paper, although possibly an older design feels very modern since it was used to cover not just the wall as you might expect but also the door. I think this would be a good look for a closet or a powder room.

I had never this this technique done before and I love it. Wainscoting or chair rails are done at predictable heights and so often out of beadboard or just paint (I have done it, it's an easy way to perk up a room for not a lot of money). But this high molding about 2 feet down from the ceiling with the wallpaper on top seems to make the room feel taller and the pattern of the paper gives weight and interest to what is otherwise a sort of plain room (I know they have great windows and a giant chandelier but you know what I mean).

This final wallpaper idea is the genius of one lady and is a very earth-friendly suggestion. She takes old wallpaper in interesting patterns and re-purposes it as animal cutouts to decorate children's rooms. She offers a group of small birds, a giraffe, a monkey, an elephant and the above ostrich all in varying patterns. I hate birds and I would still love to have a pair of these ostrichs mingling on the wall at the end of a long hallway.

I just checked and the ostrich with wall adhesive retails for $105.00 plus tax and demand is so high they are currently out of stock- good job lady! (I was unable to find her name, but if you google "recycled wallpaper ostrich" you can find out more.)

Busy Saturday

All kinds of things happening in the great Northwest yesterday! Tyson's parents came to town. Jan helped Katie pack and move her kitchen to Katie and Jamie's new apartment which has an awesome view off the back of Capitol Hill. Gary and Tyson went to the Woodworker's Show at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall and I went the Friends of the Seattle Public Library Book sale at Magnuson Park. Busy!

The book sale was HUGE, the had tables filling an airplane hangar with books piled on top and underneath. There was fortunately for the sale but unfortunately for me LOTS of people, the kind of people who so lack the idea of personal space that nothing surprises them. I literally saw a man hop over the back of a lady that was crouched down in the isle looking at a box of books, so that he could get past her and on to looking at more books. I don't think the lady even looked up.

Inbetween fits of judge-full sighing I found a handful of good books (including one on paper mache that I want to try out) and at $1 per book maybe you can deal with the crowd and the Library's REALLY old friends running the sale- when is the last time that you were directed to "the lady with the pink flyswatter" as the next available cashier?

I paid and was on my way to pick up the guys at the Seattle Center and then onto the Gunter's new digs for a tour and to get Jan. The apartment is a neat space and with the clear view of Mt. Baker really did make everyone feel a little like we were back in Bellingham again (which according to my last poll, half of you would think is great, the other half would be wishing they were in Bend OR and Dad would be hanging out at Puget Island).

After the tour, we scooted off to City People's Garden store and had a good time looking things over and picking out plants with Jan and Gary. We have already decided next time they are in town and have time to shop we are going to the larger City People's Mercantile out by UW to see what they have.

With our treasures loaded up we headed home and towards some more of Tyson's wonderful cooking- the man can't help but make delicious food! he BBQ'ed up some flank steak, made a great potato, green pepper and tomato salad, a new style of salsa to accompany the meat and a whole pan of mouth watering corn bread. Here is a snapshot of Gary's plate before he dug in.

Sarah's Container Garden

I planted a nice little container garden today with three different types of pretty grass and a yellow-green shrub. I purchased these great plants at City People's Garden Store yesterday, Tyson and his Mom helped me pick them out.


The tall blue green one is:Magellan Wheatgrass.
The shrub one is:Pinocchio, it gets purple flowers later.
The wispy one in the back of the box is:Fescue.
The little guy in thr front is:Northern Lights- hairgrass.

I will post pictures of the grass garden every now and again so you can see how much they grow. The shrub can get up to two feet tall but I don't think it will in this pot. Everything else is in the 6" to 18" range.

He plays his banjo at night!

(Go back and sing the title, like the song "I wear my sunglasses at Night", it's more fun that way.)Tyson has recently taken back up his a pickin' and a pluckin' of the banjo. Such a great instrument- he has a song or two down but just about any noise you can get from it makes you want to say loudly, "Well boys, that was some mighty fine a 'pickin and a singin'" a la the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? after The Soggy Bottom Boys radio performance.

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Seeing yellow...

Yellow is the most difficult color for our eyes to adjust to, yet it is often used in home decorating. I saw the image below in magazine years ago and have always loved the shade of yellow. I have thinking about having a room this color in my future house but can't seem to decide if it would be overwhelming. I definitely like the more saturated shades- no pastels, thank you, but I feel like this is ones of those things where you actually have to paint the whole room- give it a few weeks and then decide if you have made a huge mistake.

Another interesting twist on yellow in home decorating is that they almost always pair it up with black. I'm assuming this is to make the yellow "pop" and read to the eye as even brighter. But I think it gives the room a formality that not all of us would want, as in the picture above.