justin james 

september 10, 1987 - march 7, 2010 

love you, buddy. always.

this

is in my yard right now.
my dogs are going NUTS!

kelly rae roberts decorative art girlies

oh. my. goodness.

i am in love!

my very favorite artist, author and possibilitarian, kelly rae roberts has really done it this time. i've been following her creative journey for over a year and she just keeps wowing me.

i was lucky enough to get one of her art girlies when they went on sale this week. i called it my own valentines day gift. :)

mine is the love girl, (pictured in the back, right), and she is precious. i squealed when i opened the package (addressed to the lovely melly crocker :)) and even got a little teary. she is perfection. so unique, so original. and so affordable!

one day i will have an original of hers. but until then, i'm going to gobble up every bit i can of her wonderful pieces by demdaco. check your local gift shops. everyone needs a little of the joy this amazing woman is spreading around.

photo belongs to kelly rae. click to go right to her blog/online shop. 

cage the elephant

i started her weeks ago. she sat patiently in my knitting bag. surviving dog attacks, she was waiting for me to pick her up again. she probably wanted me to knit her some legs so she could run from that pesky dottie!

but here she is! posing for her closeup. ready to make girl-child smile. i'm calling her valentine.

isn't my trunk fine?

third time's a charm

finally finished my cousin's hat. now that the average temperature in california is well into the 40's...

ah well. she'll love it because she loves me.

thanks again, jared for a fantastic pattern!

so much more than just a blog share

you might have noticed my new badge over on the sidebar. about loving with my whole heart?

i've been spending some time with dr. brené brown. well, her blog anyway. and i love what this woman has to say! she's got some great articles on treating each other with basic respect and dignity, facebooking our fears (so good!) and living without shame and fear. she writes about living in authenticity.

what is authenticity you might ask?

brené offers this:

both of these badges are available as downloads to print from her blog, ordinary courage.

"mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy and gratitude into our lives."

now i don't know about you, but i'm all for inviting more joy into my life.

"cultivating the courage to be imperfect." i. love. this.

today i will live and love with my whole heart, will you?

and then i fainted

i gasped aloud when i pulled these from the wash yesterday. they are among my favorite socks, second only to the purple stripe socks i knit myself. i wear them all. the. time. and now it shows. :(

this is why hand-knit socks are such a labor of love. they wear out. the more you love them the faster they go. i'm so sad. i think they can be fixed. when red rhonda gifted them to me, she also gave me a teeny hank of the yarn. just for this purpose, i'm thinking.

can anyone help?

*sigh*

i was watching oprah today. something about me hates the way that sounds. but sometimes, i like her. today she's good.

she's talking about food (surprise! i know!).

it seems eating healthy is all the rage. not low fat. not low carb. just healthy. one of her guests had his 'rules for food', like eating meat that has eaten well itself, and eating food that dies (plants and animals). my favorite, was something about eating only food a third grader could spell. can i choose the third grader? my new friend, has a rocking third grader. i bet that kid can spell some weird shit. :)

i think i like this new diet. think about everything you can eat by those rules. the experts promise my skin will look great, i'll have tons of energy and evidently i'll be pooping. but seriously, who doesn't love to poo? that's healthy, right? i digress...

food. tastes good right? it's supposed to. think about all the food that tastes good that's good for you. go ahead, i'll wait. there's more than you think. i had an orange today i got from whole foods. even before oprah was talking about it, i was there buying food. and i looked at that orange when i cut it open. i love pretty food. and that orange was juicy and bright. i was already smiling. and when i took that first bite i thought, "mmm this is good!" i can't remember when a bologna sandwich last caused that reaction. though i will admit it is an occasional guilty pleasure. on wonder bread with american cheese and iceberg lettuce? don't judge.

wait. does pizza die? pizza does die. (whew!) what about brownies? can a third grader spell brownies?

some of that stuff is good. but you know, my orange was good too.

another rule was it's ok to eat fast food if you make it at home. love french fries? how often would you go to the trouble if you followed these rules? i don't know about you, but i would not make french fries from scratch every day. how bad for you could they be, eating a reasonable portion once every other week? how many of us eat fast food fries several times a week? a burger and fries, one of my favorite meals. think of how different a meal it would be if you made it at home. how often would you go to the trouble? and think how different it would be, with grass-fed beef, good, whole-grain bread and locally grown vegetables? all completely sustainable, supporting local farmers. i could be down with that.

i watched anthony bourdain last night. love me some on demand cable! he was in Brittany, France. i was all but calling the travel agent. it. was. lovely.

there was a painter quoted as saying, we can't paint here because in brittany everything looks different from one moment to the next. it was breathtaking. tony called the color in brittany a "cinematographer's wet dream". the hills are lush and green, dotted with with buildings each one painted a different, bright color. all set against the sea that isn't blue, isn't green, isn't grey. it's some magical word that means all of these colors, yet none of them. (and if i wasn't over 40 i'd remember the dang word.) watch the episode. it's fantastic. but the food! one guy said, "the butter is great here!" and i said to ken, that's because you know they're getting it from a farmer whose own wife probably churns the butter! talk about sustainability.

it dawned on me today - i have something pretty close to this just up the road:

Trader's Point Creamery. do you think if i say Trader's Point Creamery often enough, some flag will go up in their office and i'll get a free chocolate milk? i would type nothing but Trader's Point Creamery for the next paragraph and a half if i thought that was true. it's like dessert. but seriously, they have an amazing farmers market all year. now, granted, those fresh, garden tomatoes of summer are probably hard to come buy but i bet there are some great winter squash. and real butter and grass-fed beef. fresh, local eggs. good food. look for their stuff in a store where you live. word is getting around. it's no brittany, but there are green hills, barns on the hill and good things going on there. plus it's right up the road. where the hell is brittany, anyway?

i was going to say, how do i explain this to mr. meat and potatoes? but think of all the amazing meals we'd have following those few simple rules? meat? check! potatoes? check. but also eggs and cheese. fresh fruits and vegetables. grains and beans. can a third grader spell vegetables? ken probably isn't going to be happy about that one. but there is pizza! and even ice-cream. honestly, it's pretty much the food we're eating now, only better.

ken would say i've been watching too much Food TV.

procrastinate much?

do you all remember when i said i'd finished the quilt top i was making for justin? well...i wasn't completely honest. it wasn't an intentional lie. after all that cutting and sewing back together and cutting again only to sew it back together again, the top felt done at that point. but today! today it's done for real. not only is the top done:

but i also finished the back:

now to decide if i want the strip going horizontal or vertical. it's a square quilt does it really matter? somehow, yes. it does.

and now for a confession: i don't have a CLUE what to do next. i've decided to quilt it myself. is that a bad idea? i've already called my quilty friend trista twice today. perhaps the next step should wait till tomorrow when she won't think me a pest when i call again.

greek pizza

those of you who really know me, know i'm a recipe girl. i'm a good cook because i take time to seek out good recipes. but last night, i made my own pizza and it was A. MAZ. ING.

i started with the crust recipe i love from my food processor cookbook. it couldn't be more simple: yeast, water, flour, oil and salt. i rolled it out and it just sort of came to me: what if i used garlic hummus rather than the traditional red sauce? then i remembered the beautiful kalamata olives from my trip to trader joe's last week. chopped those up. looked in the fridge and found some spinach and red onions and then some cheese to top it off. chicken would have been really good but i went vegetarian and it was perfect! i started thinking about things i love with hummus and pita - cucumbers are my favorite. i diced up fresh cucumbers and tossed them in a vinaigrette with more red onion and some grape tomatoes. fresh cracked pepper finished it off:

i can't even tell you how exciting this was for me. i just don't cook this way. and i realized why: i shop from a menu generated list. now, it's a loose menu but still. when i plan a trip to the grocery store, i write down dinner ideas and make a list of the ingredients i need for those meals. and i rarely stray from that list. not so last week! i spent an hour in trader joe's and just grabbed a few things that looked good to me (olives, hummus and spinach for example) and look at the end result - a tasty, ORIGINAL recipe made by me.

i'm so proud.