forgive me. we moved.

hi all, happy september. (wow, that's weird to say.)

i basically took the summer off it seems. accidently, of course.

in july we took a little trip to visit family and quite literally moved once we got home. we picked up moving boxes, rented a storage unit and gave our notice all on the drive home from the airport. it's take a bit of time to get acclimated to the new place but all is well.. we like it here.

honestly, what's not to love about mukilteo?
(i have a thing for ferry boats..)

i promise, i will be back soon to actually blog about something. (& introduce what i've been doing all summer...)

how i spent this wednesday afternoon...

some how i've managed to make wednesday my at home, free, to-dolist accomplishing, somewhat loungey day to myself. today was a bit different...

i spent this afternoon baking 12 dozen cupcakes.. 144 CUPCAKES... i want you to think about that number for a minute.... here.. i'll help create an image in your head..

....what beauties, eh? i think so. why 12 dozen cupcakes you ask?

my mom runs a great ministry out of her churchs doors on friday nights called "got soup?" her and her team of selfless volunteers devote their time, energy, money, and greater parts of friday morning/afternoon/evening to preparing meals for the homeless in their community.

this friday will be a picnic to celebrate the fourth of july. on the menu this week will be bbq chicken, macaroni salad (i'm enjoying a little bowl as i type this out!), watermelon, and red, white & blue cupcakes. i forgot to take a final photo of the decorated ones but after 3 hours of measuring, mixing, beating, spooning, baking, testing, tasting, cooling and icing, it's ok by me.

enjoy your wednesday evening, i will be putting my feet up and though i dont have that refreshing feeling of things crossed of my infamous, daunting to-do list, i do have some sort of peace knowing that i did something for someone else, something for a community larger than myself.. ..must be how my mom feels every week.

love you mom, thanks for letting me show off my cupcake decorating skills!

i forgot about the "spice"....

i've spent so much time on here talking about to-do lists and paintings i've forgotten the spice & sand portion of my little blog.. to get back to my roots here's a summer must-try recipe...

i tried it last night and it was a big hit with both me & the hub. definitely more refreshing than your regular coleslaw and the lime can't help but make it a summer recipe.

enjoy & bon appetit.

pottery barn obsession

because i have three thousand other things on my to do list and all of those three thousand items will take at least an hour to complete, and that sounds really boring.. i decided to browse for new dishes for my/our kitchen. something way funner that spending the rest of my life checking things off my to do list..

i really shouldn't be allowed to visit pottery barn or their website without supervision. my heart starts to race, i get goosebumps and short of breath. it really is a visceral reaction. i think i need someone to guard my credit cards as i browse and another to monitor my blood pressure.

this is what truely gets my heart racing...

well.. now onward to my horrid to do list.. happy wednesday. cheers :)

make a wish..

ta-da & good morning, how much do you love mornings when everything goes right; mornings where it feels like your the main character in nicholas sparks novel, mornings that make ending those sweet dreams and rubbing the sleepies out of your eyes all worth it .. for me it doesn't even have to be breakfast brought to me in bed, sunny & gorgeous outside nor a latte awaiting me, (although, hubster, if you're reading this.. it couldn't hurt...) i adore mornings like this one... a dreary, wet, raindroppy seattle day where i wake up to a little monster laying on my stomach (ilsa) and to the smell of super strong "man coffee" the husband had just started in the kitchen. i love days like this. but even more than the monster & aroma of coffee beans brewing, i like nights like last night... ..nights spent painting.

i like how this one turned out. the overall colors were simple but there's enough variety in shades and hues it didn't get boring. i finished it about 11 oclock last night so the photos i took are horrible.. (i'd much rather photograph paintings/anything in the day time with natural light..) i'll take better photos this afternoon and post more then.

well adios, i'm off. i'll post more photos later.

UPDATE: more photos: (actually colors... above photo was taken so late at night it looks much darker..)

the fabulous world of etsy

i present to you....

my etsy shop (banner).
how glorious is this? i love it.. and i'm quite excited to enter into the world of etsy.

if you dare, visit my shop. i'm off to unwind from a very eventful day with the hubster...

...i'll blog about my day later. good evening all.

coffee, the second love of my life.

i think ive stumbled into a painting coma. it's all i think about, all i want to be doing. (well, almost.. i still like to kiss on the hub every now and again!)

the relationship between painting and myself has been somewhat love & hate the past few months years. currently, i love painting. and juding by how these pieces have turned out, i've say the painting gods are on my side the past week.

take a looksie for yourself:

as much as i love my starbucks, i'm afraid the above photo turned painting was taken at walnut coffee down by the beach. yum yum yum.. check them out if you're local & haven't been: www.walnutstreetcoffee.com

now here's some 'bucks love!

well, i'm off to nanny & stew about what to paint next. suggestions? happy thursday.

apples to apples to apples.. (lots of apples)

enjoy.. i'm exhausted so i'm off to dream land but i wanted to share these before my head hit the pillow.

sweet, sweet dreams.

apples to apples

my newest painting completed at 10:15 this morning for my dearest friend alyssa. she emailed me saying she wanted a painting for her new kitchen.. i thought this would be nice..

...now all i have to do is find a frame. wish me luck. happy monday.

a thought worth pondering..

isn't man an amazing animal? he kills wildlife by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. this in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions... so then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily & so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for "peace on earth".

-preface from Old MacDonald's Factory Farm by C. David Coates.

the infamous to-do list part II

morning. i took that picture yesterday when i was on my way to pick up the kiddos from school and i was so busy singing in my car, i missed my exit so i ended up across lake union and underneath the bridge, and atop another.

i love how if you look closer at the car whizzing by & the bridge above, you can see the wave that appeared.. i'm guessing this happend because 1) i cant hold my hand steady & 2) i was driving. dangerous i know. also, at the bottom of the photo you can see the reflection of the hoodie i was wearing in my window.. look carefully. :)

so a few days ago this was my to do list after a cup of coffee,

and now.. it looks about the same. i accomplished (barely) nothing. though i did make it to the gym, (& have been sore ever since).

it seems the hub & i have gotten bit by the "buy-a-house" bug and we've got our heads up in the clouds. that's pretty much consumed our lives lately. as we begin researching (& budgeting) i get more & more excited at the though of having our own home together; being able to paint a wall, hang a photo, make a mess on the carpet and not worry how to clean it up when we move out.. it's a lovely, invigorating thought.

anyhow, i need to get started on my two-day-old to do list because im sure if i sit here & think about it, it'll evolve into something bigger & scarier. happy friday!

lazy wednesday

today is my first day off from work & nannying in 6 days. im not complaining, im just stating fact. typically on my days off i have a long list of things to get accomplished and waste no time in getting started.

today is different.

today, so far, all i've done is climbed out of bed, turned on the coffee pot, kissed the hub goodbye, browsed a few blogs - ashley ann's under the sycamore & all things new, played with little ilsa and poured myself a cup of coffee.

sidenote: oooh, if you do check out all things new, make sure to browse rachel's etsy store. i'm in love with all her earrings, not to mention the hairpins. i think i should order my mum earrings now.. just thinking about wearing them gets me excited!

now, i have a to do list.. a rather long to-do list infact. today, when i woke up, it looked like this:

start coffee pot

water plants

gym this morning

hang curtains

& now.. (after i've had my coffee), it's evolved itself into this:

start coffee pot

water plants

gym this morning

dimension chalkboard (explanation later)

hang curtains

browse world market for more curtains

flea market?

lunch with the hubster

uncover desk

finish at least one painting

start/finish may birthday cards

post office to mail cards

pay some bills

call rei about the climb

work on vacation to do list

finish knitting project.

decide on mothers day gift

start dinner

email the girls

find a housewarming gift

well now, after seeing all the things i have yet to try & accomplish tody, i feel i should get my butt to the gym and start tackling that to-do list. happy wednesday all :)

because im lacking in "blog-worthy" topics...

i have a zillion projects and whatnot on my to do list but this week, nothing's gotten accomplished because its just been a crazy, nutter-butter week. if i had gotten something accomplished & completed i would have taken pictures & blogged.. but such is life and i didnt so here you go: this is what you get... "ways to charm a southern girl" i stole this from ashely ann & her blog.. it just seems to fit. :)

yes, yes, i know i'm not at all southern; though sometimes i wish i was.. i would have an excuse to: want to live on a farm, have chickens, drink whiskey, plant sunflowers, love cowboy boots as much as i already do and i'd have a super cute drawl. i love seattle, dont get me wrong, i love the recycling, the coffee, music, rain and state parks, but there's something about southern sweet tea & corn on the cob in a hay field thats idyllic to me.

on with "ways to charm a southern girl":

1. stand up for a lady. (this doesn't just involve chairs)
2. kill bugs.
3. hold doors open.
4. fix things/build things.
5. wear boots occaionally (not the fancy, i-paid-$400-for-these. i'm talking about the mud-crusted, i-could-have-just-come-in-from-the-field work boots).
6. take off your hat inside.
7. grill stuff.
8. call us.
9. stand when we come back to dinner & pull out our chair.
10. compliment us.
11. dont show up in a wrinkled, untucked shirt (care about your appearance but not too much. dont smell better than we do. dont use mousse or gel. you should look like you spend more time in front of the mirror than we do).

wallace falls

last saturday hubby and i went for a litle hike. we've been planning to go for about 3 weeks but the weather and our days off never seems to coordinate. nonetheless, we finally made it out to wallace falls. it took us about 3 hours and 20 minutes for the 5mile, (1400' elevation gain), roundtrip hike.

the trail starts out walking by some blackberry bushes and underneath buzzing powerlines but once you get actually into the hemlock trees, it's a whole different world entirely.

within the first quarter mile the trail forks and the left goes along the old railroad tracks and is more gradual, hence making it popular for moutain bikers but adds an aditional mile to your roundtrip. we decided to go the more direct route, right, down woody trail. (there's a map at the fork, don't worry). woody trail takes you down to the river, across a few bridges and then up switchbacks. above is the hubby on wallace river. nice beard, eh? looks like a mountain man.

along woody trail.

small falls.

view from atop all the switchbacks. it was definitely worth the work to get this view. just to be able to see the tippy-tops of all those evergreen trees was a beautiful thing.

this is the best photo we got of the falls.
an astonishing 265' from top to bottom. breathtaking in my book.

one a dreary thursday night...

... I decided to copy a few questions from a neighborblog while I kill some time. enjoy.

on my bedside table:
heidi swanson's cookbook and a notepad full of doodles.

latest interests:
I think I want to learn to knit.

on my mind:
uncluttering our office... ehhh.. (we'll see).

learning:
how much more exciting life is with a 7 & 11 year old on your side, (the darling kids I nanny).

making:
a cup of chai tea.

looking foward to:
climbing mount si next week.

enjoying:
a glass of wine.

amused by:
ilsa (our younger cat) sneek up on ike (our older cat).

photo wall

so i've spent about 2+ weeks arranging & REarranging photographs/frames on top of our coffee table. i figured it was about the same size as what i wanted on the wall so i taped kraft paper to the top and when i finally settled on a position for each frame i traced them onto the paper. then spent another 4 days measuring the hooks and frames and drawing them on to the paper. i made notes on the drawings of frames of what frame hung where & with what picture. THEN i hung the paper on the wall and hammered the nails into the spots i marked, ripped the paper off, (careful not to rip apart my notes), crossed my fingers and hoped things would turn out right! and guess what..... IT DID!!! TA DA!!

our kansas trip

we made a trip back to kansas this past weekend. it was so great to hang out & relax with family.
anyhow, here's a few pictures from our trip. enjoy!

24 of us bombarded the derby, KS village Inn.. here's a little panoramic view of the craziness.

kent, sarah & rachel. aren't those girls gorgeous!?

dunn-dunn-dun-dun! charade time!

above: kent drew "transformers" and had to act it out.. needless to say it was a bit difficult.

here's larry & diane doing their best at charades. diane's face just cracks me up!

cade wasn't too into charades but he did eventually figure out the trike on the stairs didn't work too well..

the hubster at the village inn. lovin' the 'stache huh?

i didn't take this. i just thought it was worth sharing frank martin's face. and we did watch the kstate game while we were there.