Some More Favorites

1) I don't know what is up with the maple theme around here lately, other than it is a delicious flavor and why not? We tried these cookies from Trader Joe's and all three of us are now addicted. They are INSANE. In fact, John just ate one and said it was "retarded" it was so good. And William cries and cries when I won't let him eat any more.




2) I knew it would happen, but didn't do anything to prevent it. I finished the entire Outlander series 4 months before the next (last?) book comes out. And now I'm going nuts. I guess the plus side is that I can now do other things. They've been a little all-consuming. But I'm definitely counting down the days to Sept 22 when the new book will be released!




3) We finally got rid of the ugly, stinky, giant couches that were in our living room and moved our pretty couch in. I'm soooo happy. I just stand here and look at it with a smile on my face. It's so lovely and proportional and not-stinky. I want to squeeze its guts out I'm so happy. And now all I need is the perfect armchair, which I will hunt tirelessly for and blog incessantly about.


One of these days that fireplace will be finished and will no longer be a huge, gaping black hole.


And one more thing...

4) The cosmos must really love me. For there to be a place that serves three completely random and unrelated things, which happen to be three of my very favorite things on the planet, is just too much of a coincidence. I think it's a sign that I'm loved by some higher power. There's really no other explanation for something like this. Which also means that I must go here and consume said goods as often as possible. So let's go!




This weekend we're off to San Diego to go to the zoo and the beach with my mom and youngest brother. Can't wait! Have a wonderful weekend!

Speaking of...

So I was looking up information on the afore mentioned Bluebird Restaurant and kept running across some really great photos of where I grew up. I decided to share them with you here. These are things that all have a great deal of nostalgia for me. Enjoy!

All photos from Google images.

Bluebird

You may or may not be aware, but I have two of the very best sisters in the world. They are my best friends and I miss them every single day. One of my dreams is to someday be able to call them up whenever to meet for a hot chocolate or a trip to the mall or to watch movies.

One of my sisters, my sweet Beth -- whose praises I could sing all day long -- happens to work at a restaurant in our home town that opened in 1914. (That's almost 100 years ago! I love old things!) They have amazing rolls. Also, they still have the original soda fountain counter and they sell chocolate. It's pretty perfect.




So anyway, while we were up there last month, I visited Beth at work and she gave me free food. And some of that free food was served on what quickly because an obsession.




I had to have one of these plates. My very future happiness rested upon having one in my possession. Let's talk about why:

#1. Birds.

#2. Hello, scalloped edges.

#3. Name of home town.

#4. I think that about covers it.

Much to my dismay, however, I found out that they did not sell the plates. In fact, the servers themselves had to pay for replacements if they accidentally broke one. I was heartbroken. I was convinced that I would never again feel complete without one of these sweet little plates.

That evening, Beth -- being the nicest, coolest, most wonderful sister ever (and not just for this, but for everything she does) -- appeared with not one, but four of these plates just for me! I managed to get them all home in checked luggage without incident and now they are in my cupboard waiting for the perfect little dessert to be served upon them. In the meantime, I get so happy when I see them there on the shelf. It gives me a little reminder of my Bethy, my beautiful home town, and home.

Wow. This post has a lot of photos.

Well, uh, it's only May 6 and I've already run out of things to talk about. Nice. How about a list? I'm a lot better at lists than like...actual paragraphs with complete sentences and all that fancy stuff.

1. The Host by Stephenie Meyer (of Twilight Saga fame) came out today. Ruth picked up my copy along with tickets to the book signing that's happening in Torrance later this month. I can't wait to start reading it! Thanks Ruth! I'll let you folk know how it is in a couple days. =)



2. I'm currently reading Running With Scissors by Augusten Bourroughs. It's...weird. And disturbing. And R-rated. But also hilarious. I don't know if I recommend it necessarily, but it's entertaining. There was a movie made a few years ago based on the book that I saw and it was just as weird as the book. There are some messed up families out there, let me tell you. I also read Look Me In The Eye by John Elder Robison who is Augusten Bourroughs brother. So it was really interesting reading about their family from their separate perspectives.




3. John's mom has been here for a week and she leaves tomorrow. She hasn't seen William since he was 12 days old (she was here for his 6th-12th days) so it was fun. We did a lot of eating out, walking around malls and parks, and picture taking.

William with Nana Colleen and Mommy

4. I think I've already mentioned this, but I'm working on five (5) baby blankets right now. What is up with all these people having babies? I mean, really now. Five babies all due by mid-September. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a photo of at least one completed blanket. And after I finish these I'll be officially burned-out on them. I've already made three of them (William, Q and Makayla). Do you think eight is enough times of doing the same project? I think I'll move on to something else when I'm done with these.

This is the one I made for Baby Makayla who was born at the end of January. I never did post this pic of the finished blanket after sending it to her.

5. Seriously. This is the best thing in the world.



6. I really liked this post by this Dooce.com lady (it's really long but it's good) about Mommy Bloggers.


7. Must I have such expensive taste? Everything I find that I want is way too expensive. Check out this $125 perfect pedestal bowl I need for the dining table. William Sonoma is killing me here.



8. Speaking of expensive -- I think I need to get into the gasoline business.



9. Apparently I didn't run out of things to say after all.

10. Just to have an even 10 points on the list...

Bedroom, Bookcase, Black Hair, Baby

Here is our finished bedroom. And it's amazing. I absolutely love going to bed in this room. It's the first time in my entire life, including my married life, where my bedroom is just that. A bedroom. It's not doubling as an office or library or anything else. We just go to bed there. It's fabulous. And having really yummy, comfy bedding makes it even more luxurious.

The white mirror was a gold mirror that John had before we even met. I painted it white and it was in our living room at our last apartment. It's so perfect now for our bedroom.

The walls are Chocolate and it makes the room so yummy and cozy and rich. It's just really the best.

This picture makes the room look really small. And I guess actually it is a small room -- our queen-size bed takes up nearly all of it. But, it doesn't feel small at all. When all you're doing is sleeping in a room, you don't need much room. It's perfect.



Here is the new bookcase. Not the most exciting thing in the world...but I'm pretty stoked about it. All of my books were in boxes in the garage until we got this up. Now I can actually have access to them and the bookcase really helped make the living room look more finished and home-y. I spent like 2 hours just arranging and re-arranging the books. Ha!


Don't mind the hideous shirt. I was in the middle of painting a door when we decided to take pics before the sun went down.

So, I used to have black hair. Then I got pregnant and decided to stop dying my hair. So, for about the last year I've been a total gradient-head. It wasn't pretty. I didn't realize just how dreadful it was, though, until I saw a picture of the back of my head a few days ago. Something had to be done. I could either cut my hair off to above my shoulders or go black again. John said he'd leave me if I cut my hair. Plus I don't want short hair. Plus I like my hair darker anyway. So...I'm once again black-haired. Or, actually, one step above black. A pain to keep up. But at least I'm still married. ;)

I do find it interesting that not a single person has noticed though. I thought it was a pretty drastic change but even people I live with haven't noticed.



Is anything better than this?

Hi, Did You Miss Me?

Unbaked pumpkin pie is one of my favorite colors
Hello, no baby here yet. He's not due until next Wednesday anyway so...I need to be patient. I'm really tired of the swelling and the being a beached whale and whatnot but, I'm happy to wait for him to come when he's ready. I just hope it's sooner than later. :)


Please take note of the best looking pie crust I've made to date. It's only taken me 14 years to get to this point.
We've apparently started a tradition of having a Pumpkin Party every year at the beginning of October. This was the 3rd year we did it and I hope to continue. Pumpkin is just too yummy to not celebrate! We had Ravioli with Sausage and Pumpkin Sauce (I forgot to take a photo but believe me, it's delicioius. Please try it!), green beans, baguette and of course, Pumpkin Pie. In previous years we've also carved pumpkins but, that just wasn't going to happen this year. And when you have your Pumpkin Party, don't forget to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.



I did decorate for Autumn though and it's so fun. It's 85 degrees outside and we have the AC on, but at least it looks somewhat fall-ish in here.

I've also done quite a bit of sewing in the past few days but unfortunately, don't have photos of it all cause my brain is pretty spacey lately.



First is this Bath Caddy for all the baby's bath things (we don't have enough cupboard space for anymore towels or toiletries) which will hang from the closet door. This pattern is from Amy Butler's In Stitches and the fabric is from superbuzzy.com. I was WAY intimidated by this project. It entailed using interfacing and canvas and boning and had about a million steps. Yikes. But I did it! Sewing certainly has taught me some good life lessons: don't get overwhelmed, take things one step at a time, take risks and to pay attention to details. They really make all the difference.

Exciting News: Our good friends, Cary and Erin, beat us to the punch and had their baby boy yesterday -- 11 days early! I finished the blanket for Quincy (hi, cutest name ever) last night and sent it out in the mail this morning, totally forgetting to take photos first. I used the same Scalloped Baby Blanket pattern from Bend-the-Rules Sewing that I used for this helicopter blanket but in these fabrics I ordered recently from superbuzzy.com. Just use your imagination. :) Congratulations, little family! We can't wait to meet the new guy!

Finally, I also finished another project yesterday but I can't show you until the end of January when my friend Nellie's baby arrives. It turned out so cute! I want to show it off right now!

Alright, well this pregnant lady needs to go lay around some more. 39 weeks! I'm definitely feeling every one of them right now.

Take care! Check in tomorrow for pics of the knitted Vintage Car Coat. Darling!

The Pillow Covers Saga Continues and Then We Eat Some Cookies

So, life is pretty funny. After spending over 3 months looking for the perfect pillows for our new sofa, I ended up trying to just make something similar to what we were looking for. They were pretty good, not perfect, but we were happy with them.

Well, yesterday we stopped by, on a whim, Restoration Hardware just to see their new fall stuff. We parked directly in front of the open store doors and both of our jaws dropped. The pillows on the sofa just inside the door were EXACTLY what we had been looking for all of these months. I was actually kind of mad that I had spent so many hours looking online for pillow covers and then so much time and some money making pillow covers only to then, less than a week later, find exactly what we'd been looking for this whole time. *Sigh*

So we bought the covers and they're amazing. The weirdest thing about all of this though, is that those four covers were the ONLY ones in the store -- we bought the displays. We looked in their catalogue and online and they're nowhere to be found. Spooky, right? It's like we were in some sort of alternate dimension and were supposed to find these. Eek!

Anyone need 4 brown and white pillow covers? Cheap as free!

Hopefully you won't hear any more about pillow covers from me ever again.

Okay, changing subjects now. As soon as September hits, I want to make and eat anything and everything pumpkin flavored: Raviolis with Pumpkin Sauce, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Scones, Pumpkin Lattes, Pumpkin Pie, etc. So, on Saturday I had to make these cookies. They're pretty much the best cookies ever -- really they're more like little cakes. I found this recipe in Martha Stewart Living in the October 2004 issue and had it sitting in a binder full of recipes to try until last year when I finally made them. And my goodness. They are dangerous little devils. I was going to link to the recipe for ya'll but I can't find it. It's on the Martha Stewart website somewhere but I am too lazy to go through the 1600 results it came up with. They are well worth searching for though. (EDIT: Morgan found the link! Go here for a recipe for heaven!)

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

And one more thing before I'm off to bed, this darling butter dish that Ruth gave me for my birthday. It's from Anthropologie (of course) and I've gently caressed it and wanted to buy it for probably the past year, every time I go there. But, I already had a butter dish so I passed. Girlfriends are the best for buying you things you don't actually need and wouldn't buy yourself. This dish makes me smile every time I make toast. :)

I probably use more butter now than I used to.

Ta da!

Well, here it is, in all of it's glory. The Sofa. It arrived last Saturday while we were at the hospital for the maternity ward tour (luckily Ivan was here to let the delivery guys in). I love this sofa. I can't tell you how happy I am about it. It's so soft and comfy and big and the color just makes this place seem so much bigger and brighter and cleaner. I'm in heaven. It's amazing, and maybe kind of pathetic, that a sofa can make me feel better about everything in life. Is that shallow? Probably. But it does. I love you Maxwell Sleeper Sofa.


Obviously we still are on the hunt for either pre-made pillow covers or the perfect fabric to make into pillow covers -- these shown in the photo are just naked down inserts. Eeek!

And another thing...

So another one of my favorite blogs is Crazy Aunt Purl, written by a witty, wise and wonderful girl named Laurie. I want to be her friend. Her blog (PS, I hate that word) is so hilarious,well-written and thoughtful. I just love her and I look forward to reading what she has to say everyday. I'm sad on the days when she doesn't post something.

Laurie has a book coming out in October which I am so excited for. I just can't get over how much I love the way she writes. She brings me to tears often and always makes me laugh.


Anyway, what spurred (spurred...is that the word I'm looking for?) me to tell you about Laurie today is her entry about house cleaning. Not a subject you'd think is all that thrilling or deep, but she manages to make it so. And she has perfectly put into words how I feel about having a clean house, but could never express myself. She has a way of doing that with most things. I just adore her.

Only a pregnant lady could be this excited about organizing.

One of my favorite places in the world.
Well now, it's been almost a week since my last entry, so it's high time I write again, methinks. Unfortunately, I don't have anything pretty to show off yet. The past couple of weeks have been spent cleaning, organizing, and entertaining my 16-year old brother who's visiting for a month.

This past weekend was excellent. We cleaned and organized all of our closets and they are so beautiful now. I wish I took before and after pictures, though the before was really embarassing.

So next on the seemingly never-ending list of projects is to organize our storage bay, sand and paint the baby's cradle, and finally set up my sewing space. It's kind of just thrown together right now but it'll be so awesome when I'm done with it. And THEN I can get to sewing! I can't wait! I have birthday presents, baby things, baby presents for friends, and Christmas stuff to get started on. I'll be very busy! But the very best kind of busy. :) So we'll be hopefully getting all of that done by this time next week. Woot!

So, sorry that this is such a boring entry, but I promise it'll get better soon!

Meanwhile, I really need to make this:

Maxwell Have I Loved

Yo. Alright, so I'm going to show you the new sofa we have on order that *should* be arriving sometime this week. Even though Alicia wrote about HER new sofa today which makes me feel like a spaz and a copycat but...what can you do? I need to show it off!


So there it is in all it's splendor. It's the first couch we've actually bought. I refused to settle for something that would just "do". I wanted my dream couch. And I got it. It's the Maxwell Sofa from Restoration Hardware (which means overpriced, but perfect) and is a queen sleeper. It's in the most deliciously soft cotton upholstery and the seats are so deep. Your legs stick out straight when you sit on it, like a little kid. It's just perfect for us. And I'm so excited about the color. And everything about it, really. Now we have a place for guests to sleep besides the floor. It's a pretty color. It's upholstered in soft fabric instead of the yucky black faux-leather of our current behemoth. And John and I can now both lay down while watching a movie...without me falling off. And look at the pretty color! Did I already mention that?

Now I either need to find pillow covers for it or make them myself. Unfortunately, John and I have very different styles in mind and I'm hoping we can find a suitable compromise. Or that he'll just let me do what I want. Hehe.

Here is a pillow cover that I adore from Pottery Barn. Look!


Look! It has birds on it! I love the colors and the pattern. But, John doesn't like it. So I suppose the search continues. I have a feeling this is going to be a long process. Please send rations.