my life is a nice life

I love our church. It's in this beautiful, old building and is warm and earthy and artsy. Last weekend we walked through Passover and the Last Supper with the president of Jews for Jesus, and it was wonderful and rich and full of deep Jewish history. I loved it. For the first time in my life, we're going to a Sedar at some friends' house and I'm so excited. Understanding the purpose and history behind anything that we choose to do is essential to me, and it was so wonderful to go so much deeper with this.

It was gorgeous last weekend, so we had a freezing beach barbecue at the beach with some friends. Joey = steak wrapped in bacon (yeep), me = chicken apple sausage; asparagus with orange = everyone. Wonderful.

Here are some random images from my life this last week:













The last one is the herb chicken I roasted for Valentines day for Joey. It was so yummy! Old school chicken makes me happy and domestic. I'll post the recipe sometime on our food blog.

Anyway, I hope you're having a fabulous day!

garage

We have a fabulous little cabin in the woods that I love very much. One of my favorite new parts of it is our garage; which we recently cleaned and organized within an inch of its very old life. This is our new studio space. To which we proudly give a hearty "wahoo!!" It is a hundred million times easier to create when there is a space in which to do so.

This is the beginning of my inspiration board. It makes me happy in my bones.



Piles of paint now have a place to live.



Baskets of organized fabric are so wonderful.



During the creative process, the disaster takes over. And yes, that's Harry Potter on the laptop. My coolness is overwhelming.




I'm excited to see what this new space brings! Hope you all are well!

Heart!

happy heart

As my lovey-chicken roasts away and my darling husband does the dishes, i wanted to wish you all a happy valentine's day. I'm not much for over commercialization, but I do love having a day that is just special for telling people that you love them. I hope you are loving and being loved today!

UPDATE: So many people asked for the recipe for these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies that I posted it here. Enjoy!

once

My mum came back from mexico and remeinded me of a movie I'd wanted to see last summer, but never got around to. I bumped it up on the Netflix and had a fabulous cheap date tonight with my favorite husband. We made barbecue chicken pizza with salad and shared a bottle of wine while kicked back in front of the fireplace, watching Once. I was teary in the first 15 minutes. Just because it's beautiful. So very beautiful. It made me miss Europe in a way that I hadn't ever before. I can always tell that I'm really adoring a film when I want to be living in the everydays of the characters; and I so wanted to in this one. We bought the soundtrack immediatly after (thanks Chris and Kee!) and have listened to it straight through twice in the last two hours. So delicious. Please, please be advised to enjoy. Other than a very UK overusage of the F-word, there is absolutely nothing uncomfortable about this film. It will bring a softness to your soul that you've been sorely missing all week. Do enjoy.

loose raisins

I have been trying to be a grownup this afternoon and figure out how to deal with insurance messiness when we've moved too many times to remember where the packet is. Because it is a gorgeous day, I sat on the porch with celery and rice cakes and peanut butter and raisins and decided to be happy instead of moldy and blue while I worked. Then I took some pictures. Which made it all a zillion times better.

Bella played over-the-railing fetch with me while we aired out the house.



These are my favorite shoes. They are falling to pieces because I wear them nearly every day, but I think it makes them that much more wonderful.



Also, yesterday was a perfect mathematical sentence! Hooray! We've only 7 of them this year, so enjoy them while they last!

sad california

Ii really shouldn't snuff the post I just wrote below, but I'm sad that the rest of California doesn't agree with me politically. I have such a love-hate relationship with this state; it really shouldn't come as a surprise. Bah. My stomach is all knotty for the next four years. I'm sorry Mr. Obama. I did the best I could. Here's to hoping for a dramatic surprise.

potatoes and puddles

This is the corner of my kitchen window. It tends to fill up with miscellany herbs and lemons and other happy, cookery things.

It's been dark and cold and stormy here for the last few weeks, which is my favorite winter-time weather. I think growing up in the bay area does that to you. We've been trying to stay home on the weekends; working on projects and being cozy. This translates often into soups and stews with simple salads and crusty bread for dinner, which I love, but Joey is getting a little tired of. This was a potato-carrot-corn chowder I made up one night. Oh the joy of the leftover vegetables.


We had a particularly gnarly storm this weekend. Kit and Joey were antsy with cabin fever, so we decided our only option was to go puddle jumping. At ten o'clock at night. During the storm. Geniuses be we. After harassing Mark into coming along, we galoshed our way to the Rec Field, splashing and laughing our heads off. Joey was not as excited, walking about with his umbrella; but Kit and I did a bit of free-form slip n' sliding (sans slide) and puddle-angel making in the mud. Fabulous. You may not be able to tell, but this is the Kit-O prepping for a massive jump.

See the darkness on their sweatshirts? That's from the rain. Pre-Slip n' Slide. Pre-anything else. Just from walking. Sheesh.

Me with some red, red knees. Sliding on soaked grass is quite similar to sliding on dry carpet, surprisingly.


I'll leave you with one of the favorite moments of the weekend. Joey wrote a new song (all folky and swingy, yay!) it the new space (which will be posted about in a few days). It needed a harmonica. Unfortunately neither Kit nor I are nearly as talented as Nate, who is far off being a grownup in Indiana. So Joey made do. And played both parts at the same time so that we girls could laugh and laugh at my ridiculously gifted boy. I enjoy my family quite a bit. We are fun. And I think we'll always be.

Have a jolly day old friends!