Random notes from parenthood oblivion

I love this idea over at A Beautiful Mess for updating a tired old wood table. All you need is lace and spray paint.

And this is ridiculous but also pretty funny. For crying out loud, eat your cereal, Ryan Gosling.

I'm obsessed with The Skunkboy Blog. Like, obsessed. Katie has inspired me to start wearing actual outfits again and and to care about how my hair looks. Thank you for bringing me back from new motheritis. Now I only wear sweats at home.

And speaking of hairdos, here is a list of 20 great hair tutorials for long-haired gals like myself. I'm having fun with my hair again! Sorry for the enthusiasm, but I feel like I'm waking up from a long nap...

I made this lemon pie with a saltine crust that everyone on NPR raved about. My sister and her boyfriend loved it, but not me so much. Maybe a chocolate filling to go with the salty crust? Not lemon, anyway.

Finally, here is a really cute handmade baby toy that I think would be perfect for my little one.

Pretty things

I love this decorating idea, the natural wood shelves and rock vases...so inspiring.

Trip to Ireland

Sorry about the radio silence, but we've been on a lovely, long trip in Ireland. My husband is from Northern Ireland and this trip has been long in the works.

It was great for him to get back home and wonderful to introduce our little one to all things Irish. I was thrilled to get back to the country that feels like my second home. I mean, look at how beautiful and green it is...

Here is a short video of Grafton Street in Dublin. It rained on this day (and on the other 16 of the 17 days we were there--hello Irish summer!)

 So the trip plus the fact that I am now six months pregnant (!) combine to make one pretty good excuse for not blogging for the last three months if I do say so myself! I hope to do more now that we are in fall again (ahhhh) and I'm itching to get baking and crafting.

Pretty cake

Isn't this cake just the prettiest? I've never seen ruffles on a cake before. Great idea for a little girl's birthday cake, or a big girl's. Photo and directions at the paper pony.

Epitaphs

When we are in the dregs of winter, perhaps it's natural to dwell on the darker side of human experiences. Plants die in the winter, or at least hunker down and stretch deeper into the earth. Most animals get thinner as food supplies dwindle, and yet humans get notoriously fatter in the winter. I think it's good practice to live closely with the cycles of life.

In this vein, I present a little collection of possible epitaphs--thoughts on life and death that would not necessarily be carved on a headstone (what do we cremation-choosers use?) but at the very least, sum up a life-philosophy. I suppose the collection is part of what Gretchen Rubin calls my "ongoing, personal research project." Little notes scribbled on gum wrappers, books filled with ephemera, thoughts, quotes, lists of songs to play at my funeral (that's another post.) My mom is a notorious personal research note-taker. She may still have a misquoted saying from LA Story in her wallet.

This is my favorite of all possible epitaphs:

"The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
all goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier."  Walt Whitman

Another great one is:

"Is it so small a thing,
to have enjoyed the sun,
to have lived light in the Spring,
to have thought,
to have done...     Matthew Arnold

The weirdest one is on W.B. Yeates' grave in my opinion, although I love it.  I've had the pleasure of visiting this site. There is nothing quite like an old, overgrown Irish graveyard in the rain. It's so romantic.

Whale watching and rugelach

We spent the weekend looking for whales out at Bodega Bay. We saw a few sprays, but no actual whale was spotted. The weather was clear and sunny and cool--Jack ran around in the fields while my girlfriend, Bri, and I ate scones and jam.

And a few projects were finished when someone got a cold (Jack) and someone else (me) got to stay home from work and keep him company.
First: an aquarium scene made out of construction paper and sequins.

Second: some seriously delicious rugelach.

You can find the recipe in my favorite baking cookbook: Martha's Baking Handbook or online here. These are so friggin' good, I have a tummy ache from eating waaay too many. The flaky layers are almost pastry-like and hold chocolate slivers, finely-chopped walnuts, raisins and sticky apricot jam. The filling in my book is different from the one online, I used 1 cup of walnuts, 1/4 cup of sugar and only 3/4 cup of jam. I made half of ours with chocolate, the other with raisins, all with nuts. Too good.

And from what I remember from my coffee shop days, rugelach freeze really well once baked. (I've already put more than half in the freezer to deter a late night rugelach attack.)

And I found this in a drawer the other day, don't you just love these? Jack is fascinated by it, and always wants to drink the water out of it. Yuck.

Homemade Christmas gifts

This year, I and (some of) my family have decided to go all handmade on the gift-giving. I'm excited because it's always something I've wanted to do. And with the Occupy protests going on around here, it's a natural choice to forgo the frenzied dash to buy and rather, make.

I have so many ideas: homemade sugar scrubs, potholders, children's smocks, bags, aprons, blankets....and on. I've decided to organize my projects here on the blog, and gather cool ideas for future works.


For Jack, I'm making a boy version of this smock:


 

And I was thinking a pillowcase:

Source: Mousy Brown

And that's all I've got so far. In other news, Jack and I made an autumn mobile from things we gathered at the park.

And I made another one of my grandma's recipes, these Cranberry Almond cookies

The cookies were delicious when they first came out of the oven, but they softened up quite a bit over the last day; maybe it's the fresh cranberries. I've been storing them in plastic, perhaps waxed paper would keep them more crisp. Very balanced flavor though and the almonds and cranberries are great together. 

I'm cooking my way through my grandmother's recipes, I inherited them when she died a few months ago. It's such a personal experience, holding these cards that she wrote in my hands.

Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful fall...

Nails!

source

A Birthday smock

A little friend of ours was having her 2nd birthday, so I whipped up this quick smock using a pattern from Amy Karol's Bend-the Rules Sewing. I wanted to do a trial run of the pattern before making one for Christmas this year for my little man. Our friend is a very girly girl, so I chose this blue fabric with little blue roses and a wide red bias tape for the edges. It's made from one piece of fabric, but took me a surprisingly long time to make (I don't know why, but Lord knows I'm not the fastest sewer.)

I thought it came out really well, and it was rather a hit at the party (if I may say so myself.) I'm hoping to find a cool fabric for Jack's, maybe with dinosaurs on it. His smock will most likely be more of an apron, since we'll probably use it primarily for baking and making pancakes on weekends. The size given in the book (with the pattern enlarged to the suggested 235%) is about a 2T-3T and would comfortably fit most of the 2-3-year-olds that we know.

In other news, we were lucky enough to spend a morning the other day watching a family of deer eat pears beneath the tree in our front yard. Our bedroom window looks out onto the tree, so we could safely watch them without freaking them out. I gotta say, deer sure drool a lot more than I'd thought.

If you have lots and lots of free time...

Just saw this awesome idea over at Craft.

It is "wallpaper" made entirely out of tiny stickers!

For more info on the project, go here.

Appliqued knee socks

These are so darn sassy, I had to post them. For directions, click here

Some lovely things I would make if only I had the time...

While perusing this website today, I found this collection of beautiful things I would love to make....

I love the orange scarf on the right (that lace!) And the Marie Antoinette doll would be a great Christmas gift for my sister. We saw Sofia Coppola's movie together in Ireland and adore its unashamed girliness. I mean, how could you not love a movie in which the inspiration for the color palette comes from a tray of macaroons?

I hope everyone is having a wonderful fall!

Some Fall inspiration

What a great idea for celebrating Fall. This website is amazing for beautiful craft ideas.

 I mean really, look at this amazing 'playscape.' So cool.

And an old sweater recycled into a scarf? Radical!

Sweater Pole project

Our 'Yarn Addicts' group completed two knitted pole sweaters over last month. They can be seen in downtown Santa Rosa.

Six people worked on them, each knitting or crocheting one or two (or five) sections, and then they were all crocheted together onto the poles.

Aren't they cool?