Posie Gets Cozy

Wintry Light

I was out wandering around town yesterday, needing a few things: I picked up my Christmas cards, got some new socks, and found this pretty antler candle holder. I took this photo last night without a tripod. It reminded me of what I wrote on Monday. I think I am going to start shooting more still lifes without the tripod and see what happens. Life on the edge here at Paulson Place.

I'm thinking today with sincere gratitude about all of the men and women who serve and protect our country so selflessly. I would love to hear your ideas for ways to support troops who are overseas and far from home at the holidays.

It looks like a bed, but it's a carrot.

Oh my word, what a couple of weeks it's been. The scene above is my carrot-on-a-stick — each night I hurl myself toward my nightlight and this pile of pillows with total determination and . . . devotion. I would call it devotion. It's possbly more like desperation. There's a fine line.

Andy went back to work today to, as he put it, "get some rest." He thanks you most sincerely for all of your kind comments on his dispatch from the front lines — I giggled all day yesterday as I watched him get up repeatedly to check to see if there were any new comments, and come back to his work table smiling, telling me what somebody'd said. Too! Cute! Agh. Sweet sweet sweet. It was an intense run. Mr. Awesome only got slightly crabby once and I only cried once, so I think, overall, we did really well! I thank you again so very much for your orders. All of the kits are assembled, almost all of them have been shipped, and what hasn't been shipped yet will be shipped tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are utterly sold out, and I am sorry about that. We truly did as many kits as we could, and as soon as I catch my breath I will make both patterns available to download as PDFs, so stay tuned and I'll let you know when those are ready. And if you're in Portland, don't forget that I will be participating in the Come Play Portland event on November 7, where we will be making ornaments together and doing other fun things. And I'm also pleased to be teaching them at Bolt Fabric Boutique in a two-night class, November 9 and 16. More information about that is here. I can't wait to make these with people!

Right now, I can't wait to clean the house and get some groceries and make some dinner and then, of course, burrow under that poufy duvet with my TiVo clicker and my floppy puppers and nowhere to go and nothing to do for a bit. Doesn't it sound great??? Can't wait!

OMG! IGP!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Weensy taters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How should we prepare them????????????????????????????????????????

Fall Things

Thank you so very much for all of the ornament kit orders!!! Your enthusiasm is so precious to me, and to Andy, and to Clover Meadow, who loves nothing more than to lay on the floor with her head on his feet while he winds yarn into bundles or cuts rick-rack. A few feet away, I'm working on the new kit pattern while he assembles (and in answer to a few questions that came in this week, yes, patterns for both kits will be available as downloadable PDFs after we get all of these kits made and shipped in October). Outside, through our big open windows, we hear the rustle and ping of hundreds of acorns falling from the huge oak trees across the street. I think one falls about every minute or so. It's a nice little work environment, I must say.

I sat in the backyard and took some pictures from my Adirondack chair the other evening. The yard is very nasty now, overgrown, weedy, with smashed and rotten plums all over the ground and spider webs — huge, almost-invisible spiderwebs — laced between any two things, usually right across doorways. Yesterday I stepped  quickly out the back door without doing my usual reconnaissance (with my Chinese broom held in front of me, thwapping freely at all potential webby areas), and immediately walked into a big one, saw the big fat-butted spider that had been sitting in it shoot [smartly] off to the side and disappear as I flailed around in a panic and then spent five minutes pawing at my head and spitting web out of my mouth while doing the panic-jig (pick up feet quickly while turning in a circle and smacking yourself repeatedly and making worried-kitten noises). Eventually I was able to pick the half-eaten carpenter-looking ant out of my hair — I saw it and got so freaked out I whipped that thing across the yard as if it were a grenade and pulled a little muscle in my shoulder, then did a whole-body shiver from head to toe. It was quite a performance, I must say. I called it "Autumn in Oregon: Not for Arachnophobes." I'm sorry you missed it.

I am getting a late start today. I almost always wake up around 5:30 or 6 a.m. But last night I couldn't sleep so I woke up at 1:50 and didn't get back to sleep until 5:30. Which is about when Andy and Clover woke up and Clover ran across the bed straight for my face with her big, cold nose. I grumbled at them and they bounded away and bounced downstairs and I slept until 9, which is . . . I never do that. The day's half over now already!

From 1:50 to 5:30 a.m., I was reading Julia Child's My Life in France, which I couldn't put down. It's about book writing and book publishing as much as it is about France. She is so cool. What a cool lady. I treated myself to a little shopping spree at Powell's the other day and have a new stack of books on my nightstand. I must put my new book list together. I have lots of craft books to mention, too. So many beautiful books these days.

We have a fun but busy weekend around here. Farmer's market for sure. We'll get to the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest, and later go to a wedding (I haven't been to a wedding in ages.) And then on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m., Portland crafty ladies Susan Beal and Diane Gilleland and I will be at the Hollywood Public Library giving a panel discussion on our experiences writing craft books.

This is part of the Writers Talking series, and I think it's going to be really interesting. The three of us had breakfast here yesterday and talked for four hours straight, but I promise we saved some good stuff for you! We'll give you the skinny. For more local author fun, Amy Karol will be at Powell's on Burnside on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. with her new book Bend the Rules with Fabric, and you know she'll have cool stuff to show and tell 'cause that's how she rolls.

Heat Wave

Ah, the heat. They say 107 today. Hottest in fifty years. Portland's not built for it. Firstly, and worstly, the craziest public pool system I've ever seen in my life. At Sellwood Pool, for instance, you can swim from 1:00 to 2:30, then they kick you out and you have to completely exit the pool area with all of your stuff in tow, get back in line (and there are already fifty people standing in line by the time you get out there), pay again, and come back in at 2:40 to swim until 4:10. Wilson Pool lets you stay all day, but I think it's the only outdoor one that lets you do that (don't quote me). But I feel sorry for the kids around here in the summer. They don't know what it's like to ride your bike to the pool, with a towel and a book in your bike basket, and stay from morning until dinnertime with nothing but a frozen Snickers to tide you over.

My neighbor brought over a pitcher of iced tea the other day. I think I'll bring her one back today. My sister-in-law left a box of peppermint tea here a few weeks ago when she was visiting. That sounds perfect for 107 degrees.

8:12 a.m.

Evidence of coffee.

Sometimes I leave it unmade. Sometimes I need to know that it's been made.

My first attempt at fair isle. I think it's pretty good.

New nightie.

Guest room.

Will be in use tomorrow.

Birthday Weekend

On Thursday afternoon, I baked a chocolate cake for Andy.

I baked the same one a couple of years ago. But it's a good one. He wouldn't mind.

We picked up his folks at the airport and then headed out to the ballpark for the evening.

Andy, his dad, and his mom's hair. I love this picture.

Burgers, beer, baseball. And the weather was just perfect.

After the game: over the bridge, then home.

On Friday (his actual birthday), we all headed to the piney woods with a picnic lunch.

Nothing like eating a layer cake in the woods.

We put layers of quilts on the soft bed of pine needles and napped and read for hours while Andy and his dad tossed a football down by the water.

This was my view, when I wasn't watching the lazy river.

Or looking up into the trees above.

That night, we had dinner with my mom at Nostrana. You should go here. Get the appetizer with the melty cheese and the mushrooms. I don't know what it's called. But OMG.

Saturday morning, we headed downtown to the farmer's market.

Don't you love that there are farmers' markets downtown, in the middle of the hustling-bustling city?

I haven't done any market posts yet. To be honest, we've been going to the PSU market every weekend since the end of March, but I just keep forgetting to bring my camera. No dogs this year, either. Less fun for us, but I can understand. No one wants to see toddlers getting clotheslined by dog leashes in the chaos, and I've seen a few. I miss Clover Meadowhoney there, though. (She's so low, her leash just trips ya, right at the shins.)

We got shrimp, creme fraiche, olive bread, chive cream-cheese, potato bread, garlic, onions, and gorgeous lettuce. That place is so awesome.We also went to Powell's and Saturday Market.

Andy's mom told me about a dessert she'd had in Italy that was made of limoncello and frozen whipped cream. So we decided to try making limoncello ice cream.

I used this recipe for vanilla custard ice cream, and just added two tablespoons of limoncello. Probably could've added a little more. But I wasn't sure.

Here's an ad for limoncello.

Kidding. It's our backyard table, ready to serve up some of Andy's grilled shrimp, which I will give you a recipe for this week (along with the book list, and pillow-patch info — I just haven't had the time to put it all together yet).

Andy got a fountain for his birthday which I'm he's really excited about. We he just has to set it up.

Roses, lamb's ear, tomato. Dill.

Limoncello ice cream, in evening light. I think it went well with my lemoncello quilt, you know? Later we watched Under the Tuscan Sun, where they drink limoncello in Portofino. [I didn't know "limoncello" was spelled with an "I" until today. Oops :-).]

It was a wonderful weekend. Boy did I pick the right family to marry into.

A Rose City Veggie Garden: May 27, 2009

I planted my little back-yard garden just a bit over a month ago now, around April 24. Now, at the end of May, things are looking green, fat, and happy, if a bit slug-munched [contented sigh.]

My garden, for the most part, is a little square outside the back door, under the kitchen window. There's a pink climbing rose called 'Eden' that's in bloom now, above the door. It graces the corner of the square, and has been there for six or seven years now. I think it's one of the sweetest, most adorable roses, and grows with very little fuss.

In the garden, I have peas, garlic, a bean, leeks, broccoli, cabbages, lettuce, spinach, and an onion. This weekend I got a pumpkin start (not a great pumpkin [remember that?], just a regular-type pumpkin) and a butternut squash, to replace the spinach, which is about done. Around the border, I've planted about a dozen lily-pad-leafed nasturtiums, and their floaty stems spill out onto the sidewalk. The blossoms top a salad with pure sunshine.

The bluish-green of the broccoli is the prettiest color in the world. Near that cabbage-green and against the dark soil, the color is deep and cool. The stems sturdily make their ways up, up. I can hardly wait for the bouquet of tiny florets. Its a miracle. You feel that way, watching things try.

The cabbage moths are making eyelet of my Napa cabbage. I think I was supposed to put a collar around the little cabbages, but I didn't. I'll learn. The hard way, but oh well.

This is an organic garden, with soil sweetened by compost, fed with a bit of organic fertilizer before planting. I watered in some beneficial nematodes that my mom got for me, but otherwise, nothing. It is what it is, at least this year, as I learn how to grow things.

Well, hallo kitters. You've come to keep me company. Thank you.

I took the little patch of hay-mulch out very soon after it went in. It quickly turned into a a really gross mat of scuz [wistful sigh].

I still wish I had the hay. And a sprightly dapple-gray Connemara pony named Musette [wistful double-sigh].

But a little spot of country green'll do.

*

So that's the willow-edged garden.

*

Over toward the back, there are the containers, in the sun.

Here we have all the ubiquitous herbs, along with a lot of basil, a few tomatoes, a bit more lettuce, four potatoes, and two pots of strawberries.

Here is a potato!!!!!

This is a cape mallow called 'Very Cranberry.' I LOVE THIS THING.

Strawberries:

Jeesh. They're pretty.

Oh. It's another kitters. Sleeping beauty.

 

Mikasa "Floribunda"

Dear friends Kim and Dwight came for dinner on Friday and I got to use my new Goodwill dishes. And my Goodwill tablecloth and Goodwill napkins. (Glasses from Crate and Barrel, Smith and Hawken, and Cost Plus several years ago; placemat from Ikea, not too long ago.)

Unfortunately all new dish purchases, no matter how pretty or inexpensive, result in this conversation with Goodwill-shopping mate (i.e.: Andy Paulson):

Me [excitedly]: "Look! Awesomeness!"
Him [soberly]: "Where are you going to keep those?"
Me [slightly deflated]: "Um, I don't know. I'll find someplace."
Him [looking over tops of his eyeglasses]: "Not back in the box marked 'To Goodwill' in about two weeks?"
Me [determined]: "No, no, no."
Him [empirically]: "Okay, 'cause I know you pretty well."
Me [empirically]: "I know. Darn it."

Man. Can't get away with anything around here.

P.S. Ten points if you can guess what that terra cotta thing is.

Our First Garden

Andy, on our Montana homestead, 1996.

Did I mention it is a bit arid there in the summer? Yipes.