Every season has its odors, good or bad, but I think I smell more in the late spring/early summer. My sniffer is fully operational this time of year. Here are ten things I never get tired of smelling. And these are not really seasonal, but this is my blog so I can be oddball and just throw things out there. Right? OK, here we go: Coffee: Beans and grounds, brewed and espresso'ed (is that a word? surely not), spent and ready for the garden. It's all the best. Mint leaves: I am not particular on the kind. Chocolate Mint? Yes.... Continue reading

I made it. It's actually spelled with a ^ in there somewhere but I am too lazy to figure out how to get special characters in here, so just imagine it in your mind. Why make this stuff? Well, it is not the same as sour cream and if you come across a recipe that calls for creme fraiche, there is no substitute. The flavor is more subtle than sour cream and I am sure the foodies of world could expound on this fully. I have read it described as "nutty." Mm-kay. Sure. I will say, it is delicious. Making... Continue reading

The quickest post ever to say......i am back. From a loooooooong break. Why? Who knows. I'll write something up for sharing soon. Continue reading

I added a Like button to the left side of the blog. My intention is to provide another avenue for anyone who might want to read new posts to access them. Some people have an aversion to feed readers. The theory goes that if you "like" this, then the posts (or at least links to them) would show up in your News Feed on Facebook. (You can already get them from Twitter. Sometimes. I think.). However, I think there is one more step I need to take to share via Facebook and I am trying to avoid it...as it involves... Continue reading

One way would be to NOT work all weekend, unless the work involves dirt, fabric, yarn, or screaming outside. There is something about the expression on Soren's face and the way his foot is outstretched that sums up a lot of how I am operating these days. He looks like he is sliding into home plate, maybe, or holding on for dear life while careening around a corner in a sports car just in time to avoid....an explosion? A cliff? A very big rock? And he's there with his sister sitting serenely at his side in a hand-me-down dance recital... Continue reading

Yes, my sentiments exactly. I could not get a pic with both kids, so here it is, posing with each child. And again: I will post some final pics after I quilt it. Strictly close up stuff. Enjoy your weekend! Continue reading

First of all, I do not get the whole game of writing titles that might pique someone's interest out there on the interwebs. If I were that interested in attracting traffic, I'd just use naughty* titles, and watch my stats go up. So, yeah, lame title, and no pictures, either. This post is a loser from all angles. BUT. I just had to share that I got the quilt top done. Now, in the next 3 weeks I just have to sandwich, baste, quilt, and bind it. Then complete about 40 tasks related to a documentation release. And keep another... Continue reading

Juliet Lapidos on Slate posted an entry with a link to a list of words circled in David Foster Wallace's dictionary. I have to admit, there was some fun in analyzing the choices. Some of the words he seemed to choose for their brazen obscurity, but a lot of them are not all that obscure, such as "Aquavit" or "apathetic". And I remember Michael Chabon (I think it was him) talking about how sometimes when you are writing you are looking for word with a certain rhythm, and I think we all do that, whether we know it or not.... Continue reading

The consistency, both in quality and regularity, of my posts has diminished. (Boy, that sounds like I am talking about something else altogether.) I believe I've already blamed my time commitments and so forth. I am not immune to the wonders of spring, however, and am happy to report that my sinuses are much happier, which freed me to bring a bit of the good stuff indoors. I promise to share fun things soon (and not pictures taken with my camera phone, like the one above). I am up against multiple deadlines, but May is looking good. Continue reading

See what's become of me. My sister asked me over the weekend if my readers (as in, her), would ever find out what happened to the quilt. This is just a quick note to say, one, yes, you will. Two, it's been a perfect storm of busy-ness for me the last few weeks plus sinus infection. I have missed coming here and sharing MORE on a regular basis, and I actually have a few thoughts ready to go, just no pictures and well, they need editing. But. I have three different parts of my life converging in a way that... Continue reading

So when I left off, I was heading to my son's classroom to walk the kids through the piecing process, and get the pieced squares home so I could sew them. I really intended to take some fun action shots of the kids piecing their squares, but that did not happen. It was just too busy for me to take a break for pictures. I had to man the distribution station and make sure the kids were getting the right number of pieces of the right shades. In descending order of size, here are some quilt numbers: Total estimated finished... Continue reading

I was really making it a goal to post a few times a week, but my cold/allergies/phlegm thing was getting me down and I neglected everything: blogging, running, yoga, gardening, sewing, etc. I do this every year, get a cold when allergies kick in, so it's a lovely snot and cough fest. But once the headache cleared, I was feeling happy again because SPRING is here. All the pollen in the world can't ruin my love of spring. You know, I love fall, too, which is the other time of year I get allergies. Hmm, coincidence? Look at that yellow... Continue reading

It all adds up to the same thing. The weather is lovely here today, and my son has the day off from school, but I feel not so hot. Did not sleep well last night. Today would have been a day to post something, but I am going to take it easy and sort Legos. It is kind of fun, actually. Mindless organizing I can handle. Happy Friday and weekend and (soon) first day of Spring! Yay! Continue reading

Reading-wise, I am not stuck in the 18th century, and with the exception of novels in the pure romance genre, I like to read all kinds of books. For the most part, I stick with fiction, and within fiction, mostly literary fiction. I have also been known to read Harry Potter, the crazy conspiracy-secret society laden Dan Brown novels, and some uncategorizable spec-fic from Neal Stephenson. I do like me some Jane Austen, too. But I almost didn't. When I was in college, I took a class called "The Rise of the English Novel", which a friend of a friend... Continue reading

What do you call something that's new but needed a fix up? I bought this sweater at a local boutique's sidewalk sale for $10, down from some ridiculous price like $100. Seriously. There was a small hole in one of the sleeves, so I patched it up and was happy with it for a time. The neckband, however, was unforgivably floppy. So it hung in the closet, an unworn bargain, until I finally got over the idea that one day it would suddenly improve and decided to try fixing it. First, the style of the sweater was inside-out. Meaning, all... Continue reading

Like many women, my body measurements don't exactly match the standard measurements of sewing patterns. Some parts of my body are 16, some 10 or 12, etc. You know what I mean. I have always cut to my largest measurements, rather than attempt to adjust the patterns themselves. But, it seems to me that the "I'll just figure it out in the sewing" is the rough equivalent of some bad software development processes I'll refrain from describing for fear of boring you, and because I am about to start a really big sewing project, I want to practice making the... Continue reading

Isn't that what people talk about when they don't have anything else to talk about? I actually do have a post in the hopper but am waiting for something to arrive so I can take a picture of it for sharing. And I guess I did post something already, but for some reason feel the need to post again about the weather. I live in Seattle. We discuss the weather here. A lot. I imagine in places like SoCal or Florida or AZ that weather talk is pretty limited: "Oh look, it's the sun. Again." Unless you get one of... Continue reading

Remember the pattern tracing post? This was the result of all that tracing: And more pics: Not the best pictures. Ugh. (Honestly, I've been struggling with pictures. I have a pretty nice DSLR, so I SHOULD have much nicer pictures, but getting indoor shots of my crafts.....I don't know. I need to take a class or get a book. When I take pictures outside in the yard, I seem to do OK, but these shots are kind of crappy) I did NOT make the shirts, but I did the freezer paper stencil. Entire outfit design and pattern courtesy of Oliver... Continue reading

I hate weeding. I don't hate ALL weeding; for example, I don't mind tidying up a bed that is largely clean already, where the ground is soft and squishy and the weeds pop out easily. What I really hate weeding is stuff like this: This is a predicament of my own making, as I put the bricks in myself. Sigh. Or, take this brick, turn it into rock, rotate vertically, and then you have my rockery. Which I hate with a burning white hot passion. The installers of mid-century rockeries sit warming themselves in the 10th circle of Hell. And... Continue reading

(the title above is a line taken from one of my favorite kids' book series, Frog and Toad. In this story, Frog gives Toad some seeds so he can start a garden. Toad, in typical Toad fashion, plants the seeds and stands over them, expecting them to pop up immediately. He yells and yells at them until Frog comes running and asks what is going on. Toad expresses frustration that his seeds are not growing. Frog explains to him, with only the patience that Frog has for Toad, that he must let the sun shine on them, and the rain... Continue reading

The great thing about a garden in spring is I can go out, take a few pictures of what has popped out in the last few days, talk about it, share said pictures, and it might come off as having done something. Which I haven't. OK, at some point, I did plant the plants, just nothing recently. I did get out for a decent de-cluttering a few days ago, and anticipate another this weekend. Then the weeding begins. Every year, it gets a tiny bit better, though. Slightly fewer weeds to manage. My final nemesis is the horsetail. THIS is... Continue reading

I honestly don't know how I came across this item. Just one of those typical interweb meanders, one page leading to another, but I found it very interesting. The subject is jealousy among bloggers: who has followers, why no one reads your blog, or comments on your blog, and so forth. It's never occurred to me to be jealous of another writer of any stripe, and this feeling followed me over to blog-writing. So, in the post, the writer is responding to a reader who commented that she is jealous of the writer's traffic and perceived success, to the point... Continue reading