I love my friends.
Birthday weekend (yes, it was a whole weekend) was amazing! It started off with a sweet lunch and cake and flowers with my office on Friday. Then Eric created the most beautiful spread of wine, cheese, and desserts for a party on Saturday night. I chose a dense, flourless chocolate cake with peanut butter icing; he baked it perfectly. You’d think a cake like that would be the centerpiece, but there was a whole display of bread and butter radishes. Three different varieties. With bread. And butter. And four different kinds of salt. I could eat radishes all day and all night, they make me so happy!
Sunday was
for coffee, farmers market, dumplings and bubble tea for lunch, and then a
drive to an adorable old schoolhouse where we spent the night. When I say “old”
I mean 150 years old. That’s way old! Eric cooked up what we had found at the
farmers market that morning while I cozied up in front of the fireplace with a
glass of champagne and The New Yorker. Is there a better way to spend a rainy birthday? No, no there's not.
We spent
Monday exploring Charlottesville, VA. Two coffee shops, two vintage stores, one
yarn store, three used book stores, and a delicious sushi dinner later, and I
can confidently say that this was one of the best weekends and best birthdays
ever.
What a perfect way to kick off a year in which I want to accomplish so so so much!
Thirty
Things to do While I’m Thirty
1:: Take
one photo every day 2::Crochet pretty cowls 3::Alpahbet swap 4::Eat breakfast
with Eric on weekdays 5::sew pretty headbands 6:: read 50 books more
7::Cherry Blossom 10-miler 8::Put stuff in my etsy shop 9::Sell at at least one
craft fair 10::Photo shoot at Palace of Wonders 11::New Yorker covers project
12::Sew a skirt 13::NYC inspiration trip 14::Paint recipe art 15::(Re-)Learn
calligraphy 16::Become more comfortable with Illustrator 17::Make at least one
batch of macarons 18::Attend some combination of 5 yoga and/or dance classes
19::Send a letter or card once a week 20::Find vintage typewriter, suitcases,
record player, polaroid, and/or sewing machine 21::Print & frame 4 photos
each month 22::Make 6 mix CDs 23::Blog at least 10 times per month 24::Learn 5
new bookbinding methods 25::Seriously consider a new tattoo 26::Read and use
The Printmaker’s Bible 27::Learn how to roast a chicken the way Eric does it
28::Collect printing blocks and type 29::Make notecards to keep on hand
30::Send holiday cards
We’ve been
at our little house on Rosedale for a little over two months now and we couldn’t
love it more. Well, maybe if we had a dishwasher, but otherwise it’s
perfection. When we first considered this neighborhood over the summer we
realized we might see our friends a bit less frequently since it’s a bit out of
the way. It was the most difficult part of the decision when we found a spot we
loved.
In the
end, we’ve seen our friends so much more in the new place. With lots of room
for cooking and entertaining and with exciting nightlife just a couple blocks
away, this house has hosted more friends and family in two months than our last
apartment had in three years.
Here’s to
even more ridiculous times with loved ones in the new year and beyond.
I’m going
back in time a bit with this one, but on Christmas Day Eric made me smile so
much. First, he got me a gift certificate for Style School, an online crafting
class I am so excited to start (January 10 – yay!). He also gave me a special
little tea box. He made it himself with a cardboard box he found in our house,
an old shirt of his, and many, many staples. He traced some printed letters
from one of my favorite typefaces (awesome, right?). He made the “M” by joining
2 “A”s and the “I” by joining 2 “T”s. He knows how much handmade gifts mean to
me and went out on a limb putting this present together for me. I loved it!
Inside he
placed a selection of teas (from my own tea stash in the cupboard – haha) and a
few band-aids. When I asked him why the band-aids, he explained that he used an
awful lot of staples and he wasn’t sure if they might cause injury. He is a
keeper. And so is my adorable tea box. Thanks, honey!
After baking
cookies, making caramels, and drinking hot chocolate for 10 days in a row, and
after spending the last few days with a house full of family and many visits
with friends, today was a little more difficult than planned. At least I got to
put it off for a few hours because my parents’ 8am flight was canceled and
rescheduled for 3pm. We went on a long family walk with the dog and stopped
along the way for pastries and coffee.
Then, on a
stroll through Eastern Market, I finally caught up with the mysterious
letterpress man. I picked up a few beauties that will be perfect for printing Valentines
(thanks, Dad!). Wooden case upon wooden case of type will keep me coming back
every once in a while. Or maybe every week.
Eric and I
had a wonderful Christmas. We had snow, our families came to visit, we were
dogsitting the sweetest pup, and we had many, many, many hours together in the
kitchen. Also, we may have split a bottle of champagne after everyone else was asleep one night. And then 2009 was almost over. My life this year has been filled with
so many amazing people and events and I have lots of reasons to believe 2010
will be just as good, maybe even better.
I’ve been
a bit absent here. While all the crafting and letterpress this fall were fun
I’m a law school graduate with law school-sized debt. So I’ve been job
searching. Imagine: you went to law school, you don’t want to be a lawyer, you
want a position of which there are only so many in your city, you don’t want to
move, and the economy is bad, particularly for folks with fancy degrees who don't want to use their fancy degrees. Oh, and you try to keep negativity out of your blog. You can see the dilemma, right?
The story
has a happy ending. My non-crafty part-time job recently turned into my full-time dream
job, or at least the perfect first step to my full-time dream job. I will use
my law degree, though not to practice law, my coworkers are beyond fabulous,
and I get to travel and work with students. After this post, I probably won’t
write much about that job on the blog. You come here for letterpress and mix
cds, right? Who am I to bore you with tales of my new nine-to-five life? Come
back for more letterpress, crafty, kitty, music posts over the next few days
and into the new year. Maybe I’ll even start reviewing some of those books I’ve
been reading.
For now, I
am beyond thrilled to start a new job in January and to leap into 2010. And
also to enjoy the next 7 days of sleeping in; I’ve got a bit of a Christmas
hangover.
As party
favors for Sunday’s birthday brunch I made a few mix cds for friends to take
home. I’ve loved the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ song Home for the
last couple months. And since we moved to a new home recently, I decided to
make a whole mix based on the theme of home. I used this sweet new font I found
and then handwrote some of the lyrics from the edward sharpe song. Then I copied
the whole thing onto kraft paper and attached to a cd sleeve. So easy and fun! If you
want your own copy, click on the song titles to connect to the song on iTunes.
Enjoy!
home | edward sharpe & the magnetic
zeros
via
chicago |
wilco
when
they fight, they fight | the generationals
wasp
nest | the
national
come
on home |
honeyhoney
i
feel like going home | yo la tengo
i’ll
take us home |
matt & kim
oklahoma | bishop allen
let
me go home |
camera obscura
to
wild homes |
the new pornographers
where
is home? |
bloc party
yankee
bayonet (i will be home then) | the decemberists
eviction
party |
darlings
basic
space | the xx
to
go home | m.
ward
I hope you
all had a nice weekend. We got to celebrate Eric’s birthday. So fun! Eric spent all day on Saturday building a bench - for real. He's never done anything like that before, and it was perfect! I stayed
up super late on Saturday night (Sunday morning, actually) baking his requested
brownie cake with mocha ganache. And got up way early on Sunday to prepare our
home for almost 20 guests. Four of whom were held up by Eric's fabulous bench. That’s the biggest party we’ve hosted in our home in
a long time. And it was so great to be able to do that again. We served
biscuits and gravy and apple muffins, all from scratch, with the aforementioned
time-intensive cake for dessert (also from scratch). Friends and neighbors and classmates joined us.
Today,
Eric took the day off to come to my swearing in ceremony. We got dressed up,
went to the courthouse, and followed up the ceremony with a stop at one of our
favorite coffee shops before a long walk home. I started packaging things for
this weekend’s craft fair and then we went out for mussels (for the second day
in a row). Now I’m back at craft fair prep, probably until the wee hours of the
morning.
When I was
single I shared an apartment with my friend, Jeff, for a while. It was one of
the most fun living situations. We lived in a fabulous location, smack dab in
the middle of our respective favorite bars. We hosted parties and dinners and
had lots of guests stop by. I had my own bathroom and I decorated in outrageous
shades of pink. A hot pink bath mat, a pink and purple shower curtain with a
black cat on it, and these prints from Ikea on the wall.
We got our
kitchen up and running this weekend. There were lots of warm delicious smells
wafting around the new house. Eric cooked a pork shoulder in the crockpot on
Thursday and a saag paneer (with fresh cheese) on Sunday while I worked on some handmade gifts. I am a lucky woman!
We also got the washer and dryer up and running: Eric is a lucky man. He has
piles and piles of clean socks now :)
Did you
have a relaxing weekend?
Eric
brought these four half walnut shells to me while I was working on stuff
upstairs today. “They cracked so perfectly in half, and I’m sure you could find
something to do with them.” Even after I refused to go to the bar
with him to watch the football game (we decided to go tv-less at the new
house). So sweet.
So I lied
in that last post. We spent all of this past weekend packing, but we didn’t
wait until next weekend to move. We moved boxes and furniture and cats all
weekend, and when we moved the bed and the dining room table late on Sunday
afternoon, we knew we had a new home.
We adore
our new neighborhood and the new house. Pony, kitty #2, has adjusted quite well
and has been exploring. She even helped me make gift tags today. Ann Taylor,
however, is taking a bit longer to call this house her home. Her new favorite
activity is finding the best hiding place and because of the ever-moving boxes,
she’s decided that’s the spot under the quilt on our bed.
Speaking
of our bed, we couldn’t get our box spring up the narrow staircase into the
bedroom so we’re sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And I kind of love it.
It’s like we’re camping every night, but it’s warm and comfortable.
Mostly
I’ve been unpacking, trying to remember where we packed the essentials. And
working hard to finish a few projects. I should be back online at the house
tomorrow so blogging will resume more regularly. Enjoy the photos of my new
favorite room in progress.
are you excited about halloween? i am! i am especially glad that holidays are not sneaking up on me this year. we already have christmas plans. we know where we’ll be for thanksgiving. and my halloween costume is almost ready. the photo below is a hint about the costume. can you guess who i'll be?
today was
an excellent mail day. my 1 canoe 2 calendar arrived (didn’t i say i would do
some calendar shopping over the weekend?). and i got the neatest package from
vero. vero is a friend from law school and similarly exploring the i-don’t-want-to-be-a-lawyer
path. she is a brand new cheesemonger at the cellar in southern california and
blogging about it. i love reading about her cheese adventures!
today, i
got a package full of cheese stickers from her. i was thinking about what i
could do with the stickers since they deserve an amazing project, and i was
reminded of a passage i read earlier today. in her fearful symmetry, two of the
main characters are twins who have used an old bird cage full of
plastic crucifixes sitting on top of a table plastered with hello kitty
stickers to decorate an otherwise entirely white room. isn’t that a striking picture
to imagine? maybe i can do something similarly strange with the cheese
stickers.
oh, and
here’s a lovely pocketbook, also from vero. she found it in a vintage shop and
gave it to me as a graduation present this spring. i love it! thank you, vero!
did i
mention there were also apples at the pumpkin patch? there were. on monday night
i chopped up an apple, split the pieces between 2 ramekins, sprinkled some
brown sugar and butter on the top and then: instant apple crisp. last night, i wanted
more. despite a sagging shelf full of wonderful cookbooks and access to
millions of internet recipes, I decided to wing it.
i think i'm
going to try this approach to cooking more often. it was so rewarding to have a
delicious apple crisp that was entirely my own creation. i can’t really
remember amounts or steps followed but i know i used three apples, butter, cinnamon,
brown sugar, dried cranberries, honey, a spoonful of apple cider (turned out to
be unnecessary*), and some flour to hold the crisp together.
yay for a
three-day weekend! ours was filled with lots of double dates. we had pizza at
red rocks with kara & dan on friday night. after my day at the studio for
the letterpress workshop on saturday, eric and I caught up with jeff &
jonine for college basketball, the office wedding, and pizza & gelato.
sunday was a drive to pumpkin
patches and vineyards in virginia with tim & annabel for some frolicking and wine tasting.
on monday,
it was just the two of us, carving pumpkins. It got pretty chilly out so we
converted our living room into a carving workshop. i found a few free patterns
online from pumpkin glow, including a unicorn. eric used a pattern from the
carving tool kits we picked up at the drug store. it was so much fun to have a
silly project that we could work on together.
now it’s
already tuesday. time to plan next weekend’s festivities!
i'm looking
forward to this weekend. i asked eric for a pumpkin carving apple cider
date soon so i’m hoping that’s part of our weekend. eric doesn’t have to
work on monday. yay! and we have a pizza double date with good friends tonight.
camping in
west virginia a few weeks ago
what's
your weekend agenda? i hope it’s full of fall fantastic-ness!
she didn’t
like it when I was studying for the bar. I think the stress level in our house
really affected her. and she really didn’t like it when we took off for nyc and
maine for 10 days or france for 7 days. so summer wasn’t really her favorite
time of this year. now that’s it’s fall and we’re settling into a more normal
routine, she’s back to her old lovable ways. I find it so interesting that pets, even an independent
animal like a cat, are so affected by what is going on in their people’s lives.
we’ve been
on the dc wedding circuit. two weekends, two weddings, two historical mansions.
it's been lovely. this past weekend our friends, tim & annabel, tied the
knot. lots of our friends came to town for the occasion and it was great fun to
have them all in our city.
i was a reader in their wedding, and as a thank you (though i was so honored to be a part of the wedding and had so much fun, i should be thanking them) they gave me this book. which has been on my wish list since it was published last december. did i mention that they’re very dear friends and know me very well?
also, i'm
on flickr now. check it out!
me & Kara celebrating at Galaxy Hut
I survived the bar. I won't know if I passed until November so for now, I'm imagining not ever having to take it again.
me, Eric, Jessie, & Gregg in New York
I've been celebrating for most of the time since the exam was over. We had a couple fun nights out with friends before heading to New York for a fabulous weekend, followed by a week in Maine. We returned to DC and celebrated our three-year anniversary and both worked like crazy for the last five days. And now the real celebration begins.
Jen, Eric, Jenny, and Walt walking in Brooklyn
Today, we depart for a week in France. I promise more coffee shop reviews and greeting cards and invitations and cd mixes when I return. For now, bon voyage!!
Eric and me eating ice cream after spending a day on the river
