Sweet Sweet Summer Days

Today I went out into the yard, cut a few blooms, put them in a couple of vases with some polished river rocks and set them in the kitchen windows. It took about a minute and a half of my time but it has brought with it a light and lovely floral scent into our home and has made me smile each and every time I've walked by them.  

Speaking of smiling, I'm spending my weekend with this little guy. He makes my heart swell. I had originally decided on the picture on the left to post but then didn't see the harm in also including the one with his tongue out. Too funny.

Indulgent Days of Summer

The last couple of days have been hugely indulgent for me. Yesterday I had my hair done, I had Dimitri's for dinner and attended a jewelry class where I made a bracelet and earrings. Today I had an hour long massage and then had a mountain of chicken, vegetables and jasmine rice with a coconut milk and curry sauce for dinner and organic blueberries and whipped cream for dessert. I've also been ingesting blended coffee drinks with whipped cream like they are the elixir of life. I am really developing a talent for drinking whipped cream through a straw. So good. So so good.

I guess I shouldn't really describe all of this as indulgence. Where I volunteer we talk about self-care and how when you are dealing with difficult topics and devoting a lot of time to volunteer work you have to remember to do nice things for yourself, do things you enjoy and take time to relax to avoid burnout. I'm getting really good at it.

Onesies for Averie

I finished up stenciling these onesies for my new little cousin Averie and got them in the mail this weekend. I got the stencils for the chimpanzee and for the little character, Totoro from the website stencilry.org and the idea for the cat's eye glasses onesie from Ashley Ann over at Under the Sycamore. I got the onesies from Joe Fresh for 3 for $10. I also sent a little pewter pendant that I picked up at Aitkens Pewter for Averie's mom. I like having a gift to give to a new mom that isn't a baby item but something just for her. I hope she likes it.

Welcome little Averie!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

In keeping with the baking theme, tonight I baked cupcakes. I use the word "baking" loosely since I made them from a mix! They are still so delicious though. I obviously will not be including a recipe but I'll pass on a little tip: substitute the water with coffee when making chocolate cake. Happy Friday!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made up a batch of chocolate chip cookies last night. I'm all about easy recipes and this one doesn't get much easier. Looks like I'm officially on a baking kick.

Recipe

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 egg

1 cup plus 2 T. flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

chocolate chips

1/2 tsp. salt

Roll into balls. Bake @ 325 degrees for about six minutes or until barely turning brown.

Chimpanzee Onesie

I am currently making a onesie version of this chimpanzee T-shirt I made for Dave a few years ago. My cousin (who always loved all things monkey) just had a little one and I'm doing up a little package to send off to her. As much as I love working away on house projects, it is SO refreshing to work on something unrelated.

Rhetorical question of the day: Is it bad that I use my laptop screen as a light box for tracing?

Horse People: Part One - A Whole Different Breed

When I was a little girl, on my elementary school playground there were a small group of girls and every recess and every lunch every day they would play horses. They would flop their long hair to one side and trot around the billy goat bridge in circles; their right legs shimmying ahead as though it were their lead leg, neighing and whinnying in their new pink spring splash suits. I thought they were so weird. It was well known that they all either had horses or horseback rode. They were horse people.

We moved into the house my parents still live in the week I turned five. There was a large fenced in field across from it then and horses would pasture there for the summer. Every day over summer break we would run across the road and stand on the gate as it swayed back and forth, holding our hands out to display carrots and apples; our thumbs stretched backward, protecting them from being bitten like our mother had warned us to. I loved feeding the horses but was also very afraid of them. I remember a few occasions where I had the opportunity to enter the field with the woman who owned it and I was sure that the horses would trample me.

Later on in elementary school, my best friend's mom would bring us to the stable where she boarded her horse Maidy and would get us to help her lead the horses here and there. She would bark commands to us in a way that assumed we knew what we were doing. I can remember very vividly walking sideways so that I could watch their legs at all times to prevent being stepped on and crushed. It was around this time that I found out that my mother had had a horse too. I had always known that she loved horses. She had horse pins and earrings and pendants in her jewelry box, she had carved horse book ends in the chest of collectibles and keepsakes, and she always jumped at the chance to work at the annual horse show down the road. I had always made a correlation between horses and money and I don't think that anyone ever had to make the connection for me. I guess it was just obvious to me that caring for such a large animal would have to be expensive. It was for this reason that I was very surprised to find out that my mom had had a horse named Shannon who was killed when they were riding alongside a dirt road when they were struck by a drunk driver.

I would never have considered myself a horse person. My limited experience with them had ignited an intense curiosity but without any access to them, and some lingering fears, my curiosity would go unexplored until I was an adult. Throughout all of these experiences and others, I would notice one theme. People who were around horses any amount seemed to be obsessed with them. And not like one gets about just any sport or interest; they would go absolutely insane about them. Just like the girls on the playground, they were horse people. A whole different breed.

Me, at about 4 years old

Mom and Shannon, 1972

Bread Pudding

I've been craving the bread pudding my mom used to make when we were kids lately. I called her tonight for the recipe and stuck one in the oven (it took about 3 minutes to prepare and 30 minutes to bake). I love how when I call my mom for a recipe she can usually just call it out off the top of her head. Apparently it was my dad's mom that showed her how to make it.

Recipe

Butter six slices of bread, stack and cut stack into cubes. In separate bowl combine 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix bread pieces and mixture together, add cinnamon to taste. Place in greased casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

You can also add fruit, nuts, coconut, etc. I like mine plain. So good.

Bamboo Chairs: The Reveal

Remember those bamboo chairs I talked about awhile ago? 

They were in pretty rough shape. The foam in the seats had all decomposed and would fall out and make an orange mess (you can actually see some foam dust on the floor if you look closely), there were stickers on them, they were marked up, and the ultra glossy finish on the bamboo was a little dated. Not anymore though...

I'm not one for process pictures (I tend to just scroll through them to see the finished project and just assume everyone is like that) but here's basically what I did:

-removed the seats which were attached with two finish nails and pulled the old vinyl and foam off of them (after removing the two hundred tiny upholstery nails in each seat)

-gave each chair a quick sanding to rough up the clear coat

-two coats of primer and two coats of semi-gloss white paint

-reupholstered the existing wooden seats with springs with 2 inch foam, heavy batting and upholstery fabric (The fella came to the fabric store with me and helped me pick out a fabric that we could both live with. He was very patient and very cute with the selection process)

-reattached seats

I found out that my sister didn't get them from a yard sale as I'd originally thought; she got them from my parent's best friends and they'd been passed on from there. I'm looking forward to sending her an after picture to see what she thinks. She probably has no idea that the chairs are even still kicking.  I'm sure she'll be happy to know that they will find a new home in our sunroom and will be a comfy (and pretty) place to rest. 

Renovation and Resolution

Today I got to spend part of the holiday with my dad working away on the kitchen. I have to say things have slowed down considerably what with some of the hot weather we've had and probably partly due to renovation burnout but I'm happy to report that we're back at it and ready to finish things up. Today we cut the butcher block countertops, sanded the edges and put them into place and dry-fitted the farmhouse sink. We did a few other things but those were the noteworthy. Can't wait to post a completely finished picture. Come to think of it, I've posted a few "before" photos of different projects and I think it's about time to get to some "after"s. 

Dad has been taking pictures throughout their renovations to email to my sister and a few of their best friends who are out-of-province. He usually emails them to me as well and that's how they find their way onto my blog. One of my favourite things about the pictures he takes (aside from kitchen progress!) is the camera he takes them with; one of the first point and shoot digital cameras to enter the market. Way back when, my mom decided she wanted a digital camera and my dad bought her one. It was 1.3 megapixels with 8 megabytes of memory. And it's still kicking. And they still use it. And I have to say, it still takes a pretty okay picture. My how technology changes rapidly.