.....after!

Sweet new curtains, how I love you. You make my window so pretty, and now I can undress freely in my room without worrying about giving the whole island a show.

Take THAT, peeping Toms!

(speaking of peeping, how about them peepers!?)

Wow, taking pictures of a window is HARD!

a changing of the guard

I was a lucky girl this weekend and got to go on a bit of a fabric shopping binge with a good friend. Thanks to the low, low prices at Marden's, I stocked up on fabric I'll use for the next few projects... and some that doesn't have a project in mind yet. It will hang out and wait for just the right thing.

Included in this pile of happiness is another flannel sheet for Finn, a skirt and dress for Mama, a pair of tiny corduroy pants, and the project I can't wait to begin - bedroom curtains!

This is the curtain situation in our room right now...long and gauzy, these curtains came with the house, and they're perfectly fine, but for a window facing the road, and very little space in said room, it makes undressing a bit of an adventure, particularly with the lights on at night. Yikes!

So, farewell, curtains. There will be some cute updates to you in the near future!

a sheet.

OH HEY
So I made this sheet.

I got the flannel at Goodwill weeks ago and have been sitting on it until now for this very purpose.
We'd been passed down a bunch of crib sheets, but none of them was flannel, and in Maine in February, you NEED some flannel, even this (super crazy weird) winter. 
The most awesome part? It was easy.
Actually, it's been on Finn's bed now for over a week and he still hasn't wet it yet. I had been washing up to two sheets a day, so I think that means it's got his seal of approval.





 
And can we talk about how awesome his crib is again? Built by his grandfather and his dad, I think it's the perfect showcase for his fancy new bedding.

musings

I've been thinking a bit about why exactly I started this blog. It's because I want more moments like this one - I'm sitting on my couch with lemon buttermilk scones in the oven, a cup of tea in my hand, a knitting project in progress next to me, and jazz on Pandora. I want more simplicity. I want more reality. I want to get out of my head and out of the consumer-driven society I've been a part of for so long.

It's a lot to get a head around at once, so I'm taking baby steps - making lip balm and cloth napkins are good starts, but they're really representative of who I want to be and where I want to go in this life of mine. I want to be more present, more thoughtful, and more engaged.

Its all perfect timing for me to be having this little epiphany because we're thinking about a home - where we want to live and more importantly, HOW. We've looked at a few houses for sale that would be just fine, but nothing is right, you know? The more I think about it, the more clarity I get about my priorities. First, I want LAND. LAND in capital letters - I'm not talking acres and acres - two is fine for me, but I want that space, that breathing room. For gardens, for livestock, for a tree house, a barn or shop...maybe a sauna? Living on this island, desirable land is scarce and often expensive, so I'm hoping that in the next couple of years, just the right piece becomes available. No water view, just a sweet spot where we can build our home.

Home. It's a big deal. Especially when you're starting from scratch. I always thought we'd buy a "fixer-upper". There are so many empty houses available, and we've got the skillz to do it. But the more I think about it, the more the twitchy control-freak side of me gets that maniacal glint in her eyes and starts twirling her fake mustache. Man, I've got plans for this place, but most of all, I want to look around in ten years and see a home with a history - that has been created and shaped by our (as cliche as it sounds) blood, sweat, and tears. I want a home that treads lightly and is a part of its surroundings. One that is efficient, light, and full.

Big ideas, friends. It's what keeps me up at night.

January, check.

So back in December (I think it might have even just been the day after Christmas), I decided that 2012 would be the year I finally make Christmas gifts for people. And not only that, but I would make one a month all year long so that by December, the only thing I'll have to think about (apart from the world ending, of course) is wrapping them up and enjoying the season with my family.

I felt very proud of myself.

So wouldn't you know it that just making the plans doesn't mean it actually happens. Funny how that works - I actually had to MAKE the gifts. So January went by without anything actually happening.
I finally got my rear in gear this month, locating local beeswax to make my first assignment: lip balm (thanks to Amanda @ Soulemama for inspiring me!)

I only made a dozen tins for now, but I've been giving it a test run this week, and I LOVE it - four ingredients (beeswax, honey, coconut oil, and peppermint essential oil), but it's so luscious and smooth I almost want to snack on it.

Amanda listed the ingredients by tablespoon, which is a little tricky to measure when you have a solid like beeswax, so I converted them to grams since I have a kitchen scale, which worked much better for me. Here are the conversions if you feel so inclined:

Peppermint Lip Balm
110 grams of coconut oil
45 grams beeswax
21 grams honey (preferably raw and local!)
30 drops essential oil
Follow the directions here
enjoy!

Next up: hand soap! Thank you, Pinterest, for giving me this great idea that I might even be able to get done by the end of the month, and hence get back on track for my Christmas gifts! I love that site and have even started a "made!" board for all of the stuff that it's inspired me to create already.

I'm always up for new and interesting gifty projects for the rest of the year - if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

an ode to oats.

So anyone who's living in Maine right now knows that is hasn't been much of a winter. I'm still holding out for at least one tromp around in my snow shoes, but I'm not holding my breath.
It's a pretty big bummer, and even a little scary to see what the weather's been up to (epic snow in Italy for the first time in 25 years, 50 degrees here. huh?), but I'm forging ahead and pretending it's winter...in the kitchen anyway, even if the view out the window says differently. The crock pot has seen some serious action over the past few weeks, there's a big pot of beans bubbling on the stove right now, I've been baking bread like it's my job, and spending lots of time with the quintessential winter breakfast time star - oats - in many forms.

 Just before Christmas, I got Super Natural Every Day  by Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks fame. I've long admired her food and photography and have been heading in the more-whole-food-less- meat direction for a while, so when she published this one, it was a no-brainer, even though I really *should* have been buying presents for everyone else (but hey, I can make them happy all year long with this book!!! Man, I'm good at justification. Too good).

So this morning, I got to start my day with this lovely recipe: baked oatmeal. The original recipe calls for huckleberries, but as it's not exactly huckleberry season, I got to bust into the five pound bag of blueberries in my freezer (making room for $1/pound shrimp, methinks!). There's also a layer of bananas at the bottom of the pan that get all jammy in the baking process - there's only about 1/3 cup sugar in the recipe, and it's plenty sweet thanks to the fruit.. The original version has walnuts, but I had sliced almonds on hand, so that's what you can see in the photo. Cannot recommend this cookbook highly enough. We've only made a few recipes out of it, but it's a definite keeper.

Oh oats, how I love thee - let me count the ways - how about granola?

I've been meaning to make granola for years, but didn't bite the proverbial bullet until a month or so ago when I found this recipe on Tastespotting (it's all your fault, Vanessa!!!), and I've been hooked ever since. There is a *bit* of sugar in it...not counting the chocolate and dried cherries (can't resist a dried cherry and almond combo), but that makes it a perfect ALMOST guilt-free dessert. The first version I made was perfect - big clusters that I could grab right out of the jar - but I haven't been able to replicate it (probably because I keep trying to cut down on the sugar, which is what's keeping the clusters together in the first place. hm).  I'm eventually going to try to find another, less sugary, more clustery version, but for now, I'm in a pretty good granola place. If you have a good oatmeal you'd like to share, I'm all ears! 

assignment two, check! (plus extra credit!)

I mentioned that I signed up for this class a while ago, and have just completed assignment #2 - cloth napkins!
Now, this was not exactly the most complicated assignment ever - I probably could have done it without the pattern - but would I have? All signs point to "nope".
So here are my cloth napkins and a matching table runner (which could probably have been a little narrower, but I was overzealous). I looove the pattern and think they dress up our table so nicely...
The table itself is a new addition to our house - the kitchen is so tiny that for the past 8 months, we've lived with the tiniest table ever which was not really big enough for two people to eat at, so we mostly ended up eating on the couch, which meant we were usually eating in front of an episode of something-or-other on hulu.  It had to stop.

So earlier this week, I bit the bullet and assembled this Ikea table and it is AMAZING the difference it's made. No more eating in the living room, of course, but there are all sorts of bonuses I hadn't considered: there's now a place for me to put down laundry when it comes out of the dryer, it served as an ironing board and cutting surface this morning for my lovely new table duds, and...AND we might actually be able to consider hosting a dinner party again! This sucker will comfortably seat 4-6 as is, but it has TWO more leaves, which means we could hypothetically seat TEN people! Now, whether that many people can even fit in our tiny house is another story, but it's such a relief to have TWO new spaces in this house - it makes life here much nicer.

If you have good eyesight, you can see Mr. Finn supervising Mama in the second shot.
Hope you had a productive weekend, too!