angry chicken

new shoes and links

My new shoes, purchased after Action Hero Melissa and Mariko got theirs but I didn't really know that yet. I sort of did, but I was already decided on them before I found out they had seen them too, so although it seems like I copied them, I only 1/2 did. So there. Look at the long second toe of mine?! My toes are the naked ones. They now have light pink nails—for that hour of sun we got last week. According to a reliable source (summer camp) the longer second toe means I am either like Jesus or a werewolf, or possibly both. I know I have mentioned this before. The shoes are Kenneth Cole Reaction and Happy B-day Melissa!

I'm feeling the book/paper love very strong right now. Here are some links that are making me crazy.

-The amazing art books from Nappa books (via Leno Corwin)
-Best idea ever via d. sharp
-Wonderful fabric college and hints on using Photoshop from Elista (her blog is amazing, be prepared to hang out)

randoms.

I recently purchased a lovely ceramic box from Fruitflypie for this lady's birthday (belated) and why didn't I get 2? Or 3? They would have been perfect Mother's Day gifts. I need them all. And an owl container, too.

2 days ago I wasn't going to write about multiple subjects and now my brain is exploding. Here's a list of things.

-I am still searching for the right pressure cooker. I am thinking at least 7 quarts because with beans, you can only fill the cookers half way. I also want one that's not aluminum and that has no telflon. This is proving more difficult than I thought. Once again, thank you for all the feedback about beans and pressure cookers. I will not let you down! I am actually thinking of making a video when I find one, so the explosion will be documented.

-I just saw this wonderful tutorial on making a super simple book from Photojojo. It's awesome.

-Here's a very clear easy to read post on exactly how to use baking soda instead of shampoo. There is a whole world out there on this topic, who knew?

a happy sunday

Baby and I had a wonderful afternoon out with an eggplant, a black apple, and her lovely beau. After buying way too many types of socks, knee highs and arm warmers, we had a bite at Caffee Pallino. The grapefruit gelato was divine.

Bagel and cream cheese.

Fancy ding dong, called something else, but come on, it's a fancy ding dong.

Biggest cup of coffee ever. And yes, Emily is super nice, funny, and down to earth, and crazy cute.

desserts and misc.

These milk chocolate cookies are from that cookie book. They were divine. Not my first choice, but the girls wanted them, so we made a batch and I was surprised at how good they were. They were like cookie brownies. I was thinking about getting all crazy sick with these and putting ice cream between 2 of them and freezing them—but I think it would kill me. Still, it's a good idea. The extra cookies went to Pete's office because of my sugar thing. The girls don't really care, they are much more about salty foods.

Here's my favorite dessert right now. Pineapple and orange with a few cashews and a little coconut.

Middle child loves it too. So, significantly reducing sugar in my diet has been awesome. I have a nibble of something sweet on the weekends, and an occasional maple-syrup-on-yogurt type breakfast, but the random sweet thing I really don't miss. I do, however, need to bake so Pete's office (and friends and sometimes the random person at the door) reap the benefits.

Random things:

-I was alerted to the errata page for the Artesian Bread in 5 Minutes book I keep posting about. (Thanks Mari!). Yes, indeed, get on over there, 'cause it's 2 packets of yeast, not 1 1/2,  and sometimes a 40 min rest should really be more like 1 1/2 hour.

-We are thrilled that our almost 10 month old Liddy is now playing the games we had forgotten about that were so loved by our other children, games such as I'm Gonna Put This On You, I'm Gonna Put This Behind My Head, and the old standby, This is My Hat. Hysterical. She might be our funniest baby yet.

-Um this shoe site 6pm, sister site to the dangerous Zappos is haunting me. Watch out and don't do what I did, which is buy euro kids shoes super cheap (and pay shipping) and then have them not fit the kids (and have to pay shipping to return them) yeah, I suck. But, for adult non-growing feet, it could be awesome.

-In my continuing research of Blackwork inspiration, I found this great shop, Pinpals, where I snatched up this delightful pin. I can't get out needle and thread right now, but I can shop! Click, click.

new spring make-up

I ordered some samples from Afterglow, a mineral powder make-up company that was rated really low on Skin Deep (low meaning the least creepy) and am really happy with what I got. Also—how cute! Samples! I love that. I spent $20 on all these, so it wasn't the cheapest thrill, but I got quite a few powders and eye shadows, lipsticks and lip glosses to play with, and even though they are in tiny sample size containers, they all are good for several applications, depending on how sloppy I am. The face powders are great, as is the blush—

although I saw myself later and realized I had put the blush on like a crazy person. (I was driving. I am bad) The eye shadows come in a matte and a glittery style, the glittery one being more popular around here, of course. I am on the hunt for a good green eye shadow. Like really green, not a taupe-y green, and I didn't see one in this line and the Josie Maran one I bought a bit back isn't green enough. Anyhoo, I love this stuff so far. Afterglow makes pencils too, which they don't have samples of, but I am curious.

Unrelated: 2 videos I have been watching over and over again because they make me laugh so hard. This one, can't stop singing this song! And this SNL skit, which kills me.

new shoes not on my feet

These new shoes came home with me last week. The girls approved and they were significantly on sale at Halo, a dangerous wonderful shoe shop here in Portland. (They have a bunch of pairs here, too.) It's amazing how fast I can buy something like shoes with 3 girls in tow. In about 2 minutes, if you are wondering.They are Mariana by GOLC and are vintage reproductions. I love them so much. The girls approved and the 3 year old said they were much prettier than what I was currently wearing, which were probably black clogs. I am showing them here because really, where am I going to wear these? I mean, I will wear them, I know I will, but right now, with parks and the library being the 2 main places I seem to go to, they aren't getting much street time. I put them away with my other heels, and was shocked to see how many pairs I have. What the? Considering I haven't worked outside of the house for over 5 years, I feel I might have too many pairs. But then, sometimes I feel as if I have very few shoes, so obviously I am delusional and can't be trusted. Oh, and I was going to take a photo of them on my feet, but that peep toe there is too revealing and my toes need a bit of work. We don't need to see my toes right now, right? It's still winter after all.

That reminds me, I was researching a bit back on non-creepy nail polish and nail polish remover and there is a new kind (new to me, anyway) I want to check out by Acquarella. I haven't seen it in person or tried it, but I am very curious. Okay, after reading all this info on their site, I am interested, but it seems like a lot of steps? Or maybe I just react to too many words. . . I can't tell. No, I take that back, it's a lot of steps. I also need to try other non-creepy brands as well, like Honeybee Gardens.

early spring for a few days

Thanks for the sweet comments about all that stuff! I feel very grateful and a bit sheepish and really tired, actually. I have been getting these low-level headaches this week, I can tell I need to rest and veg-out with a movie (or 3.) God, remember the days when you could sit and watch 2 movies in a row? I don't. I wish I could do that now. Man, that would be awesome.

Okay, we went out of town last weekend to the coast and it was amazing! Warmish and so sunny. Oregonians know how rare this is. It's a big deal. This sand worm here has two teeth and is trouble. Watch out.

It was warm, but not hot, about 55 and sunny, but my 2 older girls are no coat wearers and this middle child seems impervious to cold of any kind. I am refusing to believe that running around without enough clothes at the beach on had anything to do with the fevers this week. Of course little miss no pants here didn't even get sick.

a few items from the brain cupboard:

-I am searching for easter chocolate/candy molds now. I am overly excited about this.

-I am no longer buying canned beans (she said confidently) after soaking and cooking batches this week and freezing them, I have had enough of the mushy expensive canned variety. The homemade cooked ones are so much better, firmer, and tasty. I will report back on this new development.

-I am going to start making my own corn tortillas. I need a press, but then I am all over it.  I also have put on hold about 4 Rick Bayless cookbooks from the library. I am excited. Boy, he can do some yoga! I find this freaky and funny and kind of weird.

-The Easter dresses have been cut out.

nature n' stuff

We had a lovely morning adventure walk this week at Tryon Creek State Park. I love that place. It was a sunny day, but quite misty, cold, and mysterious in the forest. The girls were on the look out for fairies and possibly talking wolfs. They are heavy into fairy tales right now. I told Sadie the real version of The Little Mermaid recently, which she prefers to the happy one, of course. Tragedy is way more exciting. We are however, editing out the beheading of the suitors in the 12 Dancing Princesses. Pete thinks that punishment is unnecessarily harsh. I figure, if a bunch of dudes are trying to find out where these 12 dancing princesses are going off to at night, being beheaded if they failed would be a huge motivator. He says it would severely reduce the amount of suitors taking up the challenge.

Some things making me happy and/or excited:

-Wee Wonderful's newest Stitchette is available. Quilting Bee?! Gads, they are cute!

-This fabulous object by decoylab has made me $28 poorer in the best way (Thanks sarah, you are a terrible influence.)

-The Small Object has clothespin doll kits!! Good lord! With the face already printed on, no more swearing at the horrible wood grain/bleeding pen disaster.

-Who could have dreamed I'd have reason to bring up the Shatner again this month? I just read about this.

-I was thinking about the garden and instead of working in the yard and starting some much needed clean-up, I sat on my hiney in front of the computer and found this great gardening site, Heavy Petal, instead.

stuff that looks like other stuff

I love these cups from crate and barrel. I snoozed and didn't buy the larger ones and now they only have these petite (but not as useful) espresso size. Still, I really dig them. The whole ceramic-looking-like-a-disposable thing kills me, like these containers at yoyo ceramics, thanks sarah. These porcelain dishes that are cast from take-out containers as molds are stellar as well.

And how much do I love The Curiosity Shoppe anyway? A whole lot. Much time is spent there cruising around and also reading their shop blog. I love it when cool shops have blogs. And restaurants, too, like Little Red Bike Cafe. Oh, and speaking of Portland restaurants, we had a lovely dinner at Cava the other night. It's Amy and Randy's new restaurant.You can see their drool worthy menu here—please get the profiteroles. Please. It's the nicest place to hang out, I highly recommend it. And they have a kids menu too, although the only kid we had with us isn't eating grilled cheese yet and thankfully was asleep most of the meal.

to decorate my head.

It's so hard not shopping for myself during the holidays, especially when it's supporting friends. So easy to rationalize. Like these, which are mine now. Come on. . . Pink! Glitter! (See where Sadie gets it?)

I love these, too.

 

Green + brown = happy good time

And these are just awesome. I can't afford bakelite, these are the next best thing.

All these creations are made by my lovely dear friend Kelly Johnston. She has a cool blog too. And these prices can't be any better. (Jezz Kelly, you should raise them!) And what cool gift boxes!