Wednesday, February 11, 2009

warmth

My new etsy vintage red candelabra in action! We chose light blue candles to avoid an overly christmasy feel. I'm really happy!
This second shot is just me trying to get the space needle and the candles in the frame.

Since my addiction to apartmenttherapy does not seem to have any signs of letting up, i've just been feeding the monster. We installed our new hanging plant in the living room last night (once some cleaning has happened I'll post a few pics) and now big plans are in the works for transforming the room of doom into a legitimate guest bedroom (no futon!!!). We're also in the works for building and framing a growing collection of art prints... We tend to gravitate toward bright colors and monster looking things so I'm interested/slightly worried about how it will all look when put together. I'll probably post our practice layouts once we reach that step and ask for advice.

Since the funding is limited we've also been focusing on eating at home every night (pretty successful so far) and drinking with our friends at home rather than going out. We'll be breaking this pattern Friday for Daron's bday dinner and karaoke extravaganza :)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Treats all around

So today ended up being a quite lovely Thursday. Here I sit on my gray felt couch (a button has worn through already, It's taking an emotional toll on me, much like that first scratch on a pair of shoes). I guess Steve and I shouldn't have such fat butts. Anyway, here I sit, with - no, not wine- french press coffee tonight. Cat is in window, as she should be. Steve's mama had his violin restrung last week so now I must be supportive and listen to him learn how to play again. He sounds, by his own admittance, like a 5th grade Chinese boy. Not the child prodigy kind. I'm not gonna lie, it kinda hurts my ears and I hope we are not pissing off the neighbors.

Anyway, today, I accomplished not a damn thing at work. I really did try, but all I really did was clean out my desk, arrange my post its prettily on my desk, consolidated piles, emailed a few folks in a pestersome manner, then day dreamed. Ok, I did actually accomplish more than that, but it was a less productive day than usual. So I decided today was a good day to go visit my ladies at Sugartown Vintage in Ballard where my arts are currently hanging out. So Steve picked me up from work and we headed our way. Went and chatted with Amy, picked out an awesome pair of vintage red pumps (twisty and peep toed). I casually looked at the awesome vintage dresses, but didn't actually try anything on. About once a year I give vintage shopping another shot - it always ends horrible and has me swearing off having breasts and eating cheese. What looks hip and irreverent on most girls, on me likely looks dumpy, or at best, like a costume.

On a side note, what's even worse is that I just found out that the owners of Anthropologie donate to anti-gay and pro-life initiatives. CRAP. That's the only place I've ever found that sells clothing that allows you to own breasts above a size C. I can't say I'll swear off Anthro, but I'm going to try harder to find local alternatives.... I've had no luck thus far though.

So, I'll be taking my artsies down this Sunday, they'll take a break for a bit. I might enlist some photog friends and their awesome cameras to help me photograph my artwork and maybe set up an etsy site. What I really need is an awesome website-y friend who wants to make me an awesome website for free or for art exchange.... Anywho, the show was a relative success. Sold three ladies:
This one to the lovely ladies who own Sugartown.
Then sold the upper painting to my good pal Elena, then the bottom one to the Grants who I love quite dearly. I'm happy to sell paintings to my friends because it allows me visiting rights.

So, we walked around Ballard, ran into one of two people we know who live in Ballard (Micah and Rodney the dog were hanging out outside their pad, taking a post-work day breather). After a week long romance with www.apartmenttherapy.com I had the craving to buy some house treats, but after 2/3 of the stores were closed, and the three things I considered buying were way out of my budget we kind of gave up. On the way back to the car though, we passed by Great Harvest Bread and remembered that at the end of the day they sell you two loaves for the price of one!!!!!!!!!! Buy one get one free local organic bread? What? That's Meghann heaven for you. So we dropped in, bought a sourdough loaf and a focaccia/cheese loaf and of course had our complimentary free slice of the bread of the day. We headed to PCC to pick up some more delicious real foods - which was also quite wallet damaging.

Once home Steve cooked up a really great meal of chicken thighs with oyster mushrooms, and leeks in a white wine sauce with a side of cous cous and brussel sprouts. We watched our shows which were hilariously delightful. I've been planning and plotting all week with little changes to make to our nest, and I finally bit the bullet and bought my very first etsy purchases. I will soon be the delightful owner of the following:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20510288

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14920861

http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=13660823

I am so excited to put these up in my home!

After my next paycheck I have my eye on the following:

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&navAction=jump&id=13957824&search=true&isProduct=true&parentid=SEARCH+RESULTS&color=10

In yellow

and a print from this artist:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=20660658

I'm also in the market for a big jungle like hanging plant to hang from our ceiling above our two lamps in our living room. I'm hoping to find one on craigslist though - I have a hard time spending over $30 on a plant and I've yet to find a good healthy hanging plant under this price...

I'm going to be working very late nights next week, so at least I have something to look forward to next pay day!

Great, now i'm all coffee buzzed and it is most definitely my bedtime. I am going to go harass the cat, she looks way too peaceful.

Goodnight moon!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Work in Progress


I've been working on this pair for about three months now, but only seriously moved forward on it these last two days. I am quite fond of their little squirrel buddy (though his acorn could use a little work). I'm unsure if I should go a bit deeper on the blue in the background and am still not quite sure what the man should be wearing (need to look up some men's coats or something).

Any suggestions?

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

January 20, 2009

What an amazing day. I am truly proud of our country. What a speech.


P.S. I love all of the amazingly vibrant colored coats and men's scarves - and think it's appropriate that W and Laura wore black and gray... And can we talk about Aretha's hat?

Monday, January 19, 2009

absolute horror

So, today as Steve and I were having a 'cleaning party' which involved dancing around the house while cleaning to the soundtrack of Justin Timberlake's first album JUSTIFIED (believe you me, very dance inducing) when I realized I had not seen Inga in over an hour. Sooo I checked every room. No Inga. I called for her and Steve started looking for her as well. No Inga. We checked under every surface, in every corner, under each sink and in each cabinet. No Inga. I started flipping out. So we pulled out our fail safe move of putting food in her bowl and shaking it around (our kitty loves her food more than life itself) - No Inga. Steve realizes that he took the garbage out almost an hour ago and didn't fully close the door. I flipped. So we started looking around outside, calling, shaking her food bag, desperately quizzing our neighbors. No Inga. I start bawling, Steve stays totally calm. I went back inside for a bit, calling, looking everywhere we had previously looked and still no luck. I start giving up. We look outside, in the garage, all around and I start imagining horrifying scenes of finding my dead cat in our ally the next morning, I continue bawling. Steve keeps looking, I head inside, about an hour has passed.

I walk into the bedroom and there she is. Stooopid cat. Where the hell did you go?


















Yes, yes you should feel bad.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Boogers.

Are invading my brain.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Home Delights


Well, here I am, stuffed up, sore throat, stuck in bed with my tea and lap top. I have officially become re-inspired about sprucing up my home. We started planning the kitchen remodel about three months ago and got all the way to the sit down with a cabinet designer step... then just kinda quit. The holidays came up and we just kinda felt uninspired about the whole thing. Not sure how to put all of the pieces together, and believe it or not, it's rather difficult to find a design/color scheme to go with our screaming yellow walls (which I will not let go of).

Sooo in the last few days I've spent a rather disturbing amount of time on www.apartmenttherapy.com (thanks beth) and today there it was. The perfect kitchen.

We had already picked out a similar concrete style counter top made of recycled concrete and paper composite from Ecohaus, the one real difference will be that our cabinets are a darker espresso finish (to go with our mostly dark wood furniture and to avoid clashing with oh so light and yellowy floors). Now the challenge will be the find a match for this color in a green seal certified paint... It's on! We will also probably put a back splash of white sea-glass tile behind the stove... cause it gets icky back there.

So, since Steve had a rule of 3s, this will officially be our third color. We're going to get rid of the green in the kitchen and the guest bedroom and re-paint the guest bedroom walls in this same blue. I think it'll be a lovely addition and easy to work with..

Now if only I could work on my abilities to throw things away and organize.........