Hello lonely little blog. I have been doing lots of stuff and taking lots of pictures and right now I’m visiting my family in Idaho, which is so very fun. The above was taken in Idaho City at this crazy, strange, abandoned second hand store. I’ll be back soon!

Do you recognize this face?


It’s been in the 90s and Winston just looks so hot, poor little guy. He was constantly jumping in Sally’s wading pool to cool his tootsies. Mr. Heylucy, who is easily over-heated himself, couldn’t take it anymore and decided Winston needed a haircut. I had given it a half-hearted attempt a few weeks ago, but when Winston ran off at the sound of the clippers, I gave up. Mr. Heylucy was not so easily deterred, and locked the two of them in the bathroom for well over an hour. When they emerged I barely recognized my dog.


We have also determined that we can cross "Professional Dog Grooming" off our list of possible career paths.

Once Winston recovered from the trauma of the experience, I think he was quite happy with his cooler coiffure. I like to think that he posed for the above photo as a tribute to Nell. Please come home Nell!

One last look at the hack job:


This one is mostly just to show off that he’s shaking my hand. It might also be to show off my cute sandals. He looks so funny, I keep doing double-takes. It feels like we have a whole different dog. But he seems to be cooler and more comfortable, so that’s the important thing. Oh, and I cleaned up all the fur from the bathroom floor-it filled, to the top, a big paper grocery bag. That’s a lot of fur.

Other than cleaning up dog fur I was really lazy this weekend. I think it was just one of those times when you need to do nothing. It was a rough week. We’ve been invaded by ants, the cats managed to pull one of my curtain brackets out of the wall with their craziness, I took some Advil liquigels on an empty stomach and ended up doubled over in pain for an entire day, I had to spend a day last weekend with my mother-in-law, and I spattered mud all over my white jeans while filling the chicken waterer as I rushed off for work one morning. Life is hard sometimes. So I stayed in my pajamas until Saturday afternoon. Then I was so worn out from showering and getting dressed that I had to take a nap. We did have to eat, however, so I made some good food.

This is my luxurious fruit salad:

I’ve been making my standard fruit salad several times a week, but I decided to treat myself this weekend, and added a dollop of creme fraiche and a sprinkling of brown sugar, instead of my usual orange juice and mint. So delicious! I could practically eat creme fraiche right out of the tub. I’m going to miss all that summer fruit when it’s gone.

Then I made the best caesar salad ever, thanks to Jamie:

Several of you suggested Caesar salad when I asked for anchovy ideas, and the very next week, what did Jamie make on Jamie at Home? His proper Caesar salad. There’s nothing healthy about this one, but it’s so very delicious, and I think the anchovies are essential this time around, so don’t leave them out! Trust me.

I didn’t use my whole loaf of ciabatta for the salad, so I enjoyed it as a snack:

I love olive oil with fresh ground pepper, sea salt, and a pinch of red pepper flakes for dipping bread.

I think I really like taking pictures of food.

I hope to get over my laziness this week, and do some sewing and other things. The requested t-shirt tutorial is on my to-do list, and I hope to catch up on e-mail. Don’t forget to join in the Project Runway discussion, if you are so inclined. I’m hoping this season will start to get more interesting this week, or at least that I’ll be able to tell all the designers apart by the end of the show.

I don’t think I ever mentioned here that I studied Clothing and Textiles in college. In high school I worked in a drapery workshop, and in my 20’s I did some design consulting for an import company, as well as lots of little odd jobs from slipcovers to wedding dresses. I’ve always loved textiles, and while I’m hardly cutting edge in the fashion department, I do love clothes. I haven’t done a lot of sewing for myself the past few years, and I hope to change that as I continue to lose weight and look better. I particularly love the little details that make an ordinary piece of clothing special (like sewing little petals all over a plain old t-shirt) :o). I loved my couture techniques class, and textile science class, and the theater classes where I got to work backstage on various productions. Lately, though I’ve been thinking about one of my very favorite classes: costume history. It’s so interesting how clothing permeates so many aspects of history. Art, religion, industry, it’s all intertwined with what people wore.

As you might expect, I love me a good old fashioned costume drama. I’m currently re-watching one of my favorite of all time, The House of Elliot. It takes place in 1920’s London-one of my favorite time periods, fashion-wise, and one of my favorite places. It’s the story of two sisters left destitute by their father. They start making clothes to support themselves, and eventually open their own fashion house. I was lucky enough to be in London when the V & A was doing an exhibit of costumes from the series. They really were just as exquisite close up as they were on the screen. Watching The House of Elliot again makes me want to make a 1920’s style gown with lots of hand beading and embroidery. One day I think I really will do this, just for fun. 

Another favorite (in a different sense) costume drama, Project Runway started again this week! I didn’t even know they were doing another season so soon. Luckily, my trusty Tivo was on the case and recorded it for me, so it was a nice surprise to come home to on Wednesday. Did they not do a preview show this time, where they show the selection process? It seems like there are more designers this time, and the introductions at the beginning were so quick, there’s no way to keep them all straight. Is anyone up for a PR discussion group? Let’s do it in the comments! I’ll start here.

First of all, super-tan Blayne and his stupid ‘girlicious’ needs to go soon. I didn’t like Christian at first, last season, but the little twerp grew on me, and he is extraodinarily talented, and I loved him and his ‘fierceness’ by the end of the season. I already know that Blayne and his stupid hat and sniffles is not going to ever endear himself to me. And yes, his design was daring, but it was also hideous and I hated it. There was a potholder on her shoulder. A potholder! Not deconstructed or anything, just stuck there. I can’t even post a picture of it because I hated it so much.

The cup dress was so clever, and talk about labor intensive! I loved how Daniel used the rims like piping. I loved Kelley’s skirt of vacuum cleaner bags, how great was it that she dyed and bleached it? I thought the spiral notebook hooks were genius, and I even liked the gold pushpins adorning the waistband, but the coffee filter bodice? That really could have been done differently.

I wish we could have seen more of the pasta dress, I loved the way the skirt moved down the runway, and the ovenmitt bodice was so cute!

I thought the pink candy dress was sort of cute, and I decided to find out more about Leanne. I really like her aesthetic, her designs are so pretty and soft and feminine. She has an etsy shop! How cool is that? I would definitely wear something made by her. Look at this one! The construction is so fascinating to me. I’d like to know where she gets her fabrics, they all drape so nicely. Look at some of her sold items on etsy to see more. 

I thought the judges were right on with the bottom two. I probably would have sent Stella home, just because her trash bag dress looked like…trash bags. At least Jerry put a lot of work into his weird little raincoat, and made a dress to go underneath (although I use the term dress loosely). Maybe if he had foregone the rubber gloves and boots he might have had a chance.

What do you think? Did any designers stand out for you?

I’m sorry about leaving pictures of myself at the top for so long! Let’s replace them with a picture of Lucy, shall we? Is it just me, or is she just one photogenic cat? I think she likes having her picture taken. As soon as I get the camera out, she’s right there, sticking her face in it. Note to self: clean the cat nose prints off the lens before taking any more pictures.

Recently my Tivo recorded an episode of Jamie Oliver, and darn it if I don’t have a new cooking crush. That particular episode was all about strawberries, and I definitely want to make rice pudding with fresh strawberry jam and meringues, but when I was browsing through his latest cookbook, this recipe caught my eye:

Potatoes, stuffed with bacon, sage and garlic. Genius! Doesn’t it look delicious? I thought the picture of the raw potatoes was so pretty, but wondered why they chose to show the uncooked version, rather than the finished version. Well, duh. Because as delicious as it was, I don’t know that you could possibly take an attractive picture. This is the best I could do:

Not exactly appetizing, but I promise, these little gems were tasty. The only criticism I have is that each potato includes an anchovy filet in each little bacon bundle. Jamie says not to let it worry you, it’s just to add a nice richness. Honestly, they tasted a little too fishy for me, and I’m leaving them out next time. Also, what can I do with half a can of anchovies? Suggestions are welcome. I might just give them to the chickens, though.

Recently, I was feeling a little vain and brave, so I added this photo to my flickr stream:


Hi, it’s me :o)
Then, this week I got tired of all that hair every time I went swimming, and did this:


Ahh, much better. I’ll miss the long hair, but it grows fast, and this is so much nicer for the summer.

I also added more to my t-shirt and wore it yesterday:


So that’s a lot of pictures of me. Sorry about that :o)