January Closeout

Well, I don't have any stupendous accomplishments to report for January, but lots of activities are in process, brewing and steaming and gurgling away. In the garden, we built 2 new frames for new beds. One will house my Christmas gift blueberry bush which arrives from Raintree Nursery next month and the transplanted strawberry bed. The other will contain ten purchased-but-yet-to-be-planted purple asparagus crowns and various annual veggies.

Major compost production is underway, with 50-100 lbs of organic veggie "garbage" coming in each week from a local produce section (man, I really need to get out there and turn it again today - I hope the weather cooperates!).

In the kitchen, radish sprouts grow on the windowsill and both dairy and non-dairy yogurt is cultured and consumed on a constant basis.

If you can't find me look in the living room, where I'll be sitting gazing out the picture window, through the rain, at the front garden with a dog-earred seed catalog clutched in my hand...

January Harvest:

12 oz spicy sprouts, value $4.77

Packing up 2009, Opening 2010

New Year's resolution time! Resolution #1: keeping up my personal blog. I'm not sure how many loyal readers I have ;) but this is also a great way to keep a diary of the years. It's funny to see how, in my archives, I flow from interest to interest. This coming year will start out with gardening and more paintings. I have been doing a lot of reading lately about the locavore movement and have read some inspiring and shocking info about the food industry. For my part, I plan to expand my newly created garden and keep good records about my expenses and harvest.

Here is my drawing of our front yard garden we created this past year. We dug the goldfish pond,
took down 3 trees, laid the cement chunk path, planted 2 fruit trees and a rhubarb bed and built and
planted veggie bed #1. In 2010, we plan to put in 3 raspberries and a blueberry bush and build
a few more of the veggie beds.

As for the end-of-year record, I'll give a 2009 garden report: lots of success, lots of failure, LOTS of learning. We spent about $125 over '09 on garden materials and received LOADS of free materials. A lot of time and effort were spent clearing the trees and establishing the garden, but I estimate we harvested about 16 lbs. of food from the one 8' x 3' bed. Here's what I planted and how it went down:

- One heirloom tomato (from sis in law from seed): thriving, healthy plant covered in tomatoes.It turned out to be a small, yellow, very firm variety with good flavor. Set fruit early but did not ripen for a long time. Produced until it froze.
- One "Stupice" tomato: We picked off this for months and the flavor is awesome. Very early and long producing. "A+"
- Pickling cucumbers: Off 3 plants, we picked 3 pickles. Ripened very early though. Not sure why they didn't do better. Don't think I'll try this again.
- Sugar Pie pumpkins: Two plants grew one small pumpkin each. Good flavor and a short vine. This seed was saved from a store pumpkin so not sure of the species.
- Sweet corn: Produced a few, half-filled ears. I think they needed deeper soil and much more sun than I get. Perhaps a super-early variety might do better.
- 2 jalapeno peppers: We've been picking for weeks, but we're not big jalapeno eaters. Encouraging though - maybe we'll try some bell peppers next time.
- Royal Burgundy string beans: Good flavor and fairly productive.

- Basil - this was a start from my SIL. It did wonderfully! I keep pinching out the flowering tips and it keeps going. We need more of these next year! I made pesto and froze it before the freeze outside."A+"
- Copra yellow onions: grew to be about golf-ball sized. Nice to have onions on hand. I think I need to research to do them better.
- 1 "Mammoth" dill: enormous and healthy. "A"
- "Sparkler" radishes: grew quickly to full size. Gave them away because no one in the family likes to eat them! Not something I'd do again, except as a showpiece.
- "Puget Summer" strawberry: Had only a few fruit, but it was a small plant. Hope to do better as it matures.
- "Gold Bar" bush yellow zucchini: mine utterly failed. Pollenization maybe? It bloomed but no fruit. My SIL's is still going like mad. I'll let her supply me! "F"

- strawflowers: something ate 'em.

- Fennel: Never developed.

- Cabbage: Something ate the stem.

- Swiss chard: Miserable in the garden, but it did great in a pot nearby. Needed more heat, perhaps?
-Ed Hume's Super Sugar Snap Pea: Did awesome! Grew too tall for my supports and I had to improvise an extension. Great flavor, raw or cooked. Will plant MANY MORE next time!

- Territorial Seeds' Early Wonder Tall Top Beets: Smallish sized beets, and took much longer than expected. Maybe a soil issue?
- Territorial Seeds' Regal Hybrid Spinach: Beautiful, delicious spinach. Need lots more this year!
- Territorial Seeds' Super Gourmet Salad Lettuce: Slobolt, Buttercrunch, Red Sails, Salad Bowl, and Valmaine. Very nice colorful lettuce. Another success.

- Fruit trees: new this year, had blooms but no mature fruit. Hoping for improvement in '10.

With the new fruit trees and bushes and the knowledge we gained from our test veggie garden, I think we'll be able to produce a lot of food this year with minimal investment. My compost production in in full swing with weekly organic grocery "trash" deliveries to pump it up to high volume. Having a garden in our front yard has been so exciting and interactive because we literally walk through it several times a day on our way in and out of the house. After reading the article in Mother Earth News entitled "Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet" I wondered what we will be able to reap this year?

We' ve Got Her Covered

Two posts in one day: don't go into shock on me!

Immediately after I finished my memory quilt last month, I saw this pattern for a "heartstrings" quilt online and wanted to make one really badly. It is made of foundation-pieced strips laid out so that the red strips form hearts and it is super easy and fast. So I raided my fabric drawer and started, not sure who it was going to be given to. As the month went on, I realized that one of "our girls" (my best friend's daughters whom we've been close to for 10 years) was leaving in early September to go off to college! Could I get it done in time? Yep. I can't post it on my Facebook yet or she'll see it before I give it to her. I hope she cuddles up in it in her dorm room if she's feeling homesick and feels our love. Click on the picture to see it larger.

Here is the embroidery I did in the lower right corner to dedicate the quilt. I backed the quilt with a very soft striped sheet I picked up at the thrift store and tied the blocks with pink embroidery floss.

Just for giggles, here's a pic of me and my hubby at a barbeque this summer. He has new whiskers - I like them.

Outside and In

More construction is underway in the front yard. Hubby is digging a trench in order to inlay the cement chunks we have accumulated into a pathway. As you can see, the little pond is finished and the fishes are doing well and growing. They have survived a few exploratory attacks by the local raccoon gang - the pond advice we received was sound! I've been keeping my worker company, weeding the flower bed while he digs.

Indoors, I have been quilting. I finished a twin-sized quilt which I began last year. It took me a bit because I embroidered 12 of the blocks. It is a memory quilt, with blocks made from our boys' outgrown pajamas, blankies, our kitchen curtains, and lots of family odds and ends. By request I kept it "unisex" with not too much girly pink stuff. I backed it with blue flannel, and I tied it with embroidery floss at the corners and middles of each square side. The binding is pieced out of the extra 2" squares I cut.

The embroidery is kind of random. Images I liked online, drawings I made up myself. The sunflower is from a marker drawing that I did a few years ago.

Bathroom #2 Finished (a la Azteca!)

Inspired by the radical improvement in the upstairs bath remodel, I finally got off my uninspired rear end and finished the boys' bath downstairs. I had done a lot of the hard work last year, patching and repainting the ceiling, then painting the ceiling and walls with the cream and turquoise, but I stalled out at the "tile" mosaic. After dropping the "stamped tile" idea and cutting my own stencils for the 5-color tile design I created, I was finally back in business.

I stenciled the mosaic pattern all the way around the bath, then added a simple mosaic around the window to set it off.

I found a nice shelf unit at the thrift store and covered up the pink roses with dark green paint (thought the boys would appreciate that). I wanted a little more storage since this bath has no vanity.

The boys like it! Jo likes the lizards and Z appreciates his school colors in the design.

We Interrupt the Gardening in Progress...

...for a bathroom mini-remodel. We're having a potluck with some friends from church next Sunday here and it was motivation to finally check this off my summer to-do list.

The cabinets are the original 1960's vanity installed when the house was

built. With a little help from a friend with a mitering saw, we patched the chipped areas in the cupboard doors and trimmed the edges with molding from the hardware store.

Two coats of paint and we were ready to rehang the doors. Then we painted the mirror wall lavender (mixed some white and deep purple wall paint we already had), framed the mirror with some wider molding to hide the aged edges, and painted the light fixture to hide the rust. Viola! Mini-makeover for $25! Well, that doesn't include the parts to reseal the leaking toilet I discovered when I was painting down there... but at least we caught it before the floor was damaged!

Behold the scary "before" pic. It didn't look this bad when we moved in 7 years ago with our then 8 and 5 year old boys...

Snowbound

Last 3 days of school: cancelled. Wrestling meet: cancelled. Choir practice: cancelled. My Friday work shift: cancelled. Saturday wrestling meet: cancelled. Sunday church services: cancelled. My Monday work shift: cancelled.

Why? These pics are actually from a couple days ago - we have a LOT MORE SNOW now! I did go out and do a little shopping yesterday. I stayed in low gear all the way, even on the highway. Thankfully, people were driving pretty smart and leaving lots of skidding space. If you live in a snowy area and don't see what the big deal is: in the Seattle area, we don't get much snow and have very few snow plows plus they don't "believe" in salting the roads. So we get occasional plowing on major roads and some sanding. Otherwise, we're all on our own!

1-2-3-4-5 and Beyond

Howdy there! Yes, I do still inhabit this planet. I'm doing well, how 'bout you?
j
Lots of good stuff going on, and this kale photo has nothing to do with anything. Yikes, this has been the worst photo-taking year ever! What's new? Well, I got a part-time job at the gluten-free healthfood store where I've been a customer for 5 years, and so far I'm really liking it. Heck, I have been advising people about gluten- and dairy-free stuff for free for years! Secondly, I have gotten a little decorative painting job to do in a home before Christmas. Thirdly, I recently got an email from a photographer who's interested in having me paint her bird photos! And they're beautiful photos too! Hope that happens! Fourthly, I was invited to sell my fabric grocery sacks at a craft fair in 2 weeks, so I am sewing, sewing, sewing. Fifthly, Christmas is coming and my choir is having major long extra rehearsals lately.
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So that's what I've been doing. Hope you are well - I've been checking in on your blogs, I have!

Lovely Autumn Still Hanging On

I wandered outside to record the autumn colors today, before the predicted rain arrives. I have loved this long, warm, sunny fall! The trees are gorgeous this year, the flowers are still blooming, and the wildlife is abundant! (no bears this year, but I've seen a big raccoon and the neighbors had a coyote recently).

It makes me feel like making soups and pumpkin muffins!

Waxing Gibbous Moon on 9-11

Hello, hello! Sorry no new posts for a while. I've been a paintin' fool, but no interesting photos to share yet.
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My 6th grader son has an assignment to observe and draw or photograph the moon every night for a month and I'm really enjoying learning about the moon with him! Beautiful isn't it? The same moon you're seeing wherever you are!

Update on the Mural Painting Biz

Here's what the balcony mural looks like today. I haven't got it done as fast as I thought I would, for several reasons: running to the store again and again for the required school supplies, running to the school to pay lab fees and bring forgotten lunches, and getting distracted with some sewing projects.
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But I'm still pleased with the progress, I like how the sun shines through the railing onto the floor. You can see I still need to finish the floor and the pot of flowers on the balcony. I have lined up my next project: a baby nursery for twin girls! I met with my client and got her input, now I'm going to make some sketches for her. I also have leads on two other future jobs!!

Add a View, Any View!

I really like our house. It's the first home we've owned, after moving and moving and moving with the military. I don't want to move any time soon. But I have always wanted a beautiful view of the Puget Sound, like the homes nearby.
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So what do you get when you add one beautiful water/mountain view (taken from Cedar St. last week) and a plain-ol-closet door in my art studio, mixed with a "if-it-stands-still-I'm-going-to-paint-it" artist homeowner?

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You get a sweeping Western view of the Sound and Mount Olympus and the Olympic range, on my actually-south-facing doors. Still in progress, as you can see. I still have the balcony railings, the floor and seagull to finish.

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This mural is an example for my new business that I'm launching, doing murals, borders and trompe l'oeil. What do you think? I'm excited!

Purple Passion

On Saturday, my sis-in-law gave me some leftover purple fabric that she didn't want. I recently picked up some cute kids' patterns for 99 cents at the thrift store, so I turned around and made her daughter an outfit out of the material. I didn't have enough to do the entire outfit, so the green band and applique were so inspired.
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The bees are going crazy for the lavender out front. It's a little alarming to see them all and all the buzzing, but they could care less about people - they are totally focused on their harvesting!

Oopsy-Daisy!

You'd think I'd be sick of painting walls by now, right? You'd think! I mean, I did the whole office and then touched up the kitchen cabinets, the entryway, the living room and the hall before all the visitors arrived...
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So what happens when I'm at the hardware store with my father-in-law, picking up some fix-it supplies? I wander by the "oops" paint and spy a lovely gallon of green for $5! Hmmmm, just the right dark sage green as the stripes in the kitchen valances and the leaves on my painted lemon border...
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Two coats later and a good washing of my dusty majolica teapot collection, and I'm done. Love it!

Comfy, Cozy Office

Waaaa-hooooo! The office redo is finally finished! I hung the last picture on the wall last night, and now we can bask in the cozy neatness of the former wasteland that is our office!
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I almost wish I had a picture of how shockingly messy it was "before." Maybe if I run into one in my photo archives I'll add it in here so you can see the stark contrast. Leave it to say that anyone who had experienced it would open the door to this room and say, "Oh, I've never seen this office - where is the other scary blue office?"
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What did we do, you ask? (deep breath) We:

1. 1. Took everything out and sorted six years of sludge.

2. Rearranged the furniture, put one filing cabinet in the closet, and added a chair and ottoman we found on craigslist.com.

3. Bought and installed a new swing-arm lamp and overhead light fixture.

4. Scraped and patched the water damage on the ceiling and window wall from a roof leak a couple years ago. (That was an adventure! The water was literally pouring down from the old light fixture onto the floor!)

5. Made two throw pillows and had a friend make a valance.

6. Recovered our old favorite computer chair with new corduroy fabric.

7. Painted the walls Behr Paint's "Peanut Butter" and the doors and trim "Creme Brulee." (yes, we have a food thing going with the paint colors in the whole house! The living room is Napa Grape, the entryway is Golden Popover, and our bedroom is Deep Cherry and Camembert).

8. Spray painted the mishmash of picture frames flat black, and finally (ummmm, 20 years later) got around to framing our college diplomas so we could hang them with a photo of the Golden Dome.

Yay! The office is actually pleasant to be in now!

Projects which Passed the Finish Line

Here're a few projects that have been completed:

My vintage dollquilt that I mentioned a few posts ago. The colorful patches are from my Great Grandmother and probably include some feedsack cloth. They are really, really old and fragile, so I washed them carefully, then quilted them with some new cotton cloth to strengthen them. This is a traditional pattern that could have been used back in Great Grandma's time. Although I did machine-piece and machine-quilt it. I love how it turned out. I'm hoping to find a nice shadowbox frame to put it in, so it can be displayed and preserved.

Otherwise, I bought 2 yards of soft tan corduroy upholstery and recovered our favorite office chair, which was ripped and pink! Didn't go with the new office decor. I took off the old upholstery and used it as a pattern to cut the new and VIOLA! It worked!

Summer Stuff

The garden has exploded! We have finally had a week of warm-to-hot weather, and everything is growing right in front of my eyes!
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We did have a little "incident" concerning some of the gorgeous, almost-blooming foxgloves in the garden ... my 11 year-old son decided to eliminate most of them with his pocketknife. "Protecting" me from their poisonousness, he said. Ahem.



This week my husband surprised me with a beautiful new piece of art, "Edge of the Aspens" by local Washington artist, Steve Harmston. I had admired it at the local art festival a few weeks ago, and he contacted the artist and bought it for me. It is a serigraph (a.k.a. screenprinting) and is a limited edition print.

I snuck this photo of my 14 year-old son through my studio window while the boys were washing the cars. He's camera shy - shhh, don't tell! My baby - wahhh!

Hard at Work in the Garden

... mmm, but not in my heels. This self-portrait with the timer on my camera is taken especially for Mom. (See what I bought with my birthday gift card?)
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Other than the woman in the pink and black polka-dotted top and heels, these pics, show my cleaned-up raised garden beds which I finished yesterday. The quadrant to the left of me is the herb garden. It has (deep breath) lemon balm, rosemary, lavendar, chives, orange mint, pineapple mint, curly parsley, golden oregano, sage, and some snapdragons and impatiens for color.

The other three quadrants are mixtures of perennial and annual flowers. I give up on veggies - this photo looks sunny, but other than the early morning, my yard is in deep-eclipse shade from the many huge trees all around us.
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My son and I did some research on butterfly- and hummingbird-attracting plants, so we have included quite a few of them. I also like to have lots of flowers to cut and bring into the house.
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Another beautiful sunny day is predicted today, and then back to the rain! I'm soaking up all the lumens I can!!

Down the Garden Path

This was my Mother's Day present: the path between my raised garden beds cleaned out, flattened, and paved with the cement blocks leftover from the firepit project. Yay! Looks nice now, and will look even nicer once I weed out the beds thoroughly and get the annuals in between the perennials and herbs!

In the Garden of Weedin'

Today was the first day of the church's teen choir plant sale, and my sweet son had gotten me a gift certificate (with his own money, not dad's!) for Mother's Day. So we went down and supported the choir's summer tour with a little shoppin'.

Although the maple pollen is considerably less than last year's, it still whacked me today. I weeded a few hours and ended up wheezy and stuffy-headed. Oh well, rain is predicted again tomorrow and it will wash down the pollen count again. I hate to see my tulips engulfed in dandelions and those nasty jumping-seedy weeds, but between the rain and the pollen, I'm not getting done very quickly! I hope to get my new plants in while they're healthy.

On the changing-from-homeschooling-to-school front, things are going very well. J is loving the local school: coming home with tales of new friends and soccer at recess and the principal shaving his legs at assembly (he bet the kids if they made their fundraising goal he'd do it). A big change, but he's taking it well. I'm very proud how brave he is!