little black journal

As of late, I like…

Sunny evenings spent sitting in the backyard, drinking wine and eating slices of baguette topped with Brie.  It’s our little homage to our fondest memories of Paris.

Rainy afternoons (’cause in Seattle, those sunshiny days don’t last for long) spent holed up inside, playing board games with friends. Yesterday, I discovered my love/hate relationship with Settlers of Catan (loved playing the game, hated that I lost…).

This project in Berlin – a building with a completely blank exterior, which is constantly transformed with artistic installations.  I love the idea of using a building as a canvas.  Carsten Nicolai’s installation is exceptionally cool, with its opportunities for public interaction and chance.

My ‘Hipstamatic Prints’ iPhone app, which applies different lighting and coloring effects to iPhone photos.  Shane is not with me on this one, as he seems to be a bit of a ‘purist’ when it comes to photography, but I think it’s fun, and perfect for spur-of-the-moment shots.

I am also loving my Mint Melange tea, paired with a chapter of Till We Have Faces, so I will be wrapping up the weekend accordingly.  ’Night.

It’s no secret that I like to shop.  A lot.  It’s partly the lure of new and shiny things, but it’s also about the satisfaction I get from sniffing out and taking advantage of a good deal.  My weakness for a bargain can certainly get me into trouble (in Shane’s words, ‘you still have to spend money to save money…’), and I will admit to being suckered into plenty of stuff I don’t need, but I’m slowly getting better with the virtue of restraint.  That said, I’ve come across a few pretty little steals that I am just too proud of not to share.

These cute little flats caught my eye at DSW a few months ago, but at $60, I passed.  Then I popped into the store a couple of weeks ago (just to browse, of course), and saw them on the clearance rack.  For $50.  With a 70% off sticker.  Plus I had a coupon for $10 off any item.  Bringing the grand total to…five whoppin’ dollars.  Try to beat that.

Fast forward to last weekend, when my mom and dad were in town for a visit.  My mom is a self-declared thrift store maven, so when I mentioned that I needed to run over to Goodwill to drop off a donation, she readily volunteered to ride along with me.  I knew we were in store for more than just a drop-off, and I was in the mood to do a little digging, so we made a shopping excursion out of it.  I spent most of my time in the book section, perusing the paperbacks, when I saw the sign for art books.  I didn’t expect to find much, since the good art books in most used book stores are often pretty picked over, but I decided to check it out, and the clean, crisp cover of this contemporary art compilation called my name.  479 large glossy pages of arty goodness.  The book wasn’t marked with a price, other than the $45 retail price printed on the jacket, but I hoped I might be able to walk out of the store with it for less than $10.  I brought it the counter, the cashier looked for a price tag, didn’t find one, raised her eyebrows at me, and asked, $2.99?  Ummmm, yes, please!

The value of my last good find is debatable, since I’m still waiting to reap the benefits of my deal, but today we got a good chunk of our vegetable garden started, planted with seeds that I picked up from Lowe’s for roughly $1 per packet.  In roughly two months, we could have a planter full of beets, carrots, lettuce, and kale.  And do you know how expensive produce can be?  Let alone organic, locally grown veggies.  So if even half of my seeds result in anything edible, we’ll have scored the deal of the season.  Keeping my fingers crossed on this one…

Call me frugal, call me cheap, call me whatever you want – I find no shame in being the girl with the $5 shoes eating food picked from her own backyard!

Random little things that are making me happy these days:

Fresh berries.  My parents brought us a couple of pounds of fresh-picked Oregon blueberries when they were here last week, and Shane and I have been eating them by the handful.

The Lupines that are blooming in our little front yard garden.

This handmade white ceramic vase that we bought on one of our last days in Paris.  It’s nice to have little reminders of our trip such as this one scattered about the house.

My cute new jeans that I got on super-sale at Nordstrom Rack.

Evening and weekend runs with Shane.  We’ve put quite a few miles on these shoes over the past few weeks.  Feels good to be getting in shape together.

I loved the idea behind this post I saw on Simple Lovely – a list of meaningful things, small and simple, that you want to accomplish before your next birthday.  And since I just had a birthday, that gives me nearly a year to get these 27 things done.  I will keep you updated on my progress…

1.  Go to Europe (I realize that this is hardly “small and simple”, but we really are determined to get back to Paris within the next year).  This item is intentionally at the very very top of the list.

2.  Make an apple pie.  Then eat it with vanilla bean ice cream.

3.  Put our favorite wedding photos and mementos together into an album (hopefully before our third anniversary!).

4.  Learn how to use the vintage Polaroid camera that Amanda bought me for Christmas last year.  Could turn out to be a very fun little toy.

5.  Make something out of the beautiful wool blend fabric that I picked up for super-cheap at the thrift store several months ago.  The sewing machine Shane bought me two years ago has been collecting dust for far too long.

6.  Eat a burger at Quinn’s on Capitol Hill.  I’ve got to taste the alleged goodness for myself.

7.  See a play.  Preferably something dramatic, and preferably at a small, intimate venue.  We don’t take advantage of the theater offerings in Seattle nearly often enough.

8.  Clean out the closet underneath the stairs to make room for the wine rack that Shane keeps talking about buying.

9.  Run a 10k race.  Or two 5k’s.  5+5=10, right?

10.  Play in the snow – hopefully we have the kind of winter this year that will allow us to do this in our backyard, but if not, I’m happy to head east for a snowball fight.

11.  Make mulled wine, and invite some of the neighbors over to drink it.

12.  Take a ceramics class.

13.  Read something that will advance me in becoming a more critical thinker in the area of theology.  Bonhoeffer?  Chesterton?  Not my typical “fun” reads, but important to take on, nonetheless.

14.  Branch out musically and expand my iPod playlist.  I’ve had Ryan Adams and Sufjan Stevens on repeat for too long now.

15.  Check out a Seattle coffee shop I’ve never been to before.  It’s good to have my favorites, but I’m in a bit of a cafe rut.

16.  Learn how to hit a tennis ball so that it consistently goes over the net, but not out of bounds.  I’ve discovered that this is harder than it looks (particularly for an athletically challenged person such as myself).

17.  Make my own butternut squash soup.  This is one of my favorite fall foods.

18.  Get my architectural license.  Once again, not “small and simple”, but I’m already over halfway there (and so ready to be done!!!).

19.  Plant something pretty in the flower box outside our living room window.

20.  Have a get-dressed-up, get-out-of-the-house, all-about-us “date night” with Shane at least once a month.  This might just be for dessert or a cocktail (we don’t have to spend money on an extravagant meal), but I think it’s important to have these special “kinda fancy” evenings together.

21.  Spend a day on Whidby Island, checking out the local scene there.

22.  Develop a list of 15 simple meals that we both enjoy and figure out what kind of basic ingredients we can keep on hand in order to prepare these meals with minimal planning.

23.  Buy a great pair of leather boots that I could wear with jeans or a skirt, dressed up or casual.

24.  Add some color or decor to the walls of our bathroom.  That’s the one room in our house that has been “decoratively neglected”.

25.  Finish the two incomplete paintings that have been sitting on my easel forever.

26.  Write a letter and send pictures to Marcel, the boy in Rwanda that we are sponsoring through World Vision.

27.  Keep blogging.  So far, I’ve kept up with my commitment to averaging 2 posts a week.  Reflect on what I’m doing well and what I could be doing better.

It’s go time.

things that are bringing me joy these days:

cooking something, then watching Shane wolf it down (this is the only sure-fire sign that he likes it)

Sunday afternoon naps

having an empty laundry basket (this does not happen very often, but it’s amazing when it does)

thinking about being able to hold my soon-to-be-born niece or nephew in my arms

SUNSHINE (even if it’s cold sunshine)

walking through our house and thinking “wow! we own this!” (well, techincally we won’t “own” it for another 29 years and 2 months, but at least we’re slowly getting there)

the view of the Olympic mountains as seen from Beacon Hill on my way to work in the morning

the falafel plate from Falafel King on 1st Ave, complete with the most garlicky hummus you will ever taste

the soundtrack of “Once” piping through my ipod

coming home each night to a husband that is always eager to greet me with a hug and a kiss

the buttery, flaky deliciousness of a pain au chocolat at Cafe Besalu in Ballard (this is a recent discovery – thank you Jack and LaVerne!)

new episodes of Project Runway

the sound of French being spoken

occasionally taking time to sit back and breathe deeply