The Week in Review: June 23-29

Work, school, work, heat, laziness...how was your week?

Knotty

I'm really into french knots. It took me forever to figure em out but now I'm feeling a little bit knotty. Whee!

I hope this weekend is less hot. A lot less hot. My goal is to stay cool and do some of the usual cleaning, straightening and hopefully some creating...oh, and school work. Happy Friday!

Good Morning to You

The heat, the crazy heat is finally retreating. Last night however I slept most fitfully because of my sad unhappy heat hating feet. Boy howdy are they ugly right now! Risking a "too much info" moment I will share with you that I have eczema on my feet and if it is really hot and I am super stressed...my hands also. My poor, poor, flintstone feet. They are rife with unhappiness and so much ugliness. This is one of the main reasons why I stopped yoga a few months ago. I got sick then stressed then my feet grew barnacles. It was icky and uncomfortable and now I am doomed with these house guests of sorts who won't GO AWAY! My feet, they look frightful. Really frightful and then they just hurt. If you have eczema, you know what I am talking about. Wearing shoes has me wincing with each step. I hate wearing socks but the socks go on to protect them when I'm home and when the heat hits triple digits well...yeah. Anywhoo, I'm not complaining, not really, more like bitching because I didn't get any sleep and I can't wear any pretty shoes. The mourning dove on the bird clock just sang it's melancholy song so I am assuming it is seven in the morning which is a great time to be up. I however have been up since five or so yet I didn't stumble out of bed until six. I'm a groggy, groggy girl right now but the mister opened the bedroom shade and if you look in from the living room it is almost like a small spotlight is lit upon the bed, the sunshine is so pretty.

Today I start a new class at school. It is a required class and doesn't sound nifty like a class on Women in Art or Play, Language and Literacy. It does however sound like I may gain some useful skills like clarity in my thoughts and voice. It is a class on communication and while I'm nervous about what I may have to do, I am excited to continue with the process of finishing up my degree. I may graduate next year! Go me! I wish you all a lovely week and if I were any less groggy I would have written something a bit more musical than an ode to my icky feet. Happy Day!

The Week in Review: june 16-22

Hello! Hello! Hello! Last week was the first week of summer vacation with the kidlets so it was super busy. Long days and lots of fun and then the weekend arrived and it got HOT, HOT, HOT! So hot that my days off were wasted slugging about like a wilted flower. It was too hot to do anything. Luckily, this week will cool off a tad. Usually the heat here starts off hot and then gets hotter, not the other way around. That way, by the time the triple digits hit we're sort of used to it. Click here if you are interested in the details of the week in review.

Happy Solstice!

Well, it is official. Summer is here and boy howdy was yesterday hot! Our garden is getting a little on the burnt side but it's all good. We're growing cucumbers and since we have so manny the mister has been making pickles. Fun! Happy Summer, happy solstice and keep cool if yer hot and keep warm if yer cool! We're off to the beach for a picnic breakfast!

the week in review: june 9-15

Birthdays and school and garden stuff...oh my! Hope y'all had a most happy week! Clicky click here if you want to see the mosaic with commentary...

friday's flickr fix june 13

I love flickr and I adore my flickr favorites. FFF is proving to get more and more difficult as more and more people opt not to share their photos. I get it, I do but it still makes me sad. The above photos are lovely, aren't they? To view the duet in a larger size check it out here. The photo on the left is by fluffscupcakes and the one on the right is by *Zara.

Happy Friday folks!

Birthday Brouhaha

There is a large slice of homemade apple pie sitting in our fridge mocking me. I cannot eat it but I want to. It is the mister's birthday pie from a friend of ours. She made him a most excellent pie. It was good, really good, so good I think I need to leave the house until the mister comes home from work and eats it before I do. Lucky for me I have to go to work but still that pie is singing my name, it is taunting me.The mister had a birthday on Tuesday. Because he is a man who wants for nothing (other than a Vespa) I decided to gift him with ice cream. It is after all, his favorite food. Usually I bake him a batch of gingerbread, his next favorite sweet, but this year I decide to put the ginger in the ice cream. I found a custard based recipe online and felt it was something I could handle. The making of ice cream, for some reason, has me all convinced it is difficult.. I am certain I will screw it up somehow. Our fabulous neighbor has an ice cream maker and she assures me she will help me turn it on and all that jazz. So I gather up the supplies and successfully produce a batch of ginger custard. I had to do this the day before his birthday and of course he walks in the door while I'm doing it so I holler "Happy Birthday!" His eyes light up and if it weren't for the fact that we had to leave to meet friends for dinner I do think he would have finished the custard before it even cooled. I walked it over to our neighbor's place and she had me pour it into the pre-shilled maker thingie and we put the pink plastic lid on top. She asked me if I was sure I was ready and then she hit the ON switch. That was it. Really? That's all? Why, that is jek proof! After is got all mixy mixed up we popped it in the freezer and waited for THE day.Unbeknownst to the mister, I had invited a few people over for a root beer float party. Fresh fruit was chopped up, cheese & garlic pizza was ordered and root beer was chilled in the fridge. I brought out the glass glasses and washed them up nicely. The ice cream scoop was at the ready and waiting for the mister to arrive. The mama and sister a-go-go arrived with super gooey yummy cheese and crusty bread and we snacked on fruit and pizza outside in the garden. Tiny bowls were brought out for the big sampling and I do believe we have a winner. The ice cream was good, really good and very gingery. I added more than the recipe called for. I did it! I made ice cream. Friends arrived with cupcakes and laughter and floats; both ginger and root beer, were prepared. It was a lovely small get together full of sweetness, laughter and fizz. The mister and I ended the night with a viewing of the photobooth strips, all two-hundred plus that are tucked away in the acid free archival box he made me a few years ago.

Hmmm...forget the pie, I'm having a float!

meme-i-ness

I have a list of things to write about but I slept all funky and my neck is killing me so all I want to do is well...nothing. So, to feel a tiny bit productive, I joined in on the flickr meme that is all over thep lace and this is mine: The Question and Answers...

1. What is your first name? (jessica)
2. What is your favorite food? (bread...any kind)
3. What high school did you go to? (U.S. Grant)
4. What is your favorite color? (aqua)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (janet klein)
6. Favorite drink? (at the moment I would really like a coke slurpee)
7. Dream vacation? (road trip across the states)
8. Favorite dessert? (couldn't pick one so i went with chocolate)
9. What you want to be when you grow up? (an author)
10. What do you love most in life? (laughter and joy)
11. One Word to describe you. (whimsical)
12. Your flickr name (jek in the box)

Now I must get off this computer thing and DO something. At least I have done two loads of laundry...sigh...can I take a nap instead?

The Week in Review: June 2-8

I got my CRAFT on, did you?

Whoo-whee! I just got back from the summer CRAFT Magazine release party and boy howdy, am I tired! We had a lot of fun snip, snip, snipping away the most gloriously colorful felt squares to create one of a kind flower clips for our shoes! We snipped, we designed, we snacked and we glued ourselves silly. If you made it out to Reform School, we hope you had a blast! If you didn't, don't miss out on the next release party wherever it may be.Happy crafting!

Favorites

I have a lot of favorite things it all depends on when you ask me. There is so much in this world to enjoy how can anyone possibly choose just one thing? I snapped this shot while I was working on some trinket bags, entertaining the kidlets and trying to find where I put my safety-pins. Isn't it lovely how the spools of thread match the cover of the book? This week, this is my favorite picture.

Happy Friday folks!

Back in the saddle again...

I didn't much feel like doing my week in review after Grandma died. It was kinda difficult to even want to take any pictures, let alone DO something. It probably didn't help that I was sick either. I'm feeling better now both mentally and physically so here is my week in review. There was cooking and crafting and visiting and exercise in the form of a hike. Phew!

The art of DOING...or not...

Do you ever have those days where you really itch to create or at least DO something but you don't have any room left in your brain for putting things into steps so you sit and mope or sulk and then end up feeling even worse than you started? Today was (almost) one of those days...I really felt the need for DOING so I swept the floor (there's a lot of cat hair in the tiny casa). While the casa looked infinitely better with a clean floor I still needed to DO, so then I washed the dishes. That was doing something but not really something that feels fruitful. We had a bag of lemons from Mama a-go-go's garden calling my name so I made some mint lemonade. I always get a kick out of taking scissors to the garden and hunting for pretty herbs and flowers to MAKE with. This batch of lemonade has two kinds of mint (spear and chocolate), and some lemon balm. Icy cold and perfectly tart. Yum! After the lemonade was made, I cut fabric for a lucky parcel swap and the mister and I played with pop-beads. While pop, pop, popping away I remembered I wanted to eat samosas this week and we didn't have any raita made. Back into the kitchen I went to chop, chop, chop cucumber and garlic. By the time that was done some friends came by and we ventured out for french fries.Back at home I still felt itchy so I plugged in the iron and cut fabric and prepped pieces to turn into trinket bags for the shop. In the middle of all the prep work the bug kitty caught a birdie that we had to attend to.After that, some time was spent on the floor of the casa watching the mad mockingbirds dive bomb the bug. So, it looks like I managed to DO something after all. Now it is time for a green tea popsicle.I hope you had an itch free day or at the very least you DID something fruitful for you. Happy June!