Pomegranates and Pit Bulls

Happy Things

2012-02-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

This spring has been much, much more fun than I could have anticipated. I was worried that I'd fall pretty hard into the post-holiday blues, far away as we are in Michigan from friends and family, but my trips to Colorado and Montana and visits from both the (big) Egberts and my dear friend Jesse have kept things happily busy. I need to do a post with their fun visits soon.

Between my new job and their visits I haven't had much time to play with the house, but about two weeks ago while skimming Design Sponge I happened to click on an Etsy shop that had the most perfect find I could have ever wanted:

Three solid brass vintage horses. Two rocking horses and one carousel horse. At a really, really reasonable price. I got them in the mail today and I love them even more than I thought. Can I be eccentric if I'm not rich? I think that means I'm just weird. But either way, happy, happy things they are.

The big one is about 9" across, and the carousel horse is about 8" tall. And they rock perfectly.

Look at its happy little face and tail and its pretty color! So, so cute. They kind of make me want to decorate a nursery, because how adorable would they be in a nursery? Maybe I should have waited a bit longer to bring them in the house. :)

I'm not sure where they'll end up yet, but I want them somewhere that I'll see them allllllll the time. For right now they look cute in the living room where they go with the other brass and gold accents I have.

I also added this fun, lively fern to the living room a couple of weeks ago. It makes the whole room more cheery! Right now it's made even more cheery by my surviving birthday flowers and some adorable daffodils that Jesse brought with her this weekend! Not only did she fly here, but she came bearing flowers. :)

And, of course, my three favorite parts of the living room. Molly was feeling extra cuddly the other day and just curled up on Miles' chest while he napped. And of course Tucker finds the warmest spot he can underneath Miles. So cute. Every night. All of them.

Happy things.

Whisk Until Sweet

2012-02-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

I am constantly awed by my beautiful, talented friends. I love it. I'm loving growing up and seeing the different talents that we're all developing and pursuing.

My best friend Heather, in particular, has been developing some pretty amazing baking skills throughout college and the last couple of years. She's always had a perfect eye for design and color, but she decided to become a Baker-with-a-capital-B in the last couple of years. A confectionery artist, in fact.

This past fall she went to the Bonnie Gordon College of Confectionery Arts in Toronto where she learned some practical skills in both baking and business, and has officially launched her bakery boutique, Whisk Until Sweet. Not only is it the cutest name, but she truly makes beautiful custom cakes for the Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex. Please check out her website and blog and Facebook and Twitter. :)

Isn't the most gorgeous wedding cake you've ever seen? This was one of Heather's final projects at her school in Toronto. I'm probably not alone in this: I sometimes wish I could get a re-do on my wedding. I loved my wedding, I really did. But I have better taste now, more personal skillz, and friends with more skillz. Just a thought. Pinterest really doesn't help this feeling.

Heather could have made us some really, really pretty cakes.

Anyway... what does this have to do with me? Other than being really excited for and inspired by Heather? Back in November when she was setting everything up, she asked me to help her design the logo. Um, yes. I jumped on that.

Over the next few weeks I played around with tons of different vintage-y looks and fonts until we were finally able to narrow down our favorite elements from each and combine them into two versions of the same logo.

This will be the main logo. A couple people have said they could see this as a hanging sign outside a shop. Heather's not planning on having a physical shop (at least for awhile), but I would love to see it hanging someday! Maybe I can learn how to carve wood and make one for her, because how cute would that be??

This is obviously the round version of the same logo... We couldn't decide between the rectangle and the circle and decided she could use the circle as tags or in other special places. I think it's awfully cute. :)

Heather put together the whole website, but I helped out with some of the details to tie in with the logo.

All in all it was a ridiculously fun and rewarding project. I really, really would love to do logo/web design for a living, but I have so far to go, and goodness it's a competitive field. I have a hard time not looking at my design idols and immediately backing down from this dream career of mine... I suppose that's how it is for anyone in a career? Especially creative fields of design, writing, photography and even baking!

I will keep doing my little projects like this, and someday I will get a Master's degree in design. And I will design some awesome stuff. Someday. :)

Thank you, Heather, for letting me be part of this project! I can't wait to see where all your hard work and talent take you.

Dear Montana, part 2

2012-02-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

Life's been a little crazy. Two weeks ago I was in Colorado starting a new job, last week I was in Montana, this past weekend Miles' parents and brother were here... It's been wonderful, even if I feel a bit scattered!

Last week I got to go to my grandparents' house in Kalispell, Montana, aka one of the prettiest places in the world. It's the same grandpa I got to visit in October; he lives out at the farm during the summer and at this house in the winter when the farm is a frozen wasteland.

My grandbid (that's what we call her) always lives here so I didn't get to see her in October, and I actually haven't seen her in four or five years. She's in her first stages of dementia now so I wanted to tag along on this trip to see her. I'm so glad I went because I had the best conversations with her this trip that I've ever had.

My mom and her two sisters, Auntie Tanya and Aunt Chris, go to Kalispell every winter to see my grandparents and get some skiing in. I haven't seen my aunts in a couple of years either and I just loved spending the time with them!

My grandparents have about 10 acres there. It is beautiful, beautiful landscape!

My grandparents' property is the group of white buildings on the left. Nestled in between lots of gorgeous mountains. :)

We got to go skiing for a half day. Here is my mom (left) and my Auntie Tanya in front of a very special run for them. I love how happy they look!

We skied on Big Mountain, which is a great ski hill about 25 minutes away. You can see my Auntie Tanya and her fiancee Kurt on the lift.

We also took my grandbid ice skating at a local pond since it's one of her favorite activities. She's 78 years old and weighs about the same number, but she's strong and graceful on the ice!

I think this picture of her and my mom is so cute. She loves to joke around and make everyone laugh. :)

Look at her go! This pond is so pretty. I know I live in Michigan and all now, but I kind of can't get over the fact that you can safely skate on a pond. Weird.

My mom, grandbid and Auntie Tanya took me out to a yummy dinner for my birthday. My grandma wore her best blouse and sweats. :)

My Aunt Chris, who lives in California on a couple of acres, brought some pomegranates that she grew! She said they grow on kind of a bush, and the color doesn't matter so much as the weight. She also showed us a special way of cutting them up.

Me and my grandpa :) You can see his computer in the picture, which has his special flight simulator program on it that he spends hours and hours on! It's a really complex program and I'm very impressed he taught himself how to use it. In fact he taught himself how to use a computer all on his own in his seventies!

My grandbid is kind of a quintessential cat lady, and this is the friendliest (and fluffiest) of her six cats. She and my grandpa hang out a lot. :)

My grandbid's also rather a hoarder... Or as my Aunt Chris put it it she's got rather "dubious hospitality." This was the room we slept in. First we had to excavate it and wash the sheets to the best of our ability. It's a little scary. But the nice thing about her mind slipping a bit is that now we can take stuff out of the house and get rid of it without too much protesting!

So we took two pickup loads worth of stuff out of the house, and got to sleep in a nice spacious room. :)

Some of the old textiles are kind of cute. My grandpa pointed some quilts out to me that his mom made. His parents were both homesteaders in Montana, so it's neat to think of the grungy old blankets in that light, ha.

I'm so thankful I got to go and spend more time with wonderful family who I do not get to see enough!

MIA

2012-01-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

In case you can't tell from my (lack of) blogging, things have been a little busy around here! Thankfully so. I started a new/old job with BEE World redesigning their website and their overall internet presence. I'm really, really excited, because I love BEE and because I love doing this type of work. And they really need a new website. Last week in the office was extremely productive and so affirming that this is what I love to do. I'm trying to increase my skills and knowledge through all of this, so this weekend was spent learning Adobe Illustrator and vamping up in general with this lovely stack:

I also had a cold, thus the box of Kleenex. And another minor issue that I'm not sure is too awkward to put on my public blog. Anyway, it's been lovely.

I've had a couple of phone interviews and one in-person interview this week, which is encouraging that businesses are finally hiring with the new year. I really, really have missed working with people. Especially since the holidays... Maybe it's the post-holiday blues, but things have felt so much more lonely since we got back.

I'm thankful for these two goofs. But I really need some human interaction during my day.

I'm going to Montana tomorrow to see my aunts for the first time in about 3 years and my grandma for the first time in... maybe 5 years? 8 years? Her mental health is declining and it feels important to see her now. I know it's not normal to go so long without seeing grandparents, but that's a whole other story.

My posts here will be pretty sporadic over the next month or more.... No money or time for DIY-ing right now, and probably not for awhile since I think I've decided that I'd rather buy a dishwasher before we buy cabinet paint... Ah, grown up decisions.

So until next time, here's one more picture of my ridiculous snugglers. :)

DIY Weekend

2012-01-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

We had a long, relaxing weekend playing games, hanging out with some new friends, going to the dog park, and working on some house repairs.

It was a snowy weekend, but relatively warm. Michigan has been kind. We did end up taking the dogs to the dog park today since I'll be out of town this week and they'll have more kennel time than normal. They're super calm for about 4 days after a trip to the dog park. :)

Does the dog park wear you out, Tucker? And make you cold? :)

I'm really proud of Miles for his DIY skills this weekend, because he saved us a lot of money! The first day that we were in the house, we turned the upstairs guest bath on full blast to get the nasty water out of the pipes.

Next thing we knew, a fairly substantial gush of water was coming down into the basement from the upstairs bath! Not a good feeling on the first day we move in. Not good. We knew we could get some bad water damage in the ceiling of the half bath downstairs that's right below the tub if we ever used it.

$267?? Girl, please.

A plumber gave us an estimate of $267 just to cut into the drywall to simply assess the leak. This was aside from any repairs! Since we had a lot of other projects going on, we decided that the guest bath could wait for awhile since it wasn't needed very often. However, in the upcoming months we're going to have about 5 groups of guests staying here and it would be much more convenient for everyone if they could use the guest bath!

We decided to see what we could do about the leak. Miles has done some plumbing already around the house and it seems simple enough, so we (and by we I mean he because it was really, really hard) cut a 2'x2' hole in the drywall and lo and behold, the leak was really obvious and really easy to repair!

Super accessible, super fast. All I had to do was get in the way. :)

It cost maybe $40 for the plumbing and drywall materials and it's bone dry now. How awesome is that?? That's several hundred dollars saved I'm sure, because who knows what the plumber would have charged for the actual repair.

I'm so glad the guest bathroom is fully functional now. It's a nice little space. :) We still need to repair the drywall in the half bath downstairs, but we'll tackle that next weekend. We also capped some vents down in the basement that were wasting lots of heated air, so hopefully our furnace will be a little more effective.

This coming week I'll be in happy Colorado starting a new long distance job! My last semester in college I interned with BEE World and redesigned their printed brochure. Now they're revamping their website and other printed material and adding social media, and I get to be part of the change! I can't wait. Bonus: I get to stay with my parents for four days!

I feel bad leaving Miles and the puppies, but my guess is that it will be a short week of this:

And definitely lots of this:

Egbert Pond

2012-01-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

We resurrected our old aquarium this weekend! When we were first married we got this little tank with some wedding money because I really wanted a pet and we weren't ready for dogs yet. Unfortunately, we weren't very successful aquarists (yeah) and all of our fish died. I think it was a combination of a ph imbalance and the fact that we kept buying our fish from Walmart. The poor fish would die within hours.

Fortunately, we left ourselves a fully stocked set up for the next attempt. So Saturday we boiled all the gravel and decorative stuff to clean it, scrubbed out the filtration system and added our new filters (a full box ready to go!), and the next day bought these two cuties.

Two dwarf gouramis. They're supposed to be durable, and so far they seem very happy!

We had the gravel, fake plants and pirate ship. I layered a bunch of fun graphics for their background. I can't show it all because I really probably shouldn't have used one of the images... Anyway, I used some old graphics of giant cephalopods taking down ships and a mermaid to make them feel at home.

Isn't she cute?

I've been looking for something to put in this corner of the living room and a way to use this cute little tin with chalkboard paint on it. Fred and George are their temporary names. Red heads... you know.

I can see them from my desk, where I spend quite a bit of time during day. So cute. :) (And yeah, we're nerds. Me especially.)

Sweet Window

2012-01-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

This year for Christmas, Grandma Carolee and Miles' aunts got me a very sweet, suprise gift: an antique stain glass window! About a year and a half ago I went antiquing with Carolee and she saw how much I love them, and I think it was so sweet that she remembered!

As soon as I opened it I knew exactly where it would go.

I think it looks so cute in the bay window. I love that I can see it right when I walk in the front door or in from the garage.

And it looks so pretty in the late afternoon with the sun coming in. We've had three days of sunshine in a row... thank you, Lord, for the small blessings! And thank you Carolee, Kelly and Laura for such a thoughtful gift. I love it!

Excuse the Mess...

2012-01-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to freshen up the blog and have been changing things up every 30 seconds... I can't seem to find the perfect mix just yet.

In the meantime... excuse the mess. :) Good thing I've got excellent supervision (snoring into my right ear).

Home on the Range

2011-12-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

I was going to add the following pictures to yesterday's post, but I just couldn't narrow it down enough, so family time with the horses gets its own post. :) I was so excited that everyone enjoyed the horses so much, and that our boys were really well behaved and patient with everyone. We had lots of fun just hanging out and taking turns.

I spent lots and lots of time tacking the horses up. Which wasn't exactly easy considering how much Dixon's belly has grown!

Colin was a natural rider, and was so brave even after Dixon bit him, haha. We're working on that whole biting issue of Dixon's.

They've been married for 50 years and still enjoy a walk through the field. :)

Susan is taking care of two of her trainer's sweet little heifers that will be breeding cows. Their names are Luna and Tina, and they're so so fuzzy and sweet. :)

They're extra sweet when you have treats...

Colin liked them because he matched :)

Everyone got their turns riding with a little supervision and help.

Tom loves Dixon, and Dixon loves Tom because together they can go fast! Dixon also likes Tom because he can get away with stuff with him... Something else we're working on with our sweet, mischievous little Dixon.

Grandpa Ralph and Grandma Carolee :)

Tucker and Molly kept and eye out from the backyard and watched from a distance. They would occasionally bark if the cows got too close to me or if Ronan or Dixon got out of control, somehow they could sense it!

Colin is a huge animal lover so he totally enjoyed all the activities.

Aunt Laura injured her knee. Thankfully Aunt Kelly and the wheel barrow came along. :)

Laura runs a horse barn in the LA area and is a very talented rider. She gave us some really helpful lessons that I totally enjoyed!

The first couple of days were cloudy and chilly, but we got some sunny time in too. It always feels colder when you're on the horse. Hannah and Ronan took it nice and easy for the first ride. :)

Sarah's first time cantering! I love that this picture catches Ronan when all four feet are off the ground. We would point her and Ronan in the direction of his "stopping" post, and he would run until he got to home base. He's a good boy :)

After everyone left Susan and I got a nice trail ride in by the lake. Aren't she and Dixon just gorgeous? It was a perfect day.

And I love my reliable Ronan.

So nice to be home on the range. :)

Prettiest Christmas

2011-12-28T22:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a wonderful Christmas. We roadtripped down to Texas last week with the pups and for a nice loooong stay since Miles gets the week between Christmas and New Years totally off. GM is awesome that way. :)

The extended family on Miles' mom's side all came together so there were 15 of us under one roof. It was cozy and fun and so so wonderful.

We took way too many pictures and since I've been looking for an excuse to play with my new action sets from Pioneer Woman, here are lots and lots of pictures of the fun week.

Susan's house already has a lot of red and green accents, so Christmas just fits right in here. It's so cozy with all the layers and textures. Mmm. :) Presents for 15 people took up a lot of room around that tree!

Susan and Miles' wonderful grandma Carolee cooked up about 50 pages worth of recipes. For the one Christmas meal. It truly was impressive. A few of us helped a little. :)

I wish I had gotten a picture of the half dozen delicious pies. Banana cream has officially trumped apple as my favorite, though the apple pies were amazing.

The whole group, ready for the Christmas Eve service. Aren't the Egberts a nice looking bunch? :)

After church was the feast!

I got to set the table up with Miles' cousins Hannah and Sarah. We had lots of fun, and the end result was pretty dang beautiful if we do say so ourselves.

Crystal, silver, and a little greenery. So so lovely.

Afterwards we were put through a series of ridiculous games, men again women, to see who had to do the big dish cleanup. Sadly the men won. And the women didn't get a break from the kitchen. We shouldn't have wagered something so precious.

We did try to keep good attitudes about our loss. Dish cleaning can be fun, right? :)

The cousins got lots of late nights in playing Age of Empires II on a lan connection. Old school. And awesome.

The traditional cousin picture on Christmas morning. :) We may or may not look extra tired from too much Age of Empires and too many Modern Family marathons.

Everyone loved their gifts. I thought the boys' gift to Miles' dad was particularly sweet. It's an edited and custom framed picture from their flying adventure.

Miles got Rockband and the brothers broke it in pretty quickly.

And I got the best gift, a beautiful camera that I have LOTS to learn about. It will hopefully make this blog prettier. :)

Molly got the Christmas gift of swimming in the pool, even though it was freezing. Even though she'd come out of the pool trembling all over, I guess it was worth it since she kept diving in!

Thankfully she had Colin to warm up with afterwards. :)

They were really good with the whole family (albeit too much licking) and we were proud.

The poochies got lots of attention, especially compared to our quiet house. There was lots of yawning and snoring.

They weren't the only ones wiped out. Lindee came out from her hiding places to nap by the fires.

The family left today, which feels kind of sad and kind of unreal that Christmas is over, but it was a really wonderful Christmas. And so pretty. :)

Cranberry Tea

2011-12-18T16:37:00.000-08:00

I've been super busy this past week working on some design projects and of course finalizing presents and getting them wrapped and mailed off to my family. I am pretty proud that I finished everyone's on Friday, which is good for a procrastinator like me. :)

To reward myself for finishing, I made my momma's delicious Cranberry Tea. Please do yourself a favor this season and make it. It's simple to make, pretty to look at, and tastes marvellously wonderful and Christmas-y.

All you need is...

1 bag cranberries (12oz)

2 qt water

1 c sugar (optional; you can add sweetener like honey to individual cups)

1 c orange juice

1/8 c lemon juice

15 whole cloves (I bet you could use cinnamon sticks instead, yum!)

Cook the cranberries in hot water till most berries have popped (10-15 mins), but don't boil them.

Strain out the popped berries, reserving the juice. Discard the berries and put the berry juice back in the pan. Add additional ingredients and serve hot. I like to make it stronger so I use orange juice concentrate, but if you want it weaker then you can add extra water or juice.

Find a cute mug and enjoy it! Yum.

I also recommend serving it with this super easy, super delicious Chicken Tortilla Soup. It's the best one I've ever made!

And for a final suggestion, I recommend a good snuggle with a sleepy pooch. :)

All four of us are driving down to Texas for a looong Christmas break next week and I cannot wait!! Happy Christmas to everyone. :)

Molly and Tucker: Awake

2011-12-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

I can't share any of my recent projects lately since they're all Christmas gifts, so I'm going to share some of my favorite pictures ever of Molly and Tuck.

Recently I've only had pictures of Molly and Tucker asleep. While they do sleep a lot at this new house (warding off the frigid temperatures), they love to run and romp when they can. Unfortunately it's really hard to get good pictures of them when they're running/wrestling/I'm chasing Tucker at the dog park, and it's especially hard with my camera. I have plenty of blurs of them...

This summer I took the puppies in the Egbert's big side yard fairly often to wear them out with fetching. One evening in August I took Susan's nice camera out with me and I think it captured their unique personalities perfectly.

Molly, the sweet and sensitive girl inside the house, but outside the intense, smart and super athletic one. Ready for me to throw the ball.

Throw the ball for Molly and she's off like a bullet in a direct line to catch the ball.

Tucker, the sweet and cuddly one inside. Kinda dopey and bouncy and distracted outside.

Throw the ball for Tucker, and he'll bound like a rabbit after it, ears flying (I need to get a video of it, it's the cutest thing).

And then he'll POUNCE on the ball....

Before trotting away from it. (You can kind of see it in the grass behind him.)

It's way more fun for him to then pounce on Molly with her ball. :)

Then they trot back to me in a synchronized fashion... Tucker sans ball. Haha.

"Your ball is over here, dummy." Too bad Molly can't fit two in her mouth because that would save me a lot of walking.

After awhile Molly will get tired and find somewhere to chew on her ball and pretend she can't hear me... Who me?

Such a regal girl. :)

Thanks for humoring this post. I love my happy pooches. :)