Good morning! We had such a great weekend filled with fun. On Friday, K's school had a "Family Japan Night" which involved getting dressed in kimonos, playing Japanese games like "fish the water balloons", and eating Asian-style hotdogs (they were regular hotdogs with topping options of the fish flakes variety). They even had karaoke in the library, complete with disco lights. We had friends over on Saturday, and I cooked up a storm - I'll be sharing some yummy recipes later this week. Sunday ... Read more
Archives for March 2014
Happy Friday + Randomness
Happy Friday! With daylight savings beginning this weekend, it feels like summer will be rapidly approaching and this, of course, turns my thoughts to vacation planning. We don't actually take very many vacations. Mostly it's because M's work schedule is unpredictable and this makes it tricky to plan trips. One of loveliest family vacations we took was to Roche Harbor on San Juan Island with M's parents a few years ago. We rented a cottage that K called the "trip house", and the atmosphere as a ... Read more
DIY Shelf + Tolerations Update
A couple of summers ago, I found myself with a lot of time and an ever-shrinking budget. I was on a huge home improvement kick, and one of my goals was to corral the explosion of books everywhere in the house. I've always been a bookworm, and as much as I love the library, I love buying books even more. These days I've been really good about not purchasing any, but I still have way too many and I used to have enough to completely fill a room (oh, I dream of having a room I can call a "library", ... Read more
Yay, Black Bean Burgers
Now that I've gotten the whole criticism thing out of my system, let's talk faux burgers. "Yay, I love black bean burgers!" That's what K actually says when I make these black bean patties. She doesn't realize that under the ooey gooey cheese, there's a chockfull of healthiness. As you can see, I'm continuing my theme of unattractive foodstuffs from last week, and I've gained a whole new level of respect for food bloggers and photographers wrestling with these homely dishes. I've made ... Read more
Criticism and How I Got a Book Deal
I started and stopped several light and easy posts for today, but I've been stuck on this idea of criticisms so I decided to just go with it even though it's neither light nor easy. It's also not a short read, so I've inserted random illustrations I've been painting these days to break up the text. When I was in my early twenties, I quietly mentioned to someone I respected -- a much older woman -- that I might want to be a writer or a "creative" of some sort. She leveled her world-weary eyes ... Read more