finished! and begun...

just a quick note before i go try a new recipe for dinner (williams sonoma carrot soup) -- i took a break from all major work today because my body woke me up with, "Don't even think about it!" this morning. perhaps i showed off my buff strength a bit too much the past day or two. time to take it a little easier and incorporate more sitting in my day.

so today i finished my latest little creature! woot. i'm not sure if this will be the one for wee cousin or not. i have one more i want to do and then i'll decide. but this is phil ~


he's happy to have a face. i also started a new project for our bedroom. i'm making a small round pillow for the bed...maybe. we'll see how it turns out. you'd really think i'd be sick of all things yarn related now, but no hives have shown up yet. so we press on!



off to dice some carrots!

archer hairline

i just visited this site after seeing a post about it from the Danish blog Spagat

you answer 4 questions from this video about yourself, and the 'psychiatrist' tells you which font you are and why/the background of the font. i am Archer Hairline which i desperately now wish i could use on this blog. maybe i'll see if mister Diehl can help with that.



how nifty is that? the description said it's a modern typeface with a straightforward appearance, but one with tiny outbreaks of elegance and dots of emotion upon closer inspection. outwardly composed with dashes of emotion. love it.

fun way to spend 6 minutes of your day. check it out! i'm so curious to see what other people are!

won't you be my neighbor?

i have noticed, living in our building, that although most of the time i love our little place, there are a few exceptions to the rule. perhaps better said, a twinge of bitterness with the sweet goodness of this abode.

conveniently, there is a flight of concrete stairs just next to our front door that leads both down to the garage, where my car (again, quite conveniently) has the closest spot to said stairway. it also leads up to the floors and tenants above us. if executed correctly, one could theoretically lollop down the stairs, using the majority of one's weight at the landing of each lolloping step, and create a wondrous clattering to wake the dead. or in this case, us.

as it turns out, i have discovered in my time at home, that at approximately 8:45 ~ ish, some mysterious 7 or so very large people (whom i've shockingly never seen getting the mail or parking their cars) seem to simultaneously realize that they are tardy for their next To Do in life and promptly don there footwear, which i suspect looks an awful lot like this:





and proceed to lead the charge down the stairs. inevitably, one of them always seems to fall, and unfortunately for me, it always seems to be the one wearing their chain-mail with their go-go boots that day.

however, this beats the days where one of our third floor neighbors seems to decide it's time to take the fridge for a walk and use our stairwell to get to the outside where fridge-y can go tinkles.

i suppose, though, if this is all there is that i have to complain about, then we really have it quite good. i have had my fair share of much worse neighbors so really this is nothing to poo-poo. better the Clog Masters 3000 than the Frat Boys That Siphon Your Gas Into Their Beer Keg If You Park On The Street Overnight.

maybe i could brighten their day next time by blasting some Oompa music when the parade begins. it might help Helga's coordination at the very least...

revamped and ready for a new week!

as you can see, my blog has been seriously revamped. Scott-oh-incredible-one, sat down one evening and asked if i'd like a makeover on my page. i think it now looks FAB - he did a great job working with what blogspot gave him :)

yea for talented husbands!

now - Check These Out!! i must share my enthusiasm -- we received some of our wedding pictures from the photographers this week and it was SUPER fun to rifle through them and "ooo" and "ahh" over each. i can't put too many up because i'm trying to be good and wait until we have them all to post them...but you have to just see a few!

the man looks gooood in a suit

aren't we dashing?

some field shots. many of these are already my favorites

this is our gem so far. I Love It.

but back to real life - the two of us had a rather jam packed weekend. above mentioned husband - incredible had friday off so we slept in (which was wonderful) rolled out of bed in time for a shamefully late breakfast and decided to go for a hike. a friend of mine recently told me (as i moaned and complained about missing my Northern CA gorgeous hiking sites - i may or may not have flung myself on the floor and pounded my fists - i really couldn't say) about Cowles Mtn here in SD. Scott and i thought that his day off would be a good time to check it out so we did.

great great fun. it's no Rancho San Antonio, but it'll do.

before we left for our hike, Scott, seeing as his alter ego is "Research Man!!" looked up tons of links on the trails, pictures, routes, types of dirt, and of course...reviews. this gentleman's was the best one and pretty much convinced us to get our tushies out the door:

"While I would've preferred a less crowded hiking experience, Cowles Mountain was definitely still worth it. The views from the top are absolutely breathtaking. The day I went was perfectly clear, and I could see all the way into Mexico in the south, the Los Coronados islands off the coast, as well as the snow-capped mountains in the east. Gorgeous. This view was reason enough to hike up Cowles Mountain.

And, as a bonus, my butt has never looked better!"

he had many other comments to make, but this was enough for us!


i didn't take many pictures going up, mostly because i was focusing on the breathing part of hiking and also the majority of the surroundings were dirt.

please note Scott's backpack. we teased each other the entire day over each other's backpacks. I have a perfectly reasonably sized Camelbak which i love. he has his christmas present backpack which i thought was a little Way Over The Top for a two hour hike. so we filled our backpacks, and showed off to each other the whole way. many a snide remark was to be heard, such as, "are you doing ok? your back looks sore from that oversized backpack you're carrying", or "Heidi, let me know if you need more than just a sip of water, because my camelbak carries enough for us both" .... ahhh, that's love :)

he decided this hike was worthy of an energy bar

afterward we schleped our sweaty selves over to whole foods in hillcrest for a yummy sandwich, then headed down to Las Americas to shop! very fun.

that evening, to keep with our new eating lifestyle -- we made this yummy whole wheat pizza.

you can get the dough ready made (if you're lazy like us) from trader joes, then all we did was spread some thin tomato slices as the base, we added a little curry sauce on the tomatoes (i'm sure that's not allowed, but oh well) then loaded it with awesome veggies: bell peppers, zucchini, green onions, more tomatoes, and some spinach. we sprinkled some mozzarella on top (shhh also not allowed but cut us some slack!! we love cheese!) and voila! delish. especially when had with some wine :]

saturday we stayed tucked in bed for too long again, but i have no regrets...then we hustled our way up to temecula to bring down some furniture and hang out with Scott's fam. great fun. we had to hurry home because we had some wonderful long lost friends in town/country that were going to stay at our place. it was fantastic to hang out with all of them again. i'm so sad all my friends are so far these days.

yesterday Scott and i mostly did Fun Things, like got my oil changed, and wandered through Ikea. not my favorite store, but we did find a desk! so woot.

while we were in there, i was reminded of 500 Days of Summer which we just watched, so i turned to Scott while we were in one of the bedroom scenes and said, "Scott, I don't know how to tell you this..." he looked at me with concern. "...But there's a Chinese family in our bathroom" we both cracked up which made all of the irritated parents chasing after their screaming kids stare at us.

Fun Fun.

one last thing before i take off to start my day...
my Auntie Steph commissioned me to make a little sock creature for their family. cute little cousin's birthday is right around the corner so i'm going to try to make one he might like. what a fun project!

this is the newest guy. I need to sew in his eyes and see what else he would like to have, but i think he's coming along quite nicely. our sock family is growing quickly!



alright alright...time to start painting the living room. maybe i can convince the mother to come and help me.

happy monday!

the little things in life

i need to paint this sign for our house

today has been a busy day -- all about little things. wondering why on earth the post office has SUCH a hard time getting our mail right. trying to figure it out over the phone with scott while he's working. doing massive amounts of laundry. honestly, we are two people! i know i like things clean but really now.

i spent a large chunk of the morning in my pj's after sending scott off to work (bag lunch today, we're trying to be uber healthy now. more on that in a minute) filling out an application for a preschool. also emailing old coworkers and some friends to vouch for my moral character and great dislike for eating small children. please note how i did not ask robin. heh heh.

i am also going to spend a good portion of this week painting our living room area. the green makes me irritable, quite honestly, so my mother and i decided it's time to Go! it's shiny and your living room should not be shiny.

back to our health nutiness. scott and i became suddenly inspired by heidi and robin and their great talents for eating green things in truck loads. but more importantly, their dedication to the Eat To Live program. If you have not heard of it, it's worth googling/reading his book. of course, i have not yet read the book myself...i am too cheap. my mother ordered it and scott and i are going to read it once she is done.

our version for now is trying to stay away from processed foods, dairy (we have a little - no one should be asked to live without Feta), and make veggies the main part of our meals instead of meats. i think scott feels better already, and personally, i quite enjoy all the fruits and vegetables. we are having whole wheat organic toast in the morning with some fruit and tea, and hummus with wheat pitas and more vegetables for lunch.

it shall be an interesting experiment.

other things that i am doing with my time: horrible chores like Cleaning the Tub. i tell you, that tub has it in for me. we wrestled for a long time before i finally gave him a good one-two-upper cut to the faucet that sent him reeling. i walked out of that bathroom sweaty, bruised, and proud.

i have, however, made a great discovery in my time here alone. by myself. without another soul.

i am not cut out to be a housewife. not at least, until i have a child or two i suppose. it gets a little too lonely here for me. i need things to do, places to go, people to talk to other than mr. dishwasher and ms. hoity toity bathroom sink. two more weeks with only grocery shopping and the mail box to get me out of here and i'd lose it. and scott wonders how i could have possibly watched all of season 1 better off ted in one day. ha.

well, laundry and season 2 are calling so it's time to sign off here. but first, check out these cute characters that have moved in

Beauregard

Chester

that is the more enjoyable part of my days...getting to create little guys like these.

hope you all are having a good monday!

pumpkin patch and other fun

you all have to watch this video. an old friend of mine is an amazing photographer/artist extraordinaire and he recently put up this video collage of his son and wife in a pumpkin patch. watch and be amazed at his mad skillz.

http://vimeo.com/7223853

here are a few pictures i shamelessly plucked off his site that i loved:

rainy days

today i have had a very relaxing day at home. the rain is swirling about and i jumped outside for a minute to grab the mail but was happy to have my cozy little place to take shelter in.

unfortunately, as i wrote to my grandmother, we have a bit of rainy day bad news:

...On the rain topic however, I do believe that our little apartment heard your dishwasher having so much fun pouring water wherever it very well pleased and decided to let the whipping rain come right in and make itself quite warm and cozy in our bedroom carpet. We have suspicions that it is in fact our sliding glass door in the bedroom that has decided to be so benevolent on our behalf so Mr Landlord is stopping by this evening to hear our woes and view my fantastic Towels On Carpet masterpiece. Hopefully a solution can be found sooner than later...

the largest tragedy of the marsh-like carpet situation being that the husband's collectors edition of the dearly loved Calvin and Hobbes, in a valiant effort to help the carpet, absorbed a good deal of water themselves. the thick cardboard case has now taken on the "pear" shaped body type and the pages of the books are a bit in the wavy attitude. very very sad. the set had been a birthday gift from me a few years ago, but hopefully all will turn out well once everything has dried.

i myself have opted out of going out much today and instead have busied myself with projects and Sitting By the Fire. i had decided yesterday to make a nice lap blanket for our couch, so most of the day (after the general showering, making of the bed, and tidying of the apartment was done) was spent watching Last Samurai and listening to music while working on that new project. great fun...

lunch at my work spot

i think i may leave the tackling of the bathroom cleaning for tomorrow. i told scotto that i would hate to run out of things to do so maybe it's best if i don't pull the sponge out for now :]

time to change the towels on the carpet!

tschüss!