round up: just the three of us

David returned from his second long work trip late last night and we are all thrilled to have him back home. The first trip was fun and novel for me, having all that space and time to do what I liked, up before the sun and asleep cuddling the kids by nine each night. This second time I stayed up WAY to late and started the sad cycle of over-caffeinated days and sleepless nights. To the point that productivity came to a standstill and doubt about everything I do came over me in a wave every night. That part really sucked. Self-induced insanity, I'm not into it.

There was some good that came of it. I started running, which is really just a way to be alone with really loud music. All the money I spend on coffee and treats spent instead on a sitter for an hour to get some exercise. Good call. A little more spent on a mother's helper for some time to futz around and do some sketching. I made some serious lists and started to break through with artwork concepts that have been brewing for a long time. I'm finding I'm lacking the skill to bring these concepts to life, but at least I'm putting pen to paper. Practice makes perfect.

An old technique and some rotten poppies.

The beginnings of an idea. They don't photograph well!

Turkish bath towels for the super-hot summer road trip we have coming up soon.

Things the lucky winner of the last donut pan giveaway received from me, on top of a set of new donut pans!

An egg piñata, an oilcloth bunting, some of my friend Sarah's Makerbot donuts, and my friend Anna's new book. Sweet, right? ENTER NEXT TIME!

Oh boy, we've entered the Star Wars phase. I've got Christmas on lock for the next three years.

Temporary egg storage.

I love having my eggs at Rare Device at the same time as Anna's Dutch Door Press pop-up!

Stella before her end of the school year performance. She is a beauty onstage, you can feel it when she sings.

Hair curl. Lip curl.

The dance party, as precious as it sounds, is really real at our house.

After David's first long trip away he gave me a Sunday to myself. I drank a lot of wine and cleaned the house. And took these photos. 

Hiking in Tiburon. Gorgeous trail.

These two are amazing company, I'm telling you, but welcome home, David!

the walk

So much is getting ready to change here. We have just a week more of walking to school up and through the Panhandle. The past three years have been a blissful testament to a way of life David and I designed for our family. Slow mornings and slow weekends, with bursts of excitement here and there when opportunity presented itself. Harder on David than on us, but more or less on our terms. 

There is only one more week of just Oliver and I on our own, doing what we want. There is a lot of conversation between us, but none of it makes me have to put on my thinking cap like when Stella and I talk. No more incredibly simple days. We are at the end of early childhood in this house. Having Oliver when we did made us so much older, but it made me way younger, too.

As with the past two years, I am really looking forward to this summer vacation. We have two great trips planned, bookended by a lot of hiding from the cold inside our apartment. I cannot wait. I've found some architectural work, but I hope to strategize to keep it from interfering with our time together. I don't really know how that'll work yet. I am just super emotional about everything this week, all the while acknowledging that I've had it really good for really long. Change is brewing, for sure. Maybe it will still all be really good. Fingers crossed.

I don't know if anyone out there reads this here blog for more than basket-weaving tutorials, but if you do, I expect there will be a little more mommybloggging over the coming months. Have a great weekend. xoxo

for the birds: an urban nest!

Proof positive!

A nest, made from yarn taken from our suet cage nester that has been hanging off our back deck for two years.

Sadly, we found the nest on the ground out near the sidewalk. So, not really a win-win.

Ever since I picked this little cage up in a shop in Troy, NY two winters ago, I have been scouring the trees in our backyard and on our block in hopes of catching a glimpse of some magenta or blue yarn. Well, when Stella and I got home on Sunday after our Mother's Day excursion, I looked down and right at my feet was this nest. Again, a sad discovery for Mother's Day. But really cool to know some bird around here was making use of this thing. I commented back in January on this article, about a bird nest helper featured at Apartment Therapy, that I didn't think we had the kind of birds interested in colorful yarn for nesting, but I was wrong! By the way, it's very possible the person featured in that article is the one that made our nester, but I'm not sure.

Pretty simple stuff. I would've done an F.Y.I., but you probably get the gist just by looking at it. A cage, a bunch of three inch sections of yarn, a hanging chain, you're done.

True story: I was recently bemoaning (to myself) that Stella had never found a real bird's nest, and that we didn't live somewhere where she ever could, and was really hoping it would happen on our trip east this summer. This was like a week ago. I'm not kidding. Pretty cool.

round up: spring is here at last

The last few weeks have seemed like a blur. Do you know the feeling of anticipating something (in this case, preparing to throw a party and three days later perform in a burlesque show) so much that you can't fully be in the moment, because you are working toward another more specific and calculated moment? And then after that, the feeling of the absence of that anticipation, which is just bliss? That's where I am right now. Even though Tease-O-Rama is next week, I'm back. Next week's show is a controlled situation which I am so excited to play a part in, but I'm not required to design it or direct it. So I am back. It's so nice!

Over the last few weeks, amid menu planning and choreographing my Easter act, we managed to squeeze in some quality time (and some more rhinestoning). Stella was on spring break a few weeks ago, and besides a trip to the snow and a trip to the dentist to have her first two (shark) teeth pulled, it was a mellow affair. I am really looking forward to the end of school this year. I'll probably start picking up projects in the fall, so this summer will be our last hurrah for a while, as far as playing it fast and loose and relaxed like this.

A new breakfast favorite. Eggs in a nest, but with truffle oil, Parmesan cheese, and cracked pepper.

The Easter Bunny brought Oliver this wonderful little round blanket by Little Red Stuga.

He loves to pretend he is a "ghost robot" under it. I love it because it reminds me of the kachinas I've

seen around some of the pueblos of northern New Mexico, places that are near and dear to David and I.

 Stella got to join Oliver and I at our music class. I love it when she can come with.

 Along with the piñata eggs I made, we did dye eggs the super-simple grocery store way.

I did have to make a few more fancy eggs for gifts.

One of these above is for my dear Bombshell Betty, the other one I mailed to new acquaintance/

inspiration Lisa Congdon (check out her work, you'll see why her piñata is white and hot pink).

Speaking of hot pink, check out the advertisement on the side of that Muni

bus for the current Gaultier exhibit at the de Young!

And, speaking of rhinestones, my ballet flats for the water ballet act for Tease-O-Rama are finished!

Aren't they pretty?

The top of my dresser overfloweth with pretty right now!

 Both kids got ukes from the Easter Bunny. These things are incredibly easy to play,

and no one can put theirs down for too long.

Flowers from her dad in Stella's kitchen.

Oliver and I have been having some fun since Stella went back to school. Fooling around, pretending to camp with banana slugs, learning to scoot and fake-fishing in the park. It's almost time to start complaining about the weather again, but I won't. That's what summer's for, around here.

menu: a perfect spring cocktail party

---menu---

blood & sand 

lillet rose spring cocktail

white wine

------

pickled vegetables

windy's deviled eggs

fontina risotto balls

fried pickles

icebox crackers

parmesan walnut salad in endive leaves

ahi poke on wonton crisps

wasabi creme fraiche

crispy chorizo

point reyes blue cheese & granny smith apples

crudités w/ buttermilk peppercorn dip

------

chocolate eggs

quatro leches cake

french macarons

c/o abby & jason

David and I hosted a little pre-Easter cocktail party on Saturday night. It has been a long time since we threw a nice-sized party. We started slow, inviting friends with no-or-very-small children, to keep the chaos level to a minimum. It was just lovely. 

I cooked for two days, and didn't document the food that well. Trust this though, if you make the things on the menu above, even in double batches, you will have NO LEFTOVERS. The next day being Easter and all, we ended up making simple tacos, because there was no way I was going to cook again so soon. Did you know you can actually get sore and tired from intense stretches standing in the kitchen cooking?

A fun time was had by all. David and I are still talking about it and dreaming up our next get-together. 

Those Blood and Sand cocktails were a HUGE hit, highly recommended!

The day before the party I got as much done as I could. I had prepared the pickled vegetables a few days before, so they were all set. Highlights included:

Preparing the icebox crackers by making and chilling

the dough, then slicing and baking. Super fun.

Frying a lot of wonton strips to go with the ahi poke.

This was a tough one, preparing risotto but not being able to eat it,
instead chilling it to be made into little balls the next day!

I prepped the crudités and made the dip of all dips, Martha Stewart's
buttermilk peppercorn dip (cue choir of angels).

I baked two, count 'em, two batches of tres leches cake. I used three pans. One batch went into an 8" x 12" pan so the cake baked thicker than the recipe called for. I put those pieces in the bottom of the bowl. The second batch went into two smaller pans, and came out thinner. Those went on top. This makes a lot of sense. Think about it.

Note:
I am writing this three days later, and the leftover cake has still not broken
down and gotten too mushy. This is a fantastic cake recipe, Joy the Baker!

The morning of the party, David took the kids on a liquor run, and  I swung into action. It was super manageable due to the 4:00 party start time, and all my previous preparatin'.

I diced the ahi and made the poke. It was so good, an amalgamation of online recipes.

Next time, more soy sauce and a little heat.

I prepared the risotto balls for frying. I fried the balls and the cornichons

(pickles) right as guests arrived, keeping some warm in the oven.

I made the quatro leches concoction, later to be poured over the
layers of cake squares and left to sit for four or five hours.

I also stuffed the endive leaves with the parmesan-walnut salad I had made earlier

in the morning and fried the pre-sliced chorizo right before guests arrived.

Like I mentioned before, I didn't document the food that well, especially once the party got going. The light was falling dim, and I was having too much fun to take photographs of food. I'm also feeling more and more awkward about walking around tables of food and photographing them when other people are around. I was at a party in December where as soon as the food came out, four people whipped out their phones to start shooting. It's a sign of the times, I suppose!

Fontina risotto balls.

Fried pickles in the upper righthand corner, quick pickles in the foreground.

 I was refilling the ahi poke plate (upper left) every ten minutes!

A rainbow of macarons.

 Two of our favorite ladies right on trend with their neon nails. I need me some of that polish! The pink is from J. Crew, the tangerine-ish color is Essie. Gotta get it. Stuffed endives below their hands, by the way.

We relaxed our "no shoes in the house" policy for lady friends who wanted to stay fancy.
Fancy Windy on the left (on her way to a Mad Men party after ours!), fancy Annie on the right.

The giant menu on the wall!

Gemma and Oliver. 

We had planned on ending the party at 7:00, but were so happy to have guests stay much later. I spend the last half hour or so chit-chatting and washing dishes. We went to bed with a clean house, after all that! A perfect end to a perfect spring cocktail party!

I'm smiling on the inside, at least. Dishes are done, and the Easter bunny is on his way!