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music news: i'm so excited a new Elected album came out and i'm thrilled to see, just now, that they're coming to San Francisco in July!

personal news: the husband turned 30 last week and his celebration went off without much of a hitch. we surprised him with some KISS masks, buttons, drawings, cake and shirts and he - being a huge KISS fan - was pumped. success! also, unrelated, but this is pretty awesome.

home news: we finally decided on a new couch and some more artwork went up, though we're still figuring some of it out. screened porch shingles (containing asbestos - fun!) came down and, this weekend, it's getting an overhaul. i'm really excited - not at all to do the work, but to have it done finally, yes. i'm trying not to be overly-ambitious and expect to get the exterior and interior all done this weekend, but every little bit we can get done this weekend will be terribly exciting.

(by fotoforest)

(by local artist Amanda Cook!)

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after a week of vacation, i have to head back to work tomorrow, which is terribly depressing. looking through photos of this week makes me feel pretty good about what we've gotten done at least. with my dad in town, visiting and wanting to help with house projects, we've been breezing through some long-standing to-do items, though a lot of them seem kind of boring now that i look at them in the context of talking about it to others. we're excited though!:

i cut some fabric for some house projects (mostly for a variety of pillows, to be honest);

we poured some concrete to bolster some sagging fence posts;

we got some free mulch from the local utility to help keep the weeds down (ever the worrier, i'm a little paranoid about the wood-on-wood bringing termites but it's great otherwise);

i mostly just supervised, but we (my gracious dad) put some boards up on our existing metal-framed side gate, which i've hated. some day, it'd be great to have some beautiful horizontal-slatted fencing but maybe that day will come when i win large amounts of money on a game show or something. in the meantime, this allows much more privacy and is awesome.

also, the husband started this project by himself, but then we joined forces and dug and dug and dug up rocks, freeing up some planting room along the fenceline;

and some prints that have been propped against the hallway walls for far too long finally got hung, as did some posters in the husband's music room, making this weekend our first with artwork actually hung on the walls. it's an exciting time to be alive.

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my dad is coming to visit from australia and winter has become spring and our backyard is a mess. it seems everything is adding up to this: it's time to whip our yards into shape and get some projects done!

To help us experiment with different looks, i've been trying to learn to use Google Sketchup, which - if used by someone who knows what they're doing - can be a really useful, beautiful tool. I started with the screened-in porch we're looking to revitalize:

um, yeah...i have a long way to go.

Nothing to do with anything, but quick note to self: these awesome zig zag streamers would look great anywhere

(photo by oh happy day, and instructions are here)

in other news, i'm getting closer to being done with this jumble of yarn;

i'm working on knitting samples of different stitches;

and just for kicks, i got these earrings recently, after the successful purchase of a gift for a friend from this shop (which has tons of great stuff). i think i look a little funny in earrings, but i really love these and am going to wear them all the time anyway. also, ears look funny up close.

31

there's so much to catch up on, but in the meantime, you can download a song from jenny lewis and johnathan rice's project jenny and johnny here or below:

Also, this is just so, so beautiful. I can't get enough of it:

Last but not least, this song is going to be in an upcoming movie and I'd heard it around. It really does me in:

30

the past several weeks have been a blur. my dad is visiting from australia and work has been insane. we've been making a little bit of headway on the yards and inside, but still have a long way to go. it's been busy, but good. i feel laziness approaching, though, and need to work on maintaining some sense of motivation to keep up the momentum.

25

well, today kind of sucked. it started off well, though, so i can't complain.

instead of packing - which is what i definitely should be doing, this (and, sort of, this) is what i've done with my entire evening. i haven't gotten to go crazy on it for a while, so it was pretty fun. but now - maybe - packing.

here's to a better tomorrow, for everyone.

24

it's impossible to believe that december is over and that the holidays have come and passed! things have been busy with painting and spackling and caulking (insert caulk joke here, husband), dishes and laundry, buying and wrapping gifts, barely getting our tree up in time, and the like. but we've also found a small amount of time for some definite december fun, and since you pals who look this way already have to hear about the house 24-7 from me, here's a little recent inspiration :

i've had a fair isle craze for a while and have been working on a faux fair isle vest, but a special holiday movie didn't hurt the situtation. we only got around to watching "a christmas story" this year, but i was reminded of all the amazing, amazing knits in the movie (especially in the classroom scenes! where are all the pictures of those?). i may have to base my entire wardrobe around this movie.

i made some time for some other movies while i knit a few weeks ago, and was again inspired by these two stylish ladies! a you've got to love that bathing suit. how gorgeous are they?

speaking of bathing suits, i also have been loving "two for the road" much too much lately and it doesn't hurt to have albert finney and, well, i just dig the whole thing, but their bathing suits in their first week together scenes are just too much.

then again, the past several months i've also been obsessed with a general 1930s style, as evidenced by, well, projects i never finished. but, i've also been pretty into 1930s-nostalgia movies, like "sweet and lowdown" and "papermoon." seriously, how gorgeous is ryan o'neal in "papermoon"?

of course, my heart will always belong to this guy. we can't even get into all this or i'll be here forever, though.

i've been working on a few other projects but have to wait until i can get some pictures. most importantly, i made these for my family's traditional christmas cinnamon roll breakfast and just about died. we've decided they're too delicious to make more than once a year.

anyway, this all helps remind me that i haven't been only buried in paint (besides, there are worse things), but have had a very lovely past few weeks. belated happy holidays to all! (of course, only the bottom photo belongs to me)

23

hallelujah, we're starting to make some decisions and (kind of) feeling like we're making progress on the house. this week we got our new tankless water heater and the old removed from the kitchen (thank god!) and we got about half of our paint. and decided on appliances. The weekend work took longer than expected but we're still right around on track because we got some extra other stuff done in place of the stuff we didn't.

so, ths is pretty much what our entire weekend looked like (plus, lots of super messy caulk, and old weatherstripping and adhesive remover and lots of sore muscles):

here's the primer - also got some paint - that we got 30% off and used lots of this weekend (thanks green sacramento)

and here is what's to come next weekend (oh god, and lots more priming and painting):

here's the paint we ordered for the concrete in the laundry room

and the color we tinted it (second from bottom)

and, just for kicks and so i can think about something other than paint (which i am most definitely still pulling from my hair):

this is the doorbell we've decided on

these are the house numbers we...well, that i purchased without spousal consent. i fessed up immediately, though, if that counts for anything. they're just so much cheaper than the ones i really love and very similar; i couldn't resist. photo from shelterrific

and here are some other items i wish i had gotten approval to buy and put on the walls (though the list really could go on forever and ever, and i'm tired):

but, of course, there are more important things first, like getting our electrical done without killing ourselves, trying to not fall off ladders, and avoiding the crawl space.

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well, i clearly haven't done much but cook lately. and eat. mostly there's been eating. i never liked thanksgiving much until i was an adult and was responsible for some cooking because then i could make and eat whatever i liked. this year, that included:

rice krispie treats. that's right. this was a few days before thanksgiving. we had to get our stomachs prepared for the food to come.

the most amazing apple crisp; recipe courtesy of a friend's mom, who seems to do no wrong in the kitchen from what i've seen.

this barley and mushroom pie. smitten kitchen (who also can do no wrong in my book) was right - it needed a tiny bit of something, but was still very, very good. why don't we cook with puff pastry more often? it's delicious.

and there were all the things we don't have pictures of, like the fantastic stuffing the husband made, or the post-thanksgiving gathering with friends that is always one of my favorite parts of tthe holiday. we also worked on the house this weekend and are going to look at appliances today. and, i found a treasure trove of artifacts from my childhood in some boxes my family brought to me a few weeks ago: pottery i made in high school, old tapes and cards, and a page from the script of the play i was in that brought me to meet my husband. it was pretty sweet to reminisce.

of course, there was also the debbie gibson collection.

21

this past weekend was pretty productive once i accepted that the husband was traveling to the great northwest and i was...at home without him. i think i had a harder time this time than other times he's toured, because i mostly just missed him rather than being able to get excited about having the place to myself and getting uninterupted craft time, but i was still so excited for him, so that helped. and then i could get down to business:

i finished this little ruffled number in my class

hemmed the thrifted skirt on the left and made the skirt on the right

baked apple-cinnamon cake bread, among other items, all of which i have already eaten

cleaned it on up around the apartment, and started daydreaming about this place

and most important of all, welcomed this guy home