sewing and more sewing

reupholstering is 95% done. i just need an hour or two more to do some finish work.




NOW: action shots! staple gun! glue! oh boy! get excited! or get scared (of my hair). your choice.

candle making

so we channel martha stewart's creativity in our free time. most recent project? candle making! i could go into the details, but i don't want to bore you. let's just say it involved about $75 worth of supplies from the art store, a silicone rubber mold inside of a PVC pipe, and soy wax. so far, we've made three.


the candle was molded after a piece of driftwood we found on the beach in provicetown last winter on one of our first vacations together.



(this is me holding the mold open. see the cool detail??)

busy weekends

weekends seem to come by so quickly... they usually last a long time, feel much longer than 48 hours, and end leaving me with a sense of accomplishment. lately, we've been doing so many fun things! new things! eating different things!


we finally tried Berryline in harvard square. i think z enjoyed it the most. very tart, just like plain yogurt.(it's ok that the three of us shared a spoon, right?)



browsing used books.


making cutouts in the crazy colored leaves.



new fall boots.


breakfast at soffra: pistascio croissant, almond pastry, homemade greek yogurt with grano and preserves.


first attempt at cooking clams: with fuscilli (jerry), shrimp, little necks and watercress. steamy and delicious. and a big success!
RECIPE: fuscilli with clams
boil pasta.
in separate large covered skillet, boil one bottle of clam juice with several coarsely chopped cloves of garlic. once boiled, place clams in juice and cover. clams are cooked once they open. add fresh thyme and marjoram. add sauteed shrimp. add watercress. cover pot until watercress wilts. add cooked pasta. mix all together. eat!

moving out

i daydream about what my new apartment will look like. the colors i will paint the walls, the cool carpets i will buy, my big dining room table that will have craft and art projects spread out on it when i'm not having friends or family over for delicious homecooked meals. i'm a little obsessed with design blogs and snapping screenshots of my favorite room layouts and furniture designs. ack. when am i moving? who the heck knows. a girl can dream, can't she?

spain + america

wowsa, the last year has flown by!

we've gone on so many vacations, i've lost track: new orleans, san francisco, provincetown, vermont.... and soon, spain and morocco!

we've laughed so hard we've cried on pretty much a weekly basis.

we've cooked SO many amazing meals together. we've filled our time doing awesome stuff, like road trips to art museums and swedish furniture stores and with the usual stuff, like walking down mass ave poking into all the usual shops and stores. it never gets boring.

smuggling hot dogs in the movie theatre, sharing yogurt with the dog, poking around paper stores, finding new vegetable markets and ethnic grocery stores, dance parties in the living room or in the car at a red light...

i can't wait for years and years more of random fun.

i got some awesome flowers today, and we're going to Oleana tonight to celebrate.

xoxo

upholstery, halloween, and other things

1. I am almost at the final step of the upholstery project. My couch is naked and ready to be covered! But, the combination of working long hours and the fabric store closing at 5:30 pm is preventing me from buying fabric. Maybe this weekend I can fabric shop?
Last weekend I spent a great deal of time ripping off the remaining fabric (i think the neighbors could hear me grunting). I thought i had survived the hardest parts of the process- getting the darn thing home, and sanding off the stupid finish! but, alas, i was tricked! and getting the inside arms and back seat fabrics off (where they meet- stuck in the corners) was actually the most labor-intensive task to date. With that being said, I haven't even begun cutting and applying fabrics, so i may eat my words soon enough! oh well, i'm having fun :)
these pictures show the wood after the sanding was just completed. the stain went on so nice and easy- i used a stain and polyurethane in one! i applied two coats and voila! good as new. i did notice, however, that the couch is made of different kinds of woods. this wasn't noticeable before sanding. it now looks kind of rustic and worn, which i'm totally into.




2. halloween was kind of a laugh riot. our costumes were very last minute. i'm actually kind of glad there aren't any pictures of me. i dressed up as mauricio, in his favorite clothes, complete with mustache and beard. the morning of halloween, we carved pumpkins, roasted seeds, raked leaves. we were SO fall! it was so much fun. oh, can't forget to mention Z and her amazing costume. she was such a good sport and let us dress her up one last time, just long enough to pose in her (un)natural habitat for a photoshoot. it was beyond hysterical. since it was unseasonably warm, that night we had dinner (finally!) on the rooftop at Daedalus. i guess it has to be november (or nearly) to not have to wait to sit on the roof. it was pretty empty, and we had a great time. the rain started as soon as we licked our plates clean, so we skee-daddled and went home to costume-Up and met julie and jason at Sacco's to bowl the night away. we met a couple of their friends, Hal and Tara, who were pretty cool. overall, a great halloweenie!

lately

1. the couch reupholstery project is coming along nicely. over the last two weeks in my free time, i managed to carefully remove all the fabric and staples and most of the batting. mauricio helped me sand the entire wooden frame last weekend- we spent about 3 hours on saturday, and i spent another couple on monday. it's done, it's clean and ready to stain. i just have to pick up the supplies, and maybe find time to do it this weekend?

2. last night we went to Al Green at the new House of Blues. I hadn't been to the HOB yet, so i was super psyched to see the inside. but surprise! it's just like the Avalon inside. it has two balconies. standing room only. my college friend Jesse Dee opened for Al, which i can only imagine was a dream come true. he and his band were amazing- definitely a great, appropriate opener for Al Green.
Al and his band were... amazing. he has such a stage presence. such great dance moves- if anyone else was on a stage dancing like he was, they'd look like a tool. but he has GOT it going on. his back-up singers, the dancers, the band... that was pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. he threw roses at the audience the entire time.





3. sometimes we take our bikes on field trips! this was my bike's first picnic. as usual, using our favorite bento boxes. i think this was some sort of salad with shrimp in it. now, with fall in full speed, weeknight picnics and bikerides are becoming a distant memory. excuse me while i go wipe my tears...