Ikea was fairly successful.  We purchased three of these FJUS shelves for our pantry, and yes, they are actually up and in use.  It’s great to have more space for our pantry.  But yes, the old pantry shelves are also still sitting there waiting to be moved to our upstairs bedrooms aka storage space.  We also purchased this round GRUNDTAL mirror for our entry way, although I’m not sure it will work.  It’s currently painted brown (jacaronda brown mind you) with a nice painting that sort of blends in a bit too much.  I thought the mirror would brighten the area up, but I’m not sure round is the right shape.  We did buy a square mirror with a digital clock in the corner, which is SO silly, but it was the right size and shape (and cheap) for our bathroom.  We just don’t have the battery in so it’s a blank square.  Oh well. 

We didn’t find any bathroom cabinets – these VATTERN/ANORDNA ones they have are OK, but it’s still sort of cheapy and the counter tops to choose from suck.  I suppose we could do our own countertop somehow.  Maybe it’s more effort than it’s worth.  Meanwhile the search sort of continues.

Well, I’m eating leftovers from dim sum yesterday and feeding little D the chow fun noodle rolls and sticky lotus rice.  We hit Uwajamaya after and I picked up some seaweed to make wakame (seaweed) salad and a package of fresh wide rice noodles.  I think I’m going to attempt some sort of noodle dish tonight.  Little D LOVES seaweed salad.  I think it’s because of the vinegar.

Little D had his 15 month doctor’s appointment a month ago and they were not yet worried about his weight, but today when I brought him in to check his weight, they told me I need to feed him full fat everything all the time.  Cheese for breakfast lunch and dinner, whipping cream in his creamed spinach, olive oil all over everything, and full fat ice cream if he wants.   I guess I can feed him trader joe’s 3-cheese organic pizza everyday.  This will be interesting.

Here’s a cool toy I’m sure he would love (and it’s on sale): roadster classic pedal car.

We are also fixing up our basement bathroom since we use it more than our main bathroom since little D has taken residence in the room next to the bathroom.  I’ve had to kick the husband’s bike stuff out, which is mostly accomplished.   I’ve secured a nice simplehuman wastebasket, a thomas obrien charcoal rug from target, and and over the shower stall wall hook so there’s a towel when you open the shower door, instead of having to step out and reach around the corner.  West Elm also just came out with organic towels and I’d love to get a couple in the copperplate and pomegranate colors.  We are still looking for the perfect floor cabinet and wall cabinet.  Everything available is so cheapy and ugly.  We are heading to Ikea this weekend (oh yay) and maybe will find something that could work.   Also will be checking out mirrors at Home Depot and/or Lowe’s.

It always seems like cleaning/organizing one thing leads to another.  So now after moving bike crap out we are now on the lookout for new shelving for our pantry area in the basement, which is really just a hallway.   Also on the look out for a new tv/media stand.   Oh, and we could also really use a new couch or we could reupholster our current one.

Will report back after weekend shopping extravaganza.

In other news little D has been doing a lot of standing and wanting to walk… he also got a nasty cold and is currently recovering.  Teething is also back on the agenda and so therefore are bibs.  Yay. 

I ordered a TESTTUBE from newbeauty after reading about it in the paper and finally received it – plenty of skincare samples and some fullsize to last for awhile.  Including Lancome’s Secret de Vie which runs you $225…  please tell me how can a moisturizer be that good.  You can read all about it here.

So it’s been awhile since I’ve written, mainly due to too much Christmas crafting and sickness in our house.  Both the husband and the child have been in various stages of colds, coughs and stuffiness for the past two weeks.  How is it that the person with the least amount of sleep/rest has been able to stay well???  Well here are a few highlights, more to come.

Made these pillows for a friend, a bird pillow and a leaf pillow – they turned out better than expected, which is always nice. 

And lastly, we bought a painting yesterday at the Collective in old Ballard.  We usually just wander around in there while I mutter about how I’ve seen this on craigslist or we should be able to find something like that at goodwill, when we came across this abstract painting.  It had no price so of course I asked, out of curiosity.  It reminded me of two paintings my parents have, which I love.  When I was little I remember studying them, trying to figure out what the shapes/colors were, imagined seeing clowns, or people, or animals etc.  So when I asked, the girl said I think it’s $75, but I need to check.  I thought, did she mean $75 or $7500?  I was pretty excited to hear $75.  She checked and it was actually $150.  But we got it for $130.  It does need a frame and has no signature but I really like it.  It was hanging in the shop vertically, but when we brought it home I thought it looked better like this. 

Here it is on our wall.

So which way do you think it goes?  A, B, C, or D?

From Pottery Barn Kids: These great mini morrow chairs for little D.  I think we’d get the honey, although white or black would be cool too.  This slotted bookshelf, also for little D.  And these classic car toys are pretty cool.  And this isn’t on sale, but let’s get it too! 

Some other items for little D: this fabric hamper for $18 from garnet hill could be used for toy storage and this speja tunnel and koja tent from ikea for playtime.

I’ve also been scheming to organize our house, particularly our basement and upstairs (my studio is up there, and our guest bedroom, perhaps soon to be playroom?), and have these items on the list:

• We need a 2-drawer file cabinet.  Actually we need two.  One for my studio and one for our home office (basement).  I’ve been searching and searching for something cool and affordable and have yet to find anything.  We might just settle for either metal ones or something from ikea.  Check out these $800 beauties…WTH!  (Update 1/19: Ikea had nothing so we ended up with a HON pale grey one for our office.  Still searching for the studio…)
• Dining room table and chairs – we have a hand-me-down turned leg table and chairs, probably from the 30s which is just a bit too large and heavy for our tiny dining room.   We’d love to find something teak or walnut from the 50s, 60s, 70s with a nice light airy feel!  Have been checking craigslist and missed a nice teak table with awesome chairs for $215… I need to be a bit more vigilant checking I guess.  (Update 1/19: found a teak table on craigslist for $45 and he delivered it!  Not in the best shape but perfectly fine for our needs.  It’s very similar to the one we grew up with at my parents.  Now we just need the chairs.)
• Also for the living area, how about these narrow wall shelves for art display?  I don’t want it to look too busy though, since our space isn’t too large.  I was thinking two rows. (Don’t need them now that we bought that painting, but they are still cool.)
• For my studio, I already have a nice thrifted 1960s sewing table and chair and a craft table, but would really like one or two of these white agerum bookshelves for magazine, book, and art storage.  I really need to get my magazines under control!  Maybe I should upgrade my white cardboard holders to the cheap ikea wood ones and do this neat chalkboard trick, thanks to Blair at Wise Craft.  I also need some sort of magnetic or cork board.  We just might be looking at a big trip to ikea.
• This cool felt clock in charcoal and white – although I might decide I need to make one myself.  I really liked these haba kid rings and this stocking from mahar drygoods, so maybe a combination of stacked felt dots with a simple gray background? 
• We also need: a new tv/media storage cabinet, since we are still using the cheapest of cheap ikea ones from graduate school days; perhaps a new coffee table if any – we have a very cool chrome/glass one with extremely sharp corners, maybe we’ll replace it with the poang ikea ones, to be converted to chalkboard tables at a later date? (Update 1/19: decided to just remove the coffee table and keep it the space open)

This seems to be have become a to-buy list for myself… yes we did win the lottery

Finally I can share my soft trees with you!  I made a small forest of them for my siblings and mom for St. Nicholas’ Day which we celebrate (December 6) with small gifts and family dinner.  Thanks to littlebird for sharing her pattern and all the inspiration here.  Everyone liked them!  They are the perfect project for me at this point since they are super easy and quick.  We like instant results!  Now that I’ve given all mine away I need to make some for myself. 

We also put up our tree today – the husband is the light-put-er-on-er and he also ended up doing most of the ornament hanging :: once again he did an amazing job!  Little D was also enthralled by the glowing lights and shiny baubles.  He has also just started to crawl, meaning there is some forward motion to his floor movements.  Yay!

And I made peppermint bark.  When I was working in my pre-Little D days, one of my co-workers always brought us a tin of the Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark - I ate it in like one day, of course I shared it too – sort of!  And since I’m not working now I was missing it and decided to make some.  And with Little D around keeping me busy, I’m not eating as much of it.

t’s peppermint bark

Melt 1 lb semi-sweet chocolate in microwave, add 1/4 tsp peppermint extract.  Spread with offset spatula on parchment paper to about 1/8 inch thickness.  Cool.  Put in fridge for awhile.  Meanwhile smash 10 candy canes in ziploc baggy.  Take the now cooled semi-sweet chocolate out of fridge.  Melt 1lb white chocolate, add 1/4 tsp peppermint extract and 1/3 of the smashed candy canes.  Spread with offset spatula over semi-sweet.  Sprinkle remaining candy cane pieces on top.  Chill.  Cut or break into pieces.  Eat.

I used Ghiradelli chocolate chunks from Trader Joes. 

And if this doesn’t make you feel sad.

I am looking forward to receiving these items in the next few days:

- very cool pendant from blackapple (for me!)
- a very cute stuffed pea from blair (wise craft) to go along with the little pea (for Little D)
- the paintings above, number 5 Elm-er and 32 Obstacle, from Amy Ruppel (for me, but I really wanted 43 In Tune!)

Since I don’t have time to create I’m buying others creations!  Now I just have to get to those Christmas gifts.

Needless to say my thoughts are with Kati and the girls and his family.  And am giving lots of extra hugs and kisses to my family.

The lastest heartbreaking news.

We braved the ice and snow today and made it to IKEA to look for holiday decorations.  It was a great day to go, there was almost no one there!  I was a little disappointed in the holiday selection this year, but did find these great little lights.  They only had the blue and red ones in stock, so I’ll have to go back for the cute green one.   They are very much like the tyke light and boing light balls combined, with a nice soft rubbery surface and can be charged for up to 6 hours of use.  Little D liked them too

So we were eating thanksgiving leftovers and I decided we needed some creamed spinach.  A few years ago I put together a cookbook of favorite family recipes and gave them as Christmas gifts to all my siblings.  Included was Gramma’s famous creamed spinach recipe… little did we know that it was a microwave recipe!  But it is really simple and really good.  I hadn’t made it before but I plan on making it again.  I used 2/3 cup half and half instead of draining the spinach and milk and omitted the allspice, but otherwise here it is.  YUM.

2 tbsp butter
1 chopped onion
2 lbs fresh or frozen spinach (well drained)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
aromat to taste (optional)
hard boiled egg (optional)

Saute onion in 2 tbsp butter.  Then mix all ingredients in microwave proof casserole.  Nuke for 2-4 minutes at at time, stirring in between until cooked.  Quarter a hardboiled egg and place on top.