How cute are these little RSVP cards from Heart of Light ?

(one of my favorite bloggers is planning her wedding down in LA)

My beautiful new nightstand, the product of a bit of Em and my's time. :) This sweet little antique. Unless you've seen my room, you may not know how high my bed is from the floor. My mom, uncle and I built the frame back when I was in highschool. We built it into my closet, and high enough to keep a good deal of what one might normally keep in a closet, under it (in plastic tubs with wheels). If you've seen my room, you've seen books and books and books, if you've seen under my bed, you've seen more.  That said, the height of this night table is perfect! I was excitedly waiting for my mom to get home from their trip so I could show it to her... I wasn't expecting my dad to be so impressed by it too (but I guess I should have).
(Megs, it looks forward to holding your phone and cup of tea on many a weekend evening.)  I love it.

My favorite thing about working downtown: running errands.

...down crazy random streets I've never known...

...and trying to memorize the city as best I can, for however long this season lasts...

Sometimes though, I underestimate just HOW far I have to go.  Walking to REI and back, was not a wise decision.  Should have caught a bus.  Next time, I will. 

FRIDAY.

Tom & Kate played at UCL.  It was a great evening, some of their songs, and some beautiful and fun covers.  One of my favorites was Jackson, they are adorable and for whatever reason, watching the two of them perform it made everyone there come alive.  I recorded a good clip of it, but need to discover how to upload videos to Youtube/ here.

Homemade Bourbon Chocolate Ice Cream (YUM!) to top off some other tasty treats and drinks. Since a couple of my friends have become admitted ice cream addicts, I've been thinking about our old ice cream maker. The last time I remember anyone using it was Kim & Vanessa, so that tells you something. (I believe she lived with us when I was in 5th grade?) I started looking up recipes last week and came across a few.... now I can't wait to try them all out!

SATURDAY.

I had left-over Rosemary Dinner Rolls from Friday, so I decided to throw together a little breakfast sandwich with Spinach (always), a fried egg with a bit of sea salt, ground pepper, and misc. seasonings and melted provolone on top. They were delicious! (Sunday I made them for brunch for Kate and I and added bacon. Of course they were improved.)

After a quiet Saturday morning alone, I had the amazing treat of spending the day with Em. She came into town for the weekend, and I still feel so blessed that she left a day open for whimsies with me. We started the day at Laudro (our first and last date of her being here), then walked to Main Street and spent hours wandering an antique shop before hitting Pen Thai for dinner. It didn't feel like real life to have all that time to just wander.

SUNDAY.

Sunday was church (amazing, convicting word by Dr. Rand), the above-mentioned brunch, the necessary post-church nap (I feel I've been starved of these!! How amazing!) and then babysitting the three titans with Kate. These children make me laugh, and work, harder than you'd believe, and I love it. After literally carrying, tossing, tickling, pinning, singing, re-carrying, tossing, tucking, pinning, kissing all Thing #1, Thing #2, and oh yes, Thing #3 (the one Dr. Seuss couldn't have even dreamt up) to bed, I finished the dinner dishes and caught my breath and thought, Oh Lord, I know my kids are going to be exactly like this.  And then, I smiled, because I love it. I love that when Abby was 2, her mom noticed her peeling the skin off her red grapes and wondered where she'd learned it, and I knew. I love it because I remember Will tickling my toes before he could talk or walk, he was a ham before he had words! And he loved cheese so much as a toddler, once he'd had a taste, he'd refuse to eat anything else. I love that Lizzie can make me laugh harder than almost anyone, and when I've caught onto her games (and I always do), she gives me a crooked sideways smile that says I know that you know, but let's just call it good and you let me have my way because I'm adorable. When she was two, she crawled into her parents bed at 7am, looked at her dad and told her first joke: "Dora, aDORable."  She proceeded to crack herself up. Last night, while cuddling with me on the couch, she snuck my phone off my knee(!?), excused herself to the kitchen, hid it, and then returned. I don't know how long it was until I noticed. She let me look all over before she informed me, "I took it. I hid it. We get to stay up 'til you find it."   And then she giggled. And I love her for it.   I love their playfulness and games and amazing sense of humor.   And that is why I get scared. ;)

Hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing weekend full of time with those you love, or perhaps a little well-enjoyed time alone. :)

Another piece from Allison Cecil 

Sometimes it’s not about learning to love again, not about learning to fight again, it’s just about learning to live again.  Learning to smell the summer morning, touch the autumn’s crisply wasted leaves.  It’s about learning how to live – relearning to be you.  You without the accompaniment.  You without the laughter to your looks.  You without the opinions about soup.  What do you like?  Dislike?  What do you prefer, avoid, what can you live without, and how can you live throughout?  How do you live?  And as you go on, you meet places that you never even knew where there, because until then, you hadn’t yet learned how to let them live.

In case you hadn't noticed... I love basic metals.  I really enjoy wandering through the Etsy online shops of metalworkers.  I love talking with those who set up booths at Folkfest too.  They're amazing.  I met a woman this past summer whose husband had learned from his parents, and when she got marrried, he taught her.  They ran a store together.   

These are a few of my recent favorites.

Allison Cecil

I bought this lovely little camera bag on Etsy yesterday and I cannot wait for it to come in the mail!! It's a vintage piece and the exterior looks amazing, very soft, quality leather.  However, I'm a bit nervous about the inside, since no photos were provided of the lining.  For the price, I decided it was worth the risk... especially when you consider the inside was probably taken care of similarly to the exterior, right?  Egh.  We will soon find out. :) 

I saw a girl last fall with the most amazing brown leather bag/purse.  So amazing, that I did what I never do, I asked her where it was from.  I have only done this once before and it was to a guy on campus... he informed me "It's from home. I bought it in Japan."  The girl's answer was no more helpful in my personal hopes, "My grandmother gave it to me, she got it in Venice years ago she said." 

We need more people who are willing to listen to what we really mean, even if it's not what we're saying.  We need more friends who can look past who we were, see who we are, and recognize who we are becoming.  It's a fragile task ten times over, not to put pressure on people or expectations for them to live up to something they feel they can't.  Not to be broken by them when they fall short in the present and hurt us as they battle from the here to the there.  To see both.  To believe the best.  To fight for us and sometimes against our fears.  To be patient and wait out the storms.  I'm not sure we'll ever make it to who we're called to be without a handful of such friends.  I need these friends.  I have a couple.  And I especially want to be one. What will happen when our generation grows up and learns to see each other for our dreams, our passions, our impossibilities that drive our minds and hearts when we try to fall asleep at night?  I think those same dreams, passions and seeming impossibilities will begin to drive us from the mornings too. 

Happy Friday!

Or a poor speller with a stupid person. (eesh.)

I didn't realize how many animals we have until this morning when I woke up and it downed on me that I had to let out the dog, check Kate's hamster, feed the fish, and I wondered if Dad's birds were all set (knowing Dad, I'm sure they are, but I'll still check). We've always been sort of a pet family... I've had a fish tank, a hamster, a bird and a dog. But in recent years, somehow I'd got stuck thinking we didn't really have any pets except Chewy... little had I recognized them amassing in the rooms (and ponds) around me.. goodness!

I always assumed I'd be an animal person when I got older, but I'm not so sure. I cried way too much over every one of those pets. And I'm not the sort of girl who is happy with a new fish when the old one dies.  Oh no.  I need years to recover, and then, perhaps I'll get a new one, but only with the understanding that he is not replacing the old one.  Then again, I can't imagine not letting my kids have a dog, or a kitten. (The main animal that was always off limits at our house!)  My sister laughs at how strange of a kid I was, and while I don't quite get it... moments like right now I guess help me to see from the outside how strangely emotional and passionate I was... both in my tantrums and my love, lol.  I was an odd child.  I am an odd adult.  And when I feel too normal, I sometimes have a mild anxiety attack (joking. maybe).  ;)

PS, I went back and fixed all the old "Rules of a Lady" posts/ reblogs... I don't know why they blocked out suddenly. :/

Inspiration to learn to really sow. This vintage dress just stole my heart (Etsy is so very dangerous!) and while I can't imagine paying this price for a dress that is most likely too tiny for me (and would become a gift to my sister), I am nearly certain the back of this dress will end up in my dreams!

Madison Unger, who I prefer to affectionately call Madella, is one of the funniest (and most fearless) people I know. Last weekend I came across this old story from her.

This is real life.

"Morning Katrina, you look terrible. Like exhausted, are you hungover?"

"That's it, I'm driving to Kristin's. Want to come along?" (Kristin is home sick. Really. LBL can't accept that people really do get sick.)

"Katrina, I want you to call this client. He's at a funeral. His wife died. Tell him to head over to the office after. Katrina, business goes on. He won't answer, he's in the funeral."

"Katrina, next time you consider just taking off on a random roadtrip, do it. Here, I'll give you $200, no questions asked if you'll do it this weekend, just take off Saturday morning. [Pulls out his money clip.]

Staying home sick = not acceptable. Admitting that you almost took off and bailed on Thursday/Friday of work = Paid Awesomeness.

You best believe this is good stuff for a character one day. No one would suspect how true it all is.

One of my favorites. :) This entire album is the sound of summer evenings to me. I can't help but smile and feel like life is beautiful when I hear her voice and the sweet notes she commands.

Something I'm grateful for:   That Kate Hallstrom has green eyes.

Perhaps weird or creepy?  Perhaps. lol.  But I just thought it this morning (after seeing the picture below).  I'm grateful that Tom fell in love with Kate, so he could write sweet love songs that don't mention Brown-Eyed Girls or Baby Blues, but that rare and illusive lyrical creature, long hidden like mermaids in the same emerald colored sea of first dance songs.  Yes, green eyes.  (Self-inflated importance? Absolutely... I write us up in poetic grandeur every chance I get... feel free to add other majestic likenings, such as the mermaid.)

Haha! Thanks Tom & Kate for falling in love, and for writing great music.  You're my favorites.  :)

There is something so precious when your eyes capture a man doing what he loves. To watch a man’s hand unconscious but deliberate in it’s movements. Watch as these attached and original tools craft something distinctly his. Entire being devoted to a task that heals the man’s soul. 
 

-That Kind of Woman

I would call this "ela-umbrella"  :)

Cheesy, but I just made myself giggle so oh well.

I saw this woman a number of weeks ago, waiting at the bus stop. I loved her sweet elegance, enhanced all the more with her baby in her arms. (Her shirt was a beautiful green silk, with great buttons on the cuffs! And you can see how great her bag is!) I tried to snag a photo subtly (subtlety is not my strength, as many of you have told me). Just as I snapped the shot, a man passed by. Though I later got a clear shot, I decided I liked this one better. 

Years ago, Kristin and I were sitting by the doors in the Dome Starbucks. We were in two big cozy chairs, reading on a summer day, when two very attractive fire fighters walked in. Kristin quietly told me, whose back was to the doors, to look. Rather than glancing over my left shoulder as they walked in. I went right. And as I kept trying to catch a glance of the two men ever advancing further into the store, I fell off my chair. Brilliant. 

My dad has told my sister and I (though he'll hate that I'm saying it here) that I got the book smarts and she got the street smarts. (My sister is brilliant, but she's been convinced most of her life that she's just not as quick when it comes to school... and that it was easy for me, which it wasn't!) But off my sister soap box and back to my thoughts, I really don't have street smarts and I know it. The only saving grace I have is that I am super observant of details, so I'm always watching and responding when I am out and about. I am aware of what block I am on and what neighborhood, who all is around, how close the man approaching is walking to my line. I am always adjusting and keeping distance, watching my belongings. I am aware. Maybe too much. I also refuse to suspect people though. I hate it when people come downtown to 'reach out' and spend the whole time treating homeless like criminals. People can feel what you are assuming about them. And you'll draw it out of them even. I want to always believe the best. I know that isn't street smart. And I'm ignorant in countless other ways. I am pretty sure I'll have to marry a guy with the street smarts... maybe the book smarts too. We'll see.

My sister Kristin has decided that I love everything my dad loves.  What I find funniest about this is the years and years that my dad has responded to all of my "I wants" with "You've always wanted to do everything, Katrina."  I discovered a new thing the other day.  It makes sense, and I should have known, since my dad is the guy who has always loved flying.  He took Kim on a helicopter ride, and a few years ago paid a friend from work (who's a pilot) to take himself, Kristin and I up in a little 4 person plane for an hour. (It was amazing!!)  Yet somehow, I hadn't connected this one.  My dad wants to go up in a hot air balloon, bad.  Me too. :)  Someday, I think we should.

And she's pretty right about us.  My dad and I marvelled at how much we both enjoyed the two road trips we've taken together.  It's easy.  We both like country and jazz.  We both love Nat King Cole, Elvis, Michael Buble and plenty of others.  He even let me play Coldplay for a few hours.  We both like the windows down.  We both like to drive for hours without talking, or talking. We both love the scenery and can spend way too much time poetically describing a tree or old house we passed.  The only difference we have, is he likes to make a LOT more stops than me. :/   And he doesn't mind if we end up sharing a hotel room with his brother and his wife at a sold out hotel.  :(
(I'll never let go of that one Dad.)

Enkel Dika    Discovery Credit: Frequency of Words

Bitter doesn't look pretty. 

MONSTERS.

I was thinking last night about monsters.  Real life, monsters.  The big blue fuzzy ones, the brown alligator-skinned ones that carry axes and can't tie their shoe laces.  Real ones.  And I wondered, what would I have pictured monsters as if I'd never seen The Labyrinth or any Jim Henson puppet?  No Lord of the Rings or films aimed at children and young teens.  If I were to create a monster entirely out of a vacuum of experience or imagery, what would it be? Just drafting from scratch in my own brain?  I wonder.  How do we ever create something unique and creative when we've been saturated in ideas and images all of our lives?  How can we even start to create and not just recycle?  And then I thought, has anyone?  Before films, there were stories, pictures, and books.  And before books there were myths and legends.  Just think of Grendel and Grendel's mom, monsters in Beowulf, a book dated back to sometime between the early 8th to 11th century.  And dragons.  As far as we know, they seem to always have been a part of grand tales being told.

I stole this picture from Frequency of Words, who found it here... it was just too perfect for this post to not snag it and go back and add it here. ;)

PS. DID YOU KNOW: According to wikipedia (yep, I just did that):  In 1936, J.R.R. Tolkien's Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics discussed Grendel and the dragon in Beowulf. This essay was the first work of scholarship in which Anglo-Saxon literature was seriously examined for its literary merits—not just scholarship about the origins of the English language as was popular in the 19th century.   (I'd like to read that article!)

Beauty.  In a powerful way.

One of the first quotes in my quote journal.

So. Very. Jealous. 

I'd like to see a picture of the sky the night I was born.

nbsp;

This was Monday in the Market:

LBL called me around noon yesterday and said "Grab Kristin, my money clip, and meet me at the creperie in 15." We ended up eating at Copacabana, and running several other errands. And minus my flats that rubbed several toes raw, it was a lovely and unexpected long lunch. We did things like, wander into tile shops downtown, or through an old 5 star hotel, where LBL felt he should approach the waitress and say "This is Katrina. She loves candied apples. Do you serve those?"  It was a very random, but fun day.  He's out of control.  I'm still not exactly sure why we wandered all through that hotel lobby, but I think it had something to do with showing us where he used to play the piano up in one of the ballrooms.

This man gets more impressive every time we see him! We called this shot "multitasking" - it's a big word at our office and hot on interpretations.

My family and friends think I am bad, but you have never had lunch with LBL. Everything is a photo shoot!

The view

"For a donation, I will pose for you. That is how we support our cat shelter. They believe this is their property right here."

Believe it or not, my first actual macaron from Le Panier.  Oh my! Oh my!!

I have posted it here before (maybe more than once, but that will happen when you've been blogging 6 years), yet again, here it is. Last night, driving home from UVillage, this poem came into my mind and brought a sweet summer smile like only Shakespeare can do.  This sonnet is so closely tied to my high school years, the hurts and pains, forgiveness and processing.  It's always served as a reminder to me that the Lord can use what appears to be a frost, to protect something sweet inside. 

SONNET 5

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

Interesting note I just learned, this is the only instance where Shakespeare uses the words "unfair" and "leese." He was such a master of language and his vocabulary so broad and well-commanded, I'm inspired every time I read his work. He played with words the way some play with their food.

What a wonderful weekend, full of just the right amount of rest and productivity. A little time on the porch swing reading, organizing, sorting, laundry, cleaning, cooking, family and friends. I even got my run in, and the sore muscles this morning are informing me that it really has been too long. :/

I've kept all the buttons that come with new clothes in a box for years.  A couple weeks ago I was at Tina Freez's house and saw she had a jar of buttons on a shelf in the living room.  I decided that was a much cuter way to store them.  The next few weeks are going to bring a lot more organizing and tossing (hopefully).  I just have too much.

This weekend I also decided to be brave and try grilling something new.  My dad loves fish, yet we've eaten little of it at home over the years because my mom detests the smell in the house.  They were gone for the day at a potluck, so I decided to take over shopping and dinner.  Kate and I visited 3 grocery stores before dinner.  We picked up (way too much) salmon and I set about to find a good recipe.  This was one of the first times I've had hours to prepare something, and I loved getting to marinate it for hours before the meal, really relishing the dinner-making process.  I had planned to serve it was a different salad, but we ended up grilling up corn on the cob and using the huge salad my mom had made that morning.  When my parents reminded me they were going to be gone Sunday night, and I realized I had bought all this food that we never even prepared... I decided to invite a few friends over for Sunday.  I think I enjoyed preparing that food even more, finally making the Pioneer Woman's Rosemary Dinner Rolls (oh my!!), the Mandarin, Mint & Spinach Salad, and Jasmine Rice.  The salmon recipe suggested pairing with a Pinot Noir and the one I selected for Saturday turned out to be such a favorite that I picked up another bottle for Sunday. I'm pretty excited to be able to add a completely different type of food to "things I can cook."  It's a small list, but with this I feel a bit more courage to keep trying completely different things.  I still need to work on measuring how much to cook.  Saturday there was too much, and Sunday not enough.  My main focus on Saturday was timing.  I am terrible at timing everying to come out at the same time.  I stopped and wrote out how long each item was to take, and worked back a time table.  I did much better than usual.  However, my secondary focus (and a major goal behind the first), was to sit down with my guests and not be running around so much. There is still a lot of room for improvement there. :/