our trip - kauai

this is what i woke up to... every morning

well there wasn't always a rainbow but for a few days there was!  (sorry for the minute of bragging) vacation was wonderful, but now we are back full swing on the house remodel.  ahhh i am still hurting from this weekend.  we did some serious demo.  let's just say that we no longer have a kitchen... the goal you ask?  well my mother and father-in-law are flying in for a visit mid April so we would like to have a kitchen by then...  wow that is a serious schedule.  yeah i know but we think we can make it work.  i might have to go back to Kauai after it's all over but hey that is something i am just willing to accept.

hopefully i will be blogging this week with a little more dependability.  with all the trying to catch up at work, on sleep, and with all the fur babies i didn't do all that well last week.  i am happy to be back and hopeful that i will have something that resembles a kitchen soon.  thanks for sticking with me.... lets chat.

a quick dinner... fritata

so last night JD rewired the oven... well not the oven but the electrical for the new location of the oven.  by the time he was done with all that work it was 8.30 and we were starving.  not inclined to have another microwaved boca burger night... we decided on fritata.  if you haven't tried to make fritata, why the hell not?

it is a quick, easy, and delicious meal that can be whipped up in just minutes.  for example last evening our veggie situation was quite sparse.  i had 4 slices of bacon which i chopped and through into the skillet, followed by some frozen artichoke harts and frozen multi-colored bell peppers.  as those babies cooked up... i cracked 6 eggs in a bowl and beat them with some milk.

when the bacon and veggies were all cooked up.... the eggs were poured over them... and the heat was turned down to medium.  then you just wait a couple of minutes to let the bottom half  of the fritata cook.  then the whole things goes into the oven at 450 until the top of the egg is cooked... then i added some shredded cheddar on top... broil and bang - dinner is served.  it is especially good with salsa and sour cream!

so go try a fritata they are delicious and are a good use for those left over bits of stuff in your fridge.

a big twit...

so not so long ago i joined the twitter world.

i don't think i am very good at it.  JD knows how to use these # and how to become part of groups.  He is going to show me... in the mean time if you want to follow along to my random thoughts and day to day activities (as if you already don't get enough) i'm on there... we can follow each other.

you can find me here.

happy friday everyone.

that beater light

i found it i found it...  

well maybe it found me.... but it bounced back through the blogisphere right into my reader.  i was trying to find this image when writing this a few weeks ago.  i love that light... crazy.

i originally saw it on emmas designblog but it came back to me on Remodelista the other day.  both blogs are great and full of inspiration so check them out.

i'm back!!!

hey all...  i'm back!  and i must say a bit tired from the traveling.

but no complaints here Kauai was amazing we had such a great time.  i will have to share some photos with you soon.  i have over a 1,000 posts to catch up on...  google reader quits counting at a thou...  ahh oh well.

it was wonderful to escape everything for the week and break from my everyday routine but, i left you in wonderful hands.  didn't bri and d do a wonderful job all week?  i think so and am eternally grateful for their great blogging and the weekend they spent with the pups.

sunday we spent catching up on some sleep... baker was right beside or on top of me the entire time - afraid i might leave again.  rainier in a typical teenager fashion was super excited we were home, but then ignored me (to punish me) for going away.  even though she played her mad doggy routine she made sure to have a paw touching me all day as we dozed in and out of consciousness and read.

seattle is as grey as ever and if it weren't for my tan i might imagine the whole trip was just a dream.  i am happy to be back and back with you all.  a huge thanks to d and bri for a fantastic job last week.  i think i see some guest blogging in their future. (that is if they want!)

happy tuesday.

puppies in pictures and back to your regularly scheduled blogger....

Yawn we all say!  The puppies and humans had a great day!

Here it is in some pictures.....

rainier, a woken from our group nap by a tv special on the dog sledding in alaska. she jumped at the tv, protecting us from all those cold huskies.....

baker is actually happy. he is sitting on the heating vent. ha. it may be spring but it's still cold here.....he says "mom bring back some sun will ya?"

too cute for words

"i love you rainier" (baker)

a present we left for your usual blogger, because she will love it and to thank her for her pups and blog. :


:)

thanks all, this has been fun.

And thanks most to you wren for trusting us with your blog.  :)

d and b

our puppies have arrived!

Rainier and Baker are home safe and sound!  They are very happy to be back, especially Rainier.   :)  Their aunt and uncle dropped them off last night.  While the humans shared cupcakes from Cupcake Royale (which has happy hour cupcakes in the evenings!!!), the puppies sniffed every last inch of their home, breathing it all in.

We all snuggled up for movie watching and puppy snuggling in our jammies. (D's first time watching Mystic Pizza - one of Bri's faves!) Highlights were when the doggies brought in a fly with them from the backyard.  the fly got chased by the cats, and then the cats got chased by the doggies round and round.  Too adorable.  Baker is chief awesome snugglier, but we made sure to give Rainier some extra loves because I think she is having some separation anxiety.

:)

Before the pups got home, we went to grab dinner at Cafe Revo as we'd planned. It was pretty good! The food was excellent - we split the brushetta, each had a cup of soup (which was awesome!) and then split the risotto del mare, which was saffron infused and had great chunks of salmon, scallops, and shellfish. really good. We sat in the bar so we wouldn't have to wait for a table, and it was loud, but thats to be expected. The main downfall was our waiter who after every course would come check on us and say "wow!"  when we were done so soon. Dude, we were starving!

But it was good atmosphere, seems like a great summer dining locale. we'd go back :)

So, twas a fun friday night. now, onto more saturday adventures! Check back for photos to come.

Gorgonzola on everything, please

Yum!

It has been a busy food week in our house, which, I love.  Cooking is relaxing after a long day.

This genius idea was discovered in Helsinki.  Both Bri and I studied abroad there in college at different times.   One evening, as the summer sun was still bright in the sky,  my classmates and I ventured to the pizza shop nearby our studio/shop to grab a bite before returning back  to work for the evening. 

You should know that I am a picky pizza eater.  I grew up in NJ in a town with lots of pizza shops all owned by Tony or Vinnie or Frankie.  This is my excuse.  While traveling throughout Europe that summer, I had made an unspoken agreement with myself that I was holding out on pizza for my trip to Naples, the birthplace of pizza.

Despite this, I went along with my classmates. It was cheap and quick and I had low expectations.   And, it did smell good.

Their menu had twenty different pizzas on it, all numbered.  Next to each number was a large picture of the pizza and then some words in Finnish.  Perfect  --we thought....we knew our numbers in Finnish and could avoid the 'looking like  tourists thing' by having to ask the waiter each and every ingredient.

Turns out every pizza on the menu had the same Non-American ingredient.... Gorgonzola Crumbles, and lots of it. (these did not show up in the low res images of melted cheese on the pictoral menu.)

Now, I was elated.  I love all type of blue cheeses.  YUM.  Some of my pickier classmates were not so happy, but I was in love.



To this day, everytime I make homemade pizza it has gorgonzola.  YUM!

This time was a first for Bri and I making handmade dough!

Here is dinner in pictures....

 mixing in the kitchen aide with the dough hook....

The dough resting before getting covered to rise....

After rolling out the dough, we placed it on a heavily floured piece of parchment.  Then we added sauce, mozzarella, and gorgonzola cheeses before putting on the pineapple.

YUM!  After baked!  Special thanks to my little sister, who got me a bamboo pizza peel for Christmas, which this is currently sitting upon.  :) Thanks Kaity.

d

My Letter Stamps

Is it Friday yet?

Seriously, this week seems forever long.   Last night, I came home and was quite grumpy.  The day had been long; I was tired of sitting.

The best cure for this can only be found in my basement.  It's the craft room.  I love how slightly messy it is, walls filled with ideas, 7 different kinds of glue at my fingertips.   I love how I can go down and work, not clean up, and come back in a few days to finish my project.  Glorious.

So I went down with a few things in mind.  I painted a coat and glued a few frames we had waiting to become jewelry hangers.   Then I tidied up and went through some supplies.  Bri and I are going to a craft swap this weekend so it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of some stuff.

And then, I moved on to my favorite box these days in the room.  In a former life, this box held individual slides waiting to be placed in a projector for all to see.   It was an estate sale purchase.  Today, it holds the letter stamps.

Which, always, without a doubt, make me smile.

Some of the stamps are other estate sale finds.  The little letters were a dollar purchase at Michaels just in time for the holiday season.  All are different and awesome fonts. mmmmm text!

I made some tags for some items, some map gift tags, and another fun little something I will show you once the whole project is done. (saturday!)

d

ps - i got a good report from Puppysitter # 2 today!  Rainier and Baker are happy hanging out with their doggie cousins!

leftover time

Hopefully you read our post over the weekend about the WONDERFUL recipe for zuni roast chicken that we tried for the first time as our friday night treat. The chicken was awesome straight from the oven atop the bread salad featured at zuni cafe. We gobbled up all of the bread salad that night, but only made it through about half of the 3.75 lb chicken we brought home (we are only 2 bellies after all!). So, that evening we put the chicken away in the fridge hoping for the perfect way to enjoy the rest over the weekend.

Saturday afternoon we ventured to the hardware store (Ace on Phinney Ridge), and decided to try out Red Mill Burger which we've been interested in (It was also delicious - long line and crowded for Saturday lunch, though). We brought in this month's Bon Appetit to pass the time, and as we were flipping through there was a Dijon-Cilantro Tuna Salad recipe that caught our eye. We thought, we could substitute our chicken! and we have lots of yummy french bread leftover from the bread salad (we only used half the loaf the night before). So, we decided to make that for dinner.

Again, a delicious recipe discovery! The recipe calls for about half plain yogurt and half mustard (2 kinds!) which is great, because neither D or I are really mayo lovers. It was the perfect mix of tang and spice, cream and crunch (thanks to the red peppers we substituted for celery), and freshness (thanks to the cilantro). On two slices of toasted french bread it was a great way to enjoy our chicken leftovers and other fun ingredients. D told me after the fact that she doesn't usually like tuna or chicken salad, but loved this and is excited to try more!

Sandwiches also provided a good base for our night out at Burlesque Behind the Pink Door. A fun, lighthearted show that i highly recommend if looking for a new/different bar experience downtown seattle. We met up with some friends, shared an antipasti platter, cheese plate, and drank some obamarama green grape martinis. YUM!

the most wonderful things...

.....are cupcakes and hand thrown pottery.

You can find these here.

Also, for my love of cherry blossoms,

you can look here.   These can both be found, along with many other wonderful things at WhitneySmith.etsy.com.

Think how cute that blue cupcake stand would look with a Salted Carmel Cupcake on it!   It's my new favorite kind from Seattle's Cupcake Royale.  They originally made them as their special flavor of January because one of Obama's favorite treats is salted caramel.   I am so glad they are keeping them around!

yum, cupcakes and pottery.

d

Mtn Blanket

I love this blanket!  Cool idea! From an Icelandic design shop I like.....

find it and more here.

(image courtesy www.birkiland.com)

I wonder if they could do some custom Mt Rainier and Mt Baker?

-d

Vacation Planning!

It is one of my favorite things in the world.

So, this weekend, we are going on a little vacation.

Now, wait, you say, aren't we puppysitting the amazing cuteness that is the puppy mountains of Rainier and Baker?

Why, yes, yes we are.  That's why we bring you: Our STAYcation Planning.

It has the positives of very cheap transportation to the destination, free lodging in your usual blogger's recently remodeled abode, and two built in tour guides (ok -- maybe one and a half.  baker is little.)

I (D) have lived in Seattle almost two years now.  And I can count on one hand how many times I have been to Wren's hood.    Its in my city! Only a mere maybe twenty minutes from my house!  Gasp!

So what should we do?

Currently it has all the makings of a great time...

A yummy Friday night cozy sounding dinner!

Ice Cream!

the beach!

browsing antique stores!

and a house full of pets to sleep in with!



can't wait for the weekend (especially after this insanely long monday yesterday. monday = bleh.)

d and b

cherry blossoms

Hi hi,

Whew it has been a busy weekend.   I want to share with you one of my new favorite things around here.  Rumor on the street is that it is almost spring.  Hooray!

In Seattle, one thing really means spring to me.

Spring = Cherry Blossoms, everywhere.  And I love them.  The first little ones have emerged from their buds on a few zealous trees this week!

 Yet, today it snowed.  Just a little bit, but enough to make me insanely jealous of your usual blogger and wistfully imagine how many fruity cocktails she is probably drinking while frying soaking in the sunshine.

Around our house we take pride in mantle arrangement.  We change it often and take days perfecting the exact placement of every little thing.   Objects are taken from everywhere.  In the summer, fresh backyard dahlias in every color imaginable engulf the scene.  Last fall we did a great orange and black one with fresh gourds and black paper bats.   Christmas is always an endless possibility.  This past season, I made various evergreen trees out of wooly felt and stumps from last year's Christmas tree.  Wooden reindeer nestled amongst the trees, while  bright colored vintage ornaments littered the "forest" bottom and white candles in various heights reached high.

We have been working on our beginning Springtime mantle all week.   And, I must say, I am in love.

The idea first started last year around this time.  I wanted the blossoms on the mantlescape, so I could  see them all the time.   I went outside with my pruning shears, cut a  few small branches and brought them inside, arranging them delicately on the mantle.

Just the right height, amount of blossoms in every which way, it was perfect.   Then, the next morning, while the heat had come on to warm our house, most of the blossoms tumbled to the ground, wilted.   Not only was it a huge mess and made allergies go crazy, our mantle was flawed.

So this year I thought, there has to be another solution.  Rather then turn off the heat and make my toes freeze... I saw these  and saw my cherry blossom solution.

I must say, I am not good at origami.  I can't remember the steps often enough, but Bri is very patient with me.

So go make yourself some cherry blossoms that will last all season and glue them to some fallen sticks in your yard. 

:) happy SPRING !

d

And here is what you get, our mantle, march 09

PS --- The little silver dansk figures are our new-to-us vintage.  We got them from Sweetshorn Vintage over on Etsy.

zuni friday nite

Bri, here!

About a year ago, while wandering the clearance shelf at Half Price Books on my lunch break (one of my favorite pastimes), I came across a well-loved copy of the Zuni Cafe Cookbook for $1. ($1!) I have a history, albeit brief, with Zuni. The fall after studying abroad in Helsinki, I ventured into the world of design by working at Peter Miller Books here in Seattle. Now, while Peter prides himself on being a purveyor of art, architecture, and design books, he also was very proud of a small and VERY SPECIFIC selection of lifestyle books, including those on cooking. There were 2 or 3 travel guides, 1 particular book on the art of Italian hand-gesturing, and about 3 cookbooks. (I now see that there are 5 listed on the website, and I would suspect another 2 or 3 available in-store, but at the time, this was a selective and coveted list).  Peter has great culinary taste, often offering customers Seattle restaurant recommendations before suggesting buildings to visit, so I knew that the cookbooks he chose to sell were the best of the best.

These were 3 cookbooks out of the thousands that exist, those written and illustrated just-so to coexist in a world full of design and craft. Zuni was one of the selected few. On slow fall afternoons, while wind whipped leaves around First avenue, I would sometimes flip through the Zuni cookbook while imagining equally autumnal days on the streets of San Francisco with rustic cuisine equally fitting (fall is my favorite!)  At a recent book reading with blogger Orangette, she recommended this cookbook as one of the 2 best cookbooks to have in your kitchen (along with the Art of Braising). It is simple, elegant, and informative.

It is also verbose in instruction, however, which leads to tonight’s dinner dilemma. I am an impatient person, and ever since my $1 score at half price, I have been remiss to sit down with Zuni, to really discover a recipe or two that I would like to try. But today I was committed to taking a turn and finding out exactly what Zuni has to offer.

We decided to make Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad. It. . . was. . . amazing. Simple. Rustic. Flavorful. This was the first time we’ve ever roasted a chicken (gasp, I know), but it was easy! It came out perfectly browned, crispy, and tender on the inside just as I had hoped. The bread salad was perfectly vinegar-y, and the currants added a perfect sweetness. 

We had a glass of Spanish red wine along with and it was the perfect Friday night meal. We had most of the ingredients on-hand, so it didn’t seem like a big effort, and even though it took an hour-ish to cook, the smells filled the house and distracted us from hunger. Delish!

Go find yourself a Zuni Café Cookbook and try this recipe pronto.

testing, testing 1, 2, 3

The wonderful blogger you usually see here is away this week on her vacation from lifting gigantic beams unsafely in the air  honeymoon!   Congrats to you both, you deserve it.

Now, before she left, your usual blogger handed me some instructions for her small but adorable zoo, a copy of her house keys, and the password to get on her blog.   I had hoped to borrow her awesome necklace collection for the week too, but no luck.  (this will not stop me from spying on it while I am at her house)…

So, with that fond farewell I bring you Puppysitters No. 3.  You see, the puppies are SO wonderfully cute that there was competition to be their vacation-from-the-humans host.  We don’t start puppy watching until next Friday the 20^th.   You have to stay tuned until at least then, when  we will be at the home of your usual blogger to judge how nice all this remodeling is watch the pets. 

Until then… well who are we you ask?  

We are not bloggers, to start, so please bear with us.  In fact, this is our first time ever writing a blog.  I’m nervous!   

Me, I am D (as your usual blogger always says) and I work with Wren.  The other part of the duo is Bri, my best friend, crafter extraordinaire, roommate, fellow puppysitter.   We run two shops on etsy together (this will be the end of our shameless plug) – RavennaGirls and RavennaGirlsVintage .

 So, stay tuned for whatever we come up with these next few days.

 J D (and bri with her spell checking skills)

vaca here we come.

happy thursday everyone.  why is it such a happy thursday you ask?  well cause we are headed off into the sun tomorrow that's why!  ahhh a Hawaiian island awaits... the beach, the pool, the cocktails!  i can hardly wait.

oh don't sit there looking all sad...  while i am away we will have a few guest bloggers popping in to say hello... or something.  (hmmm i don't know what they will say really but hopefully it will be good.  ha.)  knowing these talented ladies it will be fabulous.

i will miss you all while lounging on the beach... have a great week next week.

like the picture - that was when Rainier was only about 5 months old... 
she looks so tiny there.  ah my little lady

8506 - Step... who knows at this point

we have been working like crazy on the hallway...sorry i dropped off the face of the earth!

we have been going like mad to try and get this portion of the work complete before we leave for our little trip... so last we left off the ceiling was open to the attic, Baker and I were freezing, and we had the lights installed...

then came the insulation... sweet sweet insulation. yes yes we should have gone with the cotton insulation but as usual we waited until the last minute to go buy it.. which meant home depot. i can't tell you what a difference that bit of insulation made to the temperature of the house.

then came the drywall... we had to add about a foot to the existing walls and the ceilings of course (this helped our heating bill dramatically)

after hanging the drywall came everyone's favorite part - mudding. JD did most of the mudding he has a steadier hand than i for the skim coating. i get everything mudded ahead of him so it was easy for us to work as a team laying the tape and working out all of the seams.

then more mudding... as a quick note we used aluminum corner beads this time vs. the tape like ones we got last time for the closet. these aluminum ones you screw into place and they have a nice little edge bead that you can lay the mud up to. long story short we preferred the aluminum corner beads MUCH, MUCH more.

then cam the first layers of paint... making it look so much cleaner. i also got rid of one of the purple walls... thank god. here we still had the old doors, which look incredibly yellow against the nice white walls. Next to be removed the floor and doors. (Rainier was checking our craftsmanship - we passed the test.) as a side note we used the Rodda no VOC paint and primer... the paint is County White.. i like that it is super clean (a good white is hard to come by). the no VOC primer was a little thin but the paint covered beautifully. using no VOC products really saved us in this tiny space... if not we would have killed tons and tons of braincells with the fumes. if you want specific amounts to look for when shopping for paints email me and i can send those to you.

we finished the last coats of paint late saturday night. sunday we began ripping out the laminate flooring... see that white flooring underneath? some previous owner had the great idea to paint thick white primer (Kilz) over fir flooring - so smart. they didn't even do a good job. wait till we put that new ipe flooring in... it is going to look killer.

JD has been hanging doors like a mad man... and they look so sweet. more to come. happy tuesday. i will be back i promise.

busy, busy, busy...

hey guys... sorry i haven't been posting. we have just been so crazy trying to get the house in some sort of order before the trip this week. drywall, painting and reorganizing. hopefully i have some steam left to post some of it tonight. last night by 8.30 i was on the couch totally spent. this remodeling business is hard work.

thank god for no VOC paint or we wouldn't have brain cells left.... more tonight (well hopefully)

Old, New Lighting

while wondering about the city a few weekends ago we came upon some new, old lighting that i loved.

we popped into Watson Kennedy a local shop here in Seattle that sells all sorts of wonderful goods... just check out there web site to see the extent of what they have...  while there i spotted these beautiful pendant lights.  each pendant consisted of a bare bulb like seen here hung by a dropped single cord.  what made these pendants really spectacular was that what seemed to be an old hand beater was modified to create the fixture housing.

a version of the drop pendant (minus the old beater) can be purchased at Rejuvenation.  the Burnside seen below, is really nice simple pendant that would give off a warm glow.

we talked about using these over our new island... but haven't come to a decision.

the forerunner for the pendant lights above the island come from a company here in Seattle - Resolute.  this pendant is called the Mary pendant and i LOVE it.

they also have one called the Gordon... who's shade isn't as transparent ( i think i would like that one too).  maybe we will do one kind over the dinning table and one over the island.  i love the curves of the lamp...and the delicacy of the interior parts and pieces.   their glass blowing studio is here in seattle.  i have been there to watch the glass blowing in action -  and they have several beautiful pieces.

dear lighting fairy... please drop off two or three of these fixtures for me.