Happy Zombie

No… not THAT F-word… the one that’s far worse. Way worse. Fear. So this post about fear evolved after reading Jackie’s BEAUTIFUL post called New Beginnings (BTW… it’s THE Best New Year’s Post Ever). It was as if Jackie wrote it for me and put into words the beehive of jumbled thoughts swirling around in my head. Yes… a light bulb moment for me!

I’ve already taken the steps last year to put aside fear and take some plunges. Some steps resulted in success (you’ll have to wait until summer to find out! Hint, hint… at your newsstand!), and some not. I had some steps that ended at a dead end (rejection), and you know what… it was NO big deal! The fear of rejection is by FAR worse then the actual rejection and I honestly can’t remember what was even rejected.

Sometimes I have fear when I blog my “Sew & Tell” that I’m bragging. I get that little voice in my head (and she sounds just like Courtney Love BTW) who says, “It sounds like you’re bragging”. Yet I tell myself over and over how much I enjoy other bloggers who share… why be so stubborn with my sharing? The Courtney Love voice nags me over on the other shoulder, “Do it, do it… people want to see your creations like you want to see their creations”. What if nobody shared? How awful that would be and how dull the Crafty Blogging world would be! I love blogging and have made many new friends blogging. I don’t want fear to be a part of something I love so much and I have taken a vow to kill the fear. RIP fear. You are dead to me.

So my message is to you my friends, you know who you are. You’re the ones who fear of having a blog, or even leaving comments. Yes… it’s not only ok to comment of people’s blogs… it’s welcomed! And if the Courtney Love voice is saying to you that you have nothing to write about or you don’t have time or no one’s going to read it… well she’s full of crap and she’s got a hypodermic needle filled with liquid fear waiting to inject you with it. Just say no.

Thank you for the new mantra Jackie and Happy New Beginnings to you all!

Posted in How I Live | 9 Comments

I love Bonne Maman jam. Like getting a free toy inside, I buy this jam because of the jar. Oh I guess for the jam too, it really is yummy. I must have two dozen of these jars, all holding some sort of treasured gem, buttons, address labels, safety pins, tea bags, sugar cubes, postage stamps, m&m’s, thimbles, embroidery floss, paper clips, yada, yada, yada. If it were not for Bonne Maman, I’d be totally without any organization what so ever (and my toast and waffles would be dry).

I almost always buy the strawberry because it has a red lid. What… you’d like a peanut butter and blackberry sandwich??? Here… enjoy a strawberry PB&J. Actually, I’ve tried all the flavors and they are all yummy and taste like Aunt Ethel’s been canning in her farmhouse kitchen.

Posted in Stuff I like | 10 Comments

Catching up and long overdue… Part One of my recent postal joy. A few weeks ago my best bloggy pal Pam sent me a box of joy. Of course what was in the box rocked my world, but because Pam sent it out of the blue and from her heart made me tear up. It was one of those moments that made me exhale and reflect with a warm-fuzzy-goodness-joy about my life since I’ve been blogging. Oh that sounds so corny, but I KNOW many of you can relate! There’s something very magical about crafty bloggers… just like gardeners and quilters. Very giving, very fun, very inspirational, very warm, very creative… a goodness that’s not defined by one word. I’m searching for The Best Post Ever for the blogger who can describe this good bloggy-love-drug that has no bad side effects or doesn’t give you a hang-over.

So… back to the box from Pam. OMG… look at the little birdie in the mailbox! I had commented on that birdie in one of Pam’s posts… and look what she sends me! I about died with joy (death by kindness)! I’m sure this is supposed to be a Christmas ornament, but I see this as a year-round goodie on my shelf. Pam also sent me “pretty socks” and a mug from In Between Stitches. Just darling and the mug has extra special meaning (our Sisterhood Of The Coffee On The Patio Table Photo). Is Pam awesome or what!

Posted in Stuff | 5 Comments

I was so tickled to see Wee Wonderful’s Hillary Lang’s Stitchette’s take on an elfin life! The über talented Hillary has these two lovelies in the freebie section of her store. I was so excited over these cuties I had to make them right away! So cute, so cute, so cute! Thank you Hillary!

I decided I wanted the Stitchettes to be the star of the show, so I did just a simple white on white (snowflake) and solid red. I thought about doing some star blocks in the setting, then thought of doing some pinwheels, and then thought of doing some prairie points. I crumble up and tossed my graphpaper notes (no, not really… into the recycling bin it went) and went Simple to showcase the elfs. A case when less is truly more. I enlarged the patten, so each Stitchette block is 16” tall (finished).

I echo quilted (by hand) around the Stitchettes, then did a cross hatch on the rest of the quilt. Hard to tell by my cruddy photos, but the Stitchettes just kind of pop out by doing this. Click on the photo and you might be better able to see them “poof”.

Now my only problem is having to wait until Christmas to hang this. Though as one to break rules (even my own), I think my little Elf Stitchettes have a perfect year-round place in my office right next to my redwork Roly Poly Circus.

Posted in Quilty n Crafty | 9 Comments

The last movie of 2006 I saw was Little Miss Sunshine. It was also the best! I’m not a movie reviewer and don’t know the appropriate things to say, so you’ll just have to pretend you’re reading a great movie review.

I love little indie movies (or what seem like indie movies). I can do without the CGI, the big score, the multi-million dollar wardrobe and the “it” actors (though I think Steve Carell is an It Kinda Guy). I don’t want to give the story/plot away, but this movie was so refreshing and the characters so interesting… you can’t help but get sucked into this movie and cheer for this family. It was like a good book for my eyes. I even watched it a second time when DS watched it (and he really liked it too).

Added to my material wish list… I want a Vee-dub bus. Mmmm, yes… Aqua on white. One with a functioning transmission.

Posted in Stuff I like | 4 Comments

Merry Belated Christmas! Normal is slowly coming back to Casa de Zombie. My folks headed back home to Walnut Creek the Day After and I headed into a funk. Not even the Macy*s ad cheered me up. Five days of eating, lounging, laughing and then be thrust back into to-do’s and must-do’s (aka adulthood)… bummer. What’s a girl to do… go shopping! Oh no, not clothes… not shoes… but cheese! We took a trip to The World’s Largest Costco (Hillsboro, OR) and I loaded up on cheese, cheese, & cheese and we topped it off with a trip to Red Robin (mmmmm… Bonzai Burgers and endless fries!).

So much to blog about, so many photos to take and show… but that’s going to have to wait. I miss my daily bloggy visits, but I see it just around the corner (ahem… when DS goes back to school and DH goes back to work!).

Happy New Year my bloggy friends!

UPDATE: A (swiped) sample of my new door, just for you PKM! Please don’t be pea green with envy, as my door is going to be black (BTW… I recolored the photo pea green just for you PKM)! In the glass part it’s the black do-hickey thingamagig stuff… made too look like wrought iron. It was love at first sight.

No crowds in Costco either! It was spooky. Was there an evacuation notice we didn’t know about??? The only crowd at Costco was at the snack bar… which was a major bummer because I wanted a Twisted Churro (double the price, double the calories, double the Churrolishousness!)

Posted in How I Live | 11 Comments

By now I’m sure this is old news, but since I’m newly energized with electricity… I’m a little late. Ok, so we had this huge storm. I mean a HUGE storm. In other places they’re called hurricanes, each assigned with cute little names, everyone evacuates and Anderson Cooper is on the next flight in. Here in Astoria we wheel in our rubbish cans, put on a pot of coffee and hold on (we had reported gusts of over 100 mph).

I took it upon myself to name this storm “Nellie Olson”. A pesky little twit she was, and she brought us back to Walnut Grove times. Some here are still living in Walnut Grove… STILL with no electricity! I have fantasized about living like Laura Ingalls Wilder, a simple time with a simple life… living off the land and lunch in little buckets.

Our night in the storm changed all that. Our house was filled with candles (thank you IKEA), the fireplace roaring (thank you WIND for finding your way down our chimney), and hot coffee provided by DH who boiled water on the campstove outside (thank you FRENCH PRESS). We played checkers, watched trees sway, I did some redwork (thank you HILLARY LANG!) by lantern light (so very Ma Ingalls, though I’m guessing hers was not a Hello Kitty lantern). We watched my newly cleaned windows get pelted with pine needles and branches praying they didn’t break. Dinner was an epicurean delight of hot dogs roasted in the fireplace. No news and no tv… but I did have one tower on my crackberry and I was able to go to kgw.com to get a little news. Note to self… keep crackberry fully charged before next storm. Like Ma reading us a story before the fire, we listened to DH’s scanner and could hear all that was going on in the county. Stormotainment. I never could have imagined how many wonderful people were out there making it safer and better for us out there! Thank you to all of you!

At around 1 am things start to settle down and things eventually become quiet. Really quiet. WOW… our lives are so filled with noise, that once you’re without power… it’s so quiet! We had DS sleep in our room, away from the trees on his side of the house. We all tucked in for the night (a cold night at that) and I slept better then I have in years! Ahh… so quiet!

Time to wake up to our morning alarm clocks… the sounds of chain saws. Up the street, down the street. Here a chain saw, there a chain saw… everywhere a chain saw. This is the point where DH is envious and I can smell a trip to Lowes in the air. I thought we had it bad… downed and damaged fencing, a snapped tree (a big one) and my glass patio table that went airborne onto the lawn (which yes… we did vacuum!). No more photos of my coffee on the table for PKM. For me the mess was the worst. Cleaning the sidewalk, the yard, blah, blah, blah. Cleaning is so not my gig. And then I found out about my neighbor Wende and her mess… first I saw it IRL and then on her blog. I’m not feeling a bit sorry for myself… only gratefulness. The storm also brought out us neighbors. Hot coffee and cigarettes served up fresh in my driveway as we planned a pot luck with our thawing food (thank you again FRENCH PRESS and campstove). The power did go back on before our big feast, so no Little House on the Prairie style cooking… but it was a blast.

Long story short… we’re still cleaning up and getting the fencing back up. DH got to go on his fantasy Lowes shopping extravaganza and got his new chain saw. Can you smell the testosterone? The fencing was a sting on the wallet… but soooo nothing compared to what others have to deal with. After cutting the snapped tree, DS discovered we had a great view from atop the tree and snapped this photo of Astoria at dusk. I really like this photo even though it’s hard to see. And that my friends… was our night with Nellie Olson.

Posted in I Heart Oregon | 9 Comments

I was visiting Allsorts and she has THE cutest coaster pattern. If the coasters aren’t cute enough… her pattern is even cuter! I decided to try the coaster as a circle.

Posted in Quilty n Crafty | 6 Comments

What should have taken me a day… took me a week. I love to decorate for the holidays… I just hate doing it. I’ve been hesitent to post these photos as they make my home look crappy and cluttered. But hmmm… what IF my home really IS crappy and cluttered… and I just now noticed it! Oh well… I guess you’ll have to stop on by for a Kaluha & coffee visit and see for yourself!

For starters… this is our tree. A real tree! We have an artificial one, but this year it’s staying in the attic. My DH got this as a gift from a very nice Oregonian who gives trees each year to service folks (police, fire, military, etc)… his way of saying Thank You. I do not know this man’s name (not for a lack of trying) and wish I could thank him for his kindness. If you know who this is… please shoot me a comment! Anyhoo… At our house there is no particular religion, we just kind of celebrate everything that suits our fancy (within reason of couse!). We’ve always had a Star of David on top of our tree, and I’m not alone… check out PAMKITTYMORNING’s tree! See… we really are twins separated at birth!

So here’s a shot of what looks like Clutter Central. This photo is especially poignant for me as I’ve not seen this table since the day after Thanksgiving when I stared stacking all my Christmas stuff on top of it. Last night my table reappeared! I guess this means I have to cook dinner again.

Our little buffet counter is somewhat clutter free too. This is where cell phones, laptops, cameras and everything else that needs charging lands. It’s where one of the few available electrical outlets is in this old house.

Tahdahhhh… I finished my Allsorts inspired Christmas pouches. “Pouches” still isn’t doin’ it for me… and “envelopes” sounds so office cubicle… must think of another word. Any ideas? Anyhoo… Wende had a great idea about doing it red, so I made the 25th in red. I like it! Thanks Wende! So the question is… what to put in them. Since DS is 15, little stickers or candy just won’t do. I’m putting one dollar bills in them and a $20 on the 25th. Oh I’ll have some fun too… some days DS will get a quarter to keep him humble. Bad mom, bad mom. I thought it would be fun to do little homemade coupons too.

My kitchen window. I don’t know what it is, but I always seem to photograph this! I have more rooms, really. My swag looks so nice lit up and it has this nice glow. A flash photo makes it too bright… and no flash makes it look dark and dreary as like if we lived in, umm, Oregon! Notice the Star of David??? DS2 made that when we lived in Hawaii. And what does a kid in Hawaii make a Star of David from??? Chopsticks of course! I have another photo of my popsicle stick SoD that my DS1 made a couple of decades ago… just like the one PKM’s daughter Frankie made… but Blogger is being a [insert your own colorful word here] and won’t let me upload it. DS1’s Star of David is not neon like Frankie’s because Al Gore hadn’t evented it yet when DS1 made his.

Oh… and remember when I said there was no religion in our house? I lied. I faithfully attend my Swedish House of Worship, especially on the two holiest days of the year in July and December. Merry It Only Happens Twice a Year Sale!

Posted in I Heart Oregon | 10 Comments

Am I a stalker if I visit someone’s blog day after day, waking up each morning and wondering what new delights await me there? Ok, maybe not a stalker… but a fan for sure! I’m a huge fan of Jenny/Allsorts and her current delightful yummy is her little advent pouches (envelopes). So I took a little stab at it myself. So far I’m up to day 4. How many more to go??? Are these just not too cute! OMG, I think I have a blog-crush on Allsorts.

Posted in Quilty n Crafty | 14 Comments