day after day

...it has looked like this. i have to confess, it's gotten me down. i haven't accomplished much. not nearly what i've wanted to. it's june and i'm still wearing my winter puffy coat to francis's baseball games. occasionally we've had a sunny day, and all of seattle pours into the out-of-doors, and then gets sunburned. but it's raining today, rained yesterday, rained most of last week, most of last month, and the month before that... get the idea? it doesn't inspire much motivation in me, and my days go by with my "things to do" not getting checked off the list; my post-it notes that have overtaken the kitchen are not getting taken down. they are deciding to live there, right there on the wall. school gets out for francis in 7 days and he and i cannot wait. but i'm telling ya, seattle: you have 7 days to shape up, because i DO NOT want summer vacation starting looking like this! so please, do a girl a favor? i'm popping vitamin D everyday, but i could really use some the natural way...

all that cold cold wet day...

those days of sun couldn't last forever, right? well, spring break is wrapping up, with alot of rain. on friday we received some serious rain, downpour rain, and even some hail. what do you do on a truly wet and gray miserable day?

go get coffee and cupcakes with some friends!

we hit trophy cupcakes for the unveiling of the new flavor. (the trophy owner had just been on the martha stewart show apparently, and luckily, we beat the crowd.) now, i'm not a huge cupcake fan. i usually can't eat a whole one by myself, but these were probably the best cupcakes i've ever tasted...delicious, warm out of the oven, and not too sweet if you can believe it. the one i split with francis wasn't enough; i got 3 more to take home with us (and i have to say: tasted just as good a day later.) francis and i caught a ride with jen and her kids, and met up with ann-krestene and stephanie and their kids, and together, we all whiled away some of the afternoon rain.









when greg got home from work at 3:30, we took francis to a matinee: nim's island, which was very enjoyable for him, and very tolerable for us. we then gave him the choice of dinner, and he selected chow mein, but we had some time to kill, so we drove down to golden gardens to look at the rain on the sea.



(at least, we did. francis didn't make it. it's nice to know a ten year old still isn't immune to the occasional nap.)





greg and i killed some time in the rain, taking pictures, until we were freezing and wet thru, and then headed to one of our favorite places, chef liao on phinney ridge, to get francis his chow mein and hot tea!



we then had just enough time to hit our friend vic's art show at the phinney ridge center, right down the street from us. vic did a show last year called "sushi is the bomb", (about nuclear arms, some of you may have seen it at the green bean cafe in greenwood), and this year she has new and just as thought-provoking work, titled: "catallactic converters: exploring value, choice and transformtion through salvaged materials". (dealing with the world-wide issues of slavery and human trafficking.) (photo does no justice, and was taken with permission)



come be challenged! see her pieces currently at the phinney center art gallery, thru april 25th, and then they move to the green bean cafe, for the month of may. artist reception on friday, may 9th, 6-8pm, during the annual greenwood phinney art walk.

i had just taken francis and one of his friends to the art museum the day before, and i have to say, i truly love taking him to see the things that people we know have created. it makes the arts that much more tangible and personal. it shows that it's something he could do, too, if he wanted to...

and it certainly gives us things to talk about...

when the sun shines

when you have a weeks worth of rain in the forecast, it is imperitive that you get out when the sun is shining.

monday afternoon was sunny!

i dropped francis off at tennis lessons, and picked up greg from work; we now had an hour to kill together, which had a 2-part requirement: caffeine and sun.

many of you know: seattle has turned me into a sun-craver. at any time of the day, if it is out, i want to be where it is. this involves moving. following it around. where it is in the morning isn't necessarily where it is in the afternoon. i have learned that if you are on lake washington when the sun is shining, by 4 o'clock you will be in shade, as the sun slips behind beacon hill.

and if a restaurant is on the wrong (ie: shady) side of the street, i won't go there.

i want to be where the sun is. period.

so, off we go for coffee and our sunshine; we knew where to find it. at 4:30 in the afternoon, it is pouring onto rainier ave. south, on the east side of the street. we go to tutta bella, in columbia city. our initial plan to sit outside in the sun was halted when we saw there were no outdoor tables set out. oh yeah! it's only march! but there was a table for two inside, a little nook of an alcove, full of beaming sun. no one else wanted that table; it was waiting for us. the waiter went to draw the blinds for us (something else i've noticed in seattle: that when the sun shines, it's too bright, apparently!) and we said: no! no! we want the sunshine! this is why we're here.

so we sat, and talked, and enjoyed our coffees. a lovely little date. it was roasting in that corner. i was blinded by the sunshine and had to wear greg's hat. it was wonderful! now here's hoping it's sunny next monday...and we'll do it again.

to sew or not to sew...

the week went by with gray clouds, and almost continual rain, so i am thoroughly enjoying this burst of sun shining thru my window. i'd be tempted to go outside, except it's freezing out, and francis is (no school today) happily humming away in his room, contructing his newest star wars lego acquisition. on sunny days like these, i like to migrate around the apartment, following the sun like a cat: coffee in the kitchen, reading in the living room, and then sometimes just curling up for a mid-afternoon nap, just to feel the warmth beating on my face.



i've just had my coffee (in the sun!)and after this, i'll be on to my project: making flaxseed warming pillows, which i thought i'd share with you. i made these for christmas presents for the women in my family this year, and did not blog about it because i wanted the gifts to be a surprise. but i have alot of supplies left over, and i've decided to make some more. i thought i should also let you know: i am not a sewer. (according to webster, a "sewer" is: a person or thing that sews. a thing?!! alarmingly enough, a "sewer" is also: an underground pipe to carry off water and waste matter. hmmm...i am not either of these, but for the purposes of this blog, i will be referring to definition #1.) i am also not a knitter; i prefer the paper end of crafting: cutting and glueing, collaging, making my own cards,etc. about as handy as i have been regarding fabric in the past, has been to make iron-on t-shirts. and even they frustrated me.



i grew up with a mother who knew how to sew, made her own clothes when she was young, and then made alot of clothes for us when we were kids. she made all my prom dresses. she made my wedding dress. she is a very accomplished sewer.( person who sews!) so it made sense that i should learn, (and i assumed i could), and she DID try to teach me. she really did. she was really patient. however, i was not. i did not like all the steps: pre-washing the fabric, and then all the ironing; i just wanted to cut. and the pinning of all the pieces! i just wanted to sew. and then, when i was sewing, i had a problem with the pedal. (in drivers ed, my instructor called me "lead foot") i could not keep it from going too fast and zipping away with my fabric. grrrr! and then all the seam-ripping my mistakes and starting over. !!! it was really more than my 20-yr-old-self could bear. my mother, on more than one occasion, had to rescue her sewing machine FROM me, and i think my dad observed that if i COULD have lifted it, it might have been in danger of being thrown. i was a very angry sewer. it was not relaxing. i decided it was not for me. and i haven't done it since then. even sadder was the end result: it was not the heirloom piece i had been hoping for. unfortunately, the project that i was so laboring to complete was: first a quilt, that became, in one of my "genius" ideas, a quilt dress. i do not know whatever possessed me to make a quilt dress. and my mother let me! of course i didn't start with an easy project, like a pillow, or an A-line skirt. i HAD to make a quilt dress. piecing all the squares together to make the strips, sewing all the strips together to make a large enough block of fabric to cut the pattern out of. i must have been having a vanity trip, or going thru a very sad fashion phase, because the only thing that kept me going on this ridiculous project was: how awesome it was going to be when it was finally done. no one else would have anything like it! (ain't that the truth!) and i will tell you: i did finish it. i triumphantly put it on only to discover two things. two things that made me want to cry. 1.) it was ugly. (whose bright idea was it to make a quilt that was a dress?) however, in my vanity, i ignored this point, (afterall, i did not want to seem unappreciative of all my mother's time and labor spent with me) and instead, focused on 2.) it weighed about 80 lbs. my shoulders ached after wearing it for awhile. i think i forced myself to wear it a few times, so that all my efforts weren't a complete waste, but, it soon found it's way into my closet, never to again see the light of day. my mother rescued it many years later, and now it is stored in her closet. she tried to wear it once, out of nostalgia i think, but confessed later, in the kindest way possible, so as to not hurt my feelings, that it WAS a bit heavy. and i had to laugh. so we just laughed and laughed and laughed. and there it stays. in the closet. it stays there for a good laugh.

so, that is why, this undertaking of even making a pillow, was a bit daunting to me. my friend karen made us a warming pillow last year for christmas, which we use all the time. this year, i saw them at all sorts of places, selling for like $40! and i thought to myself (in my usual DIY fashion): i could make that. then, my friend melissa blogged about how to make them, and where she had gotten her idea from, and i thought: good. i'll just copy them. but: i couldn't copy them. they were sewers. i was not. i couldn't make fancy little pillow-cases for my flaxseed pillows; i just wanted to sew four straight lines and be done with it. so here it is: and they cost less than $10 a piece to make, so enjoy! now go make your own.

HOW TO MAKE A FLAXSEED WARMING PILLOW: FOR THE NON-SEWER:

1.) get your fabric. (i tried Jo-Ann's before a friend told me about this little gem of a shop in seattle, the quilting loft. very very cool fabric!)

2.) sad to say, you must then wash and iron it. a very boring step.

3.) determine your size, and cut, with fabric scissors. (remember, it needs to fit into a microwave, so you can't make 'em too big. i made mine 7.5 inches by 18.)

4.) place the outsides on the inside, and pin: a 1/4 inch in on all four sides. you don't need alot of pins. just enough to guide your eye when you're sewing. (and don't forget: remove them as you sew.)

5.) and now: to sew! there is hope if you do not have a machine. i do not own one, but have many friends who do. just ask a friend if you can come over for coffee and borrow their machine! (haha) if your friend does not trust your sewing skills, maybe see about trading something: they sew four straight lines, you bring a cake? or even, see if a local shop does what the quilting loft offers, a sewing lounge: machines available to use in the store, for $10.)

i sewed at my friend keri's house, and at my friend jennifer's. i got some tips i didn't previously know:

backstitch to start your sewing, and backstitch to end it.
start in the middle of one of the small ends: this will be your opening (to pull the pillow thru.)
sew all three sides, and finish the fourth with about a 2 inch hole. (my 1 inch holes were too small; i could barely pull my pillow back thru! much frustration!)

6.) cut the corners at an angle, and then pull your pillow inside out. now the outside fabric should be on the outside.

7.) iron it again.



8.) stuff it.



use the back of a cardboard cereal box to make a funnel, and pour in the flaxseed. mine was trial and error, and i ended up using 5 cups of flaxseed, and 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. dried lavender, with a pinch of chamomile. (it does not need chamomile, only i had already bought it, and was trying to use some of it. my first try was way too much, and our apartment was reeking like a field of weeds, and i was sneezing for days, so you don't want to use chamomile if the person you're giving it to gets allergies easily. just using lavender is ok. and you could use more than i did. mine is a faint smell, not overpowering. and i used dried lavender, not the essential oil, because with the oil, you needed to make a pillow cover, which i did not know how to do. the dried lavender works fine. i also found flaxseed very cheap at the old weird fred meyer at 85th and greenwood (seattle) for only $1 a pound! half the price than at whole foods! so it can be found at reasonable prices...)

9.) sew your opening shut. by hand or machine. i tried the first one by hand, and it looked sadly as if a 5 yr. old had done it. so i machine-sewed not only the hole, but the whole end for uniformity. and it looked very nice.

10.) voila! you have a pillow!



to heat: place on a paper towel in the microwave and nuke for 1-3 minutes, depending on your microwave. do not overheat or it can scorch! for moist heat: sprinkle with a little water before microwaving. to chill: place in a ziploc bag and store in the freezer 2 hours or overnight, to use as a cold pak.

uses: fold in half lengthwise and use around your neck to relieve muscle tension and stress. fold in half width-wise and place behind your back for aches. lay it on your lap for warmth. stick it under your covers to warm up your bed at night. or sleep with it at your feet!

i made one for greg this christmas, because he saw me making them and said, "which one is for me?" i said: "oh. none. you want one?" luckily, i had gotten one kind of non-feminine fabric: a vintage-looking western print. so i made one for him. he uses it all the time. i use it all the time. francis tries to, when he can get a turn. there just isn't enough pillow to go around for the three of us. now, francis wants his own. i want my own. so, i'm off again to make some more: one for francis, one for me, and then some...