Monday, August 22, 2011

Post Ocean Blues

I came back from the ocean feeling a little brainless. Like if you held your ear up to my empty head you'd hear the sea? We just had the best time and I can't get myself back to landlubbing norm. Kites and sand dollars, dune grass adventures and driftwood hideouts are on my mind. And the waves. I swear standing knee deep in crashing waves is the best possible power source for my human battery. But more than any of this, I loved having my family (particularly that handsome, hard working guy I married a few years back) all to myself for a few days.
I could have stayed for a year. But we're home and I'm feeling bratty about sharing my boys with the world at large. I'm really not complaining. There are worse things than discovering that you rather enjoy your family! But as I said, I am feeling brainless and distracted, like some part of me is still beachcombing.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Off to the Beach

We're heading out to the ocean for a few days. So if you'll be on the Washington coast this weekend, watch for sand Grokes!

Be back next week, folks.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Stitchless Summer

My grandma always said that Summer was not for sewing. I thought she was crazy. With all that extra daylight there should be plenty of time for playing outdoors and sewing indoors, right? Yet here I am, run ragged from outings and adventures with nary a stitch to show for it.Our house is slowly coming together. Slowly. We're all sunkissed and bruised from swimming and climbing trees and playing at beaches and parks and exploring various shores. We've ridden ferries, seen dinosaurs, watched air shows and hydroplane races, but no sewing. I feel like I blinked and July was gone. To be fair, I am 4000+ pages into George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, so I've obviously found a few minutes to myself here and there. But my fabric piles, all washed and pressed, all summery and stripey and filled with boy picked prints, have sat for months.Wah wah. I'm not really complaining. How could I? My life is filled with wonder. It's just that sometimes it doesn't feel like my own. But if I have to live someone else's life for a few years who better than my two imaginative, playful boys?

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Seedy

I'm a little obsessed with vintage seed packets right now. I know I mentioned them before, but since then I've bought this book. Amazing. It's so inspiring just to look through, and the jpeg and TIFF files are nice, high quality images. My first little project was to print off a few small images onto adhesive paper and stick them onto canisters and jars etc in my work area. I love having all of my supplies organized in an inspiring way. Small space living makes it kind of a necessity. I need my supplies to be ready to go for when I find a minute to myself, but for the other 23 3/4 hours in a day it all has to look like part of the dining room. So a little charm goes a long way.There are some etsy vendors who sell digital downloads of similar images for a dollar or two, if you'd rather not buy the whole book (which is only $15 on amazon right now.) And there are free versions floating around the interwebs, perfect for smaller scale, but maybe not the best for enlarging.

OH! And I'm a big fan amazon's free shipping? It says 5-8 days, but my order got to me in 48 hours! Such a pleasant surprise.