Downstairs Miscellaney (and a Tomato)

This has been a quiet, lay-low kind of weekend. We were in Bend last week, which was great fun, but also apparently draining. I dragged myself around all day yesterday, never completely shaking off feeling groggy. It was not a shining weekend of productivity. But last weekend was, between the dining room chairs and the pillows (more on those later).

So this is just a hodge podge of what's new this month (that I may or may not have mentioned before). First up, I snagged a couple of these artichoke candles on clearance at Target for $3 each. They'll be fun to move around. 

 

The dining room is looking worlds better, with the chairs and the newly constructed moss ball. One benefit of cutting down the oak in the backyard was the abundance of moss I harvested (sometimes I pause and realize I sound like a total headcase. Maybe I am. What kind of a lunatic harvests moss? I  have two bags sitting in the kitchen just waiting for inspiration to strike.)

I used said abundant harvest to create this moss ball, which is living in my little greenhouse. I feel like there's another word for this thing, but I can't think of what it is right now...

Here's the dining room looking into the living room. Other than the kitchen remodel/wall removal project, the last couple of things in here are some bold curtains, crown molding and a new light fixture. It's massively improved over where it was.

 Finally added a rug to the living room, picked up from World Market when we were in Bend last week. I LOVE having a rug in here. I also love this particular rug; we have a smaller one in the bedroom that migrated from our master bath in the Fishhawk house. I'd been considering layering a cowhide under the wing chair and ottoman (right side of the image) but I think it might be kind of overkill now that I can visualize it better.

 Ok, now, the pillows. This is the project that spawned the re-covering of the dining room chairs. I made some pillow covers out of napkins last year, and I was lazy and used Stitch Witchery instead of sewing them, and the fabric was more stretchy diagonally one way than the other, and they just never looked very good. Plus, they were green. Worked well at the last place, not so much here.

So probably six years ago, I acquired several large pieces of corduroy in the Garment District in LA. Two navy and two white. I've had them squirreled away, unable to commit them to a project. The day finally arrived last Saturday: they were destined to be pillow cases. (Well, like half of one piece of navy. These are pretty big pieces.)

I used the cord on the front and dropcloth on the back and sewed them this time, and darn it if they don't just look AWESOME. Some of my best sewing ever. This picture doesn't show them them all that well, but they'll be playing a supporting role from now on.

Penultimately, a couple of shots of my office, just because. Still work to do; I want to mess with the curtains, hang some art and finish assorted detail work on the trim, but mostly I really like it. The color on the crate under my desk is "La Fonda Fireberry" because I guess Valspar thought that just "La Fonda" or just "Fireberry" didn't capture it sufficiently.

Couch is a few months old. We got it shortly after moving back, and it is a vast improvement from that Ikea sleepersofa. I think Todd still secretly rejoices that thing is gone and he never has to move it again.

 And lastly, the tomato: a large golden slicer. I am about to eat it for dinner tonight. Yum.

Smoky Peaches and Clover

I don't think I've ever been so thankful to see bluish skies as I was on Friday morning. We've had a horrible stretch of smoky weather; I guess it was only since last Sunday night, but it seems like months. The sky was overcast with smoke and it was suffocating outside. It's been pretty hazy the last couple of days, but nothing like it was. When you could see it, the sun was a vague, reddish glow in the sky, even in the middle of the day.

Given the weather, we got pretty much nothing done all week outside. We didn't go outside, period. But there were still things going on outside, even though I wasn't about to go and check them out up close. Things like this...

 And this, which I did a few weeks ago when one of the peach trees bent over under the weight of all the fruit.

 We are going to need a peach management plan, and soon.

Nothing's ripe yet, but I don't think it can be more than a couple of weeks away before we find ourselves buried in peaches. Yum.

This was happening in the garden. I went out to snip a few for my office early one morning when I was feeling depressed about the smoke.

 These too. I have some sitting in one of Mom's old pitchers on the kitchen table...

 Here:

Post-Bartlett, this is what the backyard looks like. Barren. Also dead, except for some weeds that are impressively resisting my repeated Round-up attacks. That big pile of brown is mulch from the ground-out cedar stump. 

 My blackeyed susans are blooming beautifully. Someday this whole bed will be full of them, once they've naturalized.

Today, I worked my way through some zucchinis from the garden and using my favorite zucchini bread recipe made 12 zucchini muffins (eight of which are still intact. They're about three bites each and so yummy),

eight mini zucchini loaves and two normal loaves. I used almost 10 cups of grated zucchini. It was a lot. I'd intended to use some chocolate chips in a few of them, but they'd mysteriously gone missing. Next time.

Lastly, there is clover. In my garden. Or on the edge of it. I decided I just didn't really feel like waging war on it today, and it's ended up making a rather cute little bouquet for the kitchen windowsill. It's nice when things work out.