Random art that hung for a few days on a light pole on a corner that I bike past almost every day.

And where has your little munakins been these last few weeks? I’ve been obsessing about a little project I’m working on, that’s where I’ve been.  And besides this almost constant obsession (and the therapeutic making of quick pickles to recuperate from the trauma of said obsession) I’ve been trying to make time to get out and exercise.  I’ve taken long runs on treadmills at the gym, meandered across Alameda and Bay Farm Island on my granny bike, and have returned to bike-commuting to my volunteer gig at St. Vincent de Paul’s downtown campus. Continue reading →

Action shot in the Houseproud homestead’s kitchen of beets getting prepped for roasting.  I’m using kitchen scissors to snip off the beets’ long “rat tails”.

Hello, my pets.  In hopes of encouraging Ma Nature to give us a wetter, greener spring, I’ve spent the last few days taking down February’s decorations and putting up touches of green.  I’ve been busy working on projects for Houseproud Industries and on general unrelated kitchen mischief, so I haven’t had time to make the green throw pillow cases that I’ve been threatening to make for the last six weeks.  Life’s like that:  there are the things you’d like to do, there’s the time in which you have to do them, and sometimes the place where those two things meet is insufficient for your needs.  And that, my dears, is what this post is all about:  it’s about finding time to do the things that you want to do.  Continue reading →

A dish-drainer’s worth of roots and greens from Alameda Natural Grocery.  We’ll be talking ’bout those two bunches of parsley today (they’re in the upper left corner). The other veg include peacock kale (upper right), black radish (center), and puntarella (lower right corner).  That’s slices of tofu on the cutting board – I made ’em into a tofu salad, but more on that in another post …

I’m sure you know by now that I like to cook, and that I like to make sure that the Mister and I get enough veggies down our gullets.  Having different options on hand keeps things interesting, so I try to pick up an assortment of vegetables on marketing day.  This week’s batch of vegetables includes some long-keepers (uncut, the red cabbage will last well into next week), some eat-sooner-rather-than-later options (the puntarella, which we’ll eat tomorrow night as a salad with whatever the Mister prepares for supper), and some basic staples (parsley and some onions).  As you can imagine, it takes a good little bit of time on marketing day to purchase, clean and carefully store that week’s vegetables, but that’s time well spent to in my book.

“Well,” you say, “that’s all very nice for you, but I don’t have time to purchase, clean and carefully store vegetables.”  Worse yet, you say, the vegetables that you do buy get tossed into the back of your fridge and ignored until they turn into grey, slimy puddles of yuck.  Continue reading →

My pets – Oh, it’s been too long since last I posted, really it has been.  And as long as it’s been since I last posted, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a few more days for a decent post.  But perhaps this photo will tide you over until then?  Why, I’m sure it will!  Look at the pretty and come on back in a few days for a decent post, won’t you?  – yr little munakins

I added yellow stamens to the burlap flowers.

Shall we compare the final version of the wreath to the earliest version? Oh, do let’s!

The wreath, as it appears now.  Along with the yellow stamens, I added a few more small flowers, and all of the larger flowers now have three layers.

The same wreath, as it appeared last November.  The leather leaves are no longer on the wreath (except for the one at the top of the wreath).  When autumn rolls around this year I think I’ll add the leather leaves back, but this time in a greater abundance …

Hello, my pets!  I’m relieved to report that the Houseproud homestead’s Christmas decorations are down and packed away (even the gloriously huge wreath that hung in the living room, which I miss already).  Our apartment feels spare and empty after the happy clutter of decorations have come down, and I LOVE that change.  It speaks to the time of year:   the time to clear out clutter, examine old habits, make new patterns.  Anyway and anyhow, have you settled into the new year yet?  We have here at the Houseproud homestead, and I, for one, am ready to start on new projects.  But before I go into my latest mad plans, here are pictures of presents that I made this Christmas (check out last week’s post to see pictures of things I made to decorate the homestead).  Continue reading →

The Germans consider chimney sweeps symbols of good luck for the coming new year. Here’s a link to an article explaining the custom, via Bella Online (http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art18309.asp).  We have two good luck sweeps on display in the Houseproud homestead’s living room – this one and another one (both purchased at Jutta’s Flowers on Claremont Avenue in Berkeley).  I don’t put them out until the day after Christmas, but these little guys will stay out until the end of January, long after the Christmas ornaments have been put away …

Hello, my pets!  I’ve missed you all very much, really I have.  After a two-week hiatus, this post is going to be all about pictures and will have very few words (well, few by my standards).  Continue reading →

This is a little glass pumpkin that I bought from a glass studio in Townsend, MT (Goose Bay Glass). We didn’t have a lot of decorations up for Thanksgiving, just little touches like this …

Thanksgiving at the Houseproud homestead was wonderful:  there were five of us, and we talked and ate and drank and looked at travel photos and talked with the Mister’s parents and drank some more and then we ate some pie.  We didn’t take pictures of the groaning table of food, but trust me when I say that it all came together as a warm and lively family dinner should, thanks to help from all comers (a special shout-out to Edna Louise, who helped prep endless amounts of food at the start, and to Michael Michael Michael, who helped dry an entire kitchen’s worth of dishes at the end).  The stars of the dinner were the wines from Yorkville Cellars (one of which was an amazing sparkling petit verdot) and from Sean Thackrey (two Pleiades of differing vintages, both jammy yumminess).  The carnivores feasted on braised heritage turkey (in a chile-tequila braise) and the vegetarians feasted on cheese and roasted mushroom tarts.  Continue reading →