Master Bedroom

We haven't done much of anything to the master bedroom since about a month after we moved it, but somehow I don't think I ever posted pictures of it.  

The mirror came from an estate sale.  Originally we were going to hang it on the wall horizontally, but it was too big to fit over the dresser.  So we just propped it up against the wall vertically to make an almost full length mirror.

We got the bed frame on craigslist from a mid-century furniture dealer.  It's Danish and from the 70's.  I think we got it for about half of what he normally would charge because it had some scratches on it.  With the attached floating nigh stands it just barely fits in the room.  But I think since it is all one piece the room doesn't look too crowded.

My aunt made the wooden coat rack.  We have another larger one that she made in the entry hall.

We got this dresser for only $5 at a garage sale near our old house.

Garden Update

Just wanted to post some pictures of the garden since things are looking extra colorful around here.

The iris' are starting to bloom.

The California poppies are going crazy and attracting tons of bees.

The giant nasturtium which is growing in a tiny crack next to the gas meter has completely engulfed a potted jade and has almost covered the water heater enclosure.

Also, the hops vines (actually bines is the proper term) are starting to climb up their ropes. The magnum and nugget are doing the best. The cascade and centennial are doing good too, they just aren't quite tall enough to reach the ropes yet.

Seder Prep

We are having our Passover seder on Saturday. I know it is supposed to be on one of the first couple of days of Passover, but this weekend is just more convenient. I wanted to get a few things done ahead of time so I'm not overwhelmed on Saturday.

I'm not normally much of a desert maker. I rarely bake, and when we are having people over, I usually count on someone bringing a desert so I don't have to make anything. But, I saw this recipe for chocolate caramel matzoh crunch and it sounded too good not to try. I think I have had something similar with saltine crackers as the base before which was also delicious. I used a little sprinkling of this fancy sea salt made by Jacobsen Salt Co. that my Mom sent us which is actually made from water from Netarts Bay. Netarts Bay is just south of Oceanside, OR where my family has a cabin and where Nate and I got married. It was really easy to make and the combination of caramel and chocolate and salt is insanely delicious.

I also dyed eggs for the seder. My mom has been making onion skin Easter eggs since before I was born. Either by just wrapping an egg with onion skins secured with pantyhose and boiling them. Or by making a dye first and creating silhouettes of leaves or flowers by laying them on the egg and again securing them with pantyhose and boiling the eggs in the dye. The eggs wrapped in onion skins version is simpler and I've been doing that myself either for easter or for the eggs for our Passover seders that we have been having for the past few years.

This year I decided to try making blue dye out of red cabbage along with the brown onion skin dye. It turned out pretty good. After the blue eggs were done boiling in the dye I let them sit in the cooled down water for a few hours because the red cabbage dye isn't quite as strong as the onion skin dye. I discovered California poppy leaves make the prettiest silhouettes. I love the way the blue dyed eggs look almost like sun prints.

We finished off the dove rolls that my Mom sends me for Easter every year in record time. For some reason it is so satisfying to rip off and eat their cute little heads. Kind of barbaric, but so tasty.

Go 'Cuse

It was Nate's 30th birthday on Sunday. We were thinking about going camping for his birthday, but as it always seems to, his birthday fell right in the middle of the NCAA tournament. Nate's beloved Syracuse was playing in it's 2nd round game on Saturday, so going out of town, especially somewhere away from tv, was out of the question. Instead we had a few people over to eat corned beef, drink home brew and watch the Sunday games. Luckily Nate was in a pretty good mood since the Orange won on Saturday.

I made this Otto the Orange banner, which turned out pretty cute, out of felt.

And I came up with a good way to temporarily label growlers with the type of beer they contain. I might need to buy myself a laminator so the tags will stand up a little better to sitting in a cooler.

Signs of Spring

Southern California is one of those places where sometimes it is hard to see the changes in the seasons. I was in Hawaii all last week for work (a place even harder to see any difference between the seasons) and when I got back and surveyed the garden it seemed like a whole lot had changed all of a sudden.

My largest artichoke plant, that I have had at least since last May and has never produced an artichoke, finally has a little one starting to develop.

I bought 10 UC-157 asparagus crowns online back in January from Seeds of Change. This variety is supposed to do better in California than the Jersey Knight ones that require colder temperatures. I was a little worried that I had planted them wrong, but they are finally sprouting. I can't harvest any this year, but I can't wait for next year.

At some point in the fall I planted a bunch of sprouted potatoes in the back planter box just to avoid having to compost them. I kind of forgot about them, but all of a sudden I have about 6 little potato plants back there. We'll see if they produce potatoes and if I can manage to dig up the potatoes without disturbing all my other plantings back there.

The plum tree is starting to bloom.

I found rhubarb crowns at Lowes a couple weeks back. Supposedly rhubarb isn't supposed to do very well in Southern California because it doesn't get cold enough. Somehow the lack of cold is supposed to prevent the stems from turning red and green stems contain more oxalic acid which can be toxic in large quantities. The stems that have started to come up look pretty red to me though.

Last summer I bought two California poppy plants. They were so prolific and produced so many seeds that the entire back planter box is covered with them now. Some of our neighbors' poppies have already been blooming for the past month. Ours are just now starting to produce buds. In a couple of weeks it should be really orange back there.

The fava beans are just starting to produce fava beans of an eatable size. They are a lot of work to prepare, with the double shucking, but so tasty.

Finally, Nate built me this planter box and trellis in the side yard. Our neighbors side door and kitchen look strait into our guest bedroom and the trellis is placed so as to obscure the view somewhat. I planted two varieties of blackberry, Navaho and Arapaho, and two varieties of raspberries, Jewel and Brandywine.

Hopefully, eventually, they will grow up the trellis and block the view into the bedroom. And as a bonus produce lots of tasty berries.

Bathroom Refreshing

The bathroom and the kitchen are the two rooms in our house that need kind of major stuff done to them and therefor have had pretty much nothing done to them since we moved in. The major stuff the bathroom needs are tile on the floor to replace the ugly linoleum, a new mirror, a new light fixture and a new tub. We still aren't quite ready to tackle any of these major things, but what we can do is paint. The cabinets were a light colored wood with peeling off varnish. There were no knobs on most of the cabinets (which contributed to the water stains and peeling varnish), except for the linen cabinet which had one broken handle. There was a medicine cabinet above the toilet, which must have been added later, because unlike the rest of the cabinets, it was white. The one thing we did like about our bathroom was the tile in the shower and sink back splash with the grey accent tiles. Here are some pictures from before we moved in.

We decided to paint the cabinets white (actually Valspar Betsy's Linen) to match the trim and the white medicine cabinet and we painted the walls grey to sort of match the accent tiles. As usual it was really hard to find the right color grey. The first one we got ended up looking purple on the walls. The one we ended up with was Valspar Notre Dame. It is a little lighter than the tiles so that it wouldn't be too dark for such a small bathroom.

We ended up finding the knobs on Amazon because I had this specific style in mind and neither Home Depot or Lowes had anything close.

We still need to tackle the major stuff, but for less than $150 I think we managed to make the bathroom feel fresh and much more cohesive.

Hanukah Party

For the past few years Nate and I have been having a Hanukah party. This year I made latkes, applesauce, smoked salmon cream cheese spread and star of David sugar cookies. And Nate made "kosher" pigs in a blanket with Hebrew National hot dogs.

Lately Goodwill has been getting a bunch of the excess unsold seasonal items from Target. They had tons of 2010 Target Hanukah stuff at Goodwill and I managed to snag paper plates, napkins, a plastic plate, gift bags and dreidels. I made little party favors of a few pieces of chocolate gelt and a dreidel wrapped in fabric with tags with every possible spelling of Hanukah.

For decorations I made these felt circle garlands from this tutorial on the purl bee. They couldn't be simpler or cheeper. It only took about 4 sheets of felt which were less than a quarter a piece. You cut them into circles of varying sizes and then just run them through the sewing machine. I also used some of our left over wedding finger knit chains.

I also made lots and lots of six pointed paper snowflakes, but the cats managed to tear down any that were in their reach.