Make me this!

SERVES: 4 as a side dish
TIME: 20 minutes

• 1 small clove of garlic, peeled and finely grated
• one 1"-piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon light agave nectar
• 1/2 teaspoon spicy toasted sesame oil (or more or less to taste)
• freshly ground black pepper
• coarse salt
• 2 cups finely shredded Napa cabbage
• 2 cups finely shredded green cabbage
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into thin matchsticks
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds

Whisk the garlic, ginger and rice wine vinegar together in a bowl and let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes. This is a good time to cut up your vegetables if you haven’t already. Whisk the soy sauce, agave and sesame oil into the vinegar mixture and season to taste with salt and pepper. Combine the cabbages, carrot, pepper and scallions together in a large bowl and toss with the dressing at the last minute, sprinkling the seeds on top.
 From GOOP.com

Remember me?  I still post here sometimes.  This week has been crazy, working 14 hour days at my real job, doing a few staging consults, planning and carrying off a surprise 40th party for the mister; my blogging has taken a back seat.  But I am still here.  Thanks for sticking around.  And can you make me some of this?  Because while I was good about packing my lunches at the beginning of the week today I had a #1 with a diet coke.  That is a Big Mac folks.  I haven't eaten one of those in probably 20 years.  And the way I feel right now, it will probably be 20 more before I have another.  What kind of fast food do you love/hate?

My New Paintings!

The Visual Vamp just informed me that these beuatiful Amanda Talley paintings are on their way to me!  I will be sure to post a pic when I hang them.

Choose Your Palette

I love this gray green patio with it's moody plants

This Chinoiserie style also makes me happy

Have I mentioned that I love succulents?  I think all my pots will be succulents this summer so if I forget to water, they will be ok.

Do you have a color scheme in your garden or patio pots?

images via Martha Stewart

Viva Terra and Happy Earth Day

Butaca Chair I got a new catalog today.  I really thought that I already got them all.  This one intrigued me.  I liked many of their wares. And they are supposed to be earth friendly.  These chairs are awesome. Valencia Teak Chair And so are these Wishbone Chair This is even more awesome. Succulent Wreath You know how I like succulents.  This wreath is sweet. The rug is made from reclaimed plastic bottles.  You can hose it off. Rock on.

Dear Greg and Helen:

Thanks for the nice card you sent when your dog killed my dog.  You are right no one should have to witness a scene like that.  I am sad that you "put Brody down" on Monday.  He probably could have been a good dog if you had given him any love and attention, invested any time and money in training him, or kept him in the house when you were away, since he had a history of attacking other dogs, you ignorant low lifes.  It's your fucking fault, not the dog's.  In my experience Golden Retrievers are generally pretty friendly.

I am so happy to hear that your other dog is working with a professional trainer to curb his aggressive tendencies.  My precious dog had been attending puppy classes and social time as well as spending time with neighborhood dogs in order to learn proper dog behavior, that is what you are supposed to fucking do, not wait until it kills a child's pet in front of him and then try to train it you assholes.

It touches me that you are truly sorry for our loss; how about you offer to fix the damn fence, pay for my dog's cremation, or the therapy my kids need now since they can't sleep.  My dog is in a little box now wrapped in a velvet bag.  What the hell do I do with that?  Fuck you.

Crazy warm

It has been unseasonably warm here this month.  Yesterday we were boating, last year at this time the lake was frozen.  I am sunburned.  It is lovely.  And it has me thinking of our landscape.  Or lack there of.  I have dozens of tear sheets for the yard I covet.  Right now I have lots of dandelions, creeping charley, moles, ugly fake brick patio pavers, and a horrific black walnut tree that leaves it's slimy nuts all over my yard every August.  But someday I will have a yard with the following elements:
A fence with large square lattice, but no finial, why the finial?  This one isn't even the right scale.

Pavers with ground cover between them. LIke this and this

I also like the all monochromatic color scheme.

The north side of my house is shady so it should have a path winding around it like this.

A simple pergola will be a nice touch

I like how this patio looks unfussy and inviting; like it is at someone's home and not a country club

I will definitely have bridal veil Spirea

And Annabelle Hydrangea

And some kind of low maintenance ornamental grasses.

Of course it will have a raingarden, and utilize storm runoff with  rain barrels.  It should be low maintenance because I just want to sit in my yard and drink wine, not work on my yard.  There are only a few obstacles between me and my dream, the huge walnut tree, my lack of a bobcat, and a few thousand dollars. Otherwise, I am so close...

Good things happen here

Kid cuddles, magazine reading, unbloggable things...the kids are spending the weekend at Grandma's and I plan to spend a lot of time here.

Do you think the lamp shades should be a different color?

Don't you just love her

Anna Malin from Helt Enkelt


Yes.  Perfection.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

When Anna was sick, he kept her company on the couch.

I am vacillating through the first four stages of grief that I learned in 10 grade health class, and I am nowhere near Acceptance.  But I do promise to blog about something more uplifting tomorrow, I am just not up for it today.

Chalkboard Paint Update

Mack's awful bifold doors before.

Mack's door after.  I tried to pan out a bit to show you more of the room, but it is so small and my camera so sucks.

I know Pluto is not a technically not a planet anymore, but his solar system only came with 8 planets.  Not cool.  The song I taught him from "They Might Be Giants" is already outdated.  Comment if you know what that means.

Five is a great age.  He sleeps with his baby blanket, Roary the Lion,  and his basketball.

Moving around the room you can see his school house map, that was a wedding gift from my bff, he loves to change the maps and it makes his room look different whenever he wants.  He also has a map of a SCUBA trip his daddy once took.  He loves the fact that his daddy swam with sharks.

The last side of his room shows his art table.  Daddy used old maps and decoupage to revamp an old ugly table that we got from a coworker.  It is my favorite part of his room.  He also has a globe collection, (on top of very un-staged shelves)  he loves to find new places on them.  When asked what his favorite part of the room was he said, "the blue paint, because I am a boy".  A boy that misses his dog.

Bad Dream

My puppy was killed yesterday when another dog broke through a fence and attacked him.  It was a horrific scene witnessed by my small children, and we are all pretty traumatized.  I am thankful though for my wonderful neighbors who cried and mourned with me yesterday, for my bff who threw me and my broken and bloody dog in her BMW and drove around like a mad woman and then bought me new clothes so I wouldn't have to go home in my bloody ones and scare the kids even more, and for my husband who held me all night while I cried.