Considering that I have lived somewhere different every fall for the last five years (and very likely will live somewhere else next fall as well), it is perhaps understandable that I have a love/hate relationship with setting up house. As an order- and beauty-loving creature, I cannot help but desire to make the space I live in orderly and beautiful (and be stressed out when it is disorderly and ugly). But when it takes half a year for bits and pieces of time to add up to a semi-ordered house, the project becomes frustrating—especially when, as in our last apartment, we might have to pack up and leave right as the pieces are starting to fall into place.

This frustration, as trivial as it is, seems to be just another echo of our Deep Frustration: everything we strive after in this life is susceptible to moths, rust, thieves, and death (along with mold, unforeseen circumstances, and our own sin). And the solutions to both seem the same: to continue striving as best we can, and to remember Who has promised to save us from this life of frustration. So I will continue taking steps to set up our home wherever it may happen to be, and I will continue trying not to forget that setting up a perfect home is not the ultimate goal toward which I should be striving.

Here is some of what I have done lately. (For a few more photos see the full set on Flickr.)

I set up our creative area (which is a corner of our bedroom):

The pockets under the window were a gift from Gil’s parents (who have apparently completely pegged my style ). I am using them currently to store my scraps of pretty paper out in plain sight. The white bookcase with all my crafting supplies and books on it is resting on two file cabinets that my Dad helped me renovate last summer; I spray painted them yellow, and he made the wooden bases and tops for them. Here’s a better shot of them:

I originally had the table and chairs from this post against the wall opposite the file cabinets, but as suspected victims of the mold-tastrophe (and, frankly, big space-hogs that accumulated clutter), I decided to bid them farewell. Instead, I set up my little blue armchair and a bookcase full of notebooks, magazines, and art supplies. This has turned out to be far more conducive to creativity then a table piled full of said notebooks, magazines, and art supplies.

Moving on to our living room/entryway… Here’s a view looking from the middle of the living room, out over the couch and towards the front door.

Next to the door is the sewing machine that I mentioned in this post. As you can see, I don’t have the typewriter on it anymore. I only recently set up those wire cubes next to it… they aren’t the most aesthetically appealing thing in the world, but they successfully keep all that clutter from being all over our dining room table and coffee table instead. So, in that light, they are quite lovely.

Now, turning around and facing the living room over the back of the couch:

The mantle decorations and the little turquoise bookcase are my newest additions to the living room. Here’s a better view of the mantle:

I pulled this together from odds and ends that I scrounged around our house to find; hence its ecclectic nature. But I am nonetheless pleased with how it turned out. (A couple of you may recognize things that you have sent/given me in this arrangement. ) Here’s a closeup of the buttons under the (backwards) canvas frame:

And here, for those of you who follow me on Twitter or are Facebook friends, is the result of the bookcase renovation Dad and I were working on earlier this summer (in this shot, looking out from the bathroom door into the living room):

I have to say, I’m crazy about this little bookcase. It was a piece of garbage when I found it at St. Vinny’s, but by adding trim to the sides, top, and bottom and painting it this scrumptious shade of blue, it is completely transformed. (And I couldn’t help but choose books to put on it by color. Because, really. Just look at it.)

So, those are all the photos I have to share for now. At some point if it’s clean enough I may take photos of the rest of our house too. I hope you are all well, and enjoying your transition into the beautiful season of fall. (Even if it feels like summer was too short!)

When I was little, my brother and I would often make fun of my mom for taking such care to make sure the house was clean when she was expecting guests (clearly we were very respectful children). “But Mom,” I remember saying on more than one occasion, “they won’t care whether the house is completely put together.” This impenetrable argument never seemed to carry much weight with her, however, and she would still make me clean my room.

And now, in the inevitable way of things, I completely understand. It’s true, guests might not care about, or notice, the exact depths of cleanliness you achieve before they arrive (certainly, any friend who I really consider a friend would forgive me for an imperfectly clean house). But cleaning, straightening, and tying up loose ends, I’ve discovered, is an integral part of preparing to welcome someone—it’s a way of clearing your head, and your space, so that both can focus on the person or people you are welcoming into your life for a short while.

It is also a fantastic excuse to finish projects that have been sitting on the “to-do” list for too long. I used Molly’s arrival as an excuse to finally display something on the wall above our couch, which has been sadly bare since we moved here in February. To do this, I turned to some of my favorite tools: packaging twine and mini clothespins.

I pulled a few favorite photos (some old, some new) out of my overflowing photo box (another project, to be sure), and played with ways to suspend them with the clothespins. After a few failed attempts, I ended up doing this:

A length of soft brown ribbon suspended between two tacks in the wall, with photo-clothespinned lengths of twine hanging from it. And some strips of my favorite wrapping paper. Oh, and some clipboards, for good measure. It’s a bit… oh, I don’t know. Kitschy. Homespun. But it fills the space, it’s color-coordinated, and it lets me look at some of my favorite images every time I come into the living room. Why clipboards, you ask? I don’t know. I just like them. I’m sure I’ll find something wonderful to clip on them at some point.

And now I had better go to bed. This week has provided many happy reasons for staying up too late—a blessing indeed, but I think I should try to catch up on some of that sleep. Goodnight.

In the two weeks since we returned from that trip, we have both been trying to settle into healthier routines and work towards some of the goals we had been putting off. One of my main goals has been getting our little apartment and various aspects of our lives organized, so that I can spend my time on the things I really want to be doing without feeling constantly overwhelmed. I dove headfirst into this project and am still in the thick of it; I plan to tell you more about it and some of the solutions I’ve come up with soon.

Another goal we are both concerned with is eating nutritiously and conscientiously. To that end, Gil has been asking me for months to try the Paleo Diet, which he has been on quite happily for the last year or so. The diet cuts out sugar (other than in fruit), grains, legumes, and dairy. Robb Wolf explains it in detail, so if you want more I suggest browsing his site.

Long story short: I agreed to go Paleo (a.k.a. give up my beloved bread and cheese) for 30 days, beginning January 6th. I do believe that I dreamt about eating bread, cake, or cookies every night between January 6th and January 10th. Clearly, I was/am addicted. Or the Paleo diet is completely wrong and grains contain nutrients we all need that my body is clamoring for. Can you tell I am confused about what to eat these days?

I can say that I almost immediately felt a pronounced up-tick in my energy level. My first several days back at work I was amazed that I never reached the level of unbearable fatigue I was used to experiencing. Since then, I have had a few “down” days (probably days in which I didn’t eat enough, period), but mostly I have had the same steady energy level. This is, obviously, an unqualified “plus” to this diet.

Another good thing about trying this diet (although it often feels like a bad thing when I am short on time or just want something fast) is that it is forcing me to be more creative about my food. When you are limited to pretty much meat, eggs, fish, vegetables, and fruit, all of your old standby meals fly out the window (or at least mine did)–sandwiches, quesadillas, pasta, pizza, burritos… even rice bowls! None of them are “allowed” on the Paleo diet. So in order to not get bored, I have had to think outside the box of food I’m used to eating.

Here is an example. In the last few days, I had been enjoying warming up some frozen berries and eating them with coconut milk for breakfast. I knew I wanted to somehow add an egg or two to this meal to get some good protein in there, but for some reason fried and scrambled eggs have become unappetizing to me. Last night as I was falling asleep I had a brainstorm: what if I made the egg into a thin crepe that I could top with the berries and coconut milk?

So today, I tried it.

I beat one egg and about a tablespoon of coconut milk together.

I poured this thin layer of crepe-batter into a greased, non-stick skillet and cooked it for just a minute or two on one side and an even shorter time on the other. Until it looked, you know, “crepe-like.” (Technical term.)

At the same time, I warmed up my berries.

Finally, I plated the crepe, topped it with the berries, drizzled it liberally with coconut milk and finished it off with some dried coconut on top. Yum yum yum!

I am not ashamed to admit that I ate two of these this morning. Never have two eggs been more painlessly eaten.

Anyway, I’m sure many of you have better techniques for making crepes, and I’d love to hear them in the comments if you do, but I am nonetheless proud to have successfully created something delicious (and Paleo!) to eat for breakfast. Of course… I can’t eat the same thing every day, so… I guess I’ll need to put my creativity to work again on finding another Paleo breakfast I love. Let me know if you have any ideas.

While Gil worked on his finals for school (Finals! Ha, I vaguely remember those.), I went down to Alton Baker Park and captured things I found beautiful with my iPhone:

Then I went to a local craft store and picked up the supplies to make my first stamps/prints. So fun! (Thanks to Geninne for the inspiration and instructions on her blog.)

Gil and I went to catch the end of the Oregon/Oregon State civil war game at my parents’ house, and I worked on my project:

I’d say it was a success! I look forward to finding more ways to use these stamps and making many more. (I also got an 8×10-ish linoleum block, but that feels a bit more daunting. We’ll see how long it takes me to work up the courage/inspiration to carve it.)

After a long work week, I’ve spent most of this, the first day of my “weekend,” perusing my favorite online haunts and feeling simultaneously inspired and stifled. Do you ever feel that way? Like you are simply bursting with creativity that wants to get out but have no solid direction in which to let it go? The fact that my house is a bona-fide disaster doesn’t help, because I really feel that my first project ought to be getting it tidied and sorted and spic-and-spanned. But of course as soon as that desire enters my head, I turn away from my computer and look at the dish pile and the kitchen table covered with lots of nonsense items and the random jackets and books strewn across our living room–and suddenly looking at a few more websites seems like a much better idea. This is my general attitude towards projects–if they look too big, I don’t want to start them at all. Which is, of course, incredibly silly… but it is the way I have operated since I was born and likely will be till the day I die.

Anyway, one of the gems I turned up today was Pinterest. I stumbled onto it through Geninne, and then remembered I had gotten an invitation to join it from Natalie Jost (Thanks, Natalie! ) way back in June (a.k.a. “the season of extreme of busy-ness”). So I finally joined, and started my own little inspiration board. There’s not much there yet, but I am so excited to see it grow. And I know it will, because I am constantly stumbling on beautiful images and thinking “I wish I could hang on to that.” Well, now I can.

I should probably go eat lunch now. Gil has been at school all day, but he’s getting back any minute now, at which point we’ll be heading out into the afternoon gloom to search thrift stores for Halloween costume components. We’re thinking Batman and Poison Ivy. (I feel I’m obligated to be Poison Ivy at least once in my life considering that I have red hair and my husband is a complete Batman nerd.)

So, goodbye for now! Let me know if you’d like an invitation to Pinterest, as I haven’t sent any of mine yet.

Here’s a peak at my work-in-progress workspace. I’m trying to accommodate my eclectic, slightly scatter-brained, out-of-sight-out-of-mind style of working and creating.

It’s rather a mess at the moment, as you can see. I got the chairs and table on Craigslist last week. The red paint on them is terribly flaky, but it gives them character so for the time being it’s staying. The white shelf was on clearance at World Market, which is also where I found this delicious wrapping paper:

It’s so warm and autumn-y I had to put it up on the wall. Who knows how long it will stay there. I’ll try to post photos later when this space has tidied up and solidified a bit.

Happy 10.10.10!

It began when I decided to photograph an outfit I had been excited about assembling. Frustrated that I couldn’t quickly find the items of clothing I was looking for in my closet, I started throwing piles of clothes on my bed in preparation to give them a much needed going-through.

Suddenly, I realized I really ought to eat breakfast. I began to do just that, and then got distracted by reading blogs (this and this are my two current favorites). All too quickly, I was distracted from this in turn by a couple of thank you notes which could not be put off (I am still very successfully putting off many more), and then from the thank you notes by finally attempting to take the photos I began the day thinking about.

Gil helped me take them, and I think they turned out quite well–though they certainly have a touch of the Mope which descended on me as the afternoon got grayer and grayer and my to do list remained stubbornly un-done.

I also spent copious amounts of time scouring Craigslist and a local recycling center for Finds–I have dreams for my little creative work/bill paying corner, and I need to find the right table/shelving to make these dreams a reality. But those dreams, like my clothes sorting project, my dirty dishes, and my thank you notes, will just have to wait, because now it’s time for us to go have dinner with my parents, and then the day will have drawn to a close.

I am thankful that each day does not have to be the be-all, end-all paragon of productivity. I am glad to remember that it is okay to have days like this–life is a process, and a journey, and the world will not crumble because I spent time moping or dreaming that I could have spent Doing. All the same, I hope that tomorrow I will pick myself up and finish a bit more of what I start.

… take pictures of the books you should be looking through…

… find yourself captivated by every person you see, every blog you surf to, and how the light plays off of everything around you (including your feet by your window)…

… and you chase wispy ideas around and around until they either hide forever in your nooks and crannies or manage to find their way onto the page.

And, in the meantime, you apply yourself to every possible project that is not the one you must turn in. (Poems? Written. Websites? Designed. Wedding details? Attended to. Room? Organized—and then unorganized again. Emails? Responded to—mostly.)

Sound familiar? Please tell me I am not the only one who operates this way.

And now… back to the attempt. Wish me luck, and determination.

And while I was at it, I snapped a few mirror photos of a much more typical every-day fall getup for me:

Soft black turtleneck sweater: thrifted from Goodwill or St. Vinny’s or Value Village ages ago. Still so soft. Still a standby.

Embossed leather belt: Originally from Gap, purchased at the Clothes Horse, a local second-hand store. Another fave.

My most favoritest jeans in the whole world: Indigo wash Curvy jeans from Gap, purchased new earlier this summer for $8. Yes, you read that right; this was one of the most triumphant moments of my shopping career. These jeans almost never leave my person. I think I will have a period of mourning when they finally wear out.

Dansko clogs: Found at Buffalo exchange about two years ago. More standard fall attire.

(Bonus: Check out my Kierkegaard, Harry Potter, and comic strip collections on the bookshelf behind me.)

Words of wisdom from the top of my mirror, plus a few of my necklaces and belts:

Dirty dishes on my bookshelf, with a blurry view of my desk and dresser behind (I did say ‘relative’ cleanliness):

Another bookshelf shot, with a few newly-acquired food/cook books (plus one book and two movies borrowed from my parents):

The end of my bed / my window / the gray Eugene outdoors:

The head of my bed / my hanging basket contraption / one afternoon’s crafty outlet (a.k.a. my photo board):

A closer look:

For those curious, this was accomplished with a roll of gift wrap from World Market, some packaging twine, a pack of tiny clothes pins, and Command Adhesive decorator clips. (Which, incidentally, have made most of the decorations in this rented room possible. Thank you, Command Adhesive!)

And, finally, one more fall fashion statement; this one from 19 years ago, no doubt courtesy of my mother:

I keep this on my wall to remind me to still be this excited about things like leaf piles. Here’s hoping you can catch some of that two-year-old excitement as well.