Currently: July 22, 2005 link Well..We put an offer on a house last weekend and it was accepted on Monday. I am torn between wanting to go over every single square inch of the property in excoriating detail, and not saying a damn word about it until we close. We had the home inspection yesterday and there is a roof issue....I am really trying hard not to think too much about it and not freak out about anything, but since this is all new and enormous sums of money keep being talked about it's a little hard. Fingers crossed! I checked out this book from the library a while back and I think that I am definitely going to buy it. It's called Hip to Stitch and it's got a lot of really great embroidery projects (korean thimbles and ribbons) as well as some great tips. I think the author did a fabulous job. I have not really been doing a lot of internet surfing these days but I always check out Kim to see what's going on. She posted about her friend's topiary birdman and I about fell off of my chair. Here are more pics showing the making of the birdman. So inspiring! I read HP over the weekend and oh man....I CANNOT wait for book seven! I ran to the bookstore right as they opened Saturday morning and was like the second person in line to buy the book. I had my day all planned, Saturday was going to be nothing but Harry. But we got a call from our real estate agent telling us we needed to put an offer in on Saturday morning so Harry got pushed back. Okay, no prob. Then when we got back the phone wouldn't stop ringing! I wanted to scream "People! Don't you know it's Harry's weekend!?" But, houses, family and friends are a higher priority than Harry. Shocking, I know, but it's true. I know I said this already, but I CANNOT wait for book seven! July 15, 2005 link Well, tonight's the night! Harry Potter mania has officially entered the Erica and Jeffery house, much to Jeffery's chagrin. He keeps saying things like "Maybe we can go to the lagoon on Saturday and take a hike." I have to keep reminding him: "Honey....HARRY. POTTER." I am not going anywhere thank you very much. I know I said that I was going to stay up late and party like the rest of the HP fanatics, but I am seriously reconsidering that. I can barely stay up past 10:30 these days and if I get the book tonight, I am going to have to stay up and read it. I just don't know if I want to do it. I am thinking instead that I will run over and get the book first thing in the morning Saturday and spend the weekend reading it. High class problems, I know... I have been sewing a lot this week. I took a break from the tunic I had been fiddling with. The sleeves are still making me crazy. Why do they pucker? Why? I think I fixed the sloper pattern in terms of it being too tight across the chest, so I am pretty pleased. I can work on the sleeves later. I have been sewing (a sleeveless) View D (the green gingham dress) from this pattern: As you can see it's not hemmed yet. I am starting to understand how to use my sloper pattern in conjunction with commercial patterns. At first I had a hard time because this dress doesn't have sleeves. It's a wee bit too tight in the waist and a wee bit too big in the bust. Wish I could say it was the other way around, but alas, it's not so. I need to get more fabric and try it again. House hunting is very tiring. The housing market up here is really HOT right now so people aren't doing the things to their houses that most people do to make them ready to sell. Like clean the rooms, repaint the rooms, pull weeds...etc. We have seen some super dumps. There was one house that I knew was gong to be PERFECT. It was large, had a huge lot for a garden, and was in the neighborhood we want to live in. We walked through the front door with the realtor and could see that the house had a VERY large slope to it. Ugh..what a bummer. I will strip wall paper and repaint cabinets, but jacking up a foundation to level a house is just too much. The search continues... July 12, 2005 link I made ice cream! I realize now that I should have taken a picture of the finished product, but we ate it too quickly for any of that nonsense. I made the vanilla ice cream recipe that came with the ice cream maker attachment for my kitchen aid. I learned from Not Martha's link to the Slate's review of ice cream makers that there are two different kinds of ice cream: French (cooked) and Philly (not cooked). I think the French may also have the addition of egg yolks. At any rate, I made a French version since there was egg yolks and cooking involved. I was super easy. It was magic. It was delicious. I recently caught an episode of Tyler's Ultimate, which I don't normally watch because he bores me. This episode was all about ice cream and there is a recipe for Fresh Fig Gelato that I HAVE to try. The recipe calls for a neutralizer, which from what little I have seen about making gelato, is an addition to keep the stuff smooth. Or something like that. I have also saved some tea themed sorbet and sherbet recipes from Sunset Magazine that look really yummy and interesting. And from the Kitchen Aid message boards came this interesting link of ice cream recipes. It's really hard to decided what to do next. Things are completely crazy here because we have decided to start the house hunting process yet again. This time we actually have a real estate agent and are actually looking inside of the houses. I am really trying very, very hard not to get stressed about it. I'll let you know how THAT's going....I am trying not to get too attached to any of the houses, but I am starting to paint walls and plant gardens in my head. I am really looking forward to this weekend because it's Harry Potter. I am also really looking forward to next month, when I go out to the Boston area to visit my best friend and her new baby. I really can't wait. July 1 , 2005 link Last weekend there was a little flea market downtown. At first I wasn't going to go, but I decided to get in the car and go down there. Boy, am I glad I did. Check out what I got: They are from the 50's, are made out of some sort of a celluloid, and are from Brazil. The man I bought them from smuggled them out in a blender box. He said that he got searched because when they opened the box, there was no blender, only these Carnivale masks. I bought them on the spot for ten dollars. I am so glad I got there early because as I was walking around looking at the other booths I had people accosting me about my masks. "Where did you get them? Are there more left?" I did not buy the Superman or Wonder Woman masks, the only two left because I thought these were more interesting. The fella with the crown on his head has "Sou Rei" written on it. A google language translation says it means "I am King" in Portuguese. I want to hang them in a grouping, but am still trying to figure out how to do it. They are a little fragile, and some of them have cracks around the edges. Only the little brown gnome still has his string. I was thinking I would like to frame them in something like a shadowbox. I don't want to just slap them up on the wall, but I am not having any luck finding a shadowbox frame that would be big enough. I may have to bust out the power tools. Or more specifically, I may have to make Jeffery bust out the power tools. I was inspired by Kim's beautiful garden pics she has been taking lately, specifically the spider. I armed myself with the camera and headed out into the yard to capture the beauty. I think I need some practice. The only shot I halfway like is of one of my favorite things about my yard right now. The blueberry bush: They are just beginning to ripen. This years harvest is going to be big I think. Both of the bushes are packed with berries. . June-->