Celebrations, Cotton, Cooking, and Catching Up

Last week held an even more important event in my life. If you're finding it hard to imagine what could be more important than Harry Potter, I understand your difficulty. But it's true. Because last week, Jason and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary! [hooray! streamers! confetti!] Goodness, I love that man. He is the very best husband in the whole wide world, and I am one very lucky girl.

But enough mushyness, and onto the making! Looking back, it turned out to be a very creative week for me, which surprises me a bit because I didn't really set out to make anything. Here's a list of the random creative ventures from last week:

1) Jason and I redesigned our apartment. First, we switched our bedroom with our guest room/study/craft space because our multi-purpose room was smaller and quite crowded. Then we went to Ikea--oh how I love Ikea--and got a new rug for our living room and a new duvet cover and new sheets for our bed to make it a little more summery. (After all, the 2nd anniversary is the cotton anniversary... although I'm pretty sure our sheets are mostly bamboo.) Then we got a dresser (see below) for $15.00 at a yard sale and scoured it of all its dirt and dust and spiders, and it is now a very organized storage space for all my fabric. (Don't worry...I made triple sure that all of the spiders were gone before putting away my precious fabric.) Our guest room is now our favorite room in our apartment, and we actually spend time in there happily not tripping over each other.

This would be a great i-spy picture, don't you think? Can you find 2 turtles, a tiger, my teddy bear Night-Night, and at least 25 fish? How bored are you really?

2) As part of our anniversary celebrationing, Jason and I went back to Russell Orchards (where we harvested the strawberries for the jam) and picked blueberries and the most beautiful raspberries I've ever seen.

Although I didn't make anything out of the berries, I greatly enjoyed eating 2 quarts of raspberries in 2 days. Well, I let Jason have a few.

3) I made another loaf and a half of banana bread. (It was identical to the last batch, so I didn't take a picture.)

4) I made a batch of the famous Niki Giberson spaghetti sauce, which is always a creative venture because I have no idea how much of each spice I'm supposed to throw in there. I'm getting better at guessing though, and this batch was quite good with very little altering along the way. (I've found that it helps to add a little salt, which brings out the flavor of the spices.) It seems that whenever I ask my mom for a recipe for a favorite meal, she's very good at telling me what ingredients to use, but when I ask for quantities, she usually says something like, "enough" or "until it's the right color" or "when it tastes good." Even though this can be a little frustrating when I'm trying to curb my homesickness with the exact taste of her home-cooked goodness, it's made me a better, more confident, and more creative cook than I otherwise would have been. Thanks, mom!

5) I'm not sure if this was a July-make or not, but I picked it up from the pottery place in July. This is a plate that I painted to go with my pear fondue plates.

It seems I always have two much fruit to fit in the little serving sections of my fondue pot, and using a bunch of separate bowls is quite inconvenient when you live in a malicious dishwasherless apartment. So I'll use this lovely little dish to supplement the fruit choices without over-supplementing Jason's dirty dishes quota. (Yes, Jason does almost all of our dishes. Have I mentioned that he is the best husband in the world?)

6) I also collected fabric for a few projects to be given as gifts next week when I'm in Jersey. I plan on finishing them up this week and then posting about them after they have been received. Be excited. They're pretty sweet!

And now...finally...I am all caught up with July. [hooray! streamers! confetti!]