hiatus

I realize I don't post very often on this blog.  But in order to take some pressure off , I am declaring myself on a blog sabbatical.

I've been very busy lately doing things I don't enjoy but can't avoid.  I have a new job that is requiring some transition and patience.  We've been searching for a house to buy to no avail and every offer that falls through I get more and more discouraged.   I've been in a fog since my dad passed away and with the holidays coming up and 2 major trips on the horizon I can't bear posting on here with some cute content I just don't have the energy for right now. 

I love having a blog.  I can combine my love of writing and domestic life with photograhy and web design.  I know that soon I will be back at it, ready for a new year with new changes and adventures.  But until then I must retire to my hiding spot and find comfort in the Christmas lights and cookies as pick me ups along the way.  

Big thanks to my friends for reading this little blog of mine.

Wishing you many holiday blessings,

Jordan

amazing apple crumble

I keep having little daydreams about going to the east coast or even the midwest to experience the change in weather.  The way that one day, after a hot summer, a cool breeze comes through and immediately the leaves start to fall.  How the geese start flocking south and it's possible to wear a warm sweater in the middle of October.  All those things happen in San Diego I suppose, it's just a far more subtle change.  You would have to be pretty keen on fall just to notice it before Thanksgiving.  Fall here is marked by Ugg boots with mini skirts, surfers switching to full wetsuits, and pumpkin spice lattes (preferably over ice).  

Yesterday we went apple picking.  I've never done it before, but for many San Diegans the hour long drive to the country is a fall tradition. Apple picking in historic Julian is as close to an east coast autumn as we will ever get and it was wonderful.  At Raven Hill Orchard, we filled up a bag with small organic apples, just as sweet and crispy as their larger grocery store counterparts.  We packed a picnic, took a drive, picked some apples, and found ourselves with a new fall tradition of our own.

I got this recipe from a friend of a friend of a friend a couple years ago and I personally think it is the best apple crumble recipe of all time!  It's so simple to make and is crazy good.  I usually bake it several times over the course of fall and winter and it never fails to delight the taste buds with the simple goodness of vanilla and cinnamon.

Amazing Apple Crumble
Filling
-6 large apples of any kind (I usually go sweet with gala), peeled and chopped
-1/2 cup sugar
-1 tablespoon vanilla
-1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
Topping
-1 1/2 cups flour
-1 1/2 cups brown sugar
-1 1/2 cups oats
-1 cup butter, melted
-1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss the chopped apples, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon in a bowl, then dump in to a greased 9x13 pan (I usually halve the recipe and use a random cake pan, I've even used mini jam jars).  Wipe out the bowl, then mix up the flour, brown sugar, oats, melted butter, and salt.  Layer the crumble mixture on top of the apples.  Bake for about an hour until top is golden and apples are soft. Enjoy!

the long way home

Several weeks ago my father passed away.  About a month before that I went and saw him for what I knew would be the last time.  As his last born child, brought into the world 18 years after his other children, I was his little girl.  His health problems began when I was young and for the past 20 years I've been living on edge that the day would come.  

At his prime, he stood 7 feet tall, he filled a room with his stature, voice, and copious personality.  He was a natural born story teller and people seemed to flock around him for his sage advice and, honestly, his perverse sense of humor.

He lived a whole life before I was born.  He grew up in Pasedena and truly was a rebel without a cause.  He was active in California politics through the 60s and 70s.  He had four children from his first marriage then was married to my mother for 34 years.  Things were always difficult for all of us it seemed, him a life full of glory ended after a long decline, me as a child feeling the instability of a family balancing the negative effects of health problems.  Despite him never being on his feet, he kept me grounded, he kept me sane amongst the chaos.  I'll miss his voice the most.

The memorial this past weekend was a casual family party and I expected him to be there, sitting in his wheelchair, smoking a cigar, while he filled the room with his booming laugh.  

Along with my mom and brothers and sisters we spread his ashes along the Bear River near Sacramento.  It was a place I'd never been before, but where my siblings grew up and where he and my mom built their first house together. I felt lost. 

Rather than driving the 8 hours straight home to San Diego, we took the long way home, south east through the Sequoia National Forest. We got a cabin for the night and hiked through the giant trees, feeling dwarfed by the beauty of it all and that feeling that we have no control over the course of nature.  

Like the ancient towereing trees, my father was a mighty man.  At times he stood tall, at times a lightning strike may have slowed him down, but he always remained hopeful with a sparkle in his big blue eyes.

the little things

I'm currently in a period of transition and acceptance, a time to adapt to the good things life brings, the unfortunate and sad things, and all the limbo in between.  Thank goodness for the little things.

 Flowers from my husband, a rarity, but always welcome.

 A cat who will sleep anywhere, literally anywhere.

 Refreshing iced matcha during an afternoon drive in the country.

 Scraps of math left around the house from my husband's engineering projects.  Yeah, he does that for fun.

 A new hair color, bye bye beach blonde, hello dark blonde for fall (yay for no more roots!).

Also, our little munchkin Pickett, turned 2 years old a couple weeks ago and I forgot to commemorate the occasion.  He was so little when we got him yet he still hasn't grown into his ears.  

natural home: vodka fabric refresher

The heat just isn't letting up and our house is more unbearable than ever.  I was ranting to my husband last night about the energy flow of our house, yes that's right, energy flow.  There are no two windows across from each other and every room, including the living room and kitchen, is divided by a wall or narrow door.  A fresh breeze may come in the front door but gets stuck and stagnant quickly with no place to go.  I believe the same applies to the energy flow in this house.  Although cute and charmingly vintage, ever since we moved in here we've had a hard time feeling settled, keeping things clean, and feeling energized for the day ahead.  Yes this place is small, and yes we live somewhat stressful lives, but we know ourselves better than to let that get in the way of daily happiness.  Yet when we step through the front door a weight comes down on our shoulders, a negative energy that can't escape because of the windows and walls.  Yes I know this sounds a little silly, but I think it has some merit, even if its a way to rationalize that we are probably just lazy.

Moving on from crazy lady talk, I thought I'd share my favorite way to freshen up the house.  With a cat, a dog, and a lot of hot air, I need something that will perk this place up.  I used to be an avid Febreze user, dousing every fabric surface with it, but over the past couple years as I've transitioned to natural products not full of chemicals and artificial fragrances I thought Febreze would have to be a thing of the past. But a simple Google search for natural fabric refresher turned up the simplest and most effective recipe for a fresh home.  I've experimented with variations, but this mix works best for me.

Vodka Febreze

-spray bottle

-cheap vodka

-about 30-50 drops or 1/2 tsp grapefruit essential oil (or any essential oil blend)

Shake the bottle up and spritz on fabric around the house.  You can also use it on hard to wash clothes, like winter jackets, that need a pick me up. 

Note: you could add distilled water to dilute the vodka, but I've never bothered.  Its never been a problem on any fabrics, and for me the simpler the recipe the better.  Plus, sometimes I just need the extra strength stuff. 

I feel like I'm in college again strolling into the liquor store to buy the cheapest vodka possible (just add kool aid, serve in red cup). I also feel like I'm in college again when, to this day, I spray my dirty clothes with "Febreze" so I don't have to go to the laundry mat.  The vodka doesn't really smell like alcohol  and evaporates pretty quickly leaving fabrics fresh with a light citrus scent.

breaking a sweat

So I've started packing boxes and no we haven't bought a house yet.  We've barely started looking, and the bank says it will be like two months from when we put in an offer to have the keys in hand, so we are not going anywhere anytime soon.  But yes I am packing it up, my brain has moved on from this place.  The things we own just sit there watching me as I pout around wishing that the perfect listing would come up any day now.  The pressure is building in my head (especially with pinterest taunting me with cute home decor) that if I don't do something productive to keep my mind off the waiting that I will go crazy, like B.Spears crazy.  It manifests in different ways, mostly me occasionally dropping to my knees in the kitchen and yelling "house!" before returning to cooking or whatever I was doing.  Packing is a daunting, time consuming process, and since I'm (sad to say) over this place, I'm wrapping it up.  

Its amazing how much stuff has accumulated here over the past 2 and a half years.  We merged our stuff, got married, got a lot of presents, then picked up a newlywed, hand in hand strolling through the flea market hobby that has brought an influx of neat, often useless, pieces into our home.

I've starting packing up the chachkies since they just sit there, then it's onto the closets and cabinets.  If it isn't used or adored regularly its going to be donated or packed.  Then I will work my way through the garage, and hopefully by that point we will be in escrow somewhere.   Then down will come the art off the walls and the rest of the house will follow suit.

At the current rate it takes me just to get one box done, starting this early will leave me just enough time to completly freak out and throw everything in random boxes two days before we have to leave.  That's always how it goes for me, good intentions on the front end and massive disorganized panic at the back end.

The heat is unbearable today.  I know I can't complain since we are in San Diego, but the problem is most places here, even the stores, don't have air conditioning.  So when the intense heat of August hovers over this little town of ours I come to a standstill, sweating, complaining, and sitting in front of the fan.  Pickett being the short nose pup he is can't even go on walks without getting heat stroke.  But the heat will pass, and soon it will be that perfect time of summer, early September when the ocean is still warm and the tourists have gone home.

a piece of cal

This past weekend, sad circumstances took us up on a last minute trip to Northern California.  Despite the tone of the trip, we managed to get in some antiquing, and take a quick trip over to Berkeley to pick up the coolest thing ever.

My husband attended UC Berkeley and I lived there for year.   It's a lively place and an amazing urban college town.  Established in 1868, the campus is filled with so much history.  My husband, Jesse, is obsessed with Cal football and follows all the games.  Every fall, we try to make it up to see a game and hit our old hangouts.  Even though we plan on going back in a couple months, I figured while we were close by we could pick up a very special treasure.  

Since 1923, Berkeley Memorial Stadium has hosted the Cal Bears football team.  This past year it was renovated and retrofitted (it sits directly on a fault line) and during construction some old wooden bleachers turned up.  A local wood shop in town, The Wooden Duck, managed to salvage the bulk of it and is now selling it.  We knew it was essential to have a piece for our home.  We rooted through a giant, filthy pile of beat up blue and yellow boards, all inscribed with numbers, and found a couple pieces to turn into a small bench or side table.  Yes its very beat up, but not lacking in potential.

All of the boards had numbers on both sides and even numbers on top of faded numbers.  They managed to get a long life out of these boards. Each number a seat for an enthusiastic Cal fan, probably waving a felt pennant and rooting for the Blue and Gold.  

We also hit up a little antique shop and founds a few more treasures.  I keep finding neat stuff that I claim is for our future house, guess we will see if it works soon enough.  My new obsession is American stoneware crocks.  They usually have a cream or grey salt glaze, stamped by the maker, and range from small to huge.  

I also picked up some big thread spools (I see string art and friendship bracelets in my future) and a milk glass Old Spice shave mug with the logo faded to the perfect shade of grey and pink.  

Lastly, we picked up these puppies.  Jesse builds beautiful wood encased vacuum tube amplifiers.  Vacuum tubes made a lot of electronics work back in the day.  These tubes were probably from old TVs, they don't work, but I love to incorporate my husbands interests into our home design, now I just need to find the perfect apothecary jar to display them.

rosemary raisin cookies

One of my favorite dinners is a simple luxury; cheese, wine and crackers.  We usually sit at the coffee table, watch a good movie, and stuff ourselves with creamy cheese and a bottle of good ol' Charles Shaw.  Last time we did this, I picked up a box of rosemary raisin crisps from Trader Joe's, it was a new item and I soon discovered the incredible flavor of this savory sweet combination.  I became so obsessed with the taste (eating them everyday for weeks) that I decided to make a cookie that could embody the earthiness of the rosemary and raisins, while being soft and chewy.  

For the record I am not a baker, or a cook for that matter.  But I can claim that I invented this recipe myself, tested it several times, and now it's my go to for an impressive sensory delight.  It goes great as a dessert or an afternoon snack with a cup a coffee.

Rosemary Raisin Cookies

-1 cup lightly packed brown sugar

-1 1/4 cups flour

-1 cup raisins

-1/2 cup chopped walnuts

-1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1/3 cup olive oil (adds a wonderful peppery taste) 

-1 egg

-1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray your cookie sheet (or sheets).  Mix up the dry ingredients, add in the wet ingredients.  Scoop tablespoon sized balls a couple inches apart onto the oiled cookie sheet.  Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are golden.  Let cool on a cookie rack. Enjoy!

Makes about 16 cookies.

35mm: lost rolls

I was sorting through the junk drawer yesterday and among the amass of birthday candles, spare keys, and batteries, I found a couple rolls of 35mm film.  I knew what they were from, my husband has indefinitely borrowed an Olympus OM-1 from his dad, the same camera used to capture his memories back in the day.  We've taken the camera on trips the past couple years, but what was on the rolls I had no idea.

Every time we get a roll of film developed from this camera, I'm blown away.  I vow to use it more often, but with it comes the annoyance of manually focusing, no instant gratification screen, and the pain of developing film (not too many drugstores have 1hour photo anymore), and my excitement fades.  But in this day and age where instagram and photoshop can make any picture look like it was taken from an Olympus OM-1, there's beauty in owning a gem that can originate coolness all on its own. I think that's worth the inconvenience and I pledge here and now to use the camera more often and make a series on the results. The dot on all the pictures must be some dust in the lens.

holy paint by numbers

It's been almost two years since I saw it.  It sat behind some tarnished silver and a pile of tangled jewelry.  I was at a thrift store and I heard it calling to me.  It was a painting of Jesus, specifically a paint by number painting of Jesus.  There was something about his face, each dimension of his beard painted in a different subtle shade of brown.  I'm not too religious, I grew up Presbyterian and I'm sure when kids are in the picture we'll go back, but here and now the pure retro funkiness of this art was calling to me.  The thing is, I was at the thrift store that day with my mother, and I knew if I picked up that painting to buy it, I would hear about it.  "You can't just hang a picture of Jesus in your house? You don't even go to church, although I wish you would."  I'm not sure why I wanted something so not me, but I wanted it badly. When I returned to the thrift store on my own he was gone and ever since it's been a regret that I didn't buy the paint by numbers Jesus.

knock, knock anyone home?

For our first wedding anniversary and every one after, we want to follow the traditional gift schedule, and be a little creative about it, this first year was paper.  Jesse handed me a half opened cardboard box stuffed with newspaper "its technically not paper, but close enough."  I laughed because my present to him sat so neatly wrapped on the table and I was handed a box that just fell off the post truck.  I peeled back the first layer of newspaper to behold "Jesus!" I shouted.  I beamed with excitement.  Looking down into the box again, a faint glow peeked out from the remaining newspaper, it was none other than Mary to join the gang.  I was floored, I couldn't think of anything I wanted more. They're weird, colorful, fantastic, and who care's if I'm not Catholic or whatever, these are art.  The beauty of the gift was that I never actually asked for it, he just knew that it was something I was always searching for and took it upon himself to find it.   Honestly, gift exchanges between my husband and I over the past 6 years have been hit or miss.   He's a dude, I don't communicate too well, and together we procrastinate.  Giving a gift that was never ever expected, but awesome, is the best kind of gift.  These two paintings will have to wait until we are in a new place, but when they get their own wall it's going to be righteous, literally.

He also got me some Padres tickets and a certificate for a mani/pedi.  I got him a voucher to go on a spearfishing tour and some books on growing a beer garden and raising chickens and goats (we are really serious about this homestead thing). We had a nice dinner at Starlight, then enjoyed a slice of guava cake from Extraordinary Desserts at the buy your own bottle bar Bottlecraft.

  
Overall it was a marvelous anniversary and the first of many.

one year

Our wedding was one year ago today!  It's been a year of transition and adjustment, a year of sweet, simple bliss, a year of comfort and delight, it's the first year of forever.  I can look back fondly now on our wedding and not pick it apart with "if onlys."  My brain has washed out all the stress and only left the happy memories of that joyful day.  I figure this is the last time I get to gratuitously shove my wedding photos in your face, so here goes...

Because we had the ceremony on the deck in my father-in-law's backyard we had to rearrange the bridal party from the typical setup.  I really liked the asymmetry.  My favorite detail of the whole wedding was how nicely the bridal party pulled together.  The girls wore Amasale dresses in different colors with their choice of jewelry and metallic flat sandals.  The guys wore their own grey suits, cotton plaid ties, and classic Vans sneakers.  We used assorted vintage hankies as the guys pocket squares and wrapped around the girls bouquets.  I'm obsessed with the baby's breath and eucalyptus leaves as the bouquets and boutonnieres, they were so easy to make and it was like 20 bucks for all 8 of them!

  

I wanted the flowers to have that wildflower look, but didn't want to spend too much money.  The answer was filler flowers!  I went to Francos, the local flower mart, about a week before the wedding and ordered a ton of filler flowers (other than baby's breath, I have no clue what kinds I picked out).  My creative aunt and cousin worked hard the day before the wedding, delicately sculpting flowers in good ol' jam jars for that casual summer look.  They sat on the tables among succulents in tins and candles on mismatched teacup saucers.

 Francos did my bouquet, it took up half of my flower budget, but so worth it.

my rose gold engagement ring and our bands

his is engraved your hand in mine and mine says we walk the miles (props for anyone who knows what that's from)

popcorn bar for cocktail hour
I'm glad we finished our pictures before everything, we really enjoyed the whole evening without feeling rushed

 it's ridiculous to look back and think I sat there and glued flags onto straws, but it's all in the details

 all the desserts were homemade, pumpkin pie and rice crispy treats from grandma

maybe overdone, but balloons are so fun!

To my darling husband,
Here's to many more years and memories.
I love you,
Jordan