Thanksgiving Weekend

It's been a busy month...and an especially busy Thanksgiving weekend.

On Thursday, we enjoyed this feast with our friends, Samantha and Brian, and a few of Brian's co-workers. YUM!


On Friday, I outlined all day while George ran errands and took care of things around the house.

Yesterday, we went snowboarding at Mount Baker with some diving friends, Seon, Ki, and Ricky. Although I'm paying for it with a lot of soreness today, I'm so pleased that I actually remember how to snowboard. Sorry, skis, you'll have to wait for another time.


Today, we continued our tradition of buying a fresh tree and pine wreath at Red-Wood Christmas Tree Farm. Our tree is a noble fir this year, and I've decorated the wreath with jingle bells.
There is a chill in the air. Christmas cards have been ordered. Christmas shopping is underway. Finals are just one terrifying week away. Yes, it's that time of the year for sure!

What do I do with my dress?

Photos by Evantide Photography. Cropping by ALKS.

My wedding dress is still hanging...ok, jammed...in the closet in my craft room. I'm still undecided on what I should do with it now that our wedding day has come and gone.

I love the idea of doing a trash-the-dress photo shoot, especially something fun like snowboarding or SCUBA diving. However, it seems a shame to just destroy the dress, and would I just throw it away after the photo shoot? While I'm not crazy about totally destroying my dress, I'm also unsure about cleaning and preserving my dress. It would need a lot of cleaning after being stepped on by my loving groom and being dragged around Kerry Park and Gas Works Park. Even if I do preserve it, is it ever going to be put to use again? I'm certain that any daughter I might have is not going to want to wear my dress. If I'm only going to keep the dress in a box for the rest of my life, why should I spend more than half of what the dress cost and use environmentally harmful chemicals to preserve it? I am totally willing to donate it to someone who can't afford a dress. But, let's face it: my dress wasn't that expensive, and it's going to cost someone almost as much to clean and alter the dress as it cost to buy the dress new.

I've heard some pretty creative ideas for the dress, like making a Christmas tree skirt or two out of it. As much as I loved the pick-up skirt on my dress, I'm not sure that I want a "pick-up" tree skirt. I've also heard that it could be made into a christening gown for our future children. For a number of reasons, this isn't really in the running. This morning, Wedinator gave me another creative idea for my dress:

Source

In all seriousness, I know that I need to do something with my dress soon before it starts to yellow. At this point, I'm seriously considering cutting out some of the best parts of the dress to save (for what, I have no idea), and throwing away the rest, or else donating the dress. Help! What did you do with your wedding dress?

Role Models

Like many other people, I have great admiration for the Obamas on a personal level. Maybe it's the affection they show each other in public. Maybe it's the balance they attempt to strike between their respective careers. Maybe it's their style. Whatever it is, I hope that George and I still look at each other the way Michelle looks at Barack when we've been married five years, ten years, or fifty years. Given my admiration, I really enjoyed this candid look into their marriage and struggles over the last fifteen years. Looks like there's lots more work on the horizon...for all married couples.

Shop locally!

When is the last time that you supported a local and independent business? I challenge you to commit to the 3/50 project. What a fantastic idea!

Since I'm writing about local businesses, I'll share a link to Bill, our new neighborhood butcher. He's a serious character with dynamite meat-selection and marinade-creation skills. George and I just love stopping into his shop to buy some of his newest creation. This is also the man who is going to try to make my hamloaf dreams come true. That's right, folks: Grandma's hamloaf is coming to Washington!

Autumn Wreath

The weather has turned cold and wet, and our trees are finally starting to change colors. Yes, autumn has arrived! To celebrate the change of season, I was inspired to make a seasonal wreath as soon as I spotted this wreath on Etsy. Success:



Here are some instructions in case you want to make your own:

• First, I bought a plain straw wreath. They're available at most craft stores; this one cost less than $4.
• Next, I covered it with scraps of muslin, left from a previous project, using some standard craft glue.
• While the glue was drying, I ripped fabric into strips roughly 2 inches wide. As you can see, I started with eight fabrics, but I ended up using only four of them to make the wreath look less cluttered. In the future, I would use just a few colors, in more narrow strips, and maybe add ribbon to the mix. The inspiration wreath used wool, but I used simple cotton quilting fabric.
• To make the design, I tied the strips around the wreath in a repeating pattern. I bought 1/3 of a yard of each fabric. Even though I only used half of the width of fabric, I'd buy a lightly longer piece in the future so that I could double-knot each piece. Although I figured out how to get the ribbon effect shown in the inspiration wreath, I didn't do it on my wreath because the ribbon I bought matched the strips of fabric I discarded but not the ones I adopted for the wreath.
  
• Finally, I trimmed the ends of the fabric on the back and hung the wreath on the door with a piece of ribbon.

Happy Fall!