Sometimes, I forget. I forget how beautiful places in the Northwest like Bellingham actually are, I forget how the apple orchards smell when Indian summer is winding down and fall is starting, or the smell of blackberries when they're overripe and they're covering the back half of my yard. I forget that little hint of woodsmoke and the crisp bite in the bottom of my lungs when I suck in a full breath upon coming home. I forget how the orange and yellow leaves look like discarded pencil shavings across the street under all the small apple and pear trees, and I forget how the seasons feel when they change. Today is one of those days when I come home, and I am thankful for my small house next to the loud and busy road. I do not live in the nicest place, but my living room is yellow and my kitchen is electric blue, and I didn't have to paint them that way. Today is one of those days I remember how good it feels to be in my craft room when it is ready and waiting for me, asking me to come play.

Right now, it is not ready for me to come play, and that's mainly because my lovely husband made a foray into scrapbooking for my birthday present. I kid you not! One of the projects that went up onto the top shelf in my craft closet was "The Wedding Book." Every couple gets a billion cards when they get married, and some have a guestbook, and there are almost always an overabundance of pictures. Well, when shopping for our wedding favors, I found this big, lovely gold and green and pink book (my 3 fave colors) that was able to be closed with a little latch mechanism that I found to be ingenious! I instantly decided that this needed to be our wedding album, and that we could scrapbook it, and it would be awesome! Well, after the wedding, I looked at the mess of cards and things I saved to put into the book and sighed. Then I carefully boxed it all up, and slid it up onto the tallest shelf I could find so that I wouldn't have to think about what a huge project it would be to put that whole damn thing together. For the better part of the last 2 years, I pick it up, flip through some of the cards we kept, shake my head, and put the book back down.

Well, John decided that a really good birthday present for me would be to take the book upon himself, and get it all put together as a surprise! Generally, John isn't too much of a crafty type guy. He loves that I make stuff, and is very supportive, but in general is not much for making things on his own. He thought up the idea and then called around for help, and his mom showed
up the weekend before my birthday for some clandestine scrapbooking.

It turned out beautifully, and if you can ignore the fact that I'm almost falling out of my cocktail dress, here is a picture of Kat and I flipping through it while John looks enormously self satisfied:


I am going to share a secret with you... I am turning my husband into a crafter! (I know, right?) The first year we were married, we ended up making Christmas presents for most of our friends and family, together. (We did some glass etched wine glasses and tumblers, and we made our cards together.) Well, this year, I think we're going to be making stuff together again, but this time, we're making soap! We had a foray into soapmaking a few weeks ago, even if it WAS the cheater kind. (By "cheater" I am saying that we didn't do cold process soap, an endeavor that seems to be a bit dangerous and possibly could make John actually finish his seeming goal of making himself blind in one or both eyes. (Need I revisit the horrible screwdriver in the eyeball accident from our dating days, or the drunken super crazy hotsauce eyerub while drunk last New Year's?)

So, this is the SAFE version of soapmaking that I decided to try to help him work his way into this new craft obsession. (He says I have DIY ADD, which to me sounds like "di ya add that thing I told you to?" - Imagine Mike Meyer's hokey Shrek type accent yelling something similar and you'll see what I'm talking about.)



Our setup, on my immensely crowded kitchen counter. (I don't know if I've mentioned before that my kitchen has a great deal of room and almost no counter space. Yay, rental house built in the 1930's!


Here is all the pic that John would let me take of him, cutting up the base for the goatmilk soap so that we could melt it in the pyrex and add all the spicy and espresso scrubby parts. Note, the impressive cloud pajamas, that are essential to a good crafting experience.


Here is the melted goatmilk base, ready to be mixed. Behind it, in the small bowl, we have some ground cloves and coffee from my coffeehouse. We did figure out in this process that you generally should use USED coffee grounds, as they are much less likely to a) float to the top of your finished pour and b) much less likely to "brew" in your shower and leave espresso stains in your tub. Whoops. Guess that's why this was a practice run!

Our soaps, ready to go into the fridge for cooling. I know, don't I have the most attractive baking tins? I totally do. I'm pretty sure this cookie sheet has been with me since I used to make cookies with my mom, and it was one of her pity gifts when I was much more poor and she felt much more sorry for me.


Here are the finished products, neatly stacked. We ended up using some, giving some to my parents and relatives, and bringing some to a couple of friends. Seeing as how this was the trial run, I don't think it came out badly at all!

Well, it's about time to start back in the kitchen. Last night, I made my first Split Pea Soup from scratch, and tonight I think it's time to make this lovely recipe I found for Black Eyed Pea and Bacon stew. I cooked up the bacon last night and put it in the freezer, since I thought there would be more split pea left. However, there was no more split pea when we got done and I ladled some into a tupperware for John's lunch today. Chase, John and me, we pretty much licked the pan clean. I did a damn fine job, I must say. I made hot crusty biscuits from my mom's lovely recipe book, and used vanilla soy milk when it called for milk, because I'm out of regular milk. They turned out sweeter than normal, but they were delicious with the raw honey that I picked up for John at Pike Place market last weekend. I also ended up making a blackberry cobbler and a small batch of blackberry jam last night that I slipped into the fridge for later. What? The cobbler? Oh no, that got eaten right away. The JAM is for later. Well, I'm glad we cleared that up right away. Jeez, what kind of person do you think I am, hiding COBBLER of all things away in my fridge?

John just called me while I was writing this to ask me if I'll make some more cobbler tonight that he can take to work with him, and if I'll show him how I make it so that he can do it himself next time. I told him sure, but he'll have to can with me. He said it's a deal. Ha ha! I win!

Ok, internet. I have to go. No, really. Seriously. Now.