acid wash

This summer was way too hot and I don't miss it, but I do miss wearing matching acid wash with my babe.

Mom jeans and overalls for the win.

Shorts - American Apparel
Overalls - Vintage Osh Kosh B'Gosh

yearly peony

I take a pic of my peony bouquet from Db every year and this year is no exception. So here we are, a very Caravaggio-esque photo of a particularly beautiful five peony bouquet. This pic is from June of course, I wish peonies bloomed until now! We actually have three peony bulbs coming in the mail as I write this so hopefully next year I'll have some garden peonies to post, too!

Something pretty for everyone.

canning!

Oh man, I've been on a tear. As soon as peach season hit I was like, oh man, I need to make preserves RIGHT NOW. So I busted out my fabulous new Le Creuset dutch oven and made some jam! In the past few weeks I've made sauerkraut, pickles, spicy dilly beans, mixed stone fruit jam, peach jam with cinnamon, pickled garlic cloves and hot pepper relish.

So good.

While a lot of what I've made so far has been pickled, I get most excited about any excuse to use my new dutch oven. My Vavó would always slip me money when I'd visit and the gift money I'd get from her or my Madrinha was special and I'd save it for something I thought they'd approve of. So after hoarding 10s and 20s for probably 15+ years, I finally settled on investing in a really nice 5qt Le Creuset dutch oven to cook for my family with. It was pretty hilarious handing over all the bills they'd given me over the years, crisp and flat, all marked with an initial so I'd know who they were from. The cashier must've thought I was batshit because it was kind of a big deal for me. Its maiden voyage was my favorite of my Vavó and Aunt Connie's (my Madrinha) recipes, the famous chicken soup everyone in my family simply refers to as "sopas", and every time I've used it since it makes me smile. I mean how could it not? It's beautiful but the sentiment makes it even more so.

I'm sure there will be many more future jam pics taken in this.

Recipes (with exception to the hot pepper relish) all from Food in Jars and Food in Jars: Preserving by the Pint. Highly recommend!

summer

This summer was both absolutely amazing and kind of awful. We had some really lame luck with our house, some sadness and some stress, but we also had our amazing babe Seti experiencing all our favorite things for the very first time! And I've got to say it even though it's cliche, it was magical. It was so so cool taking him to the beach and to NH and showing him all the best of everything. His wide eyed wonder is so pure and beautiful. That kid is the shit. He's cooler than all of us. So that being said, here's our new beach family foot portrait.

Summer is good. I hope you all had an amazing one, too.

sprang

Spring rules. When I imagined having a kid, spring was what would come to mind. Teaching them about all the plants that are coming up, the flowers blooming, the new bird songs. It is just as nice as I imagined. Little man has already gotten to smell lilacs, feel lots of different leaves, play with bubbles and a pinwheel... so fun. Besides just hanging with him there has been a TON going on. Db travels for work a lot more now than ever before (go figure) so I'm on solo baby duty around the clock pretty often. Our house is slowly coming together finally which is nice. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it taking way longer than anticipated because only insane people move when they're 38 weeks pregnant. Of course there are still a few boxes stashed under the kitchen table 6 months later, but we're getting there. Last weekend we painted Seti's room and this coming weekend we'll paint the trim. Basically every paintable surface in this house needs to be painted which isn't the easiest thing to do when your kid only takes half hour naps all day long. I AM TRAPPED BY A NAP SCHEDULE. Even considering that we've had some nice spring moments; chillin' in the park, going for drizzle walks to watch the flowering trees shed their petals, getting dirt under our nails (Db isn't into that one but Uzo, Seti and I are), general yard hangs.

Spring is the best. I leave you with a petal river on the annual prettiest rainy day of the year.

BABE!

I would like to formally introduce Db and my brand new KID!

In November Db, Uzo and I welcomed a new member of the fam, Seti, cutest dude ever. He already owns a motorcycle and doesn't care that purple "is a girl color".

He's a cool little creature, he's already mastered the Silveira stink-eye. He popped out being able to make this face and he shoots it my way when I'm doing just about anything. That's my boy! He also was born with a full head of hair which is not at all shocking but amusing anyways. I think it's going to be curly and insane like mine! Kid is going to have some hilarious haircuts. I like him, he's alright. Fun to dress, way huge for his age and smiles a lot, INTO IT. Little man is doomed to be dressed ridiculous until he's old enough to do something about it though, it's a price we've all paid and he's no exception. There will be lots of "MOM WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" in my future. That mean's I'm doing it right, right?

Welcome to the shit show little dude!

pit stop

Well, sometimes you're walking right past the Liberty Bell to get to the nearest metro station. I'm not sure if anything besides the urge to do something pointless drove me into the building, but I just walked in, took one selfie, and then loudly giggled the whole way out of the building to continue on my walk to the metro. I didn't even look at the bell. It's broken anyways! It's not even broken for some good or interesting reason, it was just made shitty. Seriously, look it up it's ridiculous.

I like being a local here, WE HAVE MORE FUN DAMNIT.

HOUSE!

So, big news… we bought a house! Right after we stopped looking for the season, Uzo begged for a walk and I saw the sign on this beaut right across from the park and community garden the day it went up! Every time Db or I see a new for sale sign go up in our neighborhood we take note and look it up together because it's fun to see inside all the local houses and even more fun to laugh at how absurd the prices are around here. Like $799k for a totally run down fixer upper? 1.25m for an ugly as hell and poorly laid out new condo? HA. So yeah, usually it's just entertainment.

Well not this time! This time when we looked it up not only was it a lot less expensive than most other homes in our area, but it has a big yard, the inside is actually done mostly nice and doesn't need very much major work, and the location is IDEAL. Like what? Then, by chance yet again, Uzo wanted another walk and it happened to be during the open house for it that weekend (mere hours after looking it up on Zillow) and I practically dragged Db inside to investigate. Good fucking call, because now we have a house! The whole situation kind of reminds me of how I convinced Db to get Uzo. Like there's no right time for this, but HE'S THE ONE! He chose us, and now he chose our damn house too. Smart dog went and got himself a yard.

It rules. We love it. So thanks to Uzo's very well timed walk begging, all of us get to live in a totally rad little home in the city. So excited to make it ours :)

labor day aftermath

Who doesn't love a long weekend? We did so much stuff it's hard to believe we can also throw "took two accidental naps" in there along with everything else. I love the summer, up in RI it was my absolute fave season, but I can't say I'll be mourning this one. Way too hot, I was basically trapped in my house the whole time with the central air on. I'm a windows open, sit outside person… after this summer fall can not come fast enough. Give me some jean jacket weather! A reason to drink some hot tea, maybe even wear pants in the house hahaha. The changing of seasons is always fun.

So Philly summer, peace the fuck out! You will find me outside wearing anything other than a sweat drenched black tank top. I hope you guys all had a sweet weekend full of adventure and mystery, I wonder the story this lovely chicken thigh we found outside our gate on Monday morning has to tell… 

NH!

When I was younger my family used to go up to my Grandparents' cabin in the woods for a week once every summer. It was amazing, it's still my favorite place on Earth. Since I started working at 17 I haven't had the chance to do more than 3 days and although I've gotten to do tons of amazing things, a week in NH has been the white whale.

Well day dream of lazy reading on the porch no more! This year Db and I got our own week because you know, we're adults now (hahaha).

It kicked ass.

We didn't climb trees or play in the creek in the woods all day BUT WE DID get to play in a frosted donut shaped water tube and hang in a hammock by the lake all day. The weather was beyond perfect, especially compared to the annual Philly mid-summer sufferfest. It was almost like mother nature was saying "sorry guys" for raining on our wedding day, the majority of our camping trips and all our anniversaries so far. I'll take it!

Uzo got over his fear of water… mostly, and he swam every day like a champ. Just one week in the woods turned him into a mountain dog. His dirty little bandana gave him courage to do dumb shit and generally be more independent it would seem. It was super cute. He was even down with chillin' in the hammock!

IT WAS AWESOME. A far cry from our usual full throttle traveling escapades but equally as fun in totally different ways. Doing nothing is the best sometimes.

NH I love you.

i'm back!

So this has been the longest I've gone without posting since I started doing this however many years ago. I missed it! Let's just be as vague as possible here, I was pretty unwell for a decent length of time and did nothing worth posting about anyways. No, not even knitting. I realized at one point I didn't remember the last time I'd even checked my email. It wasn't cute. I've seen probably every nature documentary on Netflix at this point so at least I got smarter! I'm better now and up to most of my old shit so it's all good.

I hope you have all had a rad summer so far!

* I left for a minute and Flickr got all weird. What are you guys using for image hosting these days?

weekends

Weekends never feel long enough do they? It's tuesday and I'm still wishing it was saturday. Waking up, watching Uzo take a sunbath, breakfast in bed. Damn.

Db and I have been traveling a lot on weekends for family stuff so having a chill weekend just for us was a really nice treat. Next weekend we're traveling again, and then again shortly thereafter. So much to do! Stretches like this are why people always tend to move back to their hometowns I imagine. So much driving, so little sleeping in your own bed. As for now I'll be holding onto this nice moment from a rare weekend at home and looking forward to when we get to have a few weekends like this in a row, especially because we're getting really good at weekend breakfasts!

2015

Well, this is late, but better late than never! I cannot believe how wild a year 2014 was, and that we had no idea what was coming for us at the start of it. Please 2015 be kind! I would be totally satisfied with a nice, borderline boring year full of hanging out in parks, riding bikes and playing with Uzo.

As for my 2014 goals, I did alright considering 6 months of the year threw a wrench in a few. I meant to sew 4 things and knit 8, in reality I sewed 3 and knit 10. I'll call that a victory. (I'm also going to post about them when I get pics!) I didn't ride a cross race because I was out of the country for the whole season, but I run in tights now so that takes balls, too. Humiliation? WHAT IS THAT? Look at my tiny ass while I pant down the street, I do not care. I have almost completely weened myself off the teat that is cheap consumer goods; but jeans, bras and running shoes are just about impossible to avoid buying from China. And I did not seek gallery representation because I didn't have the ability to dye or paint in England for 6 months. Handstand? Um, that might be a never. I'm going to call 2015 the year of the still somewhat impressive compromise - arm balances! Not SO bad right?

As for 2015...
- Cook one new recipe a week, preferably vegan. Particularly aiming it at bread and canning. I'm really excited to be able to have my kitchen back! And a CSA share again! I really missed that this year.
- Dirty Dozen 5.0! Finish 12 projects in 2015. This kind of just turned into a way of life but it's fun to keep track.
- Continue with my USA made, local, vintage and small business consumer choices. Also has turned into a way of life for me since I've been doing it for so long, but you can always get better. Maybe this year I'll find some non fast-fashion tank tops, or better yet, learn to make them.
- Stick with yoga and running. Be able to run a half marathon and do an arm balance with ease. Maybe I'll even run an actual race! Got my eyes on you Broad St 10k…
- Work harder, chill harder, none of this halfway bullshit. It's not productive AND it just makes down time guilt ridden. That "I didn't do my homework" feeling has got to go.

I know it's over a week into the new year but we're all still being good and getting our goals done right? What are you guys working towards in 2015?

happy holidays!

This six month living in a foreign country thing has been insane. Since mid October, Db and I haven't been in one place longer than ten days, and on one particular day we went to four countries! It has mostly been for his job, and for just under six weeks of it we lived out of our suitcases going from hotel to hotel around eastjabumfuck Europe. I wore lots of black and we did lots and lots of sink laundry. Oh the glamour! We also got to go to some absolutely badass places like Barcelona and Paris though, so the weird parts were definitely worth it.

What you see here is our lovely christmas tree, which is decorated with an ornament Db was given for free at an all you can eat Chinese buffet in northern France. I hung it on a lamp in every hotel we went to after getting it so we could have some sort of festiveness going on, it's funny which little things make a difference when you have almost nothing. This silly ornament kind of marked our home base, and now we get to bring it to our real home base because today is our last day in England! In addition to the ornament, we got the sculpture (which we named "Fjord in Space" after Brâncuși's "Bird in Space" series) in Norway, the Rooster in the Açores and I made the 100 link paper chain countdown to tomorrow while Db was in Bulgaria. Db even went to Singapore! Clearly we had no idea what we were in for when we came over here and Sheffield has decided it best to say goodbye by giving us a day full of blazing sun and pouring rain, mostly both at once. It's pretty hilarious and not that unusual.

So while I pack up and we're shooting over the Atlantic towards our lovely Uzo and favorite people, I hope you are all having a great holiday season and have a kick ass New Year. See you all in 2015!

yarndale

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be able to go to Yarndale! My fiber loving cousin told me about it last week and after investigating I realized not only did it look rad, but going was totally doable. I got dressed in my very best handknits and Db and I hopped in the car for the 2 hour drive to Skipton, armed only with cookies, bananas and reusable bags because there was likely to be some yarn related retail therapy happening.

We needed the cookie and banana fuel, and the bags. It was a victorious day.

Yarndale was really cool even before we got inside, they decorated the trees with bunting and pompoms and there were people scattered all over the grass chatting and knitting together while wearing amazing handknits. I loved it, it was great actually seeing people working with yarn and wearing handmade garments. Ravelry is great and I love it, but being surrounded by actual humans who think fiber craft is cool was a whole other level. Someone recognized my cardigan was Grace by Jane Richmond, it blew my mind. Inside there was an entryway with the most epic crocheted bunting that likely exists on Earth (6,212 triangles total), yarn bombed bikes and maps so you could mark where you were from. Upon inspection Db and I saw that no one had pinned Philly so we got to mark our spot. In the actual show there was a massive number of vendors, most of which were local to the UK and sold UK made goods. I'd only heard of two before! There was everything, seriously, everything. Fleeces, roving, carders, spinning wheels, drop spindles, swifts, dyes, knitting and crochet tools, patterns, finished garments, felting tools, peg looms, a booth just for vintage tools (I died, and scored gorgeous things) and every imaginable kind of yarn. I was overwhelmed. They even had little sheep, alpacas and angora rabbits that you could pet. Of course, we pet all the animals, that's kind of my life moto at the moment.

It was a really fun time, it totally put fiber festivals on the radar for me.
For more pics, read more >>>

epic vaca to the motherland aka. faial, açores!

Over a month ago Db and I went to Faial with my family, and oh man, it was SO COOL. I had no idea my Dad was from somewhere so beautiful. I've heard stories my whole life and always imagined it to be pretty rad, but holy shit! I got to see where my family lived and where all the classic stories took place. This house is actually the house my dad and the whole family lived in until they came to the USA. That front window was a bedroom view of the open ocean. I got to see the stone oven my Vavó used to cook bread in, the whole house was magical.

 While we were there we got to hang out with super nice people always, eat such good cheese, bread and fish, see dolphins, black beaches, volcanoes and tropical plants. I would totally like to go back someday. The island maybe takes an hour to ride around the whole thing, and the villages are all really small and cool. They have names that translate to things like "Deep Ravine", "North Beach" and "Little North". Db, my brother and I were all kinda of surprised by how much we liked it. Totally worth the wait in making it happen!

For more pics, read more >>>

london

 Last week Dillon had to do some work at the other office, which happens to be right outside London. We picked a hotel in zone 1 and while Dillon was at work I got to wander the city, slowly turning my feet into hooves between taking breaks to read Orwell's 1984 while IN London, where it takes place. My mom lent me her copy (published before 1984 which is important) and I saved it so I'd be able to read it here. What an amazing way to read this book, wandering around and then reading a bit at night and realizing I was at the place they met up in the book earlier in the day? Reading about the capitalists and how the worst of all is called the King while sitting within view of Buckingham Palace? So so cool. Everything about this pic amuses and disturbs me, including my dollar bill bookmark. I also finally found a legit art store in England, so London is alright by me.

I figured out the first day we were there I walked just over 7 miles! We saw Buckingham Palace, walked the Mall and saw pelicans in St James' Park. We went to The National Portrait Gallery, which disappointingly and surprisingly did not have a portrait of England's national treasure and most often heard voice, Sir David Attenborough. FOR SHAME. We watched Big Ben toll 6 and then a huge rainbow form over it and checked it out at night looking all spooky and imposing, too. We deemed just about everything to be "the Queen's favorite". Shitty pub named The Bag o' Nails? The Queen's favorite. White Pelicans? The Queen's favorite. The geraniums that are in all the gardens in the city? Geraniums must be the Queen's favorite. The Queen also must make her guards wear their stupid uniforms for fun because they carry automatic rifles, no old fashioned weapons there.

It was really fun, and this past weekend when we were there was Summer Bank Holiday which is basically English Labor Day aka. "Summer is over, PARTY!" So we got not only an extra day to explore, but we also got to go to the Notting Hill Carnival with two friends who live outside London! It was … huge. Really I can't compare it to anything except what I imagine Carnival in Rio to be like. I have never seen so many people in one place in my life. Everyone was having a great time, the music was so loud, everyone was gorgeous, people were walking around covered in chocolate and the drinking was no joke. No little nips on the street, we're talking people dancing with 750s of Jager ten feet from cops. I would love to know what it looked like from above, it was wild!

We went all over really, it ruled. I was surprised by how cool London is.
For more pics, read more >>>

hey hey norway

Db travels a lot for work. Usually in the US he travels podunk places and occasionally somewhere cool like Portland or San Fran. But in the UK where can you go? Oh, places like NORWAY. Now I've been pretty lucky so far in life when it comes to seeing things I want to see, like the Pantheon. Not to discount that, but I didn't even know it existed until college. Norway and the fjords on the other hand? I have wanted to see them since third grade when I found out I was part Norwegian.

Story time!

In 1994 when my family went to Epcot my brother and I each got to pick one country to visit and with zero hesitation I chose Norway. It was cool, and amazingly I still remember it pretty clearly… it's probably the only thing I remember about 1994 besides the next part of the story. The next fall the whole fourth grade class had to choose a country to do a project about for "country fair". No country could be picked twice and you got to choose when your name got pulled from a hat. The entire fourth grade classes' names in a hat! That was like… 100 kids. As I nervously sat there willing my name to be called all the other kids picked off the usual suspects; England, Canada, Ireland, Brazil… I was afraid someone would pick Norway because in my mine why wouldn't they?! But lucky me got my Norway even considering I wasn't called until near the end. That day I went home and up to the (scary) third floor where my mom's set of Encylopædia Britannica was, sat on the floor right there and cracked it open. I so, so clearly remember everything about it, right down to the rug I sat on and what that book smells like. Literally the second I saw a picture of the fjords, and struggled to figure out how you would say it out loud, I wanted to go there. I think I even remember where on the page the black and white pic of the fjords was; top left of the left page. Clearly it left a huge impression. My project ruled, I even went to the library. Oh 1994.

Wanting to go to Norway was the longest standing desire of my life. No joke. All the usual "I want to do this someday" things hadn't occurred to me yet, like getting a puppy or owning a house or falling in love. Nope, wanted to go to Norway. And it was also the one desire I still thought was the most inaccessible and unlikely. Like if you don't want to go to Oslo, where do you aim it? It's a huge country! And the airfare. Yikes. So fast forward to a few weeks ago. I land in England and Db goes to work the next day and we have this conversation via text out of absolutely nowhere;

he - "You want to go to Norway wed-thurs?"

me - "Like, the day after tomorrow?"

he - "Yep. We could take the weekend. Look up Stavanger."

Hahaha, BEST WORK TRIP EVER. So I tagged along on his business trip and my dream life became real life for a few days. Enough story time! It was absolutely amazing and there are far too many pictures! I literally cried tears of joy on the ferry through the fjords, I still can't believe it was real. We would both go back in a second.

For more pics, read more >>>

portugal

Db and I went to Italy and Amsterdam on our honeymoon, and on the beach in Fiumicino we decided that our next big vacation would be a beach vacation in Portugal. Three years later that trip is tomorrow! Finally! The MOTHERLAND! We're meeting my family in the Açores where my Dad's side of the family is from, and then Db and I are splitting off to Lisbon for a day and then the Algarve to swim near caves and wear tiny inappropriate bathing suits! I cannot wait for the bakeries, seriously. If the Portuguese bakeries in RI are that good then I can't even imagine how good the ones in actual Portugal are. However beach vacation + tons of amazing pastry = ??? Whatever though, I've been hearing about the real Portuguese bakeries for my whole damn life, I am eating EVERYTHING.

I'm so excited, mid-summer is the perfect time for adventures, I hope you all are having a rad summer so far!

pic

england so far - in pictures