It is always so quiet around here, isn't it? This time I have a legitimate excuse: I've been sewing. I am starting to whip out dresses for K like it's going out of style, and I'm venturing into designing the garments from scratch. I can't even tell you how much fun it is.

So here is one of my earlier creations a couple of weeks ago. The spring time dress. I modified a pattern and even added a fabric flower to add a touch of whimsy. It has cute little ties in the back and it's the much needed shot of color in this grey, grey city of ours. Someone forgot to tell the weather that it's June.

In full:

I have a lot more to share with you. At least four other dresses and a pair of pants. Perhaps even a top for me (a frustrating work-in-progress)...

In the meantime, here is a lovely shot of Roche Harbor as promised:

A few weeks ago, K's preschool had color-themed days. To my surprise, she had no appropriate clothing for orange day, so I whipped up the dress/tunic top in less than two hours. Super easy. From this book. I'm liking the vaguely 70s floral design and roomy construct. Here's the full view:

And here's K in blurriness, modeling the handmade goodness:

Other than this minor bit of industriousness, I've been so lazy.

I have fallen in love with everything at Les Amis, and thought I could easily reproduce their simple yet pretty clothes without the hefty price tag...so I half-heartedly attempted to draft my own patterns, and discovered that pattern-making is hard. I created one top that looked like prison garb, and another top that channeled a disgruntled mid-century housewife in a shapeless smock. So disappointing.

Other than that, K continues to busily plan her 4th birthday which is still a good three months in the future. Veggie eating is still our biggest challenge. But she's also so much less hyper-emotional these days, it's really lovely.

Spring is definitely making an appearance here, and we've reveled in glorious weather for the last few days. But now I see the gray clouds gathering with force, so rain it is again.

Oh, over Mother's Day weekend, we went to the San Juan Islands for the first time. Grandpa and Grandma from Indy showered K with affections and we luxuriated in beautiful Roche Harbor. MF and I even squeezed in a date and watched Iron Man 2 while stuffing our faces with popcorn and Raisinettes. Pictures to come.

After I dropped off K at preschool, I browsed through the local bookstore today and saw this book. I knew of Kate Bingaman-Burt's blog, obsessive consumption, which I thought was brilliant. Every day, she hand draws what she purchased that day with entertaining little comments.

It made me think of what I spend my money on, and how I seem to find myself in the grocery store more times than I'd like to admit. After rent, food is our biggest expenditure, and I am working on ways to minimize it. I'm getting pretty creative with recipes to use up the mega-pack of tuna we got from Costco. And I usually stick pretty close to my weekly menus which I plan out on Sundays.

Wasn't there a contest to feed a family for a week on $25? Have you ever tried that? I won't be entering that contest, since I think it would be impossible to eat well on that kind of budget. More than anything, I hate throwing food away. I'll be revisiting this topic from time to time, I'm sure, since it's becoming a bit of my own obsessive consumption.

By the way, the image above is K with her friends, having a picnic on our front deck.

...and here I am, bringing you Valentine's Day cookies. I don't even know how many monthly Kumi updates I've missed.

That bit about things slowing down that I mentioned? Total lie. Things have been crazier than usual. I even got a job.

Before I launch into that, I need to show you more v-day cookies. These were really scrumptious. I made a ton -- some for Kumi's friends, some for MF, some just because. It's your basic butter cookie recipe with an outrageously yummy cream cheese frosting. Dangerously good.

And I need to show you the cool potato stamp Kumi and I used for our Valentine's this year. We punched holes in them and made them into necklaces.

The job is still not fully finalized, but apparently I am now a photo editor. I'm actually still kind of reeling from the speed of this new development. One minute I'm sipping coffee in my favorite coffee shop, the next minute I'm chatting with an ex-co-worker who's started a company and was interviewing a candidate in that very same coffee shop. Had my name not been called out by the barista at the very moment when my friend happened to step into the coffee shop, I would not have a job that I didn't even know I wanted. Weird, right?

It reminded me that my life has been propelled forward with these kinds of coincidences. And these coincidences seem to happen frequently in coffee shops. In my senior year in college, I had a brief chat with a friend in the campus coffee shop; she told me about the JET program -- this led me to apply for the program a year later and I found myself in a small rural town in Japan, teaching English to high school students.

I met my husband in a San Francisco coffee shop. Caffe Trieste: what a great place. The only reason I met him was because I sat next to a couple who had been watching his computer while he made a phone call outside. The couple had to leave and asked me to watch the computer instead. Ten years later, we have a child and live in a city dominated by coffee shops.

Kumi is already groomed as a coffee shop connoisseur. She knows which cafe has the best sprinkles for her steamers, and most of the baristas in the area greet her by name. I imagine her future will be filled with serendipitous events filled with the aroma of espresso beans.

I'm not quite sure what month we're on now, but Kumi seems to have gotten over the extreme tantrum phase. Thank goodness. We spend a lot of time making up stories together and she is turning out to be quite the artist. Her favorite stories involve mean witches and princesses. She is much more independent and sometimes barely notices me when I have my preschool work days and stay with her in the classroom. When she imitates me, she uses a screechy falsetto and it makes me laugh and laugh. She is WAY into butt jokes, which is so incongruous with her tiara-wearing, princess outfit-clad appearance. She adores her friends. And they adore her. It's a wondrous thing to see three and four-year-olds hugging each other hello and goodbye, unprompted.

She revels in life. (That's a lollipop stick in her mouth, not a cigarette).

I am getting more and more lax on these monthly updates. Above is a photo of Kumi eating Japanese soba noodles in our old place back in November. It's hard to believe that it's already 2010 -- what have we been doing?

Well, painting, mostly. After many weeks of tears-inducing DIY projects, I was able to get the house into habitable condition and we have settled in quite nicely. I painted the living room, both bedroom ceilings, trims, and the strange metal t-bar ceiling tile holders that were horribly rusted in the bathroom. I scoured floors, appliances, walls and every nook and cranny (grossness to the max). I conquered mold and mildew. I would like to share some photos but the "before" photos are really blurry -- I think my hands shook from the sheer abomination of it all. The weird thing is that it didn't seem that bad until I started cleaning. I still have nightmares about the dishwasher mold.

The holiday season was lovely. We bought a real tree for the first time, trimmed it to the nines and Kumi got so many presents she actually said, "I'm tired of opening presents, can you do it?" The trials and tribulations of being an only child, I tell you. The highlight has been having my mom here for an extended stay. The Kumis (Kumi was named after my mom) have been having SO MUCH FUN. As a bonus, MF and I have been having more dates and I've had a lot more time to take care of unpacking and general house stuff.

Have you ever noticed that as soon as you make a resolution, you go out and do the exact opposite? Like the time I vowed to spend zero money one week and found myself buying a $3.00 coffee in the next second? Shame on me. So here are mine for this year:

1. I plan to eat as much fatty food and avoid exercise at all cost
2. I will make sure to thoroughly hoard all manners of unnecessary items and be disorganized
3. I will go on daily spending sprees and ALWAYS find the priciest items
4. I will not make a single thing. No crafts, no cooking, no painting/drawing, nada.
5. I will gripe about every aspect of my life and vocally covet impossible things that I don't even want.
6. I will refuse to clean.
7. I will not update this blog. Ever.

I'm going to make it a horrible year, I promise.

xo!