skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A tissue box cover I just finished. I have had it in my mind to make one of these for a while and so this week I decided to just get on with it. The design was obviously based on my sofa cushions (Ikea! crazy - don't know why I haven't made some for this house - just loved the Ikea ones I guess) and I hand stitched each little square onto the grey background. It's been a while since I did any hand stitching and I quite enjoyed it. Photos aren't my thing at the mo and I think my camera knows it - each picture comes out grainy. Maybe I need to adjust my settings, maybe I need to invest in some bright lights! Maybe I just need to hang in there until my mojo comes back!
In other news... It is a time of change for me. My little man turned three early this month (and started school in September - normal age in France, he just goes mornings). As a result I am no longer receiving stay-at-home-Mum benefits and I need to start earning money again. My plan is to create some sort of business making and selling things. So right now I am brainstorming and researching how best to go about this. I am thinking about identity, products, packaging, process, prices, lots of p's... I have a couple of months to work out answers to my questions and if all goes well I will er open shop as it were in May. Watch this space!!
I have just finished eating the above evening meal with me man! I made two recipes from Alicia's blog, Vegan Epicurean - the apple and leek "sausage" patties and the mustard and walnut brussels sprouts. I also made a red pepper sauce by peeling a lonely pepper I had in my fridge with my favourite gadget, a serrated peeler, and cooking that with some onion and a splash from a can of chopped tomatoes then wizzing it. The whole meal was really tasty and I can certainly recommend popping over there to get the recipes. My non-vegan boyfriend thought it was yummy too and we shall tuck into the remaining patties (I halved the recipe and made four) tomorrow evening. Right I am off to continue reading. Can't put it down.
Ci-dessus mon repas ce soir. J'ai fait des galettes à la pomme et aux poireaux, accompagnées de choux de bruxelles à la moutarde et aux noix et d'une sauce poivron rouge. Miam miam. J'ai pris les deux recettes principales du blog d'Alicia qui malheureusement pour vous, chers amis francophones, est rédigé en anglais. Mais faites un petit effort si vous avez ce qu'il faut (temps, dico, ami anglais...) car ce blog est rempli de recettes délicieuses. Je vous laisse déjà car je vais bouquiner.
I just thought I would share with you a quilt that my Mum made for me oh ages ago now, before my kids were born, that I photographed recently for her. I snuggle up in this quilt every day and I love it. We designed it ourselves and it is supposed to represent a close-up of some blades of grass. Not immediately obvious but at the time I had a picture on the wall of some blades of grass and the quilt was to go on my old red sofa beneath that picture for keeping me warm while watching TV. Well now the whole family uses this blanket for snuggling, making dens, sleeping under and it is defnitely one of the things I would not want to part with.
On Friday I took the kids to Paris and we met up with my dear friend and her bambinos at the Jardin des Plantes to go round the Grande Galérie de l'Evolution (the er big evolution gallery). Last year we took the kids to see the Gallery of Compared Anatomy at the other end of the Jardin des Plantes. I used to walk through these gardens when I was a student in Paris (for one year '94 to '95) to get to classes and so I always get a nice nostagic feeling when I go there. Never suspected I would one day be there with two children in tow. Anyhow, the place was fantastic! It is basically a very large hall filled with stuffed animals. To be honest I haven't spent much time examining my thoughts about stuffed animals from an ethical stance, I just think that they happen to be there now and they do provide children (and adults) with a great opportunity to get up close to animals and get a real sense of their respective sizes and morphology. All of us got something out of the visit and it was great to see how each child reacted differently to the place. Little boy was filled with excitement and just charged around the enormous room (with me hot on his tail) wanting to visit the elephants, the polar bears the hippos... he loved it! My daughter enjoyed looking at things more in detail and then explaining her understanding of them to her slightly younger friend. And me? Well who knew Moose were so very big?
Vendredi moi et les enfants ont eu le grand plaisir de se rendre au Jardin des Plantes et plus précisément à la Grande Galérie d'Evolution. Hmm. Quelle phrase. Nous avons tous aimé regarder toutes ces bêtes dans leur mise en scène processionelle. Mon petit garçon courait dans tous les senses (il n'en pouvait plus) et avait très vite mémorisé les locations de ses animaux préférés. Il a aimé autant qu'il avait aimé la Galérie d'Anatomie Comparée l'année dernière. Ma fille regardait plus en détail - une maquette, un vidéo et se régalait à expliquer son intérprétation de ce qu'elle voyait à sa copine. Et moi? Je me suis trouvée stupéfaite devant un élan gigantesque.
I take a lot of my still-life photos from the corner of my table since it sits handily right in front of a north facing window and I like the light there. So today here are a few of my recent photos from that spot. I sometimes like and sometimes hate the natural framing effect of my table's "border".
Ma table à manger se situe à côté d'une fenêtre et donc tout naturellement je prends beaucoup de mes photos (mes natures mortes -j'aime tout documenter) de cet endroit. Aujourd'hui je vous montre quelques unes de mes plus récentes...
The last harvest - green tomatoes from the garden (now red).
La dernière récolte. Tomates vertes du jardin (rouge depuis).
My boyfriend's mother's annual return from Montenegro always feels like harvest festival! This year she was back two months later than usual and so instead of fresh figs, she bought dried (green and black from our trees oh yum!) together with walnuts, persimmons and clementines from the garden. Honey from a cousin's beehives. Grappa from our vines (smells so good and sweet but not my thing at all). A whole bunch of dried chili peppers too (ditto really). Wow. I like recalling that abundance!Lorsque ma belle mère rentre du Montenegro tous les ans elle ramène le contenu de la corne d'abondance avec elle. Sans la corne. Et je l'admire, car ça ne doit pas être si évident de faire passer des oeufs, figues, raisins, clémentines, olives, kakis etc sans les écraser et sans se faire "choper" par les douaniers (je ne suis pas sure qu'il est vraiment permis de transporter toutes ces-choses-là. Mais ce n'est pas comme si elle les cache sous ses vêtements non plus). Bref. On se régale à chaque fois.
I had such a nice time hollowing out and carving a pumpkin with the kids. My first ever pumpkin. Child or adult. Later found out I didn't hollow it out enough (i.e. lunch is still in there!!). Heheh. Don't quite have that You Tube tutorial thing down to a T yet.
Ahhh la citrouille obligatoire. Mais pour la première fois jamais (pas si obligée)! J'ai adoré concevoir, mettre en oeuvre et réaliser ce projet! Je donne l'impression d'être employable n'est-ce pas! Je ne vous dis pas que c'est une fausse impression, juste que je n'ai pas l'impression de donner souvent cette impression!!! Hihihi.
And we have a new and I hope useful houseguest. I think I will call him Peter. Peter the Pitcher Plant. Thanks Alicia for encouraging me to actually wonder just who Pete is, was. And thanks for making me want to cook so much. I bought, oops forgot to go back and pay my florist, I stole him to eat flies. In front of my daughter. Hmm (it is Halloween). And thanks Amiga for putting me on to this good thing.
Et je vous présent Peter. Peter la plante. Depuis que j'ai fait la version anglaise je me suis rendu compte que j'ai oublié de retourner payer ma floriste. Un mec hyper sympa qui apparamment me fait trop confiance (oops, mardi alors) et qui m'a filé cette plante carnivore sans se poser toutes les questions que je me pose: la déontologie d'être végétalienne et de poséder une plante carnivore ;-). Merci Amiga de m'avoir mise sur la piste.
A tissue box cover I just finished. I have had it in my mind to make one of these for a while and so this week I decided to just get on with it. The design was obviously based on my sofa cushions (Ikea! crazy - don't know why I haven't made some for this house - just loved the Ikea ones I guess) and I hand stitched each little square onto the grey background. It's been a while since I did any hand stitching and I quite enjoyed it. Photos aren't my thing at the mo and I think my camera knows it - each picture comes out grainy. Maybe I need to adjust my settings, maybe I need to invest in some bright lights! Maybe I just need to hang in there until my mojo comes back!
