Our House in the Middle of Our Street

Birch Bay Sunset, rainbow hues July has been hot out here. When you live in the top story of an apartment building, and there's no air conditioning, it can feel just over the needle of uncomfortably warm when the day is above 76 degrees. We've kept blinds shut, windows open, and a fan continually blowing as it's perched in our living room window well. Just about the only thing I feel like doing after a long day is laying on the couch straight in the fan's air circulation path, and read a good book. I had some unique picks this month. * #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso  This book was just plain fun to read. Amoruso developed the iconic ebay store NastyGal way back when vintage selling on ebay was a thing. Now she's a millionaire with a kicking website that she started from scratch and didn't owe a dime to anyone else for. It's a great 200 pager with stories on dumpster diving for daily food, entrepreneurship tips, and being the backwards kid that no one t...

Our new (used) Toyota Debt. It's become an ugly word to me. A word that is weighted with dislike. Heavy with constriction. Pregnant with owing. You get my drift.  We started out with our big move across 1800 miles with minimal debt (around $5K in student loans). We should have been hard balling those numbers for the previous 2 years or so, but instead we just lived really comfortably and didn't think about it much. We didn't have a ton of material possessions, but we enjoyed ourselves, once a week Chipotle, a new dress here and there. It adds up. We weren't practicing penny pinchers, mostly because we had done it for so long before and we needed a break, or a reward, or just an extended vacation from trying. But that's not how debt works. If you don't snowball it , it will snowball you.  That's what happened to us this past 18 months, as we needed a second vehicle, a commuter vehicle that would be great on gas. We chose to buy a new Honda mo...

photocredit Saturday morning cartoons meets post-modern fairy tale humor in this poetic picture book, Zany Zoo by William Wise . Illustrated by the artist behind the Tacky series , you and your kids will enjoy this crazy romp through the animal kingdom on my children's literature review site, The Well Read Sleepyhead . See you over there!

photocredit After years of putting it off, I've finally become a member of the instagram community. I must say, you people are beautiful photographers. It's amazing what a quick capture and a few great filters can do nowadays. I'm a really visual person and seeing lovely arrangements, crisp landscapes, and different color palette-mixing is quite an inspiration. I'm especially in love with all the foodie photos on instagram. I rarely have a cookbook in my cupboard that does not boast a picture-a-page, and it's for good reason. If I see it and it looks healthy and delicious, I want to make it, simple as that. Instagram is a great place for me to follow some amazing cooks, and although I follow most of these cooks and bakers on their blogs, I thought I'd share a quick list of my favorite {foodie} instagrammers, so you might take a peek, too, and find a new idea for dinner. * Aimee Bourque from SimpleBites.net has by far the best spreads. Her photo usuall...

Believe it or not, but there is no filter on this Birch Bay sunset photo, just the black rubber phone case that got in the way. It's almost impossible to capture the water -sunsets here, but this photo comes pretty dang close. The thing about not having a lot of money to spend on extras, is that it makes you incredibly resourceful. Because you have boundaries, you have to create your own environment within those boundaries, and it's a well known fact that boundaries create geyser-like surges of creativity . For example, you should see the gourmet meals that come from my kitchen when I have very, very little in the fridge. After having kids, my few hours of time by myself (naps, then quiet time, or early morning hours) is the time where my mind is clear, I can get a lot done, and I put the pedal to the medal with the projects I want to work on. It's as if the constraints forced me to narrow my focus. When we moved here 18 months ago, without close family nearby (our...

1) Press play while you go brush your teeth, take a quick sip of water, and change out of your pajamas (no judgement, I know it's Saturday).  2) Now check out this week's kid-lit post on my children's book review blog, The Well-Read Sleepyhead , about the Sir Cumference and Lady Di of Ameter mathemagical series.  3) Be prepared to answer at least one question about pi.   Extra Credit: go put as many of these fun books on hold at your local library!

 Our church's community garden is growing like crazy right now. Out here in the Pacific Northwest, we've had a hot spell for at least the past week. Thankfully, our secret beach is a short distance away and a free ocean water cool-off is always easy to get to. The heat has been amazing for the garden, though, and now it's my turn to water. A friend of mine watered the first month for the summer, and now she's headed out on vacation and I'm up for the next month. It needs near-daily watering, and I know by week three I am going to squeal if there's a day of rain, but honestly, it's a small price to pay (around 30 minutes of work, more if I weed) for delicious organic vegetables for free.  The bird houses on the fence posts are new this year, and so far I have yet to see any birds flying in and out of them. The paths--aside from the mulched parts--are completely overgrown with clover, weeds, and grass. Once the mulch gets put down everywhere it will lo...