Flossy Flossy

The last two days I have been living the glamorous life of a jet-setter. Long story short, my friend's mom had some frequent flyer miles she needed to use before the 29th. I put off calling until the 26th, and though it wouldn't work out. I knew I could only be gone the 27th and 28th because of work and it ended up working perfectly!

I left Portland yesterday morning for Salt Lake City Utah. After some adventures with some homeless people on the MAX and an uneventful plane ride I met one of my favorite people--Jack!!

It was nice to see the beautiful Utah mountains again.

Then we knocked some items off my Provo/Orem bucket list by hitting up Noodles & Co, seeing Jack's chickens, graham canyon at the creamery, seeing Kait and her baby bump, and then met up with the Workman's to eat dinner at the Art City Trolley in Springville and then see their gorgeous historic Springville home--seriously if you know Candy you should go check it out!

We stayed really late just talking, then in the morning went to Kneaders and got to see more friends such as Mizz Chelsey and Carly! It was so great to see everyone and spent so much time talking that I am sitting in the airport feeling hoarse from talking so much!

It was a quick trip but so happy, and on the way to the airport I finally got to feel Jack's baby peanut kicking, the only thing that could make this better is if I went and got some airplane snacks right now...

..and off I go.

PS. Allie, you and Boston were second on my list, fingers crossed for another free flight!

I see London I see France

I see Kirsten's seeds turning into plants! (I was so excited, after weeks of waiting I thought I killed them!) Only time will tell if this is sage or basil, but there is another seed just barely sprouting so there is still hope that they both survived!

Kirsten And The Chocolate Factory

I think that writing about your job on the interwebs in generally frowned upon, but its okay if I only write great and not confidential things right? Some of you know that on Thursday I took a temp job at Portland company Moonstruck Chocolate as the receptionist at there cooperate office and factory in North Portland. I have always loved Moonstruck and especially love their new package designs.

I learned so much in just one day there. The day before I got an email telling me that the day I was temping there was going to be a meeting there with the entire board of directors, including the people who own the company--no pressure or anything! But everyone was so nice, and the owners gave me a great history of the building. It is this tiny industrial building right next to the train tracks under the St. Johns bridge. If you have ever been to Cathedral park it's right there! The building has lots of great windows because it was once owned by Pendleton and they needed the light to work on the fabric and before that, back in the 30s it was a cherry factory and that's why it is next to the train tracks. The trains would bring the cherries and they would bring them straight off the trains.

Knowing the location makes me love this packaging even more--especially when I learned that there is a Sasquatch hidden in each of the designs. Can you find it? I actually haven't been able to find it on this one yet!

I was surprised how small and truly handmade all there chocolate it. It was a factory, but nothing like the bread factory! The windows where I was working looked down on the worker so I could see them even wrapping chocolates in foil by hand!

I also learned all about chocolate tasting, it is serious stuff. You have to use all five senses.

1. First you are supposed to smell the chocolate immediately after unwrapping it--that is when the smell is most potent.

2. Look at the chocolate--it should be shiny and smooth.

3. Snap off a piece of chocolate. If it breaks off really clean it is high quality chocolate with a higher amount of cacao in it.

4. Place the piece of chocolate on the middle of your tongue and let it sit there while you taste some of the different notes.

5. Finally move the piece of chocolate around your mouth so you taste it through all of the taste receptors on the front, back, and sides of your tongue.

I will have to try it with my Easter Toblerone later I guess, and the only really sad part of the job was that by the end of the day I couldn't smell the chocolatey aroma that permeated the office!

Can she make a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Can she make a cherry pie, Charming Billy?

She can make a cherry pie,
Quick as a cat can wink an eye.

You can tell this is a pie triumph because most of it is gone even though there were lots of other dessert options. Also, here is the wonderful Easter "basket" I received this year--a paper bag with a bunny drawn on it.Those weird squiggles are supposed to be the bunny's eyes. Love it, a great day with a great family.

This weekend I missed High School,

well not really, I just missed the time in my life when I listened to this band a lot--

which I guess has come again, so no need to miss it.

Kate Towers

I know I've blogged about Kate's designs before, but now you can read an interview I did with her over at good 'ol Colette Patterns! One of the cool parts about this interview is that I got to go over to Kate's house to talk and see her studio. First of all, her house is adorable, design-oriented, modern, and has great pops of color--just the kind of home you would imagine from her designs.

Also, Kate is really nice and down-to-earth. She was very honest about how hard it is to try and design with a family, but not in a negative way. Her little basement workspace was impeccably organized and reminded me of Seaplane--such a great shop!I particularly am loving this "Lion's Mane" dress right now. Of course because of all the ruffles, but even more so because guess who also owns that Noa Noa belt from Narcisse?

Not Much to Say

Except these shoes look insane. Gotta love Jeffrey Campbell.

Gender Neutral

was the title of the email I received from my kindred spirit Lumberjacqueline that made me laugh so hard I decided it needed to be shared here on my blog although many of you might not find it nearly as funny as I did.

"besides cultivating perfect enjoyment reading your emails, i have to give it to us for maintaining a good sense of exactly what our conversations in real life sound like via email. I.E.: temping is romantic: next topic- cat barfing."

The only background I can give is that we have been emailing back and forth for at least a week now and it is so great. My theory on why it works so well is because even in real life we do a lot of "monologuing" which is really a nice way of saying we both ramble a lot.

I was going to post a cute picture of us and talk about how I love her to pieces (which is true) but really have you learned nothing from this post?

Borscht

Two nights ago we had Borscht for dinner, which no one touched. Last night we had something else, but mom decided to eat some of the Borscht, and when I commented on its unappealing muddy look and earthy smell mom said,

"It's just like grandma made--in the old country!"

There was a long pregnant pause before I asked,

"What grandma?"

Mom just laughed and said she didn't know, since we aren't remotely Russian.

Mom had been talking up the Borscht since the night no one ate it. But she didn't tell me until I was sitting at the table with my promised portion of Borscht dripping off my spoon that she had thrown out the recipe after trying it once, and that this was the thawed remnants of that attempt (and my family will eat just about anything).

It tasted just as you would expect a soup consisting of only beets and potatoes to taste.

If you try to google a picture of Borscht it actually looks pretty good. Often times Borscht contains tomatoes or other vegetables that give it a color other than muddy brown. So, being persistent, I Googled "bad borscht" and this is what I came up with.

I think I should get one for my mom (but in all fairness it was probably a bad recipe because my mom is a good cook).