My husband surprises me sometimes. I mentioned it would be fun to have our own Thanksgiving on the last day of our four-day holiday weekend and guess what, we did. We bought a turkey, made mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and gravy. Then we sat down for another Thanksgiving dinner, just the two of us. It was incredibly romantic and incredibly delicious. A wonderful end to the lovely holiday weekend.

I have to say how thankful I am for not just my wonderful husband but for my wonderful family and friends. It started out quite busy with the making of many pies to bring to my parents.

Jeff made a pumpkin pie and an apple pie.

I made my first sweet potato pie with this recipe. It turned out wonderfully!

Thanksgiving at my parents house is always a busy, hectic day filled with lots of people, kids and dogs (we had a whopping five dogs and two cats in the house this year). It was a very nice dinner with a busy after dinner walk with the large group and even a fun late night sisterly trip to see Breaking Dawn. The day after Thanksgiving we took the dogs on a really great little hike to try and walk off some of those slices of pie.

Friday night was spent with good friends, drinking beer and tea, talking about babies and playing with babies. Another reminder of how thankful I am to have wonderful, caring, interesting people in my life.

The next day was Saturday and Jeff and I took two very tired dogs home…

I got inspired after cleaning the house and started decorating for Christmas.

The bedroom turned out the loveliest. I added some really simple lights as a head board and replaced old towels on dog crates with some sheep skin throws. I put some festive branches in an old wine bottle to create a centerpiece for the dresser. It’s so much calmer and quieter in the bedroom. I’m loving it.

And of course we ended the night with our very own Sunday Thanksgiving dinner. It was a fantastic weekend and I am certainly ready for the winter holidays approaching. I am so thankful to have had such a nice weekend to reflect upon. I hope you did too.

I’m in a dollhouse rut. I had a vision and it didn’t quite come out the way I wanted nor did I finish several things I wanted to and were coming down to the deadline…

I thought I would share with you what I have accomplished even if its not much more than what I shared with you last time.

I did some painting of furniture and also received these vintage bathroom pieces that I placed. I still need to close that gap to the bathroom and finish painting certain pieces.

Moving into the living room, you can see that I began painting these beams white (originally brown). But I have not found my dream living room set yet so not much else has been done in this room.

This is part of the upstairs bedroom. I painted the side tables and I’m still deciding whether or not to paint that bed. What do you think? The fabric laying on the bed is what I am planning on using for bedding. I am also struggling with what to do with that wall. I love the pattern but it does not fit in with the rest of the house. Still deciding…

I had grandiose ideas for the child’s room but lack of dinero has left it sad and lonely looking. It almost looks like the family who once lived there moved out and left what they couldn’t carry. My goal this long Thanksgiving weekend is to finish up and make it look like some one (even if its just wee little dolls) live here. I also would like to paint the floors white. But I keep going back and forth with this one too. My inspiration for the white floors and the white furniture comes from here. Her house has always been something I know I could never have in real life, but maybe in doll house life its possible.

So there you have it… my doll house update. How are your doll houses coming along?

{This moment}

Inspired by SouleMama– A Friday ritual. A Single Photo. No words. Capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, remember.

I’ve finally gotten some new fall plantings in my balcony garden. I did a bit of an overhaul on our kitchen balcony. I took out the table and chairs which we never used because they were all inhabited by vegetables in pots. And I brought in a bigger trough with a trellis. I planted some snow peas that will hopefully start creeping up the trellis and providing us with some yummy winter peas.

I also planted some celery in there with the peas and next to the trough is my beautiful blooming brocoli and swiss chard.

I also planted some carrot seedlings I bought from a lady at the farmers market close to my parents house. They’re actually called “cosmic purple” which I thought was adorable. I just love using the old crates I find at the antique market to plant in too.

And last but not least I planted a box of cool weather lettuces and some Kale from seed. I haven’t had much luck with lettuce this year, but I’m trying it again, hoping that in the cooler weather they may fair better.

I’m still moving containers of plants around on both balconies… trying to maximize light and space but its been pretty challenging. I’m wanting to grow so much more than the space I currently have and because I am such a novice gardener, I am still killing plants on a regular basis and having to replace, try again, or resign to the fact that I just can’t grow certain vegetables on my little covered balconies. It is pretty fantastic though when a plant produces and I have had several success’ this year. Gardening was always something I never thought I would take up, but I am so glad I did, even  if I have more failures than success. When that little plant is transplanted into the cool dirt and packed in gently by my eager, hopeful hands and then weeks later that plant grows and produces a bright, juicy, delicious tomato or a little canary yellow pepper… it really seems worth it to keep going and keep growing.

I just finished a lovely little baby blanket for my neighbor’s new baby girl. I’ve never made anything for a little girl and it was so much fun to finally get to use pinks and purples. The blanket came together easily and with Anna Maria Horner’s delightfully beautiful fabric I had been saving for just the right project, the blanket turned out perfect.

I have also spent the weekend working on my Anniversary/Fall blanket. It’s been an interesting one to piece together because I am following Lotta Jansdotter’s directions from her book Handmade Living. She pretty much just cut a bunch of fabrics in different sizes and sewed them together in long strands. I was finally able to find some of her fabric here and it is wonderful to work with. I’m loving her funky, modern patterns with the earthy grays and mustard yellows I had chosen months ago. I wanted different textures as well to give it a cozier feel. I found cuddly wool from here and made sure to add my favorite soft linens as well. It will be interesting to see how it turns out… but here is a little sneak peek for now…

I’m heading to bed after a long day. Don’t forget to “fall back” tonight!

We had a very windy and blustery few days here in Southern California. Enough wind and rain that I had to bring in a few plants from my balcony garden. The weather seems to have calmed down a bit and right before the storm hit (I hate saying “storm” because compared to the rest of the world, California’s “storms” are like little gusts of wind- but that’s what the news is calling it, so I’m going with it) … anyway, I took pictures of what was growing in the garden to share here. Things are looking a bit more windblown now but in these pictures, things are certainly growing.

The last tomato of the season.

My miniature yellow bell peppers (seeds from here) that next year I will not stuff into a little pot. (I think they were ultra mini because of my choice in container).

My farmers market swiss chard is growing like a weed!

This is my miracle Home Depot Big Boy tomato plant that I could have sworn was dead a few weeks ago. I trimmed it back to a little brown stump and the spindly little thing all of a sudden perked up and started sprouting new branches, leaves and growth. I wouldn’t be surprised it next week it had tomatoes!

My little Monrovia Orange tree wasn’t faring too well. I noticed it was losing some leaves and tried perking it up with some worm casings from the farmers market. We’ll see how it does…

And last but not least, my basil that I picked up at Trader Joes ages ago that looks pretty shabby but has yet to brown and die. I think this little pot may be the reason for its lack of vigor. I constantly dream about next years garden and what cool things I can do differently.

I’m loving these ideas I found on pinterest.

Next year I will know more going into my gardening… but for now, I’m having fun keeping things alive and even sometimes producing tiny vegetables… Happy Fall Gardening!

I’ve been a bad blogger this week. Every day I think up fantastic things to blog about on my way to work and through out the day and then I get home and end up watching tivoed episodes of Parenthood or Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. This week has been quite a busy, emotionally draining one to say the least. I’ve had the “I think I’m going crazy” talk with my husband several times this week… so I am pretty thrilled its the weekend.  I’m  hoping to get some sewing done and some dollhouse work accomplished as well. We shall see. For now, I wanted to finally share the little collection of dollhouse furniture I found at last weekend’s antique market. Not a big selection, in fact I had to dig through a few boxes of mildewy doll clothes to find some of the items, but I’m hoping that after this weekend and a little restoration on my part- these pieces of furniture will be nice additions to my doll house.

stay tuned next week for some refurbished furniture… and hopefully some better pictures too.

Happy Friday! (What’s left of it)