Sunset Weather

It’s monsoon season here in the valley, which means we get our fair share of rain and dust storms. But it also means we get some pretty spectacular sunsets. Mostly because of the colorful clouds.

As an Oregon girl at heart, I’m always happy when it rains, but I have to tell you the humidity here is disgusting. I can deal with the 110degree+ days, it’s when these storms roll in and bring the mugginess with them. Then the weather turns down right oppressing. And even though that's the case, I'm still hoping for rain.

So I’ll be over here, watching the sunset through my windows and hoping for the patter of raindrops on the panes.

Mays Tea & a Cut for Me

This Month, I ran myself right out of one of my go-to teas.

60 bags in all, I drank:

12 Tazo Cocoa Mint Mate

8 Trader Joe's White Pommegranate

8 Triple Leaf Oolong

6 Fresh & Easy Lemon Herbal

4 Guayuki Mate Chocolatte

4 Bigelow Green Tea with Pommegranate, 

4 Tazo Decaf Lotus Blossom

3 Tazo Focus

3 Yogi Vanilla Spice

2 Tazo Awake English Breakfast

2 Stash Green Chai

2 Fresh & Easy Plum and Berry

1 Fresh & Easy Pomegranate White

On Friday, I also made the trip over to the salon where I told Noah I wanted a long bob when it was straight, a short and flouncy not-pyramid when it was curly, and just enough lenght to wrangle it up into a pony tail - and that I dind't care how many bobby pins that particular task would require.

Here are the results. (Both are after pictures)

Just Talking....

How did it get to be the last week in May already? I swear this year is conspiring to make my head spin!

There's been a lot of tragic stuff going on in the world, and while I'll talk about it elswhere, I'm not going to here. I don't want this to be the forum in which I do that. Mostly because I tend to ramble, and I can just imagine sitting down and looking back up when I'm done with my rant only to have a fifteen page long blog post. That would be annoying and unproductive.

I am going to try to get my butt in gear and get back to this more often. Because I do feel like I've been neglecting the blog, and that's no fun.

It's already ridiculously warm here - has been for over a month. Some evenings there's a breeze and in the shade, Lu's evening walks aren't so bad. I am looking forward to the days when we hop over the 110 degree mark. That's when my nerve endings throw in the towel, go on strike and refuse to work until better conditions arise. Let me tell you... those are actually nice days.

We didn't do much this weekend. I refer to it as going into "bomb shelter" mode. We stayed in, leaving the house only when necessary. Which was pretty nice. I got everything on my house related list done (except two things, and at this point, I'm beginning to think I'm never going to hem the pants that have been on the list for a month and a half) and we spent the in-between times working our way through the clone wars series.

I have mixed feelings about this series. For one thing, I'm really happy that it makes me care about Anakin - who, to this point, I really didn't like. But, it also has a pesky habit of ignoring continuity and bringing random people back from the dead.

Well, I've got to run to work... hopefully I'll yammer at you tomorrow.

Urban Garden on a birthday weekend

We have a balcony we rarely use. It's floor grating was too rough on bare feet (little Lu couldn't walk on it at all), and it just wasn't welcoming) so, last weekend, we bought a bunch of pots, and then yesterday, we turned the space into an herb garden (An herb-an garden?)

The new plants, and some outdoor rugs, and now the space is awesome. All it needs is a bench :)

Winter in AZ

Winter means something entirely different to Arizona than it does to the majority of the country.

Here in Phoenix, we don’t get snow. We do get the occasional winter storm – but it’s rare. For the most part, winter is sunny. But don’t let that fool you, it still gets cold. When the sun drops out of the sky, it gets down right freezing.

The problem I have with that, is… well, I grew up with Oregon winters. Oregon’s winter is cold, gray, and wet. I love Oregon’s take on winter. It sets the tone for the darkest time of the year… and I’ve found I need that sort of gloom before I actually am able to feel the requisite “holiday cheer” for Christmas. In Arizona… I’m kind of a Grinch.

But it’s January, which means winter is almost over (unless you drive an hour and a half north – Payson will have snow for a month or two longer.). And I find that once again, I don’t really feel like we had a winter. We had a chilly spring. The sky was too blue, the sun too bright. I do not accept that I got a “winter.”

Heidi's Art

Last night we took a stroll down town to a small gallery opening for a woman we've become friends with because we drink at the same place. (that seems to be how it goes anymore).

She has six pieces up in the Downtown Phoenix Ambassador office. If you're downtown, you should check it out, it's in the 101 North/US Bank Building right next to Spoonz on the North East corner of Adams and 1st St. 

The six pieces are all very unique, starting with the Ariel from her "Dia De Los Disney" style (that I did not get a very good picture of) and her tribute that I'm sure has a name, but I'm calling Ruby and Lothing in Las Phoenix. To the almost abstraction of a white peacock and the portrait of Freda Kahlo. 

 Heidi (in her lovely blue dress) even ended up selling Ruby and Loathing last night.

And of course there's her tin man, and the long one toward the end (also without a decent picture) that has texture fibers in its hair.

Congratulations, Heidi! You and your work are incredibly beautiful.

There were some beautiful clouds out the other evening...

(and then, of course, little miss "needs a haircut")

WW: Baseball

We went to a game last night... and are going again on Saturday!

WW: This is Where I Live

I think I may start doing Wordless Wednesdays again....

 

Golly, this weekend was strange.

Mostly, because we didn’t really do anything… but we did a lot.

 Well... some of us did. One of us took lots of naps and played with her sock monkey.

On Tuesday night we had a crazy thunderstorm and woke up Wednesday to a large puddle in the living room and a very wet wall. I think there’s a drainage issue on our upstairs neighbor’s balcony, which is what is right above that wall. So we’re still waiting on maintenance to come deal with that… and it might take a while, as it’s been stormy and they want to make sure it’s dry first.

 A picture of what our post-apocalyptic storms have been looking like.

Saturday… I don’t really remember doing much, we re-watched Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, and a few episodes of Luther, and Earl had me watch Basic. We went grocery shopping at some point and we made some awesome juices (a peach, kiwi, apple juice, and a Melon juice.) So that was Tastey!

  Melon Juice (Cantaloup, Honeydew, and Watermelon)

Sunday was a stranger day though. I don’t feel like we did anything, but I think that’s because we didn’t leave the house. We did a whole lot of cleaning. We fixed the dining room table chair that’s been broken for an age, and I finally got around to re organizing the top of the fridge. I had a long list of things I wanted to get done and sure enough, they’re all done!

Also, I’ve decided I’m going to get in gear on finishing the decor for the master bedroom and bathroom, so there will be posts about that soon!

Did everyone else have a good weekend?

Eating Like a Centurion

Cheese Plate: Manchego, Irish Cheddar, Goat Cheese

Israeli Couscous Salad

Salad Composee

Espresso Cups

I think they liked it... or at least Fabius (he looks a little afraid)

Post Valentines Day Tea

The table setting. That's right. you see 3 teapots, scones, tea sandwiches, and salad. I do it up right when it comes to tea.

and the goodie table...

Don't you wish you'd been invited? ;)

Maybe next time...

A Couch! My Kingdom for A Couch!

Earl and I decided we wanted to get another couch, since we turned what had once been the dining room into a sitting room, it only seemed right that there be somewhere to sit in said sitting room.

And naturally, out first thought was The Dump.

No, not the place you go to get rid of trash that’s too big to stuff in a trash can. The Dump is a furniture store here in town that has a large amount of furniture that is “marked down.” Some of the stuff they have are one offs that people ordered and then didn’t want any more.

Anyway, we saw this:



Sorry about the cell phone picture. OMG I want this chaise. It’s big enough to fit me, Earl and the dog (who takes up a lot more space than she looks like she ought to.) But it gets better:

It comes in purple leather!

Anyway. We didn’t end up getting anything at the dump. Mostly because, well, an $11,000 couch is still not in our price range when marked down to $7,000. Still, it was fun to look. They had some beautiful Art Deco stuff I wanted to take home and some uber contemporary nonsense that Earl loved until he sat in them… And oh, the ugly greens (If I haven’t mentioned it before. I love, love, LOVE ugly greens.)


We did find two sofas we liked at Copenhagen/Denmarket. The Copenhagen sofa was amazing. First of all it was a lime green leather. And it had a hide-a-bed in it that was made in such a way that you never had to move the cushions! And the armrests folded down into side tables for the bed. It unfortunately cost an arm and a leg and so we moved on into Denmarket where we found this:


 



A few things of note. It’s a bright yellow-y green that is just ugly enough for me to love. It totally looks like the back end is floating because of the way its back legs are. It’s contemporary enough for Earl and cushy enough for me… and, it’s totally a futon.

So we’ve finally filled the sitting room. I’ll take pictures once we finish building the coffee table. Now, we just have to find the perfect chair for the living room.

The only downside about this whole thing is that Earl’s on a kick now and wants to find a replacement for our purple couch (Mostly because we both want something orange incorporated into our décor and at the same time, don’t want our place to look like it was decorated by sun’s fans.


Earl is really trying to sell me on these:

I love the novelty of them... and how they look like caterpillars. However, I’m concerned about my ability to get up from them… as I’m not getting any younger and my hips have always had problems to begin with... We’ll see where this whole thing goes.

Epiphany Steeple

AMY!

After this weekend, my name is no longer Amy. It has become AMY!

My nephew Ben, either loves my name enough to put an over enthusiastic emphasis on it every time he's asked to say it (and many times he isn't) or I'm the hippest aunt ever. I'm going to guess its the former. Either way, I feel pretty special.

There is a chance that he's already chose his vocation.

He does look pretty handsome as a Grand Canyon National Park Ranger.

The only word that Ben says with more enthusiasm than AMY! Is HATA! (aka: Santa). My Brother has an inflatable santa that's about nine feet tall (that should be in the front yard, but he's a total scrooge) and Ben loves it.

Here he's yelling "Hata!" out the window because my brother set the inflat-a-santa up by the front door.

My Sister in Law's dog, Molly, spent a lot of time at her perch on the back of the couch, waiting for someone to pay attention to her instead of the kids. But Unfortunately for Molly, she's trumped by a sweet baby girl.

My mom and step-dad left on Sunday morning. They were getting on a plane as Earl and I were watching Tron Legacy.
Then we went to lunch where we met some friends who should be in Paris right now... but their flight got snowed out. (Heathrow was shut down) so they've got some more time here before they can get to Europe and catch up with their trip. Thank goodness for trip insurance!

And their little Lover was especially interested in my lunch. Look at that adorable half underbite :)