new projects

The catalog was sent to the printer on Friday and I'm officially sick of all things Adobe Creative Suite related.

After much research and comparison shopping, I bought my very own sewing machine on Friday night. I've created a sewing monster...been researching lots of projects and things to make with my new tool. I had my first sewing machine lesson on Saturday morning and now I'm getting used to setting it up and sewing with it. I bought the machine at a sewing machine store inside the coolest fabric store I've ever seen - Haberman Fabrics. Seriously, everyone needs to see this store at least once - even if you're not into sewing or fabric or anything of the sort. You can get a small taste of what the store is like by taking this tour, but if you're able to check it out in person, it is so worth it. Jon even agrees that it is one of the most inspiring places he's ever seen.

I made a "quick trip" to Joanns after picking up the machine on Friday night. In typical Rebekah fashion, I walked into the store to buy a pattern for a purse and walked out with 10 non-purse patterns and the fabric and supplies to make a skirt instead. Oops. In my defense, the store had all of their patterns on sale for a $1 each, as opposed to $14.95 for one pattern. I am almost finished with the skirt and so far it looks like it should fit well...a plus for me, because I'm not so good at sewing clothes.

I found the coolest quilting book ever, The Modern Quilt Workshop, and would like to make some of the quilts featured in the book. The authors have a great store in Oak Park, IL and have created many unique and beautiful quilts.

In the meantime, I discovered a quilt shop in Berkley and picked up a really cute bundle of fabric to make a simpler quilt for now. The quilt shop was amazing, definitely better looking inside than out. Tons of cool colors and interesing designs and thousands of bolts of fabric - kind of like the patterned paper section at a scrapbook store or the card selection at a great stationery store.

And, on a different note, I'll leave you with the funniest picture ever from my weekend.

"Erica with a blow torch" You should all be very afraid!

vintage joel

Because he's moving tomorrow, Joel emptied out his pantry and gave Jon and I a big bag of Japanese food that he can't use while he's gone. Lots of rice spices and cooking liquids and things like that. As Jon was putting everything in our cupboards tonight we came across this gem:

I'm assuming this is the Japanese equivalent of a ketchup packet.

As you can see by the photo, not wanting to waste any of the contents, he used a binder clip to seal in the freshness. Jon and I had a good laugh about this one. You see, this is coming from the same guy who saved all of the plastic bags from each and every store he went to in Japan. He not only saved them, he used and reused them and threw fits when someone accidentally threw them away. We're talking ratty, crumpled 7-eleven bags with tears in them here. You defintely can't get on his case about recycling!

fallingwater

Jon and I took a slight (coughthreehourcough) detour on our way home from the wedding in State College. It's been a while since I've had a Frank Lloyd Wright fix and I knew Jon would love his architecture and design as much as I do. We had difficulty finding the place...actually we gave up too soon. We took a good hour long detour down some back roads in the mountains all the while telling each other "that's crazy that they don't even have a tourist sign for this place. I can't believe that we're the only people touring it today. It's fallingwater for goodness sake!" After stopping at a diner on the side of the road to ask for directions, we realized that we had turned around too soon because we were fooled by the low address number. We both laughed when the giant Fallingwater sign appeared on the side of the road and we saw that the five cars behind us were going there too. Imagine that?!?

We took an hour long tour through the inside of the home. This place is amazing. Just like every other Wright house I've toured, there are so many details to take in and the pictures just don't do the homes justice at all. Wright was just so ahead of his time. This house was built in the thirties and is still so incredibly innovative and modern for even today's standards.

He uses the space so well and has great control over the flow of the home. No basements or extra closets for this house - Wright was not a fan of clutter or collecting useless stuff. Dark hallways with low ceilings - don't waste your time in a hallway when there are open rooms and expansive terraces to explore. The natural light cascading into each room was spectacular - I was bummed that photographs weren't allowed inside the home. One cool feature of the living room was a walkdown staircase to the water where the original homeowner could wade in the water or just dip their feet in.

Wright was a big fan of incorporating nature into design and this home is the perfect example. The home was built on top of a waterfall and the main foundation is a large boulder that appears both inside and outside the home. And, because the outside walls of the home are non-load bearing, Wright was able to add tons and tons of corner windows.These are no ordinary corner windows, because once you open up the storm window and the screen, the corner of the house "disapears" - it makes for incredible view.

We're so glad that we were able to make this little detour on our way home. Such a great design inspiration to feed off of for a while. Jon and I were inspired with lots of little ideas to incorporate into our home whenever we buy. Jon especially liked the design of the planters on the terraces, so we'll definitely be making some of those when we've got the extra space.

a wedding

Jon and I took a very quick road trip to State College, PA this weekend for Mel's wedding. We did not do too well in the navigational area this weekend. Lots of back tracking and wrong turns happened. Either we couldn't understand the PA road configuration or google maps was really off. But, we made it in time and had a great time while we were visiting.

Mel is number three out of five of my college roommates to get married. We all had a bet going back when we were living together as to the order of when we'd all get married. I'm not sure if we had any correct guesses, but we'll never know for sure because we never recorded the final predictions.

The wedding was in perfect Melissa style and she and Jim did such a nice job planning everything. I especially liked her little pieces of Mexico included in the wedding. She bought her dress at a dress shop in Mérida that sells clothing made out of henequen (sisal). And, instead of having a traditional wedding cake, she and Jim took turns hitting a wedding cake piñata.

The highlight of the whole wedding had to have been seeing her very traditional family break it down on the dance floor. The father/daughter dance was the first time her dad had ever danced in public. Mel said that when she first told him about wanting to dance with him the phone went silent for a few minutes and she had to ask him if he was still there. Afterward, her mom and brother joined in on the fun and went crazy - I've never seen this side of them. Then Jon and I (and about everyone else in the hall) died laughing when this little boy got his groove on to Michael Jackson's Thriller. He was full on break dancing - flips, back handsprings, head spins, splits...you name it, he was all over it.

See the rest of the wedding pictures here.

even our cats like macs...

sorry for more cat pictures...but I just had to show off Jon's mad skills with my fisheye lens on this one. Cool angle, huh?!?

yipee!

Mel is getting married on Saturday! By a freak accident, we both got engaged on the same day (and at just about the same time) on September 17th last year. That was a fun phone call to get the following day!

She was one of the first people that I met when I was moving into the dorms freshman year. She introduced herself right away during We-Haul and helped move my stuff into my room. My dad and her hit it off right away and we probably became friends by default.

She's probably got more passion and charisma in her pinky than anyone I've ever met and she is a blast to be around! And, of course, I'll never forget our last night at our house together...on the deck, listening to the Steve Miller Band talking the night away...

So Mel, here's a little tribute through the years...



We've both got great taste, eh?

We know how to celebrate...with the Alfalfa lane girls - Kate, Mel, me, Emily, Amber

Getting to visit Mel in steamy, hot Mérida, Yucatán, México and living in her world for a week.

Catching up with our old roommate Kate in Atlanta for a week last year.

And...finally getting to meet the future husband, Jim, over Thanksgiving break last fall. Can't wait for the wedding on Saturday! Jon and I are getting everything ready for our little road trip this weekend.

speaking of awesome cars...

This Jeep Grand Wagoneer "woody" style has got to be my dream car (only in army green, of course). Whenever I bring this up, Jon thinks I have gone nuts. He's probably rolling his eyes right now. I guess he just fails to see the beauty in these vehicles like I do. He just cannot wrap his head around the idea that fake laminate wood on the side of a car looks good.

Imagine my surprise when I saw an updated Jeep Commander woody on the road the other day. Hmmm...maybe I can convince Jon to get me one of these for Christmas! HA! All you have to do is buy the kit from this site and you're set to go. According to the site "simulated “Marine Teak” panels surrounded by our raised, quarter round “Santa Rosa Oak” trim produces a true three dimensional effect just like the original vehicles." What's not to love about that?

yay!

Jon sold the Focus tonight. Now we're back to being a two car family, thank goodness!

We had a pretty good weekend and recovered from the fiasco at the coffee house. We got to say farewell to Joel at his not-so-much-a-surprise going away party. He's off to Japan in a couple weeks. Jon made some Japanese flag brownies for the party. He frosted them white with red frosting circles in the middle of each piece. Kicking myself for not getting a picture of them because I was so proud of his decorating skills!

I snagged this cute monkey purse at the frizzlestich booth at the urban craft show in the D. How can you not smile when you look at this little monkey? And it's got great pockets and storage inside to boot.

what were they thinking?

Jon and I took a little road trip last night to the Raven Coffee House in Port Huron. It’s filled with loads of charm and has a great atmosphere. The walls are lined with old books and it has comfortable and worn-in furniture. We were actually hoping to redeem the place because the first time we had been there, we had had a pretty bad fight (can’t remember what it was about, but I remember the awkwardness) and it kind of ruined the appeal of the place.

Well, the evening started out perfectly. We found it with no problem and even landed the perfect spot on a big comfy couch along the wall. We ordered our drinks and started reading our magazines.

And then…

The family reunion began.

Apparently, some people feel that a quiet coffee house is the perfect place to meet up with family and friends of all ages, including little toddlers.

That’s right, my friends. In less than 20 minutes we were surrounded by a party of about 25 people including grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, small children, and probably a few family friends. They smashed all of these people onto the three loveseats and bar along the wall that surrounded our couch.

Our couch was right behind a little coffee table – the perfect playground, you say? Well, apparently the little kids (all six of them) thought it was. They were running back and forth through our little area between the table and our couch. They were yelling over us to their parents, cousins and grandparents on the other side. They kept telling us to move our legs so that they could get through. And they kept falling and tripping over our feet.

We finished our drinks as fast as we could and got the heck out of there. I’m sure they were glad to have our couch free to fit in another group of people.

Jon and I were so irate over the whole experience. Who in the world would bring children to a coffee house at 9:00 PM? It is a completely inappropriate place for young children to be. Kids don’t drink coffee. Kids do not like to sit around and talk. Kids don’t know how to be quiet for extended periods of time. Kids don’t know how to read. And kids should be in bed when it’s 9:00 PM. Am I right?

Needless to say, our little adventure at the Raven was pretty much ruined again. We’re not sure if we’re ready to go back again and face a possible disaster number three. Lucky for us, on our way back to the highway we spotted this cool warehouse along the road that was glowing inside and looked spectacular all lit up. We stopped so that I could take some pictures and then we headed down the road to turn around. We ended up getting stopped because a train was passing through and I was able to get some more good pictures. I’m glad that something positive came out of our frustrating evening!

where oh where has the time gone?

It's been a busy week and it's been especially hectic at work for me. I spent over seven, that's right, seven hours on the phone with Jeffrey T. in the tech support department trying to figure out why our system did a complete nose dive - he didn't know either. In fact, I think I've talked to Jeffrey T. more than I've talked to Jon this week. He got phone calls from me every day. But hopefully those problems are over for me next week.

In other news...

Jon got his new Yaris last Thursday. Here's a picture for a size comparison.



Toyota Yaris: 40 mpg highway

Hummer H2: 13 mpg highway

On Saturday morning we finished off our jug of pure Vermont Maple Syrup, purchased on our honeymoon. We've been having pancakes or french toast just about every Saturday morning since returning home. According to Jon, "I guess the honeymoon's over now."

And, we had a family birthday/pool party at my grandparents' house last Sunday. A 25th birthday for me and an 8th birthday for Cal, my youngest cousin. We got our own cakes and one candle each. I guess 33 candles were not to be found.

Ruth made me the coolest gift...can you guess what it is?

Still trying to read through my book stack. Have been stuck on Atonement all week, as I haven't found any spare time to read. I have a feeling there will be some renewals coming up soon!

I'm super excited for the Detroit Urban Craft Fair tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully I'll see some cool finds!