Dinner from the Garden

Lately we have been eating a lot of meals fresh from our balcony garden. This is my favorite way to eat in the summer, full of fresh seasonal flavors with little effort (or heat) in the kitchen. Add to that the fact that we've grown much of this ourselves, and it's pretty much the perfect meal.

Here's one of our simple homegrown meals:

Salad with mixed greens from the balcony (mixed lettuce, nasturtium leaves and parsley), tomatoes from the farmer's market, shredded chicken, topped with edible nasturtium flowers. And on the side, a slice of our homemade sourdough bread.
 

Here you can also see the ever evolving centerpiece of fresh fruit that I talked about here.

What are some of your favorite summer meals?

Living Room Progress

I'm finally back!

It's been a hectic month, with getting a show opened, finishing final projects and design presentations. Not to mention everything my amazing husband has had going on between work and school! We didn't even get to rest this past weekend after school got out, which was filled to the brim with family and friends. We saw "Ironman 3" with my sister-in-law on Friday, attended graduations (and grad parties) of friends on Saturday, then had an afternoon with some cousins from Utah on Sunday.

In between all of that, we finally started getting the house cleaned up and organized again. Today I want to share some photos of our living room. It is the room that gets cluttered the quickest when things are busy, but it is also one of the most relaxing rooms to be in when it is clean.

Here is a shot showing most of the living room (standing in the dining room)

This great antique shipping crate is the perfect coffee table for a small sofa. I picked it up at the beginning of my 3rd year of college at a yard sale. The sides say L.B. Co., for Long Beach Shipping Company. The people who sold it to me said it was a cheese shipping crate.

A small vignette on one of the side tables. (Please forgive the odd color balance in this shot, I think I should have turned off the lamp that was next to the table.)

My cozy reading nook between the windows and the patio doors.

The living room isn't perfect yet. The Victorian chair badly needs reupholstering, and I plan to get more art and photos hung on the walls. We also have way too many magazines around...it's time for a major purge there! It's fun for me to document the progress as our mis-matched belongings slowly become a cohesively designed room. Stay tuned for more!

*****

Linked up to One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons

A Friday at Home...

Finally, a Friday night at home.

It's been too long, between school and rehearsals for "Sonia Flew". But the show opened last weekend, which means my job is done until the end of the run, when its time to strike the set and return the borrowed furniture and props. Until then, I just have one more class project to finish, and a model and drafting for "The Unmentionables" to present...but after next Thursday I'm done for the semester.

Next Thursday I can begin preparing for my internship with a set designer in the city this summer.

Next Thursday I can turn the living room back into the living room, rather than the flat-surface-covered-with-lighting-design-books that it currently is...because the office is covered with set models.

Next Thursday I can create my plan of attack for FINALLY finishing the touch up paint in the house...a project that's been sitting around since we moved in last summer.

But for now, a nice Friday night at home with the husband. Cupcakes and BBQ chicken sandwiches for dinner (yes I ate mine in that order...it's been a long semester) and Star Trek. We're watching the first of the JJ Abrams reboot tonight, in preparation for seeing "Into Darkness" with my parents tomorrow. A well deserved break before the last stretch of projects.

I love this guy.