Celebrating a new home, and a dinner recipe

The week has been full of exciting change, new homes, and adorable dino-shaped sandwiches! Have a look:

After many happy performances at the Lion's Lair, that chapter of our story is written, and we are embarking on an exciting new leg of our journey at The Spotlight. It is gorgeous and huge and theatrical and everything we've been working toward. We all feel very lucky that they want us, and the February 12 show is going to be amazing!

I felt like indulging in a little whimsy the other day, so I pulled out my dinosaur-shaped sandwich cutter and made bronto-wiches for Mr. Bear and I. His turned out lovely, I accidentally cut off the head of one of mine.

In the interest of not wasting ingredients, I tore up the leftover bread into bite-sized pieces to make into croutons for soup. The soup being a canned tomato-basil doctored up with seasonings and minced garlic.

I bagged the bread with a dash of olive oil, some seasoning, and garlic, and shook to coat. Then I spread the bread out on a sheet of foil and baked for 5 minutes at 375 degrees.

The bread was nice and crispy.

Served with homemade croutons and a bit of shredded cheese. Delicious!

Looking back on 2010

It was an amazing year, to be sure. I reconnected with an amazingly creative collective of friends, rediscovered the warmth and acceptance of this Chosen Family, and met my wonderful partner, who has been the best gift of all. I am so incredibly lucky to have these people in my life, and to be able to participate in something so creative and affirming.

Craft Room

My wonderful partner has been helping me realize my dream of a well-organized and functional craftroom. While my yarn stashed has been tamed and sorted, my fabric collection is still largely in piles, and is the next thing to be tackled. I have a cathedral window quilt inside of me, bursting to get out!























Mr. Bear building some additional storage.















































The bud vase is from Urban Outfitters. It was Mr. Bear's idea to use it as a double pointed needle holder. The tall vases holding my straight and circular needles are from Ikea.




























































My sewing table all folded out. It folds down to less than half this size, very convenient for fitting into a variety of spaces.

Seattle before Christmas

Graduation!

I graduated yesterday, magna cum laude, with a B.A. in Anthropology. Yeah!

It was a long ceremony out on the football field, no shade. Kind of tedious. But I'm excited nonetheless.

Afterward, my family had a nice party for me.

My awesome party dress that took me forever to make. It weighed a ton and felt like wearing a quilt out in the summer heat.

My mother's best friend let us have the party at her house, because she has a really nice house with a pretty sweet backyard. She's known me since I was a zygote and was more than happy to help. My mother made me a three-tiered cake that looks like a Mayan pyramid. It was pretty rad, I have to say, and delicious!

Those sugar cookies were individually hand-iced by my mother with symbols from astronomy, languages, and even sci-fi(Sarah was so excited when she got one with a Stargate symbol on it!)

Pineapple Daisy bouquet from Edible Arrangements. They were lovely, I couldn't stop eating them.

We also had another bouquet dipped in chocolate, which was gone before I could photograph it.

She also got me a bunch of awesome anthro-related stuff like shirts that say "I Dig Bones" and "My Other Skull is a Neanderthal", an unlined notebook that says "Forensic Anthropology" on the cover, a coffee mug that says "Looters Suck", a pith helmet, a plastic femur and caveman's club that squeak(we later found out), and lots of other awesomeness.
I got a ton of really cool cards from my aunts and my uncle and friends. My friend Sarah gave me a jar of peach jam she made herself. She gave me some really delicious apple butter for my birthday, so I'm stoked to try the jam. My friend Chaz got me an 18-year-old bottle of Glenlivet singe malt, 'cause he's a rockstar like that. It's going on a shelf until it's old enough to buy it's own scotch.

Cheers!