Month: April 2011

baking, food

Obsessed with pancakes

by casadeberry5 Comments on Obsessed with pancakes

When I was little, growing up in Lima, a favorite destination for a weekend treat was Palachinke, a pancake place that served huge, thin pancakes. I always asked for banana pancakes and was never able to finish.

Flash forward to last week, when Mom was staying with me and we headed up to IKEA – we had breakfast there and I enjoyed their thin pancakes:
I learned from a quick Google search that “palacinke” (as well as various derivations of the word) is the Eastern European name for these crepes.

As you can imagine, I am determined to make these at home because going to IKEA for breakfast every day is just not feasible. Tempting, but not feasible. I did get a jar of lingonberry jam because it was so delicious!

art, decor, painting

Paris art

by casadeberry6 Comments on Paris art

I’m always on the search for art depicting my favorite city in the world – Paris. Today I’m sharing these lovely works by artists that let us enjoy their art without spending beaucoup bucks.


This is one of four postcards in a set, made by TINYKITN. You could mail them, sure, but they would look so pretty framed in a grid, don’t you think? I would love something like this for a wall in my bedroom.

Now this one would belong in my kitchen/dining room – as would any of talented Lucille‘s other prints – not only do you get charming illustrations but many of them include a recipe as well. Gorgeous AND dangerous art!

I love how bright and cheerful Lynsey Hunter’s cards and prints are – she also has prints of different cars that I love.

Don’t you just want to sit on that chair and look out the window? Kitty on your lap, dog at your feet, what a great way to spend an afternoon. Shell Sherree‘s illustrations make me want to step into her art for a few hours.

Bon, c’est tout, mes amies, that’s all for now, my friends, I hope you have enjoyed these beautiful pieces of art with me!

books, living room

Bookcases revamped

by casadeberry4 Comments on Bookcases revamped

I went through the masses of books my husband and I have about a year ago, our bookcases looked pretty good. For a while.

Then . . . you know how it goes. More books get shoved in, kids put their toys on the shelves, tall shelves get used as spots to put stuff the kids can’t get to, and this is what you get:

Pretty disgraceful, huh?

I’d been meaning to get to the bookshelves for a while, and then this post from the lovely Michaela Noelle was the final impetus I needed to get going. After a long process of weeding out some books and packing them up for storage in the garage, this was the result:


Still a lot of books but my husband and I are avid readers.

Here is one of the Fantasy shelves, with appropriately fantastic gargoyle in the middle:

Our Gardening books look lovely with pretty yellow ranunculus!

Two handcrafted home accents my husband got at a craft fair accent our – what else – Home shelf:
I’m pretty happy with the results – which meant four grocery bags full of books got put away in the garage. And some random items that somehow (ahem) got thrown on the bookshelves, like bouncing balls, marbles, the case for a handheld game, etc. found new homes.

Now I only have the kids’ bookshelves to deal with. Oy.

Uncategorized

Me from A to Z

by casadeberry4 Comments on Me from A to Z

I saw this great questionnaire at Lissalaneous Thoughts and thought I’d give it a try:

A. Age: 29. Okay, 39. Until November. I need to start Forties’ Therapy.

B. Bed size: Queen. Someday King or Cal King but not any time soon.

C. Chore you dislike: Cleaning floors – be it bathrooms or kitchen. Hate it.

D. Dogs: In our future, we have two cats for now.

E. Essential start to your day: Cup of nice hot tea for our chilly mornings.

F. Favorite color: Burgundy.

G. Gold or silver: Gold. Yellow gold.

H. Height: 5’1″

I. Instruments you play(ed): None, but I was a Soprano in my younger years.

J. Job title: Queen Bitch of the Universe. She Who Must Be Obeyed.

K. Kids: Aidan (6) and Alexander (4).

L. Live for ______: My family.

M. Most embarrassing moment: Got an hour? Falling in the cafeteria, running out of gas, not rinsing conditioner out of my hair, etc.

N. Nicknames: Clod. Sooner or later, everyone calls me Clod. They say it’s Claud, but I know better.

O. Overnight hospital stays: Two c-sections and a hysterectomy.

P. Pet peeves: Bullshit. Or rather, bullshitters. People who hate their lives and won’t do anything to change them.

Q. Quote from a movie: “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” from Lace. Not a movie, but one of the trashiest 80s miniseries ever.

R. Roses: I’m making this up because the R is missing from this quiz. My favorite are yellow, although deep red also make me happy.

S. Siblings: Too many, all half-sibs. Two from mom, four from dad, they have half-sibs and THEY have half-sibs, and honestly, anyone could come up to me and say they’re related to me and I wouldn’t be able to say they weren’t.

T. Time you wake up: Between 5:00 and 6:00 am. On my own. I’m a morning person.

U. University attended: San Francisco State University.

V. Vegetables: Um, yes? I eat some, I grow some.

W. What makes you run late: The boys, usually.

X. X-rays you’ve had: Teeth, back, shoulder.

Y. Yummy food you make: That is up to whoever is eating it, but I WAS told I make a good lasagna.

Z. Zoo animal favorites: Butterflies 😀

blue, books, boys, decor, green, shopping, spring

What I’ve been doing

by casadeberry1 Comment on What I’ve been doing

I’ve been feeling like lightening up my home with some spring-y blues and greens. A couple of trips to Michaels and IKEA helped in that endeavor.

These candles got glammed up with some flowers – $2.99 for six at Michaels – and ribbon.
The center one is on one of my yellow ramekins from World Market.

We’ve had this lovely glass vase since our wedding – we used it for cards with good wishes our guests wrote. After, it languished in the master bathroom for almost eight years. Then I saw this on the PB website.
I got a fake plant (because our dining room is so dark it wouldn’t be fair to a poor real plant) and I love how it looks, flanked by my beloved Fleur-de-Lis candlesticks.

With the help of one of my new BFFs, Valspar’s Everglad Glen spray paint, I brought a frame into the spring season.
This is one of my all-time favorite pics of my boys together.

Last week I was super inspired by Kimba’s Map Decor link party and did this:
The lantern is from IKEA (I also have one in light green) and the tray was paint sprayed with another new favorite, Valspar’s Exotic Sea. I love the combination of the bold turquoise with the muted map print and the white lantern.

So that’s my mini Spring-a-looza tour – I am currently working on a long project that involves lots and lots – and lots – of fabric. Stay tuned!

flowers, gardening, yellow

Little Frogs in my house

by casadeberry5 Comments on Little Frogs in my house

The sweet yellow flowers I am SO loving right now are Ranunculus, which is Late Latin for little frogs, according to Wikipedia.

I love their round shape and many layers of petals – here are some tips from The Martha herself on how to arrange some of these beauties.
I have yellow and red ranunculuses (ranunculi?) so I prefer to keep each color by itself when I arrange them around the house.

Another idea, this time from one of my favorite publications – Real Simple:
I usually place three flowers in a little bud vase or a spare glass jar for a sweet and simple look, but I will try the terracotta pots idea.

I’ve also pinned some lovely ranunculus images on Pinterest if you’d like to join me there.

I can’t wait until my yellow roses bloom again, I am hoping for a pretty arrangement of yellow roses and ranunculus with some greenery thrown in for balance.

Do you have a favorite flower?

boys, school

I’m not a Belieber!

by casadeberry4 Comments on I’m not a Belieber!

My oldest had his school walk-a-thon last Friday. It was the warmest day so far this year although it didn’t get miserably hot. He and his buddies are showing off how many laps they walked:
Or rather, how many laps two of them walked. The boy in the center, my son’s BFF, ran all 42 laps. His own mom was surprised. My thighs hurt just typing that, “ran all 42 laps.”

The teacher told the parents we could walk alongside our kids if we wanted to, so I joined my boy at about lap 8 (I’m no fool) – we did 7 laps together, then the DJ started playing that Baby Baby Baby song and I was walking around in the heat with a zillion tweens singing along and thank goodness right then my boy said he was tired. The goal for kinders was 15 laps so I told him we could just chill if he wanted. After the walk was over, the kids went in for lunch and then there was a carnival. My son was very happy I joined him for the carnival.

We ate pizza, popcorn and otter pops. We sat in the cool grass, under the tall trees and watched people. We met his teacher’s little baby and my ovaries started to hurt. He was all chubby grumpiness at first. I don’t blame him, I was scared they’d start playing another Justin Bieber song, too.

I’m joining my bloggy friend Donna’s Taking Care of You Tea Time this morning!

fruits, gardening, veggies

Happy (future) Meals

by casadeberry2 Comments on Happy (future) Meals

This past week we checked on the progress our seeds and seedlings have made. Wanna see?

Ah, our avocados. Much beloved by us and our friends and family.
We cannot possibly eat the hundreds of avocados we get per season, so we share them as much as we can. When my boys were starting out on solid foods, they enjoyed a mashed-up avocado for breakfast every day, and love them still!

Last year we tried growing bell peppers for the first time and it was a success.
We look forward to slicing up these guys in fajitas, or saute them in stir-fries, yum yum!

This is our first try with carrots – you start them from seed, and we have them in this one pot and several other little ones.
Many of these will go into smoothies – grow, little carrots, grow!

Our onions can’t be stopped. The green ones grew through winter, and now we’ve planted more of the white and yellow varieties.
I see some veggie trading in our future.

We jumped into the potato-growing bandwagon and chose basic russet and Yukon gold varieties.
If these are a success I will definitely get adventurous and order some mail order potato goodness next year!

My husband hacked up a pumpkin from last Halloween and planted some of the seeds.
Maybe we’ll have a few little scary ‘kins this year!

Look! My roses are starting to bloom again!
I love yellow roses and my husband bought this plant for me, so happy to see it’s doing so well.

We’ve planted a ton of squash – zucchini, summer squash, crookneck, etc.
Zucchini chocolate chip cookies are in our future!

The boys’ favorite thing to do in summer days is to go out and look for strawberries ready to be picked.
We also have blueberries and grapes growing in our yard.

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at our growing fruits and veggies – while I am NOT looking forward to the high temperatures of summer, I most definitely AM looking forward to enjoying the bounty of our plantings. Big thanks to my husband who did most of the work, including building raised beds and getting me plants he knows I love!