Ring of Love For Japan

I was very honored to be asked to donate a few pieces of jewelry along with this group of super talented jewelry designers for this event. And I am especially excited about Ring of Love for Japan because 100% of the proceeds will go to Save the Children to aid in their efforts to help along the healing process for this hard hit region.  It is totally win-win, the shopper gets a fantastic and original piece of jewelry at a great price, and at the same time donates to this wonderful cause.  So if you, like a lot of us, have been looking for a way do something to help Japan, go buy yourself a piece of designer jewelry and ALL of the money you spend will go directly to this important cause.  

Thanks so much to Satomi Kawakita and ABC Carpet for putting together this very lovely and moving event!


The event takes place this Saturday and Sunday, from 2-6pm.  If you are in New York this weekend, please go shop!  And please tell your friends!

Peanut Noodles With Ginger and Chicken

I tried this new recipe for ginger peanut noodles from my most recent Real Simple Magazine for lunch today, and they were pretty tasty.  Click here for a link to the recipe.  The only think I would change is to cut the amount of water it calls for in half, because the texture was a little watery, and I think that would help to intensify the flavor as well.  I will definitely be making this quick and easy recipe again with these slight modifications.  Happy lunching! 

A Swim in the Family Gene Pool

Do you recognize the babies in these pictures?  The first one is me, circa 1978, and the second one is Emmett, circa late 2010.  Neat.

We Win at Root Cellaring!

As I was prepping these veggies for dinner last night it hit me; our root cellaring was a success! It is April and I just pulled these beautiful, tasty and perfectly firm garden vegetables out of our root cellar! So they survived in semi-stasis down there in the cool, dark and damp for six months.  And they were delicious with great sweetness and flavor, so much better than what you can get in the stores.  Amazing!  Sadly though, not everything fared as well as the leeks, potatoes, and carrots.  The acorn squash look like big squishy fuzzy science experiments, and I don't even want to talk about the turnips.  I think it was too wet down there for those guys, so next winter we'll have to figure something else out for them.  But overall I am very happy with the results.  Hooray!

The Endless Application

I am in the middle of putting together yet another review shipment to hopefully finalize my acceptance to the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen.  This process has taken a lot longer than I expected, and been quite a bit more frustrating than I expected, to become a member of an association which, quite frankly, I'm not even all that clear on what the benefits will be!  Seems silly, right?  But since I have come this far, darn it, I am determined to see it through!  But after a written (with essays!) application, 2 review meetings/critiques with a jury, and so far 4 review shipments over a period of about a year and a half, I am beginning to feel that the process is a little bit overly serious.  I mean it's not like I get access to national secrets or THE big red button or anything once I am accepted. (Or will I?)  I am now at what I believe is the final part of the process, the quality review shipments, which they ask for to make sure that the quality of the work of newly accepted artists is consistent. And although the process is only supposed to include 3 review shipments, what is supposed to be my last review shipment keeps getting returned/rejected with what I feel are a little bit nit-picky notes like "your ovals should either be more exact or more organic" and "the hammering on this one earring (which I have made about 100 times, btw) is uneven."  So I feel like the finish line is just becoming more elusive and subjective, and the relentless making and sending of one of a kind pieces off to Concord, NH is starting to feel a little masochistic. But oh well, here goes another shipment!  Above this little tirade I posted some photos of what I'm sending so you can all be informed witnesses if it gets sent back to me with big red (metaphorical) X's all over everything.  And if you've made it this far, thanks for listening to me vent! I feel much better.  I guess I am just feeling a little discouraged and frustrated right now about this whole endeavor because I quite like the jewelry I've sent so far, and nobody likes to have their hard work rejected.  But hopefully this will just be a little blip in what will turn out to be a very good thing long term!  Right?

Thanks again for listening everyone!  Please keep your fingers crossed for me!  Oh, and just for fun, here is the bracelet with the "too organic or not organic enough ovals" ;)  Poor little reject bracelet!

Welcome Blue!

Hello everyone! How were your weekends?  We had a very weekendy weekend around here, which means very little work, and mostly play and the inevitable life administration (laundry, cleaning, groceries)  We actually did a major overhaul of a room we've been calling "the junk office," which should give you some clue as to its previous state.  Neither the before, during or after were pretty, so you won't see it on Campestral, but believe me, the effort and the results were heroic!  And, we got a new pet!  Here he is.  His name is Blue Fish.

Emmett has recently been extremely fascinated by fish.  In fact, one of the sure fire ways to calm him down if he gets really upset about something is to show him YouTube videos of snorkeling or scuba diving.  So we thought we'd get him the real thing.  Since we wanted something low investment and maintenance (read no real fish tank with a bubbler and filtration system) we were steered towards a Betta by the people at the pet store.  

We've put him in a pretty glass hurricane from Simon Pearce that TH got me for Christmas last year.  A plain old fish bowl is so boring, don't you think?  And there was a cute moment when Olivia noticed him, captured in the photo above.  I have never had great luck with fish, so I feel a little anxious for the health and safety of our new family member.  Please keep your fingers crossed for him!  I think the average temperature in our house is a little low for him, so also please keep your fingers crossed for all of us that it stops snowing one of these days!

No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk (or a dirty floor!)

Jeez. I mean you turn around for two seconds and when you turn back around. . . you see this.  Babies!