Dear Kristie

A bookmark for a letter-writing friend

I recently cross stitched this bookmark for my friend Kristie and since she's received it, I can share it here. I love the way the deer turned out and the pun! Goodness me, so corny, but I couldn't help myself.

Kristie and I have known each other for 8 years now. We met at a summer program during high school and have been writing ever since. We started off exchanging emails, but at some point we switched to writing letters. I do love sending and receiving letters. It's much more personal than emails. We've sent letters from different Kentucky colleges, from the Netherlands and France, from Japan and Michigan. I hope we continue for our whole lives.

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Deer and script patterns are from the book Potter Needlework Library: Cross-Stitch: Techniques, Projects, Patterns, Motifs.

CSA Day

Once again, Finger Picking Farms presents: The CSA box

Cast of characters this week: 2 heads of lettuces (looking super-luscious), onions, dinosaur kale, radishes, carrots, snow peas, and the last of the strawberries

I am loving those tiny carrots. Adorable! Once washed, they'll be just perfect for dipping into hummus.

Saturday Night Singletons

Wine, cherries, cheese

Well, we haven't been single in a long time, but it was our last Saturday as unmarrieds. We kicked back with some snacks and watched The Big Lebowski. Romantic, no?

A Gift from Tomoko

Today Tomoko is heading off to school for a year of intensive English study. She'll be back in Louisville to stay with my mom during school breaks, and I'm really interested in talking with her as she learns more and more English.

Last night she came over to my house to say goodbye and she brought a wedding present for K and me. She made tiny origami cranes (tsuru) for us and told us about them. She explained (in English!) that cranes are a symbol of happiness, and they will bring us a happy marriage. K and I must sew the cranes into four columns, and then tie the threads from each column together into one knot. As we tie the knot (!), we should wish for happiness. Then we should hang the cranes in our house.

Tomoko's handmade gift is really wonderful. I love the thought she put into making this present and the time she spent folding each of those little cranes. On top of that, her explanation in English made me smile so much. She has come such a long way in one year. She used to come by my desk to talk at the Japanese high school where I taught, but she looked up each and every word in her electronic dictionary. Conversations took a long time! Since then, she has gained an amazing amount of confidence. She makes the English teacher in me so proud.

Thank you, Tomoko!

Art in Public Places

The art I see when I'm out on a walk fascinates me. I love murals, sculptures, sidewalk inscriptions, and interesting graffiti. I always wonder about the artists behind the work and about the reactions of passersby.

I did a study of art in public places when I was living in the Netherlands, where I found my favorite art at construction sites. They'd hire different artists to paint the barricades they placed around construction areas, which resulted in colorful and diverse paintings displayed right there on the street. It definitely made the inconveniences of construction--noise, detours, etc.--more tolerable.

Without further ado, here are some recent findings from my walks about town.

Seek 'n' Find: Fleur de lis, Churchill Downs, Belle of Louisville, a Louisville Slugger, Thunder Over Louisville, horse, Colgate clock, the baseball stadium*

Neighborhood pride

Person or soap?

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*Does anybody get this reference? I have no idea why he's taking a bath in the baseball stadium.

Sunny days and Sweet Cherries

Cherries just make life feel better.

This weekend passed in a flurry--running lots of errands, receiving many phone calls, browsing through a used book sale, working in the garden, walking down previously unvisited streets in the neighborhood, passing through a PBR festival, seeing "Up," and eating ice cream and a cupcake at the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen.

I hope you had a good weekend!

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfasts around here are usually a free-for-all. There's no standard "cereal and milk" plan. Most of the time we'll just grab some leftovers or a bagel or, if we're feeling particularly earnest, oatmeal. Weekend breakfasts lean more towards pancakes, waffles, or biscuits and eggs.

A couple of days ago, realizing we weren't going to be eating enough dinners at home this week to finish our CSA vegetables, we decided to have kale for breakfast. A little strange, maybe, but healthy nonetheless.

I removed the stems and sauteed the chopped kale with some scallions, finishing the dish with a squeeze of lemon juice and a splash of soy sauce. We ate the kale with an over-easy egg and a little bit of bread. It was really filling and quite tasty!