Good for Babies

The countdown to Visitor 2.0 has begun. Another mother will be arriving approximately 4 days from now (in household preparation standard time). Our weekend is looking to be full of cleaning and maybe I'll make a final effort on the curtains project that was begun and that is now all but abandoned. Given the short time frame, I'm starting to lean toward Plan 2.0: cannibalizing the remaining off-white curtain from an unused set and doing something really simple.


ANY curtain HAS to be better than the faded rags hanging in the windows now. It doesn't look too bad in the picture but in real life it really really is.

Anyway - weekend, full, cleaning. On to more interesting-to-me things.

Because Theresa will be here shortly - I was screwing around on the internets looking for other stuff to do, in-city, while she is visiting. One thought that I had was "I've heard that Theatersports can be a ton of fun. I'll google that."

On google I found a link, referencing Theatersports, that directed me to family.go.com which seems to be some sort of subsidiary of Disney - at least, that is the assumption I make from seeing the big Disney Family Travel logo at the top of the page. There wasn't much information on Theatersports there, but like I said, I'm looking for destinations and activities in the city, so I took the time to check out the rest of the page, including the "Things to do nearby" section, where I happened upon this:



That sacred institution, Deja Vu, is being heralded by Disney (or some 3rd party) as Good for Babies. I know that there are all sorts of things that we can say they mean by "Good for Babies" but I also found this:



Deja Vu currently rates higher for kid suitability than Pike Place Market does! (on family.go.com)

I think it's very funny. Next time you have friends or family with young children in town visiting, don't forget to stop by The Vu for some entire-family-enjoyments.

In other news - I rode the Seattle Streetcar’s South Lake Union Line - which I will from here on out refer to by her real name, the SLUT (I know I'm acting like I'm 12 years old there but I can't help it. Given the details and ridiculousness of the project it's just terribly fitting). I rode that SLUT the entire way back to work (all 1.3 miles).



The train was mostly empty


and the payment is completely automated via a machine that closely resembles (and operates like) the new parking meters that have been going in the past few years.

A few more passengers hopped on at the next stop - I'd say 8 all told - and no one else payed to ride that SLUT. None of that "verifying payment of fare" like they do on the buses. I'm not sure if we're ever going to get the 50 million dollars back if we're using the honor system here.

All criticisms (and obvious issues) aside, it was an interesting little trip. The neighborhoods you pass through in that mile+ have really changed over the past 3 or so years.

I wound out my day making dinner. I haven't cooked any real food in about 2 weeks and it was starting to get to me. We had a variation of Curried Coconut Chicken courtesy of ROMA via AllRecipes.com.

It turned out OK.



Needed salt.

Busy Weekend and Chair Envy

It's been a busy weekend, we've all been working to get the house ready for house guest v1.0. We got all of the "outside of the house" items taken care of in our 5-hour shopping trip Saturday (which, by the way, was the NICEST day we have had in Seattle so far this year - 75° and SUNNY SUNNY SUNNY). The house cleaning will continue through Thursday and my housemates friend Michelle will be arriving Friday night. I'm finding it difficult to stay focused on just one room - I haven't finished any of them yet... but, I guess all the dents I make in the mess will add up to clean one of these days.

In other news, I'm experiencing some chair envy. Just down the street at Area 51 they have the most amazing piece in the window right now.

(not the best picture ever)



I haven't even bothered to check the price, because I know it is too much $$ and also because I have nowhere in my house where that chair would work - nevertheless it is GORGEOUS and I will continue to drool every time I pass it by.

On the project front, I've been working on some Roman Shades for our bedroom. I'm going to guess that I've already sunk well over 5 hours into the project and only have 1 of 3 curtains finished (but not yet hung). I've been getting lots of help from L.O....



...and will be brushing all that "help" off the curtains before they go up.

I also got some curtains hung up over our closet yesterday, it's nowhere near cool enough to take a picture of but it is really nice to not have to look into the dark, messy, abyss anymore. Maybe I will get a picture up once I sew a center panel into place - it should look a little nicer then.

Also - just a quick note but I am loving ByeBye List these days. It's a site that lets you do your same Craiglist search in any category but only displays the first 20 or so characters of the title + price + PICTURE. I've found all sorts of things I'm sure I need.


If I only had the room, or a truck. The bar stool there looks like a perfect match (minus the color) to the 3 bar stools I have now. I probably don't need a fourth chair but it makes me sad to think about such a cool piece all on it's own like that. I'm sure I could save it but then I really would need to invest the $$ to have all 4 recovered, and actually at this point I don't have the room for a fourth chair. Someone else will have to snatch up that awesome find.

New Curtain!

I've been searching for great fabrics to make new curtains for our home. I have come across a lot of suitable prints online but wasn't sure that I was going to have the best success locating these in the brick & mortar locations around town.



I found a great selection online at ReproDepot.com .

This week I went out in search of fabrics in my area, hoping to find a similar selection. First I went 20 miles South to one of the big name stores - and found that despite the size of the store (think Costco) they didn't carry anything that was even approaching acceptable. Later on in the week I hit up a smaller store located just a few miles from the house and hit the jackpot! Pacific Fabrics & Crafts had almost all the fabrics I had been looking at online and the staff was super helpful.

I ended up picking a fabric with a pretty steady pattern so that I could make my cuts and sew the pieces together without worrying too much.



A good bit of mess and a lot of cursing over the next 5 hours and voilà! We have a new Roman Shade for the back door!



It isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it's still pretty good for the first go-round. I plan to take another swing at it, maybe do our upstairs windows (if I can find a fabric I like in there)- or the front windows downstairs to replace the dreadful ikea drapes that are hanging now.



With any luck (and the proper amount of planning) the next shot at Roman Shades should turn out less crooked-y than v1.0.