A Sneak Peek of our Next Renovation

09/20/2010

Jason building a wall in his studio:

Me providing moral support (I’m very good at that):

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

09/17/2010

Lots of stripes in the laundry pile!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Happy Birthday to my Best Friend!

09/16/2010

My favorite person in the world, my dearest husband Jason, turns 28 today! Happy birthday, Love! This has been a great year, hasn’t it? I’m looking forward to the next year of your life and I feel so blessed to be your wife. It’s my great privilege to walk along side you, laugh with you, cry with you, sweat with you, get splinters with you and have slumber parties in the living room every weekend (staying up too late watching 30 Rock, eating pizza and drinking root beer floats) with you. You are my heart!

This picture of you is, hands down, my favorite from this year. A boyish side of you came alive while we were in Naples. I loved watching you explore the beach looking for sea creatures and the way you lit up when you found those conch shells. You are creative, adventurous, strong, gentle, thoughtful, patient, caring, passionate, smart and faithful. I love everything about you!

Here’s to many more vacations to warm sunny places and the dream of a mid-century beach house in Naples!

Happy birthday, Jason!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Our house is rockin’!

09/15/2010

We (meaning mostly Jason) recently replaced all of the pine mulch in the front of our house with pea gravel. From a distance it doesn’t look all that different.

But closer up it looks really nice and clean.

And it won’t decompose and need to be refreshed twice a year.

A little piece of Arizona style xeriscape in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

My First Knitting Project

09/14/2010

I know—like I have time for another hobby, right? Wasn’t I just saying last week how I didn’t have time to blog because I had so much freelance. (Freelance isn’t really a hobby, I guess…)  Regardless, I’ve decided to start knitting. I bought this soft gray yarn last week …

and turned it into these fingerless gloves!

Just kidding. They’re from H&M. But I think I did get a pretty close match with yarn.

What I plan to make is this scarf this from Pickles:

I’m hoping it’ll match the fingerless gloves…

And also kinda-sorta this headwrap/earwarmer/topless-hat that Jason bought me from the Faroe Islands.

Not quite but maybe I can pull it off. Or else my next project might be a teal blue scarf!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Have you Seen Craiglook?

09/13/2010

Everyone who collects mid-century antiques knows about craigslist. Heck, anyone who buys and sells secondhand anything knows about craigslist! But have you heard about Craiglook? Our friend Sean tipped us off to it a few months ago. It’s an RSS Browser for craigslist that can save searches, broaden your results up to 250 miles from your zip code and best of all: search results have photos and you can quickly look at details without having to leave the search results page. Brilliant!

Thank you, whoever created craiglook, for making the great local classifieds database more user-friendly! (And thanks Sean!)

1 Comment | Art, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Happy Birthday, Ginger!

09/10/2010

Today is my sister-in-law Ginger’s birthday. I don’t think she reads my blog but I wanted to give her a happy b-day shout out here anyway. I hope this year is an amazing one for you—I know it will be! I can’t wait to find out if that’s a sweet pickle or a dill pickle you’ve got in there!

I feel very blessed to have a brother-in-law and sister-in-law that we’re so close to—right across town—but also that Jason and I are good friends with. Ginger is one of the most thoughtful and caring women I know. She’s got a huge heart for people, especially the vulnerable and oppressed. She’s got strong faith and a beautiful relationship with God. She can be serious and also completely silly—the best kind of friend. In 5 months she and Dan are expecting their first baby and I’m so happy for them! Also, I totally can’t wait to be Aunt Martina to that little baby and shower him or her with love.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

09/10/2010

Oh no! Last one! Good thing they’re on sale at Target. I love Lindt Lindor truffles, especially the hazelnut ones!

______________

Sorry for the lack of blogging this week. I’ve been really busy with freelance—which is a huge blessing—but means I’ve had to work every evening this week when I get home from my regular job. Plus, you know, things like laundry, cooking, dishes, banking, paying bills and some quality time with the husband and pup. Blogging got squeezed out this week. I hope to be back at it next week.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

09/08/2010

Lately Jason and I have been buying whole chickens from the grocery store. They’re pretty inexpensive and we end up getting several meals out of one. We cook the whole thing in the crockpot with seasonings and fresh herbs sprinkled on top. After 6-8 hours the cooked chicken is tender and tasty and there is a bit of broth left in the bottom of the pot. After we’ve had 1 or 2 meals with chicken, I like to use the broth and the small bits of leftover chicken to make soup.

For Chicken Noodle Soup you need:

carrots (2) chopped
celery (3 stalks) chopped
broth/boullion
chicken (cooked & chopped up)
noodles
salt, pepper, bay leaf and/or other seasoning to taste

First I like to peel the carrots.

Then I prep the celery for chopping. I decided to cook the leafy parts of the stalks for flavor but left them whole so I could fish them out later.

Chop the carrots and celery up into small chunks.

Cut the chicken into bit-size pieces.

I added a bay leaf, 5-6 balls of all spice, a boullion cube and some water.

Then I added the carrots, celery, chicken, and about 1 cup of noodles. I recommend using bigger noodles than this. These fine egg noodles get so soft and don’t really hold their own in this soup.

Cook for a couple of hours and then fish out the bay leaf, all spice and leafy celery parts.

Done! I made this soup on the same day as the tomato basil soup so I decided to freeze all of it. In other words, I forgot to take a picture of the finished soup in a nice bowl.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Love Suffers

09/06/2010

Love is risky. It requires vulnerability as we trust our hearts to another person, believing that he’ll take good care of it. But every person fails at one time or another. Failures from the ones dearest to us hurt the most, don’t they?

Believe me, I do my fair share of failing my husband, but the other day it was my heart that was aching from a misstep on his part. I decided to reread 1 Corinthians 13 as I was making a choice, subconsciously after 11 years, to love him still and trust him again with my bruised heart.

I think just about everyone has read or heard 1 Corinthians 13, “the love chapter,” at some point. It’s popular at weddings and it’s no wonder — it’s a beautiful passage. Verse 7 popped out at me. “[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Then I saw verse 4, “Love suffers long and is kind …” That sounds painful. Messy. Beautiful. Dangerous on one side and safe on the other side.

Much like the overwhelming feeling of joyful reunion that we would never experience without times of separation, love would not be the beautiful feeling that it is without the risk of pain.

I am thankful to have a husband who loves me well. When he slips up, he is careful to tenderly pick my heart back up, take it to the Healer of broken things and to lovingly hold it again, a little tighter than before. I hope that I do the same.

1 Comment | Faith, Family, Family: Jason, Family: Me | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

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