Scandinavian Adventure!

Okay, this year is going to be amazing. That's it. We get a house AND a trip to Scandinavia! We are pumped. My dad travels a lot for work and racks up the frequent flier miles and very generously donated them to our pouty faces as we told him that roundtrip tickets were going for over a thousand dollars per person. Awesome!! We depart from LA on August 23rd for Oslo, Norway where we'll tour around for 5 days or so before taking the train down to Copenhagen for a few days, and then we'll wrap up the trip for a week in Sweden. Our friends Brendan Monroe and Evah Fan live in Stockholm and are artists so we'll tour around all their favorite places with them I hope and check out the Swedish art scene. My aunt and uncle, Britt and Rui, and my cousins Jonatan and Johanna all live in Stockholm also so we will of course see and spend quality time with them (the picture above is the view from their balcony! It overlooks the harbor, amazing. It's snowed over there now, my dad took this picture on his trip last week, but it will be gorgeous when we're there in the summer). 

My aunt and uncle, Dagfinn and Bjorg, and cousins Eivind and Jon, live in and around Oslo so we're looking forward to seeing them as well. We'll be backpacking and hosteling and traveling by foot and train and we'll try to cram as much adventuring in as possible. Jeff is beside himself with excitement, as he's wanted to go to Scandinavia badly for a long time. I can't wait to share with him the places we went on our family vacations, show him Lillestrom where my dad is from, the Viking ships museum, the harbor, and all the good eats that the countries have to offer. I think Jeff is expecting all reindeer and moose burgers, but I'm all about the paprika chips from the grocery store. I will live off of those, shrimp, and Kinder eggs for the two weeks. No problem.

Here's another picture from Britt and Rui's home, isn't it gorgeous? The Danish furniture I mean, not the view. The view isn't too shabby either I guess. :) It's a good thing I can't fit furniture in my suitcase...

Britt and Rui and the very typical Norwegian/Swedish breakfast. I'll pass on the meat but I love the thick cut bread with yummy jam. Mmmm... Jan would be all over that baconost. It's this (in my opinion) gross white cheese spread infused with bacon essence. You squirt it out of a tube, which is just one reason why it's gross. Ligonberry jam I'll take though! My aunt looks so much like my dad, it's pretty hilarious. I wonder if Jan and I are going to be like that when we're older... he should be so lucky!

We can't wait!! Many more blog posts about what we want to see while we're there so stay tuned. :)

Yay USPS!

I've been waiting for the USPS to get more Humane Society stamps, and these ones are perfect! Well, all Siamese cats would have been more perfect, but I'll still buy these. They're called Stamps to the Rescue. Adorable.

From Dog Milk: "The US Postal Service has unveiled its newest batch of stamps, Adopt a Shelter Pet commemorative postage stamps. The Stamps to the Rescue promotional campaign featuring spokesperson Ellen DeGeneres aims to donate 1 million meals to animal shelters across the country. DeGeneres co-owns Halo, Purely for Pets, a holistic pet care company. The stamps feature five cats and five dogs who were adopted from a shelter in New Milford, CT. The portraits were taken by stamp photographer Sally Andersen-Bruce. You can order them at the online USPS Postal Store now, or wait and get them at your local post office starting on April 30th."

Liberty of London!

I was so excited for this collection to come to Target this month and couldn't wait to see the pieces in person. It debuted on the 14th which is when Jeff and I were in Fallbrook visiting our friends Matt and Joie, but with Joie's help, we convinced the boys that it was a perfect Target shopping day and we got to go. I bought the dress that I saw online and had been crossing my fingers it was as pretty in person, and I'm so happy with it. It's perfect for Kelsey and Jake's garden wedding in May in San Diego and was only $34.99!! The length is perfect for my turquoise heels that I'll be wearing with it, and I love the one shoulder look. Score!

Fuuuudgesilcles.

This week (8 months?) has been an emotional roller coaster I tell you. We got great news yesterday morning when we heard that Jeff's 'Lost' pieces sold (AWESOME! Cha-ching!) which was promptly followed by a phone call from our BofA mortgage loan underwriters asking us to submit our 2009 tax return ASAP. Um... don't we have until April 15th? NO! We were waiting to submit them because we were going to use a CPA this year AND we wanted to cash in on our $8,000 tax credit for buying a home. Well no. Since Jeff is self-employed, they need hard proof of what he's raking in so we needed to get on it right then. It was painful. We did it together on H&R Block online (which was really easy to use actually and I'm glad we did that instead of shelling out $500 for a CPA) but it took awhile and we were hit hard. Hard enough to pretty much wipe out that $8,000 coming back to us. I guess it's a good thing that we owed that much, it meant that Jeff brought in a good chunk last year, but I need to get used to forking over a check like that every April. I was pretty grumpy last night. We saved accordingly during the year though so we're going to be okay, it just sucked.

Plus, because we submitted our taxes one week before we're actually buying the house, we couldn't claim it just yet so our tax credit couldn't pay our taxes, our poor savings account had to. I thought that meant we couldn't get the 8K until we filed 2010 taxes and I almost cried. A little internet research told me we can file an amendment after we get the house and so we'll get that money back pretty quickly. Phew.

Jeff keeps saying "Nothing is ever easy!! ARGH!!" and it's kind of true when it comes to being self-employed and buying a house. There are so many steps to this process and so many highs and lows. To have ridden this roller coaster for 9 months has made us both want to puke and we can't even fathom what it's going to feel like on March 26th when we sign that last signature and become members of the landed aristocracy...

Fundraiser for Lucy

Poor Jill Bliss' dog Lucy has had some health problems recently and Jill is having a fundraiser sale on her website to help pay for Lucy's vet bill. That's a cause I'm happy to support, so I bought a print, a couple of notecards, and a notepad. I wanted the little fabric bags she had but those got snapped up. She has a bunch of original art pieces up for sale (at a big discount), but I have to save my pennies for the house repairs. Check out the sale and help out if you can! Click here to see the items.

I bought the Sasquatch print for Jeffy. I think he'll like it. :)

I'm torn between being embarrassed about this and proud of it...

These are my inspiration slides for the house! I just can't wait. I'm chomping at the bit to start painting and decorating and designing and since I don't have the keys yet, I have to do it on the computer. It's pretty nerdy, I realize, but I don't care. Jeff and my parents already make fun of me for it so I'm used to the taunts. 

We want a big old schoolhouse chalkboard for the kitchen. Sue, get all of your teacher friends to start looking out for us. We'll buy the school a new one in exchange for an old wood one. :) We're going to use Mythic paint in the house I think, it's gotten the best reviews that I've seen. I love this dove gray color for the kitchen walls. 

We took measurements at the home inspection. The blue boxes indicate windows. 

I want a danish teak bed so badly it hurts. My parents have one and it's still stylish. 

We think we like this purple Geoff McFetridge wallpaper a little more than the dinosaurs for the dining room. The dinosaur wallpaper can go in the bambino's room. 

Here's that yeti paper, in all the colors. We still  need to see how the red looks against our pink fixtures (cool?? Hideous?) so we might go with the gray. Once we have money again that is. The toilet is a dual flush from American Standard. Eco-friendly!

And this is my amateurish layout of our living room furniture. That's my sexy chocolate sofa, the yellow side tables behind it, our coffee table that Brendan made in front of it, Scott's navy blue leather chair by the two windows and next to the fireplace, and our huge flat screen TV that my parents are buying us on my teak console.

Squeal!!

Crazy cat lady, and one baboon pic

Crunchy garbanzos, perfected.

These are probably my favorite snack. They're super easy to make, healthy, delicious, and cheap. The only draw back is that you have to wait 40 minutes while they bake and they don't keep well even in airtight containers. Usually not a problem since I can polish off the full can by myself. They're that good. I keep mucking with the spice combinations I put on them and I think the one I made today is my favorite. I used pimenton, a smoked paprika from Williams-Sonoma, cayenne pepper, a little dash of garlic powder, and pink himalayan salt from Trader Joe's. Mix with a can of organic garbanzos and a little olive oil, and then bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, and wash down with a cold one.

Long Beach Museum After Dark

Jeff, Jenny and I went to the LB Museum of Art for their After Dark event which was so much fun! I haven't been able to go in the past because I did MRIs at the hospital on Thursday nights but not anymore! I scored the Tuesday afternoon slot which is much more convenient. We rode our bikes down the museum 1) because it was fun, 2) because we can always use the exercise, 3) it's ridiculous to drive anywhere that's within a mile or two of our house, and 4) the museum gives you a free drink when you show up on a bike. Nice! They have Chimay beers for $4 and lots of good wines and even serve little tapas. There was a band playing and the museum was showing part of it's permanent collection from the 60s. They also had this picture kiosk that takes four pictures and then emails them to you which was super cool and free! Here are some of the ones we took:

That's our new friend Tim in the background. He's hilarious! We're going to invite him to game night.

Anyone in SoCal... next one is on July 15th! Mark your calendars and come!

You won't own me, Swiffer...

MOM! Make one of these for me. Please? Don't let your crochet skills go to waste! I love my swiffer so very much, and it gets used often because of our hardwood floors, Lily Mae's fur, and Jeff's allergies. So we go through the swiffer cloths pretty frequently. I went cheap-o and bought the generic brand which admittedly aren't as dust magnetizing as the actual swiffer brand. I feel a little guilty though about all the waste, so when I saw this on Apartment Therapy, it was like "Oh yeeeeesssss..."

I'm emailing you the pattern mom so you have no excuses, but everyone else can download the pattern here at Craftzine.

Termite-stompers

Maybe instead of paying $2300 to eradicate our termites, I'll pay $140 for these fierce (yeah, I said it) suede ankle boots from J. Crew and I'll wear them and stomp all the stupid termites to death. More eco-friendly and cost effective, with the additional bonus of being emotionally therapeutic! 

These ankle boots are another surprising 180 degree flip from what I previously thought to be stylish. Just like turtlenecks. I used to hate both turtlenecks and ankle boots (especially when they are called 'booties'- ugh) and probably vocalized my declaration to never be caught dead in either, but now I'm kind of digging both. Go figure. 

While we're on the topic of fabulous shoes... these need to be my new spring heels. They are clogs (nod to half of my heritage), they are high (and I'm short), and they are mint green (nuff said). Swedish Hasbeens, how I love you.

Son of a fish head!

Damn it. I forgot about the termite report, which came in and ruined my perfectly nice morning. Daisy has them apparently, and we need to tent to get rid of them. $2300!!! Expensive little fudgers. SHOOT!

This one's for you Dad

You were asking about the backyard at the house... here are some pictures!

That's the kitchen window behind the weird pod tree.

This is the driveway in front of the garage. Not sure why it's gated off from the rest of the backyard, but it will be handy to use for putting Jeff in time-out.

That's the side of the garage, and the gate door goes to the alley in between the blocks where they pick up the trash. Those are camellia trees next to the garage and the orange tree is peeking in on the right.

This is the stone patio outside of the den window, where we'll put our outdoor table and chairs. I like the big fluffy palm tree bush that shields the yard from the neighbors.

The pods turned from a pretty green to a yucky rotten banana brown over a few weeks. We have to figure out this tree and what it is. I'm not sure if the pods are supposed to turn brown, or if they'll all fall off in a couple weeks or what. It's a mystery tree.

This is the rest of the lawn. There's a weird patch of bushes in between the lawn and the stone patio that we'll probably take out and replace with a fire pit. For s'mores!

The view from Jeff's time-out area to the den's sliding glass door and patio.

Behind the garage, the grass really popped up after these crazy rains we had. 

Another view of the camellias. Pink!

And the cherry blossom tree is blooming! So lovely...

I wish I had the "blueprints" Jerod and Jeff mocked up for their plans for our backyard. If memory serves me, there was a one meter dash track, a balloon volleyball net/clothesline, a wood chopping station, and paddleboard/trash boat storage. Sigh.

$2 a yard!

God I love IKEA. They discontinue their fabrics often to make room for new awesome designs so something is constantly on clearance. I got these four for only $2 a yard, and they're really wide yards too. Score!

Home inspection, CHECK!

We had the home inspection done this morning on the Daisy house and all is good! There were a lot of great discoveries (a brand new 200 amp electrical box was installed which is several thousand dollars to do and gives us plenty of room to upgrade the electrical when we convert the garage, all copper plumbing, a few cracks in the foundation were repaired really well with steel plates bolted to the foundation which the inspector said he hardly ever sees but should, a new water heater, and almost all new double slider windows) and not a whole lot of repairs.

Jerry, the awesome inspector, took us through the maintenance we would need to do to keep the house in its tip-top shape which was really helpful, considering we don't know much about maintaining a home. The one big ticket item that he suggests we get to when we have our dollars saved up, is rewiring the house since it hasn't been done and is getting to the end of its life. That's a pretty darn big job and he guesses around $5,000 to do it all so maybe something we'll spend our tax rebate on. Fires are my #1 fear and it's something we'd have to do at some point anyways so I'd like to get that taken care of as soon as we can. Everything else though looks good so we're counting ourselves lucky.

Next up, appraisal!

Graham cracker cupcakes?? With toasted marshmallow frosting!?

Yes please. This is what we should have made instead of the disasterous Avatarts. Via Junebug Weddings

Chocolate Graham Cracker and Toasted Marshmallow Cupcakes

Makes 2 dozen

* 2 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
* 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 large eggs
* 1 cup whole milk
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
* 1 cup boiling water
* 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (from about 20 squares)
* 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
* 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
* Marshmallow Frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 standard muffin tins with cupcake liners; set aside.

2. Sift 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together into the bowl of an electric mixer. Using the paddle attachment, mix ingredients together on low speed.

3. In a large bowl, mix together eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Add to flour mixture and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl and continue mixing on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add boiling water and stir to combine; set cake batter aside.

4. Place graham cracker crumbs, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and melted butter in a large bowl; stir until well combined.

5. Place 1 tablespoon graham cracker mixture into the bottom of each prepared muffin cup. Use the bottom of a small glass to pack crumbs into the bottom of each cupcake liner. Reserve remaining graham cracker mixture for topping.

6. Place 2 teaspoons chocolate in each muffin cup. Transfer muffin tins to oven and bake until the edges of the graham cracker mixture is golden, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven and fill each muffin cup three-quarters full with cake batter. Sprinkle each with remaining chocolate and graham cracker mixture. Return to oven and bake, rotating pans halfway through baking, until tops are firm and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer muffin tins to a wire rack and let cupcakes cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan and let cool completely.

7. Transfer frosting (recipe below) to a large pastry bag fitted with a large plain round or French tip (such as Ateco #867 or Ateco #809). Pipe frosting in a spiral motion on each cupcake. Transfer cupcakes to a baking sheet. Using a kitchen torch, lightly brown the frosting, taking care not to burn the cupcake liners. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container, up to 2 days.

Marshmallow frosting
Makes enough for 2 dozen cupcakes
* 8 large egg whites
* 2 cups sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
* 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Directions
1. Place egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set over a saucepan with simmering water. Whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and whites are warm to the touch, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Transfer bowl to electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat, starting on low speed, gradually increasing to high, until stiff, glossy peaks form, 5 to 7 minutes. Add vanilla, and mix until combined. Use immediately.

2nd Daisy approval!

We accepted the terms of the seller's 2nd loan on Daisy so now we're in real escrow! We're ordering the appraisal and the home inspection and our close of escrow date is March 26th! Yippeeee!!!

Liv cupcakes!

These are so pretty and they're named Liv! Everything at Cupcake Social is so cute, but these ones take the cake. HA!

First Daisy approval!!

The negotiator on the first loan for the Daisy house accepted our offer this morning!! It needs to now go to the second loan for approval which is a much smaller hurdle and one we don't anticipate being a problem, but they might ask for more money in which case we're selling all of Jeff's stuff so we can pay it. Then the ball moves to our court and we order our appraisal, home inspection, exchange money, and then they give us the keys and we throw a raging party!!

Pigeon Toe Ceramics

These quirky ceramics from Pigeon Toe Ceramics have been featured in Sunset magazine (where I first saw them) and Branch now also carries them. I wish they had them when we had our wedding registry there! I luv them. Although way better than anything I did in my high school pottery class, they sort of remind me of a few bowls I made that caved in on themselves. 

Some of the pieces sold in their Etsy shop are seconds with very minor imperfections that they offer at a discount. I almost like the ones with the flaws more anyways! The mini creamers are only $7!!

They also sell these gorgeous air plants that fit really nicely into their ceramic pieces. I love air plants, so easy to take care of too.

This one is my favorite, but I'm a sucker for anything that is sweet for an animal. This would be lovely outside the kitchen window. 

Bonus: they also sell gift certificates! These would be an awesome gift for almost anyone. Especially me. 

What an Uncommon iPhone you have...

Jill Bliss just blogged about a special 40% off discount on her designs at the Uncommon website where you can make a hard case for your iPhone with her artwork and it took me about 1.8 seconds to email her to call dibs on one of the codes. Sweet thing emailed me right back with the discount code and I went to work selecting my favorite piece (so many good ones to choose from! I went with the colors I liked the most because all of the designs are fantastic) and resizing it and ordering it! All for under $30, which is around what you would pay for one of those hard shell cases at the AT&T store that are not nearly as cool. The one that I bought from the clearance bin is starting to chip and get dirty so it was good timing. I can't wait for it to come in the mail!!

Happy birthday Jen!!

I wish we could have been up there to celebrate with you (although it sounded like you worked the whole weekend! BAH!) but I hope you had a great one and made good wishes. I'm making you something that likely won't be as cool as whatever you buy from the Gap (btw, this, this in black, and these are awesome, it's a good thing I'm not there to go shopping with you...) but at least it won't be a gay tool belt. Happy Birthday!

xoxo, Liv

At least they're not diamonds...

I already bought a couple replacement necklaces to make up for the jewelry that was stolen in the burglary but I can't help but keep looking! There is so much gorgeous stuff out there. These are my favorites:

RIght angle triangles by Spinthread ($65)

The Batman- Spinthread ($55)

See-through squares- Spinthread ($40)

For Me, For You Marigold and Grey handwoven necklace ($50)- Our wedding colors!

Feathered Links- Anthropologie ($305-eep!)

Curls & Coils- Anthro ($42)

Wren Handmade crochet necklace ($65)