My Precious
June 29, 2010
Yes please! This would be a great companion to my wedding bands.
double finger rings by Satomi Kawakita 
How Does Your Garden Grow
June 28, 2010
OH MAN! Never thought we would get to planting and never thought I would actually enjoy it. We picked up a bunch of plants at the Portland Nursery this weekend. Our goal was to come home with plants we both loved, relativity low maintenance and drought tolerant (hopefully we choose accordingly). We also wanted some tallish grasses to act as a living fence…to keep our neighbors at bay. Here are some of our new yard friends.
Black Mono Grass: grass like perennial, tiny bell shaped flowers-fall bloom time, part sun-morning sunlight only, semi-moist soil, low growth rate, 5″X8″ in size, little pruning required, disease and insect resistant
Fountain Grass: dense 30″ tall perennial grass, nearly white, 10-15″ long flower spikes borne from summer to winter, tolerates harsh conditions, cut back 6″ tall early spring, easy to grow
Hebe Autumn Glory: shrub, sun-part shade, 2′ tall X 2′wide, dark evergreen foliage w/ red-tinted margins, deep purple flower spikes in May and September
Hebe Caledonia: shrub, deep green foliage held on on burgundy stems, violet blue flowers in late spring and autumn, 18″X18″
Hebe Quicksilver: shrub, sun-part shade, 18″X18″, tiny evergreen silver leaves, small purple flowers in summer, cold hardy
Hebe Red Edge: evergreen, blue green leaved, stiff branches, mid summer lilac flowers fading to white, 18″
Hebe Mount Stewart:
Japanese Blood Grass “Red Baron”: foliage plant, full-part sun, 12-24″ tall, water weekly during dry spells, contrast green, golden, silver foliages, remove any pure green shoots as they appear 
Sedum Broad Leaved Stone Crop:
Sedum Voodoo: succulent ground cover, deep read foliage all season long, loose clusters of bright pink flowers from June-September, great for hot locations, full sun-part shade, 4″ high, spreads 16″
Shenanandoah: full sun-partial shade, 4′ tall X 2-3″ wide, blooms in summer, green leaves get red tints in July, turning totally burgundy wine by September, flower panicles follwed by seedheads, good in borders, mass plantings, and containers, plant in average to moist , fertile soil, drought and salt tolerant 
Laurelhurst Garage Sale
June 28, 2010
From the Laurelhurst garage sale 2 Saturdays ago. Shoes for me $2! Soon to be dress Polo shirt. 
Easily Distracted By Shiney & Sharp…..and Honey B.
June 25, 2010
Glasses:A-Morir…Bracelet:Patricia Field…Shoulder drama:Binkaminka Etsy…Honey B
Your Pillows Are Lovely
June 23, 2010
I smile….
Patchwork, quilt-like, stitched, confettii cupcake looking pillows available here.
THE FENCE
June 21, 2010
The fence is almost done. All that is left to do is treat and stain the cider. We hum and hawed about what stain color we wanted for several weeks and went through 2 rounds of color selections and none of them “felt” right (for me)…Amber looked to much like our neighbors house…Natural looked obvious… So the color selection was left up to me, eek! This afternoon it will be treated with an ashy-grey transparent stain. OMG! This morning I woke up with anxiety, tummy ache and all!. Worried I chose a fugly dark color that makes our brand new fence look weathered and old. A color so different from the rest of the neighborhood. A color I think E isn’t really that “into”. After some coffee + FB time I relaxed…I like this color a lot…I’m digging how the grain pops with the stain…I’m totally into the contrast of dark and light. 
Inspiration for future yarden……….
After the Rain
June 10, 2010
Car Crazzzzay
June 7, 2010
Car Talk: Boston brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi make car talk hilar! Check out their radio show! Click and Clack, ya”ll!
Car Coat: Yes more trench rather than car, loves this Burberry kids jacket!
Car Purse: Delightful clutches by Kim White. She uses vintage automotive fabrics. 
I Made Apple Pie Today
May 7, 2010
The last time I made apple pie back in November, I managed to set all the fire alarms off in the house…juice over flow…thick black smoke…Ugh…not a good experience. But today I thought I would give it another go. Both E and I separately purchased fruit this week so we now have more than usual. I used the Pate Brisee recipe from Martha Stewart. Instead of a traditional pie plate I used ramekins. The recipe was enough to fill 14 3″ ramekins.
The recipe called for chilled butter cut into small pieces. Since this was a craving-bake I did not defrost the butter in advance. I decided to use my Microplane grater and go to town on the frozen butter. Grating the butter made it much easier to mix since I was making the dough by hand. 
I divided the dough into 14 equal parts, about the size of golf balls and then formed them in a disc. I rolled the discs out to about 5″ in diameter, next time might make them a bit larger so there is more crust to fold over top 
I kept the cups chilled until the filling was ready to be added
3 apples- Granny Smith, Fugi, Braeburn. Cut apples into 1/4″-1/2″ pieces. This seemed to make filling the ramekins easier.
Cup filled to the top with a 1/2″ pat of butter.
Done and yum. 350 degrees for about 40 minutes
An apple hand pie
© 2007 Diana Pingul | Site design by 
