whitney smith

Last year at the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival, I fell in love with the work of a local bay area potter named Whitney Smith. I bought two pieces (see below) - I went back two days in a row, buying one piece the day after. I am on Whitney's mailing list and she let us know she will have some new pieces. So excited to check them out!

I have been looking forward to this year's festival more than I should probably admit. It will be this Saturday and Sunday (7/11 - 7/12) in Newell Park in Palo Alto from 10am to 5pm. I can't wait! There are other potters that I look forward to seeing too - but Whitney is my favorite.

my bird plate

my bird bowl

(my mom has it in brown and teal)

my fiance's mom gave my mom this

lovely pomegranate bud vase

p.s. Whitney Smith allows couples to register with her for their wedding... I am SO going to register with her (although my fiance thinks a $130 cake plate is ridiculous). I tell him that it is art! Lovely ceramic art! I am not sure I can wait for a wedding registry... it is too far away!

full disclosure - I took ceramics in college, and again in grad school... I know my love is not rational. It started after a trip to Italy in college on a study trip. Piles of pots!

memphis + chocolate oatmeal cookies

Tonight I am in Memphis, TN. Although this is the second time I have been to this city, I always seem to be passing through and don't get to fully appreciate the sites. I still have to make it to Graceland and try some official Memphis BBQ. My hotel is right on the Mississippi river and I went up to the roof deck to snap these photos this evening.

Check out how many air conditioning units there are on this nearby building.

The night before we left for Maui, my fiance and I celebrated our departure with champagne and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. The champagne was a gift from his sister (thanks Annie!) and the cookies were a recipe shared by Philip (our house guest last weekend). Since these cookies are now my new favorite thing, my fiance made a batch last night and packed them for my trip to TN - I am enjoying one right now! I am trying to make my little bundle of cookies last the entire trip. Thanks!!

Pacific sunset

The sunset between Molokai and Lanai on our last night in paradise. No photo could really do it justice... although I tried by taking about 50 photos.

tropical flowers

I joke that I will never have a large blog following because all I write about is stuff I do, things I eat, and pretty flowers. True to form, check out these flowers from the last couple of days.


I am not sure what type of flowers are in the first two photos, but I know the photo above is of plumerias and the photo below show an orchid on the rim of my tropical drink.

4th of July

If I was going to have a 4th of July BBQ, I would definitely want to make these sundaes with edible spoons for dessert.

Photo from Martha Stewart Living

Hope that you are having a great weekend! Happy 4th of July!

Friday

I love a three day weekend! Don't you wish you were here?

honey

My friend Rachael's parents own a farm (Sasnak Farm) in Southern Louisiana. Knowing how much I love honey, last time I was home Rachael gave me a jar of honey made from bees kept at the farm. A few weeks later, my mom sent me a little surprise gift - a ceramic honey jar! Now I have fresh Louisiana honey in a sweet little jar with a real wooden honey spoon (not sure what that is called).

Tomorrow is also Rachael's birthday - happy birthday! Wish I could be there to celebrate.

inked

Last week we had a company picnic at the Santa Cruz boardwalk - I love a work day spent in the sun. I ate hot dogs, played air hockey, rode on roller coasters, and got some airbrushed ink (my arm is on the right). Later that day when I was walking around Palo Alto, I wondered if it looked real enough for people to think it was an actual tattoo. I think the blue was too blue...

like a fish

Yesterday I went swimming at a community pool in Menlo Park. It was my first swim of summer, and just what I needed on a hot day.

p.s. this was just one of their two pools - one for family swim, one for lane swimming

the Sunday paper

Interesting article on data centers...

and

should we take our honeymoon in Southern France? This sounds pretty awesome...

I love lazy Sundays.

photo: taken yesterday in the Marin Headlands, right before sunset

mj

There are two Michael Jackson songs that I love - that I could listen to everyday - that have changed my life. The first is Billie Jean. In college it was the song I blasted while I was getting ready to go out. My roommates always started by making fun of me, but in the end we were all leaping around to Billie Jean with a drink in one hand and our make up in the other.

The second song is called "Ben" and I have put a link to it below. My best guy friend from college is named Ben and I used to sing this song to him. I believe the song was for a 1970s movie called Ben about a guy who befriends a rat (remade in the last ten years). It is a sweet song about friendship and it still makes me smile.

friday

On Friday's I like to post fun photos. Here is a friend with one of his chickens - Ashlay. Looking forward to the opportunity to try fresh eggs in a few weeks. :)

Have a great weekend!

home improvement

A few months ago we got some design advice on what to do with our living room. Knowing that I loved the blog thisyounghouse.com, my fiance had bought me their design service for a Christmas present. They suggested that we recover our piano bench. Many months later, I just got around to recovering our piano bench last night.

I had bought two yards of the recommended patterned fabric in February from fabric.com - some to cover the bench, and some to make pillows (eventually).

I didn't actually know how to recover a bench, but luckily John and Sherry at thisyounghouse.com had written about it a few month ago. I bought a staple gun at target last weekend so I was all ready to go.

I think that the finished product came out pretty well!

Pretty awesome change I think.

strange flowers

On Friday, we were walking in the Sunset to meet Alison and Eli for dinner when I stopped to take photos of these strange flowers that caught my eye. They were growing in a flower box in front of someones driveway. I had never seen anything like them before - what crazy blue fringe, what an unusual spectrum of colors, what an interesting raised center!

Does anyone know what they are?

UPDATE: http://www.passionflower.org/

"We had these all over Mississippi. The maypops taste like slimy guava. The flowers refer to the passion of Christ. Read more above! I love you! Mom"

perspective

I wish to be misunderstood,

that is,

to be understood from your perspective.

- Bill Knott "wrong"

The summer before I met my fiance, I bought a book of poetry and read them before bed. I had just read this poem a few days before my first date with my now fiance and for some reason it has always stuck - a poem that I memorized by accident. There is something sly and subversive about this poem and I like it.

spring cleaning

I just realized that if you subscribe via reader to my blog, that you will need to change the subscription settings from "seablueseegreen.blogspot.com" to "www.seablueseegreen.com" to continue to see the feed. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Have a good week and let me know if you have any problems.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy father's day dad! I went through my photos from the past few years and pulled up some good ones to celebrate the day. My dad is one of the most generous people I know. He is always there to help others and is a constantly inspiring me to be more generous with my time and energy. He has always been there to set a good example for the six of us and we appreciate it all the time, but especially on father's day.

Here is a good photo - this is how much banana pudding we were able to convince my dad to try at New Year's. Notice that it consists of 1 nilla wafer and a little whipped cream. My dad doesn't eat fruit (bananas included). I think that is pretty funny.

My grandmother memaw lived with us for many years before she passed away. Here is my dad in 1981 with my mom's mom (we called her memaw). Notice the characteristic white linen suit.


Here is a cute father daughter pic taken at the wedding of a good friend (Tracy). He drove all the way out to the very furthest suburbs of New Orleans to pick me up so I wouldn't have to drive. All through high school Tracy and I had joint birthday parties, so my dad came in to say congrats.

Here is my dad with two of his brothers - John on the left and Jim on the right. His brother Joe passed away a few years ago. This photo was taken after a post-Christmas trip to Galatoire's a few years ago.

Somehow my parents have managed to stay sane after raising SIX kids. This photo was taken about 2 years ago. The biggest difference is now Patrick is literally a foot taller - and is now the tallest one in the family.

No father's day post would be complete without mentioning my brother and his sweet baby girl - now two years old.

Happy father's day to all dads and dads-to-be!

crabs

Last night we went out to dinner in SF with Alison and Eli at a restaurant in the sunset called Thanh Long. They are known for their roasted dungeness crab (see above). Between the four of us we ordered 3 and dug in - bibs and all. It was a great time! Alison - have a safe trip back to Shanghai!

friendly friday

Last night I had the good fortune of seeing my former roomies Julie and Julia. We got dinner at Plutos and then ice cream at a new place in Palo Alto where you pay by weight (thus the big cups above). Tonight I will see Eli and Alison (who is in from Shanghai for the weekend), and I am so excited. Have a great weekend!

Joe T. Wilson Ball

This is a photo of Joe T. Wilson Ball - my maternal great grandmother (my mother's mother's mother). I thought it was an interesting photo, I particularly love how Joe T. is framed by the tree and its shadow.

update from my mom: "I love this picture, too, it's very atmospheric. It was taken in Kansas right after she married my grandfather. I think she was lonely there and she didn't like how flat Kansas was and how the wind blew all the time and blew dust into every crack and cranny in her house. She's standing behind the wall because she is pregnant and in the 20's one didn't advertise when they were "in the family way". Mom"