Kim Thompson, Broker
Windermere Real Estate
360-296-3431
bellinghamlifestyle@gmail.com

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

My Silver Collection

Once in a while I have an Eddie Ross moment and find cool stuff at Goodwill. I found a silver-plated tureen the other day, just waiting to be polished. Today was one of those days I have a burst of energy and feel that I can tackle anything (no, I'm not about to give birth). So I did some cleaning (I know it doesn't happen very often lately.)  Call me crazy but I find it very soothing to polish silver. You see such a big difference after just a couple of minutes of scrubbing and it's very rewarding.

Before
After

Here are some items from my collection. I love it. I guess I will stop collecting them when polishing becomes a chore.

Monday, September 27, 2010

What to do with Green Tomatoes

It was a sad day for hubby. He had to get rid of all our tomato plants that were doing so well. They got a fungus called Late Blight.
Early blight close-up

 This is what Cornell University said about it.

Late blight is a plant disease that mainly attacks potatoes and tomatoes, although it can sometimes be found on other crops, weeds and ornamentals in the same botanical family (Solanaceae). Other plants that late blight may infect include petunia, nightshades, and tomatillos.  Late blight was a factor in the Irish potato famine in the 1850’s, during which millions of people in Ireland starved or were forced to emigrate. Entire potato crops rotted in the field or in storage because of late blight infection. 

Because it travels by air we had to remove the plants immediately. We don't want Idaho potato farmers to starve right? Look at our green tomato harvest. Our kitchen looked great with so much greenery. The green tomatoes were not edible at this point. Now what can we do with them was the question.


This is what hubby did: Frying tomato slices with cornmeal batter. It was really good with kind of lemony sour flavor.  It proved that anything is edible when you fry it.

Hope you enjoyed our (partially) nice weekend.



Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Chickens in the city



So the Iowan farmer side of my hubby wants to raise a few chickens for eggs (no rooster) in our back yard. I'm not sure how I feel about that. So many questions came to my mind: are we allowed to do that, will it be a lot of work, will they annoy the neighbors, will they make our back yard messy, will they attract their predators to our yard? Sure, it will be educational and fun for the kids to learn responsibility, help to feed and collect fresh eggs, but as you can see those questions are all worries. We live in the city and I know there is quite a big community of chicken-raising families in Bellingham. But maybe it is for people with huge lots. I don't know.

I think, ahem, I think I might consider it with a chicken coop this cool.


 Please share your experience with us if you have raised or are raising chickens in your own yard or have a neighbor  who does. What are your thoughts on raising chickens in the city?

Monday, September 20, 2010

Story of Mr. and Mrs. Fu

Do you see what I see?
Source: House Beautiful

There are lots of similarities, but I was immediately drawn to the old Chinese paintings. A Chinese friend told me long that in China people used to commission artists to get their ancestors painted and hang them in a temple for good luck. So I guess they are antiques.

Let me introduce Mr. and Mrs. Fu waiting patiently in my closet to be framed.


Aren't they cute? It is one of many possessions from Craigslist that I had to have at the moment but ended up in our garage or closet. It's not because I don't like them. In fact, I adore them. They are such an intricate realistic painting but the frames are kind of ugly. Plus the paintings pressed against the glass for a long time so it was going to hurt the painting eventually if it hasn't already. I say they deserve better.

The seller of these paintings was a local business man who's moving to Thailand to get remarried and  had lots of interesting stories to tell about the process (but that's for another posting). He told me it is from an antique store in Hawaii that his ex-wife used to own many many years ago. I brought them home and found a corner of the frame's paint was peeling.  Hubby said let's just hang them. I said no I want to make them look better. So I started "making improvements" and scraping off the finish from the frame and that's how they disappeared in the closet. You can see I deliberately cropped their frames. 

Now I have some inspiration from these living rooms (don't worry honey, I'm not redoing our living room) and know I need to bite the bullet and re-frame them. Hopefully Mr. and Mrs. Fu will be able see daylight soon and who knows, it might bring me some good luck. Ha ha

Friday, September 17, 2010

Cute miniature Australian shepherd anyone?

My friend has a super adorable 8 month old pure bred miniature Australian shepherd and she can't keep him anymore. He is potty trained and all the shots are current. He's got lots of energy just like other puppies. I wish I could adopt him, but Jina's allergic. Is there anyone interested? My friend really wants him to go to a good home so she wants to interview.

This is Sebastian 4 months ago. He's TOO cute.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Veggie garden

Today I was looking at some of the photos of our yard from last year and I couldn't believe the difference. It's still a work in progress (well, who am I kidding. It will always be a work in progress) but I'm very happy with what we have accomplished so far. Here are the before and after pictures (not quite the completed after but you know)

Before


After

We had fun creating our front veggie garden with great design help from my brother-in-law, Ian, at Private Gardens, and our neighbor, Bob. He built the fence and gave us all sorts of great ideas and amazing help. We are so blessed with great neighbors. I should mention my hubby built the raised bed. (Thank you!) The incredibly talented interior designer, Brooke, at Velvet and Linen had this post about her kitchen garden, and it was so inspiring. 

Brooke's garden

My mom planted this kubota squash and they are doing great. (Mom , I miss you)

I'm loving these sunflowers. Our beans did really well covering the trellis on the right entirely. On the other hand, our cucumbers were suppose to cover the left side trellis but they didn't do so well this year.

I couldn't agree more with Brooke that having a veggie garden can help kids eat healthier. Our daughter Ella loves eating our home-grown green beans, lettuce, and carrots (cooked at least). Before we grew them in the garden, she crinkled her nose every time she saw them on the table. Here she is harvesting strawberries right into her mouth.


Oh my, time has flown by!

It was Ella's first day of school in kindergarten. Ella was so excited that she hardly could finish her favorite cereal and she was giggly all morning. She even let me pick her clothes to wear and wanted to look her best for the camera.
Jina was super happy for her sister too.


I'm so proud of my girls!!!!

Bungalow

It's no secret that I love old homes. You just can't find the character of old homes in a new house. Look at this Pagoda bungalow, for example. What big personality for such a small house. Love. Love. Love.


Beach Bungalow did this post a while ago about bungalows.

http://beachbungalow8.blogspot.com/2010/04/bungalow-living-elsewhere.html

Whatcom Artist Studio Tour 2010

Every fall, one of the things we enjoy is to tour Whatcom artist studios. For the most part we just drool over beautiful pieces of art and dream about owning one when we win the lottery. But, it's a lot of fun to drive around downtown or down rural roads on a nice autumn day and chat with local artists.

I'm dying to see these gorgeous paintings in person by Yvette Newmann, Robert Todd, Ruthie V, Lorna Libert and Ben Mann.




First two weekends in October between 10am-5pm.
Check it out.


meet Kim

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