Saturday morning and a few Japanese things

Holy Cow, did we have some thunder and lightning last night! It's 9:15am and I'm loving my Saturday morning. It's still raining out and that makes it perfect for lounging around in my husband's dress shirt, sipping coffee, reading and sewing. I'm savoring all of this because by lunch time, we will be driving in the car for a few hours. Let me recap the morning:

Lounging around in Breen's shirt sipping coffee:


This morning I made two new cloth journal covers with some fabric I found yesterday. I'm absolutely IN LOVE with this fabric. The gorgeous lantern blossoms evoke the feeling of Japan for me. I still need to add some ties, but they're almost ready for my Etsy shop! Go on over here for a browse around The Painted House.



And speaking of Japan, yesterday I found these adorable sandals at the local Japanese store. This is the best $10 I've spent since San Diego!


I'm reading Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto, a Japanese writer. Last night I came across a passage that literally floored me. I'm going to share it with you now:

Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.

Here's the dinner Max made last night. He's an awesome cook and I try to encourage him to keep at it. Not only is preparing food a blissful experience, it opens one to the possibilities of trying all sorts of new things. I'm still committed to eating meatless and proud of myself for sticking to it. Everyone here raves about "Max's chicken". I'm sure I'm missing out on one hell of a culinary treat.