Stories | the unreasonable quest for potatoes

I’m assuming most of my readers have easy access to a local grocery store, and if it’s like mine, you can pretty much buy anything you want there year-round. You might have to hit a few places to find a specific, rare ingredient, but you can probably find almost everything on your list. When shopping […]
Original Art Sale Preview | August 13, 2026

The next original art sale is Thursday, August 13, 2026, at 1:00 pm Eastern (New York) or noon for presale subscribers. If you subscribe HERE, you can shop the sale at noon before it opens to everyone else. (This isn’t a blog subscription. You will only receive emails with presale information for this and future […]
Stories | grocery shopping, cooking, and eating in Russia

I need to preface this post by saying that I have always been a picky eater. I wasn’t a picky eater in that I wouldn’t try new things or that I didn’t like vegetables. I actually loved a lot of vegetables that most kids won’t touch. I could eat an entire artichoke by myself […]
Slipcovered recliner ottoman

Last week, I shared about the hand-me-down recliner I slipcovered. You can read about that HERE. A couple of weeks after I finished sewing the slipcover, I made a cover for the matching ottoman. I’ve shared here many times over the years that I don’t particularly enjoy sewing, but I continue to do it because […]
four things | eighty-two

It was a beautiful morning for late July, a gift really, so I decided to spend some time outside in the garden to do some weeding and trimming. It’s the time of year when I usually get tired of the maintenance, and it’s too hot to enjoy being outside, but this week has been a […]
Stories | Our Apartment in Izhevsk, Russia

All of our fellow travelers from the US and Canada stayed with Russian families for our summer in Izhevsk. Since I was under 18 and my dad had his own apartment, I would be staying with him. My dad rented this apartment for a few years, so he had his own place to stay when […]
slipcovered recliner | take two

I shared a couple of weeks ago that my parents gave us an old recliner that was much better than the Facebook Marketplace recliner we’d been using. I was hesitant to replace it simply because I spent so much time making a slipcover for it, but it wasn’t the best recliner ever. There was a […]
Move Slow & Make Things | Giveaway No. 4

The launch of my new book, Move Slow & Make Things, is just a few weeks away! September 1 feels like it’s far on the horizon, but it really is right around the corner. I’m excited to share our next giveaway to celebrate the book’s launch, showcase some of its themes, and highlight another artisan who […]