Dear Friend,

2012-02-26T21:03:00.002-06:00

Dear friend,

Spring comes little by little. Brought by the littlest things, on the littlest wings.

Rebekka

2012-02-21T08:09:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Hi! Happy Tuesday! Mardi Gras, if you celebrate that kind of thing, which I do. Every year my friends and I eat pancakes and have a pancake flipping contest (which gets really heated). And now, you know I am a complete and total dork who flips pancakes on Mardi Gras. Embarrassing.

I've been painting so many house portraits lately that I can't feature all of them on the blog, but I wanted to show you some of my favorites as of late. The owner of the house above requested that a squirrel be painted into the illustration because his dog loves squirrels. Precious!

I was really excited when Sara Hicks Malone of Sara's Party Perfect ordered a portrait, because I remember seeing her home featured a while back on Design Sponge, and fell in love with her pretty yellow door and warm, modern aesthetic. And she lives in Nashville!

This one was created for the fabulous Mar Jennings, of his beautiful home Rosebrook Gardens. His home is right out of a storybook!

Our Zoo: I love that! Apparently, this family has a lot of little boys and they refer to their home as their zoo!

If you are interested in getting a house portrait painted, I have started an email list of people to contact once I start taking new orders, which will be sometime this spring for portraits to be painted August-November 2012. If you would like to be on the list, just email me at Rebekkaseale@me.com and I will add you!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Rebekka

2012-02-19T16:12:00.001-06:00

Dear friend,

It has been the drowsiest, most languid weekend in the history of weekends, but in the most delicious way. The sun hasn't bothered to come out and neither have I. Instead, I've been in my pajamas since Saturday morning, painting and watching gigantic flakes of snow and fat raindrops fall, alternately, in front of my window. It seems long, the way weekends seem when you are little and they stretch on forrrr-evvv-errr. Why does that change as you get older? My sister came over and did laundry yesterday which was the most action we saw all day. We watched a movie and even popped popcorn! That was exciting. And today I made heart-shaped jam pies.

I remember learning, at one point, that the secret to really good pie dough is for it to be more like a mixture than a compound...scientifically speaking...that the butter and salt and flour should be evenly distributed throughout the dough without losing their distinctness. That is, without turning into a whole new thing. I always try to remember this when I make pastry, and the only way to really get there is to just keep everything freezing cold. If I could spend my whole life's savings on one luxury item, it would be marble countertops for rolling out pie dough, and for sprawling on in the sweltering summer months. I wouldn't even care if they got scratched.

Just thinking about summer makes me ache for berries and fireflies and heavy twilights. One thing I always plan to do but never actually do is make jam. By golly, this summer I will make jam! When I was little, in south Alabama, I used to make jam and juice with wild dewberries, but I don't think we have those in Nashville. Do we? I could dream of wild berry jam from now until Memorial Day.

The wonderful thing about the way our seasons work on this Earth is that, right when you're in the thick of one that seems to stretch on so dreadfully long it will never end, the next one comes along like a white knight, and you fall in love with it, and thus you fall in love with all of them.

Kind of sneaky, Seasons.

Love,

Rebekka

***PS: Cherry Blossoms {The Blog} is giving away a set of the three flower prints from my Etsy shop! If you'd like to enter to win them click here!***

2012-02-16T14:29:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

This dress from Dear Golden Vintage arrived in the post this morning, and I think it is the single most beautiful thing I have ever bought. It's actually a 1930's nightgown (in the palest, most perfect robin's egg blue!) but I'm already trying to figure out how to wear it outside the house. Her shop is so good, so thoughtfully curated. Look at this! Sheer, silken pre-1940's dresses and nightgowns just do me in every time. They are just so special. Precious. I saw this dress the other day and almost lost my lunch. That embroidery! I looks as if it were created by magic rather than needle and thread.

I'm thinking I'd like to sew a whole wardrobe this spring. Simple things....really simple...dresses and blouses in linen and plain cotton and Liberty lawn. I'm itching to uncover my sewing machine and I actually had a dream the other night involving the sound of dressmaking shears crunching through quilting cotton. Usually, sewing holds no great allure for me...it's overwhelming to even begin...it's such a process!

But springtime always feels just right for processes. All sorts.

I am still eating chocolate from Valentine's Day. Manley did very well on the chocolate front. Right now I'm finishing this one, which I love because it's actually very spicy. I really like spicy chocolate.

Love,

Rebekka

2012-02-13T10:26:00.001-06:00

Dear friend,

Although, truthfully, I spent most of the weekend tucked away painting (I have GOT to stop working on weekends!), we did manage to celebrate two VERY chilly days in style. Painfully chilly. Windy chilly. Perfect for two days of toasty brunches and ducking into cozy shops to hide from the icy wind. And eating cupcakes, which, as far as I'm concerned, are still in style. And hearts! My friend Mary made these for me because she knows I make them every year but thought perhaps I wouldn't have time to this year. I think that's one of the most thoughtful gestures I have ever received. And tomorrow is Valentine's Day. What are your plans?

Love,

Rebekka

2012-02-10T16:43:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Well, unless I am hallucinating or my contacts have clouded or I drank too much coffee, there is SNOW FALLING FROM THE SKY right NOW! Real, actual, snow!!! Of course, it will probably only last half a second or so, and being that this is middle Tennessee we'll probably be at a pool party or something tonight, but for right now, it is snow.

This is one of the house portraits from the batch I painted last week, and it's my new favorite. Two words: Brick. Chimney. I sure wish I had a brick chimney right about now, in front of which I would snuggle and knit myself through this tiny slice of winter we've been dished up.

I hope your weekends are warm and cozy and restful!

Love,

Rebekka

2012-02-08T12:01:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

So I THINK, (fingers crossed, knock on wood), I've figured out this bread thing, once and for all. It's your typical no-knead recipe, adapted for sourdough and baked in a La Cloche rather than a Dutch oven. There is still room for improvement, of course, but we are pretty pleased with ourselves right now.

I think we are hibernating. It's funny how you can find yourself hunkering down for a season that doesn't actually happen, as if the rhythm of the year is lodged in your subconscious so deeply that you can't escape it. We've had no real reason to hibernate, yet we have been doing so faithfully. Our days have been sunny and warm and everything else, but all I want to do is stay inside and perfect my sourdough. Thank you, fake winter, for at least allowing me the luxury of pretending I need to stay indoors and figure out bread all the time. It has been all about bread around here lately. Here is our schedule, loosely, lately: Wake up (early), French press coffee (hot, and lots of it). Light candles. Stay tucked in bed with coffee as long as possible. Check email and package up Etsy orders. Bake bread. Manley goes to work, I go for a long run where I sort out all the ramblings clattering around in my head. Eat bread. More coffee. Settle in for a long afternoon of painting. Manley comes home and we cook supper. Mix the bread to be baked the following morning.

And then, there are - of course - sandwiches. Have I ever told you about my devotion to homemade pimiento cheese? I love it from the very rock-bottom of my heart and almost passed clean out when I saw the article in the February edition of Southern Living. Five different recipes (I see lots of pimiento cheese sampler platters in the parties of my future) as well as what they call the "Mother of all Pimiento cheese sandwiches". And I think that's precisely what it is. Spicy pecan-studded pimiento cheese topped with bacon and (get this) strawberry preserves, all between buttered and toasted slices of sourdough bread. Dang. It's literally the most delicious sandwich I've ever eaten. Truthfully.

Miss Mattie's Southern Pimiento Cheese

(from Southern Living February 2012)

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 cup mayonnaise

1 (7 oz jar) diced pimientos, drained

1/2 cup chopped jarred sweet-hot jalapeno pepper slices

4 cups freshly grated mild cheddar cheese

Bake pecans in a shallow pan at 350 degrees until toasted and fragrant, 8-10 minutes. Cool 20 minutes. Stir together mayonnaise, pimientos, peppers, 1 Tbsp. liquid from the peppers, and toasted pecans. Stir in cheddar cheese until well blended. Oh, and then make the sandwich pictured!

Love,

Rebekka

2012-02-07T08:33:00.002-06:00

Dear friend,

My friend Colleen just listed these pretty etched glasses in her Etsy shop...eeee! I love them so much. She has "His & Hers", "Mr. & Mrs." and will etch custom names as well! I think these would make the sweetest Valentine's Day gift. Oh, but it looks like you have to buy them now because she won't be able to ship after the 9th. Hurry hurry!!!

<3

Rebekka

(photos by Hannah Messinger)

2012-02-03T12:22:00.003-06:00

Dear friend,

There hasn't been much knitting going on around these parts lately, I am sad to say. It's just so difficult when what you require for a cozy afternoon of knitting are smoky skies, kettles of tea, pots of chocolate, peppermint marshmallows, and campfire weather. Your needles all in a row. Yarn properly sorted in the basket. And perhaps a purple, snow-capped mountain or two looming in the distance. Is that too much to ask?

I'm expecting to lose all interest in this pastime come April, when the daffodils surface along with my sewing machine for sherbert-colored batiste dresses and summer quilts.

I mean, let's be honest, I'm now actually baffled by this weather, even for Tennessee, who I thought for sure could throw me no new red herrings. It reminds me of our first winter here...Manley and I were renting the oldest, most charming home that was literally falling apart. We moved here that October, anxious for a "real winter" (those of you who live above the Mason-Dixon line, I KNOW you are chuckling right now). Manley was so excited he practically fell asleep each night with his face pressed against the windowpane, lulled to sleep by the promise of snow that just never came. No snow in December. January: nothing.

And then one mid-February morning, we woke up to a strange and muffled silence. I had made these and hung them in our kitchen window, right above the ancient and ginormous ceramic tub sink we used to scrub with baking soda, and that morning the light streaming through them was brilliant. And there it was, a blanket of snow. More like a duvet, really. It was a full-blown frenzy after that. Our one white Christmas was dreamy too, but I think I'd even trade it for a snowy Valentine's day. All those hearts in all that white. I don't know if we'll have that this year.

But until then, what I do have is this hat, which I finished yesterday and is Ravelry-ied here. This lady sent me this yarn, and I fell fast in love. It is SOOOO soft, almost velvety, and seems to hold its shape a little better than the Malabrigo I've been so enamored by.

New things I learned while knitting this hat:

1. Making a pom-pom with cardboard circles. I vaguely remember doing something similar to this in the third grade, but I don't remember it feeling like such a revelation!

2. Stranded colorwork. And, at the end, stranded colorwork with four double-pointed-needles. Scary.

3. Continental-style knitting, for the contrasting color. I feel so cultured now!

So, I'm learning slowly, but next winter I will be prepared. Now I'm afraid it's time for me to make a pot of coffee and settle in for a long afternoon of painting. You know what they say, man can not live by knitting alone. Or...something like that.

Love,

Rebekka

2012-02-01T06:23:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Here's wishing you all sweetness in the world this month: Blazing fires on frigid nights, and shimmery snow if your winter has been anything but. May your hands be kept warm by steaming cocoa, may you be intoxicated by the perfume of flowers, and may you lavish love on all those dear to you.

Sister Winter may have forgotten about us this year, but I'm still waiting for her. I'm holding out for hearts and snow :)

(click here to download February desktop calendar)

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-30T16:14:00.000-06:00

Dear friends,

Introducing: My new favorite.

It's those red doors.

They get me every time.

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-28T06:11:00.001-06:00

Dear friends,

I'm so happy to announce that the new Rebekkaseale.com is up and running. Yay! I was fortunate enough to work with the marvelously talented Australia-based Tabitha Emma, who was patient and dear the whole way through. I hope you love it as much as I do!

The weekend...it is here. What sort of mischief are you getting into? I will be tucked away painting house portraits for most of it, but also have a trip to the Farmer's Market planned, and perhaps a few more tricks up my sleeve. I hope yours is cozy and full of rest.

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-24T12:37:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

The sky was bleary. I made sandwiches. There was firewood. She made almond madeleines. They were scrumptious.

She brought cheese. He made candy. We drank wine. It was Arrington, after all.

I think picnics are for every season :)

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-22T10:14:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

I woke up extra early this morning to finish my batch of house portraits for the week. I literally squealed when the owner of this home emailed me her photos....those shutters! Those RED DOORS! Oh, dear, I think I might faint. You should see some of the homes I'll be painting over the next few months. There are some really charming ones that I can't wait to show you. So about these...

I'm listing another batch in the shop tomorrow (Monday) morning, probably about 10 of them or so. That will have me booked through the end of July on these, and then I'm not sure what I'll do? It feels funny to take orders so far in advance, especially since we aren't sure just what our lives will look like this summer. So perhaps I'll just start a waiting list for Christmas 2012. I felt so sad that there were folks who really wanted these for Christmas this year and weren't able to get one in time. This year I'll start in August!!! House portraits for everybody!!!!

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-19T17:33:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

If January is citrus, February is chocolate. After all, good intentions can only last so long. Apparently, mine didn't even make it through the month. Behold, exhibit A:

Lord have mercy. Dark salted chocolate pots de creme. Winter won't last forever, and these just aren't the same without cozy sweater leggings and whispers of snow.

Oh yes, and then there's my sourdough. So about this sourdough business, I am trying really hard, people...really hard here! So far I have made six very, very bad loaves ranging from mushy pancake to dangerous brick, and two sort-of-dreadful loaves, and one okay one and now this: the almost-good-one!

This is the recipe I've been consistently using, and though my bread is nowhere near the golden-crusted, cavernous-crumbed bread of my dreams.... it is bread, which is more than I can say about the first forty-six thousand loaves.

Now, back to this:

Be careful, now...this is chocolate so good it's likely to make you fall in love with the whole wide world.

Salted Chocolate Pots de Creme

(adapted from Bon Appetit)

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup whole milk

5 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

6 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar

a few pinches of coarse sea salt

Directions: Preheat oven to 375. Bring cream and milk just to simmer in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat, and add chocolate. Whisk until melted and smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk yolks and sugar together to blend. Gradually whisk chocolate into yolks. Strain mixture into another bowl. Cool 10 minutes, and pour into custard cups or souflee dishes. Sprinkle a pinch of sea salt into each cup. Place cups in large baking pan, and add enough hot water to pan to come halfway up the sides of the cups. Bake until custards are set but centers move slightly when jiggled, about 50 minutes. Remove from water, and chill custards until cold, about 3 hours.

Top with whipped cream and cinnamon!

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-16T16:33:00.002-06:00

Dear friend,

Now that we are back home and settled in, I can gush properly about our weekend and the city that has worked its way so powerfully into our hearts. Oh, but first...thank you! Thank you ever so much for all the kind anniversary wishes. I read them all to Manley and his smile grew sweeter by the comment. He is a SWEET HEART. I knew that the moment I first saw him, seven years ago this month, standing in the kitchen of a Birmingham apartment. In a matter of moments I knew that I was his and there was nothing I could do about it. All I could even think about for the next five months were lamp black eyes and dark curls. And that sweet smile of his. I was in trouble. And then, in June, we were engaged.

I know you really aren't supposed to marry someone within a year of meeting them. He knew that, too, but we like to do things our own way anyhow. Birmingham is called the Magic City because, when it sprung up in the late 1800's, it thrived and grew so quickly that people said it happened "Just like magic". I suppose a little of that magic found its way into our whirlwind of a courtship...it all happened so quickly you'd have missed it if you blinked.

Sigh. It seems like just yesterday we were at the Veranda eating cherry-braised duck and waffles and being serenaded by a Dixieland jazz trio. Oh, that's right...it's because we were :)

You see, anybody who really knows Birmingham knows it's all about the food.

All that charm....well, that's just icing on the cake :)

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-14T22:46:00.005-06:00

Dear friend,

Six years ago today we got married here in the "Magic City", the one they call Birmingham, Alabama. The night was black and frigid, but the stars were so bright they looked like spilled milk.

These past six years haven't been easy. In fact, not one of them has been "easy". We've been through a lot. But so what?

Here we are...six years later...full of dreams as we ever were.

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-10T12:45:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Saturday morning, after much scurrying around the loft for batteries and a tripod and what-not, I hopped on the Megabus and meandered through Tennessee foothill after Tennessee foothill on my way to Chattanooga. Sitting and watching this state of ours through the bus windows reminds me how arresting its beauty is. You don't get to look that much when you drive. At least, you shouldn't.

My Chattanooga friend Sarah, one of my oldest and dearest, was celebrating her birthday over the weekend, and it just so happens that she is also enrolled in the very same online photography class as we are ...imagine that.

Naturally we used "doing our photography homework together" as an excuse to eat pastries, run through paths in picturesque cemeteries, pick through cabbages in community gardens, and ride around planning "adventures".

I'm getting there. Ever so slowly. At night I dream about equivalent exposures even though I'm still not sure what they are. I'm learning my camera, and I'm learning it's kind of exasperating. Sarah's is much less so. We will get there. We are in no hurry.

Hope you are all having a spectacular week so far!

Love,

Rebekka

***OH! PS: Thanks to this incredible Design Sponge feature, I am now booked on house portraits through early June. Lordy Mercy!!! I will still be listing a few in the shop each week, but slowly, in an effort to stay on top of the orders I already have. If you are interested in purchasing one and the listing says "Sold Out", please keep checking back, as it will most likely be re-listed in a week or so :) Thank you so much to everyone who has already placed orders. I can't wait to start on them!

2012-01-05T21:44:00.005-06:00

Dear friend,

My whole life savings in yarn. I've taken to sitting on the sofa each day after lunch with a cappucino and a crochet hook, crocheting granny squares while midday sunlight slants in through the windows. It's so relaxing, almost like a nap. This candle is lit, and something like the Moonlight Sonata is playing on Pandora. I never get tired of the Moonlight Sonata. It can come on forty times a day on the Pandora classical station...and every time...I think, "Oh! The Moonlight Sonata. Now isn't that romantic?"

We started our photography class and already I'm overwhelmed. Would you believe that I never knew what an F-stop was until yesterday? I even took a black and white photography class in college and somehow came out of that not knowing what an F-stop was, but that was way back in 2001 when I didn't actually know what anything was. You should have seen me back then. I was a lot of fun.

But, regarding these photography lessons, and the granny squares, and the sourdough baking: I'm having quite a time learning how to do things most people have been doing for like 100 years. C'est la vie.

Anyhow, I have Big Plans for these granny squares. The ones above were mostly spun in a lavendar/dusky/candy apple red/with hints of say, a forest floor. But see, that was before I blew all of my Christmas money on yarn. Now I have a very large stash in colors like Apple Cinnamon and Apricot and Mint. Oh, and my favorite...Sealing Wax, the most perfect and evocatively named red I've ever seen. So the squares will turn into a very big, soft rainbow of bright and fancy colors tempered by the muddy, earthy ones I love so much. And then all of them into a blanket, under which I will snuggle on blustery afternoons.

(No doubt while listening to the Moonlight Sonata.)

Dear friends, now bundle up and enjoy your weekends!!!

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-03T08:04:00.001-06:00

Dear friend,

These quiet holidays in our neighborhood are so peaceful. Weekends for Miles. A Sunday Christmas and a Sunday New Year's mean emptied downtown Mondays. New Year's left quite an aftermath on our block. The old cobblestone streets of Printer's Alley were barely visible under the sparkling blanket of broken glass. A veritable sea! We were not there. We spent New Year's, like we always do, with the same friends, dressing in costume and eating soup and setting off fireworks. It is a sacred tradition.

So our neighborhood is just now beginning to wake up from all that. The tourists are mostly gone now, the honkey-tonks on Broadway yesterday were the deadest I've ever seen them. January 2. I suppose nobody resolves to spend more time in a honkey-tonk?

I resolved to do a lot of things. Did you? Among my resolutions this year: Make a desktop calendar every month, become a master sourdough bread baker, knit this Advent calendar before next year, visit the Eudora Welty house in Mississippi, volunteer more in the community, become a better photographer (Manley and I are taking this class together right now!) and about a hundred other things. Get in a ballet class! Join the Yacht Club (ahahaha!). Read books! Dress up more! Wear fancy shoes! I should stop now.

We have miles to go with you, Winter. And I love you still!

Love,

Rebekka

2012-01-01T20:00:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Happy New Year! Merry Christmas! All of it! I hope you had and are having the very best holiday season and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Over here, we are rested and happy and gearing up to go back to work tomorrow. As promised, I'll re-list the house portraits in the shop tomorrow morning, and start taking orders for those again!

I made you a desktop calendar, with bunches of orange blossoms and sunshine-colored citrus. Fresh and new and bright and clean.

Happy January, and Happy New Year!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-12-22T06:36:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

They are all done! Signed, packaged, stamped, posted. Done! Until next year. Which is actually next week. Help me Rhonda!!!

Okay, no it's not. I have a good week and a half of holiday break, starting right now, during which I will walk around in shearling-lined slippers, take bubble baths, eat chocolate croissants and crochet a whole rainbow of granny squares. A Long Winter's Nap.

And, then, on January 2, I'll relist them in the shop for another go-around. And secretly... I can't wait!! I LOVE painting these dear little darlings. I can barely show you any of them now because most of them are for Christmas presents, but I've been given clearance to share the one above. It's one of my very favorites...such a pretty Spanish villa! I don't know who the "Kings" are, but I would like to move in with them sooner than later.

And, speaking of homes, our loft is featured on the Life Made Lovely blog today! Hop over there if you want to take a peek inside our home and listen to me babble on about decorating and cleaning products and such. Yikes!

Okay, I am signing off until January 2. Hope your holidays are full of light and love!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,

Rebekka

2011-12-20T09:04:00.001-06:00

Dear friend,

Hi there. How are you!? It's beginning to look...not just a little...but a whole heap like Christmas around here if you ask me. I am trying to turn our apartment into a jungle...Can you tell? Poor Trader Joe's. I think I have diminished their eucalyptus and ilex berry supply until next Christmas. I made these cranberry and almond cakes, but as a bundt cake. Do you ever bake with almond flour? I am falling in love. It just seems so crumbly, buttery, and hearty when it bakes up, and tastes so... nourishing? (for lack of a better word). Yesterday afternoon, in a fit of whimsy, I made these, and they are scrumptious. I'm eating one right now, in fact, with my coffee. Mmmmm.

Everything is red and green and silver.

I knitted a neckwarmer! It's the "ripple cowl" pattern on Ravelry (my project is here) and I knitted it up in Malabrigo Worsted Merino "Simply Taupe", which felt mostly like knitting a cloud the whole way through. I have discovered that my preference for yarn borders on the irrational: the more it feels like I'm knitting something impossible, like snow or twilight or buttercream frosting, the better. And it seems that I'll be tethered to kettle-dyed yarns for all eternity now. The subtle variegation within each skein does me in every time. You can kind of see it in the top photo, how the rows of stockinette stitches drift from silver to fog to lavender to snow. I think they actually call it a "semisolid". I call it "exquisite".

And then, cherry-colored vintage wooden buttons from my ever-growing collection. This was a birthday present for a friend, whose heater promptly went out the day she received it, and she slept in it. Wait, so these confections I've been knitting actually work? Who knew?

:)

Rebekka

2011-12-19T08:30:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Did you know ice cream was good in even in Winter?

It's true.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-12-15T10:36:00.002-06:00

Dear friend,

Oh dear. Things are starting to get really frazzly around here. I'm afraid I've spent more time with the man at the post office than my own husband. I am alllllmost finished with holiday house portrait orders. I'm working with Galison on something (I love them!). Knitting christmas presents. At this point, I feel like if things actually come together for me this year I'll be a fortunate lady. I am, well...for the lack of a better word...distressed.

But, also, one of my friends made a Saint Germain cake for one of my other friends. I helped host Manley's architecture firm's holiday party. I am gathering bunches and sprigs of Eucalyptus leaves to fancify our loft. I made crab bisque. There is peppermint tea on the stove right now. So good things are happening too.

Last Christmas, we went to our church's midnight Christmas Eve candlelight vigil. When we entered the sanctuary, it was ten o'clock pm and so very black out, pitch black, one of the darkest nights of the whole year. When we walked out at midnight, everything was silver and silent in the moonlight. Magically, in those two hours, the church had been frosted with a blanket of snow. It hushed the world in that dreamlike way that freshly fallen snow does. It was so quiet.

And it was Christmas. Our first white Christmas, in fact. And I'm holding on to that quiet beauty with all of my heart right now. It is not so far away.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-12-10T06:48:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

There's something oddly comforting about rising before the dawn these weeks before Christmas. I pretty much do it year round, but in these tiny short days it feels extra magical. I kind of remember my family leaving the Christmas tree lights on all night long, so if you woke up early enough, you could still be bewitched by it a few moments more. From our apartment window I can watch the coffee shop across the street opening, the window all aglow with twinkle lights and spray-snow. I can see the baristas bustling back and forth behind the counter, wiping things down, setting out muffins and chocolate croissants. The case glows all they way through the windows and into the dark streets. It looks so warm in there. And then the sun comes up, and winter sunrises are a sight on clear mornings, and it won't be around for long today so it would be a shame to miss any of it. Shorter and shorter.

I made some little foxy-friend printable holiday gift tags , available for $3 in my Etsy shop. I'm thinking: printed on bright white cardstock, tied to brown paper packages with cherry-striped baker's twine. Merry and bright.

I surely hope your weekends are merry and bright too :)

Love,

Rebekka

2011-12-08T09:25:00.002-06:00

Dear friend,

I finished these fingerless feather mitts just in time for a breakfast date on the coldest day of the year, thus far. I am wild about this pattern, which was created by my very patient knitting teacher. Purchased here. Ravelry-ed here. Knit with sylvan, wintry-colored woolen yarn. Embroidered with the palest peach.

This was my first project knitted entirely with double pointed needles, and it was a frustrating mess at first, but halfway through the second mitt I just kind of... got it. What I didn't get, though, was the picot binding at the end....I don't think. But I like the way they came out anyhow. So it goes.

Here's to warm hands, warm hearts and all that jazz <3

Love,

Rebekka

2011-12-07T07:38:00.001-06:00

Dear friend,

Speaking of Christmas presents ('cause weren't we?) I just love these little sweet-as-pie embroidered neckties and hankies stitched up by my friend Ashley. Anchors, owls, sherrif badges...Oh, I just love them all! She even does a Texas tie, if you're into that sort of thing, which I'm clearly not. I couldn't resist photographing some of my (quite fetching) friends in these ties...now I just have to decide which one to buy Manley for Christmas!

Speaking of Manley, you should have seen us last night. Packaging up house portrait gift certificates, all one million of them, stamped and tied and going off to their new homes all over the world. It took us hours, and I loved every twinkle-light lit second of it. Yes, so, we weren't able to get a tree this year because of a certain rambunctious black kitten, so we hung evergreen wreathes in our windows and filled every space in our loft with a bobillion twinkle lights. You can rest assure, they will probably never come down.

This candle, which smells like wood and men's cologne, is burning all the while.

I am scrubbing everything with a mixture of hot water, white vinegar, and peppermint and lavender oils and it smells like Winter.

I want to hear about your holiday preparations!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-12-04T15:27:00.002-06:00

Dear friend,

Just a quick note to let you know that...by popular request...I've listed the house portraits in my Etsy shop as a gift certificate, and I will leave them up until the 15th. I know it's not quite as fun as giving someone a finished portrait for Christmas, but maybe it's second best?

Once again, can I say how much I adore painting these? The above is one of my favorites yet. A wish come true? So sweet!

Hope the rest of your Sunday is sweet as well :)

Love,

Rebekka

***EDIT*** Okay, I am completely overwhelmed by the response on these! I received over 75 orders for gift certificates yesterday....thank you all so much!!! I can't wait to send them to you (today!).

Unfortunately....and I hate to keep doing this....I had to take the listing down again! I am afraid that 75 is all I will feel comfortable committing to in the New Year, especially with the impending adoption :) Thank you so much for understanding...you are all amazing!!!

2011-12-03T18:11:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

It is Saturday. My day has been rich and full, full and rich. Wake up at 4ish AM. French Press. Paint paint paint. Breakfast. Snuggle on the sofa with Manley and read recipes from Southern Living (yes). More French Press. More painting. And then, a photoshoot with one of the most talented and precious girls in the whole wide world, my friend Colleen of Say Ooh Designs. She makes the most amazing art, home accessories, repurposed vintage clothing, hair accessories...everything necessary for a fancy little world. And gosh is she pretty.

Here are a few snippets from the shoot. More coming soon!

Hope your Saturday is fancy free :)

Love,

Rebekka

2011-12-01T06:21:00.002-06:00

Dear friend,

She's not really here quite yet, Sister Winter, but I can hear her coming. I like to think of her trudging through a forest somewhere, lit by firelight, in the snow, coming sweetly but with wild eyes. All bundled up. She's bringing with her a basket of early bedtimes, just for me, ones accompanied by warm milk and lavender.

Usually I wake up very early in the morning and get my best work done in the wee small hours, but sometimes in winter I like to snuggle in bed a bit longer, all cozy by the light of a flickering candle. That's what winter is to me, in so many ways...pools of light in the darkness, pops of color against all the gray. Peppermint swirls and lemon yellow. Shops and neighborhoods glowing against the blackest nights of the year. The hope of Advent: Light coming into the world.

Do you get a little bit stuck on cookbooks sometimes? I do. In the spring, it's very often this one, and this one gets dusted off right about this time each year, when everything starts getting braised and roasted. I will cook solely from it for weeks upon weeks. Tonight our entire supper came from it...fusilli with kale and Italian sausage, spicy cauliflower soup, and this lemon curd tart, which really is the very essence of winter if you ask me. The phenomenon and blessing of citrus in the most barren months never gets lost on me. And this tart really is beautiful. Alice Water's humble pate sucree (sweet tart dough) comes together more like a cookie than a pie dough, which makes it easy, and I think eloquent. Also, the good news is you can turn the leftover scraps of dough into cookies: just roll them into one inch balls, sprinkle them with sugar, press your thumb into them, and bake along with the shell. Fill them with jam after for perfect thumbprint cookies.

Love,

Rebekka

Lemon Curd Tart

(Adapted from "The Art of Simple Food" by Alice Waters)

For pate sucree:

8 T butter

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg yolk

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Add salt and vanilla extract and mix until completely combined. Add flour, mix well, until there are no dry patches. Form dough into a ball, wrap in plastic, flatten into a disk, and chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours. When ready, remove disk of dough from plastic wrap and place between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll out dough until it is 1/4 inch thick, and carefully place into a tart pan, rolling over the edges with a rolling pin to shape. Bake for 15 minutes until shell has a light golden color.

For lemon curd:

4 lemons

2 eggs

3 egg yolks

2 T milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)

6 T butter, cut into small pieces

Grate the zest of one lemon into a small bowl, and juice all the lemons. You should have about 1/2 cup of juice. Beat eggs, yolks, milk, sugar and salt with a spoon until just mixed. Stir in the lemon juice, add butter, and transfer to a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until curd thickens and can coat the back of a spoon. Do not boil or the eggs will curdle! When thick, pour into a bowl and refrigerate.

When curd is cooled, spoon it into tart shell and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes until curd is "set". Cool and serve with whipped cream!

2011-11-25T12:31:00.001-06:00

Dear friend,

It was even almost perfect. We did just what I wanted, which was a whole bunch of nothing. We made these paper poppies. They were surprisingly frustrating at first. But came together beautifully in the end.

There were plenty of snacks.

I made this sauce. Basically, I just simmered cranberries in orange and lemon juice, and added sugar to taste. It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

I knitted. I always do that.

I took a picture of myself in the mirror. I never do that.

Baby M played with my yarn and it was so cute I could barely breathe.

Manley and Luke's potato mashing experience was....well, let's just say successful. Wouldn't you know it, those boys figured out a better way of peeling potatoes.

Show-off.

And then, of course, there was this. It was magnificent, everything was. And so precious to be with friends. I hope yours was good as well.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-11-23T20:32:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Here's the latest of my alphabet series! Goodness, I am working on them ever so slowly, but I actually have to finish them, because they're for a show I have scheduled in March! Yikesies!

Anyway, this is watercolor and gouache on my beloved Arches hot press watercolor paper. And it's available as an 8 x 10 print in my shop right here!

So besides all that, it's Thanksgiving tomorrow. Manley and I decided not to travel so we'll be here in Nashville having Thanksgiving dinner with some of our best friends. I'm going to take the whole day off tomorrow...not work at all, which will be quite a stretch for me. I'm going to make paper flowers, knit striped legwarmers (!), and watch Manley make mashed potatoes (this has got to be good). I think there's some sort of football game or something. Life is so weird. So much to celebrate, so much to mourn. Some of our closest friends will be spending their Thanksgiving in the hospital with their beautiful 6 month old boy whose tiny body has been ambushed with a virus that should have gracefully bowed out days ago. Sometimes the very task of mustering gratitude seems cruel. But there are worlds of grace even in all the sorrow.

I hope that tomorrow, as we all sit around our dinner tables and give thanks for bounties and feasts, we'll give thanks for that grace as well.

And, I seriously hope you all just stuff yourselves half to death, and have marvelous days and weekends. I am grateful for you! You listen to these shared tiny bits of my heart and I am thankful in so many ways for that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rebekka

2011-11-21T10:58:00.001-06:00

Dear friend,

I have been having oh-so-much fun painting all these little houses. I've gotten more orders than I expected, but I'm going to keep taking them until Thanksgiving at 9pm CST, when I stockinette-stitch my turkey stuffed self into a very early slumber. So if you want a portrait in time to give as a Christmas gift, you still have a few more days to order! And then I will add the listing back to the shop after the holidays.

Even more sweet than painting the houses has been hearing the stories that go along with them. I am painting homes that folks grew up in, homes that folks were engaged in, and homes that have long ago fallen apart. All the stories, so very sweet.

Now back to this Monday business.

Love,

Rebekka

*****EDIT***** I am so sorry, but thanks to some extremely kind pinning last night, I am now officially very maxed out on these!!! Thank you so much to everyone who placed an order last night and this morning :) I have had to take the listing down much sooner than I expected. If you are interested in a house portrait after Christmas, the listing will be back up January 2. Thank you again, so much!!

2011-11-20T11:37:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Do you ever find yourself waking up in a home that is so splendid and wonderful that you dawdle and lollygag your way back to your own house because it's unbearable to leave? That's how I feel about my friend Sarah's home in Chattanooga, which is a majestic old Victorian nestled in the shadows of Lookout Mountain and the pretty, historic downtown. It is flanked by lavender and full of children, and she always has some perfectly gorgeous and bohemian project going on. Last week, I walked in to find piles and bouquets of wax-dipped ginkgo leaves illuminating her whole house with their golden glow.

It's a perfectly simple project...and one that I would have never thought of on my own. You merely fill an aluminum pan with melted candle wax (like this) and dip the leaves one by one, preserving their color forever. Well...maybe not forever. But long enough.

How I wish I did this a week ago when Nashville was littered with these very leaves!! They are all flying away now, being carried off by the mad wind. Mad in both ways: delirious and furious.

I love this violent Autumn wind with all my heart, but I'm a teensy bit mad at it for stealing all the leaves :)

Love,

Rebekka

2011-11-17T09:23:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Let's talk knitting again, shall we? Okay. My fourth finished project...and after this, I promise to stop numbering...the "Gaptastic" cowl on Ravelry. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to knit something this lavish and ginormous and lush. Well, I've been waiting my whole life to knit anything really.

It's not perfect or anything. But it's handsome. I knitted this with Malabrigo Rasta, which is called that, I suppose, because it looks suspiciously like the dreadlocks of a sheep. It's knit entirely in seed stitch, which lulled me into a spellbound slumber whenever I was knitting this alone, but a good one. I think I knit myself to sleep three or four times.

The other three or four times, I knit this with a friend, while she knitted her very first scarf, and we drank wine and ate Saint Andre and talked about everything we could muster. And I thought, "Oh yeah...this is that other reason people knit!". And it's funny. Apparently, when your hands are fiddling, you become freed to tell your whole life story. I love it.

Hope you all have cozy Thursdays and Fridays. I'll be snug as a bug.

Rebekka

2011-11-12T12:35:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

We woke up to an entirely golden world this morning. Golden ginko leaves (my favorite!). A bewitching golden sunrise. Golden flecks of yarn in Manley's scrumptious hat, my third finished knitting project, knitted in Malabrigo Twist Terron.

It's a basic hat pattern that I got from Laura, but now I'm going to start knitting projects in my Ravelry queue, so I can link and research and follow and comment and compliment and all the other things I've wanted to do on there. Add me as a friend if you're on there! I'm under RebekkaS.

Saturdays are so special, of course, because Manley is home. Even if he does spend half the day watching football, we have Saturday mornings, and French toast, and the farmer's market. The prologue to a quiet day.

I'm wondering this morning how much longer our days will be quiet. I'm starting to worry...we should have gotten our court date by now. At least I think we should have. Our hearts are growing heavier and our stomachs knottier with each day that comes and goes with no new news. We just want to know something...what is she eating now? Is she crawling? In the meantime, I just keep praying for fortitude...for all three of us.

And I let my heart be steadied by the goldenness.

Love,
Rebekka

2011-11-09T21:33:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

Let's see if I can finish this post without falling fast asleep on top of my keyboard. I'm in one of my scandalous working no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-not-sure-I'm-going-to-leave-my-apartment-for-the-next-week frenzies! I have officially maxed out on Christmas card house portrait packages, thank you all SO much for the orders. I wish I could line them up, end-to-end and have a veritable neighborhood of little houses to decorate my walls, but alas- I have to send them to their rightful owners.

This little girl above is my contribution to this week's Illustration Friday topic.....STRIPES! Sigh, it was only a matter of time before my knitting obsession carried over into my illustrations. C'est la vie. She is available as a print in my Etsy shop too.

Oh, and speaking of knitting, you might notice the new Red Ribbon Fox Knits banner on my sidebar. I just can't recommend Laura enough, nor can I recommend learning to knit in your pajamas. It's really fun!

Okay now, good night.

Rebekka

2011-11-07T10:28:00.000-06:00

Dear friend,

How was your weekend? We spent ours in Georgia with some of our best friends doing something we've been meaning to do for what seems like forever...we finally visited the home of the late Mary Flannery O'Conner, God rest her soul. It was just as precious as I always dreamed it would be...walking among her things, seeing her sunlit writing desk, lighting candles for her in her little church, reading excerpts from her stories around her grave. In fact, I can't rightly find the words to fit the experience. So pictures it is.

I hope your weekends were good and your lives are full and rich and heavy. Now, let us get on with this week!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-11-03T09:07:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

My second finished project. Let's call it, fondly, the "Don't Look Too Closely Applewood Cowl." Again, knitted with this yarn, which is so delicious I just want to eat it for dessert. Also worth noting is the fact that, the whole time I was knitting this, Manley thought I was making a "towel". Bless his heart. I love him.

It's just worsted yarn on size 8 circular needles, knit five rounds, purl one, knit five, purl one, etc., etc., until it's as wide as you like, and bind off. So simple, I know, and yet I managed to fill it with holes, hence the please-don't-look-too-closely part.

This morning, before all the rain came rolling in, Manley and I went down to the river, coffee in hand, to watch the sun rise over our city. It is the stillest, sweetest, most magical hour. Watching everything wake up. Barges beginning to barge. Runners in their spaced-out bliss. The sun in all its glory. The river just like it's been for hundreds of years, bringing life into Nashville, always the same, and always changing. Both.

Hope your Thursdays are grand.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-11-02T13:10:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

So crooked. SO blistered from so many no-knead loaves. So gnarly from too little water.

But there is pumpkinseed bread in the oven right now, and lentil soup bubbling away on top of it, and I am painting, and the kitties are curled up on the sofa, and everything smells like clove and orange oil.

I love our rumpled, tiny little home so much.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-10-29T16:59:00.002-05:00

Dear friend,

So, like I said yesterday, we are in Knoxville, Tennessee this weekend, of all places. Manley has a seminar to attend and I came along, quite happily, for the ride, like I tend to do a lot. We're staying in a bed and breakfast run by the nicest couple who have been spoiling me rotten with pumpkin bread and homemade blackberry jam. Manley is gone all day, for three days in a row, so I brought my drafting table and set up shop in the corner of our little bedroom, and I have been working for hours and hours.

Of course, I am taking breaks to knit. Laura told me about this yarn, which I am having a very difficult time not looking at every five seconds because it is so mesmerizing. This color in the middle, the one I'm knitting the cowl with, is called Applewood and it is perhaps the most beautiful color I've ever seen in my life. You can't tell so much from the photos, but it is rosy plum and and taupe and silver and lavender and gold all at once, different in every light. You can see it a little better here.

They have a baby goat here, named Baby. I almost would give anything to have a baby goat, and I'm not just saying that.

Autumn trees make me so sad, but it's that sweet sort of sadness that I ache for this time of year, the kind that stirs up buried memories and makes me miss people so much. Do you know what I mean? A single falling leaf can be so beautiful it breaks your heart.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-10-28T14:51:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

Chilly, cozy, drizzly, lazy. Gray. Just how I like it. Autumn is coming with a vengeance to Knoxville, Tennessee, which is where I am today...more on that later.

I have two things to tell you.

First of all, I will be doing a limited number of House Portrait/Christmas card design packages this year, and I'm quite excited about them! If you purchase a package, it will include:

-An 8" x 10", frameable, hand-painted portrait of your home with whatever lettering you choose, and
-A high-resolution, digital file of the house portrait with any holiday greeting you choose, hand-lettered and embellished with flowers, etc., if you like. You can then print these at home, or I can offer a list of several wonderful online printers that do great quality printing for good prices.

This package is available in the shop here! The regular house portrait package is still listed here, and I must say, it would make a very sweet Christmas gift :)

Okay, now on to the giveaway winner!

Kris from Life at the Table won my Golden Ranunculus painting. Yay! I was happy to discover her blog and Etsy shop through this giveaway. I just adore her sandwich wrappers...I pack Manley's lunch every day for work and I like to make it as cute and embarrassing as possible. Handwritten love note? Yes, please. Pretty printed sandwich wrappers? Why...I thought you'd never ask!

Thank you everyone who entered, and THANK YOU everyone for all the much appreciated knitting encouragement and advice! I am still just terribly smitten. Can't wait to show you my next project.

Love,
Rebekka

2011-10-25T09:35:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

So this is how the story goes.

For the longest, longest time I have lurked in the shadows of every sort of knitting group. You ought to see the way I lurked around knitters' blogs. It was just downright embarrassing. First I just wanted to know what the fuss was all about, having crocheted here and there with no real fireworks happening anywhere in particular. And then I began to look longingly at these fuzzy, wooden-buttoned cowls I was seeing everywhere, and the stripey baby leggings, and the spellbinding messes of yarn that look not unlike my watercolor palette at the end of the day.

And then, fate of all fates, I stumbled across these. Which are kitty-cat mittens. As in...mittens with kitty-cats on them! I nearly fainted. True story.

So I contacted my friend Laura of Red Ribbon Fox Knits, only to find out she has moved from Nashville to Portland. But she would love to teach me to knit over Skype, if I was interested. I was a wee bit skeptical at first, but also too beguiled by the idea of learning to knit in my pajamas (the way I do everything else around here) to say no. Three lessons later, I am knitting and purling my little heart out and I just. Can't. STOP!

This is going to be embarrassing, but it almost feels as if my whole world has shifted just a tad. Now that I'm learning to knit, I feel privy to some great ancient secret. I keep wondering...who else knows? And fabric...I look at it in a completely different way. Like...I empathize with it.

So, I've got my schedule all worked out now. In the mornings I drink coffee and work, work, work, and in the evenings when my brain is sufficiently drained of all ability to think I drink tea and knit, knit, knit, while watching embarrassing things on Netflix (*cough* Vampire Diaries *cough*). Knit, knit, knit wayyyy too late into the night. I just. Can't. Put. These. Needles. DOWN!

This is my very first finished project. Let's call it the Pumpkin Pie Bow Ear Warmer. It is terribly cuddly. I'm giving it to a friend.

So now I want to know...how many of you are knitters? Are you on Ravelry? Because I want to see your projects! Do you have any advice, or tips for me?

And, if you are not but you would like to learn...I highly recommend Laura, and learning over Skype. She is so funny and sweet and fun to work with, and she is patient and flexible and will tailor lessons directly to what you want.

So, that is the end of that story. I hope you have cozy and warm Tuesdays. I have to get back to that "working" part of my schedule.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-10-21T09:01:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

My Etsy shop has just been stocked with three new sweet prints that I love so much! I always feel awkward saying things like that, by the way...but I can't help it. I love them!

Truly, I have been daydreaming about painting some vintage-inspired botanicals for what seems like ever. I started with three of my favorite flowers: golden ranunculus, the bobble-headed red poppy, and a candy-striped peppermint rose....all wrapped up in baker's twine and identified by a hand-lettered tag. They are printed on my favorite fine-textured Hahnemuhle watercolor paper and will fit into a standard 5 x 7 frame, although I think they are the perfect size to tuck into Birthday and Christmas cards, or prop up on a kitchen windowsill.

I love these so much that I'd like to give away one of the orginal paintings...to you! Leave me a comment
letting me know which one you would pick...

And one week from today...Friday the 28th, I'll randomly draw a winner. I love giveaways!

Have a most excellent weekend,

Rebekka

2011-10-19T07:39:00.002-05:00

Dear friend,

Good morning! I woke up to a rather blustery morning here in Nashville, Tennessee. Right now I'm looking outside our apartment windows onto the street below and everybody is scurrying to work in trench coats...trench coats! One lady just walked by with a candy-striped umbrella. I wonder where she got that? I can always tell what the weather is like by looking at the way folks are dressed down there. I just realized how much I talk about weather on this blog, and now I am sort of embarrassed, so let's move on! Shall we?

I wanted to show you a couple of blog headers that I've finished lately, both hand painted in gouache and watercolor. The header above is for Megan at Sorta Crunchy. And this one:

Is for another Meaghan, at Oh Meaghan! Both of these Megans (Meaghans!) have beautiful blogs and were so incredibly sweet and fun to work with, and I told both of them the same thing: that I could illustrate all the books in the world, but nothing is more fulfilling to me as an illustrator than being able to work with girls like them to help bring their creative visions to life. Go visit their blogs if you get a chance! And if you're interested in a custom blog header, a listing is available in my shop here.

Stay dry and toasty!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-10-17T22:08:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

They are ever so humble. The sheepish warty ones and the quiet, mushroom-and-moss colored ones that get stacked in the shadows. The white ones pure as driven snow. The ones that masquerade as pumpkins but are truthfully...in all honesty...merely gourds. I love all of these the best.

Alabama is so funny in the Fall. Funny as in it doesn't really happen sometimes until you wake up the morning after Christmas wearing shorts and realize you're a little chilly. Lodged in my memory is Winter after Winter of pure mildness, fried chicken on the beach, saltwater sandals. There was this one time it snowed in south Alabama...I think it was 1993? And last year as well. In Tennessee, you just never know. You just never know about the weather here. But what you do know is that the mountains will never fail to be brilliant come November. That happens every year.

I never thought I would live in Tennessee, and I bet Manley didn't either. We both love Alabama so much, down to the clay that's as red as a Crayola crayon. But there's something to be said about the place where you start to build a life together...I think it works its way into you.

I like this one best of all.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-10-15T08:47:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Thank you so very much for all your prayers/wishes/vibes for Manley yesterday. He came out of the test feeling confident and very much at peace. I could never, ever be an architect. Just looking at equations gives me the heebie-jeebies. Shudder.

We celebrated with lunch and antique shopping and an afternoon snack of baguettes and this silly (albeit delicious) printed cheese. Today we're off to do as many Fall things as we can handle, including pumpkin carving and scavenging for little details to finish off our Halloween costumes :)

And yes, now...the tote! My little illustrated bear tote is now available in my Envelop shop. I've kind of forgotten about that little shop lately, what with the drama of everyday life, but I plan to start stocking it back up. I can't brag enough about the quality of their products...the pillow covers, tote bags, and cloth napkins are especially lovely.

Okay, friends, have a restful and fun weekend! I'll be back next week with some little paintings that I can't wait to show you, and maybe a pumpkin or two, who knows?

Love,

Rebekka

2011-10-14T08:41:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Well, good morning! I am waking up in Birmingham, Alabama, which only happens to be my favorite place to wake up in the whole wide world, surrounded by my dad's ancient books and his strong coffee, and all my mother's flowers that seem to bloom so well even into winter.

Manley is taking one of his big, scary architecture exams right this very minute, so please send him a prayer if you think about it. I feel so nervous for him when he takes these tests, because they make the preceding days terribly ominous.

When he's done we'll take him out to lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon exploring our most treasured city. Meanwhile, I will work...I love working at my parent's house, especially in the morning when I get to watch the sunlight start at the top of the pine trees and slowly make its way down to the littlest flowers.

I hope your Friday is less nervewracking than mine (!)

Love,

Rebekka

2011-10-07T12:19:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I hope you have the most wonderful weekend. I really do! I hope it's full of sunshine and clear, chilly air. I hope you see clouds shaped like ships and mermaids.

I hope you can stay up late and have conversations with people you love that you will remember forever. I hope you can sleep in and drink coffee in bed.

Me, I'm going to paint flowers and shop for pumpkins at the farmer's market. Manley is studying all day long, so I'll be left to my own devices. I'm going to make baked oatmeal and eat it with cream and cinnamon. I'm going to read somewhere in the sunshine.

See you Monday!

Love,

Rebekka

P.S. Oh yes, I almost forgot...new print added to the shop. It was supposed to be for Illustration Friday, but I missed it by a hair. I love it, though...if I do say so myself. I think it would be so sweet hanging over a sleeping baby :)

2011-10-05T11:13:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Just a quick note to let you know that I listed some of my Thank You notes in my Etsy shop. They are printed on pretty uncoated postcard stock, with rounded corners, blank backs, and pool-colored envelopes from Paper Source. They come eight-to-a-pack, wrapped in string and brown paper, ready to thank all your dear friends for the dear things they do.

Have a splendid Wednesday!

Rebekka

2011-10-03T08:38:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I don't know what happened this weekend in your parts, but where we are, Autumn came in all of its early glory, and on the first of October of all things. Sometimes Tennessee surprises you like that...like last year, when it snowed on Christmas day for the first time in 5,000 years or whatever. You just never know.

This wasn't necessarily a celebration of our newly dawned season, but it felt like it. On Sunday, Manley and I got to participate in a photo shoot with this very talented lady and this very talented lady. Colleen has started a line of the most dandy bowties, many of them will be available in SEC team colors (genius.) On Sunday we modeled orange and white striped seersucker ones, for the University of Tennessee (as a lifelong Alabama fan, I'm proud to say wearing them only hurt my feelings just a teensy bit. I mean, after you marry an Auburn graduate, there isn't much farther to fall).

As if I didn't feel lucky enough already, the affair was catered (and photographed) by Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious. She made twice-baked sweet potatoes with smoked chicken sausage, goat cheese dip with mandarin chutney, and deep-fried mushrooms. All so very delicious.

Colleen and I modeling the girly headbands.

Some exceptionally handsome fellows.

The bowties will be available in Nashville at Local Honey, and soon in Colleen's Etsy shop. And, of course these are just my snapshots of the shoot...I can't wait to see and share Hannah's "real" photos!

Okay, October...I am ready for you! Please come full force now with all of your magic and mystery, and your full moon on the 12th (which is always the best one of the year), and your blazing trees and your tornado-whirwhinds of leaves in the middle of the road. We are so ready now.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-30T20:37:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I am such a sucker for vintage floral linens. I hoard them like a crazy old lady. Crazy old ladies probably don't even do that, just me. I iron them with lavender water and tuck them away in perfect, proper stacks. But then I never really do anything with them. I just...you know...like to know they're there.

Imagine my excitement when a box arrived at my doorstep today from The Rick Rack full of the prettiest, creamiest sun-faded cottons. Pillowcase after pillowcase. Yard after yard. I have to start doing things with these. Maybe patch them into a quilt for spring picnics? Or maybe, if we had a guest room, I could fashion them all into a big cloud of bedding, in which our guests could sip coffee while the sunlight tumbles in.

Okay, signing off for the weekend. I hope you get yourselves into all sorts of trouble. I certainly plan to.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-29T18:49:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I added a new print to the shop this afternoon. It's a print of a gouache-and-ink painting I've been working on this week, based on one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite writers, reminding you to be who you are, no matter where you go.

Amen, sister O'Conner. You do like you done in Milledgeville! Now, about Milledgeville, have any of you ever toured Andalusia (her famous home, depicted in the painting)? I can't believe it but I never have, and I really want to....especially to visit the peacocks and peahens. Apparently they have a peacock named Manley...well, isn't that a coincidence (that's my husbands name). What are the odds.

In other news, I have added a blog button to my sidebar that you can grab by copying and pasting the code below it into your sidebar (via an HTML widget) if you like! If you want a larger or smaller sized button, email me at Rebekkaseale@me.com and I will get it right to you.

Oh yes, one more thing...I hope your Thursday evenings are just delightful. Manley's walking down here tonight to see Ten out of Tenn, but I'm staying up in the loft to work by the light of the moon...story of my life!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-26T10:15:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

How was your weekend? Ours was kind of wonderful and kind of sad. Very sad, rather. A family that is particularly precious to us is moving to Plano, Texas this week and will be very missed. Our friends rallied together and threw them a Texas-themed going away party at our friends the Tidwells beautiful (I mean...beautiful) home.

We ate Texas caviar and Texas sheet cake, dressed up in red and blue, played bocce ball and tried to steal as many hugs as we could from little Jack before he becomes an official Texan :(

Don't tell him this, but I have secret plans for him to be my future son-in-law. His mother and I are going to ~~force~~ encourage him and Beda to be "pen-pals". Remarkably lovely and old-fashioned, don't you think? Here's the whole family, plus Manley!:

Plano is so lucky. Also, I know photo props are like, so last year, but we couldn't resist. Here are some of my favorites:

Goodbye Willits family. You are as dear as they come and will be too missed even for words.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-22T22:05:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Thank you for all the sweet notes about my Homecare.com illustrations. It really is an honor to be working with them. Being even a teensy part of something that helps folks be well cared for in some of their more vulnerable years brings me so much joy. I am veraciously (and voraciously!) grateful for my little illustration business. I really am.

I know blogs are infamous for being carefully curated and prudently edited to showcase only the lovelier bits of life. The truth is, life is deeply painful and sometimes just plain awkward. And clumsy, and terrifying, and full of heavy silver clouds. And those clouds make storms. But then joy grows its way up through the cracks of suffering. And right behind it, small and humble, grows gratitude.

It's difficult for me to be alive and not want to collect all the sweetness I find in this world.

Thank you for letting me do that here.

Love,

Rebekka

P.S. I made the card above to tuck into outgoing Etsy packages. It's blank and comes with its very own envelope, so you can send it to your very own dear friends!

2011-09-20T07:35:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I am so excited to announce that the website I've been painting illustrations for all Summer, Homecare.com, went live yesterday. Yay!

Homecare.com is a beautiful website (run by wonderful people!) designed to help families learn how to care for their aging loved ones. My illustrations provide warmth and help viewers navigate the content on the site. It's been such an honor to be a part of this project. Please go check it out, and forward the site to anyone you know who has dear, older loved ones!

Here are a few more favorite snippets:

In other news, I LOVE Nashville in the fall. We are only almost there, but it's creeping in like it does each year, ever so slowly, leaf by leaf, until one day you wake up and realize the whole world smells like toasted marshmallows! I'm making a list, like I do every year, of things to accomplish this Autumn. So far, I have:

1. Patch together this quilt, but in creamy milk-and-honey colored voile, with bits of candy-apple red scattered throughout.

2. Remind myself how to crochet and make several of these cuties, for me, and for Beda, and perhaps for all the other littles in my life.

3. Wake up extra early and drink cappuccinos with crunchy raw sugar sprinkled over the froth, while reading this and this, in bed! All before starting the day's work.

How about you? What is in your Autumn list?

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

How in the name of all things dandy and marvelous did I just now hear about Gemma Correll's What I Wore Today illustration group? I discovered it yesterday and set right about painting an illustration of the outfit I wore to the fair Wednesday. Perhaps I should have worn it to the circus, though, because I look suspiciously like a clown! Ooopsies!

Hope you all have beautiful weekends,

Rebekka

2011-09-14T22:35:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Well hello there! I am writing from the land of very little sleep. My trip was just splendid, but I must say...I'm happy to be home with my kitties and my no. 6 pencils and such. And just in time for the Tennessee State Fair. Yeehaw!

My little sister was singing there tonight, so we got free tickets and got to watch her perform. I LOVE the fair...any fair, really. I'm pretty much a flop when it comes to rides, though. Anything tall or fast or twirly gives me the creeps, but I just adore the funhouses and the haunted houses. Especially the haunted houses. However, if I could muster up some bravery I would ride this:

A dreamy cotton-candy-colored ferris wheel circling through a cloudy sky. If only I were more tenacious.

Manley is tenacious. Manley rode the slides. He gives the slides a thumbs-up. I would actually ride the slides, perhaps, if I could only bring myself to climb the stairs.

So, do you go to your state fairs, or maybe your county fairs? Do you just love them half to death, or not so much? Stories: GO!

Love and candy apples,

Rebekka

2011-09-12T13:05:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

I'm still here in Seattle...I fly back to Nashville late tonight. This morning I was secretly, embarrassingly delighted to wake up to the grayest of skies. I know the folks here get tired of it, but I understand how the famous weather of this area fosters the famous creativity. Talitha is at work today, so I'm spending the day working as well, tucked away in the warm light of a coffee shop, frenetically productive.

The coffee here is every bit as bewitching as everyone always says it is. It has kind of been my primary sustenance since I've been here, with some delicious snacks thrown in here and there (like THIS...Oh my, people who live here, do you just eat this for every single meal, or what?).

(I think it's pretty clear that I'm in love with this city.)

Back to work for me! Talk soon, dear friends.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-10T11:10:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

The Pacific Northwest is lovelier and more beautiful than I ever imagined. Apparently I came during the very best week of the year, weather-wise, for which I couldn't be more grateful. Yesterday was just....wonderful.

This is my friend Talitha, from high school. She is so, so dear. And beautiful. Why has it taken me four years to come visit her?

Crepes and tea lattes for breakfast in Ballard.

Shopping sunny cobblestone streets.

Afternoon spent on blankets.

Chocolate-truffle oil (!!!) toast at Ocho.

Sunset over the sound.

Today we're going to spend the day hiking and I get to see something I barely ever get to see: Mountains! I hope all of you are having a wonderful weekend too!!!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-09T13:22:00.000-05:00

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things:"

"Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings..."

Seattle: so far, SO GOOD!

Love,
Rebekka

2011-09-08T06:16:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Good morning chickadees! Just a quick letter to let you know that the painting is finished, and beautiful prints of it are available in the shop right here. S is for Sparrow. Next up, I think: Dove, quail, fox, and everything else wonderful and lovely in our whole wonderful world.

Also, I wanted to show you the blog header I recently painted for this dear one:

Her last name is "Cart", isn't that darling? She has a beautiful family, two black golden retrievers, and the loveliest blog, with beautiful photos that will make you swoon. (If you're interested in a custom blog header illustration, please feel free to email me at Rebekkaseale@me.com)!

Okay, now off to the Pacific Northwest. Yay! I will, of course, be blogging so I'll see you soon :)

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-07T07:40:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Hi! It's Wednesday! That means I leave tomorrow for my trip! Among the many bits and bobs of things I'm trying to finish before I scurry off to Seattle is this, the newest of the alphabet series. Can you guess what it is? Along with it, I'm finishing up paintings for my actual illustration job and also a blog header that I can't wait to show you.

We've had almost two whole days of drizzly rain here, which makes me so productive. I get lost in my little lamp-lit world and will zone out and draw and paint for hours...hours, like 15 or 16, literally! When I finally re-join the outside world to, say...walk across the street and buy a cappuccino, I am terribly clumsy and must have the most frightening, spaced-out look on my face. Kind of like a moonstruck, tangled-blonde zombie. Judging by the way people look startled by me, that is.

I wish you everything excellent and winsome on your Wednesdays. Also, what are your favorite things to do in Seattle, for those of you that have lived/spent time there???

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-05T06:30:00.002-05:00

Dear friend,

It's Labor Day! I hope you are able to eat as much ice cream as we did this weekend. Clearly we were seduced by the ginormous ice creams outside the ice cream shop.

I'm going to Seattle this weekend for the very first time in my life, and I have so many bits of work and projects to finish before I go. I basically won't leave my house for days. It rained yesterday and it's raining this morning as I type, and it's welcome and loved. It's not the luscious thunderstorm of Spring, but a preview of those cozy Fall showers. The kind that make you want to drink coffee in the afternoon and read stories upon stories. And piece together patchwork quilts.

Hope your labor day is just peachy and plummy!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-02T20:21:00.001-05:00

Who has known heights and depths shall not again

Know peace -- not as the calm heart knows

Low, ivied walls; a garden close

And though he tread the humble ways of men

He shall not speak the common tongue again.

Who has known heights shall bear forever more

an incommunicable thing

That hurts his heart, as if a wing

Beat at the portal, challenging;

And yes -- lured by the gleam his vision wore --

Who once has trodden stars seeks peace no more.

by Mary Brent Whiteside

Happy weekends, dear friends. I wish you all the heights your hearts can handle.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-09-01T08:46:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

My husband Manley is an architect and for the past several months he's been working on Five Points Pizza, a NYC style pizza joint in the heart of East Nashville. I am completely in love with New York style pizza, so I've been waiting and waiting to try it! Last night they had a soft opening for friends and family, and we might as well have died and gone to pizza heaven.

GARLIC KNOTS. Buttery, twisty, golden on the outside and soft inside...sprinkled with fresh torn basil leaves. In love!

Sunset-lit window seat. Caprese salad. Double in love.

Just look at that gorgeous golden crust. Perfectly crispy. Prosciutto. More torn basil. Rebekka and Manley are really happy at this point.

All in all, just so, so good. So right on. Not too trendy, nothing fancy...just a really good, honest pizza joint that will make a lot of people very happy. If you live in Nashville, get thee here!!! Oh, and it's beautiful. Good job Manley!

Okay, I have a long day of painting ahead of me. Back to work. Need more coffee. Need leftover garlic knots for breakfast.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-31T14:59:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Just a quick note to let you know that my Etsy shop is up and running once again. Hopefully for good this time! I feel like I've been struggling for a whole year to find the perfect paper to print my illustrations on, and in the end I settled on a gorgeous 100% cotton Canson Rag Photographique. And it's perfect. Colors pop so vibrantly on its pure white color and lovely matte texture, and it has a nice weight as well. I am happy! I hope your Wednesday is happy too.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-30T12:05:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Here's a little gouache and watercolor painting I did for this week's Illustration Friday. I haven't participated in oh so long, but this week's topic is disguise. Too good to ignore. I am certain nobody will recognize this girl in her clever bear disguise once she reaches her destination.

The original has been wrapped in brown paper and dropped in the post. Soon it will find its way to this beautiful little girl who is recovering from surgery. She has captured my heart, and so shall she capture yours, I just know it.

Have a sweet Tuesday!

Rebekka

2011-08-28T08:50:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

We're here in that magical transition time now, between lingering summer and crisp fall. It tends to be gangling and slow here...cool weather takes its sweet time in Tennessee, you know...it only comes when it's good and ready. And in the meantime, we can celebrate the bounty of the season's harvest by visiting the market and feasting on eggplant and late tomatoes and sweet potatoes and yellow squash.

In fact, I think this is the most precious time of all to shop the farmer's markets...not as exciting as Spring, but steady and faithful. Our market just happens to be in our favorite park, the Bicentennial Mall State Park (haha...that video just cracked me up.) And so it's our Saturday-morning ritual.

Bunches of cut flowers, and I always want all of them! But only buy a stem or two. Tamales for breakfast, on a blanket, in still-dewy grass, but we don't care.

Go Manley. You love those veggies!

On days like these, I feel so lucky to be alive I can barely stand it.

When sweet corn is six-ears-for-a-dollar, fifty cents in your pocket makes you feel like a millionaire.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-25T08:27:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

So here's installment #2 of the alphabet series. These are taking on a life of their own, influenced by all the Madeleine L'Engle I've been reading lately ("Be, butterfly and behemoth, be galaxy and grasshopper, star and sparrow, you matter, you are, BE!").

Speaking of that, I just found out via IMDb that a new version of A Wrinkle in Time is slated for a 2013 release? Oh, please! It's my favorite book of all time, and the 2003 Disney version (bless it's heart) doesn't really do it for me.

Oh, rabbit trail of rabbit trails....where am I going with this post? Right now I'm experimenting with paper and inks because I want to be able to offer these as prints, but I want them to be the most vibrant, beautiful prints in the whole universe, so I'm being selective.

Oh, and one more thing...It looks like I will be illustrating a book for Chronicle Books that will come out some time next year. The details will be secret for quite some time, but I am just over the moon about it.

Well, I guess that's about all the news I have for you today. I need to press the coffee so I can think straight and get to work for the day. Hope your Thursday is just lovely!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-23T17:57:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

Look what came in the post today! If you don't already recognize it, it's by Emily Martin of The Black Apple, aka the most darling artist on the planet. This will, of course, hang in Beda's future room.

We've been really hesitant to buy anything for her just yet. Until we pass court, and she's legally our daughter, it just seems a bit....precocious.

Although what we want to do is collect for her the whole world.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-19T00:34:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

Don't ask me how I got so lucky, but I happen to know and live right around the corner from Hannah Messinger of the beautiful food blog Nothing But Delicious.

Don't you love all her little bits of yellow? Today she let me hang around in her magical kitchen while she prepped and shot a clafoutis full of summer fruit tucked into a honey-sweetened buttermilk batter. Basically, it looked like this:

Dang. And then, just when you thought this story couldn't get any better: she went and let me eat it, too! Y'all, let me tell you...this one was special. It was everything a clafoutis should be...sort-of-custardy, sort-of-pancakey, jammy where the fruit is, rustic, fancy, everything.

For the recipe and some actual decent pictures, visit Hannah's post here! And tell me about your plans this weekend. How are you whittling away these dog days?

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-12T12:59:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Friday already. Goodness. Here's a whole mess of fiery zinnias to send you off right into your weekend. What do you have planned? Here in Nashville, we have the venerable Tomato Festival , which I am maybe too excited about. And then there are hours of peekaboo to be played with this girl:

Oh, Lina, can you get any sweeter?

Whatever you are getting yourself into...well...I hope you have one swell time. Eat some tomatoes!

Eat some ice cream! Take those last vestiges of summer and show them who's boss.

Love!

Rebekka

2011-08-10T09:32:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

The rest of the weekend, after dessert and Jeni's and a bit of vintage store poking-around was spent in "the country", at Arrington Vineyards and Blackbird Heritage Farm. My friend Adam's brother and sister in law own the farm, and I was so completely charmed by them...their vision, their hospitality, and their generosity.

They let us swim, sample some delicious homebrew, and gave us some of their scrumptious homemade breakfast sausage, which we promptly ate the next day, with pasta and tomato butter sauce. Dreamy.

Oh, wait...what is this? A precious ten-week-old black kitten? Yes, please! We took her home from the farm as well. This was the "surprise." Meet our newest little girl, Lina (pronounced like "Carolina"). Now if we could just make our other cat, Mabel, love her as much as we do! Any tips on introducing adult cats to baby kittens?

Oh my...I love her!

And I love our friend Adam's beautiful bug.

And I love Arrington Vineyards and any wine named after fireflies.

And I love my job, so I better get to work.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

You probably saw this coming. I know you've seen a lot of Jeni's around here lately (like, here and here...oh, and there it is too...), but I've forgotten to tell you something very important:

You can buy it!

Yes, that is right! Even if you don't live in Nashville or Ohio, you can have it shipped right to your door on dry ice. And I very much recommend that, because dry ice is cool, and also this ice cream is a dream come true.

Or...did you see this on Design Sponge? Make the Sweet Corn and Black Raspberries at home! I tried this flavor for the first time on Sunday (it was my lunch), and I swear somebody took a whole summer, stirred it around a couple of times, and froze it. It was nestled next to a scoop of salty caramel, my still-favorite, which tastes exactly like burnt sugar. Together, they tasted exactly like the this season melting into the next.

Love,

Rebekka

P.S. This was not the surprise.

2011-08-08T10:22:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Hi! It's been a week! Oh my! I've missed you!

Friday and Saturday were long and hard. We worked and studied so much that we celebrated by eating nothing but dessert for the following twenty-four hours. (I'm embarrassed to say...I'm only sort of exaggerating.) Saturday night supper? A glass of wine and a bar of Olive and Sinclair sea salt chocolate.

And then, there was this, on Sunday morning: A yogurt cream tart with blueberries and creme fraiche, from here. It's substantial enough for breakfast, right? I mean, it has yogurt. Let's take a closer look at that one:

Mmmmmmmmm.

And this, also: a crumbly, sandy, chocolatey pecan thumbprint cookie filled with cream cheese. It was scrumptious.

Okay, I don't want to overwhelm you with too much dessert, so I'll post the rest tomorrow. And perhaps the next day. Because yesterday was one of the sweetest...both ways...days of our whole summer, and there is a lot to share! And a surprise!

I hope y'all had sweet weekends too :)

Love,

Rebekka

2011-08-01T06:29:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Good morning and welcome to hottest year of the month, at least here anyway! Summer is serious now, hurricane season has started, and if we lived in France we'd be on vacation. Also...tomatoes! This is the month we eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They're so sweet and juicy at the moment I might even bite into one for dessert. We will make tomato pie and look at tomato art. We will also eat lots of ice cream. Do you think we can be sustained on a diet of purely ice cream and tomatoes for a whole month? I guess we're about to find out!

Love,

Rebekka

P.S. To download the desktop calendar above, click here!

2011-07-29T13:20:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Here's a little preview of the little preview I showed you yesterday. I'm starting all over on the alphabet series...I've decided I want to do them larger scale (this is 16 x 20, gouache and watercolor on the most luxurrrrrrious 300 lb hot press Arches paper). And maybe put a little show together when I have all 26 finished? In the meantime, I'll be selling prints in my Etsy shop, which I have closed at the moment so I can get caught up on current projects.

What do you have planned this weekend? It's my little sister's birthday, so there will be much celebration over here. Tonight for dinner I'm cooking pasta with zucchini braised in butter and garlic, with some broiled sausages on the side. Doesn't that sound dreamy?

Okay, back to work for me. Have a beautiful weekend!

Rebekka

2011-07-28T08:55:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

If you know me, you're probably tired of hearing about my love affair with all things Tessa Kiros (Apples for Jam, Twelve, Falling Cloudberries...). I can't help it. She's my hero in about a million ways.
(This video!!!) It's hard to put her magic into words, but her recipes read like stories, and her food exudes a warmth and an ease that seems sweetly cobbled together from all of her family traditions. I make this zucchini bread every summer, shaping it into loaves or muffins or little cakes, and we look forward to it all year long. It is made entirely with olive oil, which deepens the flavor, and it's studded with pecans and lemon zest and nutmeg and several "good grinds of black pepper", which makes it seem so...I don't know, Greek? It is truly lovely, though. In the haze of a summer afternoon. Buttered, and with coffee!

It's the perfect little snack for an afternoon coffee break from all this "work" i'm doing :)

Zucchini Bread from Apples for Jam

2/3 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

pinch of ground nutmeg

salt

3 zucchini, coarsely grated

freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp. grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter and flour a 12 by 4 inch loaf pan (I usually make muffins instead!). Beat the sugar with the oil and vanilla until smooth and then add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Keep on beating until you have a thick, yet light and fluffy batter. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and the lemon zest, and fold together well. Stir pecans gently through batter. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a skewer poked into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes before removing from pan. Well wrapped up, this stays moist and soft for days, and it toasts well after that.

Happy baking!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-07-25T11:22:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

Our weekend was a string of beautiful lunches and suppers, strung between periods of work and study. Well, there were also more boisterous bouts of basketball and board games. And much treasured sleep. Still reeling over last week's news! So much joy, so much sadness. Being faced with the reality of our daughter's story has been really difficult for us. And it will be, probably forever. But the sadness is giving way to peace and a slowly growing, steady hope. And we can't wait to have that girl in our arms.

The Nashville Farmer's Market is like a grand gala this time of year, full of celebration and bustle. Millions of tomatoes. Truckloads of corn.

A perfect summer lunch.

A happy husband :)

Love,

Rebekka

2011-07-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Thank you. Thank you so, so much for all the incredibly sweet comments and emails and EVERYTHING! It's really a strange and wonderful feeling to know that we have the support of a community of people all over the world, many of whom we have never met. Y'all are such a blessing to us.

Last night we threw a big party for our girl, the first of many to come! We toasted to her and wrote blessings on paper hearts. We ate pizza and cheesecake. We celebrated her precious life.

Thank you again, a million times.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-07-20T05:55:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

After one year, three months, and nineteen days of waiting, we finally received the call. I was starting believe this day would never come. But yesterday morning, around 10:00, my cell phone rang and as soon as I saw the area code, I just knew. Manley rushed home from work and we opened the referral email together.

She is stunning. Prettier and more precious than I ever expected or thought was possible. When I watch the video, I can't help but laugh at how shocked and starstruck we are. The whole morning seemed unreal, all of it happening in slow motion, and yet now I can't remember any of it!

But the joy! I can't even describe. Seeing her little face after loving her and praying her for so long...even before she was born.

And unexpectedly, the joy soon melted into a deep and dreadful sadness. How can someone this precious have suffered so much loss? Her short life has been clouded in fear and sadness that I will never be able to understand. How do we explain the darkness of her story to her? How do we mourn her losses with her? How do we love her through the grief she will undoubtedly suffer?

Oh, dear little girl...we love you so much already.

We will love you with everything we have.

I can not wait to show you her beautiful face! We won't be able to post pictures until we pass court, which will be in a few months. And it will be several more months before we are able to bring her home. At this time, I feel like it will be a miracle if we have her home by Christmas.

Thank you, so much, all of you, for the prayers and support you have given us along this road. Many of you have been following along since the very beginning of this journey...you bought aprons from us last summer, you've sent the most encouraging emails, and I know you've been praying. You mean the world to us and are a constant reminder of why I love this little blog so much.

So, tonight...we celebrate! I'm throwing a big party, with champagne and balloons and our favorite pizza, to celebrate this precious little one and send her all the blessings we can muster. I wish you could all come!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-07-18T17:13:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

We're freshly back from a weekend trip to the Alabama Gulf coast, which is really, truly home for me. And practically for Manley as well...he grew up in a town just 90 miles north. It was misty and stormy the entire time, which I very much loved.

Look at these live oaks arching over the boulevard! Look at the streetlight sparkling through it all. This is one of my favorite streets in the world, and my heart flutters just looking at it. Gulf Shores, Alabama is so cozy when shrouded in the drizzle of rain. Especially when you're inside...wrapped up in blankets and freshly clean from a day spent catching crabs and minnows. With a pot of milk scalding on the stovetop for cocoa. And rain on the windows.

Yep. I'm pretty much in love with the whole shebang. Look at that snow-white sand!

Shrimp sandwiches at Sea and Suds. My mother has been coming here since high school. I've been coming here since...Oh, I guess age zero? It is so. Good.

Saying goodbye. And we're back. How was your weekend? Please do tell me all about it!

Rebekka

2011-07-12T08:29:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Well, hello hello. Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday, and we had a pretty fancy day. Actually, the day was much more simple than fancy, but it was mostly perfect. He took the day off work and we spent all of it together...eating our favorite ice cream, shopping, spending hours in old bookstores. At one point I almost passed out (it was 97 degrees but I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it), but that's neither here nor there. Manley had a beautiful day, and he certainly deserves the most beautiful of all days, because he is amazing, and so worthy of a celebration.

We ended the day at the Belcourt to see The Tree of Life. It was, you know, spellbinding and heartbreaking. There were parts of it I didn't love, and parts of it that left me a teensy bit breathless. The whole of the film seemed to take place at twilight, in summer. I loved that more than anything, because when you grow up in the deep South, sometimes it seems as if all your memories meld into one big summertime dusk, your whole life purple-hued in retrospect and scored by a choir of crickets and cicadas. And there were giant live oaks draped with Spanish moss. And there was the lovely Jessica Chastain. And, yes, maybe there were dinosaurs as well, but again...that's neither here nor there.

Okay, I must get to work now! I truly hope you all had lovely weekends, and are finding ways to enjoy this heat!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-07-06T13:47:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I almost forgot to post about the second part of our weekend! We spent the afternoon at Arrington Vineyards. It was sultry, swealtry, steamy and dreamy...everything I love about a Tennessee summer.

Saint Andre. I'd be happy if this were on my table every day. Try as I may, I just can't find a cheese I love more.

More beautiful babies, napping sweetly on blankets for most of the afternoon.

It musn't be easy, being this handsome.

Sunny, yummy, drowsy, cozy. I'm starting to be afraid this summer will end all too quickly.

Love y'all,

Rebekka

2011-07-04T20:36:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

This weekend has been everything I'd ever want a long, summer holiday weekend to be. On Saturday we went to Jeni's and celebrated the first birthday of one of my littlest and prettiest friends.

It was, adorably, her very first taste of ice cream.

Another little friend of mine...he's not ready for ice cream quite yet.

I have fallen fast for this ice cream. My husband was the architect on the project, so while he was working on the building he brought home pints of salty caramel and strawberry buttermilk and spicy bangkok peanut. He really knows how to treat a lady. On Saturday I had goat cheese and cherry. That, I tell you, was completely mesmerizing. My new favorite.

Hope you are having a sweet holiday weekend too! We're off to watch fireworks over the river!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-07-01T07:14:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

It is JULY, y'all! It is July already! And while I don't have a desktop calendar for you today (sorry...I recommend this one though!), I do have some impossibly scrumptious chocolate chip cookies.

Me and these cookies go way back. You might go way back with them too, if you ever participated in Tuesdays with Dorie, or if you love Dorie Greenspan, or if you, like, know me at ALL, or if you've ever tried to bake these at 3 am without a recipe after kind of a long night (you know who you are).

Some people even don't like these cookies...I have to admit, they are truly tricky. But they are my very favorite...crispy on the outside, rich and full of chopped chocolate, slightly salty-sweet. If you decide to make these, you have to let the formed dough balls firm up in the freezer for an hour or so before baking. Otherwise, the cookies will spread out and become very thin (still delicious).

The recipe is here!

Now go have weekends full of sunshine, fireworks and fireflies! And tell me all about them. Remember, I like stories!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-06-29T09:08:00.001-05:00

Dear friend,

Thanks for all the housing support and well-wishes! I think we're going to be okay, though. I've since found out that our lease should transfer, by law, with the sale of the property. So that means we should be able to stay here until April 2012, at least. So there's that.

And speaking of charming dwelling places, I added a new listing to my Etsy shop this morning: custom house portraits!

The listing includes an 8" x 10" watercolor and gouache illustration of your sweet home, with or without hand-lettered names, on archival 300 lb Arches watercolor paper. It also includes a digital file of the artwork for you to play with!

I'd love to paint a whole neighborhood of them, all lined up end to end.

Well, back to work for me. Back and forth between here and the coffee shop across the street, where I relocate to during apartment showings. I hope all of you have the nicest of days.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-06-27T09:13:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

Our apartment is for sale! Yikes! Our landlord decided to sell it a couple of weeks ago, and the listing just went up. We are a little distraught, though, because we love it here and really wanted to finish out our lease and stay longer. We are hoping it sells to an investor who would like to keep us as tenants. It's going short-sale, cash only, so that's the most likely option. If not, it will be really difficult to move right now, especially with the pending adoption (I think we would have to redo our entire homestudy...ugh!).

I took the above polaroid the day we moved in, right before we brought up all the furniture. Look at that slanting sunlight. Sigh...who wouldn't want to leave?

In other news:

1. I've been doing some beautiful (*Ahem*...if I do say so myself) illustrations for Homecare.com lately, and I can't wait until the site launches so you can see them!

2. I get to see this lady perform tonight in this. Can not wait.

3. Jeni's opened in Nashville this week. Be still little heart!

4. Love this, by them. Watched it about a thousand times. Pure magic.

That's all, folks. Love y'all bunches,

Rebekka

2011-06-20T12:43:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I have this friend named Brook, and Brook has a grandmother in Alabama. And Brook's grandmother in Alabama has a peach cobbler that has been haunting me for years.

Brook baked it for some friends and I maybe ten summers ago, on a day that was long and hot, at somebody's pool house, next to somebody's pool, I don't even remember whose. But I remember that peach cobbler and have remembered it every year when June rolls around.

I don't know why it took me so many years to finally get the recipe (which turned out to be more like a "recipe"), but I did, and I made it yesterday, and it was just like I remember.

It is so simple, which I realize now is why I love it. All you do is slice some ripe peaches, maybe 6 or 7, and combine them with sugar to taste. The peaches don't bake very long in the oven, so the filling won't taste that differently cooked than it will in this stage, so just make it as sweet as you like. Add a bit of cornstarch, maybe a teaspoon. Mix it all up. Transfer it to a baking dish. Cut up a few tablespoons of butter into small cubes and arrange over the peaches.

Then make your favorite biscuit recipe. This one is mine. Roll it out and cut it into thick strips. Arrange the strips on top of the peaches, brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with sugar. Bake it at 350 until the biscuit topping is nice and golden.

That's it. Buttery, sweet, peaches and biscuits. Sunday afternoon perfection.

Love,

Rebekka

2011-06-17T10:22:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

That's what it is here, a good morning. I'm working on a couple of commissioned paintings this morning, drinking very strong French press coffee topped with frothy steamed milk, which is my new breakfast of choice, with the granola having moved to lunch. Summer makes me...too lazy to eat :)

It's starting to get verrrry sultry out here, now, the humidity's been all but completely blown in and it's just the way I like it. Maybe I'm crazy (definitely I'm crazy), but I'd be happy with a Southern summer all year round. Steam rising from the pavement, sun-dried linen dresses, sweet tea on the front porch (whiskey on the back). And summer reading. Do you have a summer reading list? What's on it?

Love,

Rebekka

2011-06-14T06:54:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I'm back. As of late last night. A little sunburnt and thoroughly rested.

Avocado and manchego soup, part of the most beautiful meal in Cozumel. When we travel, our tradition is to jump in a taxi and ask the driver to take us to his favorite place to eat, as far away as possible from the Americanized jumble of tourist restaurants. It never fails.

Everything drenched in sunlight.

Crystal clear.

But, alas...back to work. Back to our regularly scheduled programming. I hope you had lovely weekends and are rested too. Happy Tuesday!

Love,

Rebekka

2011-06-12T08:34:00.000-05:00

Dear friend,

I'm in love. Dear, colorful, sun-soaked, beautiful Cozumel.

It's pretty much magical. I'd rather not come home.

More to come....

Love,

Rebekka