big pile of leaves = happy puppy!
visual updates...
just a few visual goodies from the weekend, enjoy!
evan and i were grungetastic for halloween...
we declared sunday movie day! barkley was totally on board...
juan found his favorite spot in the new house, the studio window...
i worked on finding the room in the house with the best lighting for etsy photos...
i put up our first bit of wall decor. thanks to scribbleit for this cutie!
stay tuned for more...
renovations...
the new house is coming along at a slow and steady pace. we move in at the end of this week, yay! here's a little update of our progress thus far. oh and pardon these pics... we've yet to add any lighting.
Living Room Before...
Living Room After...
Master Bedroom Before... previous owner smoked in here for about 30 years.
Master Bedroom After...
Studio Before...
Studio After...
Guest Room... sorry, no before. the walls were just white.
Sweet little 60's Style Bathroom... also no before.
and let's not forget the kitchen, which will be a work in progress for a while...
we've still got tons to do, but it's amazing what just a fresh coat of paint will do to a room. stay tuned for more...
barkley in the parkley...
today seems to be the last gasp of a summer that went by far too quickly. with the weather man predicting a high of 78, i knew we needed to take full advantage of this short sleeves day. this morning barkley and i headed out to mt.pleasant to do our bi-weekly cast iron hunting. he's a great hunting dog and also a wonderful co-pilot on these lengthy drives. i scored some great finds and am stoked to get working on them and get them up in my shop.
on our way home barkley and i decided that because he was such a good boy, and big help during the cast iron hunt, we would stop at the park to add a bit of playtime to our busy day. we sat by the lake, met some other 4 legged friends, and he even discovered the wonderful delicacy that is goose poop! all in all a great day and it's only 3pm. now we're off to the new house to do some more painting and cleaning. fun fun!
exciting times!
i'm such a terrible blogger! it's been weeks since i've updated and i finally decided that i just needed to sit down and write...
it's been quite a busy time here at the pierce household. i've started doing Monkey and Squirrel full time, we got a puppy, and we also just bought a house! all of this together equals zero time to blog. the puppy, whose name is Barkley, is a four month old boxer/shepherd mix. he's definitely a handful, but totally worth it. he's teething now which means he's walking around all the time with his mouth open wondering what he can chew on. he can't be left alone for even a minute. we learned this the hard way recently. i went upstairs for all of two minutes, came back down, and in that time he chewed the speaker wires to our computer clean off. evan was very excited about that. lesson learned! but he's a big snuggle bunny and we love him to little bits already!
the new house is keeping us quite busy as well. it's a cute little brick home here in charlotte. it was built in 1961 and i do believe that it hasn't been updated since. so far in week one, we've knocked down a wall, started painting, pulled down half a dead tree, and decided that the kitchen needs to be gutted! lots of busy days ahead. i'm going to do my best to document the renovations... we'll see how that goes.
the other big excitement is that i know officially do Monkey & Squirrel full time. i knew this day was coming for a few months now, but i still can't believe it's here! it's a lot of work, but worth every bit of stress. the pleasure of being my own boss is not something i will take for granted. i've got a few shops around the country that are carrying M&S items and i'm always looking to expand that list. i look forward to the day that Monkey and Squirrel goodies are in every home and on Oprahs list of favorite things. world domination is within reach! take a look at this little interview i did for the veganetsy team blog... what's my favorite food you ask, now you can find out here!
all in all, happy times here! just wish there were more hours in the day...
django...
for the past 2 and a half weeks we had been fostering the cutest little bugger of a puppy, django, a border collie/terrier mix. django had a pretty rough start in life. at about 13 weeks old his siblings attacked him, broke his leg, and covered him in puncture wounds. when he was found the next morning he was in shock, and as close catatonic as i have ever seen a dog. he was rushed to the vet where we were told that he should probably be put to sleep. his leg was already badly infected and he was in extreme amounts of pain. they decided though to give him another 24 hours on strong antibiotics and pain meds to see if he would respond. the next day he had come around and they thought perhaps he might just need his leg amputated. they would give the antibiotics a few days to get the infection under control before doing surgery. the day of his surgery, this little trooper went ahead and started putting weight on his leg. for the three days before this he couldn't even feel it, and it's as if he wanted to say "hey, i'll be ok just give me some more time. see i can stand on it!". more time is what we gave him. i picked him up from the vet that day and took him home. within the first 24 hours he was hobbling around and a few days later he was full on walking on it!
django came to us with the name robby. a terrible puppy name if you ask me. after his traumatic ordeal we decided to give him a fresh start with a new name. i decided on the name django, after django reinhardt the jazz guitarist, who at the age of 18 was badly burned over much of his body. doctors wanted to amputate his leg but he refused. within a year he was walking again. it felt like an appropriate name for our little guy.
despite my best efforts i went ahead and fell in love with him. he's one of the most well behaved puppies i've ever come across, and having worked at a dog rescue for 2 years, i've seen my share of puppies. at 15 weeks he had learned sit, shake, and down. we were working on some more tricks and he was coming along. he was 90% house trained, and the lacking 10% was probably the fault of his foster parents (ie evan and i) not being 100% consistent. he's very eager to please and more then willing to learn. great puppy qualities!
two days ago i took him back to the vet for a recheck. they were amazed. this puppy who had left there unable to walk came running back in, tail wagging, ready to give kisses and show off all his new tricks. he was given a 100% clean bill of health and deemed fit for adoption. now came the hard part, for me that is. i was to bring him back to the rescue. technically we are not allowed to have dogs at out apartment, and i could only be stealth with him for so long. he can be seen by adopters more often there, and he can begin socializing with other dogs. it was really all for the best. so with teary eyes i dropped him off yesterday, and by teary i mean down right bawling. he's got a great roomy though, miss annie, a four year old boxer mix (see earlier post for her story) who has taken him in as if he were her own pup. he's adapted well to rescue life, but my living room feels suddenly empty without him flopping down at my feet.
so django is now ready for a great, loving, forever home. he's a wonderful little puppy with strength and courage to boot! do you have a spot in your heart, and home, for him?
*for more info on adopting check out www.northmecklenburganimalrescue.org
let's talk chicken!
the other night evan made a meal that knocked my socks off! vegan fried chicken. it's been days since we had it for dinner and still i dream about it.
while visiting some friends in NYC recently, we stocked up on may wah faux chicken products. if you are vegan and have not experienced these you're missing out! most vegetarian restaurants use these goodies in their dishes. evan fried these up, after coating them in a batter that consists of a good deal of mustard and a dry mix with a good deal of nutritional yeast, and they were like little pillows of heaven. greasy pillows, but pillows none the less! we had it with sides of broccoli and mashed potatoes and ate until we wanted to barf.
check out the recipe and cook some up tonight. it does not disappoint!
a memorial and a reunion...
this past weekend evan and i drove up to the mountains of PA for a little pierce family gathering. evan's dad passed away about 8 months ago and the whole family was gathering at uncle bob's creek house for a memorial to lay jim's ashes to rest. this might sound like it would be a very somber weekend, and certainly at points it was, but those pierces know how to find uplifting moments even during the saddest of times. evan is the youngest of 8 children, most of whom now have children of their own. needless to say, with all these folks staying in one house (with only one shower might i add) we were definitely not at a loss for entertainment. each and every member of the pierce family has got personality to spare! the house itself was incredible, with a creek running through the backyard and all nestled in at the base of a mountain, my morning coffee outside never looked so good. we had many, many laughs and a few tears too, but i couldn't be happier about the family that i've married into. jim pierce is missed everyday by a whole slew of really wonderful people.
taco salad night!
i would just like to take a moment and share with ya'll the amazingness of last nights dinner. it all started off with me trying to figure out how to get rid of some of our perishables in the fridge before we head out of town for the weekend. what came of this fantastic task not even i could have predicted! taco salad night!
we had some left over corn tortilla shells that i cut up into triangles and baked for a few minutes. what yummy little chips theses made. we had half a head of left over lettuce, half a block of vegan cheese, 6 cherry tomatoes, a few scoops of vegan sour cream, a can of cuban style black beans, and a splash of salsa. i threw all of those goodies in two bowls and voila! taco salad night was born...
i'm often a big fan of making "concoctions". throwing a bunch of random ingredients into a bowl and hoping for the best. this one, i must say, was one of my more successful endeavors!
monday, monday...
what a wonderful monday indeed! i woke up this morning to 3 notifications that some fellow etsians had featured monkey and squirrel goodies in the their treasuries! for those of you who don't know what a treasury is, here's a brief description for you...
imagine taking all your favorite little keepsakes that you own, and then also take the ones that you wished you owned, and put them on a display shelf for all to see. an etsy treasury is someones very own little display shelf. so you can imagine how flattering it is when someone picks out your shop and basically gives you a cyberspace shout out! take a look at "distressed and blue", "flap your wings", and "clever"... all super cute little treasuries!
as if this delightful news wasn't enough. Scoutie Girl, one of my favorite blogs out there, is doing a feature on Monkey and Squirrel. readers can enter, just by commenting, for a chance to win one of my cast iron hangers, and which hanger you get is totally up to you!
after having only been doing the etsy thing about 2 months it's really quite nice to get a little pat on the back. so all in all, i'd have to say that this is a lovely way to kick off my week...
salvaged cast iron refinishing!
when i started monkey and squirrel, my etsy shop, the idea was for it to be mostly small paintings and picture frames. as kind of a last minute add on i decided to post a few of my favorite cast iron finds that i had hand painted over the previous few months. little did i know that i was discovering an untouched niche in the etsy world... or so it seems. these cast iron pieces have become my best selling items. in fact i would say that approximately 95% of my sales are c.i.g (cast iron goodies, as i've come to call them). i thought i'd share the process with all y'all that each of these pieces goes through.
it all starts with the hunt! there is a huge antique/salvage shop out in the sticks of NC where i find my c.i.g's. they're all sitting outside in piles. some organized, some not. often they are covered in rust and dirt, generally not looking so hot.
once i get them home i sand off all the crud, scrub off the dirt and see what lies underneath. it's amazing how much better they look after just this step alone. i often think about leaving them in this stage and just giving them a clear coat... but i rarely do. then i chose a color, or in some cases two, that best suites my newly cleaned up piece. i paint it and once i've got it looking brand new...
i take the sand paper to it! these really do look best slightly distressed so you can tell that they were once in the trenches! they all get finished off with a clear coating and voila... a lovely little goody for your home! one of them is even featured in an etsy storque article! yippy!!!
it's official!
i can now call myself a southerner! today i witnessed my first nascar race. my husband evan and i, along with my mother and sister in laws, headed out to lowe's motor speedway for the coca-cola 600. technically we headed out there yesterday for the race, but after 9 hrs of hanging around, seeing the sights, and eating sammies, the race was rescheduled due to rain. so like the nascar troopers that we are, we went back today fully prepared for whatever the day may have in store.
with the threat of rain ever on the horizon the race began. i was told i needed to pick a favorite. someone i could root, cheer, or holler for to make the experience whole. juan pablo montoya was my pick! truth be told, i picked him because he shares a name with my cat... juan. well let me tell you, as soon as i decided that he was my guy i was hooked. i felt the connection of fan and athlete. as though he knew i was a newcomer to the sport, and there pulling for him, old j.p. (i can call him that now 'cause he's my fave) did not disappoint! after starting out in 9th (i think) he worked his way up to 2nd after a short 100 or so laps. i have no idea if this is any good or impressive but i was STOKED! with every pass of a car i cheered, with every caution (of which there were many) i waited with baited breath. around lap 227 the red flag came out. RAIN! my boy juan had just taken a pit stop before the caution so this put him back in 8th place. there in the rain we waited, and waited. the dryer trucks came out and still we waited. well after a few hours it became very clear that the race was not going to continue. it was called, due to rain. the final results, someone else won and my juan came in 8th. i'll never know what could have been. what potential was left unfulfilled. but i can now say, i am a southerner, and i am a nascar fan!
GO JUAN PABLO!
Big Day!
quite a day i have in store for myself today. first on the list is finishing up my breakfast of oats (uncooked), raisins, banana, cinnamon, kashi protein powder, and soymilk... coffee will follow soon after. a great way to start off the day if you ask me. then its off to JMD, the law firm where my hubby works, to meet up with fred. fred is going to help me file all the paper work to become LLC and get my tax id #. how very legit of me! this is apparently the kind of work he really enjoys so he's going to do it for me pro bono. yay! he says its the american dream to be able to start up your own small business from nothing. i am an american dreamer! after that bit-o-business i'm heading to the social security office with my marriage license to officially change my last name. we've now been married a month and 10 days and i've put this trip off long enough. it's not the name changing that's got me procrastinating you see, its the SS office. i don't like lines. they make me cranky.... naturally.
once the legal and social business is taken care of, i'll run on over to the dog rescue where i work. feed and walk some pups, give out ample portions of love, and by the looks of the rain clouds in the sky, maybe get a little muddy. totally worth it!
then its on to my favorite task of the day. cast iron hunting! about 20 mins from where i work there is the best little salvage/antique spot. my cast iron goodies have been my best sellers on etsy and i need to add to my supply. when i buy them they're all gross and rusty, but i take them home, give them some love (sanding, fresh paint, 2nd sanding, clear coat) and they're reborn to fill their cast iron destiny! hopefully i'll get to paint some of them this weekend and get them up for all to see.
a busy day ahead... now it's on to that above mentioned coffee!
first...
how does one decide what to talk about in the first post.... well i'll start by saying that i never thought i would be a "blogger". it didn't seem like it was something for me. having said that, i recently opened an etsy shop and decided to make a real go at selling my handmade goodies. i keep hearing from other sellers, "do you have a blog", "what's your blog"... and there i was with no blog to be had. so i'm giving it a go.
i'm dedicating "monkey and squirrel" to all the thing that tickle my fancy. this tends to be crafty things, animals, vegan food, and general quirky randomness.
ok... thats enough for day one.