I wish there were better
pictures of this. Metropolis by Lubna
Chowdhary. I love the idea of a thousand little ceramic sculptures
coming together to create a little city. I see a curriculum
vitae like this and it can make one feel like an amateur. In a good
way. In fact, I had to look up what curriculum
vitae meant...he he..
Also, via the lovely Melanie,
another amazing, fantastically inspirational site that makes me feel like
I should be doing more: Bearskin
Rug.
Completely
off topic, but I went to the doctor this week and found out I have tendonitis
in my wrist and a Ganglion
cyst in the 3rd metacarpal joint of my right hand (base of my middle
finger on the palm side). It's all pretty much repetitive stress/computer
related which makes me want to chuck the stupid thing out the window. So,
I have an appointment with the orthopedic guy and an occupational therapist.
My mom is currently dealing with the pain of years of crafting, sewing,
painting, gardening, cake decorating..in her hand so I am REALLY looking
forward to that. I am pretty much screwed because I am NOT giving up the
things I like to do. Hopefully there will be significant medical advances
in the field of arthritis in the next 30 years. Hopefully.
I seriously
doubt that I will find all of this at my local craft store, so I am keeping
my list flexible. What I should do is find out if there is one of those
stamp/scrapbooking stores in my area and go there. I am sure there is one
somewhere but that usually means I have to get in the car and drive somewhere
unfamiliar which I really hate doing.
Switching
gears....I really like the idea of keeping
a cheese journal. We like to eat cheese in this house and I have even
connived Jeffery that keeping a cheese journal sounds like fun..he he he...what
I really, really like is that the folks of Paper Source have started a
blog ring.
I forgot
to mention the ATC (Artist Trading Cards) I received from my swap. They
were all totally awesome!! Many thanks to Heidi
for hosting the swap, it was a lot of fun.
I am not
usually a busy person and the events of the past month or so, (sketches,
Vegas, swaps, traveling for work, illos, deadlines, baby showers....etc)
have thrown me for a loop and now that I pretty much don't have any commitment
hanging over my head I found myself wandering around the house trying to
find something to do. Or thinking that I should be doing something..."I
should be doing something...."
Spending
money is doing something. Recently J and I decided to open our own separate
special "allowance accounts" where we each get a set amount of
money per month to spend without guilt. He can buy cigars and boy stuff
and I can buy expensive European magazines and craft supplies. I recently
purchased some fabulous earrings from Rachel (noodletherapy of the Glitter
days) of Pio Playground.
I haven't worn earrings in YEARS. I am not much a jewelry person, it's
not something I have paid much attention to these past few years. Buying
earrings while you are trying to get out of debt just never seemed like
a good idea. Then buying earrings while you are saving for a house didn't
seem much better, but J and I have finally hit a point where we are tired
of depriving ourselves. Everyone gets a little something, my 401k, his
IRA, our savings and it seems to be working. I bought the double
planet earrings and I love them. They are somewhat symbolic of finally
deciding not to be a martyr to my money. I wear them around the house with
my sweats and I look fabulous.
I also bought a new book. The
Decorated Page : Journals, Scrapbooks & Albums Made Simply Beautiful by
Gwen Diehn. I was actually looking for a different
book about making journals that I had seen at the local bookstore a
few weeks back. This other book had a picture of a collection of carved
stamps made out of wine corks. I have been thinking about that ever since.
The Decorated Page has a similar picture, and I really like the book, it's
inspiring. I have carved two stamps so far. It's kind of hard.
We love bacon so much that we have managed to eat a Costco four pack of
bacon in less than one month. We can find an excuse to put bacon in anything.
ANYTHING!
This weekend we went to the farmer's market where I found the most elusive,
coveted pork product
ever: Slab bacon. Slab bacon is just uncut regular bacon. I bought it once
at a store near us that stocked it by mistake. We went back to the store
asking when they were going to have more and the meat lady tried to argue
that we must be insane because they don't stock anything as exotic as slab
bacon. "Are you sure you bought it here?"
My love affair with the slab bacon actually started with a recipe from
the Zuni
Cafe cookbook. You are supposed to use slab bacon for the recipe, but
since I didn't have any I just tied a regular package of bacon together
with kitchen twine. The recipe was braised bacon. Braised! Who knew you
could braise bacon? You add some carrots, onions, vermouth and sherry and
cook the bacon for a couple of hours. Once it's nice and soft, you
sizzle it under the broiler to crisp it up. It's heaven. Now that I actually
HAVE slab bacon, I am going to braise it and I am really looking forward
to it. I am actually a little embarrassed to say that when we came back
from the market and I realized that we were out of regular bacon for that
evening's meal of chili-bacon pasta, and would have to use the blessed
slab bacon instead, I threw a wee tantrum: "AAGHH! We should have
bought TWO of these! How could we be OUT? We JUST bought some!" After
a cool down period and some reflection, I decided to have a salad that
night.
Sorry, sorry,
I have been super busy. Super busy meaning last tuesday I got a call from
my boss asking me if I could go to Minneapolis in TWO HOURS for a meeting
the next day, and then fly back home after the meeting. I did it and it
totally sucked. Needless to say that whole experience took me a while to
recover from. Between my day job and freelancing I have been almost to
the point of pulling my hair out. It's all over now so I feel like I can
relax a little. *deep breath*
It's official.
I am sick. I haven't been sick in YEARS. I am sure I caught the bug in
Vegas, even though I washed my hands like a zealot. Every time I put my
hand on an escalator hand rail I thought about all the other dirty nose-picking
hands that touched that exact spot and I yanked my hand away. Looks like
they got me anyway.
Yesterday I signed up for watercolor classes. I am pretty excited. It's
just through the city parks and recs thing, but I figure it'll teach me
enough to get going. I am actually interested in gouache, but I figure
watercolor techniques will apply. I have noticed that books tend to lump
gouache in with watercolor. It all started with this
post from Loobylu back in January. It really struck a chord with me.
I think generally I am getting tired of creating art with the computer
and am feeling the need to be more "hands-on" so to speak. I
never got around to actually taking any real painting classes in school,
I only took the computer classes, so I feel like I am missing something.
I have also been loving the creations and color of Lori
Rase Hall's beautiful work, and then there is my friend Karan who is
has recently begun to flex her creative muscles and has started to paint
(love the
blue bananas), that's really inspiring.
Sorry for
the lack of banner, I have one in the works.
Super busy.
I don't think I have even BEEN this busy. My regular job is busy, I am
busy working on illustrations
for the book, and I had a ATC swap with Heidi
to complete..and...AND Las Vegas to go to. Phew! What's a girl to do?
Las Vegas was so much fun...I really wish I had a (good) digtal camera.
I felt like a dork with my kodak disposables. I am not much of a picture-taker
either...I need to work on that. I completely forgot to go to the Star
Trek experience. Totally forgot. It rained, we drank, we laughed at people,
we ate, daylight savings happened, we walked our butts off, we ate, and
I saw Juliet Lewis inside the BCBG
Max Azria store. Oh, and we ate. We didn't see a show...I just couldn't
swallow forking out that kind of cash on top of the money we spent eating
out. Next time, however, we will have a better idea and formulate an awesome
plan.
I also learned last week that I will really have to start travelling for
work. They keep threatening me with it, and now I think it's finally happening...boo
hoo...I will be going to New Jersey in May. All I can think about right
now is buying work clothes since I doubt they will not appreciate me showing
up in my Old Navy sweats with the hole in the butt I am wearing now.
