snowy day off

it's been snowing all day here, big pretty flakes. this is the backyard around 1 PM.

Today and this weekend I'm focusing on organizing the house and cleaning things that do not regularly get cleaned. Hoping to start all fresh and clean for the new year.

I can't lie though, in between cleaning I played a LOT of Guitar Hero. I'm hooked.

So what was the bigger accomplishment of the day--sweeping and mopping the kitchen, or beating the Tom Morello guitar battle on Medium difficulty? Hard to decide.

peace

Happy, happy Christmastime. The past few days have been so full of family and friends and nice quiet moments with Mike and the dog too. This is the little princess asleep in a sunbeam this morning.

The days have been so peaceful and I'm grateful and humbled by that, feeling so blessed. I strive for peace and seek it out, balancing myself by making art and saying small prayers and trying to live in the present, happy moments. Taking all these things and pondering them in my heart, you know, the true meaning of Christmas.

So today I have the day off work and am just puttering. I'm hoping to clean up the house a bit and send some things on their way to Goodwill, evening out the flow of new things into the house by sending others on their way out. Though I will say, I haven't done any of that yet since I always get distracted when I'm in the house. Taking a few photos of some recent art to share.





a new page in my art journal. and the journal, almost full. maybe I'll try to finish it in the next few days so I can start fresh in the new year.

larger sizes at my flickr.

Songs of 2007.

i did a little quasi-scientific research the other day to determine my favorite song of 2007. The research consisted of sorting my songs by play count on my itunes and ipod. so, here are some of the tops:

(fyi, i'm linking to myspace so you can enjoy some of these fantastic artists' sweet sweet tunes.)

plasticities, andrew bird

lake shore drive, the innocence mission

legs of bees, fruit bats

fake empire, the national


cast a hook, laura veirs. as you can see, there is a video with NARWHALS in it. of course it's one of my favorite songs of the year!

i feel it all, feist

myriad harbor, the new pornographers

empty hearts, josh ritter

two, ryan adams

every song from caitlin cary's "begonias" since i tend to listen to it obsessively when i make art or clean or whatever.

I also think i should add that "can you please crawl out your window," the hold steady and "ring them bells," sufjan stevens, both from the i'm not there soundtrack , probably deserve to be on this list. i'm way into both of these songs right now but since they were only added about a month ago the scientific itunes thing is kinda misleading.

and my number one most played song of this year? flossin', mike jones.


i like to listen to it on repeat at work. for like, hours at a time, no joke. i can't say i can really explain this. but it probably has something to do with my little brother.

if $130 fell from the sky right this moment

these would be mine:

michael kors shoes from zappos.

the dumbest part is, i barely wear anything other than my cowboy boots these days so they'd probably collect dust until the snow melts. but aren't they pretty?

last december's book

december 6, originally uploaded by oltremare.

last december was a big month for me, a big transformation month. i made a book out of old envelopes, with collages on both sides, and then put journal entries or whatever ephemera I picked up during the day into the envelope. making a collage a day was really doable especially since I used the same materials over and over and just left everything out on the desk all month. it was a great project, one of my favorites, and I don't think I've ever shared it online. there are a few more pics on my flickr right now and I will try to add more soon.

i haven't made many collages lately. . . .I'm not sure why. I've been working on other craft projects, some holiday decorations and felt ornaments for gifts and things. the collagey inspiration just hasn't been around lately, which is too bad. i love looking at the old books I've made because they're sort of like esoteric scrapbooks, memory-evoking even if it's ambiguous.

friendship + darjeeling limited

So, first of all. Yesterday my best friend came to visit and I took the day off work, and it was pretty much the most relaxing day of all time. We sat around in my living room with the fire on and a teapot on the coffee table for about five hours. then thai for dinner and to the glen ellyn art theatre (totally cute and old-timey) to see The Darjeeling Limited. It's been a weird week around here so the uber-laid back day was appreciated. As is the friendship, of course.



I was way pleasantly surprised by The Darjeeling Limited. I was pretty disappointed by Life Aquatic and was kind of feeling like maybe the Wes Anderson thing was over. But this totally redeemed him for me. It was definitely looser than his previous few films. . . just not so calculated. I mean, it was still like, fastidiously styled, but somehow not quite so uptight about itself. I really enjoyed myself and would actually go back and see it again in the theatre if I could find someplace still playing it.



And seriously, how can you go wrong with luggage and costume designed by Marc Jacobs? what a great partnership.



One of my favorite lines from the film:
Patricia (Anjelica Huston):
All right. Let's make an agreement: A) We'll get an early start tomorrow morning and try to enjoy each others' company here in this beautiful place. B) We'll stop feeling sorry for ourselves. It's not very attractive. C) We'll make our plans for the future. Can we agree to that?

boo!

sad news! blueprint is done.

when i read this today I felt like I was punched in the gut. Over the past few months this has really become my absolute favorite magazine, and that's saying a lot since i LOVE the mags. A lot of others have kind of taken nosedives in my opinion (lucky isn't nearly as good as it used to be, i haven't read vogue in years). . . . Martha Stewart Living is still great, but a little stuffy. Blueprint was perfect though, the best mix of fashion & home with youthfulness. Guh.

I'll have to go through my tearsheets to find some Blueprint pages to scan and share. then we can all cry together. :(

comparisons. and weekend fun to balance.

got it?, originally uploaded by matirose.

this is one of my flickr favorites, from matirose. I believe you can also buy a print here.

earlier today i was feeling not so good. just got into a bad mood, mostly comparing myself to others, and not in an honest way either. in the kind of way where I suck, and everyone else is talented and fashionable and also somehow able to keep a sparkling clean house. which I know isn't the truth, but it's hard not to see beyond what people present, online and in the real world.

after pinning this quote up on my corkboard and cleaning my desk, I felt a lot better. and basically all I needed to do was read my last blog entry. there really isn't too much for me to complain about these days. so I'm back to feeling grateful.

on a more lighthearted note! yesterday we went and played football with a bunch of mike's friends. even though it was freezing and i only caught one pass all day it was still great. here we are on our teams, enjoying a halftime beer.

just so you know, the socks in the pockets are our football flags. :)