weekend recap

max's apple tart, originally uploaded by oltremare.

as much as I love to bake, and love baking for other people, i very rarely have enough foresight to actually do it. this weekend I got ambitious and went for it, yay! so this is the little apple tart/galette I made for my friend max and his girlfriend. the recipe is from alice waters, via smitten kitchen.

it was a great weekend overall and I spent a TON of time in the kitchen. saturday I made chicken stock from scratch, which was pretty easy, totally rewarding, and made the house smell great. I went a little overboard, which is good since I'm freezing a lot to use later, but when it came time to find a place to store it. . . well, saturday night our frig was pretty much full of stock. i made the tart on saturday afternoon, too. then sunday morning was apple crisp, and chicken vegetable soup.

So domestic, but what else are you going to do on a chilly weekend? I mean, besides watch America's Next Top Model marathons on VH1 for hours on end.

anyway, visiting Max was great since I don't think we'd seen each other in like three years. Old friendships are the best though. I know it's cliche, but I honestly feel like no time had past.

holiday season inspiration

holiday season inspiration, originally uploaded by oltremare.

usually I'm not the kind of person that starts thinking about christmas in november, but this year is different for some reason. I'm really excited to decorate the house and make gifts and be festive.

I LOVE flickr favorites because it gives me a way to map a general visual style. for this christmas I'm thinking: homemade, natural, sparkly, somewhat vintage, icy blues and cherry reds. these photos give my ideas some substance.

art + time

i don't know why it took me 27 years to figure certain things out. maybe that shouldn't surprise me as much as it does. but. music and art and literature have been incredibly meaningful to me lately and I've been feeling a little baffled by it. like, where did this all come from?

last night I watched a documentary I'd recorded on PBS (side note, i have turned into the kind of person that records documentaries on PBS) about art in the twenty first century. it was later in the evening and I've been going to bed so early these days so I was a little zonked. i was drifting off to sleep to the voice of Jenny Holzer talking about horses and her hope for her art to be "lovely and exacting." that dreamy feeling put my mind on this track.

the novel about grace changed the way I think about nature and the world, all the glorious/mundane ways the world works. infinite jest, well, that's enough for another post, but it sparked so much in me. i think about the Ghent Altarpiece almost every sunday when i go to communion. even music makes more sense. after owning blonde on blonde for half a dozen years i think I'm finally starting to "get" it.

ghent altarpiece: adoration of the lamb, jan van eyck + others

so again . . why would it be that NOW, of all times, when I'm not taking classes and learning and seeing new things all the time, that I would finally get hit over the head by all this?

last night i had a little mini revelation about it. right now there is not really a lot to ponder in my life. i make coffee, go to work, make my logos and text changes, come home, read, cook, watch tv. It's stable, comfortable, unchanging. So of course now, when my mind isn't filled up with looking for a new job or boyfriend or neighborhood to live in, there's plenty of room to really let things soak in. It's a nice feeling, especially because I know I will not be young and childless and have plentiful free time forever. I'm enjoying it and feeling really happy.

+ / -

November 1. It is finally appropriate seasonal weather outside, chilly in a real, winter coat kind of way. It's nice, but not really. Today I am cold, grouchy, bored at work, and I have one of the most depressing songs ever stuck in my head. (he stopped loving her today, george jones.)

I'm trying to look on the bright side though:
+ project runway starts in two weeks! once again, meaning and order will return to my life and my weeks will rotate around wednesday evenings at 9 PM.

+ my mom is coming to visit this weekend.

+ have I ever talked about how igoogle is the greatest thing of all time? I know I say a lot of things are the greatest thing of all time, but this one might really take it. everytime i open my browser i'm presented with my gmail inbox, my calendar, the weather, an image of the Biblical Art of the Day, and a Wikipedia search box. This is everything I ever needed and more.

+ also, late this afternoon, I did my little parlour trick for my co-workers: drawing things on command in illustrator. I made this snowmen and then we dressed him up. "do an elvis!" "a ninja!" etc. Here's the carnage from my illustrator pasteboard

.

a nice bright spot in my day

late october

saturday afternoon mike and i walked our bikes to the nearest gas station since both our tires were low. i brought my camera along with the intention of taking some fall-y pictures of the neighborhood, but this was the only one I took. oh well.

it was a really pleasant weekend. took a few walks, made granola, cleaned my art desk up a bit. i also made apple turnovers from scratch, including the puff pastry. super yum. And the puff pastry-I think I'm addicted now. It's really fun to make and tastes about a thousand times better than the frozen stuff. So of course I started thinking and had a little daydream this morning about becoming a pastry chef. All this from one batch of turnovers! But you know I get lofty goals sometimes.

$1000 shopping spree. . . .

. . . . I wish.

BUT I did just finish a small freelance project and have some "fun" money." this is what I've been looking at blowing it on:

j. crew sweaters and skirts

these adorable shoes from zappos

also this sweater from anthropologie that I can't seem to save a photo of. you should look at it though. the magic is all on the back.

j.crew has a great lookbook up right now, too. i think the purpose of really great fashion photography and wardrobe styling is to make you want to overhaul your whole life on the basis of one photo. such as this:


well, i'm off. . . . it's time for me to move to scotland, get a bike with a basket, and start wearing argyle.

movie film

this weekend one of my coworkers is making a short film. and i'm in it. it was actually pretty fun this morning. plus we've all been talking about the project for so long that it's good to actually get it going. and tomorrow there's more. It's been an interesting diversion. plus also, my character wears some sweet vintage shoes that are definitely going into my personal rotation after this.

After filming, spent the late afternoon painting and collaging, listening to wilco. seriously. . . . the less i watch TV the happier I am. working on that a lot these days.

Lately I feel like I'm improving myself by really TRYING to overcome some of my shortcomings. I made a chore chart, and I almost wish I were joking about that. Something about this has an adverse affect though, in that it really highlights all my other junk I'm not figuring out. The essence of most of it? I need to spend less time thinking and more time DOing. I'm also kind of a sloppy perfectionist, if that makes any sense. But I realize I've been dealing with this most of my cognizant life, so it's not going to go away just by writing a list and doing daily chores. Or will it? Hmmm. . . . Small revelations.

Boston '07

right up next to the green monster!

Last weekend we went to Boston for a short trip. It was a nice time, very baseball-centric. (Obviously.) We ate great seafood and walked around in the park. Saw some historical stuff and some cool art, ate gelato. Can't ask for more.

This wasn't my first time in Boston, I was there once, for one day, during the summer I worked at a camp in Connecticut. The strange thing is, it felt totally different this time, like my memories were of an entirely different city. I can't explain it but it kind of weirded me out the whole time.

Also. I've been rereading Infinite Jest this summer. I get really into the books I read and this one is, of course, no exception. So the whole time we were in the Boston MAMA I kept expecting to see like Don Gately on the T, or some ETA kids running around. We did see a lot of questionable people on the streets so I guess that satisfied me to some extent.

And on that note. . . I finished IJ this weekend and almost cried. It felt like losing a job or a best friend, I've been spending so much time with it in the past two months now I don't know what to do with myself. I guess it's time to start reading another 1000 page, unbelievably engrossing novel. Any suggestions?

in my dreams

in my dreams, originally uploaded by oltremare.

another flickr love-fest.

my nighttime dreams have a few repeating themes. there's this gauzy half-real destination that i return to again and again; a partially crumbling european city set in the water. kind of like venice, but not exactly.

so, searching for pictures of venice on flickr a while ago, i realized i could create a more tangible representation of this through my favorites. what you're looking at right now is pretty much where I go at night. isn't it lovely? this has made me really happy.

it's also made me realize i should visit croatia at some time . . . apparently my dream world looks a lot like croatia.

fashion week: hats

it's spring/summer 08 fashion week and you know what that means! i've wasted at least an hour a day online looking at clothes I'll never be able to afford.

there's a lot of stuff I'm liking, and for some reason, one of the things is: seriously nuts headgear. next spring you can either look really chic, or like a half insane vagrant, depending on how you style yourself. check these out:

"spare some change?"

detail shots from style.com. proenza schouler, marc by marc jacobs, and 3.1 phillip lim.

seriously though, i kind of love it. i mean honestly. you have to be pretty daring to wear hats like these in a non-marching band / community theatre public situation. i give props to anyone who actually pulls it off.

Feist - 1 2 3 4

Feist, 1234, from youtube

i'm obsessed with this video. seriously. everything about it is perfect. I can't remember the last time i loved a music video this much. (I'm assuming it was mo money mo problems back in 1997? ten years man.)

anyway, part of the reason i love it is that the song is tops on my list of Tracks to Listen to on Repeat. Runners up include Roscoe by Midlake and Myriad Harbour by The New Pornographers (fyi, links go to myspace and the songs are there, DO IT, listen). I estimate that about half of my music listening in the past five days have been just these three songs.

oh yeah, and PS: in case you're wondering, the answer is YES, i am already teaching myself the dance to this video.

gourdy howe

gourdy howe, originally uploaded by oltremare.

this past spring i noticed some strange foliage in the flower bed in front of our house. i put two and two together and realized it was a pumpkin. . . last fall our halloween pumpkin had fallen apart, and apparently its seeds were really tenacious, since a pumpkin started growing seven months later.

i loved the pumpkin growing. i named it gourdy howe. sadly, gourdy's life ended a few weeks ago when I pruned a little to hard on his vines. this is how big / orange he got. not bad for a volunteer pumpkin in a tiny patch of dirt.

the latest. . . .

the latest. . . ., originally uploaded by oltremare.

i've always loved flickr, but in the past few weeks i've been crazy obsessed. my favorites are growing by leaps and bounds. i LOVE looking at my favorites; i really love seeing how my tastes and preferences change from week to week. this week it seems like i'm all about the muted/natural/organic.

other positive things
+ going to the white sox/red sox game with my husband yesterday. fun times, good game. it was actually a bit surreal; on the red line down to the game about 75% of the el car passengers were wearing red sox gear. boston fans travel well, apparently.
+ right now i'm listening to midlake on myspace and they're gooood. also, hello. . . . why have i not heard of this band? i think there's a theme developing, i'm about a year behind on new music. oh well. late than never, etc.
+ i ate an awesome peach today.

among other things. it was a good day.

internet-stolgia

Last night I had a dream about Tiny Showcase. I was visiting rhode island and was having a really in depth conversation with the guy that runs it, jon. We talked about art and artists and how I have never managed to successfully buy a print before it gets sold out. Also, I told him that I really miss Slatch.

It’s clear to me that I have been spending way to much time on the internet lately. Work is sloooooow.

Now I’m reading old slatch via the wayback machine and it’s making me intensely nostalgic for the internet of 2003, it sort of gives me flashbacks to my first job out of college. It’s also making me laugh out loud inappropriately in my quiet office. I miss slatch so much. Is it pathetic to actually miss a website?

boots!

it's almost 100 degrees out these days but of course my obsessive zappos searches are for winter boots. stupid august!

i'm looking for some mythical combination of dressy/work appropriate and cowboy-ish. these are the front runners so far:





the last pair are the least fun, but i'm kind of leaning toward them. maybe my look for the fall will be "classy cowgirl."

five minutes in my head

things that are making me happy. august 02 07 edition.

about grace by anthony doerr is absolutely killing me. LOVING it unlike any other modern novel i've read in a long while. it's changing the way i observe the world. when i read it i feel like i'm grabbing hold of a thin string that's attached to something momentous and REAL about the world. isn't that what a novel is supposed to do, ultimately?

more obsessions, musical: "boxer" by the national. i can't remember the last time i was this overtaken by an album. i'm getting that sick addicted feeling for it. like everytime i turn on my ipod or get in my car, i think, "i can't listen to this anymore or I'll ruin it." and then i turn it on and find more to love. also, this summer is the first time I've heard of them. where have i been for the past few years? the national is great.

mike and i went to the county fair the other night and I could just watch the goats for hours. we watched a pen full of young males, all careening around and jumping and headbutting each other. i think goats are climbing the ranks of my favorite domesticated animals. watch out, llamas.

i've been feeling lucky/blessed these days. work is slow so i get home by 5:15 or so and actually have time to do some housework and make dinner. is there anything more satisfying than cooking a square meal which features vegetables one has grown from a seed? the answer is no, my friends.

Caffé Sospeso

a definition from wikipedia.

A tradition in the cafés of Naples is to order a caffè sospeso – literally, a coffee "in suspense" – as a sign of your good fortune. When a sospeso is ordered, the customer pays for two coffees, but only receives one. That way, when a person who is homeless or otherwise down on their luck walks into the café, the person can ask if there are any coffees held in suspense, and can have one as a courtesy of the first customer.

i wish there were more things like this in the world.

been away.

checking back in, it's been months hasn't it?

more photos + commentary to come, but the past month and a half has been filled by:

- spending the last near two weeks at the national conference for my work. i wore a giant foam star costume every day and it was totally awesome. but it made me feel so removed from everything--my house, husband, dog, email, real food, real life. . . . it was so groundhog day ish. it was fun but i'm also sooper glad it's over with, back to real life now.

-a lovely wedding on lake superior in northern wisconsin. magical friendships that haven't changed in years. raspberries picked and immediately eaten. many beers. fun. and more fun.

-a short trip to northwest iowa and southeast south dakota. back to the tiny tiny town i spent my young youth in, which seems so much smaller now after the years. and my grandpas farm. it felt so natural.

- also. the garden growing. eating food i grew from a seed will never cease to amaze me. spent an hour or so weeding this afternoon, working up a sweat. it's really satisfying.

-other stuff. good books: about grace and four seasons in rome by anthony doerr. the girls by lori lansens, seven sisters by margaret drabble. i've been reading a lot actually. and music: feist, spoon, ryan adams. these words and music have been the steady undercurrent of all the craziness lately. so that's good.

i think that's it. i honestly feel like i've lost myself over the past few weeks, working hard at work and then being so removed at conference. i'm getting back into my life and trying to get every backward thing righted again.

two years

according to wikipedia, the second anniversary is the "cotton" anniversary. but apparently in our household it's the tennis racket anniversary.

anyway, yeah, we've been married for two years. it hardly feels that long... it was a good night tonight though. we had a nice dinner out and afterwards walked down to the county fairgrounds. the circus is in town tomorrow and we caught a glimpse of some of it. it was a nice evening.





may is such an excellent month for us. really, the past few weeks have been nothing less than perfect springtime.

old littlebook

December Little Book Cover, originally uploaded by oltremare.

i've been busy. i wish i had more time for ribbons and scissors and glue. it will be a few weeks though. I was thinking about how thankful I am to have co workers i like, since i spend an awful lot of time with these people.

someday there will be new art. sooner rather than later, let's hope.

other than that, things are excellent: arcade fire "intervention." these sweet spring days. reading lucy grealy's "autobiography of a face" in the five minutes before i fall asleep/pass out every night. and watching my seeds in their peat pots growing every day. i love the month of may.