iowa surprises

i really love going back to iowa. i love it so much I don't mind when I get lost on the country roads after I've already been driving for five hours. . . . but that's my own fault. the country is so pretty it made up for the lost time.

i visited my friend Mindy in Ames this weekend, my college town. i can't imagine how it would have been any better: going to the des moines farmers market & craft fair, walking around campus, talking about arty stuff, listening to music. and a gastronomic tour of ames too: the west street deli, stomping grounds, the cafe. yay for ames.

two stories though. the melancholy one first.

when i drove into town and neared campus, a ton of college memories flooded back to me. and not good ones. I've had ample time now to cultivate my collegiate memories into a neat little package of happy times. being back in ames reminded me that there were a lot of not so great times. feeling lonely a lot. wishing I was different, smarter or cooler or whatever. worrying about school. i had pushed all those things away and it was interesting to face them, now that it's so far in the past and I'm in such a good place right now. so I suppose that's a happy ending.

and now. . .the funny one.

saturday afternoon mindy and I went to walk around campus. we started at the design building. oh, my old home away from home. it was surprisingly crowded for a saturday, and we walked into the main atrium and saw a political rally about to begin. and who was speaking this afternoon? ashton kutcher and demi moore. unbelievable. i was actually a little ticked because I just wanted to wander the building in peace, and it was interrupted by stupid ashton kutcher.


college of design.


stupid ashton, can you see him down there? i also feel like this picture is sorta creepy since nearly EVERYONE is talking a photo.


ames in the morning.

bows and flowers

new shoes from anthropologie! I treated myself to something fancy since my maternity wardrobe is fairly small and kinda plain. and frankly, I'd rather not buy anything else I won't be able to wear in four months. so shoes it is! can you believe it had been almost a year since I purchased any new shoes? that is a looooong time for me. maybe I have learned some restraint in my late twenties.

hey, thanks for all your comments about my puppy. she has been doing perfectly fine since the episode and seems all back to normal. now I'm thinking about this. . . if my dog getting sick worries me that much, how much more will I worry about a child? I guess that's what every mother deals with.

my special little ditka friend

i love my dog so much, i'm one of those people. this morning she gave me a little scare. . . . poor puggy had a seizure. I took her in to the vet and I think everything is probably okay. it could have just been a blood sugar thing, since she didn't eat enough yesterday. they sent away some blood work so by tomorrow we should find out if it's anything worse. it's amazing how distracted I can be just from worrying about my little pup. I got all my work done today but my heart just was not in it.

i have some happier things to share, too, but today I just wanted to post these photos. i did a little ditka photo shoot last spring. I should do this more often, i have tons of pictures of Mike and I, but not too many of the dog. she deserves it.

things to do

I never know what to call my work. art? collage? scrapbook? it is what it is though. i'm pleased with these two, made the day after we had our 20 week ultrasound. I always feel like my artwork is better when i'm happy.

This is the kind of week where all I want to do is cut and paste and cut and paste. just let the pages in my art journal fill up, and make postcards for friends, and start a new sewing project. instead, I'll be working late every night and coming home with enough energy to eat, finish a few chores, and veg out in front of msnbc. I am always a bit envious of people that can stay up late working on projects and still function normally. i guess being pregnant doesn't really help that right now.

The prospect of an entirely free weekend makes it all better though. the weather has been so perfect this week it feels like time to start all the fall projects on my list.
-finally, finally putting up curtains in our bedroom. i found some simple white sheers and I think they might look great with a wide brown grosgrain ribbon sewn along the bottom. if I get ambitious.
-reorganizing and redecorating our mantle. I'm starting to get the thrifting urge big time, since it's been a couple of weeks, and hopefully I can pick up a few cute things.
-cleaning up the garden for wintertime. i have to say, the garden definitely fell to the end of the to do list this summer and it's looking a little unkempt, to say the least.
-organizing our wreck of a spice cabinet. you should see it, it's not pretty. so far I haven't found any perfect solutions. . . but I'm convinced it's out there somewhere.

to be honest though, if I even accomplish one of those four I'd be pretty stoked. i like takin 'er easy these days.

happy home

i actually have a lot of artwork to share, but it's been so dark outside I've had no chance to photograph it. hopefully soon though. it's been a good week for my art book.

So. Today was a crummy day at work. Half the day I had too much to do, the other half I was sitting around doing nothing and waiting for other people to finish their projects. Not fun. Plus I seem to have some kind of mood sponge, and whenever someone close to me is in a bad mood, it rubs off. Not fun, part two. Then, the worst part. I had to attend a meeting with three of the biggest bigwigs of the company since my boss was out sick. I was slightly unprepared, not to mention feeling nervous and out of place. The actual meeting went fine. . . until they starting talking politics. Talk about uncomfortable. Two of them had opinions that could not be further from mine. . . . ugh, horrible. I wanted to puke and cry at the same time. Ouch. A topper on top of a bad day of feeling unsettled and moody.

But there's good news. As soon as I got home, I cleaned the kitchen and started making dinner, a chicken pot pie from scratch. I changed the sheets in the bedroom and did a load of laundry. Had an idea for a collage and started cutting some pieces while the pot pie was in the oven. And now i feel like I've flushed out all the bad of the day and reordered myself. Sweet relief.

All these simple things have made me feel so much better about myself than whatever dumb thing I accomplished at work today. And obviously, I don't feel like this all the time, I do enjoy my work. But after a rough day it's nice to come home and be comforted by domesticity.

last week of august

I can't believe it's the last week of august already. I've finally been out of school long enough to not be affected by the cycles of the school year, so summer always seems to last into september for me--it usually stays hot here that long. this summer has been even more unusual since I don't think we've seen a temp above 95 yet, so I feel like it's barely been summer at all. and which also means I have a lot of green tomatoes still hanging around, refusing to ripen. here are a few though.



some other random things:

last night I had a dream I was trying to construct a miniature of Frank Gehry's Pritzker Pavillion (see below) out of frozen yogurt. It was going pretty well if you can believe it.


I also dreamt that Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum were time travelling robots from the future. Both of these things have made me smile throughout the day.

door county and milwaukee, august 2008

the subtitle for this entry would probably be "the bathrooms of wisconsin." i think the baby was sitting directly on my bladder all weekend long.

anyway! pictures!
on our sheep farm tour! I'm really excited, can't you tell?

mike and his sheepy friends

on a lookout tower, peninsula state park

eagle harbor sunset

whitefish dunes state park

milwaukee art museum



we had a great time, it was really relaxing. I always forget how much I love the country. we stayed on "the quiet side" of door county so I'm sure that made a difference. i think we experienced most of what door county had to offer, including: numerous wonderful hikes in state parks, a climb to the top of a lighthouse, a fish boil, yummy custard, browsing at touristy shops but not buying anything. . . and of course our wonderful bed and breakfast/sheep farm, whitefish bay farm, which I highly recommend. the breakfast was great and the sheep were soooo cute and friendly.

we also stopped in Milwaukee for a day this weekend too, and I always forget how much I love smaller cities. we visited the art museum, walked around downtown on the riverwalk quite a bit, mike drank a lot of brewpub beer, I loved shopping in the third ward and seeing the public market. happy times.

leisurely day off

some artworks for an online art journal class I'm taking.

I decided to take this class, not because I feel like I need instruction on how to make things, but just for more of a boost, new ideas, whatever. It's been a good experience but has underlined something I've known about myself for a while. . . I really hate to follow directions. I cook from recipes all the time, but use them as a loose guideline. I've never sewn from a pattern in my life. So, in making these pages I feel like I'm using the tutorials as more of a suggestion than a direction. and I am totally okay with that.

Today I have the day off work and I'm going into the city to get a haircut at my old favorite salon in Wicker Park. I'm feeling sorta nervous because I might take the plunge and get some blunt bangs or something completely new. I guess we'll see. I think the haircut urge comes from the fact that if I can't really control how my body looks in the next few months, I might as well have cute hair. Plus it's a nice excuse to go bum around in my old neighborhood. I do miss it sometimes.

Then tomorrow, Mike and I are off for a long weekend in Wisconsin-Door County and Milwaukee. It should be fun. We're staying at a bed and breakfast that is also a sheep farm so you know I'm deliriously excited.

bits and pieces

Some pretty things I've found in the past few weeks. Wildflowers in a park near my house. Zinnias in the side yard around dusk. And "natural graffiti," shadows from some foliage on our dining room floor.

Things have been nice and quiet around here. Lately I have been waking up fairly early and really enjoying it. sunday morning the whole neighborhood was so cool and super quiet, I ate breakfast on the back patio and it felt like I was the only one awake for miles. It's lovely. We've been having some friendly bird visitors on our back patio, too; a hummingbird, a pair of american goldfinches, and a daily afternoon sparrow party (dozens of them!). It's fun to watch.

I'm appreciating all these calm docile moments. Lately I have been feeling a little unsure about some of my friendships. Once again it's an issue of my being in a different life place than some of my friends and it makes me feel so awkward. I'm pretty sure it's all just my perception, but still, I think about it too much and it troubles me. Not everything is easy. But. Everything is good, ultimately.

here we go

It's been my belief for a long time that I don't want to buy a lot of things for our children. I mean, what kid doesn't love the box something comes in better than the actual gift itself? Also, most kids stuff isn't very aesthetically interesting to me. Who wants their house all full of colorful plastic junk? And I certainly don't want my child in either the all-princess or all-truck wardrobe that most stores seem to stock for little girls and boys.

But anyway. I think I found my weakness:



threadless baby onesies. First of all, they're all adorable and funny. Also, they're limited editions, so I think, ooooh, if I like it I better get it now. The dumbest part is that they're kind of expensive for something the kid will only wear for three-four months, tops. I still can't resist though.





So far I've kept it under control, for the most part. I just ordered the Cookie loves Milk, and the Giraffe and Elephant fire brigade. I should also confess that I bought a Giraffe and Elephant fire brigade shirt for myself too. Maybe I'll email a link to the Noah's art shirt to my parents, I'm sure they would approve and be happy to oblige.

gratitude

thank you for all the congratulations and well wishes, my friends. one thing that has been really nice so far about pregnancy is getting a chance to connect with people in a new way; new conversations with friends who are parents, a good reason to get in touch with old friends I haven't talked to in a while. so, it's been nice.

As far as my pregnancy goes, I have been soooo lucky so far. No real morning sickness to speak of, only some tiredness (but nothing that a nap on the couch or going to sleep at 9 pm can't solve). I feel pretty blessed by that. The worst thing I've noticed is that I pretty much lost interest in everything for the first few months. Hence, not much blogging. :) Hardly any new pages in my art journals or scrapbooks. And my garden got a little overgrown. Things are getting better though, my house is actually clean again too.

January 17 feels like a long time away now, but I know it will be here soon. We aren't going to find out if we're having a boy or a girl, so it's an exciting surprise to look forward to. I just hope that everything continues to go as well as it has been so far. It's a pretty amazing experience.

the newest adventure

Speaking of books I've been reading lately. . . . there's been one on my nightstand for about three months now. Even though I haven't been enjoying ALL of it, I've found it educational, amusing, perplexing, terrifying, eye-opening AND reassuring.

What is it then? Well,



Yeah dudes. It's true. BABY time!

I have lots to share, more soon, but after 16 (well, 14) weeks of waiting, I had to put it out here. :)

all things considered.

Things i've been considering lately:

1. Getting a haircut with bangs.

2. Taking a life drawing class.

3. Cleaning out/tossing a TON of my paper stash. (just considering though. we'll see.)

4. How can I make the most of the rest of the summer? I need to regain that adolescent feeling of exciting summertime adventure.

I think we need to go on vacation somewhere new and exciting. Currently the top of the list is a bed and breakfast in Door County Wisconsin that is also a Sheep Farm and Art Gallery. I swear I didn't dream that up, it's totally for real.

5. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the premiere of this season of Project Runway tonight pretty much negates every bad thing that's happened to me in the past two days? Oh, Tim Gunn, his voice is like a soothing balm to my troubled soul.

verstiegenheit

I don't have a way with words and most of the time I can't express my thoughts on things very well. At least not without saying Dude half a dozen times. Anyway, I read books for the way they make me think and feel, for the way they change the way I think and feel. But I'm going to try and get some thoughts out on this one.

So with that, I've jumped into all 1,000 + pages of Infinite Jest for the third time and I'm going to try to keep up with the Infinite Jest Online Summertime Appreciation Society and/or Book Club. It's totally official.

I vaguely recall buying the book the summer after I graduated from college. I can't remember why but I suppose it was partially because I liked the cover, the clouds and the orange, white and black futura type. I started reading it for real, the first time, somewhere in the spring of 2004. I can almost pinpoint the day that cemented my first reading. I even have a little souvenir.


That's right, cook county jury duty. I sat in that room all day and read read read. To be honest, I didn't get a lot out of my first reading. I understood practically nothing about Marathe and Steeply and anything related to Quebec (still some of the rockier parts for me to get through) and overall, i just didn't GET it. I don't remember finding it funny, I don't remember thinking about it when I wasn't reading it.

Then came the second reading, last summer. It became such a joy to me. I laughed out loud. I think I frightened all my friends and coworkers by always bringing up anecdotes from some weird book they'd never read. I thought about the book constantly. I even felt like the characters should have been there when we took our trip to Boston last fall.

It really helped me to keep notes, something I've almost never done with a novel. By the end of my second reading, little index cards were scattered all over - my nightstand, the living room, my purse, my car - all with character notes and vocab words. The vocab words really helped. I wish I would have saved all my vocab cards from last summer since apparently not all those words stuck.

So, there's that. In an attempt to not bore people that don't care about Infinite Jest (most of you, I'd wager), I'm moving my book nerdiness to a tumblr, oltremare.tumblr.com. See you there. It's going to be the best tumblr o.a.t.

fyi.

just thought you should know. i figure if I don't have any interesting thoughts or new works of art to blog about, I might as well blog about my snack choices.

hope you're having a nice summer. :)

Some of my last month

So I've been feeling kind of "meh" about the internet in general lately. Sorry folks.

Here are some other things I've been doing with my time:
1. Mike surprised me with a trip to the zoo on my birthday.
2. Trip to Iowa to visit my parents, eating Dari Barn twice in a span of less than 24 hours.
3. Trying to get my snow peas to climb up a little support I made for them.
4. I was out of my office for a photo shoot all last week, which was a nice change of pace. I took home all the unused prop fruit and made some tarts this weekend. Yummy.
5. Took a trip to Goodwill this weekend too, it's been a while since I've been to a thrift store. Thrift shopping is great because I enjoy the process and the outcome ($3 perfect fitting short sleeve cashmere sweater! among other treasures).
6. I saw David Sedaris for the first time yesterday on the Daily Show. Can you believe I have never seen his face? It's totally surreal to hear a voice that is intensely familiar coming out of a strange head. I can't really explain it other than to say it weirded me out.
7. Lots of other fun things that I can't really recall right now. Things have been good though. I just don't feel like writing about it very much. :)

rainbows and flowers

I'm still feeling pretty quiet. I have to say, my break from the internet has not been as much of a break as I'd hoped, but I feel like I'm making strides. I have been taking walks and reading and cooking more than before.

I've also noticed that I feel a lot less pressure to start new projects. When I constantly look at flickr and read art blogs, I get crazy with the amount of stuff I want to do/try/accomplish. That has definitely subsided in the past week or so. It's refreshing, and I feel like it's allowing more room for original ideas and my own taste/aesthetic. Essentially, I feel better about making my own way, rather than wishing I was more like someone else. If that makes sense ...

Anyway, here are some pretty pictures. Rainbows and flowers. Word.

not fast enough for us

"Walking was not fast enough, so we ran. Running was not fast enough, so we galloped. Galloping was not fast enough, so we sailed. Sailing was not fast enough, so rolled merrily along long, metal tracks. Long metal tracks were not fast enough, so we drove. Driving was not fast enough, so we flew.

Flying isn't fast enough, not fast enough for us. We want to get there faster. Get where? Wherever we're not. But a human soul can only go as fast as a human man can walk, they used to say. In that case, then where are all the souls? Left behind. They wander here and there, slowly, dim lights flickering in the marshes of the night, looking for us. But, they're not nearly as fast enough, not for us, we're way ahead of them, they'll never catch up. That's why we can go so fast; our souls dont weigh us down."
Margaret Atwood, The Tent

I have a lot to share but not a lot to write today. i'm conducting an experiment this week and trying to slow down and cut back on some of the noise in my life. I'm hoping to reduce the massive and wasteful amount of time I spend on the internet, the mindless TV watching, the obsessive email checking, the shopping online with no intention of buying. It's just NOT good for too many reasons to list. I want to be more aware of my time and how I'm spending it.

So with that, I don't know when I'll come back to my blog, it could be a few weeks or so. Just a little break. I'll leave you with a few links and art projects and things.

I can take a break from a lot of things on the internet, but not flickr. And definitely not my favorites. Lately I've been looking for photos of creative gardens, outdoor rooms, and beautiful naturey things.

I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver right now, and it's definitely inspiring me to spend more time in the kitchen and garden. All the seasonal, super healthy recipes from the book are here.

Measure for Measure is a New York times blog about songwriting, and Andrew Bird is one of the contributors. Fascinating stuff.





some collages from this weekend. i could have made ten more pages in the same color palette, I was really enjoying it.

Thanks for listening. See you soon.

Want to know what makes me sad?

Imagine you're enjoying a nice saturday morning reading the newspaper. You turn to the second page and see. . .


Yep, that's right. Narwhals are totally endangered and facing extinction now because of climate change. I had a suspicion about this and now it's confirmed. The whole article is here in case you're curious.

I have been a little extra sensitive lately, but seeing this threw me for an emotional curve and it made me SO sad. I ended up crying on and off for hours after I read it. I just love narwhals so much, and for me, it represents so much more than just the endangerment of my most beloved weird arctic marine mammal. What's happening in our world? It's frightening.

Anyway, once again I am seriously considering starting up a Narwhal Appreciation society, proceeds going to a Save the Whales or Save the Arctic organization. Honestly, polar bears shouldn't get all the press! Narwhals are way more magical and interesting than a big jerk of a bear.

mail art and a meme

this is a piece of mail art I made for robyn. our trade was my first experience with this kind of mail art, and it was really fun!

and. Here's a meme I've seen in a few places around the blog world lately, I thought I'd share my answers. . .

What was I doing 5 years ago?
2003. . . hmmm. Kind of an awkward time of my life. I was living in chicago in a weird neighborhood, still not used to not being in college anymore, not loving my job at all. i had great friends, though I don't think we were the best influences on each other at that time. Overall, probably your run of the mill 23 year old malaise. On the upside, i saw a ton of great live music that year and bought a lot of shoes. So, there you go.

Five things on my to-do list today (or things I did today):
1. Get work done so I don't have to stay late at work.
2. Return a purse I bought from anthropologie. but this probably won't happen today.
3. Cook dinner.
4. Go out and look at my garden even though there's only three little sprouts so far.
5. Watch LOST. yay!

Five snacks i love:
1. triscuits and cheese.
2. hummus and pita
3. chips and salsa.
4. fruit crisp with vanilla ice cream.
5. dark chocolate.
apparently I love combinations of things.

Five things i would do if i were a billionaire:
1. pay off our house and buy a vacation home somewhere nice in the midwest.
2. pay off my parents house, buy my brother a new house
3. give money to our church and my dad's church
4. Buys lots of goats and cows for heifer international.
5. Ginormous blowout of a European vacation with all my friends and family! italy, paris, london, ireland, copenhagen, croatia, germany, etc. etc. Seriously, you're all invited, all expenses paid. :)

Five bad habits I have:
1. Never answering my cell phone.
2. Spending waaay too much time on the internet.
3. Keeping a super messy car all the time.
4. This is probably TMI, but it's my worst habit right now. . scratching my itchy excema hands. :(
5. Not keeping in touch very well with my old college friends and extended family.

Five places i have lived:
a selection of the many, from smallest to largest :)
1. Wentworth, South Dakota
2. Marshfield, Missouri
3. Ames, Iowa
4. Rome, Italy
5. Chicago

Five jobs i've had:
1. Camp Counselor.
2. "Bingo the Dog" at a pumpkin farm.
3. College Residence Hall Tour Guide.
4. Screen printer at a sporting goods factory.
5. Graphic Designer for lower-grade textbooks.
This list could go on. . . i've done a lot of weird jobs in my life.

well, that was fun. now i'm off to do all the things on the to do list for the day. :)