weekend bits

my pumpkin. It's supposed to say "i (heart) (narwhal)", but it actually just looks like a weird face to me.

Friday night we went to a pumpkin carving party, hosted by some of my friends from college that I hadn't seen in forever, which was nice. I have to say, I am glad that most of my social group has moved on from the "let's all get together and then drink way too much" era of socializing. Not only is it a plus for me to be pregnant and still have fun, it's so much nicer to be able to do something creative together, have interesting conversations about real topics, and get home at a decent hour. Yet another step forward into real adulthood.

Today was long (we forgot about switching the clocks last night) but I got a lot done and it's been a pleasant sunday. Made chili and baked a pie; cleaned a lot. All good things.



my lunch from today. leftover winter squash soup, triscuits and cheese, and v8. vegetable-y!

so, two blogs in two days. the momentum has started. [i meant to post this on sunday, that still counts, right?]

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.

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.

warmth!

my mom and I at "cloud gate" (aka, the bean) millenium park, Chicago.

okay, how many other good things could have happened this weekend?
1. friday night i fell asleep on the couch at 9 PM. yes, that's a good thing.
2. my mom came to visit. and she brought dari barn ice cream. .. with crunch coat (a hometown favorite). dude, best thing ever, in the universe.
3. we went to millenium park saturday afternoon and just sat there forever watching people. i really love millenium park, I truly do, and am really happy that some of my tax dollars as a city dweller funded it's billion dollar-ness.
3a. we had such a nice day walking around downtown, walking along the lakefront, drinking warm drinks at the cosi on michigan avenue with all the art kids, taking the metra through all the western suburbs, etc. etc.
4. today I did the crossword on the patio, then fell into some kind of dreamy sun coma/ half sleep. SUNSHINE. it is back, and like I said, I honestly feel like I'm in a whole new world. it's glorious.
4a. also this afternoon I made some collages with the windows open. is there anything nicer than a good music mix mingled with the birdsongs from the backyard? it's kind of the ultimate nice sunday afternoon sound.
5. tonight mike and I rode our bikes over to a friends house, sat on a patio, drank beers, and petted dogs. let's think about all the good things in that sentence. there's a lot.

Honestly though, it's so strange to live in this new universe of warmth. I feel like this was one of the worst winters I've ever lived through and now it's totally bizarre to get used to non-winter anymore. I'm sure I sound like some kind of weirdo talking about this, but I'm guessing if you live above the mason-dixon line you'll probably understand. SPRINGTIME. Yes.

clothes, and cheese

well, as if I needed any more reasons to be head over heels for j.crew. . . their newest catalog is shot in Rome. It's kind of sick how perfect that is. You HAVE to go watch the intro video. The images online aren't as great as the catalog, but I'll share a few.

now I want to travel back in time so I can wear that yellow dress on our trip to rome last year.

Anyway, on to other things. . . This weekend I went to indiana to visit my friend Valerie. It's so bizarre to be back in a college environment. I really appreciated it, since I so rarely run into the grad schoolie academic type in my daily life anymore, and I desperately miss that kind of character. On the other hand, it's so strange being in the weird middle-ish time of life. 27: friends with kids, friends just married, friends in school. I feel so in the middle of all of that and pulled in all directions, the Stretch Armstrong of friendship. I guess I'm kind of used to it, it's been this way for a few years now. But this weekend was just a giant flashing reminder of it.

And finally, cheese. On the way down to Bloomington I kept passing signs for some dairy farm. Intruiging. So I checked it out, and it was a little cheese utopia right off the freeway in indiana. I highly recommend stopping into Fair Oaks Farm if your travels ever take you on 1-65. Samples to your heart's content! I enjoyed it so much I stopped there on the way back too. And now there is yummy Hickory Smoked Gouda in my fridg.

2007, in photos

Last night, as I was falling asleep around 11:40 (yes, lame, but I'm 100% fine with that) i told my husband that 2007 has been one of the best years of my life. It really has been.

the evidence:


rome. my heart explodes in love for rome


friendship. lea, renae, valerie and I at the baha'i temple.


my beautiful garden.


boston. and my newfound love for baseball.


being the star mascot at my company's national conference (what a bizarre yet wonderful experience!)


visiting my grandpa's farm in iowa with the whole family.

almost too much to name. It's hard to condense all the good things, great and small, about this year into a few photographs and a couple paragraphs.

happy new year, friends. here's to another one that's even better.

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.

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?

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. :)

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.