Artsy Fartsy

I know you want to.  I mean, look at this sunset!

How about this one?  I think I hate myself, look at how PRETTY!

On Saturday afternoon we had the pleasure of going aboard Stellar Venture, our friends’ new boat that they will be chartering out of Old Saybrook, CT.  They were filming a video for the boat’s website and we were there to act as extras.  Goofy extras.

Let me show you how Stellar Venture is perfect for all of your boating needs.  Like deep sea fishing, for example.

Or family outings.  (Hey, it’s Jane!)

Or romantic sunset cruises.

What a beautiful boat, and what a gorgeous afternoon!  Thank you to Amanda and Greg for letting us play on board.  If you’d like to see all of my pictures from the day, including more sunset views that you’d ever care to look at in one sitting, go here.

In advance of Mother’s Day, I thought I’d say hi to my mom and wish her a happy day.

I may complain (jokingly) about the things I’ve inherited from you - hypoglycemia, double-jointed fingers, an excess of freckles, etc… but really I’m so thankful for everything you’ve given me.  (Well, maybe not the spider veins, but everything else I’m grateful for.)

The analytical brain, the love for learning, the high tolerance of annoying things, the great big heart… that’s all you Mom.  And you’re right, I don’t take many pictures of you for some reason, but I still have this one on my desk.  That one’s my favorite.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!  I’m so lucky that you’re my mom.

I saw my mom at t-ball last night and she told me that yesterday’s post was a big drag.  Sorry, I’ll try to focus on the positive today.  T-ball last night was a blast.  I can’t believe how much better they’ve all gotten in the past three weeks.   They’re still distracted, slightly mixed-up, five and six-year olds, but they’re starting to get the hang of the sport and they’re so CUTE!

Also, my camera?  Still awesome from the mystery accidental button pushing incident.  Look, I caught Cameron’s home run ball in mid-flight.  Nice swing!

This little bugger was there, too, being adorable.  I wore a hat to shade my lily-white skin from the sun and he wanted one, too, so I gave him this extra one that I had in the back of my car.  Grandma supplied the chocolates and he asked both of us several times if we could go get ice cream.  He’s definitely related.

Alex found another little boy to play with and we turned around at one point to see the two of them trying to move the goal.  They were pulling so hard, it was painfully adorable.

Now let’s see… how about some other positive news.   My car finally broke past the 38.5 MPG plateau yesterday.  I was getting 38 MPG for a few weeks and yesterday after a fill-up I calculated it to be 38.54 MPG.  I love my car.  Get up from your desk now and go buy a Yaris, you won’t be disappointed.

Last night I saw 27 Dresses (very cute) and now I know what I want for my birthday: James Marsden.  Pretty please?  I don’t think Luke would mind.  Also, after months of waiting I bought P.S. I Love You on Tuesday.  Sigh… I love that movie.

OK, I have to go yell at someone now, all this happiness on a gray rainy day is just too much for me.

I seem to go through cycles of hating Luke’s work schedule and being OK with it. At the moment I’m not OK with it. The weather is sunny, summer is on the way, yet I am angry and sad. Some nights I stay busy sewing and making things and I’m happy that Luke’s sleeping because I know that if he were awake, I wouldn’t have so much time to get things done. Some nights I’m happy that I can watch Dancing with the Stars without hearing complaints, and I can eat cereal for dinner without having to worry about someone else and what they want. But then there are nights like I’ve been having lately where I’m not happy about any of it. I don’t want to do anything. I want to lay on the couch and feel sad. I’m bored, I’m lonely, and even though there are things to do, stuff to make, and gardens to plant, I don’t want to think about doing any of it. I want someone else to make decisions and decide what we’ll do. I want company, I’m tired of being alone. It sucks.

Last night was particularly sucky. I decided that some exercise might pry me out of my funk so I stopped on the way home from work to buy a bicycle helmet. I have my sister’s old bike at the house but I’ve been leery of riding it without a helmet. I was finally going to take the bike out for a spin. I got home, changed, put my new helmet on and laced up my sneaks. I went to get the bike out of the basement, and guess what? The tires are flat. We have an air compressor and I am entirely capable of inflating my own tires, but in order to do so I need to plug the compressor in which would turn it on and make a loud, rattly noise in the basement just under the bedroom where Luke is sleeping. I parked the bike, took off my helmet, and cursed Luke’s work schedule.

The rest of the night went pretty much the same. I wanted to do laundry but that makes too much noise. I worked in the yard, but only half-heartedly, and then I found a dead squirrel in the garden. Nice. I gave up and went in to watch Dancing with the Stars, the only bright spot in my week, lately. I also put some dulce de leche in the oven to cook for some desserts I’m making for mother’s day and sat on the couch to enjoy the dancing. After an hour and a half of cooking, the dulce de leche wasn’t done and I was frustrated so I did something so stupid, I should kick myself. First let me explain that you make dulce de leche (a delicious caramel-toffee wonderful spread) by slowly cooking sweetened condensed milk until the sugar caramelizes. You do this by heating it covered in a pan of water in the oven to keep the milk from getting too hot and boiling over. Well stupid, impatient me took the pans out of the water, forgetting that they were MILK and put them in the oven alone. Five minutes later I look over and see smoke pouring out of the oven because the milk had boiled over and began to burn in the pans, on the racks, and on the floor of my oven. The house was filled with smoke and it would be minutes before the smoke alarm went off and woke Luke up.

I again cursed Luke’s work schedule, not because the smoke alarm was about to go off, but because what I really wanted to do was scream curses at the burning milk and loudly heave the sticky, smoking pans off the deck, but that would have woken Luke up, so I cursed under my breath and took the pans outside then opened the windows and turned the house fan on to clear out the smoke before the alarm went off.

I woke up this morning to a beautiful day in an empty house that smells like burned milk. I’m grumpy and I feel useless. I don’t want to do anything. This isn’t right. It’s so nice out! I should be happy but I’m not. Tonight I’m going to watch t-ball again, that should cheer me up for a while and at least I won’t be alone for a little while. This cycle better end soon because I can’t stand myself anymore and I’m the only one around to keep me company. They make medication for this, don’t they?

This is where I wish I could be today.  Warm, laying in the sun on the deck, napping in the late morning.  She’s got the life.

I love this view.  The sun came out again yesterday and I was finally able to get warm.  I was even able to finish painting the kitchen door.  Of course the white fluffy tree pollen was floating everywhere and sticking to the wet paint so the door is now texturized, and possibly will soon be sprouting trees.

The railing should start going up this weekend, very exciting.  Sort of.  I’m excited that the railing will finally be up, but I’m also a little sad that I won’t be able to hang my feet off the back anymore.  An no more puppy on the edge photos either.

I laid down on the deck to try to get a picture of Molly and I leaned on some button on my camera which brought up a menu I had never seen before.  I have to read the manual again because whatever setting it changed seemed to make a big difference taking scenery-type pictures.  I think it set the focus at infinity instead of auto, or whatever setting it was.  A happy accident, I love those.

Sure, maybe it was in the high 40s this weekend (the first weekend in MAY, I might add).

And sure, maybe it rained and rained, and rained some more. But at one point the sun came out for a little while, and look what I found in the yard. New green sprouts galore.

The flowers will be out in no time.  For now I’ll just have to settle for green.

I got my hairs cut this morning.  And a highlight and a blow-dry.  Andrea always makes me look like a movie star.  If only she would come live with me so I could look like this every morning.  It’s actually much lighter in person.  This drab weather + my dark office + Photo Booth = inaccurate photo.   I love the jaunty flip.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Let me first say thank you for everyone’s comments. It was nice to find some new readers (well maybe not NEW, but new to me). Hi everyone!

So I was going to write everyone’s names on slips of paper and pull them from a hat but I’m busy making Snickery Squares right now (and I’m lazy) so I went the easy way: random.org. I numbered each comment based on the order they were left, then asked random.org to generate a random number for me.

And the winner is…

AMANDA! Seriously, I swear it was COMPLETELY legit. This was not a fixed drawing whatsoever, but I’m so happy that Amanda won! She especially needs a pick-me-up considering she’s living with a sick baby and a man cold. Bummer. I would offer to mail it to you, but I’ll just give it to you on Sunday when I see you! Congratulations!!

Since… January? I’ve had this idea in my head to make some reusable tote bags with iron-on images of my artwork or little sayings maybe, and sell them on Etsy.  I bought some soft natural cotton fabric and cut out the pieces and then left them on my sewing table for WEEKS.  Last night I finally decided to sew them together and, crap, I hate it when things don’t turn out the way I imagined they would.  (And also, my brain keeps playing tricks on me making me think I spelled reduce and reuse wrong.  I can’t tell you how many double-takes I’ve done since I ironed that on.)

Well, sure, it’s a nice bag.  You should feel it.  The fabric is like old pillowcase soft and it’s lined with cotton batting, giving it a sturdy, snuggly feeling.  The straps are long enough to loop over your shoulder and it’s large enough to hold several books or groceries.  But it’s just not what I thought it would be.  It’s puffier (I should try a new lining) and the straps are a bit floppy (I should have lined them) and the iron-on transfer changed the color of the fabric (which I why I sewed on the binding as a frame to hide it).  I don’t know.  It’s OK, but it’s not my favorite.

On that note, how about I give it away?  So many other websites are having giveaways this week, I feel like being charitable myself.  If you would like a chance to win this lovely imperfect reusable tote bag handmade with love, and a little frustration, just leave a comment on this post by 8pm EST.  Tonight I’ll choose a comment at random and that lucky commenter will win!  How about that?

I am easily swayed. Some may call it gullible, I prefer “easily motivated”.

When I was thirteen I stopped eating meat because of a letter-writing assignment I was given in school. The assignment was to write ten letters to politicians or heads of companies to express our opinion against their business practices. I chose animal testing and animal rights and after writing my ten letters to Proctor and Gamble and Maybelline, I decided that if testing products on animals was bad, eating them was worse, and I was going to stop eating meat. I continued to be a vegetarian for about ten years. All because of a seventh grade writing assignment. Well, that and the fact Bop! magazine said that Cory Feldman was a vegetarian, and I looOooOved Cory Feldman. (Shut up, I was thirteen!)

When I got married and moved into my first house, I vowed to be environmentally friendly and use only non-toxic cleaning products. I loved Real Goods catalog and dreamed if having my own solar panels. I reused plastic bags and bought canvas bags to bring my groceries home in. I went out of my way to buy Doc Bronner’s soap to use for laundry detergent and I never bought paper towels or napkins. Then life got busy, and that wonderful Doc Bronner’s soap is expensive, and I fell in love with soft, cottony Marcal paper towels. Sometimes I’d wash my plastic bags to reuse them, sometimes the bag dryer would sit on my counter for months without being used. I still brought my bags to the grocery store and separated my recycling, but the other stuff sort of fell to the wayside.

Then last week I listened to a presentation about sustainable design. The speaker talked about how much of the stuff we buy (especially packaging) is designed to be thrown away, and how plastic is here forever, and how so much of it ends up in the ocean where it breaks down and is eaten by the fish which are in turn eaten by us. Something in that presentation flipped the “Save the Earth” switch in my head and I now have a renewed fire to do all those things I used to do to use less and reuse more. I’m also constantly aware of how much plastic is around me and how I can’t get away from it.

Like I said, I bring my bags to the grocery store, I’ve replaced my old canvas bags with all of the long-handled green bags the grocery stores sell now. They’re great, but there was still one thing that was bothering me. It was the plastic produce bags I was brining home. It seemed backwards to fill my reusable shopping bags with plastic that I was taking home to throw away. I saw some great reusable produce bags on Etsy but they were sold out. Being the impatient one that I am, I couldn’t wait for her to make more so I made my own out of some scrap fabric and an old laundry bag. Neat, huh?

I’m very excited about them. Last night I made a small one, about 11 x 10″ and a larger one, about 11 x 14″. I used my favorite bias tape maker to bind them, and I think they’re perfect! Tonight I want to make a couple more and hopefully this weekend I’ll test them out at the local farmer’s market (the link says they don’t open until June but they had signs up saying they were open last weekend). Maybe it’s time to dust off those old Birkenstock’s and look into that solar panel again.