Coloring.

Act I:

Scene: Lowes, 53rd & Elmore. Erin and Aaron shopping for paint. (The siding needs to be painted rather desperately and it's finally Spring. Other bedroom needs to be spiffed up soon as A's moms will be here next month. All I am going to say is: Ack.) A is looking at a nice latte color for the bedroom, a pale blue for the house exterior, and red enamel for the front door. He holds a very conservative stack of color chips in his hand. E is over at the new Martha Stewart colors. Her take resembles a deck of cards.

Aaron: "Jeez, peanut, how many are you going to take?"

Erin: "Oh my god, I'm like Lowe's worst nightmare. Ohhhhhhh! Peanut, look, this one is called JORDAN ALMOND! Eeeeeeee MINT GELATO. Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah, we should prob'ly go. Okay."

E and A walk away into the sunset. Fade to black.

END SCENE.

::shrug::: Hey, if you don't want me making off like a bandit with all your paint swatches, Martha Stewart, probably you shouldn't have come out with a new paint line with colors like "Pencil Eraser", or "Embossed Stationary". Or "Trousseau", or "Cuckoo Clock", or "Porcelain Doorknob." Or "Sewing Basket". Or "Fondant". Or "Dungarees". Or "Birdhouse". Or "Vintage Map". Probably that was a bad idea on your part, lady. Paint chips are free for the taking, and there's no shame in my game.

I'm looking at painting my kitchen "Newsprint" from her line or "Tea Stain" from the Valspar line. Pale greys.

Here is a tute for a cutie paint sample wallet over at flickr. It's a lot of fun, but it wouldn't work with the teensy MS ones. Not that I care. I'm content to just shuffle though these and squeal once in a while.

Climbing.

Iowa is proving to be lovely in the springtime.



I am getting wicked excited about having a YARD. It's a pretty small, urban neighborhood yard. Know what though? It's all made of dirt and I am going to grow some roses and some tomatoes and I can't wait. I want to plant a sour cherry tree and wait impatiently for years and years for cherries to bake into pies.

New job is going well. Damned if it's not the hardest thing I've ever done, but it feels good to be part of the system. To be there to help.

We went to Iowa City yesterday to visit friends and eat wraps at A's favorite lunch spot. We went to an unfriendly yarn shop and I DIDN'T BUY ANYTHING. It was a lovely afternoon. Saw a few students zipping around town on Vespas. Doesn't that sound like fun?? Hmm, there's a dealer in Geneva and one in Joliet, too..... Ciao for now.

Going.

I baked these to bring to Bunco tonight. They are much uglier than the ones in the magazine, but I assure you they are delish. I ate like five. Which was a very dumb idea.

I forgot how much I like to draw. I looove gouache. This is basically that tattoo I am always talking about. It's pretty much on hold indefinitley. I doubt the school district would see the awesomeness.

Tapping.

I love these picture frames, because they are the anti-frame. Not really a huge fan of the traditional frame. Much prefer to "float" the piece. Was criticized for doing so at my BFA show (frames make things look "finished", floating looks like you just are too cheap to frame). I think often times that framing closes the image off too much, isolates it from the rest of the space. And I know that this may come as a shock, but sometimes I actually do believe in spare, minimal. Totally not in keeping with the 99 percent of my aesthetic that's informed by the simple truth that I am my own tacky Italian grandmother. Click 'em for notes.
Anyway, I love these, I want more, they snap together so I can change the display easily if/when I get tired of it. Pier 1! On sale, $4 each for the 11"x14". Love love love them. Can't say it enough. Squeeee.

Also, are y'all familiar with Create For Less? Their prices are fantastic (wooden embroidery hoops for the bird lamp and the swatch portraits, and more floral birds than you can shake a stick at, oh my!!!); it's the dang shipping that's holding me back (I don't hate on the USPS, I love them deeply and accept that shipping is one of the few certainties in life, but if it costs 8 dollars just to get it here... I might as well trek over to Jo-Ann and pay retail minus team-member discount.) Probably what I will do is fill a shopping cart, dump it, fill it again, dump it, fill it again, say TO HELL WITH IT!, order it, and then get a free shipping code in the e-mail the next day. Happened with fred flare. True story. Ah, phooey. Whuttayado??

Counting.

Ala Purl Soho:

I am going to do this in our bedroom. And it is going to be fantastic.


Props to Ms. Jang for her new gig at IK.


I'm so glad it's almost spring.

Reveling.

Oh, sweet Jesus. Aaron and Jeremy have found themselves a drummer. There is an ungodly amount of jammy noise coming out of my basement, just in time for Grey's Anatomy. Those jerks. Disrespecting my Thursday night TV rituals.




I'm doing this. BECAUSE CROCHET ATE MY LIFE. In a good way (?). Wheeeeeee. I've been off coffee and alcohol for about two weeks because I've been sick. Today is the first day I've felt completely human, and it's good to be back.

The spring issue of Knitty is up and I don't hate it. Nothing earth-shattering, but solidly okay. I want to knit that purple thing and an erin-sized version of the flutter tank.

Good lord. Can I come over to your house and watch my show? I'll make you brownies. Thanks, you're a doll.

Plotting.

As per the delightful Kelly Brown, I took pictures of TV. Elisabeth (I think I disagree with Elisabeth on basically every single issue there is to take a side on, but there is no doubt in my mind that she is a nice girl and that we could be friends despite being political polar opposites) was wearing the most cutest top the other day on The View. It occured to me rather late in the program that taking a picture of the TV was an option, so I didn't get a shot of the back, but it has a nice little white belt at the waist that ties in a bow at the back. I think this would be a fun fun little knit, a tasteful way to do some intarsia (for the vertical stripes). Now, does anybody know if it is possible to knit a Peter Pan collar? OH SHOOT, I'll figure something out.

In other crafty news, the Use What You Have afghan g-square count has reached: 34 completely completed, and 13 in need of black rounds, but the GINORMOUS ball of black nast acrylic from 4 years ago when I didn't know better that was just taking up space in the stash has run dry and now I actually have to suck it up and buy more. Unbelievable, people. We'll see what happens. I don't really have a goal here except Use It All Up Get It Out Of My Fort And Doin' Somethin'. I really don't know where in my home this thing will live but I could see it growing to queen sized and looking gross in my NEVER GOING TO BE COMPLETED MASTER BEDROOM. But that's neither here nor there. If crocheted insanity is your thing (don't start, it's addictive), here's the new granny square flickr group and the No-End-In-Sight Ripple-along.

Also: I found a really fabulous, bursting-at-the-seams and yet impossibly neat-as-a-pin (enough cliches for one sentance, no?) SCRAPBOOKING SHOP in my neighborhood yesterday (again, Kelly, it's on the corner of Rusholme and Nate's gramma's street). I don't scrapbook, but I make Stuff and I'm a sucker for paper and stickers, etc. So I'm glad it's there. There's also a fantastic natural foods store in walking distance and I wandered around there for entirely too long yesterday as well. I like it here. I wish it wasn't so far from, like, everyone I ever met in my life, but I really do like it here.

AND ANOTHER THING. I am really annoyed with domino magazine's latest issue. It's the "GREEN" issue, and while a.) I am all for Green Living and I try to do what I can, and b.) I normally love domino in like, a really intense, drooly way, I find this issue of the mag to be wicked hoity toity- yeah, I just said hoity toity - and kind of self-rightous. On the one hand, great, thank you for telling me which paints are low-VOC, I can use that information, and yes, right on with the low-energy lightbulbs, but then don't tell me I can be nice to the environment by using like 56 dollar shampoo and laundry detergent and salvaged woodflooring that's like 200 dollars a square foot. When it's THAT inaccessible, it doesn't do anybody any good. I realized a long time ago the magazines are there to show you what looks cool and what is in style, and it's your job to (if you so choose) find ways to mimic that FOOOORRR LESSSSS. But this shit is just bananas. And domino? Don't try to talk up organic meat, because eating meat is totally not green. So don't even PLAY. I'll show you self-rightous. I'm a vegetarianan and we own self-rightous!!

Last asides, I promise.

Eunny is alive and I want the pattern for the sideways cable hat because that is hot.

I start my new job with D-port Community Schools on the 19th.

SALLY, I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE. I am (tentatively) going to craft a rip-off bird lamp. I'm going to need a lot of floral birds. I might need to make a Rochester friend go to Craft Service on University and scoop me up some vintage milinery birds. The whole thing reminds me of Alicia's cagelets. I'm picturing large embroidery hoops for the circular bits at the top and bottom of the cage. Sigh. Another undertaking. I'm gonna go see what Elisabeth is wearing today. xoxox.

Wanting.

This is the cutest effing thing I've ever seen in my life.



I hate you, Anthropologie, for instilling in me an insane desire to blow a month of minimum wage on a light fixture!!!!! That's more than our mortgage payment!!! I'm going to go poke my eyes out.

Twisting.

I knit a swatch. Yay.