white picket fence

sunday in the park (a steppin' out saturday post)

I've been meaning to link up on one of Mandy's Steppin' out Saturday posts for a while, and she's doing a giveaway this week. . .so that was the little nudge I needed. 

Yesterday afternoon we all headed out to a park nearby. Cantigny Gardens was the estate of some old rich guy that was really into war, so it's a really beautiful park and gardens. . . filled with old World War 2 artillery and tanks. It's weird but the perfect place to take little kids. David had a blast and Norah slept through the whole thing (too bad because her cute little face is missing from all these photos. Babies! What can you do?)

I'll most likely be wearing a variation of this outfit for the next three months straight. That striped t shirt is from Anthropologie and I'd wear it every day, except I don't really want to look like a obsessive weirdo. I stalked that J. Crew cardigan until it went on sale last winter. Boots are my beloved Fryes. 

My favorite shot of the day.

Look, a corn! (dumb family joke) Also, I painted my nails! Somewhat poorly, but whatever. Target had some of the newest Essie polishes that are sold out online so I couldn't resist.

We had a truly great weekend overall, lots of quality family togetherness. Church, farmers market, long walks. . . our storybook little suburban life. The weather was beautiful, I cooked lots of good food, and the kids were great, well, for the most part anyway. ;)

How was your weekend?

 

on making (and breaking) plans with little kids.

I spent a few days last week feeling mopey and unfocused. We didn't really do anything; we watched a lot more TV than I like. I kind of floated through the days, and when I'm disorganized I can tell it affects the kids too. So I made the decision that this week would be better. This week would be amazing and fun-filled and awesome. Every day would be a huge party! (I'm sure you can see where this is headed.)

Okay, so, guess what? That didn't happen. But I did make some plans, break some plans, and learn some things over the past few days. Here are a few things I'm taking away from this week:

Switch things around. I made this fun little felt banner (har har har) and hung some streamers on Sunday night after David went to bed. When he woke up in the morning on Monday he saw it and said "party!" So that was successful. I also took all his art supplies and put them out on his table in baskets and mason jars. Having different and new toys visible and right at hand changed the way he played this week. 

Change the scale of things. We normally draw on small paper. I picked up this big pad of newsprint and David seemed to enjoy making huge scribbles instead of little scribbles.  I also moved the furniture around and spread a sheet out on the carpet. Again, switching things up helped change our routine a bit. (Note: normally when "we" draw, it's really more of "me" drawing. I draw a lot of animals and baseball players, obviously.)

Sometimes pretty things are not perfect things. I was really excited to make our own play-doh and used this recipe from an image on pinterest. Play-doh made with jello! It comes pre-colored and smells nice too! Plus the recipe suggested adding glitter near the end, which I did, and it turned out totally cute. However. It was so sticky it's almost worthless to play with. Maybe I'll find a different recipe to use but I was kinda bummed at how this one turned out. 

Don't be afraid to change your plans. I think this is one of my strengths as a parent actually. I never try to force anything that's just not working. I had wanted David to try acrylic paints (and had other plans to paint sticks and make leaf prints this week). But as you can see, he painted about three stripes and then turned the paint palette into some kind of bug train (I think that's the scenario he made up?) Which wasn't what I had planned, but hey. . . that's pretty cool. So we played bugs instead. 

And finally: Know your kid. So some of this stuff was fun, but really. . . David is not a crafts kid. He is an outside kid. I have to accept that. By Wednesday morning I scrapped most of our plans for the day and we went to the baseball field instead. Afterwards I noticed a HUGE turn around in his attitude. Thursday morning it was about 50 degrees but we played at the playground for almost 2 hours, running and swinging and chasing geese and playing in the sand. I think it was the happiest day we've had all week. 

Maybe by next year we'll decorate pumpkins and make bubble paintings and have storytime in a fort. But for now I'm going to take advantage of the rest of the nice weather this fall and do active David stuff and have lots of fun anyway. 

i'm working

I had some posts in my head for this week and I have some kid projects to share, but pretty much everything is getting put aside for now. For the first time in a LONG time, I'm working on an art project that I'm really excited about. So the kitchen is messy and I probably need to respond to some emails. But for now, I'm working. 

At this very moment, Norah is taking a nap, David is playing with his cars and talking to himself (it's adorable) and I'm cutting and pasting. The past few days/weeks have had their ups and downs but this is most definitely an UP. 

Talk to you soon, friends. 

the marching bands

My in laws live right near a high school that hosts a marching band competition every fall. It's fun to sit on the front lawn and watch the kids march back and forth to the practice fields: like our own private parade. The weather was absolutely perfect and it was a fun way to spend the late afternoon this Saturday.

I played the clarinet and bass clarinet all through high school, but the main reason I stayed in band was so I could be in the color guard of the marching band. I loved twirling flag. I even did it for a few years in college; there's nothing quite like running out onto the field and performing in front of a huge stadium. I miss it sometimes. It's definitely one of those youthful experiences that has no real adult-life application. 

David decided he wants to play the drums when he grows up. Or the trumpet. I'll agree to either, though hopefully we'll have a soundproof basement by then. 

beasts and turtles (a doodle post)

Thanks for your comments and tweets about my last post. I'm feeling a lot better but this week has worn me down a little bit and I am super glad it's Friday. We have fun low-key plans for the weekend and it's always easier when Mike is home to help, too. 

So. On to the doodles! 

I love drawing these pages. I think it's my current favorite form of relaxation. 

Every so often I get an urge to teach myself to draw something new, usually an animal. This past week at David's zoo storytime, we got to meet a turtle, so now I've got turtles on the brain. 

I realized I've never really drawn reptiles before. It's hard to draw something when you don't know it's anatomy that well. Even if I'm just doodling, I still like to understand the basic structure of an animal before I simplify it, you know?

So I spend time on flickr and google images looking at turtles and drawing them over and over. They're still not perfect but it's always nice to learn something new. 

keep going

(only a few pages left in this journal. it's getting a little too fat to photograph.)

It's hard to be an adult.

In the past week we've been to the doctor's office three times. David has a weird rash and bad cough, possible asthma, I have bronchitis. A chest x-ray came back with something weird so I have to schedule a CAT scan this week. Yesterday while David was in the middle of an urgent and unpleasant potty training incident, I set Norah down on his bed only to hear a thud and a screaming cry less than a minute later. She's okay, but I have to remember that five month olds do start to roll off of things. In the afternoon some people came over to do an air quality and mold investigation in our house (all the coughing and asthma and bronchitis was starting to worry me). Two and a half hours later they left and I had already cried twice. Black mold in the living room and maybe more elsewhere too. I've been thinking about some close family and friends dealing with all kinds of disheartening Life Stuff. But who isn't dealing with Life Stuff? 

In the past I would have taken time to deal with these things. Dropped out of the world for a few days: calling in sick, long walks, drives through the country, spending hours at the bookstore, sleeping in. But life with kids doesn't stop. There's all of this. The same toys I pick up every day. The bellies that need to be made food, fed, and cleaned up after multiple times a day. What is the total amount of all the crumbs I've wiped off the counters? I imagine it would have overtaken our kitchen by now, we'd wade through it everyday.  And I swear we have trick laundry baskets that mysteriously fill up as soon as the clean clothes are put away. 

I'm not sure how I'm handling things, and the days just keep flipping over anyway. I feel like I'm on one of those endless airport moving walkways that just keep moving forward through everything

The days aren't full of overwhelming moments though. The kids make me laugh, always. I'm developing closer friendships with some women from church and it's a huge blessing. I have zinnias in the house all the time now. We have plenty of everything we need and I try to see the beauty in the positive things. 

I think there's something about my prescription inhaler that messes with my sleep and lately I find myself up in the middle of the night, woken by the dog's wheezing or David talking in his sleep or the rattly noises of the ice maker in the freezer. The full harvest moon is this week and in the middle of the night it's so bright I swear I could read outside. The temperature is just right and the sounds of the bugs are like God's most perfect lullabye. So at least that's nice. The other night I drank a mug of chamomile tea and sat until I almost fell asleep on a lawn chair on the patio at midnight. I think it was the most relaxed I've felt in months. 

I go stand outside a lot, trying to hold on to these days, wondering if i can soak the mild air and 7:30 sunsets into my bones to keep for the next six months. I worry about winter sometimes; even though I've been thinking lately about taking a break from worrying. If that's possible. It just doesn't accomplish anything, does it? (Matthew 6:27: Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?)

It's hard to be an adult, to be a parent, to be anything. But Norah's fat little pixie/cherub face and David's funny songs and all the encouraging and friendly emails in my inbox balance out all the tired days and nervousness. I can't really complain because I know everything will be okay, is okay. So, I keep going. 

ten years ago, in Italy

Ten years ago this week I was starting my semester of studying abroad in Rome. To say my experience there was a turning point in my life would do it a disservice. So much of who I am and how I've changed all starts from those four months. What I eat, drink, and wear. Who my best friends are. The art I make. How I feel about myself and the world. 

Our time there was such a contrast of light and dark. I spent a lot of my days in Rome feeling melancholy, for many reasons, but mostly because I arrived on September 6, 2011, and you know what happened a few days later. It was scary, but strangely not too scary to us. We didn't have a TV. Internet news wasn't really a big deal to us then. So we didn't witness those weeks and weeks of neverending news coverage. . . and for that I can say I still don't think I fully comprehend the way most Americans feel about the event. 

But the darkness was only one small part. We had FUN. Man oh man did we have fun. (Okay, I will admit to maybe sometimes having too much fun, even.) But what we saw everyday, where we travelled, the once in the lifetime things we did, I would never give any of it up.  The bond our group of classmates had was phenomenal and to this day many of my best friends are those that lived in the six stories of Vicolo delle Vacche #3. (I even noticed while writing this that I find it hard to use the pronoun 'I' while talking about Rome. It feels more correct to say 'we.' The Rome 2011 graphic design hive mind.)

Anyway. Pictures. I have hundreds more and I think I'll be sharing them bit by bit through the next few months. 

My studio space. 

Exploring around Via Condotti and Piazza di Spagna.

Renae and I at Villa Borghese.

Cooking dinner at the white plastic picnic table. I think this was Thanksgiving?

Somewhere in Naples, I believe? I can tell this photo was taken near the beginning of the semester because my clothes look really clean & Americana. Near the end of the semester all I remember wearing were black stretchy pants from the flea market and benetton sweaters. And we all needed haircuts REAL bad. 

And a bonus: here's the Google streetview of our apartment, only a few blocks away from Piazza Navona. We were so lucky. My 7 roommates and I lived on the 6th floor. MAGICAL. 

Renegade Craft Fair Chicago, 2011

Ah! Yesterday was a really beautiful day for the Renegade Fair. Every year I go, I am so, so happy to live close by and be just a short drive away. 

I finally jumped on the Instagram train, too. I resisted for so long because I definitely don't need another distracting technology thing in my life, but I buckled and downloaded the app yesterday morning; I wanted to take photos but didn't want to lug the new (huge) camera around. I'm pretty glad I did and now I can totally see the appeal of it. 

Top left: We parked right next to my old apartment on Augusta Boulevard in the Ukrainian Village. Another reason I love Renegade is it gives me an excuse to visit my old neighborhood. I wouldn't say I miss living in the city, but I have such fond memories and wish I made the trip back more often. 

Top right: my cappuccino from Intelligentsia! I think I was the first customer of the day (we were earlybirds) and the barista took such special care and time making my foam art. It was really cute. 

Bottom left: the entrance to the fair. 

Bottom right: Just some of the many business cards I picked up along the way. Lots of new favorites added to my etsy wishlists and internet bookmarks. 

I was primarily shopping for prints, and I bought a few I'd had my eye on for quite a while now. I'm thinking I'll share them here once I get everything framed and hung up. Knowing myself that might take a while... so maybe I'll do a links post sometime in the next few days. 

And my pals for the day! My great friend Renae and her daughter Cyan. Any time I spend with Renae is quality time, and even more so at an event like this. I think we've been discussing the possiblity of having our own booth at a craft fair for about 4 years now. Some day, seriously! And 5 year old Cyan did amazingly well on a hot day in a crowd full of big people, though I think by the time I took this picture she was ready to go home. ;)

The day was filled with friendship. So nice to see my internet-slash-real life pals Robyn and Kimberly. I had the chance to chat with Rachel from Red Velvet Art (and her blog Smile and Wave) and she was super sweet, just like you'd imagine. I enjoyed meeting Kate from The Little Things Studio. Sarah from The Small Object was so friendly and cute (just like her artwork!). Really, every encounter we had was so pleasant and the whole thing just gave me a giant crafty warm fuzzy. So: yay. Such a happy day. 

summer 2011

From maternity leave with a tiny baby, to back at work, to my exit from the workforce and the beginning of life as a stay at home mom. . . this summer brought a lot of changes to the family.

Look at little tiny Norah! About 2 months here. 

We played baseball. Like, a LOT of baseball. You know Malcolm Gladwell's theory about how ten thousand hours of practice is necessary to become legendary at something? Well, at the rate we're going, David's going to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame by age 8. 

We rode bikes in circles around the driveway. The practice paid off because yesterday David rode a legit tricycle all by himself yesterday. Yay David!

A cozy post-bath Norah. 

At the county fair. Look at this picture; which is the one that doesn't belong? Oh yeah, it's that giant turtle. Weird. 

This summer I discovered the Joy the Baker blog and proceeded to cook my way through her archives. This is the Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread you might have seen on about a thousand pinterest pins. It takes forever but is TOTALLY worth it. 

I normally don't get too into autumn-lust and try to hang on to summer as long as I can. But I can feel it changing now. The summer is coming to a close. 

I owe a lot of thank yous for the past 3 months. To my family. To my understanding boss and sweet coworkers. To my friends far and wide, old and new. To Josh Ritter, and Gillian Welch, and Johnny Cash's Unearthed collection. To Terry Gross and all the archived episodes of Fresh Air I listened to to get me through the long days at work and keep me company during quiet naptimes at home. To baby Norah's smiles and David's funny toddler thoughts. 

And thank you to you, too, for reading along with me. 

my new doodle book: the Walls notebook

I saw a post about this notebook on tumblr awhile ago and bought it almost immediately (kind of a big deal considering I usually think about online purchases for weeks before committing). 

Here's product copy from the Barnes and Noble page: "These textured urban walls provide an interesting backdrop for notes, musings, drawings, doodles, and more. Indulge your inner graffiti artist - without the risk of jail time!" I'm no graffiti artist, but I like the idea of starting somewhere other than a blank page. It's fun to add some collage elements to the pages, too, not just doodles. 

 

These photos are mostly experiments at shooting artwork with my new camera. I'm still getting the hang of it but so far I am still overjoyed to have it and really excited to keep working with and learning about it.