Rickshaw

Sending this little guy off. Made with remnant fabrics (The gold glitter dotted tulle is my favorite! I’ll be sad once it’s all gone) and glass beads.

Austin treasures: The Hill-Side striped scarf from Stag for BJ, a beautiful vintage book and horn from Off The Wall, and something I’ve been coveting- a necklace from Alyson Fox’s A Small Collection at Spartan (I had a hard time choosing one piece from the store. It’s beautifully curated)

Roadtrip to Austin to see my cousin finish the MS 150. She beat her time by a lot this year, so we missed her crossing the finish line, but we were there to help her celebrate afterwards!

• Texas flatlands
• Hopdoddy – juiciest burgers ever
• Stag – Amazing men’s store
• Big Top Candy Shop
• Spartan|Bows + Arrows – picked up a pretty necklace
• Passing through small towns on the way home
• Houston sprawl

So excited to see our friend Geoff‘s work featured in ND Magazine. They are even more beautiful in person. More here.

Photo by Matt Cashore

With teaching, the little organizational tips I pick up along the way make a world of difference. This year, I made a step-by-step photo guide for forming a slab cup with pressed designs and labeled the glazes with text and color swatches. Last year, I spent a significant amount of time answering questions about how each glaze would look.

Okay, it doesn’t cut down all redundant questions. See the lids with only the the color swatches, I still had to direct confused students to read the label, but this year’s clay has run much more smoothly and after this tomorrow, I can say goodbye to dust in my food, hair, and clothes!

Lately, we’ve been getting our fill of Chick-fil-A cones. It’s ridiculous how happy it makes us. Feels like summer…

My cone’s commute home

Gimme more!

Henna courtesy of my students in our after school club. We had an Indian celebration with Bollywood music videos, samosas, curry, and lots of other goodies.

Ahh, weekends. I love you.

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A few watercolors from a series I finished some time ago. More here.

Boy, what a tough week. People are being let go and our department is getting smaller.

Last night, we went to the MFAH’s French Fete celebrating the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pieces from the National Gallery of Art. The super long lines and crowded galleries was still worth it, but we’ll definitely come back and use our comp tickets later to slowly take everything in. I’m probably late on recognizing this but there are so many dogs sweetly placed in Impressionist paintings! I spotted them in at least 8-10 paintings including one of our favorites Mary Cassatt’s Little Girl in a Blue Arm Chair.

National Gallery of Art

And from their permanent collection, I’m always in awe with the Greek Myrtle Wreath c330-250 B.C and a few of the sculptures on the first floor.

Teaching has been interesting. The first two years are a blur, and I was too busy and excited to get burnt out. It has definitely tested my patience, made me a little more organized, and kept me on my toes. I still tend to allow the one bad incident to taint the day versus all the good things that happen, but I’m starting to see how everyday is a fresh start even with the ones that try me the most.

This year I could no longer do the 4-5 hours of sleep and bringing home work every single day including weekends. I’ve given myself more breaks- sometimes not doing work after dinner, sleeping in on weekends, and taking naps. It allows me to spend more time with my family, friends, and personal work and I really think it has made a huge difference in my overall moral. In the back of my mind, I am a little nervous about what next year brings with the budget cuts and increase in enrollments looming ahead, but I’m crossing my fingers that there won’t be too many changes.

Few things that have distracted me from work stress:

• Bailey Doesn’t Bark cups from Jackie. How did you know we were running out of/breaking our cups?
• Scoring a super comfortable Herman Miller Eames office chair to paint and sew in.
• Learning how to bead. I strung together some practice shapes.
• Sometimes I have to be dragged to a movie because I’m a homebody. But we saw Jane Eyre last night and it was beautifully shot, touching, and funny. Of course, I cried and jumped a few times.