Rickshaw

Finally developed film from the holidays, which already seems like a distant memory.

I had my first student teacher for a week now. I was a little nervous to have someone else in my classroom, but she has been a blessing! I remember those days like it was yesterday. Time really is flying by …

Happy Lunar New Year!

We celebrated with our family and lots of food and well wishes for the year. I brought bunches of tulips for the my relatives, but saved a few for our place. It may even be the first time we’ve ever had flowers in the house! A small luxury but def. something I want to do more often.

Sometimes I feel like I spend most of the day on the road …

random glimpses

1. Wearing: simple rings + earrings- all sentimental
2. Reading/looking: Just Kids (Christmas gift from Jeff and my first non-picture book in a long time), And the Pursuit of Happiness, Kiki Smith Prints Books and Things, Color Moves Art & Fashion by Sonia Delauney, Who is Sleeping on My Pillow. Two thumbs up so far!
3. Making: chocolate Banana Bread from Orangette (Even though this is my 3rd time making it, I rushed and forgot the sugar after putting the mix in the baking dish. It still turned out okay even after remixing sugar in again. Maybe a tad too dense. Serves me right)
4. Buying: Snagged these last month for a good deal. Even though I have a soft spot for boots, these are more practically and almost work year round here. They look almost identical to the one’s I owned and wore to death from American Eagle when I was a teen.

After a week or so of 75+ weather, winter has returned to Houston, which makes me happy because we don’t get enough of it! I just finished up a week of finals, and this 3 day weekend means getting caught up on sleep and planning for the next semester. BJ and I finally went to Baby Barnaby’s for brunch the first time (the line deterred us in the past). So yummy!

Hope everyone has a great 2012! I’m excited and anxious for what this year will bring. Changes are ahead, but I’m excited to take a leap of faith and actively work toward a dream!

We never really did resolutions, but, this year, it seems to come up more so here are some things I/we hope to do:

• Actually put money into our savings account and stick to a budget
• Plan healthy meals together + eat out only once a week (we’re bad at this!)
• Make more thoughtful, “intentional” purchases
• Stay in better touch with family and friends near and far
• Take a walk in Hermann Park everyday
• Be more patient—on the road, in the class room, everywhere
• Set aside the computer, and aimless internet wanderlust, earlier in the evening
• Constantly create. Going to work on 100 patterns, in order to get into the habit of creating. All of them (good, bad, and eh) ones will be posted here, so I’ll be more accountable.

I really do love this time of year, although it always comes sooner than I realize and sometimes I don’t soak it all in before it’s gone. Looking forward to some baking, crafting, picture-taking, and hanging out with friends and family.

On Sunday, my siblings and cousins came over for the day. We packed ourselves into 3 cars and headed to Discovery Green to ice skate—for most of them, their first time on the ice. Lots of other Houstonians had the same idea (you should see how excited our city gets when it actually snows) so the rink was roughly as crowded and chaotic as a livestock pen, but it was fun nonetheless. Afterward we all went back to our place, ate shepherd’s pie and candy, rediscovered the charms of Home Alone, before ending the night in a quest for frozen yogurt. I hope these all form part of a new family tradition. The thing about having multiple sides of your giant extended family in one area is that traditions don’t always have a chance to emerge and stick; one year, you go to one aunt’s, the next year maybe you’re at your uncle’s on the other side.

I have an endless supply of kraft paper at work and, since I gave away all my wrapping paper during the Great Moving Purge of 2011, I thought I would try making my own with the help of these stamps from Yellow Owl Workshop. BJ was let down a bit that our freakishly odorless fraser fir didn’t fill the air with those signature evergreen smells that mark the arrival of the holidays. His words. I grew up with the plastic trees, so I really didn’t get what I was missing out on. But it made sense after he band-aided the problem with a “Christmas wreath” candle that has our place smelling recognizably Christmas-y. In winterless Houston, these measures are necessary. For decorations, I’ve been working on Confetti System-inspired ornaments after seeing it on esb’s pinterest. I have a soft spot for soothingly repetitive crafts (beading, papercutting, the like) and this falls right into that category. Plus, I think they’ll work well as year-round decor, right?

A mishmash of the weekend:

1. Finally bought some frames for our prints. We have more wall space now and lots of spots that need covering up.
2. The workspace is beginning to shape up. A ledge and a good light is next on the list. I had pizza two days in a row this weekend. I had one of the best slices ever at Flying Saucer.
3. Found a way to reuse the Totokaelo wrapping that was too pretty to toss.
4. My other favorites in Houston are from Grimaldi’s, Kenneally’s, and Dolce Vita – which is where we met up with Mai & Gabe for brunch Sunday. I want to try to recreate the blood orange drink.

Last week was a tough week, but I’m determined to make this one better. Plus, I have a few things to look forward to once this week ends:

• ice skating with my siblings and cousins at Discovery Green
• Christmas movie marathon at our place
• Winter break !!!

Time flies! I can’t believe I took these before Thuy went back to school and she’ll already be back from SCAD next week. I’m excited to see what she’s been working on. One of my most worst faults is I am awful at keeping in touch with my siblings, friends, and family. I hate using phones and have never even skyped. But enough is enough: I do want to save up to visit you guys, and in the mean time I’m going to make a more concerted effort to catch up and stay in contact.

Hi. Taking  break from grading. We’re sleeping in the middle of boxes and plastic carpet covers. I can’t wait for the day when we are settled in our own place. It probably will be several years from now, but man, moving is so stressful. I sent BJ a link from Apartment Therapy this week about decluttering books (We had 30+ boxes), but he wasn’t convinced, haha.

Here are some shots of our place right now. It’s going to be a lot of work getting it to where we want, but I’m having fun learning how to fix things up.

The pros:

• it has a lot of character and orginal fixtures
• the park, gardens, zoos, and museums are within walking distance
• we have a designated office space
• BJ could walk to work = we can still share a car
• some of the gaudy fixtures are so bad, they’re awesome
• natural lighting everywhere
• our friends live right below!
• New Orleans style balconies

The cons (many that are fixable):

• lots and lots of painting and spackling
• bad carpet
• longer commute for me
• windows are painted shut
• fluorescent lighting in a few rooms
• smaller kitchen & no hood