a blur

| April 2, 2011

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.

not bad at all

| March 20, 2011

Goodbye Spring Break, you gave me a much needed rest. Of course, I wish I could’ve done more. The last few days were filled with good eats at City Hall’s Farmer’s Market, visiting local shops for the first time, cooking, and visiting friends. Not bad at all!

  • Thrift store basket
  • Silk scarf patterns caught my eye
  • Spring is here. Maybe I’ll wear the scarf like this?
  • Learned how to bead. First creations…
  • BJ bought Blexbolex’s Seasons from Domy Books
  • One of my favorite pages from Seasons—check out more here.
  • Working on the mushroom risotto and French onion soup
  • Mismatched dinnerware. Waiting for the family to arrive

finally getting it done

| March 17, 2011

*digital collage of recent paintings and an old polaroid photo

For the past few days I’ve been spending long hours in front of the computer cleaning and organizing my work on different hard drives. The number of duplicate files in different folders—as well as the lack of work documented since I’ve left school (not that I’ve been producing a lot)—was slightly overwhelming. But I’m glad it’s finally getting done. I also came across photos of my time in Providence, Boston, and our family trip to the Grand Canyon. Funny how much things have changed (especially BJ’s hair), but also how little has changed. My work now seems lighter, a little more colorful, but still reveals the weakness for minimalism that I picked up earlier on. I’m looking forward to updating everything soon!

 

sun bathing sessions

| March 14, 2011

It wouldn’t feel like Spring Break without the sun. It rained and thundered all morning, but after passing out from a sugar and food coma this afternoon, we woke up to clear skies and gorgeous sunlight. Igby was happy she got her daily sun bathing session in. (We’re watching her for a week while everyone is away)

pizza on a stick

| March 13, 2011

My parents and siblings’ Spring Break trip to SCAD was delayed a few days, so we squeezed in a visit to the rodeo Saturday afternoon. Beautiful weather, great food (except my sister’s pizza on a stick), and plenty of people watching…

 

 

mini desserts and pastries

| March 7, 2011

Houston. Please drive better. We had a scare Saturday morning: an impatient car abruptly moved right into our lane, driving us off the road, up over the curb, onto the sidewalk. And the driver didn’t even notice! Thankfully, we ended up with only dented hubcaps and no injuries—a blessing, but nonetheless, it was a little hard to shake off.

After a trip to Kaboom Books where I got to visit the owners’ sweet dog, the rest of the weekend was nice and relaxing: a good game of darts at my cousin’s birthday, tidying up the house, brunch at Shade, dinner for my mom’s birthday where forwent the traditional cake and instead shared mini desserts and pastries, working on personal projects, hunting for treasures at the Texas Art Asylum*, and catching a matinee of The Adjustment Bureau (3.5/5 stars: great cast, but maybe a bit anticlimactic).

* For you teachers, it’s less than a year old, but they have plans to open up another store down the road where teachers can grab bags of stuff for a few bucks.

keep cilantro and thyme alive

| February 20, 2011

Next weekend will be super busy with my kids’ big art contest of the year, and BJ will be flying to Seattle for his mom’s 60th birthday. Pictures from the past week so far…

  • Sandals?! Enjoying the springish weather on campus.
  • Testing out my brooches
  • Teacher block. Brainstorming Art 1 watercolor lesson that will appeal to all skill levels and doesn’t involve painting Georgia O’Keefe-esque flowers?
  • Received invites (that B helped design) for our friends’ Chicago wedding. Booked tickets!
  • Sigh, my total lack of will power gave into this sparkly ring at Anthropologie.
  • This plant is still living! Goal for round two: keep cilantro and thyme alive.

Also… delicious brunch from Shade in our neighborhood (I keep thinking of their fresh pastries platter), celebratory coal-fired pizza with siblings at Grimaldi’s, and caipirinhas at Oporto

— C

fail better

| January 23, 2011

With the help of a broken dining chair seat that I’m using as a portable workstation (thanks, Ikea), I’ve been finding a little bit of time in the evening to finish a series of 15 small watercolor paintings that will hopefully form part of a larger collection of new work.

With the start of the new year, and with BJ and I more actively contemplating our future, I need to push harder to make time to pursue our creative projects. We really can’t foresee what next year will bring, although our plans continue to multiply—and sometimes, as intimidating as it is to get your work shown or to sell your work, there’s no reason to keep postponing our own work. And if we fail, we just try again, and fail better.

ooc

| January 23, 2011

It’s been over a year since my last haircut, and my hair was getting a little out of control. I made a last-minute appointment at Blue Mambo Friday, and asked for 3 inches off. Now I feel renewed. Unfortunately, my blow-drying talents are limited, so my hair won’t be this tame or smooth for a while.

Birds on our drive back home.

Winter break

| January 1, 2011

We had a full winter break with a lot of family in town, meals at different houses, and plenty of cute kids to keep us entertained—especially this butterball. Now, I can’t help but wake up feeling anxious + grumpy about the work I have yet to do before heading back to school. It’s something I have to work on. Before I start my (hopefully productive) day, here are a few pictures of what we’ve been up to lately.


Filling up on AKA Sushi and flipping through the 3×3 Illustration annual (which made a great present for the little sis). ¶ Lunch and bold beverages at Empire Cafe. ¶ Leftover pie from our pre-New Year house party. We should call it the Old Year Party. Certainly we’ve never had so many people, and “bacon candy,” at our place. ¶ Visiting Kaboom Books and chatting with their owners, where we scored Area for 12 bucks. Also, falling in love with their dogs: a charming pair of Hungarian pointers a/k/a Viszlas. ¶ Finally cleared the moving boxes out of the living room and found a place for my new Lena Corwin pillow from Jackie(!). ¶ Visited the antique shop across Empire Cafe and bought two super-sturdy school (say that 3x) chairs originally from Dayton I.S.D.