arts + crafts

A good friend and I drove to North Carolina last weekend for the wedding of an old schoolmate. We brought the happy couple a birdhouse (among other things) that we made out of old books. I hope they liked it!







On our way to North Carolina we stopped outside of D.C. to pee and to hang out with Joseph Smith. I'm not trying to offend anyone here, but... if you are a Mormon, your religion freaks me out (oops, originally I wrote Moron... what a fortunate typo!). On the plus side, your buildings are cool.



Making the birdhouse was really fun. My next project is going to involve making some sort of case for these beauties that I found out with the trash the other night!









Some of them are a little battered but I think it gives them more character.

I feel like I am trying to pack for all of these vacations. It will be 60-70 in Vegas but I may want snow boots in Denver. I will need a bathing suit for both parts of the trip. It certainly isn't a staycation for me but it will be for Sarah who, as it turns out, did not invent the the staycation.

Sara's Office 02062010

It's been awhile, lady brains. Max and I moved and we are very happily settling in to South Philly. I mean VERY happily. We love it here. The house is really wonderful. I wanted to take a bunch of pictures this morning but we got so much snow that it is covering the windows downstairs and so it is too dark to photograph the living room/dining room/kitchen. I was able to take some photos of my office. It is one of the least finished rooms in the house! But... it's something!

Eventually I will get a new desk chair and an arm chair in which to curl up and read. I also plan to paint it this blue green color soon, although in real life it doesn't look much like this paint chip at all.


You can click on the pictures to see a bigger version.



It is a little hard to see in the picture but I have the sewing machine set up with the pedal on the bottom shelf so it is (kind of) a usable workspace. The rasterbation is just something we had hanging in the old apartment. It is pretty beat up but it will stay until I have time to put more art up. I have piles of things I want to hang up in here but I haven't had a chance yet.



I made an effort to put out the things I wish I used more - my cameras, stationary, a calligraphy set I'd like to master - to inspire me to get off my computerbutt and onto my productivebutt. That book is a really awesome set of paintings about Ulysses that my old boss's husband found for me at a used bookstore.



My desk... not so exciting. Yet!



The bright pink thing is a "picture frame" I made in... fifth grade? It has a picture of my childhood dog, Max, who died last year. My school papers live in that basket and I like to keep the picture on top of them - it makes me smile every time I reach for my work!



The pictures above my desk are drawings that a neighbor and family friend made of/for me. She did one every year from my eighth birthday until I graduated from high school. Every detail is something about me - a house I lived in, an outfit I wore that year, a book I was reading/writing, etc. - I really love them!



Eighteenth birthday. My prom dress.



Sixteenth and seventeenth birthday.



Thirteenth birthday. I taught horseback riding lessons then. The sweatshirt says "Delaware Water Gap Queen of Teendom!" I think it is the only piece of clothing she included that I didn't actually own. The purple cape was a wardrobe staple of mine. Just kidding. On the bottom left is the Delaware Water Gap. The house in the back right is the house I grew up in. There were three houses tucked back in the woods, of which we owned one and the lady who drew these owned another. The houses were originally built by three different families who had last names that started with A, B, and C, so we always called them the ABC houses. In almost every picture there is a little bar of ABC music notes.

Oh, and, this is what it looks like when I read Finnegans Wake. Note the glass of wine.

Max: Did you eat the tuna that was in here?
Sara: What tuna?
Max: The can. It was right here.
Sara: The cat food?
Max: That wasn't cat food. That can of tuna cost four dollars.
Sara: Oh. Well... he loved it.
MTC: (licks lips)

on looking before you leap

Let me tell you about my bad ankle.

While studying abroad in Glasgow the International Society put together a trip to the Isle of Arran. It was a really lovely weekend. First of all the weather on the first day, by far, was the nicest any of us had seen since we'd arrived in Glasgow. It was February but we spent the day hiking in t-shirts. My friends and I ended up at the far side of the island when night started to fall, halfway through a hike to King's Cave. It was beautiful, it was easy to get distracted:



We finished the hike but missed the bus back to the hostel where we were to spend the night. February isn't exactly the peak of tourist season so we knew there wouldn't be another bus for awhile, if at all. We decided to walk. By the time we arrived at the hostel we were exhausted, dehydrated, and famished. Dinner was postponed one half-hour (twice). For consolation we were given a fifth of local whisky, a few bottles of Arran Ale, and a case of wine. This may have played some role in what happened next.

Like I said, it was the off-season. The hostel wasn't actually open for business at all, the International Society had stuck some deal with the owners. The town around the hostel was so still, deserted. Out the window we could see Lochranza Castle. It looked so romantic! The back wall crumbled as we watched it, the moon was full and its reflection glittered in the water around the castle.



I don't remember who started running toward the water but there must have been a dozen of us by the time we got to that crumbling wall. I do know that Harry and I reached the water first. We grinned at each other and charged full-force ahead, preparing ourselves for the icy shock.

The shock shocked us! It was not the water we experienced next but a short tumble down a jagged rock wall. Harry's thick Australian skin left him relatively unscathed but my leg looked like this:



The scrapes I could handle but by the next day my ankle was the size of a softball. It probably didn't help matters that I continued to hike on it. When I finally sought medical attention the doctor couldn't believe that nothing was broken or fractured.

Moral: I am invincible. Also I now know when it's going to rain. If this grad school thing doesn't work out, I can always market myself as a weather girl.

A few weeks ago I read a friend's blog about how she had been drinking Four Loko. I looked it up, realized it was similar to Sparks, and I may have emailed the company immediately to see where I could get it in Philadelphia. They emailed me back to ask me what area I live in. I replied that I live in the Rittenhouse Area, yada yada, I forgot about the exchange.

Well, today some Four reps showed up at Food and Friends (where Max works) to drop off some samples. HAHA. We realized tonight that one can is 24 oz of 12% alcohol. That is like three sparks, or about five bottles of beer. In one container. Also there is (FDA approved) wormwood in the US version, and ABSINTHE in the EU version. Oh and each can is 660 calories. HAHA. I have decided to abstain.

We EST-ers have a little under an hour left of November. I just read the first 31 chapters of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and now I am in bed, drinking an Anchor Steam Christmas Ale and trying to mentally prepare myself for December.

First of all, it is really important that I don't fail out of grad school this semester. By 'fail' I mean 'receive any A minuses.' I think. I think that's what I mean. Anyway, though, I'll strike you a deal: if you don't ask me in the next two weeks how my program is going (please don't), I won't tell you. Fair is fair.

As if completing the semester weren't enough, our South Philly house fell through! The inspector found a few things that need to be fixed immediately, but the ladies who own the house refused to fix them or bring the price down. Now we are scrambling to find a new place! We are looking at a few properties on Thursday. I will be channeling Annette Bening- "I will sell this find a house today."

IN ADDITION, I'll be spending the entirety of next Monday in court for that mugging trial. What a pain in the badonkadonk.

All that being said, I am in good spirits. I am excited about the papers I am writing, excited to decorate our new mystery house (ha), excited for Christmas break, and excited for my trip to Denver! I also had a really wonderful Thanksgiving in the Poconos. It is so peaceful and happy in my parents' home in the mountains, and my whole family was there, and I saw some of my oldest and dearest friends. To top it all off, Max came back to Philadelphia earlier than I did and he cleaned the apartment so I would have a nice space to do my work when I got home. Thanksgiving got a little silly. Tea cozies were worn, Scotch was consumed, we started up a little ragtime band.







I, for one, had no alcohol on Turkey day proper... you'd never know it from the photos.