my current crush {two}

My current crush: Vertical Ray of the Sun. It's a film. Watch it. It's beautiful.

life-coach in a cup

I have a tea addiction and my favorite varieties are crafted by Yogi Tea. Every single tea bag has a little snippet of wisdom printed on the tag and the one that made an impression on me today was: Love what is ahead by loving what has come before.

My interpretation of this can be summed up by that lovely old concept of 'No Regrets'. Or maybe, more accurately, my tea tag is telling me I should have reverence for my past. I have to be honest, though, I've never been able to decide if subscribing to the 'No Regrets' philosophy is strong and noble OR a complete and total cop-out.

I definitely regret some of my past choices. Right now I'm grappling with a few that greatly affected my career path (path? more like career ditch). I wish I had done a few things differently, which is to be expected.

I don't want to miss the point that my yogi (in tea-tag form) is trying to make; I may not like what has happened in my past but I will have to make peace with it in order to make room for the possibilities of the future. And that, my friends, is a challenging task.

P.S. ...in the most creepy coincidence, as I was typing this blog post, a character in a movie on t.v. said, "It's not about what happened in the past, or what you think might happen in the future. It's about the ride... there is no point in going through all this crap, if you're not going to enjoy the ride."

modern american poetry

As I sit here and watch Iron & Wine on Austin City Limits, I'm reminded of how much I adore Samuel Beam's music. I haven't listened to Iron & Wine in a while, which is a shame. Samuel Beam is a true poet...

"Mother remember the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry? Blood on the floor and the fleas on their paws and you cried 'til the morning..." ~ Upward Over The Mountain, Iron & Wine

two minutes of sunshine

It sounds like Santa *might* be planning to bring me a new digital camera this year. Cross your fingers!

This afternoon, for two gorgeous minutes, the sun popped out from behind the massive rainclouds. On rainy days such as this, it's rare to get such bright natural light in my favorite photo-taking spot.

When the sun broke through, I knew it was the perfect time to take a photo. However, I didn't have anything to take a picture of at such 'short notice' so I had to go with the classic pure-white egg from my refrigerator (un oeuf). Reminds me of Art Class 101... the very beginning. Light and shadow.

identity crisis

As a designer, I find that the most difficult project of all is designing one's own logo. It seems to be much easier to design for other people. I personally can never decide on just one logo concept for myself – it's my perpetual identity crisis.

less than graceful

I don't know what is going on with me lately. I've come down with a sudden case of graceless-itis (a condition and word that I just invented; maybe it will catch on). I'm going through a phase in which I keep injuring myself, dropping things, spilling things, forgetting things, making stupid decisions... ugh.

Not to hash through a whole laundry list of my recent foolish moves, but some of my follies include slicing my finger open at work a week ago (oh, poor baby), almost losing my Husky (he's fine, I learned my lesson), and spilling a glass of red wine on my favorite green West Elm quilt. Those are merely a few examples... a bunch of other things happened but I won't dredge it all up. Such is life – but why? Why is it always something despite all effort to avoid injury, stress or mistakes?

So, now, out of all this frustrating crap emerges a totally banal little light at the end of the tunnel – I've fallen in love with a cleaning product. Miraculously, it took ALL of the red wine out of my quilt. I'm such a skeptic so I've never believed that 'oxy' products actually work, but they do! I used Woolite Oxy-Deep Stain Remover. It's meant to be used on carpet but it saved my quilt... so then I dug up all my clothes that have mystery-stains on them. Out, out damn spot(s)!

My finger is healing amazingly fast, so no big deal. My dog is safe at home (curled up with us on the couch). So, life is truly good but I hope to cure my graceless-itis. Soon.

blue thursday

...can't even express how exhausted I am...

weekend scribble {two}

mocha

See? Television CAN be educational. I had no idea (until today) that 'Mocha' is the name of a port in Yemen where coffee was traded for over two centuries – that's what I learned while watching T.V. today.

While 'mocha' is also the name of a type of coffee bean grown in Indonesia, I found it interesting that the word 'mocha' probably originates from that port city in Yemen. Yes, I'm a self-declared word-nerd so this sort of stuff intrigues me.

things left undone

I found this drawing while going through a box filled with my old illustration work. Gosh, I think I drew this over 5 years ago.

We moved into our house approximately two years ago and, sadly, I still need to unpack quite a few boxes that are in my office.

I should use the term 'office' loosely, because the particular room that should be my office is really just glorified storage at the moment. The boxes that are piled up in that room are full of beloved books, art supplies and a large collection of my old illustrations.

I have grand plans for my office space. The nasty carpet that was in the room when we bought the house has been removed but that is the only progress I have made. Maybe I will document the redecoration of my office on this blog... it might motivate me to actually get started.

november 4, 2008

weekend scribble