ewoks are the best woks

It's no secret that I come from a wide line of Star Wars-loving, sci-fi geeks. My torch does not burn nearly as brightly as others in my family, but; BUT, I took my long-standing desire to have my very own ewok out on my son for his second ever halloween. Probably the easiest costume I've ever made, and definitely my most favorite.

Leftover fur and curtains from when Joe was a jedi. Measured from overalls and a hoodie.

We took him downtown.

People were pretty stoked. Especially the guys.

But how could you not love this face?

So much fun.

Also, today's favorite creations from the internets. People are amazing.

for kit

there are women in my world who have my heart as i have theirs. we exist through seasons and mountains and deserts and oceans. i would not survive my life nearly so well without them.

kit is moving to seize her life with the orff folk in austria for a year. this is so very, very good. and i will miss her quite a lot. made this for her the other night. because it is that sort of a season for her.

dinosaurs

It is not a secret that I love dinosaurs. Not just, "Hey those giant dead lizards are pretty cool," but "Hey, seeing Sue the T-Rex at the Natural HIstory Museum made me flip my lid at 16." I really, really love these guys. Have since my friend Marissa in first grade (who had glasses and a birthday on Saint Patrick's Day) had a dinosaur sleepover party. Awesome. Especially for a 7 year-old girl. A stegosaurus would kick the tiny plastic ass of any My Little Pony. My personal favorite growing up: the Brachiosaurus. He's like the Blue Whale of dinosaurs (also a favorite), even though he's now known to not be the biggest. Also, he's from Colorado. Which is where many cool things hang out, at least for a while.

Anyway.

While digigng around in some boxes the other day, I found a collection of stories I wrote around 2nd grade. Here's one of my favorites. Verbatim. Just in case you think my first grade self is almost as fab as I think she is. Note my long-lived love of Taco Bell (curse you colitis!).


If I Saw A Stegosaurus
As I was walking down a hilll on Sunday, I saw a Stegasauras. It was fat and purpple. I named it Gina. She was nice. I brought her home with me. She had a baby. It was very cute. So we named it Cris. His favorite food is taco supreme.

The picture accompanying this lovely tale was my own illustration. I'd like to send a shout out of thanks to my mum for saving all of this wonderful what-not, and to all the archeologists of the land for encouraging my love of the pre-Barney purple dinosaur.

of mums and days that start with s

My mum is one of the most remarkable people I know. I flew up to Oregon a few weekends ago to surprise her and to get some much needed face time. There are few people in my world that I can have conversations free of qualifiers with, and she is one of them. She is honest and real and raw and so very beautiful. I have always know that we belong to one another, in that very unique young mother and daughter way; and it is her that I will always call first with my wonderful terrible world-changing news. Obviously I adore her.

Part of why I haven't been posting lately is because I cannot seem to find the charger for my camera. Which means no pictures. Which is quite crippling for a visualist such as myself. Bah is what I say to this.

Important things which have been going on:

Girls Weekend '06: Favorite people, good wine, wonderful food, rich conversation. God is faithful and brings much hope. We are messy and beautiful. I will continue to burn at the beach because I am a white-assed americana. These are all good things. I created are invitations for this year's weekend as you can see here:



Yuba: Went to see Chafer and Roxanne and our favorite un-niece and nephew. There is something so wonderful and peaceful about being with people who know you quite well and are just, well, EASY. Settlers of Cattan and dark beer with pretzels and chocolate chips are soothing on so many levels. Even when the childcare ladies at Ikea are a less than comforting.

Memorial Day: The backyard is now freaking AWESOME. Seriously. You should be sad that you weren't over for the meaty barbecue and strawberry shortcake celebration that took place after a day of hard labor. I wish my camera had a magic battery so that I could share. Don't worry, pictures will come. Along with the s-l-o-w-l-e-y growing grass.

Now I am going to sleep. Because I have way to much laundry to fold to finish my clean house project. Hope you had a lovely long weekend!

garage

We have a fabulous little cabin in the woods that I love very much. One of my favorite new parts of it is our garage; which we recently cleaned and organized within an inch of its very old life. This is our new studio space. To which we proudly give a hearty "wahoo!!" It is a hundred million times easier to create when there is a space in which to do so.

This is the beginning of my inspiration board. It makes me happy in my bones.



Piles of paint now have a place to live.



Baskets of organized fabric are so wonderful.



During the creative process, the disaster takes over. And yes, that's Harry Potter on the laptop. My coolness is overwhelming.




I'm excited to see what this new space brings! Hope you all are well!

Heart!

the end to a very fuzzy week

Apparently not eating and sedatives have a rather strong effect on me. The middle of the week has faded into a fuzzy haze, so I'm trying to get my life back to it's regularly scheduled programming.

We finally went grocery shopping last night, which is one of my most favorite cheap dates evah. We had been living off of Top Ramen and leftover Christmas Tamales for far too long. Joey's been having basketball finals all week as well, so we've done a lot of catching up on our netflix and avoiding post-travel laundry as I come back down to earth.

I'm finally able to post about one of the projects I was working on for Christmas this year. I learned how to embroider when I was younger, and I loved it. However, it's been YEARS since I've even thought about it. Wanting to have something handmade with a few of my gifts this year, I decided to see if I could remember any of the old stitches. It was so fun to free hand a few of these dishtowels and I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Here's one:

I want to do quite a bit more, and I found this great blog that has some easy-to-follow tutorials for different stitches. Too bad I found it after I'd already finished the bulk of the work. I'm excited to reference it as I start more projects, though.


Some of my favorite things from this week:

We have a bajillion downed branches and limbs (25+ feet long!) from the storm all about the yard. I've been making piles while I talk on the phone for days now.

The post-storm light is beautiful.

Joey brought me a miniature calla lily plant since I made it through the "procedure" okay. It is lovely and lives next to my ancient typewriter in the kitchen.



That's all for tonight friends! Hope your weekend is spectacular!