sarcastic salsa

oh you won't believe it. yesterday i had a beautiful post all lined up for the masses and whala there was a nice little power surge here at workforce uoha, lost was the beauty. abyss ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. i was so completely unhappy that all was lost, i couldn't pull it all together before five to repeat. i am back from celebrating my twenty ninth birthday, a christmas eve brawl and christmas day soup. i don't feel as though i had enough time off. there was too much to do and not enough time. as a family we are all spread out with wives and in laws and brunches, lunches and nogs. i don't think i got to sit for very long before i felt i needed to move on to the next venue. i had the most amazing time with josiah k.


for the record he is one of the most wonderful children of all time. he's an absolute joy to be with and the fact that he's the son of my best friend makes the circumstances all the better. i got to see and spend time with fenn k. on my birthday. and of course there was time for my new tiny europro II dressmaker. i made a very sarcastic salsa for xmas eve and carried it with bundles to my parentals house. i'm sure many of you know how to make your favorite salsa, but for me it's an outside the box sort of venture. just like when i make guacamole.









i went to walmart after cleaning the alexander home. the tomatoes weren't great, but i bought about two dozen anyway. i had to. martha stewart knives just don't cut it. i'd better figure out how to use my knife sharpening advantage on my can opener. anybody know?







cilantro is the way to go no matter what. the store was completely out of green onions so having the cilantro all but made up for it the missing green.







i don't know if it's worth mentioning but if you're having to slice and dice an onion, i'd suggest putting it in the freezer for a while. supposedly the poisonous tear vapors will freeze within the onion and prevent the mourning. unless of course your immune, then hooray for you.







i don't usually use fresh garlic, i'm too lazy to peel and squash, and dice. i'm able to use more if i just use the prepackaged garlic. after a day or so the salsa is just plain wonderful. i especially like it on a flatbread, but otherwise cornchips are sufficient.

i wanted to make mention of the fact that hello kitty turns thirty. i'm off on thursday and friday. woohoo... and tonight jairus is playing at lamar's it's a free show so you should come out if you can. it should be lots o' end of year fun.

differences and baking

i know i haven't been around here lately very much. i suppose last week was the epitome of crazy, emotionally draining and something far beyond what words could describe. i don't exactly remember where i left off. so i'll beginning by saying that tonight is the annual collier cookie baking evening.

this past friday was my office christmas party. so we drove back from franklin, tn and changed clothes in the office then headed over to the mountain city club for dinner, dancing, jewelry and bonus check. i had a fair vegetable plate and some gin and tonics that were made with sky vodka. not so fantastic, but suitable. on saturday i went shopping for gifts for family and friends. i got everything that i was looking for and more. a very nice pair of light blue cords from kmart. horray. yummy warm and cozy while the temps are in the teens. the last pair of cords i got were from oldnavy and that was before the h.f. i took five collages to kinkos to have cards made. i had one hundred made so far. not as pleased with the outcome, but they are still nice. it may have been the person doing the copying for me. but i know one thing, they're going to look great after they're embellished a tad. i can't wait until the latter part of this week. i've got to finish wrapping the many gifts galore and clean up the a.p.t. i'd like to have friends over on thursday, but we'll see how that goes. i really love the photo below. it reminds me of a veer photo. i took it several weeks ago, here at work. on our beautiful aqua colored desks/countertops.



i am also making some changes in another area of my life. i think my path is leading me in a different direction so the last week has been difficult and totally reflective, prayerful, and contemplative. i have been frightened of this time because in the long run i don't want to be alone for the rest of my life. i really want to start a family of my own. i'm not afraid to say it. this rugged female individualism has gotten quite old and i'm over it. god created me for a reason, i know that. i may spend my whole life figuring out what the reasons are though. the bottom line for me is trusting god to be my provider, my comfort, my peace, my husband, my friend, et cetera. i can't imagine what tomorrow will be like, i could sit and wait in fear or i could take a step in faith and allow god to support my footing. i know friendships and loves have seasons. i also know how seeds are planted and traffic gets jammed. i'm not sure if i was personally ready to make a change but i felt the feeling seeping up around my ankles. i needed to do something, something different than i'd ever done before. so much of my life has been driven my fear and pride, it's quite unbearable. i want to change that, i want god to know that he can have me. he can use me. i really won't ever have any idea the influences i've shed or that have been shed upon me. i know that i have been loved and know that i have grown and i am so thankful that god uses my indecision and doubt for my own good, for his glory.



tomorrow i'm taking carolyn in the city to atlanta to the airport. then i'm off to see the small but lovely knutson family. i cannot wait to see josiah.

heart nest

the day before yesterday was a year that the 45 and i have been together. or at least soon after the day before yesterday, a year ago. he brought me twelve pink roses the day before my birthday last year. i almost died with jittery overwhelming glee. no one had ever made an effort to give me flowers for my birthday before. he came with me to my office christmas party and we spent new years at the local. by january we were talking about him moving to honolulu. then in late february he left. he flew me out to hnl in may, later i saw him in early september. i have not seen him again. we are fortunate to have a cellphone way of talking every day and there are emailings and blogs. technology has made the long distance a tad more bearable, otherwise i'd have gone bananas. i wrote him a letter last night. i wrote that the boys i have seen before had arms, but he had a heart-nest, i'll take my chipped blue robins egg gladly lie it in his nest. where i can be still, warm and resting.

we are both older and this relationship we have isn't a game. it is difficult for us to think beyond our age, when i comes to relating. we know we've got a bit of an advantage over the puppyloving youthful relationships. my desire is for us to define a faith that is unified in christ. there is also the question of whether or not he can be the best provider. the best protector. i have to ask myself if i'll beable to follow or be led. i think now that its been a year the 45 has much pressure and circumstances for him have to be just right. i understand. i wonder if other people think this much when in our position. i have this feeling that in youth, people aren't compelled to ask as many questions. whatever the case maybe. my prayer is that god gives me humility, comfort and strength. i must have great wisdom and courage in order to conduct myself appropriately in this fine relationship. god is working in jas and i, there isn't like a void of growth here. but his continued blessings and direction are necessary inorder for us to proceed.

phantom tree

not quite rooted but revered
every turn tumultuously carrying the
ties that bind us to a seed planted
i am with you when the year beginnings
as a bud appears, a reach to exchange
i am waiting for you in the summer
as our leaves like hands find refuge
in each other, my shaded protector.
i'll find you in the fall, in a blush
of color, once we were tall, do you
hear the call. our death is a whispering
wintry wind. our branches broken
our roots frozen. a cold quiet
friendship forsaken.



my weekend was spent mostly babysitting. on friday evening i went to a coworkers home to play with her little boy, while she went out with other coworkers for a birthday party. i enjoyed myself except the house was slightly chilly and i wore my outside coat inside the whole time. the nice thing was that i could get my christmas cards all written out and ready to go. but gosh television on friday night literally stinks. i'd rather take a bath in mud than watch JAG. on saturday i started another list of christmas cards and finally decided i needed to get to the parentals to do laundry. while at mom and pops i soaked up reality televisions america's hottest model and more favorably project runway. i had a nice evening there with s.moore.

suzanne is such a wonderful gift to our family. i didn't grow up with a sister, but now god has given me one. she and i are really quite different. i tend to be less enthusiastic. suzanne is cheerful, happy, and so loving. she's a smile that isn't easily erased or ignored. even though i am older i feel as though she has embraced me more and i have let the friendship and sisterhood take it's natural progression. we have art in common and because she's much more girly than i am it's fun to talk with her, brings out our blessed differences.

on sunday i babysat again. this round presented itself a little bit more challenging, but just as fun and learning filled. i watched five children, aged 8-3. noelle, woodsen, monique, levi, and marielle. i'm telling you five kids under the age of eight is a total adventure extravaganza. i had so much fun though i thought i might not every revert back to being an adult. noelle found my dinocam and i taught her how to take photos. she ended up taking over a hundred photos yesterday. i'm so excited, most of them turned out really nicely. i cannot wait to show you her work. she's got the creative blood in her, but she's still young, so there's all this room to grow yet. noelle got a hamster for her birthday, it ran around the house with the kids in its ball. so hilarious. we spent the afternoon riding bikes, rollerblading and climbing the crape myrtle's lining the street. marielle decide she wanted me to have a tattoo on my hand so she colored my entire left had blue, green and yellow. she then proceeded to color her entire left leg. she looked as though she was turning into a lizard. kids are so amazing, it blows my mind. i don't ever remember being the way kids are nowadays.

i have still a load of thought upon my mind. but i wanted to give a shout out to jennifer and josh kringe. today is their one year anniversary. if you're out there fenn give me a halla!!! i have no plans this evening, but i may try and work on some garland to put around my apartment. i have some bare areas that need a holiday spice up.

my mommom informed me that all she knows about brooches is that she doesn't like them at all. so she doesn't wear them. if it weren't for my poppop she wouldn't even wear any jewelry in the first place. oh well, we've got our answer about brooches.

super salad

a beautiful salad made by my mother for last sunday afternoon's dinner. yum.



wrap me up in your love...



sprinkle ready.

this week has been interesting for me. i described my feeling to my mom today by saying that sometimes i feel as though i am drowning and the only way i am able to keep my head above the water is to keep my eyes focused on christ. all around me the heat of people's brokeness is making my blood boil. i want to surround myself in perfection and ease. i finally got through secret santa week. fortunately it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. i went and saw napoleon dynamite at the new rave theatre on thursday night. i couldn't relate at all to the movie, but i thought it to be humoressley dry which i feel is wonderful. i'm hoping to see a few movies over the holidays but we'll see. das ist alles...

a dime a dozen

above is a drawing i made some time ago of a guy who i knew only as an acquaintance at college. for some reason i drew the picture and then thought it looked like john perkins. i'm not so sure it really looks like him at all, but nonetheless, it was my first and only attempt at caricature. i don't particularly like drawing but i would occasionally draw in my journal, so most of the photos of drawings are from my journal.



i wanted to make mention of the beautiful wreath that kate made. she's done alot with those origami blowup balls. i've only once put them on a string of white christmas lights. they were beautiful too, but kate says she's going to post a photo of her garland, we shall see. i know you might be worried about making the blowups and putting them on lights, but i'm telling you, the paper doesn't catch on fire. i used to leave the lights on all night. (only when i was at home though) in case you are wondering how to make these delightful little balls click click click away. there are also so many nice origami paper sites on the www. large amounts of paper for very little cost. i want to see your creative paper decorations. i'm going to set my christmas tree up tonight. pray that i don't feel too lonely doing it all by myself. i'll probably just watch barbara walter's, ten most interesting people. it'll all be very nice and good. today for secret santa, my secret santa gave me a pin from blueskies and a little asian looking card. well that's all for today boyz n gurlz.

read between the lines

.

yesterday was a grumpy day for me. the rain decided to pour for over twenty four hours, with promises now, that it'll be gone tomorrow. i can't bare another day of gray. when i walked outside this morning to my car, the air was warm and humid. here we are in december and it's not cold like it should be. el nino, where are you? are you the one still reeking havoc on weather patterns, or the lack there of? i feel like i'm working harder than i used to, but socially we maybe working less. productivity hasn't changed, but i suppose employment outsourcing and the internet play a role in working less. minimum wage is up more than it was when i was twelve and just entering the workforce. i've heard that people generally put in more hours at work, but that includes their www curricular activity. i can't imagine not working out in the world. but i know all these females with their first children, who stay at home everyday and are really active. one thing too, aaron said that we will analyze our history by the words we use. i've never really thought of it like that. i'm frustrated in analytical thought and i become conflicted. the right fighting the left in me. the left murdering the right in me. so i attempt to think less of specifics as in scenarios and past events or moments. but gosh you guys have got to know how wonderful it has been to be filled with the creative gift. when i'm working with my hands i literally don't think of anything but what's in front of me. it has rescued me the last few weeks. having wrapping and poster making to do. i also addressed the bonus check envelopes for work here. every year for the last three there is a request for my handwriting. oh brother.

have you noticed how brooches are the most popular accessory moving off shelves in herds, gaggles or schools like fish. it blows my mind that historically speaking a brooch will mark the holiglaze season of 2004. i love my brooch above. honestly i don't think it is one at all. it doesn't have a pin on the back, but my mommom might recognize it and know a little bit about the history. please feel the freeness to post a comment anonymously if you have any historical information mommom!!! you may even know a little bit more about the wire animals. what's funny about those, is that i was at blueskies several months ago and an artist had made a bunch of wire animals. aaron history repeats itself, why? are we not going to progress. ahh last night i finished jean auel's the mammoth hunters. now it's on to ghost soldiers. and remember to remember pearl harbor today.

buzz 2004

i've been hearing all of these new words lately, especially being used by people on television. celebrities, politicians, realities real people, and news anchors. i find the verbal trend to be disgusting. my feelings about the issue stem primarily from one word, "sound-byte(bite)." i noticed around campaign/debates 2004 the commentary's were using the word all over the place. it may be the best way to describe what is happening or the best noun that represents the action, but it's dumb when real live reality people start using the word.

another example is when katie couric, from the today show uses the word "meanwhile" between each segment or paragraph. "meanwhile" isn't a new word and i'm sure katie's been using it for sometime now, but it bugs me that it's alright to say it every morning.

do you know the kinds of words i'm talking about? have you heard them creeping out of people's mouths? i'm sure if you're as much of a television, radio junkie as i am you'll hear the very words you so despise.



do you remember your grandmother having tons and tons of buttons in tins up in the attic or in the basement. here's few of mine that my mommom collected over the years. vintage buttons to go along with the vintage flicker from yesterday.

i wanted to mention that in the last week i've had very little sleep. i haven't been tired like i normally am. i haven't even really been taking naps very often after work. part of the problem was that on wednesday night i stayed up and took about forty photos with the dinocam. i figured out what i think is a nice new technique. the photo above is of some tiny wire animals that my poppop's(grandfather) old girlfriend made for him many years ago. i don't know if it was his first girlfriend or not, but i know it wasn't my mommom, because she's creative in another way. she's a knitter. she makes beautiful afgans and blankets and tableclothes. things of that sort. but when aaron and laurie went to prague for their honeymoon they brought me back some franz kafka sugar packets. how thoughtful was that? so you see the sugar packets in the background. i've got to do a whole lot of shopping this weekend. yucky.

jas and i had a interesting conversation before work this morning, about christmas. as we get closer to the holidaze i suppose i'll have more to say about the materialism and consumerism, but for now i'm going to go.

vintage flicker

i ended up getting some vintage christmas candles off of ebay. actually my uncle bought them and my aunt and i split about fifty or so. some of them are terribly old and still have the fifteen cent price tag on the bottom. they tend to be a bit creepy, all faded and crusty in the crevices. my favorite is a tiny two inch candle stick, in which the candle has faded to a creamy salmon color. but they were so cheap and plentiful how could my uncle deny me? i don't really want to decorate for christmas this year. i have a tiny little two foot pre-lite tree that my parentals bought for me the christmas following the housefire. i have a tiny thrill about birds and so i stuff the tree with them. i just beg for my own home and my own family. i'm sure there are others of you who live on your own and feel like a tropical island might suit you better for the holidaze. i am thank full for the family and the friends but honestly it doesn't always cut it. i had a wonderful holiday last year. on christmas eve our family gets together and its fun, hilarious and reaffirming in so many ways. when i'm with my family i feel like we are a battalion and could fight any war or obstacle that came our way. my mom and dad are such strong, generous individuals that anything seems possible after talking and spending time with them. then there are my brothers who are so different but hold onto the same values and ideas so it's not as though we quarrel about the inane things. i'm looking forward to this christmas because i'll be doing more baking and possibly i'll have a little bit more xmas moolah for gifts. we shall see. one thing i wonder is if this will be my last holiday in chattanooga for a while. if and when i move to honolulu i can't see celebrating christmas in the same way. i'll be decorating a two foot palm tree. sounds fun to me.




of course there are my sisters n law too. Interestingly enough they are both nurses. we all work with the healthcare system. ummm.

the weather the last two days has been absolutely incredible. clearest skies and cold. last night i stayed up until about 2:30am taking photos with the dinocam. i really think i got some good pics. anyway i'm off.

basking in the beauty

who's materialistic, will you be consuming a whole lot this december, where will you be looking for gifts galore? lust/content factor. measure your motivation.

anthropologie

blissen

imsmitten

fredflare

here's a few, more to come, more of my favorites. hooray!!!




last night with the ap students went really well. it is hard for me to believe that ten years ago i was one of those seniors in highschool just beginning to discover and experiment with art. ten years ago was the first year lauren started teaching. i was one of her first students to continue with an artistic path. i love showing and sharing my work with other people. these kids had all sorts of questions, they're just great big sponges soaking up anything and everything creative. the whole point was to push the inspiration needle so that they could get through the rest of the year. lauren had been talking with them about embellished surfaces. i think of my work as collage, but i suppose it is embellished. i was so happy to see five new pieces framed. i'd like to go ahead and get about ten to fifteen new pieces out. i've already got three, but they are small.

it feels good to see completed work and know that a work is finished. there's no going back and any doubt i had about the outcome has to be booted away. i talked with the kids about process and not using other people's art. i have always been intrigued with the pure aesthetic and where it comes from. is the pure aesthetic in me? it is similar to that of an original idea, but differs because of what we as individuals find to be personally beautiful. beauty can be all things. even deconstruction can be beautiful. the process, the emotion, the elements and principles of design all hold one form or another of beauty. i felt like a disciple last night. which is a bit of brag way to put how the experience felt. but i was imparting ideas and theories to something these kids have rarely put their hands on. i had my polyoruthene, wax, thread, drywall tape, paintbrushes scattered around my apartment. i feel like being an artist is no big deal sometimes. it's sort of like an artist a dime a dozen. just like everything nowadays. being recognized feels great.