To Post or to Clean... That is the Question.

The past two days have brought on the following excitement:

• The bird
• Lessons with colors and lines
• Missoni for Target

Jon comes home tomorrow, so I must clean this house! I promise to catch up on these posts later this week, most likely Thursday night.

Have a great day!

Times Square, New York. May, 2011

Over the Weekend...

Blue and yellow - a nice color combination. Chicago. July 2011. 

Jon, aka Mr. Wonderful, has been out of town on business this past week. He's in China, on his way to the Great Wall as I write this post. I miss him so much. But while he's been gone, I've spent more time with my girlfriends than I have in a long time, which has been amazing and so much fun! I'm going to make a point to hang out more with my female friends from now on. They're just too great not to.

I discovered that my camera cord is not communicating with my camera, so I am unable to upload any pictures from the weekend. I wanted to write about a skirt that I wore for Girls Night Out on Saturday, but the colorful photo from a trip to Chicago sums up my outfit. I'll save the skirt for another time.

In 2005 - 2006, I worked as an intern at the Dallas Museum of Art. There were nine of us; all working for peanuts, but following our dreams. I never would have thought that these ladies would be some of my very best friends six years later. Saturday, we got together to celebrate six years of friendship. We talked about the past, the present and the future. Six years later some of us are married, have children, have completed our Master's degrees, and have lived in foreign countries. Some still work in museums, some of us don't. These ladies are amazing - talented, intelligent and beautiful, and I am so lucky to know them. It was an impromptu get together, but we made a time capsule that we're supposed to open six years from now. How cool is that?

Sunday was September 11. I will never forget.

Poster graffiti.  Brooklyn. May 2011

Nine. Ten. Eleven

This is how my pie turned out.

Nine. Ten. Eleven. Seems like a good date to start blogging again. I took a break with the intentions of coming back soon... But then soon turned into almost seven months. 

I felt like I had nothing new or interesting to offer the world wide web. Maybe I still don't, but who cares? 

I'll be honest, my old friend 'Self Doubt' came back to visit and stayed for a while. Working and coming back to Dallas, adjusting to life as it happens, just made me want to recoil and figure it all out. 

But guess what? I still don't have it figured out, but my life is good and happy. 

I am in very much in love. 

I still take pictures with the same small camera.

I have a job that I love - it's different everyday and allows me to be creative. 

I still make things.

I still travel. 

I have great friends.

I have a loving family.

I have goals and projects that I am working on.

I still wear skirts. 

I like my life,

And I want to write about it all right here.

A First

While I've been healing, I've been reading my share of magazines. The inspiration for this post is the latest issue of Victoria, a magazine that I thought had gone under!

In the January/February issue there is an article, Peaks of Perfection, which is styled so scrumptiously and is totally on the topic of desserts with meringues. I have always been intrigued by meringues. They are so light and yet so dense at the same time. How and why is it like that? The best part is the way that it melts in your mouth. Mmmmm.

While I've always been intrigued, I've also been a bit petrified to make anything that has any inkling to be like meringue. I think I've filed the experience away in my brain as daunting, something that must be timed and perfectly produced, otherwise... disaster. Is this true?

I am about to find out. I am making a coconut cream pie, and to make a pie, one needs a crust.

This was my first crust from scratch, and hard work in my convalescing condition. Jon had to roll the last bit of thick dough for me.

I didn't have pie weights, so I had to improvise. A source on the internet recommended using beans or rice instead.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes until golden brown.

A first!

Now comes the hard part, but I'm saving it for tomorrow.

The Gall of it All

I had emergency surgery this morning to remove my gall bladder.



My flowers from Mr. Wonderful, who really is wonderful! He ran lights to get me to the emergency room, and stayed with me through the 5 hour wait to be seen by a doctor.

I'm fine now, just sore. Nothing pain meds can't help. Guess 2011 is all about clearing out the clutter!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Gaston Ave,Dallas,United States

Road Trip

Mr. Wonderful and I escaped the Super Bowl madness with a trip to Austin this weekend.

With all of the ice and snow, it took us a while to get out of Dallas County, but eventually we made it and we stopped to eat breakfast at this yummy hole in the wall Mexican & Chinese Restaurant in Waco. By the way, it's pronounced WAY-CO, and not WHACK-O, like my nephews like to say. :)

We went to Austin to check out this exhibition at the University of Texas School of Architecture.

Mr. Wonderful played a big part on a few of the projects on display. 

We caught up with friends and ate some wonderful food - both home cooked and restaurant meals.

Eat here. 'Nough said. 

Mr. Wonderful took this picture of my chicken and waffles. 

It was sooooo good. Absolutely amazing! So delicious! My mouth waters just looking at this picture. I had always wanted to try chicken and waffles, and another one of my life's dream was fulfilled! Yay!

It was a lovely trip, so inspirational and fun! There is such a creative and entrepreneurial vibe to Austin, it's hard not to catch it. Our trip was short, but it was enough to rejuvenate us and get the creative juices rolling. And, it was sunny and 75 degrees!

Bunnies

It is the Year of the Rabbit, and to celebrate and expose my students to the Chinese Lunar New Year, I thought it would be cute for my preschool classes to draw rabbits. My plan was to create an informative and interactive display with their adorable pictures. Unfortunately, school shut down last week and I missed the opportunity to display their work, but their pictures are too cute not to share.

Through directive drawing, (step-by-step instructions) we drew three bunnies, three different ways - from the front, the back and the profile. This exercise is great for my English language learners because they have to listen to instructions and it also illustrates important vocabulary. Did I mention the exposure to other cultures?

My students drew with markers - A REALLY big deal if you are 5 years old, pasted their papers on to red paper and placed a piece of Japanese paper with rabbits for decoration, ALL BY THEMSELVES!

I am so proud of them! It makes me all warm and fuzzy just looking at them.

Around the House

 Love is in the air!

So is the smell of chocolate chip cookies.

Snow Day #5

Unbelievable. What did I do today? Not much. So, I'm going to post on what I've done in the past few days.

Save It For Later

I started making my Valentines yesterday.

Pretty, pretty paper from here and here. 

Unrelated to Valentine making, but I woke up with this song in my head...

Blue Berry Day

Due to another day of school cancelled due to inclement weather, I finally got around to finishing my blue bag that I started last week.

I love the way it turned out!

The fabric is from an estate sale that I went to a few years ago. I'd been holding on to it for a while and wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I love it as a bag.

I also really love this big white button and the honeycomb yellow fabric that lines the inside. It's so cheerful!

Sew... now that that's done, I turned my attention to baking and making use of what was in my fridge.

Blueberry Muffins!

I think this was the first time I had made blueberry muffins from scratch. I used a recipe from this book that I got for my birthday. The muffins were good, Jon liked them anyway, but that kind of doesn't count since he'll eat anything. The cinnamon and orange zest gave them a nice flavor. I don't know, I think I just have a super sweet tooth, but I thought they could use something more - like cream cheese icing. Just kidding... sort of. 

Finally around midnight it started snowing. After days of below freezing temperatures it FINALLY started to snow. I love the snow. It's so beautiful. I feel like a kid and never get tired of it. 

Since it was midnight, and no one was watching... 

One life's dream complete.

Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year! It's my year, the year of the Rabbit!

I made this card for some new friends last night:

The envelope is lined with cute little bunny paper from Paper Source. I stamped 2011 from my antique stamp set on the front of a folding card, and on the inside used the Double Happiness stamp from Paper Source. I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

We braved the cold and icy streets to go out and celebrate the Lunar New Year last night with some of Jon's colleagues. We didn't eat Chinese food, we ate tapas, because nothing says Happy Chinese New Year like Spanish tapas! It was a nice break from the last days off that we have had due to ice and freezing temperatures. More snow is expected tonight, I am hoping for a final day off tomorrow. I've had so much fun getting things done around the house.

Create

Create is one of my Daily Do's in 2011...

My example for tomorrow's lesson. There will be a substitute. I have jury duty.

Blog is another one of my Daily Do's.

Big & Small

The title refers to my Christmas gifts. Let's start with the first one I opened...

It was small, but beautifully wrapped. I especially liked the cute tag and slip knotted ribbons.

Surprise!

It was a Fun Meal!  A surprise within itself. I discovered these last month and fell hard for Fun Meals!

 You can get them here. I have two so far...

Mexican Night and Drive N' Go.

It's hard not to go out and buy them all at once, but I will wait until pay day. They're only $5, but it's about the surprise inside. 

Next, was a BIG gift! I love the fabric Jon used to wrap my gift - it's so soft and cozy, and it's gingham. 

It was a BIG wrapping job for a BIG gift! 

A BIG SPOON!

A friend and I saw these really large utensils at Pier 1 imports back in November. I loved them, as only I could. I was so surprised that he remembered, and we had fun taking silly pictures with it in front of the Christmas tree. 

My next gift was small, but also wrapped so wonderfully....

A stack of pink felt, held together with thick cotton string.

Jon had built a structure that held a tiny little box, and I had to open a series of felt flaps to get to the box.

This is what was inside...

Sterling silver scissors from here. 

I also got a gingham apron from Jon's mom, a book from my mom that I can't wait to read, and another BIG item from last year's list. Yay!

I've been on a creative kick lately. Lots of paper cutting in the past few days. I am sad, but excited that I go back to work tomorrow. Excited for a new year, but also sad - I want to keep making stuff. Perhaps I can do it all this year.... We'll see.

Happy New Year!

~xoxo

The First

I went to see a movie yesterday,

and ate my black eyed peas.

The last day of 2010...

Started with a mani/pedi...

Oops! Not in a skirt...

It's been a while since I've put color on my toes and finger tips. I wish I could handle some color, but I can't. I prefer to worry and watch other things besides the paint on my nails chip and flake away...
But if I were to choose, I suppose I would choose something dark and sparkly.

I love the idea of the possibilities, so I made a collage about it.

And this next photo belongs in the category of random...

What you have here is a photo of Merlin, who walks a tight rope on Belmont. We went on a bike ride yesterday and ran into Merlin. He invited us to try his tight rope and share a "few" words of wisdom.

I love the randomness of this event. I didn't wake up yesterday thinking, "I will balance on a tight rope today." 

Just another day in the life?