In the Blink of an Eye

Somehow the weekend escaped me. Yesterday was pretty leisurely as I stayed inside most of the day to escape the snow and cold. Today was a marathon shopping day to help Robin and Dave get ready to stage their house after an enormous breakfast that included pancakes (finally, I've had a craving for weeks now). I barely caught my photo a day picture, as the sun was setting by the time I left IKEA. This month is flying by...

Your Sky

Anti-gray

Today has been such a dreary day. And I thought I was just going to hibernate until the snow came, but around 11 am this morning, I realized I didn't want to let the weather dictate my mood. Several hundred layers later, I braved the cold to Utrecht to get some new art supplies. It actually felt like a typical Saturday, as I spent way too many mornings there in school. However, it was fun to wander the aisles rather aimlessly, letting the various mediums spark ideas for different projects.

I've been pinning a bunch of patterned drawings on Pinterest the last few weeks, and it has definitely inspired me to start some pattern explorations of my own. And for the first time I think ever, I basically just went around grabbing various colored pens and pencils that I liked. Bright turquoise, kelly green, yellow, magenta, some metallics and a new Micron set thrown in for good measure. Definitely the anti-gray palette to combat the outdoor gloom. Pretty excited to start exploring. So for today, my favorite is color! :-)

Happy Friday

Somehow this week flew by - I can't believe it's Friday. As the library competition starts revving up, my other "side job" is going to be coming to a close soon. Greg, Mary, and I have been creating a set of as-builts for a house in Glover Park for an architect here in DC. Today was (I think/I hope!) our last day of measuring. And of course we left the exterior for the end - now that it's nice and freezing outside (on a side note, it better snow this weekend because it is wrong for it to be THIS cold without anything pretty to come of it).

So this picture represents my photo a day challenge: makes you smile. Because somehow we always manage to have a really good time. Basically they tease me relentlessly while I think I provide some much needed entertainment. It works. I've enjoyed our Wednesday/Friday work + lunch outings we've had for the last few weeks.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

Neck Warmer

Since there has been virtually no snow in DC this winter, I keep thinking spring is upon us and I can start purging my wardrobe of cold-weather clothes. Well, not so much. Last night and today were particularly frosty, so I thought for today's photo challenge (something you wore) I would show you one of my favorite ways to keep warm. For a girl from Southern California, my scarf collection is a bit ridiculous. But they are definitely my go-to accessory to add some fun and color to my winter wardrobe. Here's one of my favorites that's been in heavy rotation this winter.

I also realized today that taking self-portraits with an iPhone is pretty tough - and I have a pretty good reach. So as this challenge goes on, at some point I may have to outsource some photography - or start doing more yoga. 

Two things Teal

Wow, I didn't even make it through the first week without being delinquent on my photo-a-day posts. Yesterday was a long day - I am starting to work on a competition for a new library in Helsinki with a few classmates and an architect who teaches at CUA, so by the time I got home last night, the last thing I wanted to do was spend more time on my computer. But yesterday I was also stumped with showing a picture of "something you adore" - but it came to me last night.  

Here it is - and while the ring is my favorite color, super cute, and I do wear it all the time, it actually is something I adore because of when/where I got it. Years ago when I was working at D360, I had to go up to San Francisco for a meeting - I think it was the Tuesday after President's Day weekend or something, because my mom decided to fly up there early with me, and we spent a few days exploring the city and having a great girls' trip - shopping, eating, museum-ing ;-). It was on that trip that we saw Olafur Eliasson's Take Your Time exhibit at the SFMoma, which ended up being really influential on my thesis research (and he is just a rad artist regardless). This ring we found at the Saturday morning Farmer's Market that takes place at the Ferry Building. The stone has actually fallen out several times (I think my last fix of a new cardboard backing + super glue has done the trick though). Definitely a memory I adore.

And today's picture theme said "letterbox." Which, to be honest, I had no clue what it meant. Immediately I thought of the screen pixel-aspect ratio - or whatever it's called - when you rent DVDs. Then I googled it, and a few things came up, but it was still unclear to me, so I decided to interpret it as a box of letters. And guess what?! I have that. My dear friend Robin designed stationary for me for graduation/my birthday. And since she knows me oh so well, the paper is teal with my initial - so perfect! Unfortunately you can't really tell from this picture, but the lining of the envelopes are gold. They are so lovely. And it feels pretty nice to have some "grown up" stationary now...

Breakfast

I'm still trying to hammer out my morning breakfast/workout routine. My mornings are now like this: cats wake me up by 7-7:30, I zombie-like walk downstairs, give them breakfast, and stand with my eyes half-closed until the coffee's finished. Then with my first giant cup, I head upstairs to browse the world of the internet. And probably go back downstairs and get a refill (or two). Hmm, may need teeth-whitening soon. Anyways, I'm definitely a breakfast eater but I'm also not an able-to-work-out-anytime-close-to-after-I-ate-something type of person. Which is a tricky thing for this gal since I pretty much have to exercise in the morning if it's going to happen at all. So my daily dilemma: work out before or after breakfast? Basically 10 minutes after my first cup of coffee, I'm so ravenous the idea of working out on an empty stomach seems impossible. So instead I have some coffee, then breakfast, then sit around waiting to be "ready" to work out. It seems like I waste a lot of my morning. Oh well, I guess if this is my biggest problem, it's not the end of the world. Anyone else master the breakfast/workout situation?

This wandering of course is because of the daily challenge. And, I'm proud to acknowledge that this really is my usual breakfast - so not trying to just put up a pretty/healthy picture. Anyways, the timing of today's challenge was also perfect for me - as I actually feel like I have a lot to get done and can't be lollygagging (don't you just love that word?) on my computer all day - well at least not on the internet, I have a portfolio to work on.

So with breakfast down, hopefully I'm off to work out in the next half hour or so. Have a great day!

Photo Challenge

To be honest, I go back and forth between continuing to write here and stopping. I guess really I post on this blog for myself (and so my family knows I'm still alive if we haven't spoken in a while), but sometimes when I'm absent for a while it's because I'm thinking, what's going on in my life that warrants writing about? I'm back in DC now for the next few months, with the most low-key schedule I've had in years. And while I am sure I should relish in it, or at least do the personal projects I've basically had on hold all through grad school, often I find myself sitting around, and twiddling my thumbs, so to speak.  But my month of leisure is over (well, officially almost a week ago now), so I thought I'd not only start making a dent in my portfolio and thesis paper, but really try to have a consistent presence here as well, and see how it goes. So yesterday I found this challenge online:

Challenge created/found here.

So January is over, and technically there's a new photo challenge for February that I'm 5 days behind on, but I thought, hey, why not? Let's see how 31 days of pictures and posting go. So without further ado, here's number 1:

Last Monday I went over to my amazing hair dresser Ramon's house for some hair lessons. Because let's face it, I basically wear my hair in a ponytail or if I'm feeling motivated (or it's really cold outside and I want to warm up), I'll take the time to blow it out (and then put it up in a ponytail later in the day ;-)). Anyways, we did a bunch of stuff together - and here is one of my favorites - a bun made from a fishtail braid. I also learned that after probably 20+ years of doing my own hair, I've used bobby pins wrong my whole life - which is crazy considering I danced for so long and a bun was a staple in my hair repertoire.

The best part was that I was inspired all week to try new things - or at least a new thing - I've been sporting a messy fishtail a few times this week - and guess what - it's kind of fun trying something different and new. Day one down, thirty more to go!