creative space

Where do you get creative?

What is your favorite medium?

Your muse?

Do you set aside specific time during the day or week to be creative or are you lucky enough to let the magic flow any time it strikes you?

Do you like to get creative with others or do you find a solo gig is more productive?

Where do you draw your inspiration from? If they are online leave me links.

Tomorrow I draw names for the pay it forward drawing. Say hello if you haven't yet done so.

Hope you all are having a wonderful week.

Saturday, oh Saturday

What a fantastic day. I hope you all are having a fantastic weekend.
It was really like spring today (Spring in the Great Basin can be iffy and more like sprinter or wing). All the neighbors were out in the yards cutting and trimming and discussing if it was 'safe' to turn on the sprinklers yet or not.
Daddy-O spent the day in the yard mixing dirt and plant garlic, onions, broccoli, asparagus, potatoes and beans. While MrO and I picked up JoJo and went to Bartley Ranch for a walk and then to the bookstore to pick up "Weekend Sewing". I had a 40% off coupon that was going to expire so it was perfect timing. I can hardly wait to dig into the patterns in that book. It felt so good to spend most of the day outside and to air out the house.
Tonight we were treated to dinner at the neighbor's house. They got a Vita Mixer and so we tested out everything from appetizers to desert. It was a little like Lucy and Ethel in the kitchen, lots of laughs and a nice visit. I can't believe what wonderful people we have on our block.
Tomorrow will be a few chores in the morning and then crafting with the SILs in the afternoon.

showing his UNR pride!
MrO has officially cut his first tooth. I was feeling around in his mouth this morning and came across something sharp. Sure enough on the bottom right side there is a little tooth poking its way through. No wonder he has been so restless at night.


If you haven't commented on the last post and want to be in the "Pay it Forward" drawing please do scroll down and say howdy. Thanks to everyone who has stopped in and said hello- sure is nice to know you all are reading :)

Be well friends!

Forward Momentum

A few weeks ago I was brought into the "pay it forward circle".
I received a beautiful print from Kristen and now it is my turn to pass on the good.

Comment on this post before April Fool's Day and I will draw five names from a hat.

Each of the people I draw from the hat will get a bit of good old fashioned mail from me, one of my prints.



The catch, you will have to then "pay it forward" by doing the same thing within the next year- you don't have to pass along a photograph, what ever creative thing you want to send along will do just so long as you keep the creative momentum moving.

So go ahead, say hello- even if you don't usually say anything when you stop in to visit.

Cheers!

I feel love...

Today I am beyond honored to be featured on pecannoot .

If you found your way to my humble little blog via Jess' abundance forum, Hello! to you and thanks for stopping by. I invite you to take a look-see around and say howdy if you are so inclined.

If you are a regular reader of mine and haven't yet checked out the loveliness that is happening on Pecannoot, hop yourself on over there and check it out. Jess has created an amazing space for artists of all kinds to share the abundance in their world. Jess also has a really sweet flickr stream and a website of her own. I encourage you to take a peak at her artwork.

Pecannoot really is a wonderful daily dose of good. I often find the messages, images and thoughts to be just what I needed every morning as I check my bloglines. A swift (gentle and loving) kick in the arse to remember all the wonderful around us and most importantly the abundance we all have inside.

Spring delivered

It's here.



I want to tear into it like I would a letter from a dear friend. Savoring this, my favorite time of year, spring. Just as I would savor reading the hand written words, paper and pen and loopy handwriting that is so telling of one friend from another- just as the seasons are here in Reno. One not quite like the other, unique. I think I might go a little batty if I lived somewhere that the seasons didn't really differ from each other.



It has been a warm week, shorts and a t-shirt on the walk Tuesday after work, the heater hardly going on all night, wanting to drink cold seltzer and juice instead of hot tea and honey. Of course they are talking snow for the weekend despite the fact the words vernal equinox are typed on the calendar today. Spring is always a mash up of weather and sun, blooms on the trees and blooms blown about the backyard. Green grass and white snow on the sidewalks. Unpredictable really.

~~~~~~~~



To play along with the 5 Senses Friday I would like to write how different spring smells depending on where you live.

These photos were taken in Berkley, CA last weekend. The air was damp and earthy smelling. Things were blossoming and if you were lucky you might catch the smell of flowers as you walked down the side walk.

Back here in Reno however, spring smells entirely different. The air is dry and warm, the earthy sent doesn't come until much later in the year and usually only after a good rain. That's when the sent of sage brush and damp, alkaline dirt rise to your nose. Spring here waits a little longer. Daffodils, forsythia, lilacs, mock plumb trees. In that order they start to brighten and show their colorful faces and show off their different smells. (oh the lilacs, how I can hardly wait for you to bloom).

Happy St. Pat's!

weekend wrap up

It was a beautiful weekend.


We crashed city hall and watched the uniting of these two beautiful people.

I love you big bro! Congrats xoxoxoxox

The SF City Hall is an amazing building, if you have never been there I highly suggest checking it out.
~~~~

Other sites from the weekend...


looking up


looking down


looking straight ahead

Thanks Big Sis for having us at your amazing house- xo

stopping to smell.

It has been a wild week. There was the nearly sleepless Sat. night leaving me in a state of delirium on Sunday, an unexpect snow storm Monday morning paired with the time change, two visits to the doctor's office in 24 hours and an ear infection later- you would think it was Friday already!

I love and hate the time change. It is SO hard to get out of bed in the morning but man oh man is it nice to come home and still have day light out enough to go for a walk after work.

Teaching in the morning and then a long weekend in the Bay for a wedding. I am looking forward to the family and celebrating.

Be well friends!

Half

We interrupt your regular schedule green to bring you this important message...

MrO is officially half a year old today.

182.5 days you have been on this planet Earth my sweet little man and I couldn't be more in love with you if I tried.


for bigger click here.

It is amazing to think how much you have changed already and yet, how much you are just the same. Last night as I rocked you to sleep you made the same 'frog' noise with your mouth that you have always made since the first time I held you. When you sneeze you do so in sets of 3 or 4 (just like mama)and then do the sweetest little, "ahhhew" afterward (making us all laugh, its the best). When you are hungry or need something you aren't afraid to ask for it and let it be known what's up. Your a talker just like you have always been.



But the things that have changed, and they seem to have all come in a giant pile in the last week or two. You are really working on sitting up on you own and with the help of the boppy (or two) you can stay upright for minutes at a time. You found your toes awhile back, but last week finally got them in your mouth and often this keeps you busy while we change your diaper. On Wed. night you not only ate your second solid food (sweet potatoes) but you finally got the whole spoon business down and ate with vigor. Your little feet kicked and you leaned in for more finishing off the entire bowl (an ice cube worth) of sweet potatoes. While we eat dinner or make dinner you sit in your booster seat and keep yourself busy with your keys or the mirror. (you love the little boy in the mirror).



In the bathtub you have discovered the joy of splashing. If I have the water running to wash my hands or something in the sink you want to put your hands in to feel the wet. JoJo gave you a bowl of water and let you touch and feel and explore. It was really fascinating to see you find such interest in the simplest of things.

We thought you might be teething since your hands are in your mouth nonstop and your little cheeks have been red. So far though,we can't see any buds pushing thru yet. I am fine without the teeth since I am still breastfeeding.

Things that crack you up, your dogs and your dad. Giggling hard when the schnauzers wrestle on the floor in front of you or brush your skin with their fur or wet nose. So far you both have tolerated each other very well, something we were a little worried about. The gals at the daycare said you cracked up at the mop the other day- the only thing we can figure is that the mop looks an awful lot like your crazy dogs when they need a haircut. Aside from the dogs Daddy-O is the one that can make you giggle harder than anyone. You two were having a great time playing 'keep away' with the napkin at the dinner table the other night.

You really are sick of the reclining 'massage' chair and would much rather be sitting up in the booster seat or bouncing like a maniac in your bouncer- boing, boing. You can really get that thing going these days! We were just gifted an exersuacer and it might have to come upstairs into the master bath so you have a safe place to hang while Daddy-O and I get ready in the morning. You have officially outgrown the swing we have up there and this morning flipped over in it! Other things you are outgrowing- clothes. I have a box of stuff that is too short or to tight. You outgrew the baby carrier car seat and we now have the big daddy of seats in the cars. This takes a little more planning when we are out and about since we can't just carry the seat with you in it any more, but we are figuring it out.


This month you caught RSV and we had to nebulize you. This wasn't any fun and I hated to see you not be yourself. You seemed to have kicked it and we got off without an ear infection or other commonly associated sickness but man was it a tough week.
You are still waking up in the night and secretly, even if I am exhausted, I don't really mind sitting with you in the rocking chair in the wee hours of the morning. I know there will come a time when you would rather be doing something else besides snuggling with mama. And so long as I get a nap or two in during the weekend I can deal with the mid-night snacks that you seem to enjoy. (don't get me wrong 7 hours solid of sleep would be fantasticle!!)

We are planning our first road trip in just a week- heading to SanFran for an eloping celebration. It will be good to prove to ourselves that traveling isn't at an end. But most importantly we are hoping to get into a photobooth- you need to be initiated!

We love you. Keep us laughing, keep swelling our hearts with love and trust and adventures beyond our wildest dreams.

xoxoxo

green gaurd

keeping watch over the kitchen.



Somewhere along the way I came across these little army men. It started in college, placing them here and there. I would put them in my plants and in other unexpected spots around the house sort of as a joke with my roommates. I like to think they are keeping watch over me and the random spots that they are placed. The bottles are old finds from my childhood. I have carted those things around with me for years.

I have been meaning to get outside and find some green in my world. I actually spotted a fantastic old motor home that would be perfect for a Polaroid or TtV shot but it is in a shady part of town near some of the weeklies along 4th St. I have snapped the shot mentally, and maybe this weekend I can talk someone into taking a walk down there so I can capture it. There are also some great signs in town that would fit the bill, again getting out when there is still light is a trick these days. All in all I am having a great time spotting all the green around the house.

So glad tomorrow is Friday. It has been a long week and today was one of those days where anything I touched sorta went south. I am looking forward to having brunch with the girls this weekend and possibly a lunch date with my bff to a new eatery on CalAve. (Freeman's Natural Hotdogs- the site is www.fnhotdog.com)

Be well friends!

green-like sugar

Before we moved into the 'big house' we lived in a sweet little 1960's casa. A two bedrooms one bath sort of deal. It was our first house and we were ambitious about making it our own. We promptly set to ripping up all the carpet (including that which was in the bathroom-eww, say it with me, ewwwww).
We (or should I say Daddy-O) installed hardwood floors thru out the 800 square feet of bedroom, living room and front entry. As with most projects when you spruce up one part of the house you start to see where the rest of the house needs help. The interest rates were dropping and so, like so many others we re-fied the house. This gave us a bit of money to go big and remodel the kitchen. We gutted the thing, all the way down to the studs.





I learned how to hang drywall and cook in the microwave . We did dishes in the tub and ate out more then I liked to adimt. We had a guy come in and tile the floors, we had new appliances delivered (oh how I miss that dual fule stove), silestone counter tops and cabinets installed. The place was gorgeous. One of my favorite parts about the new kitchen was that we had a plate rail installed. We had received a set of dishes for our wedding (that I adore) but there were only settings for four, a much smaller number of settings then we regularly needed for when friends or family showed up.
The hunt was on for dishes that we like, no, that we loved. And just in time, a Crate and Barrel catalog arrived in the mail.
It was settled as soon as we saw them in the pages, Samoa Dinnerware was it.
Now, in the new house, we don't have a plate rack to show off our fancy dishes. But there is one piece of the set that dose get to live outside the cupboard doors and be part of the counterscape- the sugar bowl.

I love it's little round handle and squat round belly.

green handknit

Are you enjoying green week so far? There sure are a lot of really great photos out there.

Just like with yellow, there are green hand knits too.



I made this over the summer before Mr.O was born. I went with the green partly because I loved the color and partly because we had opted not to find out the sex of the baby- green seemed a safe bet for a little boy or a little girl.
For some reason I never got around to posting the final picture (or any picture for that matter), even though I had talked about making the sweater when I started. It is the placket neck sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I think next time I would like to add a dash of other colors to the mix to jazz it up a bit.


Hope you are all snuggling in for the night- we are expecting snow but right now I just hear the spatter of rain on the house.

Be well

green (and a bit of orange)

We'll try out these in the next few weeks. I roasted them, gave them a good whirl in the food processor, and then frozen the puree in ice cube trays. Now they are ready to mixed in with cereal or thawed and eaten on their own.



If he doesn't like the taste of them at least he had a good time playing with them.


more green here...

First Taste and a bit of green

It was his first taste of 'real' food this weekend, rice cereal and a little bit of mama's milk.


(look, I'm eatting from a spoon!)

Have fun finding all the green this week. Thanks again to Emily for hosting!
PS there is a flickr group if you want a big dose of the madness.