time for fall to get here for real!

I've been reading things my friends have been writing all over the US about how it feels like fall, autumn is finally here, etc. I am suffering seasonal jealousy! The mornings are foggier and cooler, and it's not hot at night now, but that's about it. It's still pretty darn warm during the day. I am knitting scarves and hats like crazy, hoping to inspire the weather to change for me!!!

When the weather changes, I go into apple-mode, for lack of a better phrase. I want to go out in gloves and sweaters and pick apples, and then I want to bake things with apples, and have everything smell like apples and cinnamon. It gets tied into other things too - I want to quilt, and crochet blankets, and write in a handbound journal, and make my own gifts, and decorate and nest, nest, nest.

But there's something phony about that feeling when I can go outside in flipflops and it's appropriate footwear.

During the fall, I want to be midwestern. Or from Idylwild. Either one. :)

I want to sit inside while it's cold outside, plan my spring garden, knit warm things for people I love, bake bread, and make my home as warm as possible.

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This weekend was fantastic. I can't for the life of me remember what I did on Saturday, but Sunday we had friends over that we hadn't seen for about 3 years. Football started at 10am, so I woke up early and did some housework, and then they came bearing breakfast burritos. We watched the game - well, they watched the game, I crocheted. I've been crocheting baby sweaters like crazy. Found a free pattern on ravelry that takes me about 2 hours from start to finish, and I love it. I figure I can start stockpiling now, so when I am ready to have kids, they'll have a whole wardrobe! So I crocheted while Adam, Chris, David, Joe and Tina watched the game. J and T left, and Steve came over around lunch time. I heated up the pea soup I'd made from scratch, and made grilled cheese sandwiches for everybody. I had Top Chef flashes as I plated more than 1 meal. It made me giggle the whole time. I love feeding people. I played some bejeweled, then got out the box of bisque I have had in the closet for a YEAR. I dug out an underglaze pencil and went to town on my "Possible Life Series" cups which I'd posted on here about a year ago. We went and got food from Katella Deli at some point, played Beatles Rock Band in between the football games, I gave Juno a bath and spent some quality time playing with my puppy, I got out some fabric and started sewing a skirt, and then watched Dexter, Entourage, and Californication with the guys.

Good, good, good, good, good, good day.

I am living off of the glow from that day, hoping it carries me through the whole work week. Yesterday was a full day of work, meetings, presentations, and an A2A event. I got home around 11pm, and worked on my painting assignment for a little while, then fell asleep watching Adventureland with Adam. This morning we woke up early enough for a little quality time, and here I am at work again. I am taking a brief break from closing spreadsheets, refunding client's money, and putting together a press packet for the Walk for Independence. Tonight I have painting class - I am unclear about what we were supposed to have DONE for the assignment, and what we're going to be working on in class, so that makes me a little nervous, but oh well.

The objects I've picked out so far are a bunch of different ceramics, different skeins of yarn, and a cowboy hat. I am having hard time with the first painting, becuase he doesn't want us to create depth, and I HATE forcing myself not to make the image more interesting. But I bought big canvas board yesterday, and I'm really excited to do something larger than 8 x 11!!!

Tomorrow I work, and then my dad and I have a date to do Couch to 5k. Thursday I work and have painting, and Friday I work and then I'm going down to UCI to have dinner/exercise/tv show watching with Roxana.

And then it's the weekend. Wonderful, wonderful weekend.

camping in big sur

So I went camping this weekend.....It was so much fun. Totally relaxing. Totally FREEZING. The best part was when we were crazy driving along these gnarly dirt roads, up on this ridge with sheer drops on either side....and we hear a clunking sound like something had just fallen out of the jeep. Turns out the drive shaft broke, and we spent the next three or four hours removing it (adam under the jeep, my foot on the break because of the incline we were at) then we managed to get down to our campsite, ate, slept, and dealt with it in the morning. We dealt with it by using 4 wheel drive to get up out of the valley and into Morro Bay, where we then spent the next 4 hours in an Autozone parking lot. But I was so impressed - Adam managed to spend only about 20 bucks and he FIXED the car. Totally fixed it. Man, my boyfriend is handy. So this picture is him "testing" the jeep around the parking lot. We stopped for a second in Cambria - last time we were there the male elephant seals were there in full force. This time of year there weren't as many elephant seals, but I got a few photos. They're so big. You don't even realize it til you're standing close to one.

This photo is my doggydog playing with me - he does this great POUNCE thing - and he was posing just long enough for me to get some photos.

I did a lot of drawing those 10ish hours while my foot was on the break. I came up with a few cup series that I want to do - I need to go to Aardvarks and invest in a high fire glaze pencil, I think. I'd love to be able to get across what I do on paper onto clay. I've never been good at that. I think I'll take some time to do it soon, because I'd like to start developing a portf0lio for an art therapy program.

So this weekend was a blast. Despite the car troubles, it was fun, relaxing, and wonderful. The cold was intense, but I was always fine at night (I have the most amazing sleeping bag ever) and it was so good to be where there were TREES and not a whole lot of people.

Adam and I also decided it's time to get a puppy. SO EXCITED. He's going to talk to his dad, and ideally we'll be getting a female german shephard. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

photo time

Hi folks! I have had such a nice few days. But I don't have much time right now, so here is a photo blog... The f irst few photos are Dr. Horrible induced...also my excitement at Daniel bringing me a new card for my camera! I can now store the technical ammount of "two gajillion" photos.

The next photos are my two sisters and I, outside of the theater where Roxana performed admirably in And Then There Were None - the Agatha Christie. It was hard to get scared with Rosie and Daniel next to me whispering "that's what she said" after every other line.

Then, at dinner (fine dining of Subway) - they decided to neither speak, see, or hear...hardeeharhar.



This is my dad in his kitchen! I don't get to see him nearly often enough - the other night I went over there and we watched Top Chef together and had a heart to heart, which was really nice. He's always busy working (data analyst for Edison International) or coaching soccer, so it's always good to get to go watch movies or talk with him.

How I can make one day feel like three

Phew! Yesterday was a very long, very wonderful day! I have discovered the key to my having a good weekend - going to sleep by 10pm and waking up before 8am! Friday night I went to my dad's house and watched Top Chef with him, and then had along heart-to-heart. I was at home, asleep by about 10:30. I woke up around 7am the next morning, and spent a few hours happily sweeping, scrubbing, cleaning... then I headed over to Amber's house, where we stopped at Whole Foods, and then went to Aardvark's for clay, and then went down to the Irvine Fine Arts Center!

Now -for those of you who don't know, ceramics has been an obsession of mine since I was about 11. It actually started at the Irv.FAC - we went with Girl Scouts once. I loved it (although the first time I went, I was so excited, I went and got a bucket of water, and set it down on the wheelhead. The first thing they said to do was test the peddle. So I did. And water went FLYING. It was so embarrassing, but I survived.) Then, I was at Cypress College when I was about 13, and walked past this door...

I peered inside, and there was Bob Dylan and Tom Waits playing, murals painted all over the walls, the wheels, and the cubbies, and a big flashing sign that said "CERAMICS" and this silver haired woman with the brightest shirt I ever saw going around and encouraging everyone. I signed up for ceramics the next semester.

That class turned out to be so much more than a class for me. I stayed there for 5 years - they helped raise me. Char and all of the lab techs took me under their wings and taught me everything about throwing, glazing, and firing. Les would help me load the kiln, Ducky would show me how to use the power chisel to clean the shelves, and Jeremy let me raku with him. Oh, rakuing. That's a whole separate post. Oh man. My heart palpitates just thinking about it. Greg Morissey was the handbuilding/low fire glazing expert, Jim used to come up to me when I was learning how to center and thump my elbow and say "oops, center it again" so I learned how to center really well and really fast. John Danner and I started the same semester, and stuck together - he ended up making me some incredibly useful personalized tools, Rebecca, Fil, and Tifani started a little later, and when I met them, my life was complete! Rebecca now lives in Utah, but is still doing ceramics out there (and is thinking of opening her own etsy!) Fil lives who knows where, but apparently resurfaces every once in a while, and Tifani is her own fairytale, which I ruined, and is also another post.

My point is - I loved everything about it. I loved the actual act of throwing, loved the smell of clay, loved sticking my whole arm down in a glaze bucket, loved the old film of Paul Soldner rakuing, loved the day when we got to watch the slides of Char's favorite cups, loved the first day of class ("WOW" day she calld it - for "Weed out the Wusses") I LOVED cleaning that big beautiful silver sink and singing, taking breaks and hanging out on the patio by the aloe vera plant with all the smokers, organizing boxes in the clay cage, helping to load and unload kilns...I loved the precision of loading a glaze kiln, but I loved the bisque kiln because it was so big I could stand in it to load it.

Raku - originally a Japanese form of glazing, was Americanized and made popular by Paul Soldner, known as the Father of American Raku. He also happened to be one of Char's instructors when she was in school. He would come and visit, and every once in a while select students of Char's would get to go to his house for parties, potlucks, and sitting in his hot tub surrounded by the bush that looked like a water monster, and 80 different bonsai trees. I lived for the day Char deemed time to raku. At our studio it was a three person process - and my two favorite parts were definitly actually using the tongs and walking into the kiln to get the pieces, and watching the golden-molten glaze lift off in cotton-candy-thread-like pieces if they were stuck to the kiln shelves, and opening the lid of the reduction barrel - and the backdraft and smoke that would happen every time it opened. I actually lost my eyebrows once from that, and lit my ponytail on fire! Arm hair was a thing of the past. ;oP

Char ran an incredible studio. It was, as she always said she wanted it to be, a mini Utopia in a world where it's hard to find a perfect place.

Then she retired. I stayed on as lab tech for a few semesters after that, but it was too hard for me without her, and without most of the people who had been in class with me for 5 years. I moved to Wisconsin for a little while - found a spot where I did ceramics once, and cried the whole time.

Discovered the Irvine Fine Arts center, and I remember that I hated it the first time I went, for the sheer lack of Bob Dylan music and Char's big booming voice. I pretty much stopped doing any ceramics for a while.

But you know what? I couldn't quit it! I don't do it as much as I used to, that's for sure, but every once in a while my hands just ache for clay. I still get Char's voice about technique in my head when I throw, and I hope I am not forming any bad habits, but throwing for the sake of throwing is now just as enjoyable as it ever was.

However, I STILL HAVEN'T RAKUED SINCE CHAR RETIRED.
ohhh woe, woe, woe..

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wow, I sure left my original post. Okay, I guess that illustrates how much I love ceramics..the point is, getting to go throw yesterday was a very good day for me. Amber and I threw from about 11am-4:30pm when they closed. I had to stop throwing because I ran out of clay, and did handles/trimmed cups for the last two hours. I forgot how quickly I can go through clay. Next time I will be bringing more.
I used Soldate 60 - which was our staple at Cypress College. It takes glaze well, and has enough sand in it that structurally it's fairly easy. Next time I might take some B-mix, just to get some really fancy schmancy glazed pieces.

There was a lady there yesterday that actually knew Char, and we started talking - she said she could see Char's influence in my pieces. I am not sure she meant that as a compliment, but I take it as one - Char was always after my pieces to be more dramatic and have more direction. I felt really good about these cups.

After ceramics, Amber and I went and had some sushi at a new little sushi place in Seal Beach, then got the dog and went for a run on the beach. It's day 2 of week 5 of Couch to 5k, and it wasn't so bad running with Amber. It helped to run on the boardwalk between houses and ocean - I LOVE running in neighborhoods. Imaginging the people who live in each house and looking at their design is what distracts me the best from running. Adam likes the gym so he can watch people and the tv, but that's not distracting enough for me. He also likes the park, which is nice, but I have to retreat really far into my own head for distraction.

By the time I got home, ADAM was also home, which was nice since I hadn't seen him since Wednesday morning. He left at 6am this morning after a good luck kiss for Ventura for his physical exam for the State Parks.

Alrighty, I think this post is now officially four times as long as any reasonable blog post should be. I am going to go get dressed and call Amber - today is a bike ride to the farmer's market, and going to my little sister's performance of And Then There Were None.

perfect sunday

Yesterday was one of those perfect weekend days that you just don't want to end. It started early (for me) I woke up at 7am, and didn't go back to sleep! That was great, because I love wakign up early, I just also love *not having to* - so I watched the new episode of The Office (my personal addition), and hung around with Adam, did laundry, dishes, etc. Then I went over to a friend's house, where I used to live in Seal Beach (while my parent's house was being rebuilt after the fire), and we headed over to Long Beach to go to the farmer's market! I am madly, deeply, ridiculously in love with farmer's markets, and have been meaning to go to this one for ages and just keep missing it (it's over at 1pm and somehow I never get there on time). I bought green beans, snap peas, apples, corn, bok choi, onions, carrots, etc. etc. etc. Then we headed over to Sunset Beach and went for a bike ride with a friend of hers.

The weather was beautiful - clear, bright blue sky - and a WIND like you would not believe. Riding south towards huntington beach, we didn't even need to peddle. Unfortunately, on the way back to sunset, we sure made up for it. I think I am still getting sand out of my teeth. :P

Theennn we headed to 2nd street to meet up with some of her old friends at Legends, then went to Alamitos Bay Yarn company - our local yummy yarn store. We spent a huge amount of time in there watching a lady do some needle felting, which I can feel in my bones is going to be a new obsession one day soon. Then we headed to Michaels to buy some cheaper yarn, and stopped at the store to buy kool aid packets, got back to my house, and..

dyed yarn with kool aid! It was AWESOME. The colors turned out really amazingly bright - we used a few packets of the ice blue lemonade for blue, fruit punch for red, the limeade for the green, lemonade for yellow, and half grape half strawberry for the purple. Each color turned out really vibrant - we mixed it in the various pots, added the yarn, then turned up the heat. The yarn totally soaked up all the color, and by the time we poured out the leftover water, it was devoid of all color and poured out clear. We rinsed the yarn, and hung it up on hangers in the backyard to dry. I will try to post some of those photos soon.

Afterwards I made a stirfry with all the veggies I bought at the farmers market, we ate food, she went home, and Adam and I cuddled and watched our sunday night ritual tv shows. I didn't sleep til about midnight - so it was a long, satisfying, wonderful day, full of good food, good company, art, and physical activity. Hoo-rah.

of course, my kitchen is a mess because I didn't feel like cleaning it up last night, but... ah well. That's what tonight is for.
Tonight I also need to do some reading for my abnormal psychology class. I am taking it online, which is useful, but I am fascinated by this subject and wish I had a teacher and classroom full of students to discuss it all with. The chapters I just read were about anxiety disorders, phobias, obsessive compulsiveness, and PTSD. So now every time my heartrate accelerates I end up thinking about panic attacks, but such is the nature of this class.

I am almost finished with week 3 of tracking my points, a la weight watchers. I haven't lost any significant weight, but I know I am eating better and I am proud of myself for it. The key to my success this time does seem to be making sure I write everything down once a day - no skipping days! Also, I have collected a variety of websites which have done all the point calculating for me, so it makes it easier. It's lunchtime, which is why I am now starting to think FOOD FOOD FOOD. I have leftover stirfry and some tomato soup, and new Manos del Uruguay I am going to knit on my break.

oh man, three cheers for gaining an hour today. I needed it! Yesterday Adam, Rommel and I went up to the Apple Orchards, which was wonderful. It was cool (it rained today) and there were fall colors, and apples on the trees, and chestnuts and apple cider... we went all over the place, finally eating lunch at Riley's farm and then heading home. We have a jug of apple cider in the fridge and half a peck of red delicious' on the counter.

Today I was an exhibitor at the Down Syndrome Association of Orange County's annual Buddy Walk at the Angel's Stadium. Sadly, it rained and rained and rained - so we couldn't really set up our whole booth, but we hung out for about 4 hours and watched all the folks walking. It was a much larger event than I'd anticipated - next year it'd be neat to get a lot of people there, including our clients. It's kind of Relay-for-Life-esque, but with more little kids.

Now I am at home, wishing I were warmer - I am in love with this pattern that Heidi found so I might take a break from crocheting my granny square coin purses and make something for myself. Oh yeah - I am pausing on the granny square bags and going for coin purses of all sizes - I am crocheting them and then putting a liner and zipper. So far, they are cute, I just want to make them extra special so I am going to put them down for a while and let the ideas for them percolate. Also - I've been crocheting so much lately that I really miss knitting, and it'd be nice to make something for meeee!

I can't believe it's already Sunday afternoon. Man. I am so tired of working fulltime. I want more days to myself.

what a lovely saturday morning

What a lovely saturday morning it has been already. I slept for a good 8 hours at least, and then we were woken up by the dog who didn't even need to go out, just was bored and wanted us awake. hardeeharhar.

I got up and managed to scramble together a breakfast from the nothingness I have in my kitchen, and then headed to etsy!

One of the egotistical things I always love to do is see how many people have listed me as their favorites. I try not to let it go to my head, but it's a really sweet, thankful feeling when I see someone else has me listed. I do love being validated.

I also have been spending a lot more time in the chat rooms, and today's feedback were to raise some of my prices to be competitive, and to take more pictures outside with natural lighting. So those will be my next two projects. I bought a new camera, I think I mentioned a few weeks ago - unfortunately, I have not acquired a memory card, or the cord to plug it into the computer, so it's basically useless at the moment. The next spare bit o' cash I get I will get those.

I've been doing more of the granny square bags - they are lovely, lovely, lovely. Today I need to go do some errands, and then I hope to get to work on them before going to a friends WEDDING tonight. I am so excited about their wedding. YAY Kj and Lori!

Tomorrow is a big open day, and a friend of mine will be coming over to knit with me. So again, yay for weekends. WOOOHOO.