Art in Life

Even when I'm completely overwhelmed by the state of things--job, family, money, future--there's something that speaks CALM to me no matter what. It's art, just paint and canvas, but the hope that springs from it brings resounding comfort. Thank you, Miss Kelly Rae Roberts. :)

Speaking of Etsy...

Check out our new ART! We really, really, really want to support true artists by buying their work, so Amy Giacomelli's Rising Sun is our newest little darling! SO EXCITED!

Oh JOY!

In the hubbub of wedding planning, I subscribed to an unreasonable number of design and planning blogs--most of them wedding-related, but some of them were just color, pattern, art-loving fools. And now, in my infinite internet ignorance, I cannot figure out how to unsubscribe. (No, I haven't yet googled it).

But here's the good news: Oh Joy is worth keeping around. Check out these ADORABLE doodads. They will be my first purchase once the income returns!

This is Not Real Life

Only due to the most random of circumstances is it possible for me to stay home ALL DAY LONG cooking and watching the first season of Grey's Anatomy as I blend Cucumber Avocado Soup. But lucky me, I have a few weeks of this lazy summer left, and boy is it FUN!

Let me just give you a taste of how we're spending our days...

*Riding bikes to Fremont, Gasworks, Ballard Sunday Market and once, all the way to Madison Park!
*Making friends at the bike shop in Ballard (they are super patient with amateurs like us, and I think they even like us)
*Organizing my pink recipe folder once a day, then picking at least ten recipes that "I want to try immediately"
*Hitting up those farmer's markets like there's no tomorrow
*Receiving Kelsey's Netflix in the mail, only to see that they are the boring ones that I picked, and she's nice enough to put them at the top of her queue
*Nannying a lil' bit, here and there (Maya, Stella, Gabs, Nia, Gillian and Willa!)
*Geoteaming a lil' bit, especially when MEGUIRE is coming! :)
*Playing games--Imaginiff with our favorite friends (C and M)
*Scouring Ikea for workable furniture options
*Popping lots of Claritin
*Volunteering at the Baby Boutique, a FREE store for families who are homeless
*Working at the blasted apartment building, praying for the day when my contract as manager expires :)
*Reading every SINGLE update on the state of the Sounders FC, of which, thanks Mom and Dad and the surplus wedding budget, we are now season ticker holders
*Camping out in our new Hobitat 6 at the Wood Family Homestead
*Catching salamanders with Kolby in the moderately floaty raft from Guate (see the pic!)
*Applying for jobs with only remote enthusiasm (except for this one really fun one), since this summer has F-U-N written all over it

We are loving life, can't you tell? :)

(Married) Life as We Know It

We're coming up on the month one anniversary in the Harris-Wood household (can't bear to change my name just yet), and in case you've been wondering, we're having QUITE a grand time over here. Let me just say this--in most ways, things are the same. We still laugh at the same jokes, we still debate over how much cheese to add to the quesadilla/pasta/scramble, and we still share endless conversations about our life-long list of to-dos. We also still hear our neighbors having sex, quite often.

But in other ways, EVERYTHING CHANGES. There is a man in my bed, and he tends to like more covers than me. There is a man who can't BELIEVE that I leave the heat lamp on in the bathroom while I do my makeup (it's very dark without it, for the record). There is a man who is DOING MY LAUNDRY. That's correct, folks, DW is a man of the cloth, and by that I mean he folds my clothes. All the time. He even does loads when I'm out running errands, or even when I'm doing less noble tasks, like, ahem, reading all of your blogs.

"So he does your laundry, is that why you married him?" I can hear the cynics now. Get outta here, I married him because he makes me SO excited to come home from the errands because he'll probably have a new iPhone application he has to show me RIGHT NOW. He makes sure I do my fair share of the chores. He listens to me detail all the strange, strange dreams I have about Christmas-present anxiety and my parents' divorce. This guy does a lot, and he loves me all the way through it.

Tonight I had a minor lapse in judgment (okay, major): I called DW a buffalo. I'm not going to hang all our dirty married laundry out to dry, but let's just say I'm learning SO much from this life-partner thing. Obviously, name-calling is one of John Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and I've caught myself Apocalypting on the twenty-somethingth day of marriage. But there's something about being married to this man that gives me remarkably HUGE amounts of joy and hope, and even though I've tripped up a bit with the buffalo comment, I am going to sleep tonight next to a man I love through and through, and I know the feeling is wonderfully mutual. Even when I'm being a buffalo.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

This book was probably written specifically to send my father into cardiac arrest--it's THAT LIBERAL. And what's worse (or maybe just deliciously ironic), it's all about being liberal while you eat, my favorite thing. And I loved it. :)

Not only is Kingsolver's writing the sort that makes me pause to giggle and think, "Did she really just say that?", I found her exploration into the food industry profoundly personal. How many people can crusade for local, organic, chemical/pesticide/antibiotic-free food without being completely soapboxish? Not too many. But somehow, it's all woven in like a perfectly latticed cherry pie (forgive me), and I found myself nodding along, even making up reasons to get out of the pool on my honeymoon in Costa Rica to read more about pasture-finished heirloom turkeys. Clearly, it's a good read.

And on another note, I'm so sick of reading the exact same article about buying organic berries and bell peppers in every SINGLE edition of anything I pick up, this was refreshingly crisp. Like an organic pepper, maybe. But I suppose the trendy wave of locavore writing might have been spurred on by this little (big) book in the first place.

My favorite part about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? You'd probably think it was the mouth-watering recipes daughter Camille Kingsolver contributes throughout, and although every single one is permanently dog-eared, it's actually the way the main author serves up that one genre in Creative Writing classes I could never quick get the hang of: literary journalism. This is it, Animal, Vegetable, Memoir.

Who Needs Birth Control?

You heard me. Who needs birth control when I can be a daily witness to the vivid reality of toddler hissy fits? It's enough to make me head to the convent (with my new husband in tow, of course).

Today I spent some quality time with a three-year-old we'll call Rosie. Now Miss Rosie lives in an immaculate "castle" where she plays princess all day, every day. Somehow I think the princess gig has become a little too realistic, because this afternoon, when Rosie was sent to her room for refusing to cooperate re: using the potty, she stuck her head out her perfectly royal window and BELLOWED the following to the neighbors, who happened to be in the front yard.

HELP!

HELP ME, PLEASE!

HELP ME SO MUCH!

I NEED HEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!

And then I marched inside her jail-cell-pink bedroom, gave a wink and nod to the concerned PTA Mom next door and gave that kid the stink eye. Idealist.com, I need you now more than ever.