gardening

on the way back from new york, I carried this container full of herbs all the way. on the bus. on the subway. up the stairs. they were a gift from our friend, jess, and they seem to be doing well. it's amazing how different food tastes with fresh herbs added to the cooking. in one word, deeelish!

I also picked up a a couple varieties of tomato plant (in hindsight... why? but maybe I can compare/contrast), some peppers, and a couple seed packs of squash and carrots (the baby variety). It's all about the container garden, since we don't actually have any dirt around our apartment to grow veggies. it's all concrete and asphalt, folks. but i decided to not let it stop me this year.

jump

flexibility. the tool of youthfulness... sitting on trains for hours this week made me realize that without flexibility stiff joints, and pain made me feel older than I am. And perhaps being flexible wasn't just about physical age. I think it's something that I struggle with mentally/emotionally is adjusting fluidly to change. Not falling into a stagnant (un)growing time. But, being flexible doesn't mean being unfeeling, or glossing over emotions haphazardly. It's a form of adaptation -- opening your arms, stretching your toes, feeling the tendons, muscles, nerves react. It's not painless, but it seemed to me it was more painful coming out of stasis than continually stretching.

back in the day

i wore track suits... and wished i could get my bangs to flip. *sigh

knick knack paddy WHACK

::photo by blind.phineas::

not to start off too philosophical or anything, but where does all of life's crap come from? spontaneous generation? wandering in off the street? bringing its friends? let me clarify, since you probably think I'm talking about drugs, sex or even rock n roll, but no. I'm just talking about crap. the kind that turns up when you're moving. the things/stuff/ephemera that find its way onto bookshelves, in drawers, on cabinets and subsequently mocks you after you've moved the real furniture... as if to say, what? you thought I was cute? cuddly? interesting? well, I'll show you cute — I can multiply myself 20 times into all different shapes and sizes! ha ha! eat that, kim!

so. moving's going well... wishing your day is bright and cheery, and your design aesthetic is minimalist.

busy bee

waking up, I feel like I'm hit with the unending lists of things to do/see/be hovering in the recesses of my brain. that's why I love the bubble-y chart that won craziest list on www.todolistblog.com. in order to properly function, i need to make lists... organize those jumbled bits of thought into a coherent pattern that can be crossed off, and added to. i think it's inherited from the doodle genes that came from my mom... but if it's not written down, it probably won't get taken care of, especially if my brain is focused elsewhere (is it ever NOT focused elsewhere?) and if the task is especially harsh (mailing bills or something).

anyway, here's a to-do list for today:
1. do interview
2. write story (asap!)
3. pick photos for slideshow
4. put away laundry
5. decide on dinner... yum
6. make sure web site works. really works. not kidding.
7. check others' stories
8. decide where to go when i can finally take a vacation.
9. edit audio
10. play with puppy (note: move to top)

that's not it (it never is) but it's a start! have a splendid day...

*snow daze*

oh the holidays... nothing motivates me like the thought of a snowed-in Sunday, when it's not impossible to get out of the house but pretty undesirable! so, here's the sewn, and still unstuffed pillow I'm probably going to give to a lucky recipient this Christmas... probably one of those people on my list who I never know what to get for them (read: me mum). This same person deserves an all-expense paid trip to Italy for a month, but since I can't quite afford that, a handmaid pillow is the next best thing...

hope you're having a great weekend, and aren't covered in slushyness!

by any other name?

Poverty Jet Set: (page 6)

A group of people given to chronic traveling at the expense of long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed and extremely expensive phone call relationships with people names Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties.


—Douglas Coupland's Generation X

Even though I'm not technically in the realm of generation x-ers, I think this is still pretty pertinent... thought I'd share the meaning behind my choice of url. AND because today is my friend Natalie's birthday and she read this awesome tome with me in college during our even awesome post-apocalyptic literature course. Where we also watched, coincidentally, Red Dawn.

bambino

and here he is, sent all the way from baltimore, evey's baby boy.
what a doll! can't wait to meet him.

"Trust thyself only, and another shall not betray thee"

—Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

a hankering

i'm sure you know how it is... the afternoon has rolled around, and it's not even close to dinner, and it's still too close to lunch to even really be worrying about dinner... and yet. i think a peanut butter and apple sandwich is in order. the snack of champions. too bad i don't have any of these ingredients handy today, but the picture looks good.

last night, marie's grandmother flew diligently across several states to visit and she brought me a nice little pile of fabric! new-to-me fabric presents are such a treat... it's like getting a brand spanking new journal with blank pages waiting for some creative bug to bite (regardless of if it ever does! i have hundreds of just-started journals to prove it, beginning in preschool).

hopefully, i'll get around to using it soon (and showing my projects... dang camera/scanner debacle).

sailing, sailing

photo by marie
the oceans won't be the same... now that marie and I are sailing certified! it's a strange feeling, thinking that a month ago, I had no idea what 'tacking' or 'jibeing,' was other than possible dance moves... or that there was such a thing as 'luffing' or a 'boom vang' (frankly, sailing terms are weird, and i think many rational people would agree...).

lunch...

What a great weekend and beginning to the week... and I usually do not. like. mondays. Friday, our friend morgan came in town, and we of course headed to the north end for italian. Saturday and Sunday, marie and i took our very first sailing lessons. each day was distinctly different. Saturday = hot, muggy, with a very careful almost timid instructor. Sunday = cold, rainy, with an instructor who wasn't afraid to let marie heel the boat until water came in. exciting! Also in the list of firsts, we had our first soccer game sunday (with morgan as our cheering section) and we won... and last night i went to orchestra rehearsal in cambridge. (Later I picked the two wanderers up from their red sox game... they hiked around beantown yesterday until their feet fell off).

There's something about the weather getting cooler that equals cooking... I've been on a cooking kick partly because of that and also because marie's back home (contrary to whatever my sister might say, I like sharing).
since morgan is in town, we made these crazy delicious tomato tart things that went down nice and easy with morgan's homemade guacamole.
a few days ago for lunch, I made this pita pizza (Ingredients: pesto sauce, one sliced tomato, parma. cheese/mozarella. Heat it in the toaster oven/microwave until the cheese melts. eat.). deeelicious.

flying to the next thing...

just sent a postcard copy of this to lauren... hope she likes it. I've been hankering for little drawings... most postcard size, and can't stop filling pages with black and whites. but this is the first one, so it reserves a special place.

afternoon

ever get a feeling of starting in the middle?

made it to the woods this weekend...


Through lots of coaxing from the locals, we found a nice little baby hike for the hot day. When we made it to the top of our hill, the lake was hazy below us, and storms clouds were rolling in. The humidity was so oppressive, that it felt wonderful having buckets of water pouring down as we ran down the trail to the car.