don't eat the yellow snow — or drink the yellow puddles.

had i not read this post on the mass moca blog yesterday afternoon, the sight of glowing yellow puddle outside the office as i left for the day would have really concerned me (i work in the office beyond the upside down trees.) this proves that there are perfectly legitimate reasons to be checking my google reader in the middle of the afternoon — one never knows what they might need to know. and speaking of mass moca, i was also honored to have one my photos included in their march flickr finds post yesterday morning: a touch of red.

take note!

i don't need any more dishes, really i don't. but if i did, this collection of memo-themed serving trays, glasses, and mugs from fish's eddy is right up my alley. and while you're on their website, check out their super-cute and affordable totes. i've been using the 212 tote as a gym bag for months, and not only is it sturdy and perfectly-sized, it gets lots of compliments.

spring forth!

another burst of color from the smith college bulb show.

nest and branches

here are a few things i found outside this weekend while enjoying the gorgeous, early spring weather. in the background is a basket-shaped bird's nest that's been hanging from a tree by the house for several summers. i found it flattened and wet, laying in a flower bed i was raking. it had to be coaxed back into a more nest-like shape before being dried in the sun. i'll take more photos of it soon so you can appreciate how it's woven together from what looks like silver string. the pussy-willow type blooms were on a downed branch by the side of the road, and i wouldn't have known what they were except that karen at beelieve found some similar branches this weekend and posted that they're quaking aspen. the interesting thing about these particular buds is that the branch i discovered them on has been on the ground and separate from it's tree since december's ice storm. obviously it still has a bit of life left in it.

morning, evening grosbeak

i was hoping these photos would have come out better, but i was hurridly shooting through the kitchen window in an effort to catch this lovely evening grosbeak visiting the feeder this morning — the first i've seen this spring!

tea list and sunflowers

haymarket café, northampton, ma

just a moment

some little highlights from the past week...i hope i remember to do this more often.
• a big, red sunset in the rear view mirror
• layers of ribbon candy clouds hanging above the berkshire hills
• a pair of brown rabbits with fluffy white tails scampering across the road in front of me
• a cardinal alarm clock singing from the still dormant lilac in the front yard
• crepés with pears, apples and maple syrup for breakfast, crepés with eggs, cheese, and asparagus for dinner, followed by crepés with butter and brown sugar for dessert. too bad i wasn't home for lunch that day!
• three coats of finish on the bathroom counter top, bringing out more of the character in the wood
• free green tea ice cream from our server after our dinner at zen

street art - something for everyone

this past week i was moved by sidewalk hearts, but people in bedford mass were moved (to tears in some cases) by the sight of the "peek-a-boo jesus" that new england-based artist maki105 placed on the side of a video store. read about their reactions at wooster collective.

• here are some more posts about street art.

earth hour - 2009

earth hour, sponsored by the world wildlife fund, is asking for "lights off" for one hour starting at 8:30pm this saturday, march 28th. this is a global event in which millions of people will turn out their lights to make a statement of concern about our planet and climate change. last year more than 50 million participated and lights went out at the empire state building, golden gate bridge, sydney opera house, and the coliseum in rome, just to name a few. even google's home page went black for the day, and in isreal, president shimon peres personally turned off the lights in tel aviv.

only in it's third year, earth hour promises to be bigger than ever tomorrow. 250 cities in 74 countries will participate, along with millions of individuals from around the globe. if you're wondering what that kind of participation looks like, check out the video below - incredible!

though j and i have dinner plans that evening at a friend's house (by candle light, perhaps?) there are some local earth hour events going on nearby, including a sustainable living gathering and concert.



to learn more about earth hour you can visit the official website here.

love coming & love going for love thursday

i must admit: i am often running late in the morning. no. that's not entirely true — the fact is, i am usually running late in the morning. late enough that by the time i roll in, the reserved parking spots near the office have all been occupied by the amenable on-time crowd, and i'm forced to park in the tardy person's lot a block away.

the tardy lot comes with some perks, however, the biggest one being the cherry-tree lined walkway that leads towards the office. in spring there are gorgeous blooms overhead. in autumn the abundant fallen cherries flatten underfoot with a satisfying "pop." in winter the dark branches hold up sparkling cozies of snow. the only time the cherry trees aren't entirely appealing is during tent-caterpillar season, when wriggling caterpillars bungee-jump from the branches and hang overhead like garland strung on threads both sticky and invisible. after traversing the length of the cherry-walk you'll find you've been accessorized by mother nature, who's taken the liberty of adding caterpillar barrettes to your hair, and a crawling lapel pin to your jacket. it's best to get to work at time during these weeks, and avoid the walkway altogether.

last week i was making my morning trek towards work on the cherry path, head down, laden with multiple bags of things i can't seem to leave the house without, and suddenly i found an unexpected heart sighting, right underfoot. the heart looked like it might be drawn in chalk at first, but my initial thought was god, i hope that's not chalk! because of all the things someone could have permanently tagged on the cherry walk sidewalk, a red morning heart is, by far, the one i'd most like to walk past on my way in to work every day. and it's not chalk, so indeed i will.

but that's not all, as i discovered later that afternoon. adorning the opposite end of the path is a second red heart, a colored-in afternoon heart i'll see as i return to the tardy lot. love coming, and love going. not a bad addition to my commute.

as usual, there's lots more love thursday going on at chookooloonk's blog.

spring cleaning on google reader

tonight, the organized virgo in me has insisted on spring cleaning of my google reader, and this is just a note to apologize — i've had to stop "following" any blogs via the blog dashboard. i simply can't stand the way google insists on throwing all of them into the same "blogs you follow" folder in my reader sidebar. i prefer that, "followed" or not, the hundreds of blogs i subscribe to be separated into strict category folders of my own making, so i'm not tempted by personal blogs while at work, or for that matter, up reading design blogs when i should be asleep.

if none of this makes any sense to you, you probably don't use google reader. ultimately all i'm trying to say is, "i am still subscribed to your blogs, and my disappearance as a follower is in no way personal!"

the spore project

what's not to like? promote awareness for the support of art in schools (and day-to-day creativity in general), and learn to make your own paper bag mushrooms via the spore project, doug rhodehamel's venture to build awareness, and remind people of the importance of art, creativity, and resourcefulness. you can also check out doug's myspace page, website, or café press shop for more spore.
because you know i love fungi.

spring

smith college, northampton, ma

a mailbox masterpiece from truluxe

it's been a long time since a mailbox masterpiece has graced these pages, hasn't it? truth is, i haven't been giving in to impulse as often as i'd like. however...i do still need to occasionally wander off the narrow path of thriftiness. i can blame it on the blog — i need something to post about, right?

a few months ago while browsing online i came across an image of felted acorns, arranged in a color-wheel type circle and nestled in a gorgeous ceramic bowl. i don't even remember where i found the image, but i immediately printed a copy of it and it's been hanging above my desk at work for inspiration. the photo may be gorgeous and inspiring — but what i really wanted were my very own needle felted acorns.

enter truluxe's shop on etsy to fulfill my acorn fantasies! believe me when i tell you that this is your one-stop-shopping spot for felted acorns, which come to you nestled in crinkle paper and tucked inside a little cellophane bag. there are snow white, leaf green, lipstick pink, cherry red, and aqua blue varieties, natural-toned cookie-dough brown, and baby chick yellow, collections of acorns in spring hues, iris blues, and rainbow tones (like mine, above), acorns with glittery caps, and pine cone trees decorated with multicolored balls of yummy wool-roving felt. truluxe will even make you a custom set if you don't see the exact hue or combination of colors you crave.

i have an almost irresistible urge to amass a huge supply of these felty little oak nuts (though no desire to stow them in my cheeks, thank goodness). for now i've scattered my rainbow collection in a favorite ceramic bowl that i keep on top of the dining room table, and i've noticed that visitors can't help but reach in and pick them up for a closer look. inspired to stockpile your own supply? visit the shop here.

the very hungry...chickadee

the ever-present chickadees at our feeders are now forced to compete for seed with new birds just arriving for spring...grackles, red-winged blackbirds, oven birds, and a pair of cardinals so far. so many more species will be on their way as the days grow longer and warmer (spring and early summer bring some amazing birds our way) and this weekend j found bear scat on our path through the woods, wide bear footprints melting in what's left of winter's snow. the chickadees may find they're competing with the bear as well, if he's bold and hungry enough to approach the house for the feeders. hopefully not. we've lost many of our feeders to bear and i'm quite fond of this wooden platform that j built.

a good catch

i spotted this book cover in a catalog this morning and find the color palette, type, and illustrations so appealing — reminiscent of the graphic quality that attracts me to vintage cookbooks from the 40's and 50's, but done with a fresh approach. i would love to know who designed/illustrated it. perhaps i'll have to buy my own copy here to find out.

flowers for my mom

from the smith college bulb show, 2009

in retrospect, the best part of the bulb show wasn't the bulb show at all but my mom's reaction to the photos when i visited her saturday. i didn't realize that she'd just pulled together her art supplies, feeling recovered enough from the radiation treatments to begin thinking about tackling some small paintings. the only question she had was what to paint? i'd brought my laptop along specifically to share these photos with her, and was thrilled to see her enthusiastic response. we immediately burned them to a cd and began to print them out. i hope her creative plans for this week blossom into beautiful new paintings. her zeal was contagious — i may even dig out my moleskine and do a few sketches of these photos this week, just for the fun of it.

"get going, folks!"

TV appearances '07 from Crazy Sexy Life on Vimeo.

i spotted this video of kris carr of crazy, sexy cancer at chookooloonks blog thursday, and want to share it. for those of you unfamiliar with kris, she's a documentary film maker who was diagnosed with terminal, inoperable cancer several years ago. what she did (and continues to do) to beat the odds is incredibly inspiring. i've just ordered her book, crazy, sexy cancer tips and will let you know what i discover.

you may also like this related post: no more false hopelessness!

it's spring at the smith college bulb show

how is it i've never been to the beautiful display of flowering bulbs that smith college holds in lyman conservatory every spring? perhaps because i've feared the inevitable crowds would dull the experience, or perhaps because last year at this time i'd only owned my digital rebel for a month and didn't yet have the confidence to use it...and therefore i hadn't yet discovered the joy of a 55mm lens either.

entering a room full of almost garishly colored living plants after months of immersion in dormancy and brown took my breath away — it was a bit like stepping into the land of oz. not only were the layers upon layers of flashy petals a feast for the eyes, but the sweet perfume that filled the air was the scent of summer at it's most abundant height, and it was intoxicating to my winter-weary senses.

i forgot how much i miss photographing flowers, leaves, rays of sunlight, growth...and life happening. i was lost for hours, snapping away in the sun-filled conservatory, playing with aperture and trying to capture it all — every angle, every bloom — to store inside my little black box of a camera until i could come home and share the bouquet. i felt unusually confident shooting, and that was a nice surprise — not a lot of time spent fiddling around with the dials, and the frustration i often feel while having to shoot fast never once clouded my enjoyment of the afternoon. hooray for progress! it's taken almost a year to gain confidence shooting manual, but by the end of this photo-filled summer i'm hoping it will become second nature.



i wish i could have captured the scent of the conservatory to share with you as well, but maybe at some point in the future this will be possible. until then...i kept the images in this video in chronological order so you really are taking a tour of the bulb show with me, and looking through my 55mm lens at everything that caught my eye along the way. the music is "peacock tail" by boards of canada.

shadow with blue birthday balloons

september, 2007.

today marks the vernal equinox and the official beginning of spring, and therefore it also marks the end of this year's winter blues week. here's one final blue (though this photo also would have worked for the week of shadows!) and a link to some more participants, if you haven't visited these blogs already...

• a blue bird from suki at paint, poems and ponderings
• the start of ongoing "wear blue fridays" to support our troops at beelieve
• a gorgeous collection of new york blues at a new york magpie's beads
• garden blues, blue self-portraits, and more at unbound confine
• blue shadows, blue windows, and blue spring skies at look what leather lips sees and says
• a blue sign from the universe at last one speaks

let me know if you are still posting your blues today so i can link to you, and thanks to everyone who has been participating this week. it's been so inspirational to see your blues and say goodbye to winter together. i'm looking forward to doing it again next year and hope i'll remember to keep my eyes open for blue inspiration in the coming months!

goodbye, winter

snowman remains i found on the lawn last spring.

block island blues

this is block island (off the coast of rhode island) as seen on google earth. the blueness of the surrounding ocean and the aquamarine of the great salt pond amazes me. though it's tiny (less than 10 acres of land mass) block island was named by the the nature conservancy as one of twelve sites in its list of "the last great places" in the western hemisphere. as you can tell from this view, it's dotted with plenty of ponds — 365 in fact, one for every day of the year.

victory! a victory garden at the white house!

it's just been announced that on friday, the first day of spring, the obamas will be breaking ground for a 1,100 square foot victory garden in a very visible area of the white house lawn. according to the new york times website:

"While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern."

the obamas have been lobbied for months by advocates of the local food movement (myself included) who believe that "growing more food locally could lead to healthier eating and lessen reliance on huge industrial farms that use more oil for transportation and chemicals for fertilizer." their garden, the first since eleanor roosevelt's during world war II, will include 55 varieties of vegetables, berries, herbs, and even two beehives for honey. what an inspiring example for both new and experienced backyard and community gardeners around the country — and what a perfect way to welcome spring!

blue dusk

blue in providence, rhode island

irish soda bread (and morning light)

there was no need to seek out green beer on tuesday night, as my wish for fresh baked soda bread was granted. a pair of loaves wrapped in brown paper were waiting for me on the kitchen counter when i arrived home — only three were left at the local store when j arrived and he left one for the next customer who needed their irish soda bread fix.

literary lineage

allow me to interrupt today's winter blues to point you towards a wonderful appreciation of jack kerouac at kiko's house.

as most of you know, the name of this blog is taken from the first of kerouac's 30 essentials for spontaneous prose, "scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy."
kerouac had an enormously important influence me in my late teens/early 20's, and shortly after i met j i was stunned when he revealed his kerouac lineage — through his maternal grandmother, a kerouac from lowell. rumour has it there are even images of jack in old family photos. hopefully i'll get to see that for myself one of these days.

blue ribbons

for winter blues week.

blue bathroom

not all blues are depressing — for example, this is the new cobalt blue tile (from cotto) in our bathroom behind a new white vessel sink, chrome faucet (both from overstock.com) and mahogany counter top (built by j.) for one reason or another the bathroom face lift project has been dragging on for several years, and while there is still a lot of work to be done (the tile needs to be finished, medicine cabinet and trim built and installed, lights purchased, walls painted) it is a vast improvement . . .

above is the old sink and some of the old wall tile before j tore it off. he had just laid the new tile floor to replace the dirty, old, tan-colored linoleum we'd been looking at for years while working on other house projects, like the stairs and the exterior painting. there's always a list of projects to tackle here, and because we're doing all the work ourselves and trying not to spend too much on materials, it's a slow process of gathering, planning, and finally doing — in fits and starts. it's usually fun though.

because the house is so old (circa 1790) it's best to get right inside the walls to clean/make repairs/add support before any cosmetic work is done. there were no building codes in 1790 and as a result you never know what you're going to find when you start digging in to a project. here's the sink area after the tile, wallboard and sink were removed and some additional 2x4 bracing added. this bathroom (and the kitchen) is actually an addition to the original house that was added in the 1960's or 70's. originally, what you're looking at would have been one of the house's exterior walls.

my inspiration for the bathroom was sky and sand, punctuated by cloud-like white in both the sink and (eventually) the walls. so far, so good. eventually it will be finished and i'll post more before and after photos.

when worlds collide

worth100.com is having a contest — incorporate modern-style graffiti into classical artworks. it is definitely worth a visit to see the (so far) 74 entries. via mirabile dictu.
above: papillion by savagejon123.

blue bike

cummington, mass.

i wish i'd thought to do a decent st. patrick's day themed post. i find that most holidays are pretty quiet in the country, and this one is no exception. there are no drunken revelers within earshot, no parades, no place to get corned beef and cabbage (at least not to my knowledge). the one year i decided to cook some for myself and j i threw it in a pot around 4pm, clueless to the fact that corned beef and cabbage takes many, many hours to properly cook. allrecipes.com says 2.5 — but i swear it was 10:00 that evening before we finally sat down to eat dinner, famished, the house smelling...well, not so good. if you've ever had cabbage steaming on the stove for hours upon hours you know what i mean.

when i lived in providence, friends and i used to go to an irish bar on smith st on st. patrick's day (i believe it was patrick's pub in fact). the bartenders would top off tall pints of guiness with a beer foam shamrock on top. it's hard to describe this if you've never seen it, but if you click here there's a great example.

personally i'm wearing plenty of green today, but that's not particularly unusual as it's my favorite color. i'm also keeping my fingers crossed that, at the very least, the local market will be selling their delicious irish soda bread, studded throughout with tiny currants. fantastic toasted with a helping of butter on top. j and i share an affinity for toast, and can make the whole loaf disappear in one evening. if we can't celebrate with irish soda bread tonight i'm afraid we may need to go in search of green beer.

more winter blues week.

blue left behind

it's winter blues week, and here are some participants so far...i like to see blue seeping across the internet, so do let me know if you're participating!

• ina at unbound confine
• magpie at a new york magpie's beads
• karen at beelieve
• libby at last one speaks
• leau at look what leather lips sees and says (visit her blog to find out what that means!)

growing up on facebook

here's a link to another essay on the pro's and con's of facebook addiction, from this week's new york times magazine. as for this photo, i snapped it while meandering through an alley in northampton.

goodbye blue sky

the wall remains one of my all-time favorite albums.

blue winter, a fitting start to winter blues week...

Blue Winter

Winter uses all the blues there are.
One shade of blue for water, one for ice,
Another blue for shadows over snow.
The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice-
Both different blues. And hills row after row
Are colored blue according to how far.
You know the bluejay's double-blur device
Shows best when there are no green leaves to show.
And Sirius is a winterbluegreen star.

— Robert Francis

welcome to winter blues week! feel free to join in by leaving a link in the comments, and together we'll bid adieu to the final week of winter, 2009.

what a wonderful world

last night i spent a long time browsing google earth

admiring the colorful patchwork of the midwest as i flew over

noticing that centuries-old plow furrows scar the geography of familiar new england fields. ancient maple trees line the roads and throw dark shadows across them.

the town i work in is a criss-cross of gray streets and blue-hued buildings, and looks like a child's play set.

and the perfect, organized grid of manhattan is a type-a's dream.

i hovered for a while over central park, visiting bethesda fountain and suddenly craving a warm, nutella-filled crepe from the vendor's cart.

i activated "3-d building view" and clumsily track-padded my way through lower manhattan, plodding forward while blocks of buildings materialized ahead of me. i ended up at battery park, hoping to catch the sunset. but does the sun ever set on google earth?