Tuesday, April 30, 2013

CITY ROOTS

 

http://cityroots.org/

City Roots:

“To produce clean, healthy, sustainably grown products. While enhancing and educating our community about the benefits of local, sustainably grown food, composting, vermicomposting and other environmentally friendly, farming practices

FARM TO TABLE! WOO!

They offer convenient fresh local seasonal produce straight off the farm to your plate.

Getting to the Roots Events is “the collaboration of Eric McClam and Vanessa Driscoll efforts to get to the root of local farms, local musicians, local chefs, and local food through a series of events.”

Last night Charley got together and cooked for a summer dusk evening dinner, complete with twinkly lights and a styled table. Joe Jacobson from Oak Table and the folks at Russo came up with the nights menu. He brought me back some absolutely perfect lettuce. The Arugula is perfectly crisp and peppery. The micro greens are used regularly at Oak Table and they are every penny worth in awesome taste.

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Sunday, April 14, 2013

The LOBSTER AWARD…I MEAN LIEBSTER….

Fun stuff. Kate, over at Creatisque nominated me for a liebster award. I was like what in the funky is that? So I hit up Google, to which I found it’s definition:

The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. The Liebster award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 or so followers. 

And I was like whew, that’s a lot of adjectives but one thing for sure, I definitely fall under the less than 200 followers. (dear 19 followers, you are really sweet, I <3 you. here is my biggest internet hug).

This is what Liebster winners have to do:

  1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
  2. Answer the questions that the tagger set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you’ve tagged to answer.
  3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.
  4. Go to their page and tell them.

So it’s basically like chain emails but not as horrible since you have the added perk of discovering new people. I went back to Createsque and ended up clicking on link after link of amazing peoples blogs I never new existed. Suddenly it became overwhelmingly apparent how many amazing, crafty, wonderful, unique strangers are taking the time to share about their lives to strangers. Not because they are full of themselves but because they enjoy life and have something to say.

So I wanted to pass this along so you can meet some new bloggers. Feel free to yawn, scroll quickly and pretend to enjoy my attempt at 11 things about me and questions.  The power of the scroll button is in your hands! I'm even going to skip right to the good stuff and put my nominees first:

Questions of yore, (if you were nominated, go answer these on your blog):

    1. if you could  instantly learn a language, what would you pick/why?
    2. if you were a witch/wizard from Harry potter what would your patronus be?
    3. that song that you sing to really loudly in the car.
    4. If you were allowed to choose what you were going to look like at the time of your birth, what would you pick out:
    5. Does your head or heart lead you in decision making?
    6. the most courageous dare you’ve ever taken or told someone else to do.
    7. What is a small silly personal goal you are proud to have accomplished?
    8. The most confusing instructions you were ever given?
    9. what was your most prized childhood toy?
    10. The worst job/occupation you’ve ever done?
    11. What is a style / way of dressing that you secretly appreciate but most people would be surprised if you actually wore it.
    12. Poof, you have suddenly been bequeathed a hidden talent, and it is ___________________.

KATE’s QUESTIONS that she ASKED ME:

  1. What motivates you to blog? Reading blogs and being able to hear about the way other people live and see the world has always tickled me the right way, especially if they share through pictures. Visual sharing is my language and I love nothing more than posting things to see who else is seeing the same things.
  2. What was your favorite book growing up? A few come to mind for different passages of growing up. King of the wind by Marguerite Henry, then Anne of Green Gables, the Lord of the Rings.
  3. Romantic Comedies, mysteries, thrillers, dramas, or action?  I like it all, Queen of mood swings, right here. The only thing I can’t stand is super gory horror films.
  4. Where do you most like to vacation?   Whats a vacation? Oh right, well wherever the wind blows. Im up for exploration and eating food and trying new things just about anywhere. If youd pay for me to go RIGHT NOW, Id love to go to Ireland or New Zealand Hobbiton.
  5. Beard or no beard? (on guys of course).  Depends on the dude. On dwarves and old men, YES. No douche mustaches though. I’m not a huge fan of Goatees either.
  6. What are you looking forward to most this spring?Teaching myself about gardening and fully expecting to fail a lot
  7. Do you read the directions or jump straight in and try figuring it out yourself?Jump straight in.
  8. Favorite baked good: Soft pretzels (or atleast I’d eat one right now)
  9. What pandora/songza/spotify station did you last listen to? a movie soundtrack station
  10. What do you do to get the "creative juices" flowing? Music, resolve and a cup of coffee.
  11. What is your favorite Easter candy? dark chocolate truffles made by Charley

11 UNSPECIFIED AND RANDOM THINGS.

  1. I currently work as an administrative assistant in a park. Sometimes I get to pet horses. Sometimes I get to hold puppies and sometimes I get to ride a bicycle down the hallway, but mostly I talk to people on the phone. During Christmas we have a tube slide that’s crazy fun and I just found out they are building a zip line.
  2. You already know I’m hard of hearing, but you might not know that I have an alarm clock that could wake up the neighbors and I ask the men I meet to speak in high squeaky voices. I have a bad habit of nodding when I’m not sure what question was and diving right into conversations by repeating something someone just said. I got my hearing aids in eight grade after I got up in front of my whole class and couldn’t hear the questions my teacher was asking me. There in the exciting day I discovered that BIRDS MAKE NOISE!? Cars hum while you’re on the interstate, and southern people still speak in a mumblish slur that no hearing aid can pick up on.
  3. Generally speaking people tell me the time they’d like for me to arrive by adding a half hour to it so I won’t be late.
  4. Telling funny story's or interesting facts is almost impossible thanks to my complete lack of recall when I’m put on spot.
  5. The second day of college art class, I threw up three inches from my professors shoes. He told us we couldn’t miss class for any exceptions or we’d fail the class.
  6. It took me 25 years to figure out that you have to actually do the things you are thinking about doing in order to have done them. My mind constantly tricks me into thinking that I don’t like painting and reading and being organized but when I finally do them I’m like “why am I not doing this all the time??!?”I think it’s most likely spiritual warfare.
  7. I used to not like dogs. I know right?
  8. Mario cart and Zelda on the Nintindo 64 fill me with warm fuzzy feelings.
  9. I can count the number of times I’ve been asked out on one hand. One of them is from my husband.
  10. my friends are my crack. I don’t like large crowds, but friendships are a main driving factor in decision making/ life's purpose etc.
  11. While normal kids learned how to play sports or run around on the playground at recess, I hauled a binder full of paper and play acted and wrote fantasy stories. Yes people, I really don’t mean nerd in a cute way. I mean nerd, all the way.

More TINY PAINTINGS

 

I can be very very dependent on something to look at before I sit down to paint. I hate that I scroll through pinterest looking for things instead of just doing what's in my heart. I  sat down with some tunes and just let myself do whatever I pleased for these. Especially the crazy-fried-egg-eating-a-koi-fish one. It actually used to be a painting of an octopus that I never really liked. If you’d like to buy one they are 9x12 and the bottom is 5x7 and the profits go towards my friend’s trip to work in an orphanage over the summer. See here.

 

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Saturday, April 13, 2013

The little green guys

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BACKYARD SHENANIGANS

 

When we first got married, the only thing I ever did was run around in the backyard with Juneau. not much has changed. I was supposed to be cleaning and about halfway through vacuuming there was a black and white head holding THE PURPLE BALL. The purple ball in Juneau's language is, “I’m sharing my most treasured possession just so you will come play with me.” She will play fetch with it a few times and then switch items when she decides she’s shared enough.  It stays buried under the azalea bush when not in use.

And forgive the weird hair day because running around sure didn’t help. This is one of my favorite T-shirts not because it is flattering but because it has a screen-print of Albrecht Durer's “four horses of the apocalypse”

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Thank you for that fine sampling of doggy breath, Juneau.

Apartment de Anne

After adventure de farm we sought refuge in apartment de Anne. Really, it should have a name. All good friendship houses have names.

In college, there was this one group of ladies whose house we dubbed “Gryffindor”. Everyone knew “party at Gryffindor”, or who was included in the “Gryffindor family”.  Ever since then the idea of naming places has rooted inside my heart. WHY not give a dwelling place an identity?

Anne’s apartment has always been a lovely mixture of Anne, hobbit hole and a dash of pottery barn charm; simply because  she takes joy in the little things…like drinking out of mason jars or planting fresh herbs on the patio. She is admirably the cleanest person I know and there is a casual order that puts you at ease when you walk in the room. I kind of wish she could open up the lid on my brain and place all the thoughts into neatness.

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I gave her the Hobbiton painting in high school and she kept it :) Makes me happier than a kid with his hand-turkey on the refrigerator. The painting above the bed you may remember from here.

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