Trees Please!

After Christmas, my parents stayed a couple nights, and gave me a most generous and wonderful early birthday present, 2 glorious fruit trees for the back yard. They helped us select, transport and plant them, and I was a Tiny Shoveler. I dug the whole whole for the Avacado on my own, and a good part of the lemon tree hole too. David extracted one of our pesky palms, to his great excitement, no easy feat.

After some days, you just need to drink a whole bottle of wine, calm down, and say to yourself, "Tomorrow, I will do better."

Oh Christmas. The delight you bring.

Ari really liked her new leg warms and matching mittens, stuffed inside her new purse, along with cupcake & donut earrings. Kids are so fun to shop for!
I finally got to see and hold tiny darling McKenna, and was very amazed at how teeny and quiet and relaxed she was. And her feet are so soft you can barely feel them. Amazing.
Here's hoping the US postal service did it's job and got Warren his Xmas surprise on time.
He was supposed to receive this handmade stocking, stuffed with tiny presents to warm him with holiday cheer on the other side of the country, deep in Brooklyn snow. If it didn't come, Warren, don't look :) I want to thank all who contributed, it was wonderful of you to be tiny Santa's.


I'm wiped out right now. Just dug a hole in the backyard all on my own, to plant a new avacado tree, a very special and generous birthday present from wonderful loving parents. Photos to come :)

Why does Elwood want to lick the spine of my diary? While I was unaware, he has soaked the lower corner of the binding with his naughty hunger. I told him the book is not for eating, but he just looks mad.

Wheelies

We visited with David & Heather & Lily this weekend and delivered their Christmas presents. I made her a funny big-head kitty that I got a free pattern for from Amy Butler's site.
David gave a David a wheelbarrow, which turned into a wheelie ride. There were lots of wheelie rides yesterday, actually.Heather and I went to the Long Beach antique market, which is only 3 miles from their house (Lucky!) and we got a couple treats. I got this pretty mirror, and this funny plant in a shell, which I love. I saw one before in a Japanese restaurant and wanted to make one for myself, and now I've got one!
That place is full of good amazing finds, I was drooling over furniture, and can't wait to be able to afford some.

My December sounds like:I've been listening to this steadily for days and am no where near sick of it yet. It's very calming and peaceful and beautiful, and satisfies my hunger for festive but not annoying.

I am so very sleepy and tired. All the running around and Xmas shopping and wrapping and crafting and baking and driving across the city has pooped me out. I was too tired to wash my hair this morning, and now I regret it as it's time to go to work and I realized how bad it looks and now I'm hiding it under my bad-hair-hat. I love my job, but for sure, today I'd like to hibernate and play house all day, in my bed, in my jams, with Mr. Cat all the day long. Catching up on my pile'o'books. Too bad, time to go work it out.

Crafty Christmas

Yesterday I hosted a tiny craft day, to fill our house with Christmas coziness. David helped me bake gingerbread cookies until midnight Friday night, those are really hard to make. You have to re-freeze the dough every time you roll up the scraps to cut more pieces. But they came out well, and were tasty. I also baked a cranberry pear bread that was delicious and I ate at least a pound of.
Agata, Christine and Rachel came and it was so happy to have good friends talking and drinking tea and stitching and drawing and filling up the house with warmth. Agata has been working on these felt desserts which she's making into a baby mobile! So cute. I worked on my project, which is making little bags that I'll stuff with different holiday teas for the designers in the office. I carved a potato to stamp my design on the muslin bags. Then there's a secret Xmas gift we all worked on that I'll post after Christmas... but also amazing was one of my friends, Karen, from work, popped in at the end of the day and whipped out this fabric star for my tree! It goes with the little fabric birdies beautifully!

White Whale

I fought my old-lady urges to go home at the end of every day, and Friday night I stayed at the Fox Hills Mall (now turned Slauson Super Mall) until 8:30 or so, getting some Xmas shopping done, and then buzzed the bee-bomber to Venice to see my dear friend Josh Hart, who had some pieces in a show at a gallery called CAVE in Venice. It was so nice to be out, it was good to remind myself to not hybernate all winter long like a big sleepy bear. There was live painting by John Park out front under trees all a twinkle with Christmas lights, and it was just lovely to be enjoying it at the end of a long week. The show inside was good, I liked most everything there. My favorites were these tiny humming bird scuptures by LeeAnn Hale, and this painting of a nautilus creature dangling Japanese lanterns onto this girl by Dominque Fung.But of course, I'm a sucker for Mr. Hart, and he had this series of lovely paintings featuring white whales and Mr. Jinx.I just bought a copy of Moby-Dick a day before, my interest stirred by a recent podcast of Studio 360, and I decided it was an omen, so I bought the second painting, if you look closely, please note the tiny Jinx paw peeking out from the big heart. I've never bought a painting from a gallery before, and it felt fantastic to support a friend who is so talented, and spend hard earned money on something so original and beautiful for our home. I am also banking on the day when Josh is finally quite collectable, and I will have my own collection of his work to send my furture kids to college with :)

Am I 90 years old?

I feel like it. Weeding and weeding has given me an ache in me bones and hips and back, and I feel pretty rickety. I'm so close to being done though, and it's really delicious every time I clear a few more feet of jungle-forest and replace it with happy little plants.
David is very amazing, and is almost done re-bricking our path out back. Hours and hours of sand and sawing and tamping and strange proceedures that go into such a man-endeavor. A lot of people I've not seen for some time have been asking me what's new or what I'm up to lately. I'm up to old-lady activities. Weeds and flowers and Xmas-ing my new home for the first time. What's that? A pair of home-made magical stockings? How old-ladyish of me.Oh my, what a lovely wreath, made by me at a Punch Studio Xmas party 2 years ago, amazing!I'm really enjoying my nesting, it was wonderful to come home after 2 days of lovely peaceful family time to 2 days of sprucing my house for the holidays and taking care of chores. Lots of sweeping, lots of weeding, lots of sewing and stuffing, and I'm quite cozy by Sunday night. Now to put lights on our lovely fatty Christmas tree and adorn it with tiny birdies.

one more day...

Jam packed days.
Tabetha's baby shower was fun with food and crafts and presents and big pink bows! We painted on onesies and she looked lovely.
Joel's b-day in the park was also fun, I frisbied for the first time since, I don't know, fourth grade? and I caught it once or twice even. Sunday I finally got to set up the craft room all day, and was attempting to start making our Xmas stockings, but the sun was going down and the light in here isn't bright enough for working with out it. So... sigh... maybe next weekend :)
I had a quick visit from Hazel, so lovley to see her! And she brought me these amazing darling tea cups with magical animals drawn on them, my favorite is the duck with a crown.
Just wishing this weekend was one day longer...

Babies

Oh Man, am I behind.
Last weekend was a really fun crafting baby shower for Melissa, hosted by Rachel, with lovely handmade decorations and lots of delicious treats. We made stuffed animals and felted onesies for baby Grace, on her way soon.


Today I'm on my way out to another baby shower for my friend & co-worker, Tabetha, and she is getting a stroller from her registry from me and the other Lindsay combined. But it's too hard to resist knitting up some tiny baby booties, so she's getting these too!
It's hard keeping up with all the events going on at the end of the year, plus I've been majorly allergy ridden since we've gained these hardwood floors, so I've not been around much. But I'm determined to make it to Joel's b-day in the park today after the shower, and just rest tomorrow. Rest and whip more of this craft room into shape, it's needing serious attention.

Another happy Saturday spent mucking around the back yard. The going is slow, but I just want to keep steadily at it. My hands are puffy and sore from weeding, and David pulled every brick out of the backyard path, stacked them into a tidy wall-pile, and is digging up 3 inches of dirt and weeds to lay in sand eventually, before re-bricking the thing. Elwood ate some grass, and can't tell where the birds are chirping from, because he is a half-deaf one-ear. I feel old-lady sore now, in my back and my hips, from all the bending and leaning over, but it's wonderful. It's truly wonderful and does my heart more good than I can say, to sit in my own grass, and look at flowers and touch the earth, and feel the breeze. I'm not kidding, living under a freeway with no real access to outdoorsiness for 3 years got us here, and I don't ever want to live again with out a little bit of outside that one can claim and be in, even if it's just a porch or stoop, with a potted plant sitting on it.

Also, gardening all day is a good way to keep me out of stores where I want to buy things I can't afford to decorate & furnish my house. We started arranging the crafty room this morning, and I'm hoping to get some drawing or painting in tomorrow. Well, time for a shower, I have filthy hobbity feet from my gardening day.

Saturday was full of yard work, Agata came over and we cleared out a massive trash can full of crazy weeds from the back flowerbed of our backyard, and it is much prettier now. Elwood likes it, he likes to sit in the dirt, eat a couple plants so he can throw them up later in the middle of the night, and then burrow deep into the remaining weeds along the side flowerbeds that I'll have to get to next weekend.

Suday I was useless, my allergies have been flaring up with all the grass and dust I've been taking in, and now they're developing into a fairly stong cold. So I slept like a zombie into the midday, then lounged half passed out in the back yard in my new patio chair, as the hot sun dried out my sinuses some, and managed to read some of the Sunday paper. David assembled his BBQ the day before, and he made us hot links for dinner, and was very very very happy.

The Art Department Represents on Halloween

Oh Yes We Did.

Halloweenie!

I have finished my Halloweenie costume! it took a bit of painting, but it is all done, even my hat.


I am going to have a halloween costume for the first time in 3 or 4 years, and it is for my office party tomorrow. I am really excited about it, and actually kind of want to wear it everywhere, everyday....

McKenna

I'm am so happy to see a first photo of Moriah's new baby, tiny McKenna :)

China Cabinet

We spent some time this weekend working on the house a bit, David helped me hang up this lovely embroidered fabric piece, a gift from Agata, of nice Polish ladies cooking. It's in the kitchen, above the washer & dryer, I think she told me it says something like a wife makes a house a home, or something like that. iGoogle translates it to say "A good hostess house makes merry." I like both of those.I am truly excited about my first real craigslist find, this gorgeous china cabinet we got from a nice man in Long Beach. He said he got it from Billy Barty's sister, who he used to do some work for, which makes me feel AMAZING. It's just beautiful though, I'm completely in love with it; it feels exactly my taste and it's the kind of furniture I've always wanted to have, old well crafted wood with lots of history in it. My favorite is the skeleton key that locks all the doors, and the beveled glass windows. I put our beautiful coral bowl wedding gift that I've been storing forever in the center space; it finally has a beautiful home to be displayed in!