Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

cool.

duh.


Rebecca Woolf, I love you.

Yes, Kels, you've addicted me to the mommy blogs. Well only one blogg-her...Rebecca, after reading her book Rockabye. Geez, I can't get enough, I think it's driving Patrick nuts.....

"In her eyes,...I can see,...something,...something..."

I have to get glasses.

I know it doesn't seem like that big of a deal yet somehow it's all I can think about. Will my work as an artist change now that I can see? Probably. But most likely for the better.

I have been having trouble with blurriness for sometime now but have simply kept putting off going to the doctor since I knew they would tell me I needed glasses. I was prescribed them originally at 16, and never wore the ones I was given, I am now 25 and facing the facts.

I started seeing this squiggly floaty line thing in my left eye, about mmm...two months ago and it worried me. I would have booked an appointment right then, yet I was having insurance issues. Good thing I waited because in the meantime I found a great doctor.

There are many galleries around town I frequent as an artist looking at other artists work (it's part of the job.) but I was required to go to a gallery I had never been to before called Ogle. It was for a class to see some very intriguing work. Turns out Ogle is a gallery and an eye care practice..."art for your eyes" they call it. A wonderful husband and wife team ( Dr. Jeremy Graziano and his wife Valentina Barroso - Graziano (who is an artist also)) run the place.
Since I did not have an eye doctor I looked them up online fascinated with the idea of merging the two professions of a couple into one business. The reviews were good so I went ahead and made an appointment.
Today I went and had my exam. Dr. Graziano and Valentina were amazing. I felt so cared for. I would recommend them to anyone. Although I did find a pair of glasses I liked I could not get them as they were $499 dollars (a LITTLE out of my budget). It was not shocking to me though, since they were a work of art themselves, but it did make me kinda sad to not call them my own.
So now I am on the hunt with my new prescription from the doc for a pair of glasses that suit me and my pocketbook. A hard task I know. If I'm going to have to wear these glasses "regularly" then I better damn well like them.
I'm sure though once our paths cross (and I hope it is soon) it will be love, since I will be able to see what love looks like...I just hope it's not a shock to my system.

LDM

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

In sickness AND in health...

Patrick and I are both sick.
He came home from work one day last week feeling ill and a day later I was feeling the same. They don't explain to you in marriage counsloring that you will be sharing everything, including sicknesses. It started with a sore throat and has progressed into snot and mucus and green and yellow boogers galore, making being a newlywed oh so romantic. The cold seemed to have made it's way out of our home after we tried to absorb as many vitamins as possiable and eat dozens of oranges and lay around sleeping for 10+ hours. Yet, last night, it caught up with us AGAIN.
I think it was because I thought the cold had left me and continued to work hard on my thesis but drank too much wine at a photoshoot, resulting in lowering my bodies defense and feeling like crap again soon after (which usually happens when I drink too much but I never seem to learn.)
And thanks to said thesis I have a flare up of what my doctor calls "stress ecezma." A lovely rash I get under my arms when I am stressed. The only cure...a steroid ointment. Jeez, sometimes being human is sooo much fun!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Wedding: Our Cake from the Saint


Some people wanted to know, so here it is: We had our cake done at Saint Cupcake.
A wonderful little place in Portland. I had stopped in and had thier cupcakes before and loved them. I'm not a huge cake fan and I always felt the pieces were too big and too sweet at a wedding/birthday/shower. I also hated that you could only get a slice of whatever cake there was at the party but there was a good chance you would not like it.

I called up Saint Cupcake and made an appointment to meet with their wedding advisor. She was wonderful! We got two samples of each kind of cake (when we did not eat them she let us take them home!). And she was very helpful with all of our questions.


Thier cupcakes come in two sizes. Regular size and dot (smaller) size. I can't remember exactly but we ordered enough regular sizes for everyone, about 150 and about 75 - 100 dots. It was really not that expensive for the cupcakes. If you wanted special flavored frosting or special colored frosting/ sprinkles it cost more. We just kept whatever frosting it came with. The kinds of cupcakes we ordered were: vanilla with chocolate buttercream, toasted coconut cream with vanilla cream cheese frosting (my fav!), red velvet with vanilla cream cheese frosting, chocolate with chocolate buttercream, and big top (a vanilla cake with baked in chocolate chips and vanilla cream cheese frosting).
Here is a pic at our wedding (above) without the cupcakes, just the stand. It was a hundred degrees that day so the cupcakes came out right before eating. The stand was a wooden one, that we rented from the shop. It was simple to put together and we put ribbon around the edge to decorate it. It was $35 to rent for the weekend. We also had a friend pick up the cupcakes the morning of the wedding and bring them to the site. We kept them in the fridge till it was time to put them on the stand. Stephanie was my wonderful cupcake transferer! The shop would have delievered but because we got married in the middle of nowhere it was very expensive.
Here is a pic of what they look like on the stand. It was really great to have an interesting cake like this and have so many options. The only thing we did not think of was that people would take more than one cupcake each. There were guests who took multiple for themselves (I will not name names, you know who you are!) and the only bummer was besides the one cupcake we cut and shared, Patrick and I did not get any cupcake and we were a little sad about that....I should've asked my maid of honor Kelsey to go in and wrestle us up some but I didn't think of it and literally they were gone in seconds!!!! The cake total: $235. Good luck, wedding cake hunters!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Dearest,

It's been years.
I can't do this. I must not. I want to run away and find the new things. Search and search until I can figure out this screaming inside. I am trying so hard! Why do you sneak up on me like that? I thought you had gone, my love. I saw the look in your eyes. Was it doubt? We can't turn around and go back. We cannot change our decisions. I knew you were wrong then, I know you are wrong now.

Take me back.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Holly Roberts

Holly Roberts: Painting and Photography

Winter Kill
Frightened Child
Child Being Born

find her at: hollyrobertsstudio.com

Sally Mann

At Twelve
Deep South
Black Eye

Find her: in her books, Still Time, Immediate Family and At Twelve or on video at ART:21

The Osterman's


Wet plate collodion process.
France Scully and Mark Osterman.....amazing!
Find them at collodion.org

Jody Ake



Wet Collodion/Ambrotype
Find him: at jodyake.com I highly recommend his site.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

I Cut My Hair!

Okay, every image I can find of pre-hair cut is really bad. But you get the idea...shorter, layered, no bangs, fine hair:

I usually pulled the "bangs" over with a bobby pin to keep them from sliding into view. I was getting tired of this cut so took a chance and looked up a salon online. I found Bliss in SE and Nicole, who cut my hair like this:

LOVE IT! I wanted bangs but was scared because I haven't had them since I was um...12. I also didn't really want a straight bob. Nicole, who was my stylist that I was matched with, listened to my concerns, asked lots of questions which was great, and along the way she even continued to ask me if I liked where it was going. I have very fine hair, sometimes I think I'm balding, and she knew exactly what to do with it. She also asked what products I was using. I told her that I just used ones that other stylists had suggested. She had some of them on her little counter. She asked how they worked for me because she would not recommend those for me and I said, that yeah, they didn't work, I just thought I was using them wrong.
It was very refreshing to have the person cutting your hair really be concerned about getting it right.
I don't like to deal with my hair a lot. I want to spend very little time working on it each day, and so far, it has been wonderful. I put the product she suggested in, blow dry and that's it. Done.
So, Yippee to Bliss and to Nicole!!!!!