What about happiness? Everything/nothing

Life has this funny habit of playing tricks on us. Here I am sitting in a charming little hotel room on Orcas Island in Washington gazing on a loverly* view of Puget Sound. My foot is asleep and my sis is chatting with her boyfriend on the old 'FB' while listening to Journey(YES!!!). My mum is painting and my dad is reading. I am blogging.

We left on saturday and are going back to L.A. on saturday. Do I want to go back? Well, no. I just want all my friends to uproot and prance on up to the Land of Overcast Skies and Perfectly Grilled Salmon. Seriously, their salmon is beautiful!

The last time I was in Washington I was looking at the inside of my mothers stomach, naturally i do not remember anything about that time of my life so this was a new place for me. When we got to Seattle and saw a bit of it I realized I was in the throws of a city made up of the best parts of Portland, the hills of San Francisco and the variety of New York with a touch of L.A. Was I in heaven? I'd like t think so. Pike Place was my dream of crafty awesomeness, Capitol Hill (where we used to live... or my parents and my sis lived) was the hippest place!

I almost convinced my parents to let me get my nose pierced.

We visited the University of Washington for me while we were here. The campus was gorgeous, but I was not the happiest with their art department which wasn't helped by the grumpy art department counselor. But I think I will still consider it.

We are now on the island i mentioned before. It is perfectly loverly! The opposite of Seattle, this little town is made up of, like, fifty craft stores, a book store, a smattering of cafes and restaurants, our hotel and a grocery store. Also sheep, there are a lot of sheep here. And a cow. I love it!

Spring break is nice. No responsibilities, no homework(the historical biography I am supposed to be reading for history growls at me from my bag), no nothing. Yay!

Where the colors grow in bundles

In my last post I was intending to post a picture of my newly completed painting and have everyone oooh and ahh at it but it is still sitting in my room unfinished. Over all I think that is a good thing because I was in no mental state to be able to finish it.

Anyway, to make up for the lack of art in my last post I am going to put a bunch in this one. I found a new artist!! YAY!!

Her name is Amy Sol and I adore her art!

This is one of my favorites. It is called Anchor.
Her art, I find, is gentle. It does not flash in your eyes, it softly hums with muted tones. Yet her pieces intrigue you, moths in the arms of a girl, tiny pandas in hot air balloons? Genius!




I could fall asleep to these paintings. They are visual lullabies , thats what they are.

It is well with my soul

Today I awoke at a the respectable hour of 7:45. I decided that today would be a day of accomplishments. After a shower and some breakfast I packed for our family trip up to Seattle, Washington tomorrow, which I am tremendously excited for, then I plopped down on my floor and had a go at a painting I have been trying to get done of some time now.

Well, it didn't work out so well. I got all womanly and almost had a go at crying when my all knowing artist mother came to my rescue. She had a talk with me that could have come right out of a Teen-Girl-Trying-To-Find-Herself story. This was not at all a bad thing. Sometimes we need those and mothers seem to always know the perfect time for them.

She told me that maybe I was working with to many elements (I had acrylic paint, collage, and water color all in one), simplify your problem. This was helpful but what she said next, amongst many other wise helpful things, really struck home for me.

"Art should be fun. The process should bring you just as much joy then the finished work. If it isn't bringing you joy then it will show in your work."

A while back, God brought those same words to me. Not exactly of coarse but close. The Journey is more important then the Destination. I realized today that this applies to all of life.

So today was a good day. After I prayed about it I desided I would wait to figure it out when I got back form the Seattle trip. When I pealed away all these magazine pages I had stuck to the canvas with paint I found that a very cool effect was produced, so it was not a total failure.

I am looking forward to figuring our the painting, only next time I tackle it I will do it with joy in my heart and preparedness for a long journey of paint and mess ups. I have a feeling I will have to work for this if it is going to mean something. I am fine with that.

P.S. In Seattle I am going to tour The University of Washington to see if I want to go there. Exciting yet stressful.

The journey, just remember the journey.

About A Blog

At this particular time of my still short blog-life I am not the happiest about my little blog. I do enjoy having it and would be writing in it almost everyday but school is a black hole that sucks up my life. My blog is a thing I would like to see more of. But something is lacking, at least by my standards.

I know what I want it to be.

I see all these wonderful blogs (All Thing Inspiring, More Tea vicar, tales of a junkaholic)and wish I could have my blog exactly like theirs. Of coarse it can not be because it is mine and not theirs. What I love about these blogs above is that they are so homey. You feel as though you are their intimate friends, like you are part of their life. Mine does not feel that way yet but, I could perhaps add my own homey-like feeling to it. I just have to figure out how.

Huuuummmmmmm. Sometimes I wish I had a little thinking spot like Pooh Bear does.

I would like to share my art on this humble blog. I would greatly enjoy sharing some of my clothing ensembles as well, but that is impossible at the moment. I have given up making fun clothing ensembles for Lent (the 40 days Jesus went into the desert to fast) as well as sugar. Anyway, I would love to share the little crafts I do and just my everyday life.

Another thing about my blog is that I highly doubt it will ever be a a blog devoted singularly to one thing. It will not be an art blog because I love writing about books but it can not be a book blog because I love fashion but it can not be a fashion blog because of my obsession with art. So it will have to be all of these in one. YAY!

I can I suppose. Time is forever my friend and enemy. I have to buckle down and just do it! I mean better my blog.

Wish me luck!

P.S. Sorry about the scattered quality of this post, I am in a post-studying daze. I have a midterm tonight :(

P.S.S. Lent ends on Easter so you can expect a killer amazing stunning outfit on that day of celebration!

Doing more on a nothing day

Ah, days with nothing to do. They are generally thought glorious things after a busy week of homework and rushing about, but I found myself doubtful. I woke up one day and for a few wonderful seconds of bliss thought of all the nothing I had to do that day. Then, not yet having gotten up, realized that nothing to do was depressing. My mind wandered over to my art desk and my body followed. I contented myself with thinking of all the delightful hours of arty-ness that would make up my day. Then up the stairs trotted my mother and brought to light that for the past week I had been hold up in my room working away at non social activities. So my mother, whom I love, forced me out of the house to be social. I went to my life group(a group of girls from my youth group), then I dashed over to The Americana with my loverly mother to window shop and munch on sweet potato fries, then I headed to a little cafe with some friends to listen to some live indie music by Stevie Scott.

The point of this post though is not about busing up my day, it is about a wonderful clearance corner in one of my favorite stores Anthropology. thats where we got this book:

Savvy Chic by Anna Johnson, The Art of More For Less.

This book is exactly what the title implies, a guide on how to dress, eat, travel and entertain for those, shall we say, not blessed with an exploding pocket book. Or even a fat one.

But besides that it is a whimsical narration of Miss Johnson's thoughts and adventures on all things chic. She reminds us that chic does not always mean expensive. It can mean that little black dress at a thrift store that fits you perfectly. Just remember when someone asks you, "*gasp* is that that dress from the new Calvin Klein collection?" the correct answer is, *smile* *nod* "Why yes it is."

It also has darling little illustrations by the author.

All together, I think it was a good day. Especially the sweet potato fries.

How Do You Call Your Lover Boy?

I have been very attached to music lately. Everywhere I go I have my iPod and I must have music playing when I am doing my homework. Except math, music just makes me confused when math is anywhere near me. Actually math just makes me confused.

Anyway, These are some of the musicians and albums I have been relishing as of late.

#1- Adele

Oh man, she is so good! My sister an I have been listening to her fine vocals almost nonstop. The first notes fly from her mouth and my sister and I are like "ummm, that is good! We believe you girl!"

We just bought both of her albums. I prefer the older album, 19, over the more experimental sounding 21. They are both phenomenal but I like her contemporary jazz sounding first album. I find it interesting that she names her albums after her age when she made them. I don't know, a fun fact :)

#2- Alex Rhodes

I was introduced to Alex Rhodes by my friend Thomas. We share a common interest in music and I am so thankful he did because I have not been able to get over how beautiful her song No Trouble is. She has only six songs available but they are all very well done.

#3- The soundtrack to Dirty Dancing!

I have been aware for a while that I have a soft spot for 80's music. I find myself buying music simply because its sound makes me feel like waring an ugly sweater and singing passionate cheesy melodies at the top of my lungs. My mother and I had a girls night, which is worthy of a post all its own, and watched Dirty Dancing among other movies. But I loved it! It was awesome! Now I feel like screaming "...And I owe it all to YOU!" every time I enter a room. But not only that song. This album is stuffed with deliciously dramatic songs that hit the spot perfectly; Hungry Eyes, Love is Strange and She's Like the Wind(which is sung my the one and only Patrick Swayze, may he rest in peace) are just some of them. I just want to dance, dance, dance when I hear these songs! GAAH! I love it!

Trapped in a tower

I have been gone from my humble little blog for to long! I do have an excuse for my absence, no matter how common it is: I have no time.

Of coarse that is a lie for you always have time. It is unlimited until you die, then you actually have no time. What I should say is that all my time is taken up. Yes, that is better.

All of my time is stocked with classes, events, obligations, and homework. The only time I feel like I am not engaged in one of these things is when I am sleeping, and I haven't been getting enough of that.

My fully packed time seems to be racing past. So fast I can not grasp firmly to any moment. It got me thinking(a dangerous past time, I know ;). How can I live fully in this fleeting time period called my life? Observing people around me I realized that us humans live greatly on emotions. We latch onto the strongest emotion we are feeling at one time or another and we run with it for as long as it will hold out. When it fades we search for another.

Well, a problem with this is when we grab an emotion we do not notice all the other feelings and relationships that can be had so focused are we upon the emotion at hand.

If only we would step aside back from what we think is completely and utterly the most important thing in our lives to look at the big picture. When I stepped back I saw friends that where there for me but I had not been working hard enough to keep close. I saw little risks I could take that would result in many fond memories.

Ugg, this post is turning into a sappy feeling fest. Oh well, I am a girl which gives me the undeniable right to be sappy and dramatic. HA!

Anyway, when people do not realize this they tend to be very single minded which is very sad. They are not as fun to talk to. I can be this way, to focused on one thing. It is hard, pulling your eyes from an engaging or over-baring topic in your life. It's like this: you have one natural attention span, at least it feels like that. When you notice more then one necessary thing in your life you have to work at splitting that attention span down the middle. The action has a funny sort of pain to it, an uncomfortable feeling.

But after we get used to it and do it often, we get much more out of life.

But for now, stuck up in my turret(my room. It is not actually a turret, I just call that for fun) I find that today I must be single minded. Homework. Homework. Homework. Yep there is a hill of it.

I will see you after I climb it.