The last few times I’ve been over to Matt’s watching tv I noticed some cool art shows, then I noticed that they’ve all been on the same network named OvationTV. I just looked it up and found that it is indeed a channel devoted to Art. As the guide channel says, it is “the only network devoted to art and personal creativity with the best of performance, people, art, music and film” So far I’ve seen an interesting show called Art or Not, where viewers, artists and critics discuss artists and if their work should actually be considered Art or not. Then I watched a show all about Andy Warhol, which was interesting to me just because I’ve always had this view of Andy Warhol as a pretty bad person as well as a gimmicky Artist. This documentary showed him in a kinder light, more shy and vulnerable than how I had viewed him before. Now I’m about to watch one all about Norman Rockwell which should be interesting as I remember in college, the consensus was that he was not an Artist.
I guess this channel originally premiered in 1997 and then relaunched this fall. The site is pretty interesting and has a lot of info on all sorts of great Artists, including Ray Johnson (woot). Check out the website, and if your cable carries it, tune in.
I had Matt stop and let me out of the car to take pictures yesterday. I stomped through the snow and fog to take these in the St. Mary’s cemetery. It was so beautiful out, so dreamlike and eerie. The warmth that was creating this fog has been replaced overnight by the freezing cold and a fresh blanket of snow. Hopefully it will hang around long enough for a white Christmas.
Today I have been cleaning and organizing as a way to procrastinate wrapping presents. My sister gave me this shower curtain while I was high school or early college. When I moved into this apartment I hung it up on my empty kitchen wall and it has been steadily filling up with sketches on scratch paper, prints, pieces of artwork, photographs, notes, postcards, concert tickets, etc. Ephemera to my life.It is perfect for me, a person who likes to surround myself with inspiration. It keeps a lot of what could easily become clutter, somewhat organized. For a while I have been thinking about emptying it out entirely and starting fresh. With the new year approaching, now is as good a time as any. I also removed almost entirely all pieces hanging from my bedroom wall. Feel free to send me something to be installed in the Galleria De Robyn’s Apartment; I’d love to receive something from you.
Unconcious mutterings for this week:
- Health :: long life
- Tacky :: ticky
- Heels :: shoes
- Yay! :: tee hee
- Model :: Project Runway
- Gather :: collection
- Best gift ever :: party
- Clients :: businessmen
- Stomp :: swear
- Clothing :: shopping
Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate!
I’ve added some new pendants to the shop.
I saw this online recently, My French Coach for Nintendo DS. The moment that they have this for Italian, I will be all over it in a heartbeat. I can brush up my italian and have fun doing it!
This weekend while Christmas shopping I lost one of my all-time favorite hats. I got this hat years and years ago while on a mini road trip with erica. We were driving aimlessly and came upon a kmart, which neither of us had seen since they went bankrupt and closed most of their stores. We went in and I found this fake fur mens hunting hat.
It was super warm, and super cool because it had holes under ear flaps for your headphone wires. It was also super ugly, which made it pretty funky and fun. Anyway, shopping this weekend, somewhere between dozens of places we hit I lost it. I was so brokenhearted. At one store I thought I saw it lying on the floor at the end of an isle and when I ran up I found that it was actually a spilled can of ground coffee beans. Right then I just started tearing up. I had lost this hat last year too, but just in the sense that I hadn’t seen it around and couldn’t find it in my apartment. I was so sad I went and bought another one similar to it, but it was a girlie version with fake fur tassels and I always resented it for not being the hat that I really wanted. Fortunately this summer I found it in an old bag. When I lost it this weekend while I was out shopping I realized there was no more coming back. I felt so ridiculous getting so worked up about this hat while I question the materialism of christmas shopping. But Matt was so kind and patient and took me back to a bunch of the places we had been but it was nowhere to be found. Probably some cool person found it and realized the awesomeness of it and kept it for themselves. I just HATE HATE HATE losing things, well losing things I’m attached to, but who knows how attached I am until I lose it.
Below I’ve included an Unconcious Mutterings from here. My responses are on the right.
- Interview:: magazine
- Army :: soldier
- Unwrap :: swaddle
- Evolve :: caveman
- Bus :: driver
- The real thing :: legit
- Streak :: evil
- Gorge :: mountain
- Spicy :: meatball
- Course :: latin
Sunday was the Second Annual Gingerbread House Making Contest. We had a change of venues and it was held at Erin‘s house. It was very generous of her to hold it at her house as my apartment was very tight last year. Once again, it was very last minute and so there were several disappointed people who could not make it, but next year I’ve already announced it will be held on the friday after Thanksgiving. I’m also thinking of renting a space so no one has to worry about hosting. Above was the invitation I designed and emailed out to guests. I totally lifted those sample gingerbread houses on the invite from flickr users without asking, so shhhhh, don’t tell anyone.
Here are a few pictures from the event and you can view more here. There are two sets one from this year, one from last. I had a great time, although my house wasn’t quite finished by the time we started wrapping up. The fact that it stood on it’s own was a feat of astonishing proportions. While most of the construction I had to use a box of candy canes to prop it up.
Erin was a great host and made real gingerbread men, big and small. I forgot to get a picture of them so if you have one Erin, send it on over. Oh, and just like last year I didn’t take the greatest pictures. They are pretty blurry, but you will get the idea. The winner got a gift certificate from Panera and I made little buttons for everyone else.
Last night a large group of us (12) went to go see I Am Legend at the IMAX theatre. My brother and sister are big fans of the story, written by Richard Matheson. I haven’t read it, but after finding out that Matheson was also the author of the stories that would became Stir of Echoes and What Dreams May Come (one of my all time favorite movies) I have decided I must read his work. This movie did not let me down. It was so intense, and I had such a grip on Matt’s hand, that periodically I had to let go and just shake it out. I think I can safely ad Will Smith to my cast of “dream men”. One last thing, I can’t remember the last time a horror movie moved me to tears. It’s definitely worth seeing. Oh yeah, and you get to see a preview for the new Batman, I can’t wait till it comes out.
Afterward we went over to Geoff and Dacia’s to play Rock Band. They got it a week ago and have been playing obsessively ever since. They started a band named Bookah with two other friends and they are all taking it very seriously. As Dacia said “it’s all we ever talk about anymore”. Now, in regular conversation you will hear them say things like “Oh, that’s like the other night when we were playing Nirvana in this night club….” And my brother, the drummer, complains about shin splints from the kick peddle. It’s hilarious. Matt fit in perfectly, being a pro at Guitar Hero, he plays for hours and hours at the expert level, able to beat just about all the songs.
Today, I am off to officially begin, and hopefully commence, Christmas shopping. Yep, that is right, all in one day. And tomorrow is the Second Annual Gingerbread House Making Contest. Busy weekend!
It has been officially renamed, The Ugly Scarf, no offense to Nicole. She’s actually adorable, and nothing like the scarf, see her above on the left.
It is so bad, people. It would be impossible to now paint, and collage, on top of this hideousness. My initial plan was to wash, and wash, and wash it so that it would be soft and worn and not so bulky and stiff. I haven’t done that yet, so there may still be hope for it yet. But those colors, eeesh, they hurt to look at, all up next to each other like that. Sad thing is, they are some of my most favorite fabrics, they just don’t necessarily work very well next to each other. I always have these ideas of just throwing everything together and how much of a marvelous mess it will become and it will end up looking great. It never works out that way. I tried that same technique one time with another scarf, but using a tiny bit of every yarn I have, oh it was so bad.
edit: Nicole just messaged me that Ugly Scarf needs a theme song, kind of like “smelly cat” from Friends.
This print above is now available in my shop here.
I’ve been so sick. It started last week with just a tickle in my throat and despite my best efforts (orange juice, zinc lozenges and Airborne) it progressed and I ended up home from work today. I think I pushed myself too far this weekend and ended putting myself in bed all sunday and most of today. Saturday, my sister and sister-in-law and I went to Camelot tree farm and cut down trees, it’s our tradition. It was Dacia’s first tree for she and my brother as a married couple. We kind of laughed how it is just the three girls who do all the hard work of cutting down the trees.
Afterward, I started feeling tired and really cold, just chilled to the bone and I couldn’t get warm. Overnight to Sunday morning my little cold progressed from sniffle to extreme fatigue, congestion, cough, fever and achiness all over. I decided to try and not push it anymore and stay home from work today and around 3:30 or 4 I finally started feeling like I was coming out of it. I’m ready to be over it especially because of one of the odd symptoms. I’ve never really experienced this, but I believe that this cold is causing me to have the worst nightmares. They are the kind of dream that happen all night long, the same thing over and over and it is not so much that it is scary, but feeling stuck in the repetition. One night it was that I was going to have my apartment photographed for some magazine, but instead of actually shooting my apartment I had to move all my belongings to the Ellwood House (a local historic mansion) and all night long I was just carrying books upon books. The whole mansion could be filled with how many books fit into my apartment. I’m looking forward to solid and restful sleep again.
toscana soup, originally uploaded by robayre.
With this season comes comfort food. I am sooo not a cooking person and I know last week I posted about making scones, but don’t worry, this blog will not become a food blog. But I do want to share a recipe for soup that Matt and I find ourselves making often.
Just because I don’t enjoy cooking doesn’t mean I can’t, I think of myself as a good cook actually. I’m confident enough that often times I can throw in handfulls of this or that and not worry about measuring cups. When we cook, we cook a huge crock pot full and we’ve made it so many times that the recipe is no longer exact. My recipe has been more than doubled and modified from the Olive Garden Toscana Soup recipe, found in this book here. A slighly modified version of the original recipe can be found all the way at the bottom. The original recipe as well as the soup you get when at the restaurant are more soup, less ingredients, but we like more of the other ingredients and you can see from the picture it looks more like a “chunky soup”. We’ve also discovered that the leftovers actually taste better than the original serving, probably because it has had more time to “marinade”.
The ingredients I buy:
- 1 package of spicey sausage that comes in a tube (usually Bob Evans or Jimmy Dean)
- 2 boxes of chicken broth or stock
- 1 bag of Kale (cut, probably 4 cups or more)
- 2 large russet potatoes
- 1 pint of heavy cream
In a skillet cook up the sausage thoroughly. Remove excess grease. Chop up the kale and potato. I slice thin (less than 1/4 inch thick) of the potato and then cut slices in half. Place vegetables into crock pot. I put the vegetables in first because they are the part that require the most heat and need the most amount of time to cook thoroughly. Then toss in the sausage and then start pouring in the broth and cream. Put it on high and then cook it for about 4 hours. Depending on your crock pot you might need more or less time, but the way I can tell is by testing the potato and the kale turns black.
Edit: I understand some people need more of an exact recipe so I’m posting more specific ingredients and measurements for a normal batch below, slightly modified from recipe in book.
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 large russet potato
- 2 cups kale, stem removed
- 1/2 pound spicy, hot or italian sausage
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Combine the broth and cream in a saucepan and heat. Cook meat and add to the soup. Slice unpeeled potato 1/4″ thickness and add to soup. Add Kale. Add red pepper and simmer for about an hour.
Serves 4 cups of soup or 2 bowls. Once again, and same as above, you can tell when the soup is done by testing the potato and the kale should be more black than green. It can be eaten immediately, but I highly recommend putting the soup in the fridge overnight and reheating the next day. It’s the only way we do it now.
I just took these pictures outside a few minutes ago. I’m amazed at how much they look like illustrations, rather than photos. Tonight was the Pecha Kucha at Martyrs, but alas, I could not make it. Why? Because, as Matt would put it, IT’S A WINTER WONDERLAND! Jenny assured me there will be another Pecha Kucha next month.
Anyway, with it being so seasonal, I thought I might talk about gifties.
If it is harder and harder to find that unique, must-have gift for the holidays, let me suggest shopping online for handmade items. There has been a movement sweeping my inter-blogosphere this holiday season. It’s the “Buy handmade for the Holidays” pledge and it occurred to me that many people who read this may have never shopped at places like Etsy before. Etsy is the place to buy all things handmade. Think Ebay for artist and crafters, but with only flat rates (no bidding). You can buy anything from original pieces of artwork, and all sorts of jewelry, to furniture and supplies to make your own handmade items. I have had great success buying the most wonderful items there. The only setback to buying on etsy is that you have to register there first. I think it puts people off who are new to online buying.
Like I said before, if you are having a hard time finding unique items, you may look no further than etsy. You will find items there that are not available in stores, and you need not worry that the person you are shopping for already has this item. Check it out, peruse, see what you see, something just might catch your fancy.
