What I Did on My Summer Vacation

For a week in June, me and five 8-11 year old girls hunkered down for some serious art-making. This was the first of a two week art camp (the next to be held August 8-12!) hosted at a home up in the Oakland hills. This is just the beginning of what I envision being an ongoing creative series (which I have yet to come up with an appropriate name or website for) for the brilliant, and always hilarious, artistic youth of the Bay Area. Please let me know if you or anyone you know would like to participate!

Wanna see what we made?

First, we ventured into the backyard....

then made our way to the park.

Frankie discovered a very hungry friend (that's a tofu dog, right?),

as did Georgie.

Actually, we went a little bunny crazy,

before Stella and Sophia helped us find true love.

Along with love, Cianna found some rockin' hats and even more snacks to share. We really loved snacks.

Speaking of snacks... have you ever wondered how much a tomato plant grows in just 5 days? Because we sure did.


Thank you Stella, Frankie, Georgie, Cianna, and Sophia for your brilliance, your thoughtfulness, and your giggles. I can not wait for round two.

maybe i'll start blogging again?

cheater

dear blog,

i've been cheating on you with my new blog/project i've been working on with jen.

i love you both, just give me some time to figure it out.

forgive me,
devon

Supernatural

I just got back from a three and a half week vacation. For those thinking of taking a month-long vacation, I have one thing to say to you: DO. It's amazing. In the past week, after returning and being catapulted back into real life, I've been thinking a lot about the significant difference between vacation and real life and how it doesn't really make sense for it to be so noticeable. There's a different mentality to vacation, obviously, partially due to a usual change in location. But it's definitely more than that. It's time for self. Permission to do nothing. Deeper breaths. So the question is, why can't we feel that way in real life too? I mean, it seems like a much more sustainable way to live to create a "real life" that doesn't require some dramatic departure in order to reconnect with feeling good.

I think so much of the shear joy and deep relaxation I felt while away was connected to the fact that I wasn't anywhere near a city...so that's something to think about. While in downeast Maine on the front end of my trip I spent some time with a dear, dear friend on her family's land in what is basically the easternmost part of the county. It's appropriately named Racepoint (even on some maps) because the water rushes in and out of the bay it sits on at incredible speeds due to the fact that the tides have a 25 foot vertical variance. That's a whole lot of water rushing in and out every 12 hours, let me tell you. Other than the bay, there was no running water. And the stars...oh, the stars!! One night we brought our sleeping bags into the meadow to lay and look at sky before the moon rose and decided, after about two hours, that we should just sleep out there. In the morning an eagle flew over us so close we could hear its wings flapping. I kept saying "this is like magic," until I thought about how completely insane it is to think about nature untouched by humans as supernatural. Clearly I've been a city-dweller for too long. I mean, it is SUPER natural. But magic? Puh-lease! A Vermonter should know better. Regardless, it has inspired me to try to work out a better city/nature ratio in order to maintain a more enjoyable real life.

So, that's the new goal: vacation-inspired living. More reading, more drawing, more relaxation, more breathing, and most importantly, way more "magic".

vacation sketchbook

patterns and letters

aminals

I've been teaching myself how to draw peacocks.
It's the perfect amount of tedious.

Loser

In the past few months, I have effectively lost almost everything of value to me. Seriously, though. Keys, wallet (twice), cell phone, sketchbook, and a computer crash. Sure, some of them have been returned or found, but still!! I know I've always been a little spacey, but this is just unacceptable. I need to develop a new system because the no-system system is clearly not working. Also, I've been having weird stomach issues again, but they're different this time. I've been throwing up a lot with absolutely no other symptoms. Weird, right? Also gross.

So, I'm computerless for the next month or so (imagine how much reading I'll get done!!). I don't think it'll even make that big of a difference since I can use my roommate's and have one at work. Basically I just won't be in bed staring blankly at Facebook before I fall asleep... which is fine.

I've been noticing that because things have been so off kilter I've been thinking about moving again. Which is pretty dumb but also kind of fun to think about. My latest plan is live in a small house with colorful kitchen tiles in the middle of the desert. Wouldn't that be so lovely!?!? In this new plan I suddenly also have an inexpensive car or scooter and a cat and am not at all lonely.

I keep hearing my mom in my head saying something like, "you chose the story you tell." I want to tell a better story for myself, Mom, honest! I'm going to work on breathing and being more hopeful, and use this period of less internet to make new things that will maybe then some day be posted on the internet. Or maybe not. Either way I'm going to make new things.

Traveling East in a little over a month. Yesssssssssss.

Greenish Thumb

I know, okay? It's been basically forever. June has been the month of guests. Seven guests, to be exact. Which, as I obviously didn't realize when all these things got planned, is as exhausting as it is completely wonderful. So, even though I've thought about writing a lot, and even written a couple killer entries in my head, somehow it never made it into "real" life. You think I want to spend my limited alone-time trying to craft a million dumb thoughts into comprehensible sentences for my three loyal readers? Yeah right. Sorry, Jen! See you on g-chat!

Hey, guess what?! I've been gardening sort of!!

lettuces

tomato explosion

plum tree harvest + new friend (apples soon to come)

some of the non-edibles

Oh, also, I got new curtains like two months ago and am sort of shocked and appalled that I haven't blogged about them yet considering how (still) completely obsessed with them I am.

prettiest ever

Hmmmmmm what else? Oh, since I work as an events consultant (or something) for a catering place, and because I am designing my friends' wedding invitation as well as being one of their ushers, I spend a lot of time thinking about getting married. Not me getting married, per se, but the idea of other people getting married. It's a weird thing! Also, somehow I turned 24 and then "celebrated" nine months of living in California. As Sean pointed out, I could have had a baby in that time. If I had had twins, two babies.

I have "mood hair" on my bookmarks toolbar in firefox right between "facebook" and "lavender cats". Sometimes, without realizing it, I check it. Like I'm going to find something new. Like I wouldn't know if it had been updated.

"this is the most fun we've ever had"

spring ahead

I think I don't blog as much anymore because I don't have a scanner and taking pictures of things just never seems quite as good to me. Except when they're really fun pictures of sisters and cousins hanging out and not just because we have to.

For those of you who don't know, we're now entering my favorite season: Cadbury Mini-Egg season. Oh, also spring. Although I can't imaging how a California spring could in any way compare to the revitalization and restorative power of a northeastern April and May. Not to complain, because its actually gorgeous here and I deserve, at the very least, an eye-roll for my griping about the rain that we so desperately need. In my defense, 6 days of rain in a row is a lot of rain, unless you're in Seattle, then maybe it's still a lot but just more common and no less unpleasant.

I don't even know what I'm talking about.

meteorology

This morning, like many other mornings during northern California winter, it was raining. Really hard raining though, like the sideways kind, like the kind that gets your jeans really wet. To make ourselves feel better we went out for fancy burgers and curly fries and then to Trader Joe's to get tofu cream cheese and free coffee samples and to look for the mint hot chocolate that I know Jen likes (they didn't have it) and by the time we got home the sun was out. Crazy crazy.
Even though the sky had cleared and it felt much warmer it was still really blustery. And the plum tree in our backyard has been blossoming for the past week so all of the pedals were blowing all around and it looked instead like it was raining flowers!!

sean: my internet is being so slow... i feel like i am on AOL 4.0