Molly and Zaphod are friends

Zaphod and our new puppy, Molly are getting along so well now. Zaphod was pretty weirded out by her at first but now they like to play together. Their favorite game is growling and play biting at each other. It's cute at first but eventually it gets on my nerves the way my brother's wrestling did when I was a teenager. They also like to play a game where Zaphod lays something down and Molly finds it and starts playing with it. Then Zaphod comes and takes it away from her. Sometimes she makes him chase her around the yard for it. She can actually run faster than him so when he finally catches up, I think it's really just Molly taking pity on him. She adores Zaphod and will sit and watch him chew on something like it's the most amazing thing ever. I also catch them nuzzling each other sometimes.

Molly is so cute. She looks like she is smiling and laughing all the time. When Zaphod knocks her back, it always looks like she is falling back laughing. When the fireflies start lighting up in the evening she chases them and trys to catch them with her mouth. She also scouts bugs in the grass. Sometimes I worry that she might be trailing something a little more dangerous like a snake. Hopefully her instincts would kick in. She is still a little afraid of shadows and her own reflection. She barks and growls.

I really enjoy snuggling with Molly on the couch. Sometimes, they get on either side of me and it double snuggle time. I am in dog heaven. I never knew I would like having dogs so much. I can't imagine not having Molly in our household. I even think she smells sweet. I am in deep.

James + Guitar

I took this picture a couple of months ago. James has been playing guitar again and it’s so nice to hear around the house. My husband has a history with playing music. He can play base, guitar and piano. In high school he was in a band called The Thing which listed REM as one of their influences. They played at school functions and parties.

In his twenties he played all night Velvet Underground-like jam sessions with his friend Scott Tapio. I’d have to list their dat tape Princess Smartypants in my top 10. Very awesome experimental stuff. During that time he also played with another band called Simone Should and they played a few gigs downtown.

This past year, he picked back up with the guitar and started taking lessons. It is so amazing to watch him progress as a guitar player. He has written a few songs. His music is kind of folk/rock. He participated with a guitar group at his school. A couple of weeks ago they had a concert for all the groups. James' group did the songs Guitar Town and Suspicious Minds. I was really impressed.

It makes me happy to see him get re-engaged with music because he loves it so much. Plus, I get to hear acoustic guitar around my house and that is one of my favorite sounds.

Chew on this.

Molly loves to chew on things. And she's good at finding things that I've lost. When she hangs out with me in my studio, she finds all sorts of little jewelry parts on the floor. Usually I can tell when she is chewing on something and when I ask her what it is, she spits it out. By this point I think she knows she's not supposed to put everything in her mouth. The other day she found something and took off running. I went after her and she gave up a little pink pearly bead. It was so shiny and pretty, she must have thought she had a real treasure and wanted to go off somewhere private to really inspect it. There's no telling what she's ingested as this point. Zaphod just looks on like a wise old dog who knows better.

My camera is officially broken. It's off at camera repair camp. Can't wait to have it back!

Holidays, Forest's Birthday and Cherrywood

Wow, this is such a crazy time of year. I really thought I would be more calm this year because I had a lot of work ready for shows and felt pretty caught up but in the end I just ended up worrying over other stuff like that there is something I forgot to do. Maybe there is just no way to escape a little stress in December. Or maybe it's contagious because everyone else is so worried! Anyway, the only thing I can do is just make a list to make sure I have everything covered. I think I am starting to feel a little more calm now that I am just about done with shows for the season. Cherrywood was last weekend and now I only have Blue Genie for the next couple of weeks. I have had a record number of orders on the website this year which is exciting!

My son turned 17 on Friday. It blows me away! People always express astonishment that I have a teenager. He was born when I was 18, plus I look about 10 years younger than I am so when we are together in public folks assume he is my little brother. Even his new doctor verified recently that I am, in fact, his mother. Forest is excited about being 17. I think he is enjoying his teenage years. We had a nice evening. His girlfriend, Jessica, came over and we watched the video of our Greece trip when Forest was 10 which contains some pretty hilarious dance sequences by Forest. Then we decorated the Christmas tree. It was a nice evening! He wanted new clothes for his birthday so we gave him a gift card to the mall. The boy loves shoes! He bought himself two new pairs of shoes and a few other things.



Cherrywood Art Fair was great this year. There were more attendees than ever before. It was my fourth year to do this show. It is held in an elementary school where Forest attended 2nd - 4th grade. The show has such a great community feeling to it and it is nice to see so many friends from the old neighborhood as well as other artists. This year there was an article in the paper ranking Cherrywood as one of the top three shows in Austin along with Blue Genie and Armadillo. Pretty exciting to be a part of that.

I am really looking forward to our road trip!

Halloween Past

Alas, my son is 16 now and too old to dress up but I used to make really neat costumes for him. Sometimes I would stay up sewing all night the night before. I thought I would reminisce with a few photos...



Here he is Yosemite Sam. We went through a phase where we were watching a lot of Looney Toons together. The only thing I made here was the beard with a little help from my crafty friend, Katy. I am dressed up as a princess. It was his first year to trick or treat and he was kind of shy about it so we dressed up too to make him feel better about it.



Batman. I cut out the symbol in felt and sewed it onto a black sweat suit. I made the cape and hat (with ears!).



Robin Hood! I made all everything for this costume including the hat!



He is Luke Skywalker! This was around the time I started dating James and he and Forest spent a lot of time watching Star Wars and talking about it. I made the pants and the top and James came up with the idea of putting masking tape around his shoes and legs to make the boots. He also made an awesome utility belt with candy boxes and black electrical tape. The light sabor was a store purchase and actually lit up!



Here he is Frodo from Lord of the Rings. I made the cape and we rented the rest of the costume from Lucy on S. Congress. This may have been the last year he dressed up.

Well that's all the photos I can find this morning. What a nice trip down memory lane. A really cool thing about being a mom is how it is always inspiring creativity! Happy Halloween!

Freedom

I am so excited! My son, Forest, has gotten his driver's license. Yay for him. I know he is really enjoying the freedom of being able to go somewhere when he wants instead of waiting around for me. Freedom for the both of us!

I have been spending lots of time down on 2nd Street in Austin. Met up with my friend Sarah yesterday for a salad at Leaf and today I met up with Amber for a coffee at Jo's. On the way today, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a tree following me down the street. I was so excited! I hurried to park and then ran to take a picture. They were moving a tree that is more than 100 years old from a vacant lot to the shores of Ladybird Lake. It was a pretty cool thing to see!

I was also on 2nd Street last week to meet with Elizabeth at Eliza Page. She picked up 14 new Ornamental Things pieces. Stop by and see them! Some of them were new and hadn't even made it onto the website yet.

Baseball and Cassette Tapes

This past weekend we went up to Arlington to celebrate my dad's birthday and see a Texas Ranger's game. Baseball games are pretty fun. I enjoyed spending more time with my niece, Maddie too!

Right before we left, Forest was cleaning out the trunk of his new car (my old car) and unearthed a bag of cassette tapes. It was pretty funny looking through some of my old tapes. It seriously felt like some kind of archaeological find. The eclectic contents included Tom Waits, John Coltrane, Nirvana, The Ramones and several mix tapes including that Bob Dylan mix tape that James made for me, which I mentioned a few blogs back. Pretty neat!

I am happy to say that my assistant, Julie is going to stay on with me permanently. She has been such an amazing help to me over the last month. There is no way I could have accomplished so much in the past month without her. I am so happy she has agreed to stay on!

Nieces

I spent a really nice weekend at my parent's house. My brother and Courtney came with my neice, Maddie, who is a few months old now. I know everyone thinks their neice is just the cutest baby ever but, I gotta say, I think mine might actually be the cutest. I think there is just something super special about that aunt/neice relationship. It is neat to think that here is this person that you are going to have a life long relationship with. You are going to watch her grow up and hopefully be a good influence in her life. Maybe it is because I have such great memories of certain aunts, like my aunt Linda who played dolls with me when I was little and gave me Dr. Suess books and was a good confidant in my teenage years and who I now consider to be a good friend. Anyway, neices are special! I have two of them now, Maddie and Charlotte and another who will be born this month. I am a lucky aunt!

The whole family went to see a fireworks show in Comanche on Saturday night. It was so fun! It's a small town so the traffic wasn't crazy afterward and we were so close to the fireworks. I have never been so close. I laid on a blanket looking up and it was like they were falling right over me. It was exciting and a little scary! We worried Maddie might be scared but she LOVED it.

I also spent some time making jewelry with my mom. She likes very simple beaded necklaces. Seven green beads, one gold bead, seven green beads, and so on. But it's always nice to be able to give your mom something she enjoys!

Long time, no blog

Look, I got some new glasses!

Good grief, I haven't blogged in a week. I have been busy working and having some fun. Trying to balance the work and the fun. I am starting to think I may be a workaholic! I am kind of serious. Well, the work is actually fun for me right now. I just feel super passionate about my work lately!

Last Wednesday night I met up with Sarah for drinks and then we took a little excursion to the local craft store which was super fun. This weekend I didn't really have any big plans. I just enjoyed hanging out with James all weekend. And, in between, got lots of little jobs done like making rings and organizing my jewelers bench. I pulled out all the equipment I have been collecting over the past few years. I feel like I am pretty much totally set up to solder now. Just need to take the big step to start. Why is that part so hard? Maybe it will happen today? I worked hard yesterday to get a bunch of piddley stuff caught up so that today and tomorrow can be reserved for creative work. You gotta organize this stuff!

Had a nice lunch with Wendy on Friday. It was a nice day to sit outside.

I took my first actual trip to the Blanton Museum yesterday. I met up with my friend Brooke for coffee first and then we walked over to the museum together. We had a great time. I found it inspiring. I loved the new temporary exhibit of the works from the Dahesh Museum. There were some really beautiful and vibrant oil paintings. There is something about oil painting that really excites me. It has such depth. I also really liked that a lot of the paintings were of daily scenes. One of the explanations on the wall was saying that more common life scenes developed when the patronage shifted from religious to merchant class and middle classes commissioned works. I enjoy seeing these almost photographic images of normal life from another time period. We went upstairs and explored a little of the 20th century area but we ran out of time. I look forward to my next trip!

Forest has been introducing me to a lot of rap music. When we get in the car, he always plugs in his Ipod and says "Mom, you gotta hear this song." He is really good at seeking out music. Anyway, about the rap thing - I have never really listened to much because - and I don't mean to stereotype - but often the stuff you pass by on the radio, though it may have a cool beat, the lyrics are sometimes just so sexist and offensive. But he has played some really great stuff for me lately. Let's see, I am enjoying Immortal Technique, Dead Prez and Mos Def. I love learning about new music but I have never been the kind of person to actually seek it out. I always need to have friends who do and can tell me about it! It's a good thing I have James and Forest around. James is mighty prolific in his mix making, I can't even give a comprehensive list of the mixes he's made lately. It's too crazy. This weekend when we were hanging out he gave me a history lesson about the hambone beat - and played a Bo Diddley song, where it started, first and then played all these songs that have that beat right up to present day music. Did you know that song "I Want Candy" has the hambone beat? It was pretty cool to hear the progression of something like that.

Alrighty, I better get back to work!