sniffle sniffle

Hey everyone, sorry I have been lax in my posting, but the changing weather has given me a horrible head cold. Colds turn me into a giant baby so I have been loafing on the couch, surrounded by used up tissues and pouting at Geoff to bring me more hot tea. What makes you feel better when you have a cold?

Here are my go-to cold survival tips:

1. Don't fight it, just carry that roll of toilet paper around with you because you know you are going to need it and the thought of scurrying to the bathroom over and over is not appealing.
2. Clothing is key. Sweatpants, ratty t-shirt and some sweater that you can pull off and on at a moment's notice. Also giant woolly socks.
3. Hot Tea. My favorites are Good Earth original and Traditional Medicine's Throat Coat. 
4. The couch - something about being sick means that I need to be in the living room on the sofa wrapped in a quilt or two. 
5. A good book, or alternately, bad tv.

Weekend recap

Did everyone have a good weekend? I did, even though it was a bit stressful.  I don't have many pics from this weekend, but here is a bullet list of my highlights:

• Babysitting Little Sister on Sunday night, which included playing dolls yet her and I being boys, reading books about dogs and watching videos of funny cats on youtube.
• Waking up to Little Sister telling me she loves me and could she watch Netflix now please.
• Hanging out with my Gram on Monday
• Portillos lunch with Gram
• Fabric shopping for the backing of my first quilt - we found something that seems perfect and snatched it up.
• I took Gram to go see the Help and was surprised by how much I liked it
• My mom gave me some clothes that I had forgotten about

As far as the Help goes, I was apprehensive about it because of the whole idea that a white girl needs to save these black women from the situation they were in. But, I found the best parts of the movie had nothing to do with Eugenia, Emma Stone. There is some powerful acting and great scenes and I think it was worth a watch. It also had two perfectly cast characters from True Blood in it that made me happy. My Gram loved it, and the theatre was packed for a third week out movie showing in the afternoon. And afterwards almost everyone clapped, which I have not seen outside of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.

I am back home now and getting set to go back to work today. The weather is beautiful and I'm ready to tackle another week. I'm hoping to make a little progress with my quilt this week so hopefully I will have some pictures for you.

meow

I stumbled upon this project that helps feral cats and I just think that it is too cool not to share. The Teal Cat Project sells teal cat figuring and the money goes to help trap-neuter-return feral cats to help combat the incredible population of stray cats.

They take donations of money and any cat figurine to be painted and passed on. Currently they are sold out of their first batch of cats and are getting ready for a new batch. However, they do also have t-shirts for sale.

I think this is a very sweet project that is doing great work on behalf of animals. And every one's apartment would look better with one of these cats in it.
Teal Cat Project website

I don't mean to be a b...

Last night while I should have been sleeping I got started thinking on how my personality is percieved. In high school and most of college, I feel like I had the abilty to be bitchy and blunt, telling people what I thought no matter what. And somewhere I lost that and now I feel that I come off as very passive and sweet, which is not how I see myself inside.

Now, I know that being bitchy is not seen as a positive thing, but I think it can be sometimes. If inside you are dying to slap your ex but instead you tell him you'll always be there for him, you are doing nobody a favor.

There are a few things I still get fired up about. I have no tolerance for those who make fun of people with disabilities and have walked out of classrooms and dates because of this. While I am not as likely to roll my eyes in public, I will give a wayward look of disdain.

Basically, I want that agression and confidence I used to feel by tapping into my inner bitch. And I want to feel ok with expressing those emotions when I feel them because as a society, I still think that women are supposed to be demure and agreeable unless we are wearing a tank top and fighting bad guys in heels. And even then we melt for the right person.

These thoughts came about because recently I have found myself apologizing to random people for anything and everything, for walking down the hall and for for filling up a cup at the water cooler. After I walk away I feel so stupid, because they did not feel the need to say sorry for using the last avaliable sink in the bathroom or for asking a supervisor a question. And I think I need to tap into the inner bitch that I used to let free.

To be fair to the word, I do not think that being assertive is the same as being a bitch, but culturally, I have noticed that most people view it as the same thing. While I do not want to be mean, or rude, I also do not want to be a doormat to other people while simply trying to get through my day.

Which leads me to my goal for this month  of September. I am done apologizing. I am going to stop and bite my toungue and just smile in an akward situtaion instead of saying I am sorry. If I do greviously wrong someone or genuininly do something wrong, I will apologize, but all of this unecessary bullshit is weighing me down and I do not need it. And if I do slip up, I think I will put a dollar in a jar and then donate that money to charity.

Am I the only one with an apology complex? Anyone else want to say no to meaningless "I'm so sorry"s?

A big post for a big weekend

I have been MIA for a few days because I had to take a wonderful road trip to my adopted home-state of Minnesota! Geoff and I went up there for a friend of mine's wedding and we had an amazing time. Having never explored the land of a thousand lakes, Geoff was eager to see some sights. So clearly the first place I took him was the Mall Of America.

We shopped a lot, met some of my friends at The Afternoon (which basically is the best store in the mall) and ate at my favorite place to eat at the mall, the Twin Cities Grill. Geoff approved of the food:

I also got to have coffee with a friend of mine there and after  awhile we drove over to my dear friend Megan's to stay for the rest of the weekend. Meg and I were college roommates and I have missed her like crazy. She and her husband Gabe showed us an amazing time, complete with pizza, scrabble, and their new addition to the family, Susannah:

Day two was wedding day and Meg scampered off to take amazing photos (you can see a sneak peak here at Wildlovephotography) and Gabe, Geoff, and I had pastries and a little vintage shopping. Turns out Scout Vintage, Two Birds and Salvage Strawberry threw up a vintage sale right next to where we breakfasted. I got a really fun sweater, an old singer sewing machine tin, and a key holder and Geoff got a snazzy tie and a zip up sweater.

Geoff and I got fancy for the wedding and went off to Delano. I had a blast and Aaron and Christa looked amazing and beautiful. Aaron has been my friend since we did college improv together and he is one of those people that is just so genuine and loving that I do not think you could leave a conversation with him without a smile on your face. I had not had the chance to meet Christa before, but she was everything Aaron told me she was. I am so happy for this couple.  Here is the groom and I:

And a couple more, of Megan and Geoff and myself:

 Day three was basically just breakfast with Meg and Gabe and another college friend, Laura. It was just a great trip and I am so glad we went.

Girl, why are you bleeding out of your head?

Tonight I wanted to talk about one of my favorite photos of myself. The photo in question is this:

I have sent this photo to my my and have used it as my Facebook profile photo. I was thinking about it the other day and wondered to myself about why it is that I  (and others) take photos of ourselves bleeding or bruised or otherwise hurt in some way.

I have gone through several friend's facebook pages and have found similar photos taken after skateboarding or wearing heels and some in an ambulance. Photos of scars and surgical stitches from collapsed lungs and head wounds, all carefully photographed and shared. Even fake injuries are represented, bruises painted on at roller derbies for example.

In my photo I am bleeding from my face as a result of ripping of a scab I acquired from falling on the pavement. And I think this is one of my favorite photos of myself. But why? Is it because of the stunning bathroom background? My amazing photography skills? No. But I love it. And I think it might illustrate a lager issue that I have dealt with my whole life and maybe others are dealing with too. .

Being damaged is interesting. And whatever the way one has to convey that damage, be it in this case, physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever, is an interesting way create identity. I could (and might later) wax poetic on my affair with emotional damage as a defining character trait, but that's not what this photo conveys to me.

I'm bleeding yes, but I have let the blood run down my face and am in no hurry to patch it up. And while I may be a little whiny at times about getting hurt, this was taken at a time where I was 99.9% on my own and had to deal with things myself. Because there was no one there to clean me up and put a band aide on me I realized that I really did not need one.

There is an element of pride in an injury. An aspect of not getting through life with a body perfectly intact and in the original packaging but one that shows direct confrontation with life. While my cut face isn't from anything terrible exciting, it does make for a good photo.

To Gram's house I go

I went to my Gram's yesterday for a long overdue visit. She made us dinner and she and I talked about quilts for a long time. She has closets full of quilts that she made as a girl and that her mother made and so on. They are all so pretty and fun and I'm really glad that she is teaching me to do the same. How cool do these old sewing books look?

She sent me on my way with a bag of her fabric scraps, pages copied from quilting books and a copy of Quilting magazine.

Today is my day off and I am just hanging out watching season four of Dexter and relaxing. I shopped around at the Goodwill today and picked up a few things, like this lovely green dress. I also planted a little chili plant I got at the farmers market:

I have another plant I grabbed this weekend but he isn't in the right pot yet so you'll have to wait for a photo of him. But I will give you a photo of my new drinking glass:

This reminds me of the drinking glasses my gram would always have for us kids.  Anyone else do any thrifting this past weekend?