ya gotta have heart

i don't know about you, but if i had some extra moolah floating about i would lurve to display this awesome handmade wax anatomical heart in the tiny casa. don't you think it would look awesome somewhere around the sock monkeys and the bert & ernie paintings?

nevermind that i know the artist. when yer good, yer good and my pal over at FinderMaker is pretty amazing. for reals, have you wandered over there to take a looksee? go on, what are you waiting for?

a touch of flu and an ode to yellow shoes

 no, not the swine flu, thank goodness. my flu pales in comparison. perhaps i have wombat flu or possum flu or maybe even the dreaded skunk flu or should i call it mephitis. yes, i have a touch of mephitis. oh wait, but there are no noxious odors involved at least none that i can get a whiff of. sigh. either way, sick is sick and i have a flu so i'm in achy city with chills and overall listlessness. there is a fuzzy brain involved and a general whininess on my part with the intense urge to sleep so that is what i have been doing, sleeping, whining and drinking fluid after fluid after fluid. combine it with the allergies i am having and it's fun times here in the tiny casa. i have five papers to finish, two of which are due this weekend. what some girls do to procrastinate. sheesh.

 enough about the sick. let's talk about those yellow shoes of mine. have i done this already? i have a pair of swonderful yellow mary-janes. they are so swonderful that without fail, i am asked about them every single time i put them on. unless of course i am home alone when i put them on to sing and dance about my wonderful yellow shoes, then, no one comments on them, thank goodness. do you think i would perform that musical in public?

 i first spotted the shoes online in 2005. back them they were only available in black, navy and brown. they were still spiffy enough for me to hyperventilate and twiddle my fingers over buying them. i twiddled because i have odd funky feet. short and wide, they are not unlike barney rubble's save for the high arches. there really aren't a lot of shoes i can actually wear with comfort. why do they offer such an ugly selection in wide anyway? the shoes in black called to me but i waffled. i didn't want to order them online and then have them not fit and then i decided to do it but their system wasn't letting me complete my order and when i went back to it a few days later the shoes were gone. seriously gone. like, into thin air gone. i even called the company and spoke ot a rep there. i gave them the item number and they found no evidence of this shoe ever being in their system. feeling the shoes gods were working against me, i hung up the phone and pined for them. spotting them on a fellow blogger i whined and whined. she got them as a result of me blogging about them and i only wish i listened to my own advice.

 a year passes and i go online again and i spot the shoes, THE shoes and i click on to order them and i swoon. i mean really swoon. looking back at me, not only do they have the shoes but they have them in red...and yellow! red and yellow!and in wide! without a pause, i log in and order them both. only pausing to consider getting two pair of each.

 when the shoes arrive, i drop everything, and i mean drop everything, i think scissors fell to the floor and i can even point out the dent they made. i rush to the door, armed with an exacto and rip open that box. the whole time i am mumbling, "please fit me, please fit me!" amongst a mountain of tissue and packing peanuts i pull them on with a gasp and gleefully dance aroudn the tiny casa. they are a smidge tight width-wise but they will stretch, by golly they WILL stretch. i can can around the house, a beginning to my yellow shoe musical and i swoop to the computer to order another pair and they are no where to be found, gone, poof, like they never existed.


so, my friends, that is the story of my yellow shoes which i also have in red. i got them online in 2006 from a well known american discount shoe store called payless. who would have thought? these were the very last shoes i ever purchased from payless as they no longer carry the great variety of wide widths that they used to, shame on them. for now, i wear my yellow shoes with music in my walk, usually doris day but sometimes a little annette funicello works her way in.

the week in review: april 20-26

this was a most tiring week. a really good but tiring week! school is almost over, i will be graduating in May and i have papers upon papers to complete. i also have a major case of senioritis. i keep thinking that since i have been thinking of my papers non-stop that they are already written but really, they are not. eeps! i need to collect all my notes and notebooks and books and stuff and i have once again, come down with some sort of ick. more than a cold but less than the stellar ick za and ander had. knock on wood. i feel like i did at Christmas. maybe i have caught what the bluejay. has. either way, sick sucks especially when you cannot lounge about on the sofa sleeping the ick away. instead i will be immersed in unhappy topics full of oppression and power and overall ignorance. i can't wait till it is over.

last week was full of school with a couple of visits thrown in. the weekend was spent on a mini road trip that covered more than five hundred miles there and back. the mister and i went to Manzanar and spent the night in the tiny town of Lone Pine. after waking up at 5am, we traipsed about the Alabama Hills, drove up to the end of Mt. Whitney Portal, got blasted by wind, and tickled by cold snowy air until we hightailed it down to the funky rock formations along movie road and back on the highway to Red Rock Canyon. just typing that out has made me tired!

happy EARTH day!

there's so much i would like to write but for now i think i will leave you with a picture and power off this machine here. happy day my friends. may you reflect on your actions and know that every little bit counts!

the week in review: april 13-19

most of the week was spent working on school projects. writing, writing, writing. reading, reading, reading and the making of my very first art journal! go me! the weekend was spent all day in class with a saturday night finale of chaperoning the ander boy's eighth birthday slumber party extravaganza, which included a bouncy house, robot making, popcorn eating, pillow fighting, glow stick wearing, pizza making and then of course, staying up until 2am. after three hours of groggy sloggy sleep, i went back to class to learn how to graffiti my name, present my journal and hang out in a stranger's garden. what a splendid week it was! this week is more reading and writing and all that jazz and hopefully hiding out from this crazy, CRAZY heat! have a great week everyone!

missing out on the wildflowers

we went on a mini camping trip this Easter weekend to Carrizo Plain. Carrizo Plain is famous for it's wildflowers and wouldn't you know, we missed them by a week or so. sure, there were a few here and there with small patches of happy colors to photograph but the promise of fields and fields of flowers was gone.instead, we trekked out to a spiritual rock to look at pictographs, ate lunch on a plain, hunted for owl's clover, mined a hillside for pretty rocks and set up camp.we brought the april bed to the auto-a-go-go, cooked hot dogs on the fire, noodled around with the ukes and discovered the joys of s'mores made from matzoh.after a dark, dark star filled sky lulled us to sleep, we awoke to hot granola, matzoh pancakes and the packing up of camp. on the drive home, we did of course, jump in a field, snap pictures of cows, oak trees, and wildflowers and stop off for a visit with the family-a-go-go.next trip, we're hoping to go for a bit longer than an overnight. anyone want to come watch the garden and the witch-baby for us?

wreck this cake

i'm sooooo busy my head is going to spin itself to the land of the lost. though, to be honest, i am more busy thinking about all the things that need to be finished this week, too many things. i am a manic jek. happily enough, i was distracted from the busy by a visit with the mama and superstar bean but now i must get back to all that busy i so mysteriously speak of, mostly thinking of those darn papers that need to get written and working on a couple of presentations for this weekend. of course i had time in the middle of this very real busy to bake a cake for a flickr friend.and then of course, in the tradition that is flickr collaborations and inspired by her wreck this journal project, i baked a cake, decorated it and then wrecked it...happy tuesday! i must run off to the market for milk and toothpaste, tomorrow will truly be spent in school mode so don't call me unless of course you are in the neighborhood and have coffee on you or smiles and hugs, those are nice as well.

the week in review: apr 6-12

let's see...easter fun, school work and camping. sounds like a good week if i do say so myself. clickee here if ya want a smidge more on the pics and clickie the week in review pool to see more, most of them are mine but i am trying so very hard to get y'all to play with me.

so far...

i have spent WAY too much time online, showered, talked to my sister on the phone, washed, dried, folded and put away two loads of laundry, eaten too many slices of angel food cake...with whipped cream, sorted the mail, blown the inside bits out of nine eggs...by mouth, no suction thingie as the suction thingie went missing, begun decopauging three eggs with pretty pattern tissue and painted a rainbow, spotty,dotty beard on my face. what have you done?

mysterious

for some bizarre reason, this photo here has been getting major hits on flickr. over 800 views since Monday. i can't figure out where the link is coming from as the stats only read unknown source. i've been curious about it. why this photo? what kind of story or post does it match and why are sooo many people clicking on it. the dresses in the pic are my favorite baby dresses but i hardly think the photo is anything to write home about.

hmmm, mysterious!

a good day turned bad remedy

have you ever had a day that was really good turn bad because of an invasion of the bad brains? just a bit of ick at the right time, not the rastafarian group. i had a great day today until i went to the library. i forgot my notes to myself on which section had the book i was looking for so i tried to use the reference computer only i couldn't get it to go off the main screen. the girl next to me had hers working and kept glancing over at me all smirky-like. so i got up to look for something else and hten i noticed someone using the very computer i vacated. sigh. eventually, i wandered over to the librarian's desk thinking i would ask there and they had a computer and when i peeked i learned it was the kids' computer. i stood their patiently waiting for the librarian to be free and she glared at me and told me to go use the computer. she spoke loudly so everyone could hear her and she didn't seem nice about it at all. i smiled and chuckled and asked how it worked. she appeared to be dumbfounded that i was that clueless and told me to use the "thing on the bottom". i nodded and said i tried everything i could see and she snapped that she could help me AFTER she was through with the person she was TRYING to help. it just went downhill from there and i ended up driving home in tears. that's me, miss cries-a-lot.

yesterday it was summer-like hot. the sun was blinding and i got icky-hot inside the tiny casa. the garden had to be checked on and a tank top was worn. they had predicted cooler temps and rain but as i looked out the window at the clearest of clear blue skies i wondered if we were simply going to miss the showers.just after dinner when i wandered into the kitchen i could see nothing but clouds in the sky and the ground was littered with splotchy-droppy raindrops. the storm came through and swiftly went on its merry way as if it were a dream.this morning was gorgeous. big fluffy puffy clouds rolling all around. there was a cool breeze that turned chilly at times but then calmed itself down enough for for the sun to play while the kidlets i hung out with enjoyed their ice cream. the sun played hide and seek and either flashed me with its dazzling light or camped out behind those puffy clouds making it too dark to get a decent picture of anything.becasue of the library episode, rather than write out the piaget assignment i had just finished, i decided to take advantage of all the blue skies, puffy clouds and sun. on went my newest thrifted mumu of a dress and out came the daffodils that had been camping out in the fridge. i snuck out the side door to take some pics because even though i am certain the construction guys who have been working here think i am crazy what with the talking to myself, the martini shaker watering can and my everyday baking habits, i just didn't think they needed to see me jump around in a red polka-dotted sundress and rainbow striped socks. you however, can. because you, i like.

buggy

i'm not one who is generally afraid of insects. i'm a big fan of bees and spiders and of course i adore those glittery green beetles that careen about the garden even if they have the ugliest larvae around.

that said, i just threw the biggest freak out ever as a result of some critter that crawled along my ear just a moment ago. here, at home, while researching for a class assignment. in my ear. i felt it's legs first and then HEARD it, heard its weird buggy call and i wigged out. completely and utterly threw the biggest freaking fit. that thing must have been partying about on my head, in my hair, on my person.

i think i need to take another shower.

i can't find the poor thing's remains. i must have smooshed it really good. i wonder what it was...scratch that, reverse it. i don't want to know.

the week in review: mar 30-apr 5

it was an upside down sort of week. i had great plans but then felt stuck in a big blob of amber. it was a pretty, dreamy stick but kept me from completing much of what should have been completed. there was school and coffee fun and cookie baking and the making of the bed. i jumped, more than once, got others to jump and partook of the magic that is scoops, two days in a row. the mister is slowly forgiving me for that. ice cream? without him? i am in sooo much trouble!

the garden is in beautiful bloom, the witch-baby is driving me batty with her pleas to go outside, the casa is as always a mess but this mess seems prettier than others hence the amber stick.

the weekend was full of plans without my guy except of course for our double feature of john boorman flicks brought to us by the prefix EX. there was jumping fun on ice cream friday. we have to go back to that wall and i need to hang out on ice cream friday more often! i took the roomie to marukai where her eyes spun out of control and we stayed out all day. and on sunday, i hit downtown l.a. with some nifty classmates to research a presentation we have to put together on the story of Manzanar. how lucky for us to find a wonderful exhibit at the museum and tents upon tents upon colorful goodie-filled tents set up for the cherry blossom festival.

on my way back to union station, i stopped to take pics of a giant and nifty sculpture where i was then stopped by a large security guard who informed me that a permit was needed to photograph the premises. what is our city coming to? there were no signs posted so i shrugged and said thank-you and moseyed on back to the train station where the heat got to me and the mister picked me up.

this week will be packed with visits and school work and then the mister and i hit the road for an overnight in carrizo plain to tour the petroglyphs, take pics of the wildflowers and eat s'mores with the goosey girl and family.

happy april!

oh wait! did you know that there is a flickr group for the week in review? i'm not the only one who is nutty enough to do this. here are a few more, check it out and join us!

*kitty pink stars
*WhiMsey Love
*polkadot creations
*jessi is cubed

words & pictures: the long drive

mister a-go-go & i have a thing for road trips. we like exploring our surroundings and are hoping to execute THE GREAT ROAD TRIP within the next two years. originally, we were to head out for places unknown directly after my graduation which is this May. however, it seems that i need to get my mouth and face fixed which requires a bit of cash and many hours under the knife and a hospital stay and orthodontia...for two years. it's probably a good thing though what with the economy being the way it is right now and the mister still employed and all. we should take advantage of all those medical benefits and such and i think i'm finally tired of the clicking, popping pain in my jaw and face. the idea of having everything change scares me to pieces but the idea of being pain free has its allure. while we wait, we plan. we have a large map of the states up on the wall with pins marking all the places we want and need to see. some are for parks, some for cities and others for people i would like to see and meet. wouldn't it be super cool to meet? the GREAT ROAD TRIP is our trip of all trips. it's a trip to explore and figure out where we wish to land. we're hoping we can make it last for three or more months, that's why we call it the GREAT ROAD TRIP, it's going to be a very long drive.so, the GREAT ROAD TRIP. we're planning to pack up this tiny, jammed pack casa of all it's vintage goodness and junk and hitting the road. the witch-baby will go live with family, we will sell and donate a great portion of the vintage goodness and junk and yes, even bits of my well curated fabric stash. we will pack up as much as we can fit into a tiny u-haul and storage unit and the rest will be portioned out however it may be. we will have a set of handy maps and a long list of places we wish to visit. we will camp, we will sleep in the car and we will crash on your sofa or floor or in your back yard. we will cook on the car engine and wear the same pair of jeans until we find an all night laundromat to pull into to wash our back pack full of clothes and work a sudoku puzzle or two. we will share the driving and use our cruise control and stretch out our mileage by driving all pokey-like. we will fill ourselves up with cheese and crackers and fruit picked from where we can pick it. we will take picture after picture after picture. we will visit as many state parks as we can. we will use up more than one bottle of sun-screen and our hats will be much appreciated. we will load up on podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and This American Life and we will listen to Patsy Cline, The Magnetic Fields, The Ventures and Cab Calloway. We will make sock critters and play our ukes and we will go to bed early to wake up with the sun.

We will head one way and end up in another direction. We will argue over who ate the last slice of cheese. We will laugh, we will have fun, we will get cranky with each other.

We will have the time of our lives.

for more takes on the long drive, motor on over to Meet Me at Mike's.

the april bed!

hooray! it's spring!

circa

the witch-baby has wedged herself on my lap. she is nestled and purring and up against the keyboard. my left leg is now all tingly asleep and it is difficult to type. she keeps butting her head up against my left hand. but, if i shift, she will jump down and i feel all cozy like.

it's the first of the month. time to do the bed. i had to visit my flickr stream to make sure that what i wanted to do hasn't been overdone. one of my favorite things to do is use the slideshow option coupled with a random tune from my iTunes. not just my slideshows, i like looking at group streams and other things. it's always a kick when the first song that pops up is perfect. the song that popped up for the bed shots was Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens...see? nifty!

so, as i sit here looking at flickr, cuddling with the witch-baby, answering emails and enjoying a morning cup of coffee (which i am now out of), i have the shuffle on, on, on iTunes. it reminds me of a jukebox and i've always wanted a jukebox! a song pops up that i cannot remember the last time i heard it and i know every word. it was a favorite, a big favorite and when i first bought it in the early nineties, it was on cassette. cassette! so when the song pops up, i can immediately remember which tunes come before it and after it and i remember the physical act of getting up to flip the tape over unless i was in the car and then it automatically flipped sides. it was like a woosh of a flashback! i can remember the vintage dresses i wore when this album played. i can still lip-sync along like a wannabe member of the band. i can remember it all and it was odd that it was more than fifteen years ago. i still feel like that twenty year old. i may not be as thin or as vintagely ensconced but i'm still her, you know, without the not-good-for-me boyfriend and the bookstore job that barely paid for all the ramen i ate. really, i am. and it makes me wonder, do we carry inside of us all of the wes we were? i mean, are we really any different from our earlier selves? do we all see our young faces in the mirror when we look and will we always be young at heart?in case you were wondering what the song was it was Hoof by Mary's Danish from the album Circa which came out back in 1991.