I thought I would share with you a little painting I did of my favorite thinking chair from my vacation in Maine.
It was really difficult to tear myself away from this green chair for the view from it of Rockport Harbor was beautiful.
I didn't want to let it slip from my memory. I just had to paint it.
We were in Maine for several weeks. each week we rented a different house in a different location along Maine's gorgeous coast. We found all three place through VRBO, Vacation Rental By Owner. We have used that sight many, many times over the years and have never been disappointed when trying to find a vacation spot. If you would like to find out more about this particular gem of a place in Rockport, click here.
This house happened to be just a few steps from Rockport Harbor and also the photo school I told you about that I had attended when I was younger. Walking on the very same surfaces I had walked on before "my life" took over, was a bizarre experience. I could not have imagined, back then, where I would be today.
It makes me think that it is pointless to fret about the future, its course will be run no matter how much I stress out about it today. This house was LOADED with thinking chairs. I have to tell you that the combination of fantastic views, both outside and inside this home, the plethora of places to perch, and the fact that because it wasn't mine and I didn't have to tend to any responsibilities, made this the ideal vacation spot. If I win the lottery, I would like to buy it.
Carolina
I hope you all had a beautiful Easter. I wrote my last post, of Easter memories, perhaps because I was a bit melancholy. I knew this Easter would be different because one of my girls wasn't going to be here for it. This Easter my oldest daughter and I, were left to our own devices. Without a family to cook for, I offered my oldest a "free pass" to do only what she wanted to do - she didn't hesitate. Before I was finished asking what she wanted to do, she had her answer- SHOPPING. Now, you must understand that there was NOTHING we needed to buy, but we went anyways. We shopped like we meant it. In order to do that I had to trade my mountains for the sparkling mountains of Atlanta, Georgia:
Instead of eating my Easter gourmet feast, we feasted at several upscale spots. My favorite, though, was Market, a swanky eatery in the heart of Buckhead, a shopping mecca for women who understand that shopping is a girl thing. Market is just one of several restaurants created by Jean-George Vongerichten that serve out-of-this-world food. I dined like royalty. One of my most memorable dishes was a soup of puréed spring pea shoots with a parmesan foam on top. At my house... the "chef", your's truly, doesn't do "foam on food". You will have to make do with the one photo, below, and take my word for it that it was "fabuloso". It just wasn't the kind of place where a girl in cowboy boots can blend in and whip out a camera at the same time. The only reason I managed to take this one pic was because it was an empty area near the loo.
We went to Atlanta with full intentions of doing marathon shopping. Many places, though, were out of our league. Several of the stores we entered had gorgeous women buying expensive gorgeous stuff while their gorgeous bodyguards/drivers waited at the door. Or at least that is what I thought was going on until I realized the stores themselves, like Louis Vuitton below, had been extremely thoughtful and kept me in mind when hiring very cute "bodyguards" to actually guard their stuff.
For the entire weekend we wore our cowboy boots because we knew we were out of practice for marathon shopping after living on the mountain for so long and our feet had to be comfortable if we were going to last three whole days. The girls there, though, were wearing stilettos. It seemed like every store had a high volume of stilettos on the floor.
With prices to match. In the past few weeks I have had over forty countries reading my blog so I will be very clear so that there is no miscommunication with the image below of the price of the shoe. Those aren't pesos, those are good old american U.S. dollars - three thousand, three hundred, and ninety five of them is what they want. I understand that shopping is a girl thing, but really, I could feed an orphanage in Vietnam on that for a year. My feet will never be that precious.
I did get a chance to see one of my favorite stores, Anthropologie. The beauty of going all the way down to Atlanta to see my favorite store is that they had it SUPER SIZED. I was in Anthropologie heaven. Their clothing and their house stuff is all right up my alley, but that is not the reason I go there.
I go there because I simply can't get enough of their displays. They are clever on steroids. Just look at how they displayed all these kitchen timers. Brilliant. I felt like I was reaching in for a lemon drop.
I also love that they never have stopped me from taking photos - in any of their stores. Whenever I go to a city, I stop into their stores for a jolt of creativity. Had I been younger, I would have been trying to work for their corporate offices in Philadelphia. click on this link if you really want to be jealous of all the creative people who do work at their corporate office. The link will take you to see photos of their parent offices at Urban Outfitters.
On with the shopping. We didn't stay in Buckhead the whole time. We also went to some of the cozier villages. I was a very good girl at the paper store in Vinings. Vinings felt a little like Santa Monica without the boardwalk or the homeless. Lots of quaint shops with spots to quench your thirst or get a healthy bite to eat.
If I may be allowed one more comparison to California: we also made time to visit Little Five Points. If Buckhead is the well-to-do relative, Little Five Points is the bohemian rebel in the family. It was very remmenicent of time I had innocently spent at Haight-Ashbury, in San Francisco, in my earlier days.
The vintage stores there, were killer. At the sight of the "gentlemen" hanging around the only vacant parking spot, I swore I would only use cash in this part of town. Do you think the two of us in cowboy boots stood out there? It was a very difficult thing to stick to not using my credit card as we wove our way in and around the vintage stores there. Stefan's was the best store of the lot: great selection, super helpful staff, no incense burning, and everybody wasn't ultra tattooed, pierced, or coifed in dreadlocks.
In the end, though, I suppose it was a good idea to not use our credit card in all the shops at Little Five Points. We probably would have loaded up the car if we hadn't stuck to our cash only policy. Nica ended up with a lovely pink vintage dress that she wore on Easter Sunday. She looked like a little, pink, asian, Easter confection.
Although it was a VERY different kind of Easter for both of us, we had a blast. Thanks to our treasured cowboy boots we faired pretty well doing back to back twelve hour shopping days. Now I am back on my mountain. I am glad we had our weekend, one on one.
Some of you may ask "Why drive three and a half hours and shop 'till you drop when you don't really NEED anything?" For my daughter, it's a girl thing. If marathon shopping is not my cup of tea, then you might ask "Why did I do it?" It's a mama thing.
One last summer fling in Savannah, Georgia. It is a place that feels like rushing is against the law, where even the trees in the streets seem to take their time growing old.
The waterways there seem to meander slowly - however it is nature fooling you for the tides move in and out at a speed that would make docking any boat a challenge, for the current is swift when the tides are doing their thing.
We were there because my girls where joining other home-schoolers in a hands-on Marine Biology class. I was just grateful to be in sandals one more time.
The days were spent learning on site at the Burton Center and on the beach,
in the water,
surf sleuthing with huge nets,
touching things that looked positively questionable yet magical,
discovering things like the large claw on a male fiddler crab is there ONLY for the purpose of attracting the female.
When not dissecting sharks or handling live animals native to Tybee Island where the class took place, trips into the marsh provided more than a plethora of learning, they also provided free mud masks and fun.
When it was all said and done, after 12 hour days, I needed a civilized break. Daddy knew just how to bring me back to life. We had lunch in downtown Savannah at Vic's On The River. This was the picture I took while I waited for a gourmet version of fried green tomatoes with goat cheese and tomato chutney.
When all the courses had been served and I had finished my cappuccino, it was time for a leisurly stroll through the downtown streets of Savannah.
I managed to make it through the afternoon without twisting an ankle - a miracle considering what was underfoot.
All in all, it was beautiful and educational. To quote Dorothy, though, "there is no place like home".
I am glad to be back. I missed you all.
I thought I was all set with my studio desk. I made it, organized it, posted about it, and went upstairs to make dinner feeling pretty smug and accomplished. When dinner was done and the family was getting ready to settle in and watch a movie, I declined to join them and told them all I was too excited about my new desk top and was going to go work in the studio. Giddy, like a child, I walked into my studio feeling like I was getting the better form of entertainment for the night. I flicked on the lights and waited for them to adjust. Those super duper energy saver lights - the CFO's (compact flouresent) take a couple of minutes to "bloom" as I call it. While I waited I admired the grand expanse of workspace I now had. Pause. My table had a greenish tinge to it, I waited for the lights to come on full power and for that greenish cast to dissappear. Big, long, pause... still waiting for the lights ... still waiting ... green, Green, GREEN ??? The lights fully "bloomed", but my desktop still had that green tinge. Apparently, at night, that was the way the lights were going to make it look. Well, I would have none of it. I put some fabric swatches on it to see how well I could judge color, but it was a no go. A sleepless night ensued and the next day I was the proud owner of yet another power tool, a palm sander.
Since then I sanded all the coating off - I needed the palm sander so that I would only take the clear finish off and not go right through the plywood. The belt sander I had would have been too much. Does it sound like I am quantifying my purchase and the addition of yet another power tool to my arsenal? You "betcha". Now that I had the egg yolk yellow sawhorses screwed into the plywood, I got to test the movability factor of my desk top. It was "no problema". Most of my week has been spent, then, on this desk. Sanding, 2 coats of priming, and many coats of paint later ... I am just watching the paint dry.
In an effort to give you something more creative to ponder, I am going to include 3 images of bridges I saw in Maine while we were on our summer road trip. Since this post is about my greenish hued desk top I think it's a good time to share these images with you. They are a bit "out there" on the color. I think it is important to push the envelope, if you will, with color. It makes you see things differently. Hopefully my desk will dry soon and I can get going soon on my other projects. See you then. Carolina
I love my husband, but one of his best features is also one of his worst. He is the kind of guy that doesn't dilly dally, he doesn't just sit around waiting for things to happen - he gets it done as expeditiously as possible. Most of the time that is a great feature to have but we just took a family road trip and I was privy to the other side of the coin - he didn't want to stop on the highway so I could get a picture or two for my blog.
Now , you must understand that he did pullover to let me take pictures whenever I wanted, whenever we weren't on the highway, that is. On the way to Maine I was busy stitching the quilt as it was part of our wedding gift, on the way back I had to find a way to entertain myself. Hence, the photos you are looking at.
But just look at those shadows. I couldn't help but notice the lovely patterns the shadows made. Many a trucker gave me an odd look as I stuck my phone out the window of our overly stuffed vehicle. I am sure I am not the first one to do that, but I am pretty sure I am one of the oldest.
I love all things girly,colorful, with a dose of vintage. But I gotta tell you these trucks are too beautiful to not notice. Don't you just think "quilts" when you see them?
Personally, I couldn't get enough of them. I find there is so much beauty in our world and it is not all found in nature.
From now on, if I am not driving, I will be taking pictures out the window with my little phone & loving all the patterns and reflections that are out there, and the love of my life will be happy that I didn't ask him to pull over for me.
Do you remember the Kodachrome song? It is right up there with American Pie for a road trip song. Do you feel the need to sing it full out? Come on, I have sung it twenty times already. Jodi? Remember doing karaoke together in Aruba? Come on, click here and lets sing it together.
Until next time, Carolina
Stonington, Maine is more than a stone's throw away from my mountain, but that is where I stayed when I went to the wedding - The Brady Bunch wedding. I have been away from my computer and the internet for almost 2 weeks ... for a blogger that is a near death experience. I will blog about that road trip in the future. For now, a quick post on what happened to all those T-shirts. For 2000 miles (3219 KM) I sat in the front seat stitching my little heart out. By the time I got there it was finished, and a quick pop, pop and my eyeballs were back in their sockets. We were tired when we got there but the next morning I went out with my project to get it photographed for the blog before the wedding. The sunrise was, as my very Chilean Papi would say, ES-SPEC-TA-COOLERR.
As was the house we had rented. It is called The Lobster Trap. Shhh, can you tell everybody is still asleep in the house?
The only people awake at that hour (5 AM) besides me were the lobstermen. All that was left of the lobster boats were the dinghies put in their place.
After a day out in the cold, northern Atlantic waters they tie up their lobster boats to these moorings and leave their dinghies closer to land at the dinghy dock which you see here below is empty. They are all out there in the Atlantic getting lobsters for all of us tourists that descend on this part of the world in the summer ( we are too wimpy to handle their frigid, bone breaking winters).
As the light got better my chances for finding a good location to shoot my project seemed elusive. To all you quilters out there - How in the _ _ _ _ do you all shoot your quilts? Everything I tried looked awful.
Tried as I might I couldn't get it right
I finally had to enlist the help of two very accommodating young ladies.
I cut up all the t-shirts and I stitched them on to dark grey cotton jersey, I backed the coverlet with a lighter grey cotton jersey. The whole thing is kid proof, I stitched it with double threaded button craft thread. It should hold up when the dog comes in all muddy and wet and one of the Brady Bunch needs to wipe him dry. Into the washer and the dryer - on ANY setting. Would you like a closer look? I hope they like it.
