down Moab way

It happened. I went to Moab. I bought jewelry for myself. I slept in a tipi. I drove lots of canyon and winding road, just so much. I climbed mountains. I went to Arches. They all happened this weekend, people. So many new things for this girl. It was a genuinely exciting and fun time. I would be lying if I said that there weren't nerve-fraying moments, mostly having to do with driving through the canyon or Arches. Those roads in Arches are no kind of fun. But in other ways, dreams came true.

Some cacti neighbors of ours. I just love cacti.
It's nice to see them in their natural habitat.

I. Slept. In. A. Tipi. 

Let that sink in for a moment. 

All the dreams of my six year old self dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder came true. 

Home sweet home for one night, complete with a beautiful view. 

There is something deeply satisfying about fulfilling the dream of your six year old self. 

Also, I would recommend Moab Under Canvas to anyone. Go and stay in their tipis. 

So we checked in. 

Became familiar with our surroundings, and settled in. 

Research and nesting are necessary, no matter where you are.

                                                

Then we took ourselves into Moab proper. Did some nostalgic shopping in stores Grandma frequented and I have been to many a time with my mama. 

I made my very first jewelry purchase for myself at one of these stores. 

It was sort of perfect. 

My jet earrings. I went round and round the counters and I  kept coming back to these.
I mean I drooled over many pieces. But let's be real, there are things a teacher can only dream about.
These earrings were both beautiful and doable. Plus, I love them. 

I also couldn't go home without these. My mom told me they're called
Navajo pearls. Every girl needs a pair of pearls, right?

             

Then it was time to hunker down for the evening. There may have been friendship bracelet-making involved with the evening's festivities. 

Good morning, Moab. And what a beautiful morning it was too.

Then off to Arches. Bless my sweet little lapi car. It valiantly went up those hills as I refused to go over 35 mph. Those curves. The possibility of falling off the cliff side. 

There he is. The champion of the day. 

Balancing Rock. One of the first stopping off points on the way to the Delicate Arch hike.
I think it's a lovely entrance point. 

We hiked the Delicate Arch. I am no hiker. I love and appreciate nature. But I neither love nor appreciate heights. The thought of falling from said heights and being caught somewhere where no one will hear your cries, is always with me. 

But I muscled my way through those fears and did it. It was worth it because it was quintessential and beautiful. But it didn't suddenly change me into a mountain and/or cliff climber. Doesn't mean I didn't appreciate it and love it. 

"Oh what are man compared to rocks and trees?"

The view from the back side of the last leg of the trail. It looked like someone had taken a spoon to the rock.
So, so cool. 

We made it to the Delicate Arch! I stayed on the opposite side of it, sitting on a rock and marveling

at the general beauty and splendor. It was such a lovely, overcast day, which made the red rocks and the green accents just pop

Proof that I was there. See my shoe?

For the beauty of the earth. 

We did some more driving around the park and ended up at the Double Arch. The Double Arch is some cool stuff. The walk to it is wonderful because you just see the double arch coming closer and closer. Plus, there aren't any heights involved in it. Major bonus. You can get close without having to fear tumbling to your untimely death. 

Probably one of my favorite views of the day. 

Breath taking

We said goodbye to the beautiful Moab and the beautiful Arches National Park and all the awe-inspiring views. Drove back to Provo-town. I'm an Oklahoma girl, who's used to flat, there was nothing like driving through all the canyon nonsense between Moab and Provo to make me feel the sweet relief of being back in my apartment. 

these United States

 After talking about tipis and Moab and bucket lists and thinking about head wraps and flannel and other such sartorial choices for glamping, I feel like it's the appropriate time to reveal the newest addition of my cards. I have embraced the power of the artist to be working on multiple projects at once, even if the projects look similar. So I've shown a few of my many international girls and simultaneously I came up with another set.
  This may call for some explanation. I feel like hipster is a bit of a nebulous and strangely large but also a narrow niche of a thing. But I find the whole thing fascinating. That might be partly because I took a buzzfeed quiz that said I was slightly hipster. I'm on the fringe and I want to know. I was also trying to figure out another way to capture these United States in my international girls. So Hipsters Across the US was born. A bit of a lark. A lark that had some snark. I didn't add any of that here. I'll let you interpret it without said snark.

Northeast (NYC, let's just be real)

New England

Midwest

Great Plains 

Southwest

Northwest

of arches and bucket lists

I'm going on a trip. A wee weekend trip. It is a trip with the main attraction not being a museum or shopping or city-like things. It is a trip which is focusing on the outdoors. You heard right. Nature. Mother Earth will be the main highlight of said trip. This is a rather new sort of trip for me. I love Nature. I think Nature is beautiful. I think Nature is restorative. I think we deny a fundamental part of ourselves when we say Nature is icky or "not our thing". But I like my amenities. I figure I was born in the twentieth century and as such I should always take advantage of indoor plumbing. I like a bed with sheets and a solid roof with a warm-water-capable shower underneath said roof. I also don't love heights or things with poison. So sue me.
     Needless to say, Nature-centered things such as hiking or kayaking or deep-sea diving aren't really my jam. I'm more of a stroller, wader and reader on the beach kind of individual. But sometimes an opportunity comes knocking and you can't say no. I'm going to Moab, people. I'll be journeying with three other girls and the main highlight is Arches National Park.

Obviously, or not so obviously, this is not my photo.
Nor can I promise I will take such a photo.
I will take photos.
Never fear.

Yes, hiking and heights and potential run-ins with poisonous things. But it's a must-do whilst living in Utah. Plus, there are a couple of jewelry stores I lalalove down there because they specialize in Native American jewelry and have the Afton Bowman seal of approval. Besides that, I have my own memories of going there with my Mom in extremely emotional times--either on the way home for summer or back to the Provo for school in the fall. You might think that the real main point of the trip for me is going to those stores. I'd say they're a tie for first. Nature's grandeur being reason .5, which everyone knows comes before your #1 reason.
  No, the tied for first reason is: we'll be staying in a tipi!!!! A tipi that has a bathroom and running water near it. It's a "glamping" service called Moab Under Canvas: the way camping in Utah was meant to be (visit them at www.moabundercanvas.com).

Photos are courtesy of Moab Under Canvas's website. Have to say that first off.
Second, soak it in. Soak that bucket-list-dream-come-true ambience.

You bet your grandma's dentures it is. It's like going on an Old English Safari, without traveling to Africa and the fear of lions. As we were discussing the option, it suddenly hit me: staying in a tipi participating in a glamping-like experience in the middle of the desert is on my bucket list. I have no written bucket list. But if I did, that would be on it.

oh my oh my oh my oh my oh my 

 I love everything about the idea. It's a combination of that Vogue photo shoot with Kiera Knightly on the Savannah and being a wilderness person. Without the inconveniences of either fantasy. I can hardly wait. Now I have to decide what to wear. I get it. It's hiking. But it's also staying in a teepee and jewelry shopping in the granola cum hipster Moab. It's a bucket list item. That's a whole different pay scale than just hiking.

girls of the world

You may have thought the Galentine's project ended in February. You thought wrong, my friend. Now it's not so much a Galentine's thing as an artistic pursuit. Like I dream about buying colored pencils and feel that giddy satisfaction that simultaneously makes you feel like flying and incredibly grounded when I make the cards. The feeling I've had in the past when playing the cello, storytelling, embroidering, directing and teaching. The creative process coming alive. Look at me waxing rhapsodic about this. But if there is anything to wax rhapsodic about, it's creative work. I just never really thought that would be connected to visual art.
 Never say never, I guess, because I started a Girls of the World series. I'm a little bit in love with them.
                                                                Here's a sampling:

France

Navajo

Greece

Afghanistan

Mexico

Scotland

Poland

Kenya

Peru

Norway

bard birthday bash

Besides being Autism Awareness Month, this month also commemorates William Shakespeare's 450th birthday. I'm not sure the connection there. As far as I know, there are not many theories out there that Shakespeare was on the spectrum. For all we know, he might have been. But I don't think it's a popular thing to speculate about. So we'll stop talking about that now.
     I don't know the exact date of Shakespeare's birthday. I realize that's something a person could probably google and find out in about five minutes, but I didn't do that. I definitely did not do that when I planned the Bard's Birthday Bash 2k14. Themed, of course. What other kind of Shakespeare birthday party is there? It is by nature a themed evening. I just don't really believe in Bard worship; so I figure he can just be ok with a good-faith effort to celebrate his birth within a month of its actual date.

                                    How do you prepare for such an evening?

   First, you cannibalize the copy of Twelfth Night you bought for your costume design class and literally never plan on reading again. . .unless you're forced to. With the loose pages, you create a bunting.

Besides a bunting made of a play, I thought making a "happy" sign with birthday related things on the flags
would be a great idea. And it was pretty adorable. Then I attached it to the yarn. . . it read yppah.
I just left it. Shakespeare isn't the only one who can be creative with language. 

 Second, you try to decide what to serve your guests at this tea party. As that's happening, you need to carefully choose who is invited to this shindig. 450 is a big birthday and it deserves careful consideration. Thoughtfully consider who of your acquaintance would appreciate the fact you made a bunting from on of the Shakes' plays, made an English dessert, are using tea cups to drink things like orange juice, and have a game that borderlines on a Theatre 101 homework assignment. My planning process meant I chose the guest list first. It was rather short and involved only people who I knew would take a theme night and especially a Billy Boy Shakes theme night and really run with it. They all do theatre. Once that was decided, I had to turn my attention to dessert. Will definitely would have expected something delicious and would have felt most comfortable if that something delicious was from his native land. I'm not so sure about treacle or spiced raisins or something called sticky pudding. So I took the advice of my dear mother and made a trifle. Very English. I mean they mention it more than once on multiple episodes of Call the Midwife. Automatically makes me like it more. And may I say I now understand why it was a staple in wedding food fair. Yummy stuff. Would definitely make any middling wedding reception to the next level. It took the Bard's bash to a whole new level.

Stick a handful of candles on there, which is difficult on fresh whipped cream. But we are
nothing if we're not committed to celebrating right. Part of the that correct celebration was using the tea cups
my sister and I painted the weekend prior.
a brief note on trifle: I usually say "if it doesn't have chocolate, it's not worth my time."
But I was wrong. There is something lovely about angel food cake, strawberries, raspberry jello, vanilla pudding and whipped cream.
Strawberries and cream, people. 

Third, you decide the dress code. In this case it was "wear whatever says Shakespeare to you."

Of course you need to do a photo shoot to prove that people kept to the dress code.
They did. Bless each person's heart. 

Fourth have a nerdy good time: pick a random number between 1 and 154, then read that sonnet before singing a happy day to the Birthday Boy himself. The many happy returns, mixed with the random-conceptualization-of-Shakespeare-shows game, along with waxing rhapsodic about meaningful Shakespeare moments in life (some of us not feeling as rhapsodic as others, sorry Bill S.) should have made Mr. Granddaddy of Playwrights happy on/around his special day.
                                    Happy 450th, William Shakespeare. Happy 450th.

elbow patches and Target

Sometimes when I'm at Target, getting what needs to be got for life and looking at other things that don't necessarily qualify as something that one needs for life, I like to look at the men's sweaters. You see all sorts of things there. Very intriguing things, if you're a person who is always on the look out for something to stitch on. It's when I'm thinking about embroidery that I impulse buy a sweater for le Target. A few weeks ago was no different. Work was just one of those days when the sun rises in the east and humans are humans, so I bought myself a cream man sweater to comfort my frazzled self. I know, buying something doesn't always make things better, but embroidering on something sure does.

     So the stitching began. I decided on elbow patches, because why not? Everybody loves an elbow patch. I was looking through my sewing case and I found this fat quarter my mom had bought for me from our favorite quilt store in OKC years ago. And it was perfect. The creams match exactly, people. Exactly. That never happens. Serendipity turned into a meant to be situation.

I cut the patches. I used a water bottle in the sleeve to help keep it steady and keep from sewing the sleeve shut. 

Although the patch alone was cute, I couldn't stop there. I have a compulsion to embroider things. 

Can't help it. 

So I tried a chain stitch around the edge and was well pleased with the outcome. Doesn't the green and coral look festive together? With that cream? Come on people. This may not be what dreams are made of, but it's at least what day dreams are made of for some of us. 

Then the elbow patches were done. An adorable pair. So adorable, I decided to mimic a long pinned

idea on Pinterest and try a shoulder patch as well. 

There it is in its infant stages. Imagine it with green all around. It turned out quite nicely. Very springy and it satisfied my need to stitch. For now. 

cards for a Tuesday evening

I hope everyone had a pleasant Tuesday, with only the baseline of chaos

necessary to get things done and nothing more. Oh, is my job the only one

where a certain amount of chaos equals productivity? Huh. Well, 

whatever the case, enjoy these few cards.  

Liesel
The Book Thief

Daisy Buchanan
The Great Gatsby

Anne
Persuasion

Emma
Emma

ps. Consider these cards a reading list of sorts. Most of them come from stories I adore or at least the sorts books I can appreciate. (I know you know what I mean). Looking for something to read? Then  pick a card, any card.