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Friday, December 31st, 2004 link Tonight we are going to Joe and Stacie's for a party. I made sugar cookies yeterday which I will frost today. It's so nice to have a couple days off. I have been pretending that I don't live a double life. I haven't painted all week. I am just reading, shopping and cooking. It's nice to have a break. I feel like a normal person. We are banning cigarrettes from our lives tonight. We keep pussyfooting around, tonight we make a pact. This next year is going to be my healthiest yet. Here was my list of things to work on in 2004: All in all, I think I made some improvements on almost everything on the list, exceot the running and exersize. And that I don't feel too terrible about. I obviously made the list before I broke my foot.
Thursday, December 30th, 2004 link Tra la la, I have today off! I didn't even know I was getting it off until yesterday at 5pm. It's just really dead this week. It's so nice to have a day off. Tom and I slept in and then I made fresh biscuits and we had Oona and Liz's jam for breakfast. Then I went shopping! I went over to the east bay to get a cookie tray from Michael's. I got two sweaters at Ross and poked around the east bay. I'm making sugar cookies for our party tomorrow at Joe and Satcey's.
Monday, December 27th, 2004 link My pumpkin soup turned out great. We had some leftover pizza dough from a pizza night a month or two ago so I cooked that up with some olive paste, olive oil, parmesan and fresh parsley. Mmmm, mmm good. I should post the pumpkin recipe because it was so good and really easy. Plus it's really filling and is super low in calories. It was really rainy today so it was the perfect thing to come home to. Despite all the crazy holiday food, I lost 1 pound last week. Today I am wearing Tom's jeans. I had sort of been avoiding jeans for a long time because I just couldn't stomach buying any clothes that would remind me how porked out I am. But the jeans I tried on today gave me some hope. Tonight I tried on some old jeans of mine to see how I'm doing. One pair is close to fitting, another pair is a little farther off, but they were always my skinny jeans anyway, and another pair actually fit again. So I can see the light, halleluja, I can see the light. As you probably guessed, I'm more obsessed with food right now than painting. It comes and goes in phases. Cooking is so much like painting. And when it's raining outside, my studio seems so far away and cold. Plus heck, I'm on winter vacation, right?
Sunday, December 26th, 2004 link We went to the Aquarium today and enjoyed the outter bay tank as usual but it was a little too crowded for my taste. I've decided to only go there when I'm playing hookie. I think I'd already decided that before but I forgot so here I am deciding again. I never was able to get my paintings back from the Lisa Coscino Gallery which kinda stinks because as the next quarter approaches, my life is going to get nuttier and long, leisurely drives are going to be a bit tough. I did find out the I sold my dog painting. Which is great. I've been wanting someone to appreciate that one for a while. I always liked it but it always got lukewarm responses. On the way home, we picked up a pumpkin from a nearly rotted pumpkin patch. I can't believe it's already that time again. I'm so glad I got one in time. It was a good one too. Nice dark meat inside and quite a few tasty seeds which I toasted up in some butter. The pumpkin thing turned into quite a long evening and I'm very proud of Tom was having the fortuity to stick it out with me. It started innocently enough. I thought, I will roast the pumpkin and then make something out of some of the flesh for dinner tonight. I decided on pumpkin gnocchi. I knew I was going to have a whole lotta pumpkin puree on my hands but wasn't too worried. I figured I'd just freeze them in 1 cup sized freezer bags I'd have them for a couple months. The pumpkin took a lot longer to roast than I expected. It took so long in fact, that I decided to switch strategies midway and move the pieces to a big steamer. That worked well. The next challenge was that we don't have a food processor. We do have a "processor attachment" for our blender but it only purees about 1 to 2 cups at a time. So after too much time, I got all my pureed pumpkin into a very large bowl. Tom and I then proceeded to make up some gnocchi and boiled them up, sauteed them with some butter and sprinkled them with parmesan cheese. They were ok but not great. So we decided to make a bunch of pumpkin tortellinis with the rest of the dough... 4 cups of flour went into this dough so we are talking a lot of pasta. We rolled and stuffed and twisted and pinched until our faces were blue. We ended up with 3 - 4 meals worth of very yummy pumpkin tortellinis and tom learned ow to make a tortellini. He thinks I'm crazy with my cooking projects and I can't believe he got roped into this one. I think he had a good time but it might have been a bit much for him. After getting the tortellinis and the extra pumpkin (8 cups worth) into the freezer, I chopped up some veggies and threw in stuff for pumpkin soup to be cooked in the crock pot. I get to use the stock we made from thanksgiving so it'll be a 100% from scratch soup. Yum!
Saturday, December 25th, 2004 link Ho ho ho, Santa was very nice to me this year. I got the Art of Dr. Suess book from Hildreth, a nice bright pink jacket from Tom plus a turtle night light so i don't have to pee in the dark at night anymore. I got a Silpat finally so I can bake perfect cookies, and some cool socks. We had a really nice and really uneventful Christmas. There is very little to do around Pacific Grove on Christmas so we just walked around, took naps, ate ice cream and read books. It's nice to have a couple days of no tvs, no cellphones and no computers. Two days isn't long enough though. You've got to spent at least 4 days to enter into a vortex. Last night we ate at Passionfish on Lighthouse in Pacific Grove. It was a couple blocks from our B&B. They had a brussel sprot warm salad which made me very happy. I don't get to eat enough brussel sprouts and i may be one of the few people on the planet who actually do love them. I had a spare rib and mashed potato dinner. Tom had an ahi tuna appetizer and yellow tail for dinner. It was yummy. We skipped dessert and headed to Old Bath House where we continued the heavy drinking established pre dinner at the B&B. It was a pretty drunken late night and it was a lot of fun. Tonight we went to the Old Bath House at 7:30 for dinner. We started with Champaigne. We've decided there's not enough champaigne in our lives so we are going to start looking for some nice half bottles to keep around "just in case". Because you never know when a little bubbly could be desparately needed. Our dinners were great. I even ate the lobster bisque even though I stick strictly to land animals. For dessert we had an eggnog creme brulle and a pumpkin cheesecake (yum). It was a really great day and night. And I continue to have the greatest boyfriend in all the world.
Friday, December 24th, 2004 link We are off to Pacific Grove, Merry Christmas! I haven't shown any new paintings for a while. It's certainly not from lack of painting, just lack of time. These are works in progress from my Seaside/Monterey series. Photos have too much flashy flash. Sorry! Thursday, December 23rd, 2004 link Tom and I both got off work early from our computer geek day jobs and now we are both geeking out of our respective computers. What dorks.
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2004 link I went to Michelle's tonight for some wine, girl talk and to return a sander. I had lunch with Todd Lappin today too. I feel so social. It's like I have a normal life or something. Go figure.
Monday, December 20th, 2004 link I sold another painting at the Lisa Coscino Gallery! I don't know which one. I'll find out when I go back down there this weekend for Christmas. This is a very good thing. I need to find out when I can get my paintings back from the Lola Gallery. I don't know if I sold anything there yet. They only had 4 pieces of mine and I heard they were sort of in the back. It's looking like my contract might go a little farther than the beginning of February. Not surprizing but I'm a little nervous about all the school and work. I have to remind myself, I am doing really good and the longer I work and save, the longer I can dedicate to full time painting when my contract is done. And that'll be *at the latest* the end of March. I'm really happy they are liking me. And I'm getting in at least 1 full day of painting right now. I think I'll be ok. I'll just really be ready for a break when it's all done. Hmmmm, maybe I should take the summer off from school.... I probably shouldn't. We will see. Maybe I need it to gather materials for paintings. Maybe..... Maybe.... < Evil thoughts tumble around her tiny little brain >
Sunday, December 19th, 2004 link Still full of angry girl hormones. Tom was playing music today so I am sitting in the studio taking advantage of the wireless interweb. Yay! I can't get up the energy to paint but I am inching ever closer. I painted some yesterday. Started some studies on the Seaside Series, they are ok so far. They got me all exhistential, or maybe it was just the hormones. Why do I paint? What's the point? Who am I painting for? Shouldn't I be painting for me? Am I doing this series because I think I can sell them, or because I really want to. No one's going to buy my shit anyway. I'm a talentless hack. What a waste of time, space and money. What do my paintings look like? Do I have a style or am I just a big copy cat? Where is my soul? Do I even have one? What's the point in painting if you have no soul. What's the point in painting if you have nothing to say. So you see, I'm a little nervous to get started today. Maybe today I'll dive deeper into my exhistential abyss. Maybe it's better to stay neutral. I think this is probably how writer's block starts. or painters block I guess. I know, I have to paint my way out of it. So I suppose I should shut up and paint. Thanks for listening. Um, I really hate mood swings.
Saturday, December 18th, 2004 link Last week was a blur. I'm still recovering. I finished my finals on Wednesday night and had a sushi celebration dinner afterwards. I think I did fine on the Art History final. I kept freaking out that I wasn't going to remember anything but I did pretty good in the end. I'm kind of glad we don't get final exams or papers back. I don't really want to know. It's going to be a while til I find out my final grade but I think it was at least a B, maybe an A. I am crawling out of my skin today with angry girl hormones. It feels really awful. I don't want to be around people, except Tom and I have overwhelming urges to cling to him. Hold me, don't touch me! Hold me, don't touch me! I told him how thankful I was to have him in my life. I'd go crazy without him. He reminded me I still go a little crazy. Still, it's a mild crazy.
Monday, December 13th, 2004 link OK, I know I said I wasn't going to update this thing for a couple days but I just had to talk about my crock pot for a minute. Last night I was procrastinating doing some studying so I thought I should put together a little something, something for dinner tonight. I brought 1 cup of mixed beans to a boil, then turned them off and let them sit a few minutes. I chopped 3 stalks of celery and two carrots and 4 cloves of garlic. I put the beans, carrots, celery, garlic, and a bay leaf in my little crock pot, topped with water and stuck it in the fridge. This morning I plugged it in before leaving for work. I got home from work at about 5:45, dumped the hot beans in a pot with a can of roasted tomatoes, some chili powder, salt, and a little tobbasco and heated it up. It's 6:36 and I have already enjoyed a bowl. It is so tasty. Crock Pots Rock My World. End of story.
Sunday, December 12th, 2004 link I'm in a funk, I don't feel good and I'm stressed about finals. So I'm not updating this til Wednesday or thursday.
Saturday, December 11th, 2004 link Here are the photos from Phyllis's baby shower. Friday, December 10th, 2004 link Still sick. I went out into the real world as sort of a test run. I don't want to miss the Flickerbox party. I don't feel horrible, just spacey and nauseous. I went to a bookstore and felt like I was in outer space.
Thursday, December 9th, 2004 link I'm sick today. I did nothing but sleep and study.
Monday, December 6th, 2004 link Wow, something amazing happened to me today. I got this email from my friend Karen: "Hey I've been meaning to email you. I went to a little party recently, where the host was showing us some art he recently purchased. And guess what, they were both yours! He was raving about your stuff. Everyone was! You are a superstar artist!" And just to make it even better, my friend went to a party at the Lola Gallery last Saturday. She was looking for my art and when she found it and showed her friend, she said "Oh! is that the girl that painted the 'bug Squish' painting?" I'm floating on a cloud today. Sometimes making art can be very confusing, and you ask yourself, why am I doing this? Am I any good or am I just a hack? So when you get positive responses like this, it makes everything make sense. I do this because it makes people happy and that makes me happy. The woman who bought my bunny still life at the Lisa Coscino Gallery is yet another satisfied customer. I hope she emails me soon. Ooooh! I better email the photographer, Richard Newman that I bought the photo from. Spread the love! I took Muni home and on the way, while studying for Art History, I was compelled to draw a picture of a cat helplessly spinning around in a dryer. Could this be a new encaustic piece? Can't wait, can't wait for the semester to be over and I can get back into the studio for some more encaustic work. Right now I'm swapped with school stuff. So stop your yacking and write your paper, young lady!
Sunday, December 5th, 2004 link I've been a very productive procrastinator today. I need to get going on my paper so instead I spent a couple hours sifting through my photos and updating my photo page. There are many new sets up there so take a look. A few recent sets are Point Reyes, Oona at Ocean Beach, Darren's Birthday, Mission district random photos, and some Oakland shots I went to DickBlick.com to check out their holiday deals. I ended up spending $200 on Gallery canvases. They were just too good a deal. I'll need 5 for next quarter anyway and I want to keep working on small ones so I'll be stocked next year for Open Studios and Christmas shows.
Saturday, December 4th, 2004 link Pacific Grove was a lot of fun and a nice break from San Francisco. I stayed at the Centrella Inn on Central Ave. Really great place, I highly recommend it. There are great gardens, coffee, tea and hot chocolate whenever you want it, a nice hot breakfast and a snack tray in the evenings. The people are very nice and eager to please. The house is victorian and has many victorian charms inside and out. No boring, boxy rooms and they seemed to really try and make the rooms feel cozy, not just full of boring carbon copy furniture. Their beds are firm and they keep extra pillows in the closet, mine had a nice antique brass frame, they are equipped with down comforters and soft fuzzy blankets. The holiday sale at the Lisa Coscino Gallery was a lot of fun. I sold one pice and bought another. The sale runs until December 20th so if you are in the area, stop by. There are many treasures to be had for $99.95, and some items are 2 for 1. All my work was interspersed around the front gallery and it felt pretty great seeing my stuff up. After the party, I wandered around Pacific Grove and Monterey, and ended up at a restaurant called the Old Bath House. I had a couple of greyhounds and ordered their portobello mushroom appetizer as a nice late night snack. It was so insanely good, I'm still getting over it. I met the sous chef and told him so. Turns out he used to live in SF. He worked at Moose's and Hawthorne Grill. He gave me some tips about a place on California and Polk, Swan's Oyster bar, I think it's called. Today I woke up early and drove around looking for funky places to take pictures of for my next series. I got a lot of great shots in Seaside and I think I've got my next series planned out. Although it's sad to go away without Tom, even if it's for one day, it makes me miss him so much and reminds me of just how unbelievably wonderful he is.
Friday, December 3rd, 2004 link I'm leaving town a little early today to spend the evening in Pacific Grove. See ya!
Thursday, December 2nd, 2004 link
Wednesday, December 1st, 2004 link Sometimes when you get home late from class and you are really tired and you have to do a quiz that you forgot about before you can go to sleep so you can run it over to your teacher in between your three hour morning class and your new job downtown and your boyfriend hugs you and says "let's go get a sandwich or something" there is really only one answer, and that's gotta be "ok".
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