summer glide

Another perfect piece of inspiration - this time for the grown ups. This is an Eric Zener painting called Summer Glide . The water imagery is so spot-on. Don't you feel like you're just floating looking at it? Perfect, as I'm attempting to get my little family ready for a few days in Lake Tahoe.

This will be me next week. I'm trying to make it my state of mind until then.

We need this break. In Early August we will have owned our new place for a year. It will be a bittersweet anniversary. The whole experience of buying a building and subsequently attempting to sell a teeny-tiny loft, deal with tenants, selling the lower unit in the building we ending up buying on our own, entering into a Tenancy-In-Common relationship with the new buyers, juggling loans and mortgages - all the while attempting to be present and engaged with our two small humans. It's taken a toll. We're still reeling from the bottom-dwellers that were our first realtors and the parade of freak stagers and painters that came with them. We still owe a real estate attorney some money (on top of the 3 grand we originally gave them to negotiate the tricky waters that are SF renter laws), my ever-patient dad for his help with the original down payment, as well as a forthcoming supplemental tax bill on the whole building since we bought it for approximately 4x what the guy before us did. The middle class squeeze feels real. Very real. But there's fours days at a blue lake in our future. My kids will smell like sunscreen and ice cream and sand at the end of the day and I'm gonna just summer glide for a little bit.

Did I mention that MAS received an email that she got a second interview for a semi-dream job. Great, except that it's smack dab in the middle of the little getaway I just lovingly extolled above?? uuuuh-hum, WTF?? She's attempting to get them to "re-schedule" (pretty please with sugar on top). Who schedules a round of second interviews during the Fourth of July week? Punk-ass jokers, that's who.

yow-za

I've had a hard time getting inspired this week, hence the whole zero posting thing. Its been one of those weeks where we seem to have something to do every night. The laundry has piled up, bedtimes have been blown, plumbing has acted up. Just not a whole lot of loveliness or ease happening the past few days. I did stumble upon this little piece of visual happiness today while trolling the internet. Oh! Brandon Reese! thank you, thank you, thank you. Gorgeous illustrations. I need to get something(s) for the kids rooms and I'm in love with everything. Fresh and happy and thought-provoking. Love it.




We did manage to sneak in a little fun between all the morASS. It's been hot here in San Francisco, pretty unusual for late June in the City. Here's The Bean on the steam train at the zoo one night after work. He's having fun, really. I swear.

Here's to a mellow weekend!

friday :: blue

This is a fairly typical scene around here. The boys are getting to an age were they actually play and entertain each other. joy. Pure & simple.

If I hadn't messed up the colors for yesterday, and today I just happened to be looking for a red image, I could take a picture of Bean's eyes. Yes, pink eye - just in time for the weekend. We're off to the doctor for magic drops. Fun times.

Happy Friday. I've really enjoyed this Week of Color.

thursday :: blue (yeah, not so much)

I realize that this isn't blue.
It is in fact, red.

And it's my brain in its physical form outside my head. Too bad I didn't consult said brain to confirm that Thursdays color challenge was red, right? Wrong, it's blue.

Sooo, it'll be a Blue Friday over here at Plaza Pixie Sticks.

I'm obviously challenged in many ways.

wednesday :: black + gray

I'm learning a lot about the feel and light in my house through this Week of Color.

It must have been the time of day I took this picture - late at night after kids were in bed, dishes done, blah, blah, blah. But also maybe the reflecting of the cherry cabinets and adjacent orange-walled dining room. I wanted a coolish feeling image for the black and gray photo but no luck! The kitchen had other things in mind. I'm okay with that.

tuesday :: brown

I'm loving how this challenge is making me look at the things in my house.

week of color

monday :: white

for little birds and port2port's Week of Color.

Now here's someone I could be friends with.

I think I could be friends with this mom. Which is shocking as I'm close to home schooling Bean after the excruciating experience of actually having to inter-face with other parents throughout a grueling (yes, folks - grueling) preschool application process. I'm basically allergic to other parents. Don't talk to them at the park (actually try very hard to avoid the park all together because of all the annoying parental-types), don't smile at them in the store, and most certainly do.not.join.playgroups.

But this mom? I think I could be friends with.

I really should have learned to sew.

Images like this make me really irritated that I shunned home economics in high school. Damn Free to Be You and Me!

I must have this fabric bunting for Buddha's nursery or I will die. I love the clean, simple lines of the fabric and the colors! oh! the beautiful colors. Couldn't you just stare at them all.day.long?

Yet, I just can't see spending around thirty bucks per strand on something that I now must be really simple to make.

Some of the first blogs I ever came across that caught my interest were craft blogs. Sites like Little Birds, Posie, Loobylu (on whose awesome kid site Kiddley I found this heart-stopping image in the first place) and Hop Skip Jump literally make me ache. I'm crafty in a cooking- pulling things together- photography- gardening sort of way. But these gals are artists. So amazing.

So that's that. I must learn to sew. I admit I'm a little put off thinking that my expectations of what I want to make with far exceed my ability, but you gotta start somewhere, so here I go. I'm freakin' going to make me (and my baby) some fabric bunting.

Here begins one of the major goals of writing all these things down. My private equivalent of saying them out loud. I'll have to report back (even if it's just to myself) that I said I'd do it and I will. That, and I really want to take the time to create things. I want it for me and I want it for the kids. It'll be fun. This site will keep me honest.

Aaah. June.

I love summer. I love it even though I'm long out of school and my kids are way too young for summer breaks. Childcare is year-round, baby. The summers of my childhood are hazy and shimmery. Lots of bare feet and swimming. We live in a city. We work full-time. How can I capture this elusive feeling of summer in a little bottle and pour it over my kids? Will they miss something that only I remember?

For now, my answer is watermelon and lots of it. Big juicy handfuls with every meal.

Oh Sugar.

In addition to pixie sticks and candy necklaces (yes, I'm an 8-year-old-girl trapped in the body of a 34-year-old-woman) I enjoy my sugar in the form of the perfect cupcake. There is something just so personal about a cupcake. We've recently come off of the birthday season at Casa Pixie Sticks. Between the beginning of March and the end of April three/fourths of our little family turns another year older. Its taken us the entire month of May to convince Bean that cupcakes do not just, as a matter of course, follow every single meal. I've started a campaign aimed at telling him that strawberries and corn are just as yummy as the oh! so! beautiful cupcake. What a big fat lie.

It Is What It Is.



And most of the time it's pretty amazing. Two great kids, a house, a full-time job that allows me the flexibility to do lots of household things, both mundane and crafty.

I suppose the motivation for attempting to put this all down somewhere is to take the time to stop and appreciate all the sweet things. And to capture those incredible little kid moments I'm privileged to witness everyday.

I want to remember it all.

Today: The Bean is 3 years and 3 months. Loves cars, buses and ice cream. Won't eat anything substantial aside from bowls and bowls and bowls of O's and what feels like gallons of soy milk a day. The Baby Buddha is 1 year and 1 month. Smells like watermelon (I swear!), loves his mama, plays the meanest game of peek-a-boo you've ever seen, has four teeth and no interest whatsoever in standing on his own or walking. I tell myself he'll walk to college, right? MAS, my partner in crime and parenting, is for sure the fun parent. She dances and plays and makes the best funny faces. She is not happy in her job or the amount of time she gets to spend with the kids. This feeling is affecting how she sees her world. We're working on it. And me, well...I'm taking a lot of pictures and great pleasure in the fact that we no longer live in a tiny loft with no true walls or doors, that we managed to escape (just barely) being incredibly screwed by the San Francisco real estate market and that I no longer have to deal with realtors, mortgage brokers, stagers, tenants and other asshats in order to inhabit my Victorian flat in a sunny SF neighborhood.

Today I am very grateful for what I am and who I have.
We'll just see how long that lasts.
hahahaha