"The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen."

Once upon a time I fell in love with the most beautiful soul I may ever know. We had each other for two wonderful years, and then his body admitted that he was in fact very sick, and within two weeks he was gone.

March certainly did go in like a lion, and took my little lion away, and left me with nothing but some wool in my hands.

I have been blessed by so many wonderful things these past few months, and also so horribly, horribly cursed. I gave in to the bad things, because what can be worse than losing the one thing you live for? But luckily, (the wonderful, wonderful) Jeremy fixed my computer, and I'll find someone soon to repair my beautiful camera that I neglected for too long. I have Saturdays off again, I've been in the studio a lot, some other things are rather grand, and spring time is beautiful and blossoming in my eyes and my heart as well. Of course, many days are still incredibly difficult, as have been the past few, extremely so.

I'd like to come back to posting, and I do have some photos to share. I feel it only appropriate to post a few of Hans at this time, and return with a heart turned toward the sky at a later date, sooner than later I hope.

A Very Long Winter

These cold winter months have been filled with much more social activity, and much less art than I had original planned for. I am really only able to see how busy I am by how long I have had a netflix dvd for, and have been unable to watch it. (I had Fantastic Planet for over three weeks! But it was a really good film!)

Last Friday the weather was so nice that Eli and Dave and I went to Penn Treaty Park to have a picnic. I brought the blanket, we had bread and cheese and grapes, Eli made a seitan scramble, Dave brought hummus and etc. What a lovely Spring day. Of course it was just a tease: we knew it would get cold again, and in fact it snowed a few days ago. But soon it will be warm for real, and everything will be glorious.

My French class has been going really well: I just took my second quiz last night and I think I'm seriously caught up. As in, I might even get a really good grade on it. Still a few grammatical things I'm confused about, but I'm getting there!

Last week Kate came to visit from Chicago for a few days. Here is the one photo I took of her, and bonus! Andrew too!

We love when Kate comes to visit, and she'll even be back in a few weeks for a grad school interview in Delaware!

Today has been a lazy day. Thought I'd spin a little yarn, watch a little tv, but instead have been reading, making appointments with accountants (wow, am I a grown-up now?), and even baking scones and challah! Noah's mom has a recipe that she uses every week, to mix in the bread maker and then braid and bake. I came upon it again today and said "well, why the hell not?"


Yum!

Art in the Age: Tyler Scaife

Tyler has a show at AITA! We went there for First Friday, and there were some other awesome works there, but Tyler's blew them out of the water. Thought I'd share, but these photos simply don't do it justice.





The artist, in all his lighthearted enthusiasm.




If only we were all as talented as Tyler! Keep up the good work!

Spinning Snow

Today was very productive!
I put together my spinning wheel,
and Hans helped!

Then I went to the studio and got a lot of work done!
When I left it was snowing, but I went to Zac&Johns to watch
The Host, for the third time!



And as usual, Hans is finding new and amazing things to keep us both entertained.

New Year, New Attitude

I had the wintertime blues pretty bad there for a while, folks. All the good people left for Christmas, and most of them stayed away until after New Years. It was cold, and I was lonely. I baked a lot of pies, and I didn't do anything that was actually productive. Although, some time away from things is productive in its own way.

And then one day things started getting better!

Kayla and her British cousins came to visit, and I showed them around Philly. We went to see the Liberty Bell,

Independence Hall,



Eastern State (oh how good it was to be back there!) and of course, the goddamn Rocky Steps (did you know they have like, art in there? like, paintings and sculptures and shit. crazy!)

And Tim came to visit for a few days as well!

The following week Noah came to see me, which was wonderful because I didn't get to see very much of him when I visited Providence, because he's a genius with a full course load.

My birthday was a days-long event, beginning with Noah's visit: lunch with Noah and Andrew at a delicious Indonesian restaurant in South Philly, followed by a few hours with Noah at the Random Tea Room. His friend Lizzy (who will be moving to West Philly soon!) came to join us for a bit, before stealing him away, and there were lots of other good folks at the Tea Room as well.

My birthday "party" was a night of drinking at Johnny Brenda's bar, and then a few of us went to karaoke night a block away, which is hosted by my friend Caren from Eastern State!

Friday night, my friend Lauren and her dad and brother were in town, so they took me to Honey's Sit N Eat for my birthday (SO delicious!). They are so sweet! Turns out, Lauren's going to Peru for a year, to work at a hostel and live a little. Flights are cheap, so place your bets now, folks. I'm betting I'll be there by this time next year.

Later that evening, Kung Fu Necktie provided some awesome entertainment, several of the kids I know from these here parts, and their bands. Rosie brought her accordion to the El bar next, and we sang ourselves silly, much to the entertainment and annoyance of the other patrons. All in all, a lovely evening.

Saturday Rosie, Leslie and I went to the Rocket Cat for lunch, where we saw half the city, and then regrouped for a walk to the ATV tracks. We even found Christiane on our way there and easily convinced her to join us! Here, I finally took a few photos.







So Rosie, John, Honey Pie, Rebekah, and Christiane and I had ourselves a lovely walk in the cold.

Saturday night was Eli's party, which was full of fun, shenanigans, and lovely people.

Then I returned home to Hansie.

Last night Jack and I went to Memphis Taproom for dinner, and Andrew joined us back at my apartment afterward. Hansie nuzzled Andrew's shoes for old time's sake, while us adults watched scary videos and hysterically subtitled anime.

That's it for now, folks!

A Holiday of Feasting

This year I chose to make things simple by staying in town for Christmas.

Now while most Jews are (according to a short audio-story by Andrew) screaming at the clock, hurling books at the wall, and breaking their TVs in impatience for this dreadful holiday to end, I decided to bake.

Things started out nicely with Conjoined Baby Jesus sugar cookies, decorated with the conjoined efforts of Lizzy, Andrew, Celia, and myself.






Then yesterday I made a delicious butternut squash with ground turkey (I still have the other half! ah, what to do with it?!)

Today I started early by making oatmeal blueberry pancakes.

Then I threw bread ingredients (cheese garlic herb) into the machine. It just now beeped. Those 3 hours really do drag on!

And then I made some soup with a lot of the F2F produce: carrot, sweet potato, ginger, and beet! I am always nervous when it comes to beets, but this is actually delicious!

And finally, a frittata, which I have never made before. Not bad!

And tomorrow I will bake an apple pie, and who knows what else!

I hope everyone is eating as well as I am, and if you aren't, come help me eat all this goddamn food!

*Edit. A continuation of this bless-ed holiday, a Snow Day has befallen the people. I indeed baked that apple pie, as well as pumpkin scones that were a failure, but then last night I made up for it with pumpkin cup pies!


What else can I bake today?!

Solstice

The Winter Solstice coincided with a lunar eclipse yesterday morning. I should have stayed up. I should have called out of work. But I didn't. I was really sad to have missed it, but a lot of good people posted photos and videos on facebook. And I knew it happened, so I suppose that was enough for me.


I've been participating in some studies for monies. The past two were mood studies, at The Monell Chemical Senses Center and Penn. Penn was much more enjoyable than the Monell, but the Monell was much more interesting, to say the least.

Also, now that the CSA is over, Lizzy, M.E., and I have been utilizing the Farm to Families program, which is a pilot program to get fresh local produce to low-income families in the Kensington area. So far its great! I pay $5 and they split the rest. I get all the meat (so far ground turkey!) and half the eggs and then we split the rest of the produce. Thursday pickups, so, tomorrow!

The other day my friend Erika calls to ask if I have time to do a quick photoshop project for her parents' company, Interprative Solutions. I had done a small photoshoot for them before, and of course I said no problem. I did it in two hours last night, so, thanks Erika, for $30!

I even finished that commission for that couple. They picked it up on Saturday. I forgot to take a good photo of it though! But they loved it and were very happy. Lots of money rolling in these days. Much different from last December.



Kayla came to visit last week. We went to the Wagner Institute of Science which was AWESOME. It's just like the Mutter museum, but its Natural Science specimens. We were there for 2.5 hours, and it was free. I love Kayla because she is so smart and wonderful!
She even made me this lamp shade because the bulb is so bright!


December is pretty cold, but my apartment is warm, and we even got a little snow.

Oh how I love the snow.




Today I cleaned out the hallway (and Ian is coming next week to get some more stuff)

I checked on the building's worm bin (I have my own in my kitchen). Its doing really well, but there were all these squash sprouts!! And because I'm me, I couldn't just break them all and shove them back down... I had to pot them. They'll probably die anyway, but I will love them until they do.
Oh the magical world of the worm bin.

Tonight? Conjoined Baby Jesus Sugar/Gingerbread Cookies! Stop on by!