.another 6 months.

hello lovelies!
it seems that another 6 months has flown by!

i am back down to working one job now, doing some massage and creating on the side.  i handmade, bought locally or re-homed most of the gifts we gave this christmas, my garden did so ridiculously well that i could not even keep up with the tomatoes!  let see . . . i traveled a bit - went to thailand, back east for a visit, down to southern oregon to see family . . . mostly we've had non-stop visitors since moving in to our new place last May.  it's been fun being NE PDX's most hospitable bed and breakfast.  i am also now the proud co-captain of my roller derby team, the Heartless Heathers for the 2013 season.  we are about to have our season opener in a few weeks - and i am so proud of how hard we have all been working this pre-season!

so, this was a big HAPPY NEW YEAR jumble update . . .

i will close by plugging a few facebook pages i've started.  the first is Bird on Wire Handmade (which i may just change to TJLoves).  here you can find my lovelies as i create them until i get that etsy shop.

the second is Hudson TShirts. a place where you can become a fan of our alaskan malamute Hudson and the  tshirts that bear his face.  hudson tees were a creation between myself and my dear collaborator, the fantastic textile designer and superhuman whitney. . . the first printing of shirts were a fundraiser for the man-friend and i to raise gas money to move back to the PNW . . . now tees are being printed so that hudson can leave his "print" on the world for years and years to come.

lastly, i've updated a few of the mixed media bars on the side ...  more on that to come.

for now i leave you with a few photos of my life since i last posted:

 strawberry rhubarb jam with rhubarb from my front yard

 an example of how my tomato plants took over the plot- they actually got much worse than this

 the man-friend and i celebrating our 8 yr wedding anniversary in sun river, oregon

 my 31st birthday float trip down the sandy river.  photo by corinne krogh

 climbing with friends at smith rock in central oregon

 at the top of the angles' rest hike in the columbia river gorge with my sisters in sept

 at the highest elevation a person can hike to without technical climbing gear on mt hood oregon, with my leaguemate Roller Eclipse

 my travel companions at the loi krathong festival in chiang mai, thailand this november

an example of what you can get when you shop from hudson tshirts

 my boy in his christmas sweater

the heartless heathers celebrating their win against seattle's hometeam the sockit wenches last month

i've missed you all!  what have you been up to in my absence?

.concrete jungle.

FINALLY, here are some photos from our spring break trip to new york city!!!


this photo of the statue of liberty was taken on our last day in NYC. we took the subway all the way down to the southern end of manhatten because the man-friend wanted to see the park down there - he'd remembered being there on his last visit and it was a really nice day so we thought we'd check it out. we had all of our bags and had a bus to catch back to RI so we couldn't stay long. but we both got a nice bit of a sunburn. :) we ended up missing our bus because we were told it was leaving from the wrong terminal by 3 different employees . . . silly inept bus workers and silly HUGE port authority station with no reader board telling where it's hundreds of busses are leaving from. they have reader boards. just none of them are turned on. they have information stands. but they are all closed. hmmmm.... we ended up getting on a later bus back home, so we weren't stranded in NYC. just stuck in the bus terminal on a gorgeous sunny day. it would have been nice to have been able to stay outdoors.

anyway . . . enough complaining. our trip really was fantastic! and i really am a much more positive person than the above paragraph. boooo on me. sorry!

anyway, we spent one afternoon walking across the brooklyn bridge with the hundreds of other tourists. besides that and the day we spent going to museums, we really didn't do much else that was super "touristy" (like going to staten island or up to the top of the empire state building, etc). mainly we hung out with our friend, miss C and her roommates and galvanted about the city from cafe to restaurant to thrift shop to park to bar to STUMPTOWN COFFEE in the lobby of the Ace Hotel (we went there 3-4 days in a row).

here's a photo we took on the brooklyn bridge:
this is the view of manahatten coming across the bridge from the brooklyn side.


i really loved the subway system in the city. public transportation is a passion of mine and having a system that really works and it widely used by all demographics is so exciting to see in action! it's really affordable too. the man-friend and i got a weekly pass for unlimited rides for somewhere around $20 each. this was great since each time you ride it costs about $2 and we had to ride it from williamsburg to downtown almost every day. it paid for itself in the first day and a half that we were there!

here are miss C and i posing while waiting for the train ABOVE ground (and even ABOVE the street) in williamsburg after we picked up some awesome new green sunglasses for her at buffalo exchange! love that place! so sad we don't have on in providence. happy that there is a new one that just opened up in boston though! yay!

we ate and ate and ate while we were there - it's one of my favorite things about traveling. we went to a place on curry row (a row of indian food restaurants stacked on top of each other with men standing outside trying to pull you in to their tiny tiny hallways full of tables and poeple). miss C took us to her favorite place on curry row and we stuffed ourselves with vegetarian curries and rice and naan. it was BYOB . . . huzzah! we picked up some anchor steam on our way over. yummmmm.
miss C and i at curry row:
the place was covered in chili pepper strings of lights and all kinds of other crazy things (i think saw a plastic dinosaur) hanging from the ceiling so that you had to duck while walking through!

we spent an afternoon strolling through central park. next time i TOTALY want to rent a tandem bike and ride it around. the prices weren't too bad . . . maybe $10 for an hour? so cool!!

here i am doing one of my favorite things - taking a "jumping picture" in central park with the buildings of uptown behind me (this was taken near the ice skating rink in central park where there were all kinds of people filming some sort of movie . . . not sure what it was but it involves people on the ice skating rink in central park. look for it in 2012 :) )
here i am STOCKED to be drinking a rice milk latte at stumptown (note the NYC cab behind me). no one has rice milk as an option around here. and since i can't really eat dairy and i am allergic to soy milk, i could have cried with happiness to find that stumptown had rice milk. of course they did. they are from portland, oregon!
the other thing we did a ton of while in town was VINTAGE AND THRIFT STORE SHOPPING!!! the man-friend was in heaven to be surrounded by all the plaid, wool, flannel, cowboy cut shirts, and pearl snaps! it was like a kid in a candy store :) i picked up a few great dresses for summertime and some crazy tights for roller derby.

there you have it, a very random assortment of photos from our time in NYC. for more photos click here.

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in other news:
i cut my hair
i've got a really good start on the garden this year
i made a fresh batch of granola this morning
i am still working on finishing all my crafts in time for the craft swap
i am all caught up on last night's LOST episode and can't WAIT to watch the new gLee
teaming is finished for this year's home season for the roller derby. we had our first team practice last night! i cannot be more EXCITED about which team i was put on!
the masquerade ball was amazing. we finished our masks and were very happy about them. i got some AWESOME photos!

all of these things should be getting posts of their own in the near future. stay tuned!

.day of adventures.

miss N and i were able to hang out yesterday. she finally had the day off (she's supposed to always have wednesdays off . . . but you know), so we went on an adventure! we hit up the modern diner for grits and challah raisin french toast. mmmmmmm.....

next stop was lorraine's fabric the last remnant (pun!) of the once thriving textile industry in rhode island. it's a warehouse full of fabric and notions. and the top floor? $1.99 a yard for EVERYTHING!!! sigh. needless to say, i splurged on some awesome goodies, future plans include a bib for the wee one my sister is set to have in a few weeks!

we made our way to the "new" goodwill in attleboro, MA and proceeded to spend HOURS browsing the goods - both fantastic and hideous.

but the best part? the handful of picture frames i picked up for .99 cents to 1.99 each . . . there's nothing in them yet, but i cleaned them up and stuck them on the wall. i feel so grown up finally having something on the wall in the living room. hey, they are empty frames, but they are a start. right?
plus i got to drink 3 cups of coffee in an entire day.

{all photo credits: ME!}

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now back to tattoo designs and pondering the meaning of tuesday night's episode of LOST.

.it's the little things #1.

ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first installment of "it's the little things." these posts will contain small lists of little things that make me happy.

yessssssssss!!!!!

#1) compost makes me happy! i LOOOOVE fresh fruits and veggies and greens and herbs (esp from the farmer's market and from my OWN GARDEN). and I HATE throwing away the beautiful nutritious left-overs (peels, cores, ends, etc) after i've chopped up the goodies and put them in my belly. it makes me so happy to take those brightly colored odds and ends and put them in my cute ceramic compost bucket (with a charcoal odor filter) to later take to the garden so they can return nutrients to the soil for next year's gardening expedition.

#2) this guy makes me happy! my bearded man-friend. he makes me coffee in the mornings, and often ends up being the one who has to take the smelly compost outside. :) he walks our pup every morning without complaining (even though it was MY IDEA to get a dog). he loves me through the ups and downs of life and the ups and downs of ME. he's been constantly by my side even when it was the hardest choice for almost 9 years. what adventures we've had! what adventures are yet to come!

#3) farm fresh eggs make me happy!! these are from zephyr farm in cranston, ri. the eggs are always so colorful and lovely - i almost don't want to eat them. but when i DO i find how much more amazing they taste than store-bought eggs. plus, how awesome is it to know that the chickens these eggs came from are NEVER CAGED and live in pastures! so great. also awesome? the fact that this farm is SO CLOSE by that i can go visit any time to meet those darn wonderful gals (the chickens that is) myself!

#4) hudson makes me happy! he's our 5 3/4 yr old (6 in march!) alaskan malamute. it's been amazing for the man-friend and i to learn to take care of a living mammal together . . . totally a challenge and there are definitely days that are harder than others. imagine living with a 3 yr old who weighs 80 pounds and has teeth and claws and sheds cotton ball sized clumps of fur all over your house? i say a 3 yr old, because malamutes are known to have very stubborn temperments. but they are also SO FUN and LOVING and SMART. hudson has definitely taught us a thing or two about love and sacrifice and consistency . . . and so much more. he definitely changed our lives for the better when we adopted him back in sept 2007.

#5) rice milk lattes make me happy!! since i am allergic to soy milk and i can't really digest regular milk too well (makes me all clogged up, ew!), rice milk lattes are where it's at for me. sadly, NO ONE in the state of Rhode Island believes in offering rice milk as an option in their coffee houses . . . so i am stuck drinking americanos until the man-friend can fix our espresso machine. while we were home in OREGON for the holidays, i had 3 GLORIOUS WEEKS full of delicious, steamy, rice milk lattes (like the one pictured above, purchased and consumed in the sellwood area of portland, oregon). sigh.


there you have it. the first installment of "it's the little things!"

what are some little things that make you happy!??!