.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?

.hello there.

this is part of what i've been up to . . . sorry i've been m.i.a. hope to have some time to myself again soon.

.well hi!.

so . . . i'm back from oklahoma. and let me just say:
i
love
that
baby

she is SO AMAZING!

i am completely in love with her! she has such a great little personality. she is happy, content, loved, smart, growing, learning, beautiful, healthy, has GREAT parents, and GREAT aunties who love her :)

the entire week was simply incredible. i mostly enjoyed just being able to relax. i've been so GO GO GO GO GO GO lately that taking an entire week off from life in rhode island was lovely. we spent a lot of time sitting on my sister's front porch, walking the dog through the friendly neighborhood, meandering down to the local coffee shop (the puppy was welcome inside with us!), laying on the floor staring at the baby, eat ice cream and watching ridiculous movies like only sisters (or good friends who are just like sisters) can do. there were no alarm clocks (except when we had to drive to oklahoma city for my little sister's college graduation), no work shifts (at least not for me), no hectic crazy life intruding on the simple life of sleep, feed baby, feed ourselves, clean the kitchen, take a walk, sit on the porch, enjoy the sun, wander through a thrift store, peer at the stalls in the farmer's market, curl up on the couch, and do it again.

it was re-energizing to say the least.

i came back to rhode island more calm. a bit more tan. the man-friend said i looked good. relaxed. sun kissed. healthy. happy.

i came back and said "i'm not ready to jump back in to this!" which is ok since i didn't have to work for a few days (starts tomorrow!! aahh.!!). instead i slept, had breakfast with the man-friend (including stumptown coffee that my sister, miss R, brought for us from portland when she flew out to see everyone in tulsa too), spent hours in the garden, went and visited some friends, drank tea, did laundry, split a bottle of wine and ate homemade pizza while watching arrested development, read ("animal, vegetable, miracle" by barbara kingsolver) and caught up on my email inbox.

i think i'll be ready to set my alarm clock and put in a few good days of work now. lord knows my bank account could use it ;)

i promise i took a million pictures. esp of that baby.

but my computer is BROKEN (sad face). so when it gets fixed, i'll be loading all those photos up and showing off that beautiful baby. my wonderful family. the progress in the garden. the fun photo op my sister, miss TC, and i had while in oklahoma city last week.

good times.

what have you been up to while i am away?

.miss E.

{photo taken by my big sister, miss S}

sorry for the lack of interesting posts . . . i've been preoccupied as i get ready for my trip to tulsa, OK to meet this sweet little lady. miss E. my big sister's new baby. that's right ladies and gents, i am a first time auntie!!! SO EXCITED TO MEET THIS CRAZY BABY GIRL! she's gonna be part pirate, part spice, part sweet, part imp, and ALL PARTS love love loved.

i leave Wed morning and get back the following Wed. This will be the first time I'll see my sister since last June and the first time i'll see the rest of my family since Christmas (they are all flying in to OK at the same time for a different sister's grad). don't worry, i'll get plenty of photos.

WEEEEEE!!!!!

.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.

----------

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!

.return.

so . . . we had a GREAT time in new york! what a blast!!! 5 days of delicious food, good friends, being completely car-free, sunshine, rain, stumptown coffee, and vintage/thrift store shopping!

uploading photos to my computer now. :)

being away set me pretty far behind in my real life . . . that's what vacation does, i guess. so i have a lot of things to work on right now. catching up on emails, snail mails, blogs, crafts, bills, work, and then getting ready to fly to tulsa in a few weeks to meet my sister's new baby . . . phew.

i'll make it.

what have you been up to while we were away?

.spring break!.

so, it's the man-friend's spring break! i took a few days off from work and we are heading to New York City tomorrow!! i've never really spent more than an afternoon there before, so i am really looking forward to it. mostly i want to hit up some book shops, art galleries, restaurants, and thrift stores. and the one stumptown on the east coast. aaaahhhh stumptown . . . sigh.

we are staying with a sweet friend of ours, miss C. she and her cat used to live here in Providence but they moved to the city last fall to seek their fortune. cookies will be baked for miss C and allergy meds (check out quercetin! awesome!) bought for me and the cat :)

we'll be gone til friday and i am leaving the lap top behind. i will return, however, with TONS of photos and stories and hopefully a few great thrift finds!

see you when i get back!

p.s. if you have any suggestions on places we must go and things we must see while in NYC, PLEASE post them!