i liked what claire had to say about projects today. i can certainly relate. her description of her club as a child also made me smile. remember those days?

i was really into having clubs as well. i think a big part of this, wait, i KNOW a big part of this was reading the babysitters' club series and other books that had clubs in them. i have two younger sisters so they were the automatic and only club members since i wasn't into recruiting. there was the art club where i taught them how to make bookmarks that looked like stained glass. and the environmental club where we collected soda cans and glass bottles from a construction site down the street.

programs for our parents were also extremely important. we taped our artwork on the living room wall, made fliers, and charged 5 cents for admission so they could see our gallery. we rehearsed lipsyncing to music we liked and performed for our parents (i was so mad when my mom told us to turn the music down so she could "hear our sweet voices". hello??!! we didn't know the words!!!). there was the adaptation of "the velveteen rabbit" to a play. (which was very difficult, as one sister would only play the bunny's friend and the other had to play the rabbit AND the boy. i was the director/narrator and of course, couldn't be IN the play.) and numerous 'ballet' recitals of us hopping around the living room to copland's "appalachian spring" and "the nutcracker suite."

i think my favorite memory, though, was my library. i conviscated all my sisters' books, carefully arranged them in alphabetical order in my bookcase, placed a library card in them, and required them to check out their own books to read. this promptly ended when i started charging overdue fines.

some of our books still have those date-stamped slips in them with their names printed on them.


links for today's project talk...

52 projects
ihanna
craftsanity

i tried to make some more cats today except i wanted to use fabric instead of felt and well...err...the first one (and last one) i made looked more like a monster than a cat. then i tried to make scarves for the said cats (b/c they're faster and more gratifying) but they look like worms instead of scarves. haha

so now i have a little chocolate brown monster and 4 worms.

maybe my mom's cats need some more toys...:)

the postcards are off to their new homes! :) i made three different designs and had so much fun doing this. i'm already starting to receive some of my own. i love amy's postcard of her dog, toby burying his nose in the sand (so cute!) and christabel's gorgeous stamped card came all the way from australia! so cool. :)

have a wonderful night! :)

well, last night was make a cat for emma night. i've been wanting to make a little felt kitty for her to send with her birthday package but just haven't made the time. so i pulled out the felt and set to cutting as some of my roommates and i watched last season's 24. it really turned out cute (the cat) and what i'd like to call, "rustic." my definition of rustic is "stitches that aren't quite up to par but give the stuffed animal character and personality."



here's another pic which bleached kitty out, but it gave me inspiration to make another one in tan. :)

in running news, tomorrow is an 18-miler down at huntington beach. i've never run down there so we'll see if the beach path is incredibly boring or incredibly glorious. i'm thinking it will be the latter. :) and the people i trained with last year for the long beach marathon are doing a trail run sunday! i really want to go to church but am sooo tempted. if you live in the southern california area, i'd recommend running with them. such a fun and encouraging group! :)

mornin'! i came across drawn this morning and love it. this world is just jam-packed with creative people. :)

i forgot to update the gps watch post...last time i wrote, i was desperately waiting for it to arrive. well, now it has arrived and though i'm still working out the kinks, it is the greatest thing ever. last night i ran a 10K at the track which was fun, or at least the last 3 miles were fun. for some reason, the first 3 miles are usually the worst for me in that i feel stiff and don't really want to run, etc. but then i get going, and all is good in the world. the track was packed last night: roadrunners flying around the track and then cooling down by running opposite to the rest of us, a girl and her friend doing cartwheels and handstands on the field, lots of people jogging and walking and listening to music. and me, checking my pace every lap ("Oooh! it's 7:50--that's too fast! ooh! it's 20:25! what happened?" i'm learning that the gps isn't the most accurate thing on earth, but no matter.) so it was a good run.

my roommates are big bachelor fans so they dvr-ed it for me so i can join in on the addiction. i watched it while i was stretching last night but it is so hard to take! i spent the whole time saying, "are you kidding?! how many one-liners do these people have?!" it's such a weird thing if you really step back and think about it.

what an interesting world we live in...

bummer.

i had a list of 8 million things i wanted to do this weekend but have spent the majority of it in bed. i keep on thinking i'm fine but then i feel bad again. man!!! but i have so much TO DO!!!!

i'm a big whiner when i'm not feeling well so i'll leave you with a picture of where my fam used to live...french gulch, california.

ah well...have a good rest of the weekend, everyone!

(if you go to here, you can hear nickel creek sing "toxic". hahaha now i'm feeling better.)

thanks to keri smith's 100 ideas, (and maybe a little too much time on my hands, hehe) i listed all the places i've lived today. there were some interesting things i noticed, though. the early places are cities: la mesa, vacaville, temecula. then there are houses with memories: the house with the red porch where we had a big garden and dad's 30th bday party, the house where we played in the sandbox with benji potter, the house where cinderella (our cat) died. in highschool, the places i lived reverted to street names: backbone road, glengary drive, snow lane. in college, to places: 5th floor wright, the french house, the german house. then it was a series of years (other than my little apt. by the railroad tracks after college) of living with others: jen's apt., mistie's house, the choats'. and now it's back to cities: monrovia, covina, arcadia, covina.

i wrote them all out and then counted them out of curiousity. i'm 29 years old and i've moved 29 times! good grief! i knew i had moved a lot in my life, but it was weird to realize that.

i actually like moving, though. i like finding the little places i can walk to--the nooks and crannies of a new neighborhood. i like forming the new routine and decorating my room differently and arranging my things in a new way. when i was little, i remember running into a new house and yelling, 'this bedroom's mine!!!' and imagining where my desk would go and where my bed would go and where i'd put my dolls. :) now it's more like, 'okay, that bookcase will go there, my computer will go here...' haha

the only thing i really, really don't like about moving is the packing, the actually moving day, and the unpacking. after that, i'm fine with it. it's like drinking nasty cough syrup when you're a kid--you grimace and whine as you're swallowing the burning stuff (ugh), but then it really does help and you feel better and you get over it.

it's kind of like that. :)

new music heard last night at the watkins family hour (and which i highly, highly recommend):

1. gabe dixon, and

2. dan wilson

both of them have blogs, myspaces, and webpages. :) check out gabe's "all will be well" and dan's "free life". both are so gifted and the songs they write are thoughtful and smart as well as gorgeous. i like honesty in lyrics and they definitely are honest. beautifully so.

i'm so thankful for good music. :)

"my mom used to call my sisters and I her little birds. this is most likely because we swarmed her and stood with our mouths open when she was cooking." (i especially loved lettuce leaves. mmmm)


::WARNING:: this is a very long post about food and my current hunger. if you don't want to read about 800 restaurants and their selections, go ahead and bypass this one! haha :)

- - - -

i'm hungry. and the 6 starbursts i just ate aren't cuttin' it. (why does my breakfast never keep me full past 8 o'clock? haha)

so, i went over to the girl's guide to city life just now and read up on the 'famished girl' section. unfortunately, nearly every selection is from santa monica, venice, or melrose (which isn't very close to here) but no matter. i can still read all about them. i decided i really wanted sushi at Chaya, tea at jin patisserie and the hotel bel air, a mushroom omelette and coffee from the urth caffe (even though spelling things incorrectly irks me), more sushi at m cafa de chaya, a california burger at the beverly hills hotel soda fountain shoppe, a cupcake from sprinkles, lobster bisque from le petit cafe (santa monica), the spinach quiche at cafe le piew (also santa monica), and almost every single item from the real food daily menu. oh, and the sandwiches at the getty museum are incredible too. oh my goodness, i'll take a chicken and pesto, please.

of course, i wouldn't eat all of these things at once.

but i told you i was hungry. hehe

while i'm on my food kick, here are some more nummy and cheap places to eat that are closer to home, if you're wondering:

baja fresh - my favorite being the grilled mahi mahi fish tacos...mmmm (and deliciouso salsas!)
trader joes' frozen food section - hey, don't knock it. my sis and i used to eat their creme brulee like it was going out of style.
red devil pizza (in covina) - homemade and sooo amazing it makes you cry. or at least tear up.

in pasadena:
sharkies - delicious organic mexican fast food.
corner bakery - love their muffins, but strangely my favorite thing there is the swiss oatmeal. it makes me very happy.
el cholo - order the tamales. homemade guacamole to die for (made at your table to your preference!). none of that out of a mix green goop. ewww!!!
el portal - mmmm, mexican food...

(have you noticed i LOVE mexican food? just wondering)

lovebirds cafe - i took my dad here for a sandwich last summer. we loved it. mmmm
sodajerks - and we went here afterwards for a real old-fashioned malt and for me, a sundae. you feel like you're stepping back in time going there. highly recommended. :)
wheatberry - for the same price you'd spend at mcdonald's for a value meal, you can have a huge, scrumptious sandwich and a gigantic garden salad from wheatberry. everytime we have a visitor from out of town we take them here and they love it. my mom and i bought baguettes and slices of cake from here for our hollywood bowl concert last summer. so fun!

okay, now i'll stop.

have a great day, everyone! i'm off to zap a lean cuisine in the microwave! haha


p.s. tonight is another watkins family hour at largo! fun!!! i'm gonna have the baked honey chicken. hehe okay, now i'll really stop.

oh, sadness! as seen on the ups site just now:

"THE RECEIVER WAS UNAVAILABLE TO SIGN ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT. A 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE."

hello, people! i'm at work! you tried to deliver the package at 1:30 this afternoon! ahhhh...

well, guess i'll get more embroidery done.

and i just realized i'm doing 3x2 mile repeats which will take longer since i have to run 1/2 mile between each set. (take longer than last week's straight 4 miles, that is...) oooh, i can't wait to run tonight! the roadrunners will be there and they are fast as rabbits. they race around and lap me over and over and all the while chat each other up like they're sitting in a coffee shop or something. it's kind of funny. and amazing, too, if you think about it.

but i can lap the walkers, so there. haha

well, i received my list of names/addresses yesterday for the postcard swap and immediately started perusing everyone's sites. good grief, everyone is so ridiculously talented! must...not...compare...! haha maybe it's a good thing, then, that i finished up mine this weekend. :)

well, after much obsessive checking of my gps watch's status, i think, i believe, it might be on my porch when i get home tonight. of course, this will be after my run at the track b/c it's silly to backtrack all the way home to come back and run here. or is it? uh, yeah, it is.

don't you love how i have conversations with myself? wow, that's pathetic.

so tonight will probably be spent trying to figure the watch out. i really hope it isn't too complicated! what else...oh, i also need to work on baby emma's t-shirt that i'm embroidering (jennie-style...i.e., very simply, hehe). my poor sis is so ready to have that baby. i can't believe it is almost february and time to become an aunt! wasn't it just yesterday that it was my birthday and she called me saying they were pregnant? wow, time flies...

so, that's about it in my world today. we're eating homemade lemon sorbet here at work since the lemon and orange trees are ridiculously laden this year. in the last few days we've had lemon cookies, lemon bars, and now lemon sorbet. as the pounds creep on, we're telling ourselves that we're getting our vitamin c and we *need* to eat as many servings as possible. hehe

sunday was even more chill. went to a wonderful art store in pasadena. made the postcards. ran up the hill. listened to travis rock it out in concert. remembered how much i love their cd, 'the invisible band.' ate deliciouso tortellini (spinach and cheese...oh, yum!). listened to piles of music. played the guitar. marveled at how clear it was (and how windy-brrr).

i ran past a leaf that was bigger than both of my feet put together. (i wear size 9s, so that's huge! haha)

ate a mcdonald's caramel sundae. (among other things...)

made coffee.

smiled.

laughed with the roommates.

felt like i was getting a big hug from the world. mmmm, what a nice day!

(the view of the queen mary from where i parked my car.)


an incredible weekend.

started off with piles of errands, then a 15-mile run down at the queen mary. i found out that only five other people run in the afternoon/evening. it was such a different vibe from the early morning announcements of harbor cruises and people out jogging and walking in a sleepwalking state. instead, it was empty. me and the long beach path. i saw three harbor cats taking naps on the rocks--one was nonchalantly watching the pigeons which were terrifically brave (or maybe just stupid) as they were so close to the cats. the sun set and on my way back, everything started to wake up and twinkle. the lighthouse has a green and blue light illuminating it...and the queen mary shone in the harbor. a beautiful night.

the next morning, i got up and chilled for a while before getting ready to get the car worked on. i brought enough stuff to keep me occupied for several hours but they were finished before i read one chapter out of emma. ah well. austen was set aside, the bill paid (dear God!), and i drove off in the rain to the skirball museum to see my exhibit.

saying 'yes' to life has it's advantages. for me, a lot of it is just being open in my heart to what the day brings me. somehow this translates to people. i had a nice chat with the old man at the entrance of the museum. what a fascinating person! he is an opera singer and chatted me up in german when i said, "ya!" to his question of whether or not i was going to the max liebermann exhibit. of course, my brain froze and melted into mush, but before it did, i was able to utter a couple replies to him.

the exhibit was so wonderful. please go see it if you're in the l.a. area! i love how he uses light and how it is dappled and shining through the trees in his paintings. i always wonder how the impressionists (any painter, really) knew what the heck they were painting, because when you get really close to them, the canvas is a mottle of globs of color. it doesn't evolve into a picture until you're across the room. and then it's magnificent. how do they know when they are obviously not throwing paint from across the room to the canvas?

yes, the questions of an amateur, but no matter.


(santa monica from a window in the mall...hehe)

then it was off to santa monica to eat a banana and nutella crepe at Cafe Crepe at the Promenade. i got it to go since the place was packed. it is ambient like this article if you go in the early morning or late night, but not in the afternoon when the masses descend. ;) it was fun watching them whip up the crepes, and for me, wrap it in paper so i could eat the chocolatey/hazelnut gooey goodness as i walked down 3rd street. then there was a trip to borders and tower records and anthropologie (love that place. wish it wasn't sooo expensive!)...then on to barnes where elliot smiths' 'figure 8' was finally purchased (amazing. so amazing.) and then over to michael's to find postcards for mylittlemochi's postcard exchange. :) (they didn't have them! :()

drove home to find a wonderful package from my friend, eric. lots and lots of music and chocolate and comic strips! who is this guy?! :) thanks, eric! :) :)

a quote from the incredibly wonderful, insightful, and always inspirational superhero site:

“What if my default was yes? What if, whenever I was on the fence about something, hemming and hawing about whether to go or stay, buy it or not, say something or not, my default was to just say yes? How would my life shift? What kind of adventures would I have?

It's easy to stay safe. To do it the same way we always have, to stay inside instead of going out, to not say hello to the cute boy/girl when we could, to wait and wait and wait wondering if we should buy the ticket to Paris...

How would your life change if you spent 2006 just saying yes?”

i want 2006 to be my "yes" year. :)

my answer to this week's 52 figments. you should try it too! :)

my mum and dad. :) they're so cute.

last night's concert was wonderful. it was just as i hoped it would be. if you love music in a quiet, living-room/restaurant setting, largo is the place to go. sara and sean brought along some friends: gabe witcher (stinkin' awesome fiddler), michael (awesome steel guitarist), and the amazing benmont tench (who played the piano so emotionally--awesome.) another treat was jon foreman being called up on stage to help out on "short people". nae (my sister) and i have been listening to switchfoot since the beginning of time. love his voice. he sang a sad (but great) "murder song" (his words) that he co-wrote with sean and then sang his own song, "The Shadow Proves the Sunshine." Beautiful.

they played fiddle tunes, they played some nickel creek, they played and played and played until we were all full and happy. but one song really stood out for me. i know it's because this week has been one of THOSE weeks at work where you start wondering what in the world you're doing with your life. i've sat through so many meetings where people smoosh other people down so they'll look better (for LAME things like filing techniques, too), where women are yelling at each other because one thinks using a date stamp is fine and the other doesn't, and where we were all encouraged to ask any question and the stupidest question would get $100 (but then, sadly, after several people made fools of themselves, the speaker kept the $100...huh?). anyway, usually, i use this blog as an encouragement-keep-creating tool for myself, not as a venting journal, (hence the unbreakable sunshine that is probably hard for some to swallow...sorry, folks.) but this song just got me. i'll print the lyrics here (the gillian welch version.)

here's to all of us living our lives to the fullest even if we're stuck in tall buildings...sniff, sniff...:)

In Tall Buildings
(By John Hartford, 1976)

Someday, baby, when I am a man,
and other's have taught me
the best that they can
they'll sell me a suit
and cut off my hair
and send me to work in tall buildings

and it's goodbye to the sunshine
goodbye to the dew
goodbye to the flowers
and goodbye to you
I'm off to the subway
I must not be late
going to work in tall buildings

now when I retire
and my life is my own
I made all the payments
it's time to go home
and wonder what happened
betwixt and between
when I went to work in tall buildings

and it's goodbye to the sunshine
goodbye to the dew
goodbye to the flowers
and goodbye to you
I'm off to the subway
I mustn't be late
going to work in tall buildings

i'm going here tonight to see her and him. anyone wanna come? :) :)

in other news, i've been inspired after going over to keri smith's blog today and then going off to swirly girl's blog...wow, she is determined to do 500 creations in 2006! that completely inspired me. made me pull out a piece of paper right away and draw something. she had all these awesome quotes on her site and i'm a quote freak so i wrote a couple of them out for good times. :) her definition of 'creation' is "drawings, paintings, collages, writing, and other artistic pieces." it could mean "knitting" for me as well, i decided. hehe i think i'm gonna try this. it couldn't do any harm to draw here and there.

this morning i did the old journal page the first thing in the morning thing from the artist's way and it was actually so nice. i thought it would be all grumpy and "i wanna go back to sleep, waaa" but it was actually thoughtful. i think it was, anyway. i wrote it early, early in the morning so maybe now if i were to read it, it wouldn't make any sense. haha

wow. i did it. i bought a garmin forerunner. i'm still in shock about this. must...breathe...

for the last year, i've been eyeing this gps watch thingy (above)...wishing that it was mine, imagining how free i would be to run around without having to drive my car over the terrain to figure out mileage, or figure out my pace in my head ('okay, if i run this lap in 2:10, then that makes it a 8:40 mile which times 6 miles is...')

i watched as running friend after running friend appeared on saturday mornings with a new garmin shining on their wrist. it looked like some sort of weird cult--grinning, sweating runners with these giant rectangular black boxes on their wrists. weirdos.

even though i'm running 16+ miles for my long runs, i still have these moments of feeling like i'm not a 'real' runner. i didn't run track or cross country. up until 3 years ago, running was what i did if i was being chased by someone. haha

but now i have a gps system being shipped to me. for goodness' sake, my mom bought me running TIGHTS for christmas. it hasn't been cold enough to wear them yet, and i wonder if i'll be brave enough to don them anyway. scary. but, then again, all the real runners do. hehe

(i know, if these are the things i worry about...)

the ruffle scarf. it's half-way done. note that the color in the magazine is completely different from the real live color. for the color's sake, i have to admit that it doesn't photograph very well in dim rooms at night-time. oh well. it is actually a bit twinkly and has a ton of teal in it which is my current favorite color. the only problem is it is a bit scratchy with that mohair. hmmm



and my magic basket. why am i sharing this with you, i wonder? maybe i just have a quest to be known and now you know me. there's the knitting/knitting magazines, cooking light (yumyum), runner's world stretches, some photoshop desktops i made a few years back (printed, of course.) oh! and my old ancient of days discman. hey, sometimes a girl doesn't want to download her cds to make mp3s so she can upload them onto the mp3 player, k? haha anyway, it's such a great little basket. everyone should have one of their own to put their junk, i mean, treasures in. :)

p.s., the knitting magazine is knit1. i like it because it doesn't call for crazy obscure yarns. granted, i could use a different yarn than what is called for, but...yeah...anyway....i like the magazine.

a couple sketches today for your viewing pleasure. one drawn on that long, boring day before my first marathon. okay, so it didn't take me all day, but it was very typical of that day. haha



and this one is in the surfer style of sketching/painting in honor of a couple of lovely days at the beach. there's this really cool artist who does a much better job of this style but i can't remember his name off the top of my head. i was trying to be cool like him. anyway, it was sooo gorgeous and the waves were churning like they were in a laundromat and crashing into each other. (can you say, "rip-tide"?) there were a lot of chalky people out running and walking and playing volleyball (very gleefully, i might add.) there's this wonderful, wonderful, wonderful little cafe at the pier in hermosa that sells these absolutely delicious blueberry/strawberry muffins with sugar crystals on top. oh. my. goodness. they're pricey but so worth it. i bought one and then eat it as i'm walking up the beach to the manhattan pier. mmmmm okay, have a great monday, everyone!

when my mom writes me a letter, she writes me a letter. i smell the fog in san francisco, taste the dark roasted coffee and fresh crepes, let my hand glide along the mahagony banister of an old house they're visiting...for the most part, she draws visual pictures of the places she and my dad have been, but i can always count on a couple of her own sketches. she is so talented. :)

i love you, mom!

p.s. i was trying to upload a sketch of hers but am having troubles...:(

happy feet. there ain't nuthin' like warm feet on a winter mornin'. :)

i really want to go to see this:

Max Liebermann: From Realism to Impressionism, through January 29.
Don't miss the final weeks of the exhibition the Wall Street Journal calls "a must for anyone who cares about the history of painting, not only for the merits of the best work in it, but also because it's proof that the story of European modernism is more complicated than you think." Visit skirball museum for more information.

well, the blog is (obviously, i know) back to white. i couldn't take the pink anymore. this last weekend i read, "the jane austen book club" (so many funny moments in that one) and loved the part about the daugther sobbing because of all the white space in magazines. i'm the exact opposite. i love white space. love it. maybe this is why i love the getty so much? it is the essence of white space in a building. mmmm

and finally (as i really should be getting back to work and not post on my blog all day...bad me), my little mochi is doing a postcard swap again! i'm sooo excited! i read all about it when i first started going to her site and it sounded wonderful. ten people from all over the place making postcards for each other. how fun is that?

it definitely gives me the perfect excuse to go over to the art store. :) happiness.

wo, what happened?

admittedly, i'm not a sports fan, but my roommates and friends are so last night we all watched the usc/texas game and wow, that was a good game. excepting that usc lost.

yesterday i spent the entire afternoon trying to find a place that a.) had the correct battery for my car and b.) would install it. what's the point of giving me a battery if i don't know how to put it in? my dad assured me (over the phone) that it wasn't that difficult to do, but his voice was trembling, so i think he was just trying to make me feel better. haha

anyway, after having my car jumped twice, and after being stranded in two different parking lots and being watched by strange people, i finally got the car over to sears where it promptly died again. and this is where i was given a new lifeline and a new hope. i watched the sunset as they tried to figure out how to put the battery in...gosh, it was so beautiful. i love how the trees outline against the darkening sky...i always want to take a picture of this but the magic is always lost. maybe i just need a better camera. reminds me of rachel salomon's gorgeous paintings. i love "another time" and "stay close"...they're amazing.

speaking of cool pictures, i had the oddest dream the other night about receiving a Holga camera. talk about random. i was trying to explain to everyone in my dream how cool the pictures turn out because there are so many cracks in the camera itself that light gets in and distorts the picture a bit but no one seemed quite as impressed with this as i was. what's weird is i had this exact conversation with my sister and brother-in-law over a year ago. they asked what i wanted for christmas and i told them a holga and they bought me a digital camera because why would i want a plastic holey camera? haha, poor little jennie. that conversation must have really impacted me. haha

no matter, i think the pictures are amazing. :) see here and here.

have any of you heard of pandora? it's awesome...

hehe, so new years' wasn't spent with the stars this year. instead, we hung out at the house because it was raining so hard. i had all but floated home that afternoon and was so thankful i made it home alive that i decided it was better to stay inside.

of course, after a weekend of downpours and mudslides and RAIN, it is now time to work again and the sun is blissfully out and shining, a soft breeze is blowing, and it is supposed to be in the 70s today.

this proves my theory that the weather knows when i have days off. but no matter, at least i can look out my window at the pretty day outside. :) that's bonus.

(i like this song, drone. sometimes i feel like that. anyway, he (david garza) is supposed to be at largo this friday night...hmmm)

comments have been (timidly) turned back on. i was being spammed big time. :( sadness.