ready to be sewn together maude bags, march 2008
1)
jen made my day with the gift of the new blog banner above. and then, with her help, i did a little spring cleaning around my blog as i changed font colors and other things. (thank you dear friend) this make me so darn happy!
2) since coming home from visiting the midwest, i have put myself on a schedule. it is really working and helping me focus and feel less overwhelmed. i have been devoting the late afternoon and evenings to working in the little room...cutting out simple selma totes and maude bags and another new line of bags...designing and then creating a new apron that is the prototype for a new design i will be sharing soon. i feel more centered with a schedule and knowing that i can shift it as needed is helpful.
3) as i work in the little room, i have been listening to sarah vowell (and friends) read assassination vacation. oh my goodness, she is so funny. i love this book and the way she looks at the world and draws such incredible parallels between the past and today. i want to be her friend.
4) the sun is shining today and i can hear the birds chirping as i work. the robins and chickadees are today's soundtrack.
5) water with a slice of lemon. this is a really good, really refreshing thing for me lately.
a few weeks back, annie (whose class i will be taking at artfest in two weeks!) tagged me to share six little known odd things about myself...hmmm...this somehow morphed into a list of little known facts about me as a kid...here you go:
1) when i was little, my dad had a secretary named joyce. but, i thought joyce was the name of her profession. as in assistants to attorneys are called "joyces." i think that was because when i would see her at my dad's office, i was told to call her "mrs. [insert last name here]," but when my dad talked about her to my mom, he called her joyce. i remember the moment i suddenly figured out it was her name. i was dumbfounded. i never told anyone about my confusion until i was in my 20s.
2) i never took a nap during naptime when i was three and in preschool. everyday we would lay down on our cots and mrs. lewis would dim the lights and put on a record of some sort. everyone would sleep. i would try to braid my hair or count the lights on the ceiling or try to talk myself into being brave enough to ride the swing the next time we went outside to play. (i have mentioned
mrs. lewis once before on this blog. she was the first person outside my family to teach me about love. she's retiring this year after 34 years. i adore her.)
3) i recall that when i was first learning how to read and spell, i would ask my mom what signs said as we were driving (so i learned how to spell "detour" early on). i also always wanted to know what street we were on. a main street near our home was miami street. it would drive me crazy that my mom insisted that the street was hers, and i would repeatedly explain that "it isn't yourami it is myami."
4) when i was about four, i had a dream that the lead singer of sha na na was breaking into our house, specifically to steal the new video camera from our basement. in the dream, i heard a noise and went to investigate and started to go down the stairs (sitting as i went from one stair to the next). i got to about the fourth step down and saw him going into the basement. i was holding my pink blanket and was suddenly frozen with fear. i woke up terrified and still remember it as though i had the dream yesterday.
5) the house i lived in from the age of about two until ten is my favorite house ever. if i had enough money to build a new home for me and jonny, i would build a home almost exactly like that one. i guess the people who live in it now have completely remodeled (not to mention they painted the bricks of the colonial-styled home white). i never want to go inside to see the remodel as i want to remember that house exactly as it was in my mind. i loved that house on garland circle so much and sobbed when my parents said we were moving.
6) when i was in grade school and my parents were out for dinner and we had a babysitter, i used to pretend that the back of the couch was the parallel bars. i would lean back against the couch and lift my legs in the air like nadia did in the print on my wall. my parents would have not liked me treating the furniture that way so i never, ever did it when they were home. last my brother knew that couch was still out there having survived time in my mom's basement then matt's house then a friend's house when matt moved to portland and now a friend of that friend has it. i bet that couch has seen more than i would ever want to know...but once, it was part of a little girl's "gymnastic routine."
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i would love it if you would share your five really good things...or an odd unknown fact about your childhood.
go ahead...
please...
five (really) good things 
