This Is What Happens When I Get Bored...

When I have too much time on my hands, I get Sharpie happy. Too bad I don't have a "before" pic. This was actually a really fun way to make old shoes look new!!

Help Me Help a Friend!!

I will be walking on Sept 26 in honor of Allison, who is the daughter of one of my colleagues and a dear friend. Please help out if you can!!


http://www.gifttool.com/athon/MyFundraisingPage?ID=1488&AID=752&PID=100443

Summer Reading

I don't think I've done this much reading over the summer since I was in high school!! But what a great summer of reading it was!

Here's my reading list:

Fairy Haven and the Quest For the Wand, by Gail Carson Levine
Insperatus, by Kelly Varesio
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis
The Vampire Diaries Volume I: The Awakening, by L.J. Smith
The Vampire Diaries Volume II: The Struggle, by L.J. Smith
Curious George At The Aquarium, by R.P. Anderson
Where The Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
Fairest of All, by Serena Valentino

I love the feeling of being in another world completely and luckily this summer, I had the concentration time to do it. Of course the dreaming doesn't end here with the season. I'm going to get started right away on my "Fall Reading List," which includes the rest of The Vampire Diaries, a companion to Narnia, several puppetry books, American Gods, and more! So excited for three days off next week!!

Thinking In Words

I've got so many ideas for art projects, but they're all coming to me in words. Which is really strange, because normally I think in pictures, not in words. Now it's the opposite. These words, phrases, fragments, sentences keep popping into my head and entice my creativity. Too bad I'm not a writer!

Home is Where the Heart Is

This is the place we picked out to live together.
This is the town where we know everyone.
This is the town where everyone knows us.
This is the place we invite family and friends to.
This is where you carried me over the threshold the night we got married.
This is where we come to after a long day's work or a week's vacation.
This is where we stay up all night talking, or reading, or watching tv.
This is where we wake up in the morning.
This is where we feed the cats.
This is where I cook all my meals for you.
This is where we planted our first garden.
This is where Teddy has his cave.
This is where our "offices" are.
This is a very nice place with a lot of love.
My home is with you and we are in this house.
This is our home.

Best Weekend Ever!!

My husband and I spent our summer vacation visiting my sister in Connecticut. Of course, she planned the best weekend ever! We went to Brown University to see the comic book archives, which was utterly amazing. Then, we saw Funny People at get this, a drive-in movie theater! And this was just Friday. Saturday was spent in Mystic, where we went to the aquarium (so much fun!), shopped at Olde Mistick Village, and had dinner at Mystic Pizza. On Sunday, we went to a flea market in the morning and then spent most of the afternoon at B.I.M.P., where we went to the puppet museum. Apparently U-Conn is one of three schools in the U.S. where you can get undergrad and graduate degrees in pupeteering. That is awesome!! So many thanks to my sister, Lori, for hosting us at her home and for an incredible and fun-filled weekend. =0)

So despite the annoying floor repairs that have to be done in my appartment, I came back from this wonderful weekend feeling refreshed and inspired. The puppet museum was just beyond words. I have quite a collection of puppets myself, and I have dabbled in the past with puppetry and toy theater, but the outcome of the dabbling always was that I'd much rather create the puppets than do the actual puppeteering. Now the artist in me is itching and I'm thinking I may start dabbling again. =0) I've started doing some research and mapping out a project that I know I want to work on for sure. So we'll see. Maybe my re-awakening in my puppet interests will spark something for future projects.