[i] LoveLife

Sharing is awesome.

Well hello Monday. What an awesome weekend. We were busy and not-busy. Relaxing and racing around. It was MONUMENTAL because sweet Penn finally figured out that rocking around at a full crawl is FUN and I am so proud of her. GO PENNERS! Yay for awesome things and great get togethers with friends. I always get a bunch of emails asking 'where did you get that such-and-such a thing?' and I don't always get around to sharing - BUT TODAY I am going to try to make up for it by sharing a whole bunch of random good things....

Share and share alike:
Best watch in the world: Nixon Little GTO (picture in black). Not available anymore. BOO.
The Angel wings t-shirt: EBAY
My favourite jeans: 1921 denim + !IT Jeans in Faith.
Fun shoes: Silver glitter TOMS
Most comfortable shoes: KEEN presidio
New winter boots: Earth Astrid Vegan
My favourite wine: Cyles Gladiator Syrah
Best stroller on earth: Phil & Ted Vibe with Double Kit
Best baby Halloween costumes: Tom Arma (oh my goodnress I could not resist a few of these... beyond adorable.)
Best dogbeds in the world: Boswer Beds
Best new camera bags EVER: Maile's (get on the list or miss out forever)
Best hair product for fine hair: OSIS dust it
Best apples in the WORLD: Honeycrisps. Yum.

You might have seen the wrinkle cream in the top graphic. 'Hope in a Tube'. I haven't tried it - but, after seeing myself in some recent pictures I am looking to test out some amazing anti-wrinkle creams. Got a recommendation??? SHARE WITH ME. I am what I am and I believe that my real beauty lies in other areas... But, seriously. I'm wrinkly because I laugh a lot and I spend time in the sun and I don't drink enough water and I squint and I really don't care too much about it all because there are other more important things to focus my energy on - like people. But, maybe there's an easy way to look less like a pachyderm? ;)

See our family shots here. (Thank you Maile! I didn't realize until now just how tired I look.)

Today: painting. I'm working on a snowy owl and a sandpiper and a grey heron. I am totally enjoying the rhythm of multi-tasking a bunch of pieces at the same time and I am equally happy sitting beside the warm heater floating my my own brain and drinking my delicious coffee. John Mayer's new album is out in just over a week and I am looking forward to it. He is my number one choice for painting when I listen to tunes. I'm doing some show organization and thinking and taking a quick mid-morning meeting to check on some of the new prints that will be released on November 2. Sweet.

ART SHOW COUNTDOWN: 41 days or so. Paintings on the go: 8 Paintings completed to date: 3. Goal: 21. On track: NOT YET.

GO!

3 doctors and a funeral.

The part I like least about Fall is the part where things fall apart. Oh, I like most falling things like leaves and sticks and snowflakes - that stuff is the sugar and spice of the season. The everybody-gets-sickness part - well, that just blows chunks. We're off on a little change-of-plans idea where both girls visit their doctor because they are coughing and barfing and snotting and crying and feverish. Not sleeping or happy. Probably not emergencies, but if there's something I can do to make them feel better - I would like to do it. The poor little things. Kids = germs + bugs. I'm going to visit my own doctor. And I am also going to pay my respects at a funeral for my good friend's grandparent. Which makes me sad in a life-goes-to-quickly kind of way... it really does. I'm feeling like the reminders out there are screaming loudly these days. LIVE. GO. LOVE. DO. I see hesitation softly killing a lot of moments, people and ideas. That's gotta stop. So long.

Good bye heaviness that takes me away from my life's intention.
Au revoir unimportance disguised as urgency.
So long hesitation + worry + regret + wasting precious time.
So long.

Today: go quickly and softly without hesitation. Hopefully that brings me a solid afternoon of painting. Happy weekending.

GO!

October Bulletin Board.

 

Thursday. October. Awesome. Yesterday was a pretty good painting day. I spent the day working on a Mourning Dove (not pictured here) and pretending I couldn't hear the girls crying and coughing and barfing over the whirl of the dryer and the bang bang bang of the washing machine. Oh goodness. C'est la vie, I guess. This Bulletin Board surprised me a little because the big difference between THIS MONTH and every other month of my entire life is that there are actually more pictures of ME than of the rest of the people/pets in this house. SUPER WEIRD. I learned a lot of things doing a GLAM shoot with the very talented (as you can see from the photos) Maile Wilson: first, false eyelashes don't actually look like your eyes are being attacked by spiders and second - I MAKE A CRAPPY GLAMOUR MODEL. (Except I was fairly high maintenance like I imagine a good model should be). Maile was so good about it - she would say 'I picture you outside of your comfort zone wearing a ballgown while you paint' and then I would say 'or how about jeans?'. And then she would say 'you need hot pink lipstick' and then I would say 'is noon too early to chase this white wine spritzer with nine shots of tequila?' and then she would say 'look at me and be sexy' and I would say 'I THOUGHT I WAS!'. Oh, man. It makes me laugh just thinking about it.I totally sucked so bad. But, whatever. I like the bottom left photo because I look like a country singer and to tell the truth I've always wanted to be a crooning cowgirl (ask Dan). You can find our more about our shoot right here. And I think she is posting our family session soon, too.

Anyhoooo - sick girls make long nights LONGER and I don't know how to remedy that. I think it's the cold + cough season so I guess I'd better just shut and keep going. More coffee! I've been writing pages and pages and pages in my sketchbooks so my new paintings are guaranteed to be filled with all kinds of mumbo-jumbos and oddness. 'Tis the season!

Today: Play. Stay sane. Pilot is having a hard time adjusting to me being in the house when the nanny is here so our Tuesdays and Thursdays have become mostly about staying close. She doesn't let me get too far without checking in and holding my hand. I hate seeing her struggle with this arrangement because it seems pretty perfect and our nanny is awesome. Any suggestions? We'll figure it out sooner or later. This afternoon we are going to make bison lasagna for dinner and chocolate pudding and help Penn perfect her crawl (SHE'S FINALLY DOING IT!!). 

Coffee, please. GO!

Add more colour.

Hi 14th of October. The day has long since started and I've gone down into my painting dungeon (coffee in hand) to have a heart-to-heart with the paints and the wings and the timeline for my art show. THE ART SHOW IS ON. Thank you for all of the kind emails. I hear you. I think that it might be wise to take a breather at this point too, but that would not jive even remotely with the way I like to roll. Roll on. One of the things I have realized by this point in my life - is that being uncomfortable breeds artistic truth. It never feels like it at the time - that's the hard part. I always forget that until I remember. There is some kind of magic in the madness. It's unbelievably true. Every piece I have ever done from some kind of inner rawness - has been the most widely received. WHICH IS NOT TO SAY that I'm happy about being too tired to give a shit. It's just to say that there's a line very close to mental unhealthiness that unlocks a slew of feelings AND MAKES THINGS REAL. That's cool. I'm feeling raw and a bit pained. I'm carrying enough guilt to kill me. I think that will help the authenticity of what I'm trying to communicate. Mama-guilt is a bitch. But, I try to keep in mind what I would tell either of my girls if they were in the same situation and I would whole-heartedly tell them to CHASE, to DO, to MAKE, to SHARE, to BE passionate about not only WHO but WHAT moves them because everything else just moves to quickly.

Top photo: Pilot and I are totally OVER colouring pictures of Dora. Dora can go EFF herself. Pilot takes the photos on my MacBook now (because she is a 1 year old ahead of her time) and then we print them and colour them like mad awesomers. Yeah, MAD AWESOMERS - that's what I said. Man, this girl is gonna be BORED OUT OF HER TREE when she gets to University art classes. Most days she hurts my heart she is so radical.

Remember when Maile was here to visit? She blogged about it yesterday. Too cool. Meeting her was one of those experiences that don't come along too often. It was a Haley's comet type deal. There's more to the story than will ever be fairly told, but I'm just locking it all away in my good memories-drawer. One day Dan and I are gonna kick back on a Texas porch with Maile and her husband Jason and it's gonna be triple cool. AND DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT HER STYLISH AWESOME CAMERA BAGS. I was lucky enough to see them in REAL LIFE and they are to die for. NORMAN LOVED THEM. I put in an order for one of each. And that might not be enough.

Today: I AM PAINTING the monkeys on my back - only they aren't monkeys they're birds and I'm gonna see progress because this is a progress-kind-of-day. Fake it 'til you make it, right? (Yawn.) SWEET.

GO!

Broken-winged.

Hi Tuesday. It kind of feels like I'm starting the (short) week with a kick in the junk. Canadian Thanksgiving weekend left me thankful for all the good things in my life (like family and pumpkin pie) and it also left me with very little in the way of sleep. Well, actually - that wasn't just from Thanksgiving weekend - that was from the last 8 months of Penn-the-crappy-sleeper. I don't really know how to 'fix' her and I'm tired of getting up 5-6 times a night with her. And letting her cry-it-out hasn't amounted to anymore REM for me either. Je suis fatigue. It adds up and I'm pretty tired of being pretty tired. At this point - I'm ready to admit to myself that the art show is up in the air. I'm not with-it enough to string together a full sentence - never mind 18 more paintings. I'm not clear-headed enough to remember to let the dogs in - let alone get deeper into what I'm really feeling and how that translates into finding my own wings. I'm just not getting off the ground - and maybe there's a reason. I was at the massage therapist last week because I injured my painting arm (which is fine) and she said, 'you've got a broken wing'... and it made me cry because I've been busying myself painting some pretty incredible birds.

Pretty much - I'm banking on this new week swooping in to change my direction. That's all I keep thinking: there's gotta be an updraft soon.

Today: Play. Plan. Putter. Repeat. Somewhere in there I'm gonna chugalug a couple cups of coffee and maybe make a trek out for a visit or two.

GO!

Painting.

A final three.

Good morning beautiful Friday of an amazing week of my favourite month of the year. I had the number 3 on my mind all week because today is special day in the story of WE: it's our third wedding anniversary. Which seems like a relatively small number when you stack it next to digits like 9 or 8. Or 389. But, that's okay. Slowly, slowly. The last three years have been three awesome trips around the sun that have changed my life in the best positive ways. It used to be just me and now I have THREE people in my midst that are quite possibly the greatest souls (young and old) I have ever known. I consider that an amazing gift. AMAZING. This is my favourite of any of our anniversary's to date because it's the first time I CAN PUBLICLY SIP WINE. Or champagne. Or wine and champagne together if you really want to be cheeky. I am very much looking forward to a month long celebration of making it this far. In the words of my good friend Nicole, "AND THEY SAID IT WOULDN'T LAST."

;)

Today: PAINTING. PAINTING. PAINTING. Painting and errands and day dreaming about our house renovations. It's funny because when someone asks you IF YOU COULD HAVE EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD THAT BE - it's kind of paralyzing. Good thing we are working with the best architects in the world. Yay Friday! I'm going to online shop while I wait for paint to dry and look forward to our dinner party with the Sawatzky crew tonight. Sweet deal. Happy Anniversary to the best husband I have ever had. Two owls on deck today, a grosbeak and a pelican.

GO!

Uno, dos, tres!

Yesterday was one of those days where it kind of looked like a loser off the hop, but at the end it had a nice silver lining. Oh, thank goodness! I went a lot of places and made a lot of progress on my painting. I was involved in a TRAGEDY that nearly resulted in me throwing rotten apples at a grocery store. I won some and I lost some, but at the end of the day I am pretty sure (because of the kindness of others) I came out ahead.

I'm still totally feeling the 3 theme. Yesterday, I received Three Really great gifts:

1. Cupcakes are obviously awesome. At about 4pm Grandpa Vic (Dan's Dad) showed up with a dozen mini cupcakes. These particular little beauty cupcakes are from the Cupcakery and they were MINI so I ate three of them and still didn't feel guilty. WONDERFUL!  Thanks Grandpa Vic!

2. Apples. Let me just say that this gift comes with a long sordid story... I got a tip that there were Honeycrisp apples at a Safeway very, very far from us. I happened to be in that neighbourhood yesterday so I popped in. AND FELT THE ALL TOO FAMILIAR LET DOWN after I raced to and fro in the fruit section. Heartbroken. I checked every apple display and old memories of doing the same thing last year again and again came flooding back and I nearly started to cry. BUT just as I was about to leave I saw a small display with apples in brown basket bags and they were clearly marked HONEYCRISP on the display. Score. I grabbed the biggest bag and bought them immediately. When I got home I opened the bag to find that my new Honeycrisp apples had PINK LADY STICKERS. I thought it must be a mistake. I cut one anyways - ignoring the uncrispness. I tasted one and I am not gonna lie I KNEW THEY WERE NOT HONEYCRISPS BEFORE THEY TOUCHED MY LIPS. What the heck, Safeway? That was a sack move and I am so mad. In fact, I am SO PISSED about it that I am going to RETURN your apples - by throwing them at your store windows AS SOON AS the effin' apples are rotten. I can't handle the Honeycrisp drama anymore. I resolved to NEVER SEARCH OUT THESE APPLES AGAIN. I would let them find me. ENTER GRANDPA VIC. He was at the same Safeway yesterday but being SMARTER THAN ME he ASKED where the Honeycrisp apples were and Lady Safeway showed him and also TOLD him not to buy the brown basket bags because although they were marked HONEYCRISP - they were not. Grandpa Vic was kind enough to give me his apples and after one glorious bite my faith in apples humanity was restored. And I was very, very happy. Thank you Grandpa Vic. Seriously.

3. It was right under my nose. On Tuesday we had a busy day and when we finally got back to the house I had an armload of groceries, a baby, a diaper bag, a coffee, four new pillows, a bag of nuts, six new canvases and mega box of cereal in my hands. I threw them on the counter and on we went. It wasn't until LAST NIGHT that I found the gift that sweet Joanna from Signature Cleaning (229-2974‎) left me. OH MY GOODNESS - SHE IS SO SWEET. A box of BULLETPROOF CURRENT FRUIT TEA from fullyloadedtea. I AM IN LOVE. Poor little box of tea got hidden under a bunch of mess, but it was found at the perfect moment to round out another awesome list of three. THANK YOU JOANNA! Wow. It was too late to call her last night, but she can expect a call from me today. 

Thanks for the weigh in on the iPod Nano versus the iPod Touch. I declare the iPod Nano the winner and will act accordingly.

Today: We are off and running. Today is all about babies and toddlers and playing at the park. And drinking awesome tea. And meeting with our super-architects to see what our hopes and dreams look like in 3D modeling. Oooooh, that is so nice. Rain or shine we are hitting the streets for a walk. Rain or shine we are building awesomeness out of plasticine. Rain or shine I am designing up some art show invitations during naps. Sweet deal.

GO!

Un, deux, trois...

Wednesday. Yikes. This week is flying by. I'm happy to share that yesterday was one of the best in-the-moment days of a long time. I didn't lose my patience. I only yelled at the dogs once. The girls were awesomely fun - but, that's probably because all we did were fun things: walk, Children's Museum, Costco, picnic lunch, nap, walk to the bakery, eat fresh cookies, play at the park, follow a cat around the neighbourhood, visit Grandma Janet at work... how could a day like that be bad? I've decided that the best way to hit this fall/winter season is straight on and hardcore. And all I mean by that is I have made a commitment to be fully in-the-moment everyday. October, November and December I am fully committed to living like I am on death's door. Play hard. Paint hard. Love big. I kind of feel like I need to do this because I'm painting 3 days a week and LOVING THE PISS OUT OF HOW THAT MAKES ME FEEL. Even though it makes me feel guilty because the girls are little and growing fast. Even though the mama-reprieve makes my heart grow three trillion times fonder of them. Even though it breaks my heart in two to hear and feel Pilot crying (for the first few minutes) when I go downstairs to paint. Sigh...

This week is brought to you by the number 3. Let's hit it with three VERY, VERY important dates to remember:

1. NOVEMBER 2. This date marks a special release and RErelease of a few popular print editions. If this is anything like the last time beautiful gallery prints were released around here - it's a good day to check in nice and early. There will be a second edition release of a few favourites as well as a few paintings that have never been offered as prints before.
2. NOVEMBER 16: I am hosting bookclub AND THAT MEANS I GET TO PICK THE BOOK. Sweet. That makes me really, really happy and I'm going to encourage everyone to read one of my favourites books. Which I will share with you (and the rest of book club) on October 16th. Yay! 
3. DECEMBER 2: (THIS IS THE BIG + IMPORTANT DATE) I'm having an art show! It's called I FOUND WINGS and I can tell you with a nervous enthusiasm in my tummy that it will be a very cool show and I am very, very excited. I will post more details soon and I hope you will attend (if you're from around these parts) and follow the progress around here (if you please). We've just confirmed a location and date AND THEME. And delicious, delicious, delicious wine. I've also just got confirmation that a few special guests (and their specially trained handlers) will be in attendance. SO cool. Mark your calendars because IT'S ON.

Today: is a nanny-day and I have errands and appointments all over town. My back is hurting in a bad way and I am hell-bent and stoked to get myself healthy. I'm excited about the possibilities of being painfree because I have been hurting for a long time now. I really like my chiropractor (Dr. Kowaliszyn at Corydon Chiropractic). I have a meeting about a project. AND I ALSO HEARD THERE ARE HONEYCRISP APPLES AT SAFEWAY IN ST.VITAL so I am off and running. Don't forget to mark the important dates. ;)

GO!

One, two, three... again.

Yesterday started out as one of those days where it didn't feel like I was getting anywhere - AND THEN I GOT IT ALL FIGURED OUT.  I now have an art show date and location and a theme and a name and a graphic and a 98% completed owl painting and a list of 18 paintings left to do - in order - and the canvasses to do them on. Snap. Snap. It was like I woke up at Point A and by lunch time I was at Point D. Awesome. Now, I have direction and ENTHUSIASM and that jittery this is gonna be fun feeling.

I also decided that in honour of a special occasion at the end of the week - this week is going to be everything in threes. Three things that ROCK:

1. I hear through the grapevine that the Honeycrisp apples are being picked AS WE SPEAK. I have been dreaming about the best apples on earth for about a week now and if you know where I can get them (in Winnipeg) then SPEAK UP because I am not even going to be nice about it - I just want my apples! YUM. Seems like the apples are early this year AND THAT ROCKS.
2. When I have font-block I always pop in to MyFonts.com because they are the most intuitive site for finding the font you need. I found just what I was looking for yesterday in about three minutes. And I could type out exactly what I needed and compare with the most similar typefaces. So cool. My new favourite type foundry is Sudtipos. Argentinian and AMAZING. I have a little project with one of those sweet typefaces that will come to fruition in about 10 days.
3. The new iPod Nano shoots video? That's hardcore. I have an old Nano and am wondering if I should get an iPod Touch or a new iPod Nano (suggestions?)... I like the video idea, but I also like the idea of surfing the net. I'm not crazy about the ability to check email at my every whim because frankly I think that's kind of rude. What's your take?

Today: We are off on an adventure. We have a lot to do and I need to disguise it as play so I guess we will stop at the park. My list is three feet long and ready to roll. Good coffee this morning, Dan.

GO!