Weekly Feature: life.

felicity.

Posted on
7

 

I’ve been spending some legit time in my studio lately, working on wedding invitations. which – has been great. I find that I actually yearn for those long winded sessions sitting at my desk and drawing my face off.

normally I listen to music. but with the repetitive task of drawing the same invitation design 85 times – I needed a bit more distraction. for the past week or so while in my studio, I have committed to a television show. listening to it season by season while slowly chipping away at this daunting wedding task. the trick though, was that it had be a show I’ve seen before (since I’m not really physically watching…but just listening). that being said, I decided to go with felicity.

it’s a strange feeling re-watching something you originally viewed years ago. it is emotionally familiar, but somehow visually remains or seems new. maybe it is the whole 1990′s nostalgia, the proverbial theme song, or the fact that in season one felicity wrestles with something I can relate to (just watch a minute into that) – but my netflix distraction tactic seems to resonate much deeper than I had anticipated.

of course my story is different: my folks fully support whatever I do, I’ve completed my undergrad, and I didn’t follow a boy to college (nor would I ever). but, I relate in the sense that felicity balances two things, two goals – being a physician, or being an artist. I find that the physician side of her character’s dilemma, parallels my continuous strife between being successful in my current advertising career and someday becoming an art history professor (or artist). two completely different paths, the left or the right, the analytical or the creative – I sit on that very same fence.

long story short – who knew that I could take advice from a fictional character straight out of a 90′s WB television show. while the polarity in these paths remain, why not simply maintain both to the best of my ability…until maybe one day – one will ‘out win’ the other.

“I know one day I’m going to have to make that decision. whether I want to be a doctor or an artist. I’m just – happy, that today, is not that day.” – felicity porter

 
*source

instax.

Posted on
2

 

right now I feel like oprah, where I am about to tell you about one of my new favorite things, and wish I could plant a million of them under your chairs and shit…

fujifilm’s instax mini camera. guys. it’s so damn fun. I hate to admit that puff actually got me this camera for xmas, but I didn’t open or use it until we moved three months later. horrible…I know.

we keep this handy little instant camera at our ‘mini bar/game shelf’ next to our kitchen. it’s great entertainment busting it out to capture random moments and then watching it develop. the size of the photos are also fun (2.13″ x 3.4″) – and as you continue to take photos they pile up like a stack of business cards (yet way less boring, and far more precious). the film is a tad pricey, but is comparable to the cost of polaroid film back in the day (about a buck a photo).

…but to have a little handheld photo booth at your disposal? totally worth it.

currently.

Posted on
17

 

*working on – finally designing & sketching out some wedding invitation ideas (tiny & blurry sneak peek of a draft above). I’ve already managed to crank out several ideas and am moving forward with my favorite of the batch. this weekend will kick off my production schedule to make about 75 invitations, RSVP cards & enclosure cards entirely by hand (did I mention I’m only giving myself the month of may?). here we go again.

*listening to – this sounds of spring mix put together by the folks over at kinfolk. mellow & yummy.

*hating – people who just don’t stay true to themselves on their blog (or rather, they straight up steal content/ideas/life experiences). as much as I hate to use middle school terminology – stop being such a fucking poser (or maybe I should rephrase that as stalker?). get your priorities straight.

*loving – the absolutely stunning photos of carey mulligan in the latest issue of uk harper’s bazaar. sometimes I think she looks like a fairy or some sort of wilderness creature (it’s her facial features I think). can we say girl crush? um. ya.

*obsessing over - my halloween tumblr. that’s right, I made a fucking halloween tumblr. I’m already anxious for october mmkkaay?

*yearning for – our honeymoon in iceland. the more we research and continue to plan, the more I find myself dreaming about it at random times in the day. I mean…just look at this, icelanders just seem so rad. we’ll be renting our camper within the next few days, and mapping out our driving excursion across iceland’s vast (and unreal) landscape. dream about it with me won’t you?

happy weekend folks. xoxo

on being a pug mom.

Posted on
3

 

we have officially had little Lo for over a month now. puff and I are certainly not exaggerating when we say that it’s been one of the longest months of our lives (throw in moving, planning a wedding, and a laundry list of home repairs in there too, and you’re borderline miserable).

I’ve already grown so attached to this little baby pug monster it’s crazy. didn’t take much really. probably from the moment she slept on me in the car ride home that first night. her looking up at me with those big ass googly eyes.

over these past few weeks, I’ve come to a few conclusions on being a ‘pug mom’ to Lola:
 
 
***I already knew this going in. but raising a pup is hard work. it is literally like having a small furry child.

***I’m a lot tougher with dog ‘bodily fluids’ than I thought (poop, pee, barf, eyeball slime, face wrinkle gunk…bring it on).

***although most would find it annoying, I absolutely love her snoring. her crate is next to my bed at night, and when I hear her level 5 old man snores, I know it’s safe for me to sleep too.

***her short moments of ‘teepy time’ is my absolute favorite. including when I wake her up mid-nap just to shove my face into hers like a mama dog.

***pretty sure we missed the boat on picking a traditionally lazy pug dog. she’s got more energy than any other puppy I’ve ever raised.

***we love her to death, and wouldn’t trade the work, time, and energy it has taken to raise her in a million years. it’s the little moments we have with her (like when she sleeps on our face, or quickly learns a new command, or wags her little curly-q tail warp speed when we come home from work), that makes it all entirely worth it.
 
 

now if you’ll excuse me, I have a puppy pee pad to clean up.

madhouse.

Posted on
3

 

to say my life (more like our life) has been in an ongoing state of chaos, would be an understatement. just when I think I can sit down or start to feel settled in, I find that another problem, stress, or event is thrown in our direction. feels like I keep saying, “come on! I have to deal with this now?”

as though moving and a new pup wasn’t enough, we’ve been dealing with ongoing plumbing issues for the past month. one of which, led to a massive water leak from the ceiling in puff’s office…right onto his computer & camera equipment. when it rains it pours (I guess), but did it really need to dump right onto all of his electronics? I couldn’t help but sob a bit when it happened, and I felt guilty for several days after the fact. had the leak been in my studio – there would have ultimately been far less damage. thankfully, we have renters insurance** and are now dealing with filing a claim.

last night, puff made a comment something along the lines of – “I’m tired of being such an adult lately.” and, he’s right. I feel like for the first time in my 20′s I’m having to be a grown up. insurance, landlord, new utility bills, planning a wedding, chasing a baby pug around like it’s a fucking toddler…all very adult, yet not so fun situations.

with repairs finally complete, and we start to finally carve out the time to really settle in – I hope we can enter a phase of calm & normal routines.

…you know – ditch the whole madhouse thing we’ve got going on.
 
 
**if you’re a renter…GET YOURSELF INSURANCE (FOR REAL). we never saw this coming, and your landlord isn’t responsible for situations like this! pay the small monthly cost to cover your own ass folks.

portfolio.

Posted on
4

look who has a new little portfolio set up online! (finally!!).

of course at some point I’ll get it up on my actual domain, but for now – tumblr will do. I’ll keep a link up in my sidebar going forward, but feel free to snoop it out here. you might even see some of my more recent ‘doodle a day’ illustrations taken straight out of my sketchbook.

can’t believe I’m going to say this but, seeing my work all in one place like this is making me miss art school…

foot on the dash.

Posted on
10

isn’t it funny how some things just never change? like certain things about you, your personality, or simply how you function as a human being?

I’m sure several of you had a ‘coup car’ growing up – those little red and yellow plastic ‘cars’ that you powered with your feet like a damn flintstone (if you remember I talked about it here). only thing with me though, I never liked the ‘driving’ part. frankly- my feet never touched the ground. I kept ‘em up on the dash and never went anywhere (as seen above).

the funny part of all this is, I still drive with a foot up on the dash. literally as an adult, in my volkswagen beetle, my left foot is always up on my dashboard. this will certainly be problematic on our honeymoon in iceland, where I’ll have to drive a manual shift…

but until then, I’ll just stick to my old ways.

my puppy is a f***ing nightmare.

Posted on
6

 

puffin wrote this article on his website last friday, and it was just too damn good not to share. oh that sweet little puppy of ours – puffin really had no idea what he was getting himself into we brought her home. my favorite excerpt:

“Now I know all of this is temporary, and that I will look back on this shortly and say ‘Awww, remember when she dragged her pee-pee pad around the house and it still had a turd on it and then I stepped on the turd with my bare feet while chasing her down?’

I know that day will come, probably sooner than I realize.

But right now, it can’t come soon enough. The day where she doesn’t have enough energy to rival the sun. The day where my bedroom doesn’t smell like an elephant cage at the zoo. The day where she just lays there and chews on a bone, instead of the drawstring on my sweatpants, which is precariously close to my balls. ”

…puppies will be puppies am I right?!

five things.

Posted on
8

  
***thanks kristin for the tag. you guys all know how this works. five things you probably didn’t know about me…and I’m going to GIF the shit out of it to make that more entertaining.

*I was once in an archie comic:
not like actually drawn into one, but my photograph. pretty sure I was in middle school (maybe even the 5th grade), when I entered an I love archie photo contest…and won. I was an avid collector of archies (literally, hundreds), and got a polaroid snapped of myself & my neighbor sitting in a peace sign made of comics on her front lawn. I still remember the day I got the letter in the mail from the publisher (on archie stationary nonetheless…gesh even as a kid I was obsessed with paper). pretty sure I cried when opening that letter up, and still have it to this very day.

*in high school, I was captain of the varsity cheer team:
that’s right. I was a cheerleader. even for several years leading up to high school, I did pop warner cheer, competitions, wore my hair in high pony tails with ribbons, carried pom poms…the whole shabang (too bad cheerleaders weren’t popular in my high school – otherwise I might be considered a little cool). but let’s be real – I didn’t even go to prom. when I tell folks I was captain of the cheer squad, this always seem to be the biggest shock. frankly – I don’t come off very ‘peppy’, have many girlfriends, or am really all that ‘girly’ to begin with. for whatever reason, it was the only sport I could really stick to growing up.

*I don’t like children:
nope. don’t ever ask to me to babysit. I think I’m just bound to be one of those people who doesn’t like any other children but their own.

*when starting college, I had planned to study forensic or mortuary science:
I’ve always had a weird interest in the human body and postmortem. I remember even taking this book with me on a family vacation in high school. my first year in college was science driven, I loved anatomy/physiology, and just adored any sort of dissection lab. too bad my love for science didn’t carry over into high achievement in math or chemistry. not to mention, my art history class squashed any chance of science to have any presence in my life (although, I have to admit – if for some reason art school doesn’t work out…I’m going here).

*in 5th grade I learned to read tarot cards:
there was this psychic eye book shop my mom would go to every now and then, and I loved the days that she would take me with her. half the time, it scared me. but the other half, I couldn’t stop staring or reading everything it had to offer. eventually, my mom gave me a tarot deck and I was hooked. the deck is in my studio now, and I take good care of it because there’s something special about it. too difficult to describe here.

well there you have it. bettina, hannah, and victoria – tag you’re it.

tea time.

Posted on
6

I’m realizing that skipping out on spring semester actually means I have to write about my life. this…is uhh…weird. one day soon I’ll be back to bitching about oil paintings and showing off illustrations. like right now, I’m about to blog about my fucking food habits & tea. really?! this is what it has come to…

according to puffin, I’m one of the most fragile human beings ever. in the sense that, I’m physically (and I guess emotionally) very sensitive to a lot of stupid shit. one thing in particular: food. for a very long time (and even as a teenager), I had a tough time digesting certain things (red meat for one). now I find that I can’t eat late at night, I can’t eat boatloads of dairy, and I can’t really even eat normal human portion sized meals. sitting across the table from me at a dinner party? you’ll think there’s something wrong with me based on what’s on my plate.

eventually I figured out it’s gerd (yah…major FML on that one). but unfortunately it’s hereditary and has finally reared it ugly head. now as an adult, I’m trying to wrangle it. of course I’m eating smaller portions every few hours, cutting out trigger foods etc.- but now I’m looking into more prevention options & things to just make me feel better. one of which: kombucha tea. although I’m only a few days in, I already feel better. did I also mention it tastes and smells super yummy? I’m practically addicted.

next on the ‘to try’ list are probiotics (but of course, I’m waiting to unpack a few more boxes before throwing that into the routine). you ever take em? or wanted to? would love to hear it from you guys before I dive in…

…didn’t you know? they’re so hot right now.