Friday, August 20, 2010

simon's cat

I'm not a cat person, but I do find them to be quite funny and clever sometimes. I don't hate cats, but my allergies have continued to encourage my keeping a distance. This however is a fun and cute illustrative animation.



Happy Friday!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

words

I love this video. Beautiful. Clever. Unique. Love it.



(found via Poppytalk)

Monday, August 16, 2010

some weekend pictures


a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit played with friends, where we discovered that either the game was a little to "before our time" or we're all just really terrible at nonsense factoids. Although Mark surprised us many times with some of his random knowledge.


an awesome chalk friend met on my morning walk.


a floral "tree" that caught my eye also on my morning walk.

Friday, August 13, 2010

name that movie… all 35

I found this video a while ago and never got to share. So, for your Friday viewing pleasure:

35 Movies in 2 Minutes!


35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

I really love the illustration/animation style. Very clever. I'm so drawn to flat vector illustration (opening credits to Monster's Inc comes to mind). I probably need to explore this more for myself. If you've ever worked with me you'd know how much I love to create vector icons!

(discovered on Drawn)

Thursday, August 12, 2010

the mild obsession gets fed

I've recently seen a trend of very long bangs and after another was pointed out to me this morning I remembered this amazing image:


Makes me laugh. Every time I see it. And if, like me, you find this to be quite humorous go read Indie Girls Deconstructed. Hilarious breakdown of Zooey plus it includes both Deschanel girls in one post. Can't help but love it.

(And for those who haven't seen it and attempt to click on the reference in the post to Emily wearing a Wonder Woman costume which links to a video that has been taken down—that is the episode in Bones Season 3, Episode 5 called The Mummy in the Maze. Yes, I'm that pathetic. Great episode though.)

(image first seen on rumination reading room)

penguins… what's not to love.

Ran across this awesome ad campaign for these funny little birds.

Love them.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

no caffeine needed

Well, the blog is a bit silent as of late. There are many reasons for this but the 2 most important are 1. the kitchen reno and 2. a new schedule.

1. The kitchen. We are ridiculously close to the finish line for the kitchen. It has been a long month+. Last night we back-breakingly and painstakingly grouted half of the backsplash. We intended to do all, but learned a few things along the way and ran into the clock eventually. It looks fabulous though. I can hear the other half begging for its turn. We'll tackle it tonight. And finish the whole thing soon. This weekend is the goal. Seriously holding my breath and crossing my fingers… If I close my eyes tight enough I can start to see it complete.

2. A new schedule. A couple weeks ago, while climbing into bed, utterly exhausted and stupefied that the clock again read much later than I realized, Mark and I decided to make a change. We were both running around like crazy, doing too many things, keeping a crazy schedule and insanely long to do lists that never seem to finish. I for one was ready to throw in the towel, actually every towel I could find. So I made a list, of course. Well, more of a post-it note mini-list (have I mentioned that I love post-its?). Being the genius that I am, I realized that there are 24 hours in a day. Now I'm supposed to work 8 hours (at least). That leaves me with 16 hours to do what I please. And most doctors highly recommend 8 hours of sleep. So now we are down to 8 hours left. Amazing how that works. So breaking it up, I decided we needed 2 hours in the morning, 1 hour for commute to work (both ways), and 1/2 to 1 hour for lunch. Then, I was astounded at what lay before me. 4 to 4 1/2 hours leftover. I was dumbfounded. I calculated it again. But there it lay on my little post-it.


I don't know that I've ever seen those 4 to 4 1/2 hours. Maybe occasionally, but hardly ever since we started working like real adults. So that clenched it. We made a change. The biggest alteration was getting to work at 8 instead of 9. This little hour was a brilliant move on our parts. Even though I've always told myself I'm a night person, I actually can accomplish quite a bit in the mornings. And considering my creativity literally starts to revolt when it feels 5pm pass, getting to work an hour earlier and allowing myself to not only leave at 5 but actually take a lunch break is a whole new world to me. So far, it's been going great. We're still adjusting and definitely have our late nights with the kitchen wrangling, but another new incentive to get to work by 8 has been a parking space. You see, my office sits in a huge warehouse-esque building and there are marked spaces. If you don't get a marked space near the office, you must park down the side in the lower parking lot. It's not a terrible thing to walk, I enjoy it on nice days, but on these really hot days where I must tromp with (way too many) bags in hand, dress clothes, and most likely some sort of uncomfortable but professional shoes, the walk just makes my day start poorly. And it takes longer. Which requires me to get here earlier. Or risk being late for our daily meeting at 9:07.

So, thanks to the new schedule for encouraging sleep and more free time. And thanks to new lunch breaks which give me time to compose a much too long blog post since I'm feeling overly creative with my new-found sleep and apparently very wordy. Hopefully I'll be here blogging a bit more frequently now that I'm being reintroduced to free time. My delicious only knows how many links I have labeled "blogthis."

Monday, August 02, 2010

a weekend in pictures

So much to catch up on. This was a great weekend. To help condense it and savor it, here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend.

Let's start with this lovely couple in their wonderful little baby blue beauty.

I like to think that this could be Mark and I someday. It reminds me of some stories Julia Child tells in her book My Life in France about her and Paul riding around France. They had a baby blue car. It was named something fun that I can't remember at the moment.


This was an incredible meal I made sometime around the weekend. It is a summer salad wrap. Quite lovely. Grilled chicken marinated in raspberry vinaigrette, red onion, lettuce, pecans, avocado, strawberries, and it called for gorgonzola which we tried but didn't love so the next night we ate the leftovers with feta and it was much better. I will definitely be making this again soon. And hopefully my kitchen will be back in order so I can make the tortillas which I much prefer.


Friday afternoon I went out for some gelato with my dear friend Kate. It was wonderful. And we sat on a quaint little bench outside the shop and had this view through the buildings:



Saturday we picked up my bike and I took it for a spin around the cul-de-sac. I also attempted a crazy ride down our hill and was quite enthralled. That is until I had to go back up. Nearly had a heart-attack. It is a wonderful, darling bike. Here are a couple closeups:


Isn't she a beauty!


And lastly, Sunday afternoon Mark and I ventured to the historic Tennessee Theatre for a summer showing of To Kill A Mockingbird. It was fabulous! We were so surprised how full the theatre was. We love shows here! There is always an organ concert to open any show and the organ comes up out of the stage. He played some wonderful tunes and really helped you get in the mood for a historic movie and different time. The movie was incredible to see on the big screen. Even got a few gasps out of some unknowing audience folks at just the right moments. A great summer experience.

Whew! I've got many more stories to tell it seems. Things about the state of the kitchen (boo!), and the exciting ride I had tonight with my neighbor's boys, and the many projects I'm working on at work and home; but it will all have to wait until another time.