John Baldessari

I love Baldessari and I love Tom Waits's voice. . . it's like a little gem of a documentary made just for me.

TMB

So, I've decided to fall deeply in love with The Morning Benders.

Here's just one reason:


But isn't the one reason plenty when it's this lovely?

Embroidery Warm Up

I have a plan inside of me for a larger embroidery project that I would like to work on. I don't totally know what that means yet, but something illustrative on a larger scale than usual. Still cute, but maybe a little dark, too.

But I haven't been embroidering much of late, so I've been knocking out a bunch of small pieces to get my hands back in shape--available on etsy soon.

OK Go

So, I love OK Go.  I don't have any of their albums. . . though I think I'm looking to rectify that.  But in a day and age when it feels like there's a lot of bad news pouring in, these guys are the joy bringers.

Plus, everyone loves a marching band.

Three Straight Days of Gardening

Columbia shut down for a 4-day NATO holiday--worried, I think, that the commute for all of us would be terrible and that violent protests might break out putting all of us in harm's way.  So, it's almost like we got a big blizzard that shut down school for fours days. . . 

Except it's May, and the weather has been gorgeous all weekend long.  Sunny.  80's.  Windy.

So, I've spent the whole weekend gardening.  Literally every day.

Neighbor's Yard

(okay.  I had to get this out of the way first.  I had no part in this, but they have the prettiest roses in bloom right now.)

 Friday--Front Yard

I didn't do loads of work in the front yard.  Planted a big load of perennials and annuals that I bought on Friday and then watered and watered and watered--this early hot weather is pretty brutal on new plants that haven't had a proper spring to root themselves in.  

But there's some pretty stuff in there--new bleeding hearts, irises that I stole from the foreclosure across the street.  

And the northern part of the front yard--thanks to lots of patience and dividing of hostas in the last two years--is starting to actually fill in really nicely.

 

 Saturday & Sunday--Back Yard

 The big work this weekend was in the back yard.  Dan helped out a lot on this project--turning over the soil and then using a hoe to break up big chunks into smaller, planting friendly dirt.

Since the back surgery, I am less good at the heavy lifting part of gardening 

(though, I'm hoping in another year, that might turn around.  Hope springs eternal).

Backyard veggie plot before work:

Total mess.  Weedy.  Hard packed.  Ugly.

 

Backyard veggie plot after work:

Gorgeous! 

Okay, so I know it doesn't look like much yet.  But it's so cleared out and dark brown.  Plus, the secret ingredient. . . there's horse manure from the Ohio family farm in there. 

I planted loads and loads:

7 Tomato plants

3 Hot pepper plants

2 mounds--one squash, one zucchini

Kentucky Blue runner beans

Brussel Sprouts (from seed. . . again hope springs. . . )

Basil

and. . . 

 Green bush beans and Yellow Wax Beans

 

Plus, some veggies in containers with more to come.

The peonies are in bloom.

And L.P. helped out the whole time.

Man, I love spring and summer.

And four-day weekends.

Austin Exit Art

How great is this little guy?  A little spaceman?  A giraffe jockey?  I'm not sure, but I love his pout, his slouch, and his blue comma nose.  

Located on the back of a sign facing the Austin off ramp from I-290

NATO Visit

I love the Columbia College Bookstore. I've bought books and sweatshirts and snacks and gifts from the Columbia Bookstore. . . but this sign strikes me as a little weird.

I don't know that the NATO delegates visiting this weekend are in the market for books.  But I guess if they are, they'll know where to go.

Or this might be just the kind of sign that could set protestors off. . .

Oh, Miss Apple

I may need to get Fiona Apple's upcoming album, if I can judge by this: "Every Single Night"


She's haunting. I think she shouldn't be American. She seems more closely related to Edith Piaf than anyone here in the States.

Before House

If the weather holds, I will garden today.  But the front of our house has looked terrible pretty much since we moved in over 5 years ago.  We've been working on it very very slowly--mostly because when we started working on it, I started having back trouble.  But this summer will be the start of the house having some bona fide curb appeal.  It will take a while for everything to grow in, of course, and I will tinker for years trying to get it right.

So, here is the house at the start of spring:

Sad. . . just wait until the picture at the end of the summer. . .

Ready for Summer

Chicagoans earn their summers. . . I guess we didn't really do that this year with the mild winter, but the instinct to enjoy every bit of the summer months is still deeply ingrained.  And I'm ready.  It's still cold now, but I've started to think about concerts at the Pritzker Pavilion and dinner picnicking in Millennium park after work.  Or walking back from the park to the car or the train and sliding into Dance Chicago--the orange light, the live bands, the romance of the tango just after nightfall, outdoors, in the garden and dark, the music echoing off the faces of sky scrapers, rolling down Michigan Avenue.

Chicago can feel like Europe in the summer.  That beautiful and cultured and alive.

Appealing

What?  What was that?

 

I got a sink full o' curb appeal.  

Astilbe, hollyhocks, 2 variety of peony, butterflybush, and echinacea.

Thanks, Burpees!