Showing posts with label autumn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autumn. Show all posts

Saturday, November 2, 2013

pumpkin carving.

My eternally awesome roommate is a Halloween lover. In fact, she's a general holiday lover, which goes swimmingly with my attitude towards life. Our door would win any decorating contest in the building. In fact, our whole (tiny) apartment is completely covered in Halloween decorations (soon to be replaced with Thanksgiving decorations).

I digress. My roommate carves pumpkins every year. I assume this was a family tradition, as it is with many families. My family carving traditions stopped when my brother and I hit the double digits and we've had plain pumpkins ever since. Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with a good plain pumpkin. Plain pumpkins make the world go round. But it means I haven't carved a pumpkin in a good ten years.

Last Sunday we took it upon ourselves to turn our living room into a Pumpkin Carving Workshop. We laid out trash bags and butchered our poor pumpkins into something resembling faces, using normal knives (college students have no money), mixing bowls, and lots of paper towels.

This was the result. Roommate's pumpkin is the cool one. Can you see she's had lots of practice? I went for a more traditional carving. With a gap tooth. Gotta have a good gap tooth.






I apologize for the quality of the pictures this week. As it turns out it's not so easy to use a camera with pumpkin guts all over your hands. And the last picture was taken with my camera phone. I have no excuses except laziness.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

scenes from the weekend: trees




I've always had an odd fascination with trees. I used to draw them all the time and when I was nine I realized that if I kept splitting each branch in my drawings over and over, they would start to look a bit like the live oaks which had so long been the sturdy playhouse for my imagination. Even now when my hands reach for the pencil they start to draw whirling and splitting branches in the same patterns they've been making for over a decade.

This weekend my family came to visit me and we got out of the city, traveling via train up the Hudson to where the leaves have started to change. We picked apples, wandered cemeteries, ate the last ice cream before winter, and all the time my camera was constantly at hand, ready to snap pictures of new trees.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

twenty two.

I recently had my 22nd birthday. It's my last birthday as a student and yes, in case you were wondering, I am freaking out. And no, Aunt/Uncle/Parent's Friend/Random Person, I don't really know what I'm going to do when I get out of college.

Despite paralyzing fears about my future and stress about getting through this semester, I've been trying to take some time to be grateful for all the experiences I've had in the last 22 years. Because I have to say they've been a pretty excellent set of years. I'm lucky to have thoughtful people in my life who remember my birthday, and here are a few of the lovely things I've been enjoying.






The print was sent to me by my best friend. I had posted it on Facebook about a year ago and she bookmarked it to get me for my birthday. Isn't in lovely? The artist is Stella Im Hultberg, who is incredible. (You can find her here.)

Monday, September 2, 2013

the inspiration board.

A new school year is starting. Tomorrow will be my last first day of school. It's one of those crazy things that jumbles your head around for no particular reason. So, instead of dwelling on it I've decided to put together a list of things that are making me joyful recently. For example:

The last gifts of the fading season. A bit battered and over ripe, but delicious nonetheless.



Reminders of all the little pleasures autumn has in store. And soft leather notebooks with clean, empty pages ready for an eager hand.



Old costume jewelry given new life.



And old favorites, waiting for the first chill of winter to be read by a fire with hot chocolate and slippers.