Happy Birthday Melissa!

Here's to the second anniversary of your 29th birthday.

Pretty Pictures

Yesterday I took a little trip to New York City to visit two wonderful exhibitions. My eyes still hurt and can't really focus well from all the pretty things and all the color they had to absorb yesterday. I have art whiplash. There's so much to say and not enough time to tell you everything right now but I can give you the highlights.

We saw: Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant Garde at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Picasso and American Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

I recommend: The show at the Met. So many amazing, important works of art in one place! We had a little discussion about the insurance policy they must have on the musuem for this show which ended with the thought, "Who cares about the money. What would you do with it? Build a time machine? You can't replace these paintings. If a bomb were dropped on the museum right now, we'd be screwed." For sure we would have been.

I didn't realize: How much I love Van Gogh. Not the typical Starry Night or Sunflowers, but his portraits and his patterns and backgrounds. My eyes were happy looking at them.

I learned: That there is truly such a thing as too much of a good thing. The show at the Whitney just had too much to look at. Too many comparisons of Picasso's work and the work of American artists he influenced. My eyes and my brain were tired by the end, which is a shame because there were some wonderful Jasper Johns paintings that I would have liked to spend more time with but I just couldn't focus anymore. I also learned that I love Stuart Davis (the painter, not the singing Buddhist monk, although he is pretty cute) and the sculptures of David Smith.

I was surprised: At how I felt standing in front of some of these works of art. I did jump a little when I saw Picasso's Three Musicians because I loved this painting in high school and painted a life-sized version on brown paper for an art class project. I was a little giddy seeing it in person. Some of the other pieces though, I wasn't all that impressed with and that surprised me. An amazing, rarely-seen Picasso or Jackson Pollock and I stood there thinking, "eeh... it's all right".

So that's it for the highlights. It was a great day, beautiful weather, pretty pictures, amazing things to see. You should go see for yourself!

Don't You Love Ads on Blogs?

Yesterday I decided, what the heck. I know I only get about 30 people a day reading my blog, but maybe that's enough traffic to raise a little shoe-shopping cash via Google AdSense. I added the little nifty ad bar to the top if the page yesterday when I wrote about cheating on Blogger with VOX and the first recommended ad link was "Infidelity". I wonder where that would have taken me. I'm prohibited from clicking my own ads so I couldn't find out. I hope you don't mind the new ad format, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do, you know. The shoes don't just buy themselves.

My Infidelity

Blogger, I just have to get it off my chest: I've been cheating on you.

I feel terrible. His name is VOX and I've spent a lot of time with him today, but I really think it was just a fling. You're my real true love. He seemed all new and flashy and had some cool features that you're lacking, but you're so much more fun to be around. You're easier to manipulate and customize and really, isn't that what we all want in a partner... uh, blog.

I tried it. I was sucked in to the new, try it now, invitation only, new! new! new! blogging service, VOX. I scored myself an invitation and I spent a whole lot of time playing with it today, but I don't think I'm going to change. It seemed cool at first, I've always liked the book and music recommendation columns, like all Typepad accounts seem to have, and VOX has a cool photos links area that I liked, but the template can't be manipulated, the code can't be changed, and I can't find anywhere to add links to other sites I like, or my banners for Flickr, or Etsy, or the Croncast 300 by the 300th (have you all signed up, huh? huh?). So I think I'll stay with Blogger. Maybe I'll keep my VOX account for photos or something. Heck, who am I kidding? I'm barely finding time lately to update ONE blog, how am I going to keep up with two?

If you're interested in peeking at the VOX blog wile it lasts, there's one post and I've already changed the template twenty-seven times. I'll probably change it a few more before I'm happy and then I'll go and delete my account. I'm an idiot. But you can see for yourself here.

One More Post

This is the last of the three-legged dog posts, I promise, (by the way, she's doing great, getting better every day), but I just had to show you this from Cute Overload. What a weird coincidence! I think I might have to get one of those shirts.

On Amazing Pup

(Sorry the picture is so blurry but Sydney was so wiggly that I couldn't get a clear picture!)

Sydney's back home after her surgery and she's doing amazingly well. My sister and her husband both had to work on Saturday when Sydney was set to come home post-amputation so I agreed to pick her up at the vet. Unsure of what sadness I'd see when I got there, Iwas shocked to see her bouncy and wagging her tail, happy to get out of there and completely unfazed by her new predicament. She skips around, up stairs, down stairs, from the front seat of my car to the back. She's amazing.

She hung at our house for a while before my sister got out of work and the vet had told us to put a t-shirt on her when we got home to keep her from scratching at her incision. I found an old BMW t-shirt I had and figured that it was appropriate since we had seen a man at the BMW rally in Vermont this summer who lost his leg and went on to ride over 25,000 miles in one season. Nothing stopped him and nothing's stopping Sydney!

Way to go Super Pup!

Sydney-Girl

My sister's dog, Sydney, is going to have her leg amputated today. She's been fighting cancerous cysts on her paw and has twice had them removed with surgery, but the vet suggested that the only thing to do to make her better was to amputate her leg.

I'm happy that she'll soon be recovering and feeling better and her paw won't be big and lumpy and painful anymore, but I can't stop thinking about her today and how she must be feeling.

On the phone with my sister last night, with my own puppy curled up against me, I said to her that, as much as I would like to think that dogs feel and reason and think the same as we do, I'm sure that they don't. Of course, they can love us and they show something similar to emotion when they're scared or if they get yelled at and know they've done something wrong, but can they feel sad? Can they dwell on what they used to have and don't have anymore (like four whole legs)? I don't think so. It's the only way I can figure that dogs can bounce back from a surgery like Sydney's so fast.

How many dogs with three legs or dogs with paralyzed back ends hauling around doggie wheelchairs have you seen? Those dog's don't show self-pity. They don't shy away from romping around with the other dogs even though they only have three legs. They just love life. Dogs are amazing creatures. And Sydney wil be one of those amazing pups, too. Be strong Sydney-Girl! The worst will soon be over.

(And by the way, that scruffy muppet-looking thing in the picture is a young Molly. That picture is from a couple of years ago, hopefully just minutes before an appointmet at the doggie-salon.)

Husband and Wife

This is a cople of days overdue, but hey, I'm a busy lady! Our exhausting weekend was capped off by the very beautiful wedding of Flannery and Nate in Protsmouth, RI. It was a gorgeous day, Flannery looked so pretty, and everything was perfect! Gracias to Flann and Nate who are off relaxing at a Mexican resort right now. We had a wonderful time. CONGRATULATIONS!

Happy/Sleepy and Those Other Dwarves

Today I'm feeling very Happy/Sleepy. Most days I'm some combination of the seven dwarves. Sometimes I'm Grumpy/Dopey sometimes Sneezy/Bashful, but almost never Doc.

Today I'm Happy/Sleepy because we had a surprisingly huge and fun opening last night in the gallery where I work. Everyone was having such a good time I had to physically push a few out about 15 minutes after I had actually turned the lights off. It was great. I worked twelve hours, got home, went to bed, woke up, and came right back to work. The circle of life.

Now my eyelids keep sliding closed, my fingers are trying to remember how to type, and my brain wants more caffeine. But still, I'm Happy/Sleepy. It's a good day.

New Necklaces Available Soon!

Soon to come in my Etsy shop: a new selection of kids' necklaces (or necklaces for those with small necks and a love of fun colors). Hopefully I can get them listed today. I have three right now, there will be more very soon. The necklaces are all about 12-inches long and this one, pictured above, features a funky handmade pendant. Cool!

And a knittng update: I decided to count my stitches last night, thinking that this hat was really freakin' big and I found out that I had somehow managed to double the number of stitches I needed. What the heck? I had to pull it all apart and start over, which actually worked out well because I was able to untangle my yarn and wind it into a ball like I should have in the beginning. Practice makes perfect! (It also makes some serious frustration, but hey, let's focus on the positive.)

Proof of my Insanity

Yes, that's knitting. As if I didn't have enough going on. The cool weather every September seems to trigger something in my brain that makes me want to bake pies and make things. This year it caused me to think I could knit myself a hat, despite the fact that the extent of my knitting experience is making a couple of scarves. I only know the knit stitch and have never pearled. But hey, everyone has to have a dream, right? Right now my dream is to make myself a hat. Unfortunately, I was so excited to start knitting that I didn't wind my new yarn into a ball, so now I have myself a giant knot at the end of my needles.

Shooting at the Walls of Heartache

So last night I had a dream that I was riding my motorcycle with the stereo cranked up (side note: my real motorcycle doesn't have a stereo) and "The Warrior"- that fabulous rollerskating song from 1984 by Patty Smyth - was playing and I was rocking out. I noticed that I was being chased by brightly-colored motorcycle riders with hoods over their faces and so I maxed out the volume on the stereo and sped off with an impressive wheelie.

Then I woke up. And now I can't get that song out of my head. I can't say that I've heard it at all since 1984, but for some reason it came to me in a dream last night and now...

"Shooting at the walls of heartache, (bang, bang), I am the warrior!"

It Will Be Mine

How delicious is this bag?
My cousin's wife, Karen, has a beautiful website called SimplyJune where she sells handmade lovely things, including purses like this one. We only see eachother a couple of times a year, at holiday gatherings or weddings, and we always seem to say, we should arrange a trade sometime. Well, sometime is now.

Karen unveiled these new Nataliya bags and I couldn't resist. Now I'm just waiting to hear what she would like in return. (Karen, if you're reading... I'm waiting... ) In the meantime, my Nataliya bag is safe, she marked it sold, so don't even think of stealing it from me. Go to SimplyJune and buy one for yourself!