Snack Time

French breakfast radishes. My favorite...

...well, second to the radishes that my niece grew in her garden and picked just for me the last time I visited.

adventure

Hmmm. I look at my last post (so many months ago) and see that of my to-do list items I have accomplished:

travel! (it was epic. more to come later.)

reading...though i keep re-reading books i love. i need to venture into some new ones. i've started a couple of new ones...just not finished any yet.

writing...a bit. more of that will come with my travelogue...

calligraphy...a bit. more of that will come with the pretties i bought on my travels (see below!)

photos...see travels, again! (more to come later.)

painting...see the pretties below. (more to come later.)

(you'll notice studying is not on my list of accomplishments. ummm...travel planning took precedence.)

(pretty things from Paris)

resolve

i think i am going to make "summer resolutions" since i didn't really have a resolution for the new year. what shall i do?


write (write-write)
write (calligraphy)
write (letters)
read (the eight thousand books i want to read and the four thousand i've started and stopped mid-way through)
paint
photograph
travel (all of the above would be facilitated by a nice trip, yes?)


study for my AREs
study 
study
study


ah summer. 
last day of class is april 29.

good end to a mediocre day

saturated sunset
yellow moon 
orange blossoms on the air

Learning to Write - Copperplate

I took my first calligraphy class last fall -- Italic Handwriting -- after joining the local Calligraphy Guild (as a total amateur). I met some incredibly talented artists, and even better, some very cool people. The handwriting class was fantastic but challenging. I do not have the most consistent hand, so a great amount of focus (more than I am capable of really) was required. And I am a lefty, so just figuring how to hold the pen was a battle in itself...  But I love a good challenge and I'll keep up with it.

This spring (or early summer, if you are going by the weather here) I took a Copperplate class. This is a different pen altogether -- a pointed pen in an oblique holder, rather than a broad edge nib in a fountain pen. So it was a whole ball game, figuring out how to hold this pen (only lefty in the class!), figuring out to get the right amount of ink to come out, how to control the thickness of the stroke. But with all these challenges I look forward to continuing to practice -- I have much to learn and hope to have some beautiful things to show you here!

Below are a couple of bits from my Copperplate class:

(the "love" design at the bottom was modeled after an example from my instructor; the monogram KAB was my own design; the rest is mean learning how to write!)

Calligraphy! ...almost...

I have, in the last month or so, joined our local calligraphy guild and signed up for a calligraphy class. Backwards, maybe (though I think I am not the only not-yet-calligrapher in the guild)...but it's a great group of people who do fun things with calligraphy and other skills and crafts. I am hoping that I may be able to incorporate some newly learned techniques into my Christmas cards this year. But I have yet to even pick up a pen - that is this coming week's class, I believe.


At the first guild meeting I attended we made paste paper, and then this month we used this paper to make books! A four-needle book binding stitch sounds very complicated, yes? It is, in fact, quite doable! Mine was not the most precisely stitched, but I love this technique. We also made books in our first calligraphy class, to use as notebooks throughout the course. I am excited to pick up the pen next week!


Here's my first paste-paper-four-needle book:

Flowering Florida Fall

For the Smithsonian's annual Free Museum Day we headed down to Historic Spanish Point in Osprey.  My parents had taken us to visit when we were small, but all that my siblings and I recall of that venture is that we made butter in baby food jars! 

No butter this time, but it was really such a lovely, if muggy, day. The site is beautiful. Florida terrain can be a little monotonous...a little green-on-green. But, lo-and-behold, there is color to be found! There were so many amazing flowers. As many mangroves as I've seen in my life, I don't think I've ever seen the bud before, or the very beginning of the seed pod. 

Here is a small sampling of the palette of colors buried in the Florida greenery:

in need of...

..vacation...

anyone else?

workin'

for fall pumpkin festival

(fall's almost here, right? come on cool weather)

and

to mail to my favorite KW shop, Wanderlust

(how I'd love to be in KW right now...)

Suburban Nature

what. up. 

does anyone know what this will morph into?

ducks in a row

i love my engineers. i have some great guys that i work with on our buildings. but every time duct layouts and ductwork coordination (in existing buidlings...ech what a headache) come up, i have to say my blonde side...or let's say my imaginative side...comes out.

engineer asks: "do you want the ducts above the ceiling and below the bottom chord of the truss, or do you want everything above the structure?"
krystyna pictures: a family of ducks waddling around and quacking about above the ceiling tiles, peeking up through the smoke barrier into the attic space.

or: while coordinating cds, krystyna sees a conflict. there's a new duct running through existing concrete tees just fine, until bam! it hits the new beam holding up the old stair from which we removed the bearing wall.  oh no! feathers fly everywhere. wings and webbed feet scramble. krystyna saves the day by dropping the ceiling height to a tight, but still-legal 7'-8". whew! the ducks can squeak through.

this is all in my head. i've not shared my duck-dreams with my co-workers...wonder what goes on in their heads?

how do you keep yourself entertained during the day??

(apparently i am on a duck theme this week, i just realized...)

lucky duck

lady luck has smiled on me this year.

i've won two raffles and then an etsy giveaway this morning (for this most awesome ring by Mad Scientist Designs!!)

i've never won any raffles before in my life!

so tonight...i stopped in for a lotto ticket.

fingers crossed.

roy g biv

he looked down

from the wet clouds tonight

What does your nest look like?

[I posted about this article when it first came out, but my students were discussing that *big* question...what is architecture? Well, it's a big question in architecture school...probably not so much outside of the architectural world. But animal and insect architecture came up and got me thinking about these fascinating little structures...]

What does your nest look like?

Mine is filled at the moment with pillows, and half-made cards, and books, and scribbled-on lecture notes, a broken over door, a chin-up bar I can barely hang from, my (five-toed!) running shoes, and the sound of early-fall-Gilmore-Girls on the dvd player. And did I mentioned the books?? [I am not a minimalist, in case you did not pick up on that…]

Take a look at this little bees' nests. Or incubators, I guess. Wombs. Aren’t our nests wombs of sorts though, housing us as we grow?

(Image, fascinating article – from NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126556246)

note to self

i've got to stop writing cryptic notes to myself in the half-asleep haze of my mid-night-perambulations. i am left wondering...

...what does "Bb shower 2" mean?

[ok that must have been some sort of reminder about my friend's baby shower this past weekend. everyone seems to be having babies these days.] [orrrr...it was a hint about something i remembered in the middle of the night about the "baseball shower" in the spring training facility renovation i am working on...]

and how about...

..."coloring/remembering dwg"?

whatever this is, i think i could turn it in to something poetic...

sweet dreams.

August Giveaway!!

From Etsy Team FEST:

http://etsyfest.blogspot.com/



Lily Inspired Dragonfly Hug Ring

Our FEST Blog Giveaway for August is a sensational Lily Inspired Dragonfly Hug Ring by Mad Scientist's Designs. Mad uses beautiful antique copper to fashion her whimsical jewelry masterpieces.



Side View of Ring

Her creative and lifelike representations are fanciful and exotic and this wonderful Dragonfly Ring is no exception. It conforms to your finger, is adjustable and comfortable with wings that hug your finger and a tail with a fanciful curl. HOW TO ENTER: Enter to win by visiting Mad at Mad Scientist's Designs or any of the FEST Team members listed in the Member Section of the Team FEST Blog. Find your favorite item, share it with us and tell us why you love it. Remember to add your email address so we can contact you if you are the Winner! Winner picked on 9/05/11. Simple and Easy! This is open to Everyone, the more the merrier!

Vacuum Tube Necklace with Hand Woven Filigree

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Mad loves designing jewelry to match steam punk and goth fashion and also is committed to rescuing cats and giving them a good home. She initially started selling on Etsy to help pay for their food and care and this charitable endeavor has blossomed into her wonderful Etsy Shop with so many fabulous offerings such as the Vacuum Tube Necklace pictured above.

eat your fruits and vegetables

[carrots grown by my sister, avocados from my parents' yard, mangoes from a coworkers neighborhood. the rest i think all came from fruitville grove...]

fruits of the summer

i have been neglecting my blog, among other things in my life, for a bit now (workaholic tendencies taking over.......)

but may I just say....fresh avocado....fresh mango....

why would i live anywhere else???

yum.

July Sizzling Summer FEST GIVEAWAY

Team FEST (Florida Etsy Street Team) Giveaway from my teammate Garden Whimsies by Mary:

Summer is sizzling and so is our FEST Blog Giveaway for July from GardenWhimsiesByMary . Mary has combined her love of gardening with decorating and producing gorgeous unexpected treasures to add whimsy to your garden. Her pieces are one of a kind garden art and so colorful and fun as seen in this month’s Giveaway - a Sapphire Blue Petite Plate Flower. Mary stacks plates for “flower” garden stakes and fits them with a holder on the back so they can be set on a copper pipe and placed anywhere. Her amazing talent for combing colors and textures is evident in all of her works of art. An added benefit is her love for bringing new life to objects that might otherwise find themselves in a landfill. Treat your garden to a touch of Whimsy! HOW TO ENTER: Visit the Team FEST blog and Enter to win by visiting Mary at GardenWhimsiesByMary or any of the FEST Team members listed in the Member Section. Find your favorite item, share it with us and tell us why you love it. Remember to add your email address so we can contact you if you are the Winner! Winner picked on 08/07/11. Simple and Easy!

The giveaway is open to everyone!!

Summer Yum

big zucc bread, little zucc bread

h2o melon

rinds for pickling

my first attempt at (refigerator) pickling

local yummies