skills.

After seeing WordPress (but not Blogger) as a listable skill on a job app, I made a new blog. So now I can add WordPress to my skill set, along with making aprons, water coloring thank you cards, disguising shoe boxes as gift boxes, and other important life skills. I was also lured in by the existence of a WordPress app, so I can manage posts straight from my phone instead of always having to upload or email pics to my computer.

The timing is kind of perfect, too, with my new self-imposed schedule that's supposed to give my blog somewhat of a purpose. This will be a good transition time, although I haven't yet decided if I plan to fully switch over. Now time to actually finish that job app... Apparently Thurston Moore is playing at the Goat Farm tonight. I'm not in love with his music, but I have always wanted to go to the Goat Farm, so that might be good motivation to lock myself in my room until I've applied to a ton more jobs.

crafternoon.

Necessity is the mother of invention. And being broke is the mother of necessity. 

I had to come up with a housewarming gift for Faber and Josh last month, and being recently graduated and unemployed, I decided to paint their names on these mustachioed mugs I found at Urban Outfitters. Thankfully Dave still had all his brushes and acrylics from when he used to paint and couldn't care less about them now, so all I had to buy was sea foam green paint... Obvious choice. Dave, for some reason, did not already have this color in his possession.

So here we go. How to paint ceramic mugs.

Materials: 

• Q-tips
• rubbing alcohol
• masking tape
• ceramic acrylic paint
• plastic cup/paper plate
• thin-tipped, stiff paintbrush
• ceramic mug
• oven

Procedure:

1. Clean the area that's to be painted with a Q-tip soaked in hydrogen peroxide.
2. Stick masking tape onto the mug to act as a guide to write centered and in a straight line.
3. Squirt an iPhone home button sized drop of paint onto a plastic bath cup or paper plate, and dip the tip of the paintbrush in the paint.
4. Write/Draw/Design. If you mess up, dip a Q-tip in hydrogen peroxide (but make sure it's not dripping) and rub off stray marks. Blow dry (with your mouth, not a hair dryer). Start over. I did this about 25 times for these two cups....

but it was worth it.

       5.  Place mugs in a cool oven to prevent cracking or shattering                from drastic temperature changes.
       6.  Set the oven to 350 degrees F and bake for 35-40                                    minutes.
       7.  Turn off the oven and allow the mugs to cool in the oven,                    again to prevent cracking.    
       8.  Once completely cool, remove the mugs from the oven.                      Hand wash with mild soap to preserve decoration.

Then you're ready to wrap them. I used a shoe box and wrapped it by unraveling the brown roll that holds the wrapping paper, making sure to wrap the box and lid separately. Line with tissue paper. Fill with joy, or in my case, I used squiggly lunch bag confetti. Pretty much the same thing. Nestle the mugs in the box like you would a baby in a cradle.

Put the lid on. For even more cost-effective cuteness, use the box to double as your housewarming card. Dress it up with some ribbons and bows.

And now time to party. Happy loft warming, Daniel and Josh! 

schedule.

I failed at writing in my blog the number of times per month I meant to during January, that high number being two. So to remedy my deep neglect of blogging I have set forth a schedule.

Soiree Sundays
Music Mondays
Craft Tuesdays
Work Wednesdays
Thrifty Thursdays
Food Fridays
Service Saturdays

These are tentative because A) I would have nothing to write about on Wednesdays, B) I still need to assess the necessity of alliteration, and C) I don't actually plan to write in my blog every day. But hopefully this will be a start.

i hate reading...(?)

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."
— The History Boys


I've never seen this movie. Also I found out it's rated R, so I guess I never will. I always say I hate reading, but I'm determined to read all the books I bought and never read for school, or otherwise sell them. But last semester I read On The Road for pleasure in the midst of going to school, working, and pioneering, and since graduating I've finished two more books, so I'm beginning to question the veracity of my own insistent claims. I guess this quote from The History Boys pretty much sums up why I sometimes like reading. My most recent read was Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty. I bought it for an American Lit class on ekphrasis. Obviously I never read it when I was in the class, but I remember liking the prose and the cover art and besides that, it was short. 

This isn't really a book that has anything to be given away. It's more or less an exploratory essay in 70 pages about the relation of still life paintings to objects in real life to which we latch on and assign memory and delegate meaning. The still life's "lesson, ... is to remind us of the strangeness and singularity of things, and therefore of ourselves. Singularity, they wish us to know, resides in the physical, the particular, the seen; this knowledge can be looked at, can be held" (55). The objects in still life paintings inspire inward reflection, which seemed so counterintuitive to me before reading this because I had a strong prejudice against still life paintings as being the most boring of all painting genres. 

Doty's highly elegiac prose changed my mind though. Still lifes are tangible representations of memory infused by death. "Not that grief vanishes -- far from it -- but that it begins in time to coexist with pleasure; sorrow sits right beside the rediscovery of what is to be cherished in experience. Just when you think you're done" (47). Just when you think you have no willpower to go on, you go on, because life goes on. 


It's not enough just to live your life, though. Meanwhile you have to "Say what you see and you experience yourself through your style of seeing and saying" (67). I keep recognizing now the importance of the English major -- the importance of harnessing the talent of description and expression as a reflexive exercise. Experiencing yourself. Leaning that much closer toward understanding who you are by your reactions to environmental and emotional stimuli. Because there are so many times when you don't realize what you think or how you feel until it's been verbalized. If only prospective employers could see this importance..


I feel like I'm doing homework, except it's self-imposed..You can take the girl out of school, but you can't take the school out of the girl...? Where's Eugene to misapply idioms and scriptures when you need him. Maybe I really am starting to like reading. Good thing Colin just added me to their book club...since I haven't been in various makeshift book clubs for the past three years and never read the books..also known simply as "English classes." I'm getting lost in my own sarcasm.


In any case, I wish I still lived a train ride away from the Met so that I could see this painting. I need to test out this new way of looking at still lifes to make sure my prejudice is gone. In the meantime, I'd really like some actual oysters and lemon. I think Roux on Canton is still on scoutmob. Only problem is the 50% that I still have to pay for...