how a sewing machine works

head over to dossier studio to see exactly how it works. so cool.

lucky

i got an early birthday present last night from my sweet friend emily! she crocheted a little sweater for this jam jar/glass i had left at her house earlier - and precisely matched the colors in the glass cozy to these le pens, which so takes me back to the 80s when emily and i met (also, i confessed to her that the only thing i've stolen in my life was a le pen from the downtown stationary store when i was 12 or 13).

not only that, but we stayed up late on a school night watching the hbo grey gardens movie (we both loved it) and generally catching up. the whole evening was a perfect birthday gift, as far as i'm concerned.

joie

i had a happy weekend. first of all, it's fall. friday night some wonderful new friends came over for sushi and games, bearing a delicious cake, the remains of which they left behind, which meant that i got to have a piece for breakfast on saturday. cake aside, it was really fun to spend time with people who make me laugh and who i can be my goofy self with.
























saturday m and i ditched the kids and drove to rockport to the center for maine contemporary art to see our friend karen's exhibition, "wozzeck" - my beautiful obsession. it was so gorgeous and engaging -strange and sad too.



















the piece included photographs:
























photograph/object combinations:
























records playing a variety of things throughout the space (german language instruction, opera, 70's music),
























this quilt,



















cans of peas:



















i am tempted to post all of the dozens of photographs i took there, but i'll restrain myself. m and i took a scenic drive all around rockport, camden, and then down around boothbay. when we got home, bean and i whipped up our favorite pad thai recipe.

sunday, to celebrate the rain and the chill in the air, i had a lovely cup of soup with the lovely dancer at north star (soup pictured below, green split pea). i wish i'd gotten a picture of a nearby laptop screen, open to a page that read, "how do human limbs know where to form?" which struck us, obviously, as hilarious.
























i took bean to a local college fair, which was a little underwhelming college-wise and overwhelming number-of-people-wise. the admissions rep from dalhousie was our favorite (among other things, i learned how to pronounce it. the key is, don't say it with a faux french accent). bean learned about their honors program, and i learned that u.s. financial aid does not always transfer to canada, although sometimes it does. on our way out, after observing many regular teens and their regular parents, bean leaned her head on my shoulder and said, "i'm so glad we're not normal."

sunday night, it was enoch, games, finishing homework, veggie potpie with seitan, and apple-blueberry crisp with coconut milk ice cream.

sneak peek

m and i have been putting together these cards, for displaying and selling our little one inch milo in maine pins. they aren't available to purchase quite yet, but i think they came out kind of lovely. we're planning to make some magnets, too.

celebrity death watch update

mickey rooney is still alive.

andala

on sunday while m and boo were drinking tea in harvard square (fancy!), bean and i had a little brunch with mom and dad at one of their favorite neighborhood spots, andala.* we sat outside with miss lulu and enjoyed the cool day, good coffee, and in my case, a big bowl of oatmeal and lots of fruit.



















*perhaps you can see why it's also known colloquially as "the help wanted cafe."

goodbye, summer

i hate to make the other seasons feel bad, but fall is my favorite. today minnow and i walked around casting fabulous long shadows on the ground. i love the way the light lays itself across the tops of the trees and houses this time of day, this time of year.

weekend

m and bean spent a long weekend in chicago, where bean toured the university of chicago (she pretty much loved it) and had an interview. they were brave couchsurfers and were rewarded with very friendly hosts, comfy couches to sleep on, some cats, and enthusiastic advice that she should also check out mcgill (where their chicago hosts both attended college).

i got to spend the weekend with my bad boy.
























(book a gift from the meiklejohn collection)

he got some cool new shoes.
























which he wore sockless, valiantly, despite blisters.
























we spent a lot of time watching lost and eating tater tots, but we also had an impromptu picnic with some veggie sushi on the eastern prom. the sky was spectacular.

our picnic view:



















our picnic spot:



















our picnic food:

it's official

found by boo:

scenes from a soggy picnic

i think melissa summed it up nicely. the weather was verging on lovely. we set up a beautiful booth in the park. bunches of people came and shopped. and then around noon it started pouring cold rain, slowing our sales and increasing our need for snacks and hot drinks. and yet, it was kind of a great day, spent with great friends new and old.

below, our double shop - little pink house and milo in maine. note the bunting, my favorite piece of decor.

also note the "cheap tees $5" trunk, which made the day a miraculous sales success for us (despite the profits we spent at gro's raw food stand, wheeler's vegan ice cream, and then big hot drinks from coffee by design once we started to shiver in the rain).

mark shows off his awesome folding skillz:

enoch and boo show off their hula hooping skillz:

and sweet miss a shows off her gorgeous face paint:

picnic portland

all four of us will be hanging out in lincoln park tomorrow, a family of t-shirt mongers! although bean and boo will probably not be there all day, m and i certainly will. if you're local, come by and see us. we'll be the ones sharing a table with the checkout girl and her beautiful creations.

we've got some new stuff, including gold jellyfishes on brown tees, a combination i really love (below, a not-so-great photo of one getting its neck label stitched in).
























also, eco cotton tote bags, lots of new unisex tees, maine-themed buttons we made ourselves, and much much more!

naturestomp

m, bean and boo made rhythmic music in the woods during our hike yesterday, using sticks and rocks, and i recorded it with MYphone. check it out on boo's blog!

no wider than the heart is wide

we went back to mt. megunticook yesterday, possibly my favorite hike and view in the whole world.
























this long weekend has been like a last minute summer gift, attempting to make up for all that rain in june and july. beautiful, breezy, sunny weather. no bugs.
























if you're walking through the woods and come across people doing wilderness yoga, they're probably related to me:



















the view straight above. i was lying on a huge, cool slab of rock when i took this:
























it's hard work to get up to the summit, but so worth it. this view truly takes your breath away:
























to reward ourselves for all that hiking, we stopped by m's favorite place for onion rings and veggie burgers, holbrook's lobster wharf in cundy's harbor:

















kind of a picture-perfect late summer day in maine, right? it was one of those days when i feel suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that i get to live here.

a method to my madness

this may look like a random pile of green fabric, but actually it's a bunch of long, soft, gorgeous milo in maine scarves in the midst of being stitched with rock colors. i'm listing them in the etsy shop and there should also be a nice pile of them for picnic portland!

won't you be my neighbor?

to tell you the truth, my neighborhood makes me a little sad sometimes. it's lovely, isn't it? and it's my favorite kind of neighborhood, with old new englandy houses fitted close together on small lots. trees and flowers, but bordering on urban. we can walk to the grocery store, farmer's market, planetarium, bakery, and art supply store in under ten minutes. and it's about a 25 minute walk all the way downtown, right to the waterfront.

the thing about my neighborhood that makes me a little blue is the "neighbor" part. we've lived here for ten years, and i know the last names of approximately four of my neighbors (i only know the first name of my next door neighbor on one side, and i'm not certain enough about that to say it out loud). i've never been inside any of their houses. they're of the friendly wave variety of acquaintances. there's the guy who gave me some tomatoes from his garden once. and the lady with the mean dog. and the musical family that gives violin lessons. and the couple from massachusetts who never seem to be home. and so on.

i realized today that i'm on just as intimate terms with the guy who drives around in his mini-van with a mean barking dog collecting bottles from recycling bins in my neighborhood (he's a friendly-waver too) as i am with these people who live so close to me. it's not that i'm the drop-by-to-borrow-a-cup-of-sugar type of neighbor myself, but i'm relatively nice, if a tad shy. and m is downright friendly (in the past, other places we've lived, he's absolutely been the instigator of neighborly friendships). so i think it's just the nature of my neighborhood that with a few exceptions, we kind of keep to ourselves. it makes me think of what mrs. schwanauer next door (see, i actually know her name!) told me when we first moved in - something to the effect of "people around here may keep to themselves, but they'll be there if you really need them!" so far we've had no dire emergencies requiring the help of our neighbors. so they keep to themselves.

you know what we need? someone like my uncle, who won an amazingly wonderful neighbor award in his kansas city neighborhood. i wish he lived around the corner from me.

rabbit rabbit!

wow, august flew by, didn't it?