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You, me and Photoshop
Along with a random blizzard, blogshop blew into town this weekend.
While I was off frolicking with bloggers, Joe spent the whole weekend with Lux! They had such a good time together. It was really nice to realize we’re now “at that age” where hanging with Dad all day is a treat (these days Lux actually calls him Joe, as in “jo! jo! jo!” yelling from the other room. Because of course, that’s what I do and she’s noticed it’s quite effective).
When I first signed up I thought the tuition price for the workshop was crazy opulent (thanks Mom!): $770. After two days absolutely packed with tips, techniques and lessons, I don’t think it is at all. We learned so much! If you think of it as the quick n dirty equivalent of a night class in Photoshop, it starts to make sense. I only hope I can roll out a few of the skills I learned on here in the near future. Bri and Angela are totally dedicated teachers who answered all of my 90 questions completely.
For example, here’s a header that I whipped up, just for fun:
(that drawing is from The Thinker of Tender Thoughts by Shel Silverstein)
And I walked away with some new header shots to clean up my social media act and make you all think I’m actually a published author on the side.
All in all it was really a treat to spend the weekend with other women pursuing their hobbies and talents, eating good food, and learning how do things I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
How do you feel about Photoshop? Did you know all Adobe products now have a monthly subscription option so you don’t have to buy the whole package for a zillion dollars?
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Our Roommate
Planning for Rome has almost been usurped by a new topic: planning for a new apartment. Though we would swear up and down that living in under 500 sq ft is good for us, the prospect of just a little more space has our minds reeling. I have a list of furniture and things we’ll need that’s titled “new apartment new life.”
Now’s a good time to do a post on sharing a room with Lux this past year-n-a half. Occasionally people ask me how that’s going and I often don’t know what to say because I’m so accustomed to it.
She sleeps in the top corner of the crib, closest to me. We put her water bottle there and she often wakes for a drink during the night. In the morning when she wakes she noisily reads aloud her books that were left in the crib from the night before. After that she dangles each of her stuffed animals over the edge of the crib and documents their fall to the ground with loud pronouncements. Eventually we lift her out and try to convince her to come cuddle in our bed with us, but typically she marches out of the room and then marches back in, until I ask her if she wants some oatmeal. Then she nods with glee as if I’ve announced we’re adopting a puppy.
The fact that I know all of this is one of the things I like about room sharing. I also like that she doesn’t wake up to noise in the room, both because we have a small apartment and because we just don’t bother with being very quiet when we’re getting ready for bed. Travel too, is eased because sharing a hotel room is the usual. When she’s sick, it’s just a quick hop from the bed to check on her, or soothe her back to sleep. The times we’ve gone through brief sleep “regressions” (when babies decide to wake up earlier than the typical schedule, like say, 4am) I’ve been able to both say “we’re still sleeping right now” but not abandon her to be by herself while she falls back asleep.
Around 12 months there was a point where she woke up early, and it felt like she was waking up because she wanted to see us. But right around that time a friend moved into a two-bedroom and confirmed that her daughter woke up early even in her own room. Roughly one month later it became old news to Lux that we were there and she woke up later, clearly with no concern about whether we were there or not.
A mom once asked me how I would feel putting Lux in her own room now, and I shied away from the question. It sounded lonely. And she nodded her head, as if in confirmation to herself that this showed a negative side effect of our plan–being afraid of the eventual separation.
But soon she will have her own room. I look forward to turning on a bright bedside lamp and reading myself to sleep (I do this now, but by the dim light of the closet). I don’t look forward to having another room to check for distributed toys. I’ll miss saying “good morning!” from my pillow when she wakes up. I think she’ll notice that the new space is her room and will enjoy hiding away in there. And of course, she’ll sleep better than all of us once baby #2 comes along.
Does the idea of a one-bedroom house appeal to the minimalist in you? Or sound stifling?
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Bear films Elk
Dave Eggers designed the poster for this year’s Telluride Film Festival, inspired by washed out summer colors and old Parks posters. I did not know Dave was a graphic designer before he was famous for a million other things, but it does explain why McSweeney’s publishing is always meticulously beautiful.We’re not going, but I wish we were. Passes are $780 each, but you’ll see every cool new movie in one gorgeous weekend. Plusm a spot to find a great rental, if you’re going: Rosie Cusack Telluride Rentals!
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The Snowiest Day
Marion Cunningham’s favorite simple pancakes (cute illustration of the recipe). I think the secret is there is a lot of baking soda in there.
When we come indoors, Lux picks at our shoes for bits of snow to eat. So we’ve started offering to get her a fresh bowl of snow. This makes her happy beyond expression.
The one thing Governor Patrick asked on Friday was that people take the storm seriously. Good point Deval because I think most of us were waiting with raised eyebrows and crossed arms. But wow, it is a lot snow! Part of me is wondering when we’ll see our car again, and part of me just shrugs that we won’t use it till April if need be.
I really wanted to be winter adventurers and hike around town, but it was blustery! Every time the wind blew we cowered into our jackets. And most of the businesses were closed. It sounds silly to say but I was sort of imagining a cozy hot chocolate at Starbucks capping off the trip. I was sad they were closed. (Marliave, one of my favorite Boston spots, was open both blizzard nights. Well done!)
Roasting canned tomatoes to make them taste like summer ones. These will turn into bruschetta. They’ve been cooking at low heat for hours and the smell is probably what Pizza Hut pipes in to make you keep ordering food.
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A few nice things
1. I had my first conversation with a wonderful potential doula. She was thoughtful and wise and asked me some questions I hadn’t really thought through yet. Before the overview-ultrasound yesterday (in which they check for such essentials as two sides of the brain and heart) part of me was postponing planning for this baby. It seemed a little far fetched—really, another baby? Prove it. Now I have 12 black and white photos to prove it and I feel ready to engage.
2. This spring-like splash page on studiodeseo.com
3. This poem by Richard Brautigan:
Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:Playing with Gentle Glass Things A
Computer Magic A
Writing Letters to Those You Love A
Finding out about Fish A
Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty A+!
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Bits this last weekend of January
I enjoyed reading the interview between Miranda July and Lena Dunham. I did not know Miranda had a baby, and I did not know she was married to the writer behind Beginners! Now I want to watch it again. I can’t wait for Lena Dunham’s book because I’m so curious to learn more about her relationship with her creative parents and how she managed to love them so much while growing up in a little NYC loft with them.
My brother Leighton renewed our subscription to the New Yorker for Christmas. After a few months without it, I have to say how grateful I am for that magazine. They have the most interesting articles, always taken from a totally researched yet creative perspective. It keeps me savvy, it really does.
(Newman’s oreos do not taste like real Oreos. Organic isn’t cutting it here folks.)These mug shaped loose leaf tea bags from David’s Tea. Aren’t they clever?
Lux and I visited our friends Natalie and Alfie and she pulled out all the stops on the coffee tray. Isn’t lovely when people do that? And she asked me which mug I wanted. Then we listened to Pete Seeger and Sesame Street on the record player. Thanks Nat!
Last week Joe and I finally went to a Boston dance party that I’ve been eyeing on Twitter for forever. It’s the third Friday of every month, with a $5 cover charge. It’s just dance dance dance, which was exactly what I needed. We got there at 9pm and felt lame because no one was there yet. However, we had to leave around 11:30 and saw the huge line out in the freezing cold…I’ll be getting there early every time (and making it till 2am one of these days). If you want to look it up, it’s called Picó Picante. I highly recommend it. (mailing list here)
(and they gave us feathers to put in our hair, which made everything immediately more wonderful. I won’t be able to wear this top for, oh, another year, so happy new year to it too.)
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2x
I often think of this as a place to write, but sometimes I want it to be a normal blog with lots of photos too.
If you ran into me on the street, you would notice that I look suspiciously pregnant. You would probably feel awkward because I would forget to bring it up and force you to. My brain can’t quite catch up to the fact that at 15 weeks with Lux I was still letting people in on the secret, and at 15 weeks with bébé de deux I’m practically in maternity t-shirts.
Since I don’t believe in due dates anymore, I’ll tell you that the baby is due in July, shortly after Lux turns 2. I think this is the perfect time to have a baby, and not just because I already had a baby on this exact same schedule (read: same seasonal clothes!). I think it will give Lux just enough time to grow up a bit and understand what’s going on, maybe even to be excited. Don’t let that statement lead you to believe I was some how in control of the timing of when I got pregnant, because I was not, and it was a good learning experience to realize that.
To answer your first question, we will be finding out whether it’s boy or a girl because we loved doing that the first time. The baby will probably be born across the street again, at Mass General. To answer my first question, we may or may not be moving out of our one bedroom apartment.
Our announcement for Lux, way back when.
ps: My friend pointed out that it’s just too coincidental that Lux and I are pregnant at the same time! Of course, that’s why I had to have her in this photo session with me.
my sweatshirt is from my cousin Caitlin’s partner’s Detroit clothing brand. I love it, thanks to Joanie for letting me take it after I begged it off her.
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houseguests strangers
I posted our apartment to homexchange.com a few months ago, hoping some Romans would want to houseswap with us. No Romans want to, but everyone else does. We’ve received requests from Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, Bermuda, Iceland, Spain, Florida….seriously if we had a million frequent flyer miles, I would say yes to all of these offers!
Nothing has happened yet; except that one time a French family stayed at our apartment over Christmas! Here’s what happened: I eagerly set it up via email, Joe comes home from work, he reminds me we don’t have any plans to go to France, just Italy. Ah yes good point.
So I say, “Hey why don’t you come after all? We won’t be here anyway. Maybe bring us a bottle of champagne and we’ll call it even.” We had one Skype conversation in which I ascertained that they were perfectly normal people who were not going to auction our belongings on craigslist while we were gone, and the deal was made. And so Bindu and her husband and her little daughter came to stay in Beacon Hill for New Years.
We cleaned the sheets and tidied the bathroom, set out fresh towels, locked the door, and hid the keys for them. When we returned, the apartment was cleaner than I’d ever seen it in my life, and they left all sorts of surprise gifts for us—duplos for Lux, champagne, red wine, French chocolates. I think they might have ironed our bedspread because it looked brand new.
Bindu wrote out little notes to explain all the gifts. The most surprising one was the foie gras–I known I’ve eaten this before, but only in the tiniest doses, and never with the fig jam and sweet wine that she recommended. Joe and I have split the jar for two dinners now, alongside a baguette.
So, I learned 1/ how to be a much better houseguest in the future. Now I want to always leave gifts, especially local treats from where you’re from. 2/ It was pretty neat to know someone was enjoying our stuff while we were away. Bindu wrote that her daughter loved all of Lux’s toys, and they found our apartment warm and comfortable. I thought, “yes, I do too!”
Would you be brave and let strangers stay in your home?
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Valentine’s Day gift swap
Allie is hosting a Valentine’s Day City Swap, in which you swap local gifts from your city with a paired-up stranger. I’ve already signed up, but you have until Friday if you want to join! She did this for Christmas too and had almost 100 people participate. She’s a design blogger so you know her readers have good taste. : )
pretty logo from Allison Lehman’s blog.
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the new Anna Karenina
I went to Anna Karenina last night. My friend picked me up in her car and drove over there (a luxury that never happens in Boston) so there was no chilly-huddled walking. The theatre sells Tollhouse Ice Cream cookies, a gutsy decision I always like to support.
Usually I am a read-the-book-first type of girl, but I actually think this could be a great movie to watch first, then read. When I read AK I never got a good image of the main characters in my head. I really didn’t understand Anna at all. Keira Knightly is absolutely stunning in this. My friend asked if I had a favorite part, I said anytime she was on screen. Actually all the characters were beautiful, and their clothes too. Tolstoy you old devil, I thought to myself. What a romantic! I want to read it again now. Did you see it? What did you think?
