free art and writing workshops. you're invited...

I know this girl who just does things.

What things? Like, anything you can think of. And when I hear about her newest project, I look around and think, Can you do that?

You can, apparently. Although I usually don't. Here's what she cooked up recently: The Billboard Poetry Project.

She was sick of billboards for laser surgery and boob jobs cluttering up the freeway. So she held a contest and the winning poem is going up on a series of billboards here in Provo.  

The whole idea is very cool, so you should check it out—especially the free workshops. I'm not sure how I fell in with such brilliant people, but they're gold, every one of 'em.

And, lest you suspect this is a personal plug, I want you to know that you shouldn't necessarily sign up for my workshop (although you'd be most welcome—we'll explore the outdoors, read some things, probably eat some food and you'll leave with a finished little piece of prose).

If you're not sure which class to sign up for, holler and I'll give you my two cents for free.

Everyone's welcome—to the workshops, to the reception and the art show. Just come create and celebrate.

sometimes i'm a lazy copycat

Between ear infections (baby girl's) and laziness (mine), our little blog has been neglected. Lots of things are going on, but I'm not sure how much or how little you want to hear, as I'm now one of those people who thinks too often about the regularity and consistency of someone else's poop.
    
While I think on that and figure out what I'm doing, I'll leave you with this great idea I copy-catted from my cousin: a 52-photo book. 

It's easy to take lots of baby pictures, but mom and dad sometimes don't make it into the frame. So, for the last year, I've made sure we take at least one picture of our baby girl with her mom or dad—ideally, some photos of both—every single week. I printed out my favorites (ended up as 200, not 52) and put them in a book that documents her first year with all three of us together. And now I'm in the habit of taking pictures of the family, not just her. Instead of posting all 200 here, I'll opt for two favorites:























Yeah, I'll probably just keep blogging about that girl. Even her poop is the cutest.

dinosaur burritos and parenthood

 












This might look like another braggy felting post. I'll own it—it kind of is. A three-year-old we know was having a dinosaur birthday party and how could I NOT make him a little brontosaurus with purple dots on the bum?

 But I've been thinking about more than just bragging: After I finished making the dinosaurs and their lake and berry bushes, I rolled them up in their felty home like a burrito and wrapped the whole thing in tissue paper.  

A few days later, I heard that instead of giving the dinosaurs drinks from the lake, or making them fight each other, or any other thing I imagined he might do with them, this adorable kid kept rolling up the dinosaurs and unrolling them—like, what else would you do with them, really? I think that's adorable. And it's one more tiny image I can tuck away in my brain to remind myself of something I keep needing to learn. . .

I don't feel like I adjusted to motherhood very gracefully (and if you ask my husband about our conversation on Sunday, you might get him to admit that I still haven't). I love it, but I keep forgetting that kids put a spin on life that you wouldn't have thought up on your own.

Which is awesome sometimes. Like last night, I made my baby girl laugh so hard she snorted and fell over just because I turned my face every time she touched my cheek. I'm not funny, so it was weird to make someone laugh so hard by doing basically nothing.

Other times, it's not so awesome. Life is a bit confusing for people whose teeth are just coming in, or just falling out, who haven't yet figured out how to walk or read or use the toilet. Babies want to suck on batteries when they have a pile of toys (how on EARTH did she find one when all the batteries are locked away?). Or kids do things mine isn't even old enough to think of yet—like draw with rocks on cars, or microwave their barbies.    

I'm not so good at rolling with punches, but turns out, neither are they! They fall down and do dumb things and don't know how to fix them. Parenthood involves witnessing and assisting in that learning curve—and hopefully doing both with kindness and a semblance of composure. Maybe this won't sound helpful or even make sense to you, but I the next time I feel baffled and all my plans thwarted by the littlest person in my life, I'll try to remind myself to think of things a little differently—to just roll me up some dinosaurs.

would you like one, too?

When I learned how to needle felt last year, I made a little Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus for Christmas. I set the nativity up on a shelf and made Christopher admire it with me over the span of several days.

I almost posted a picture of that first attempt here, but got kind of embarrassed, both about how it looked and how much it impressed me last year. I've learned a lot since then. Here's one of this year's nativities:

















Remember this contest a while back? Jenny won. And this nativity is hers.

But you can have one, too, if you'd like. I've been told by enough people, "You should sell those," that I am.

I'm late in the game and you may have already done your decorating and planned your Christmas purchases. But just in case you're late, too, I want to say that you're welcome to order one. They're $40 and I need about 5 days' notice.*

And if you're all done with your Christmas shopping, I envy you. I also wish you a very Merry Christmas.



*If you know my real life email or phone number, you can contact me there to order. If you don't, you can still order by emailing me (here: kpetey [at] gmail [dot] com) to work out all the details.

this calls for a celebration...

...but of what, I'm not entirely sure—our ability to talk about ourselves? This is our blog's 200th post. Big, round numbers seem to ask for recognition.

What have we done between posts 1 and 200? We've lived in 3 different apartments, finished 2 degrees (one apiece), had 1 baby, and succeeded in paying zero dollars for every TV we've owned.

These days, I'm in a making mood. I baked bread once a week in August. I've typed away on a novel. I've felted (coasters for a contest) and sewed (a baby-sized Halloween costume and some silk-tie onesies for a friend).

Here's where you come in, faithful readers (and lurkers, too):

Leave a comment on this post, wishing us a happy 200 (or saying whatever else you'd like) and I'll throw your name in the ring* for a handmade present from me. I can't promise that it will be big or amazing, but it WILL be 100% custom-made just for you. Thanks for reading. Celebrate away.













*(I'll draw a random name out of a hat—or something like unto it—on September 15th. Baby girl turns 6 months old that day. One more reason to celebrate.)

motherhood will teach me this again, won't it

I made a long list of things I needed (read: wanted) to accomplish before the baby came.

Then the universe laughed at me. No, our gummi bear did not come early. I just got super sick. I've spent the last week moving from my bed to my couch and back again, with detours to the bathroom for more tissues and throat lozenges.

And the list?

Maybe it was a bit ambitious—even for a healthy pregnant lady. Looks like I planned on sewing, cooking, cleaning, writing, and decorating everything in the universe until the second the baby crowned. I'm working on deleting some items from the list.

I do this often: make plans too big for any person and then feel disappointed when I find out I'm not superhuman. Kind of like this little frustration:



















I took on a project I wasn't prepared for, with instructions that were difficult to follow, and expected myself to finish in an afternoon. It eventually turned out, but only after weeks of tearing out seams and sewing them back up again crooked. I probably should have re-evaluated my progress halfway through and just gone to the store to buy a stupid diaper bag like a normal person.

I have a feeling that motherhood will demand that I re-evaluate and abandon overblown plans more often than I currently do. Just like this week's virus made me chuck my list, my little gummi bear will do the same when she throws up or falls down or just wants me to put down the to-do list to cuddle with her. I hope I figure it out.

oh. my. cute.

I know a brilliant, multi-talented woman who shared one of her secrets with me yesterday. Because of her expert instruction, I made his adorable bear (and C. made the halloween pumpkin in his hand).

I'm addicted. After we went home, I spent an hour—which I SHOULD have spent creating a lesson plan—looking on the internet for ideas of more cute, little felted things I could make. I'm pretty sure that's all I want to do for the next two months (thesis defense? pshaw!).

I'm not going to tell you how incredibly simple this is to do. I want you to be amazed. Isn't he cute?

the law of the universe

The universe has a law that goes like this: If you leave the house looking like you just rolled out of bed, you will see someone you know—most likely someone important, someone you haven't seen for a long time.

Sometimes you look like that, but you think you are safe inside your house. You are not tempting the universe in any way. And even then, the law of the universe will sometimes come to find you. For instance, if you decide to deep clean and thoroughly rearrange your apartment, buy and assemble a new couch, throw everything you own into upheaval, and place pieces of junky, disassembled furniture just outside your door, your landlord (who has been out of the country for a year) may just drop by. You should have at least done your hair today.

a backward view of our garden

There's something awkward about positioning a laptop low to the ground to take a picture of a patch of dirt—especially since everything is backwards, which makes the computer trickier to aim than a normal camera. (We really need to get our camera fixed.) But I don't care how ridiculous I looked to the upstairs neighbors, because I am so excited about the work we finished that I have to say this:

Ta da! We have a garden.

It's a little one, with a few strawberries and tomatoes, and with my luck, its production from the entire summer will only yield a single salad. But I'm delighted anyway. And it's not just because the plants are in the ground.

On my other blog, I mentioned that I'm horrible at asking for help. I think I have a weird, genetic mutation that makes me think that I'm not interesting or charming enough to be helped. I also mentioned that a certain friend gave me some advice on my thesis. That dear friend decided to give me some more advice that sounded like this: you should let me help you plant your vegetables and clean your house.

Her advice is usually sound, so I took it. We planted the little garden together and then tackled the disaster in my kitchen and family room. Now I have a clean, pretty place to live. And so do my plants. You can see it in this backward, oddly lit, poorly composed picture that I looked like a moron to take.

i always do this

Every summer while I was growing up, my family went to Mill Hollow up in the Uintah Mountains. We stayed the weekend in cabins at a science camp where my parents worked during summers after high school. They led us on hikes, taught us names for plants, and took us to the little general store that the camp director opened for an hour or so on Saturdays—just for us, as the school kids who visited the camp had already gone home.

My parents gave us each some money, which we used to buy magnifying glasses, Mill Hollow Stickers, or long strips of colored plastic we could use to make boondoggle lanyards. My brothers spent their money fast. But I rolled those dollar bills up so tight that they turned into little slivers that got all sweaty in my hands. Should I get three feet of the green boondoggle? Or two? Would it match the blue better? Or the purple? How many keychain clips should I get?

And on and on—until it was time to close up shop and I wouldn't be able to buy anything unless I decided RIGHT NOW. You have no idea how many painful decisions went into those crappy lanyards that I made.

Unfortunately, that indecisiveness has followed me until now. I take AGES to make a decision. And once I finally do, it's sometimes too late. For instance, I've deliberated for 2 months now over a rug for our apartment. I finally found one that I love, took some time eliminating all other possibilities, made up my mind and...

It's sold out. Unavailable. The general store has closed. Go buy your boondoggle supplies somewhere else.

Such a pretty rug. Such a silly girl. If any of you see another rug just like this one, tell me. And if I manage to get over what I always do, I'll unroll my dollar bills and buy it before it gets away.

if he won't buy you flowers...

Let me say this first: my husband does perfect, wonderful, kind things for me every day. He is pretty much the best. We just see flowers differently.

For me, the act of giving flowers is a thoughtful gesture that simultaneously beautifies. For him, the act of cutting a plant off its roots, sticking it in a glass container, and watching it slowly die seems useless. Even so, he bought me this beautiful arrangement a few weeks ago:














Not long after the purchase of this bouquet, he started a cool project which gives him a very good reason—even with his anti-blossom tendencies—to buy more flowers from now on.

He spent many hours drilling. Through wood.




















And plastic.




















To make this:



















It's a composting bin. Go here to learn how to make one yourself.

After letting the paint dry and setting it up in the backyard, we put all sorts of scraps inside: weeds, dead leaves, strawberry tops.

And those lovely (and now, very useful) flowers that had just finished wilting.















Flowers: a beautiful gift, and a useful element of compost. The differing man/woman mindset regarding their utility? Solved.