**It's August.

So, July went south pretty early in the month. It was as if my own little universe exploded. And the rest of the month was used to pick up the pieces, analyze them, get rid of some, add a few and figure out a way to put it back together in a new and beautiful way.

It's August. Expect some "saved up posts" from July, but a new (and much better followed up with) project to come.

Mini Notebooks. Day one- Check.

Day one of the JULY- give it a try festivities was an interesting one. But I did get something accomplished:

I FINALLY posted pictures of my handmade mini notebooks to my Etsy site! (Click the image above if you want to see a few more pictures.) I've been making these bitty hand sewn notebooks for about a year now; handing them out to friends and coworkers to use in meetings, on the road, or if you're me, anytime you have something to remember. I've been planning to begin selling them in threes on Etsy...but never got around to posting some pictures of examples. Hopefully some notable folks will be interested in 3 mini notebooks hand crafted to their color-liking for $7.
Day one is done.
Let's hope day 2 has something equally exciting (I know. It's really only exciting to me) to report.

JULY-- Give it a try

After 6 months of floundering and procrastinating and "what ifs" and maybes...it's time for action. I love a good title, it always spurs action for me, so I decided that July 2009 shall hence forth be referred to "JULY- give it a try."
The goal of said month is to act. To try something new or do something I've been wanting to do or to complete a project I've been putting off.
I always wish I had documented an adventure or put something down on paper and "JULY- give it a try" will give me the opportunity. Through photos, words and funny scribblings I will blog about my month and keep my few blog readers posted on the progress.
If you want to play along and have your own "JULY- give it a try" month of action---make sure to tell me all about it!

Here's to JULY 2009!

Another "taken while driving picture"

It's this kind of day.

I take pictures while driving.

(a sunset on a country road in Eastern Iowa)

Yes. It's bad, but some of the best shots I've ever captured are on my Blackberry Pearl while driving. I vow to stop texting and driving. But photos....ehhh. Mostly I take pics of sunsets or people or funny plates, etc. Things that, because of amazing advances in technology and my obsession with my phone, I can capture forever.

(my drive to work in the morning)

GOventure.

Elise serves as a constant source of blog-spiration for me so when she teamed up with the talented Kal on a spectacularly creative GOventure, I decided it was time for me to jump into blogland again with a creative challenge.

I'm going through some weird times right now* so the "green+dizzy" prompt came to me, obviously, in a mess of marker, crayon, pencil and (oddly enough) a tube of mascara I was throwing out.

I'm trying to tap into my art again. Find a place for it. Big changes coming in my life. And hopefully many many GOventures to come.

*I've decided that 26 is a pivot age. A year that exists solely to cause stress, to cause a ridiculous amount of questioning and to see how much self-doubt and strange changes one can endure in a year long time frame. I'm having a love hate relationship with 26. I think we'll grow to like each other...it has only been one month tomorrow since we first met.

Have you checked out this?

To promote my super talented Iowa friends:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=1938

Danelle is not just a great person, she's a superly awesome artist. She specially made (heart) Iowa pouches for me. And included glittery vinyl. Glitter makes everything cooler, but even without, MonsterFashion is worth a look.

A look at the awesome goods I special ordered from Danelle.

tutelary goddess

The word of the day. Tutelary. "Having the guardianship or charge of protecting a person or a thing; guardian; protecting..." All I could think when I read it was "yes. I need one of those."

Lots of changes needed in my life. Might be time to turn back to art and blogging and creative coping. I need a Tutelary Goddess.

I wish I drew this

Carolyn Alexander via http://reubenmiller.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341ca70953ef011570b803a1970b-pi

Drawing again.

Has Brad Pitt ever had an identity crisis?

So I hear about Brad Pitt and Chuck Close and W Magazine. (Seriously, it must suck being Brad Pitt. He requested Chuck Close do the phots and bam, he has pictures of him that are taken by THE Chuck Close.)
The images are startling. Hot Brad Pitt looking semi average? What's that all about? Something about it, however, is startingly lovely. The worlds most perfect man and his imperfections, regardless how slight they are, out there on magazine racks for the world to see. Not to get all philosophical on my otherwise meaningless blog, but if Brad Pitt is proud and able to share his tiny crows feet with the world, why can't I be vulnerable?


Why can't anyone be free to flaunt their flawed yet fully functioning selves? Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing, how I got here and where I want to go. Do you think Brad Pitt ever asks himself those questions?

Girl Talkin.

So last weekend my sister, not this one, but one of the others, and I went to see Greg Gillis, otherwise known as Girl Talk. I was expecting craziness, yes. (Did you see the crazy YouTube videos of him at Lalapalooza in Chicago? Insanity.) But what I experienced was seriously the biggest, sweat-filled, floor shaking party I've ever been to. It was like Joseph Conrad took to the stage. A collage artist hunched over a Mac Book. I person sweating and head banging more than humanly possible. If you get the chance, Go.

Thought of the day

Etsy obsession

I go in and out of my Etsy obsession. And right now I'm in. Way in.

Check out this sweet artist...

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5205714

Letters.

From a note to a blogland friend...

I'm reading a book of letters. I'm fascinated by letters. I love sending and receiving mail and feel that letters, like these from the 1800s, are the blogs of today. The raw unfiltered moments of fear, grace, hope and comfort open the reader (both the recipient then and the voyeur of a reader that I am now) to something so exquisitely personal. The letters I'm reading now are from Van Gogh and are all written to his brother Theo.

In a letter he wrote Theo in July of 1880 Van Gogh talks about how withdrawn he has become. That he has become a stranger to his family, losing contact with them for quite sometime. Throughout the letter he explains to Theo just why he has become disconnected and his plans to reconnect with those who love him. He admits to being a "man of passions" who is "capable of and subject to doing more of less foolish things." He admits that the path he is on, while it is weary and at times sad, he must keep on it.

"That is how I look at it; to continue, to continue, that is what is necessary. But you will ask: What is your definite aim? That aim becomes more definite, will stand out slowly and surely, just as the rough draught becomes a sketch, and a sketch becomes a picture, little by little, by working seriously on it, by pondering over the idea, vague at first, over the thought that was fleeting and passing, till it gets fixed."

i love mail.

http://andrewbush.net/envelopes%202%20pwg/index.html
you must see this.
It's fantastic.

Truckin.

This is the big red truck I drove while in Phoenix. Phoenix and I didn't really get along.
It was hot. So hot. 116 degrees hot. And I was driving an Enterprise Rent-a-car commercial. You AZ people amaze me. You and your super hot summers. And this truck, well we didn't really get along either. The scar on my shin proves it.
I did, however, make it two point five days in this big boy. Me, my Dodge Ram Big Horn and Phoenix will remain on friendly terms, but we don't plan to reunite again until it's below 90 in the Southwest.

To blog or not to blog.

.... a way to scatter my scrambled thoughts across the internet.

"The distance is nothing: it is only the first step that is difficult." - Marie Anne Du Deffand
My friend gave this to me written on a piece of paper before I left on my first big trip of my big new job that is bigger than me. Three cities, three time zones, eight days and me. The first step was difficult. I was handed a giant car, keys and handful of people to see. And I went. I did it. I was alone and comfortable with it. I enjoyed the cities. I remembered what it felt like to be on my own agenda and only my own. I worried about myself and only myself. It was effortless, but not without frustration. But I did it.

There. Blog on.

A new year.

I think that birthdays are more "resolution" oriented that January 1st. You reflect on how great your year has been or how much you feel you missed out on. You realize how far you've come and how far you have to go.

Tomorrow I'll be 25.

Let the new year begin.