Art & Entertaining (Sunday Snippets)

We had a cold, rainy storm (by San Diego standards) on Friday night, but we were safe inside with our friends, eating cabbage and cauliflower manicotti (adapted from this recipe) and drinking wine and playing with Hamilton. Lucky us!

Saturday was clear and cool. A perfect day for farmers market, a little painting, and then a walk to Tiger! Tiger! for a sour beer tap takeover for San Diego Beer Week. 

This morning has been lazy. We set the clocks back, so it feels luxuriously late in the morning, but the clocks say otherwise! See other Sunday Snippets posts here. 

Tea Towels and Thoughtfulness

My friend Lynnea just returned from a two week trip to the UK and France. I must confess I'm pretty jealous of her globe-trotting ways, but it's her thoughtfulness that I most want to emulate. Every time she and her husband take a trip, they bring back a souvenir for Matt and I. Isn't that sweet? This time she brought me these:

They're darling little Babushka tea towels from Paperchase. Aren't they adorable? Lynnea knows how much I love matryoshkas and Russian folk art, as well as pop art and kitsch. I really appreciate her thinking of me on her travels. 

I really want to be a good friend like that, the kind of person who thinks of others even on vacation. I get such tunnel vision in my life. Really, it's like a tunnel with a screen over the end--I can only just make out even the things right in front of me. But I imagine thoughtfulness is like so many other virtues, and can be cultivated with practice. But how does one practice thoughtfulness? Hmm... It's something to ponder this month. The end-of-year holidays are an excellent time to practice thoughtfulness, don't you think? How would you go about cultivating consideration? I would love to hear how you make yourself a better friend and family member to your loved ones. 

The Finish Line (blogtoberfest day 31)

Whew! Here it is! I missed 3 days, but all-in-all I consider this Blogtoberfest thing a success. I have blogged more in the last month than I had in years and years. I'm excited to keep going--but to have a little more time to plan what to talk about. I don't know that I'm capable of producing quality AND quantity simultaneously. At least not yet. 

For now I'm going to give myself a little pat on the back and relax for a day or two. Maybe.

Retro Weekend - Sunday Snippets (blogtoberfest day 30)

I love using my cell phone to capture my weekend adventures. I particularly like using all the different "retro" or "vintage" camera apps available right now. But while I love making my current pictures look vintage, I noticed that many of my pictures taken this weekend for the final Sunday Snippets for Blogtoberfest 2011 were of truly vintage things. Even without the fancy filters.

On Friday, Matt and I watched Amanda Palmer at the beautifully restored Birch North Park Theater (the first two pictures above). And then today we went to one of our favorite coffee shops--Cafe Bassam (the rest of the pictures, except the last)--which is full of innumerable objects of interest and history, and wandered around some of the beautiful historical neighborhoods in San Diego. Bassam's has so many antique and fun pieces in their cafe. Not pictured: the many oil paintings, racks of rifles and muskets, and even more! So lovely and fun. I feel so blessed to have so much charming history in the objects and architecture around me.

What a lovely month it has been. Thank you for taking a peek at it here and there. 

Because I will be the picture of discipline, never minding what state I'm in...

Friday night I saw the incomparable Amanda Palmer in concert at the Birch North Park Theater. It was one of the best live shows I've seen. Fantastic. 

I find Amanda incredibly inspiring. I love that she has been brave enough to simply make art and find a way to live from it. I wish I had been as brave and focused as she seems to have been. Of course no one is as together as their image, and she often alludes to her disbelief that like-minded young women see her as a person who has "figured it out"--but there is no denying her commitment to art and striving for personal artistic authenticity. 

In her song "In My Mind" she explores that sense of striving to be "better" that I think so many people--maybe particularly women--feel throughout life. And the discovery at the end, that she is exactly who she wants to be is a place I want to reach. Perfection is impossible, but if we're doing work we find meaningful, the perfect details aren't important.