Show and Tell: Circle Journaling

Hi Friends. I hope that you are off to a great Labor Day weekend, with lots of bbq and other picnic foods. We don't have too much planned, which I am looking forward to.

I wanted to show you this journal that two of my best friends from college and I keep. Have you heard of circle journaling? It is when a group of people all take turns with the same journal, sending it back and forth to each other, as a way of keeping in touch. We decided three years ago to give it a try. One weekend while we were all together visiting we bought this simple journal and off we went. Our intention was that we would each have the book for about a month or two before sending it off to the next person. The last time I had the journal was almost two years ago when we moved to Texas... so as you can see, we aren't the best in keeping with our original time frame! Let's face it, life gets in the way sometimes - babies are born, big moves are made, career and life changes go on... But we have kept it going, which I think is an accomplishment in itself.

I feel like this book is a time capsule. I love it. Every time I get it, I read it from front to back. I pour over every inch that is written or sketched on. It's pages bind our thoughts, our creative journeys, our lives....it's a pretty powerful thing.

I was going to show you more pictures of it, but decided to keep them between my girls and I. I will show you my favorite page - it's the very first page. Even though it is by far the most simple, it speaks volumes. Enjoy.

Show and Tell

Hi out there. I can't believe it is Thursday night. What a whir wind week! I am happy to report that my girl Jenny finally made it to Austin safe and sound. Check out some of the awesome places we ate and shopped while she was here (because what else do you do when people come to visit you but eat and shop!) Here's where we got some tasty grub:

Hyde Park Bar and Grill
And for dessert we went to Mozarts
Then the next morning before hitting the shops on South Congress, we had some coffee at Jo's Coffee
then after shopping all morning we ate some tasty Mexican at Gueros's. (I introduced Jenny to queso - a reason in and of itself to live in Austin)
Then of course we couldn't leave SoCo without giving Jen a taste of Amy's.
For dinner we met up with Jenny's cousin for some more yummy Mexican at Chuy's.(my other favorite spot for queso, but I have a once a day limit, otherwise it's all I would eat!).

And here are some of my favorite places to shop (well, window shop is more like it)
Maya(love their jewelry and vases!!)
Parts and Labour (this Austin treasure has all local vendors inside it's funky shop - it is one of my favs!)
IF+D
Eliza Page(love love love their stuff!)
The list goes on and on as far as places we popped in and out of. The only place we really found any treasures that came home with us was Uncommon Objects (it's hard NOT to find treasures there).

Every time I go there I have been trying to spell our last name with old printing letters. Finally this time I was able to make something work. I love anything that has to do with old printing, it fascinates me.



Happy weekend. I'll be back soon!

Midwest Modern

Hi. I'm up at the crack of dawn again, on a Saturday. One of my best friend's is supposed to be here right now visiting and she's having a heck of a time getting here (sigh). I feel bad, I've been in her shoes where you either just want to turn around and go home or finally get to your blessed destination. Hopefully this weekend will start looking up later in the day.

I have been reading this book called Midwest Modern by Amy Butler. Another one of my girls sent it to me for my 30th birthday. (I love it when your friends know you so well that they can send you something that you've never seen before in your life and know that you will love it.) I had never heard of Amy Butler. She leads one inspiring life and her book is BEAUTIFUL. I love some of her design/life philosophies. Here is a quote from the book about their studio:

We have a mantra: Work is CHAOS. And if you understand that, every ounce of forward momentum makes you feel like you're in complete control. Pace and balance. Moderation, in all things. Taking our work and our art seriously, but not ourselves. After all, we're still an art studio. If we fail in some way, nobody dies.

When I read this part originally I just had to close my eyes and smile. I think that most design studios need to have this mantra. I worked in the corporate creative world for 7 years and I can't tell you how many days, evenings and nights that I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get to the next thing. Like the world would fall out of balance if we didn't meet this deadline. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for organization and have a great understanding of the fact that things have to get done. But there has to be a balance. For the longest time I ran around with my scales tipped, completely unbalanced. I hope that you are feeling balanced today on whatever scale it is that you work or live. Check out Amy's book, you won't be disappointed.

This Old House

Hello. Happy Monday. I hope it is happy where ever you are.

I wanted to share one more thing about my grandmother's house. It is a poem I wrote, almost 14 years ago - when I was in high school. The assignment was to write a poem that takes you through a passage of time. So mine was looking at the house through my eyes as a child, into becoming an adult.

This old house means hours of agonizing car rides and destinations filled with Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins and newly found relatives.
This old house is full of family.

This old house is the home of loving hands that wake early on Sunday morn and begin to prepare.
Days of rest mean cooking at eight a.m. in order to fill long tables that extend out of the enormous dining room.
Tables which elongate all the way to the small square in the kitchen reserved just for us by the warm window.

This old house has never-ending staircases which extend up and up.
Look upward into all of the twists and turns which take us right into the heavens.
Count as we go up all the twirling, swirling steeples of steps.
Climb right to the top, right into the attic filled with rooms inside of rooms.
Rooms full of forgotten toys and haunting mysteries.
Watch as the history of another unfolds right before our eyes.

This old house is full of secret doors and passages into other worlds.
Doors, doors and more doors leading into warm welcoming places, as well as cold forbidden places.

Travel into the sunshine that leads to the comfort of being a child and tip toe through the darkness of what is yet to come.

This old house is just another place to travel to.
Car rides are no longer painful.
Car rides are no longer even remembered.

This old house is now the home of one pair of hands.
Days of rest are now spent cooking for a small table which does not meet the enchantment of the kitchen window.
The small square reserved for us is no more.

This old house has steps upon steps.
Steps that simply create longer distances to travel in order to reach upstairs.
Twirling and swirling as we exceed only justifies the height we must fall in order to come back down.

This old house has a cluttered, dusty attic.
What an impossible task to clean the rooms and rooms of everyone else’s “has beens” and “what if” projects.
Watch as we tumble over the toys which have been lurking for centuries.

This old house has doors in the most unusual places.
Doors, doors and more doors, which only lead into stuffy, little rooms filled with cold shadows.

Travel through the darkness of what is now to return to the sunshine of what has been.


This was where our square in the kitchen was....

More Pictures

Hello Again. Sorry it has taken me a few days to post these additional pictures of my grandmother's house. I usually don't get home from my nanny job until 6:30 or 7 in the evening (most nights), by the time I get something to eat ect ect, the last thing I want to do is be on the computer. Sorry about my rambling - who doesn't have these things, right? :)

Anyway, here are some more photos that I took the last time I visited "the house".

Outside Shot


You won't be able to see it well on this image, but in the real photo you can just about make out all of the family names that lived in the house on each doorbell: Ferrara, Romano, Fulco


Another Outside Shot


This was the banister light at the bottom of the staircase. The staircase wound up from the bottom all the way into the attic. You could stand at the bottom (or the top) and look all the way up or down.


Here is one of the key holes I mentioned in my original post. This one was on a door that led into my Great Uncle Al's bedroom.


My grandmother's bathroom tub


This way the view from my grandmother's kitchen. You can't tell well from this photo, but from this window you could see the HUGE garden Uncle Al had - it was his pride and joy. This is also the kitchen where the hutch that I now have in my studio used to stand (you can see it if you go back in my archives to the second post I ever did where i showed some of my studio pics).

I have one more post that I'd like to share about the house...so stay tuned!

We are off to the Austin Ice Cream festival today with some friends. Eating ice cream is really the only way to be outside in this heat!!

Show and Tell

Good Morning. Well, it's morning here, I'm not sure what time it is where you are. But it's very early here and I am painfully aware of the fact that on my day off I got out of bed at 5 am because I was tired of laying there awake. My hope is that if I get some of the things that were buzzing around my head out of the way that I will enjoy a long morning nap! :)

My friend Megan has started having Show and Tell Tuesdays on her blog (you should check out her new plates she showed yesterday, they are beautiful!). I think it's a great idea, so this week I'm attempting a Show and Tell Wednesday, so here goes....



The house pictured above is a photo I took of the house where my father grew up. It was torn down last year. Prior to that it had been in our family for a very long time. I'm not sure exactly what I want to tell you about this house - there is so much to tell.

I'm not sure if I should tell you first that all of my dad's family grew up in this house together....two of my grandmother's sisters and one of her brothers all lived there....

or maybe you'll find it more interesting to know that this house had rooms inside of rooms...as a child I used to think that I was the only one who knew there was a door inside my grandmother's closet that led into the hallway, or that there was a door in my great aunt's room that led into my cousin's closet and so on....

Maybe you'd laugh to know that in 30 years I can count on one hand the amount of times I went into the basement because it was just too scary....

On Sundays dinner was usually early in the afternoon... my grandmother and her sisters would get up at the crack of dawn and start cooking...always pasta of some sort. When we were all there visiting the dining room table extended into two rooms...the youngest would be in the kitchen at our own little table....

Perhaps you'd find it interesting to know that there were no showers in this house for the longest time, only claw foot bathtubs, which I hated taking baths in as a child...or that some of the doorknobs to the rooms where glass or crystal...or that there were key holes that had really interesting shapes to them...or fireplaces and grates that had the most ornate details....

For me this house was a collection of memories of my family, my grandparents, my aunts, uncles and cousins. There are details like the wallpaper in my grandmother's bathroom, the creak the steps made when you walked up them and the smells that were so familiar that will be forever ingrained my memory.

I'll be back soon with some additional photos of the house and some more fun tidbits about it's history!

Happy Wednesday Y'all!

All Wound Up

Hello All. Just thought I'd share some shots of this plant that I have in our entrance way. I love watching winding plants attach themselves to things. It fascinates me and reminds me that they are really living things. I love how it twists and twirls up the trellis and then starts to grab the rock of our house. I love this plant, it is a Mandevilla. So far, it had done really well in the Texas heat, I think it likes it. I am hoping by next year this little guy will fill the trellis I have it on. We'll see.... It is the only area of my landscaping that I actually like. Our house has some really large bushes and cedar trees in front that I can't wait to get rid of. However,that wasn't exactly in the budget this year. So I managed to rip a bush out in this little section leading up to the front door and planted some lilies and the Mandevilla. I love to garden and have potted plants all around our yard. However, I have learned this summer that potted plants and Texas summers are a tough thing to maintain. So I have given up on that and am going to try having potted flowers through fall and winter down here. Hopefully that will be a little more successful.