Wednesday, April 28, 2010

renaissance muse



I think I spelled that right--I've misspelled renaissance since I first encounted the word.

Isn't life rich with opportunities to alter your perceptions? When I first met Starlite Motel I dismissed her quickly as a flashy lightweight--which was an appalling mistake! As I have gotten to know her better over the past couple of years, she consistently impresses me with her acute intuition and generous wisdom. She is a bit flashy, with an enviable sense of rockin' personal style! But her substantial authenticity and depth reminds me of amythyst or even aquamarine: faceted and brilliant and beautiful. I'm loving this shot of her and her almost-here daughter.

Friday, April 9, 2010

therapy of the apartmental kind

Last week I stumbled across the interior design/self-help book, "Apartment Therapy: the eight-step home cure", by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, at Powell's City of Books and it seemed to offer solutions all those perennially unaddressed issues with home decor that have followed me around from abode to abode all my adult life! So I bought it and began gobbling up its advice and instructions while still on the bus ride home. Turns out, there's an amazing website/blog of the same name. Check out ApartmentTherapy.com when you get a chance. It's incredibly stimulating!

Okay, I'm halfway through the first read and am jumping with ideas and fixes for my big, emptyish, too bright by half, bland, blah, beige apartment in NE Portland. When I mentioned the book to my friend Anna, she suggested that I could write about my process here on the blog. What a GOOD idea, Anna!

So, the first thing is that I'm going to finish actually reading the book through before launching into the eight, week-long steps, just so I'll know what to expect and how to plan, but am committed to launching my first week on Friday, April 16th, 2010. Whoohoo! I'm a little excited.

Here are a few photos of my current situation--I used a "watercolor" treatment on a couple of them just to try to make them look less stark. Ahem, I'm sure you see the problem...





Monday, April 5, 2010

another Sunday

Grayson spent a few hours with me on Easter. We watched "Ponyo" together--a film we'd both wanted to see for quite awhile. And we snarfed Easter treats and had dinner together until his dad came to pick him up. He's such a good boy and I'm so lucky to have a fine relationship with him. We hid and found eggs around my apartment (Oregon. Rain. Typical.), took pictures of each other indoors and told terrible jokes. Equilibrium.