Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall

This weekend marks the official end of summer in our household. We live by the academic calendar, so in a sense next week, when classes resume, is the beginning of a new year!

I'm not heading back to school, though, which is a strange and wonderful feeling at the same time. I love to learn in a classroom setting, but I am really enjoying the beginnings of this new, more creative phase in my life.

A lot has changed in the last several months. I have begun drawing again; something I haven't really done since my high school days (more than six years ago). I have taken a big chance and begun to share my work with others through blogging and my Etsy shop. Everyone has been really supportive of my work, and I am so grateful for that! This "year" will be different for me, but in a really positive way I think.

To mark the last weekend of summer, A. and I are determined to make some fun plans. On Saturday I think we will head to Bar Harbor for some food, sun, and a movie at one of our favorite little places. We may even make a day of it and pack a picnic! Tonight or Sunday we will probably check out the Folk Festival - one of the biggest yearly events in Maine. It's always fun to grab some food, check out the crafts and listen to the great music playing throughout the small (!) city of Bangor.

What are your plans for the weekend?

P.S. My latest print (above), Rain Delay, can be found now in the shop!

Baby Deer and a Really Big Cookie

Tonight I have the house to myself. Whenever this happens, you can bet that I will bake something (to keep myself busy) and have a restless night of sleep. The first part is certainly true for this evening; I baked this giant cookie. It's cooling on the stove as we speak. What can I say, I like to have my boy around. On the rare occasion that he is away, I console myself in his absence with buttery goodness!

I am really excited about my latest print, which I hope to have in the shop very soon! This particular piece was inspired by all of the baby deer I have been seeing around my home lately. There are so many sweet little deer families living around us! Rarely a day goes by that I don't have the pleasure of seeing at least a couple of them up close. Just today I saw a baby CHASING a groundhog across the grass! 

This albino deer was spotted by A. near our place. How sweet is he? I have been looking for him daily on my walk to work, but I haven't been lucky enough to see him yet.

I hope everyone is having a lovely week!

Embracing Poor Vision

A while ago, I posted about how excited I was to get these glasses. I am a big fan of the bookish look, and I was dying to get a new pair of specs for myself. 

Those glasses ended up not working out so well. Apparently, I have a crooked head. At least, one ear is slightly higher than the other. The girl at the store said it was OK and made an adjustment by warming up the plastic and bending them until they looked straight on my face. Because of said "adjustment" I was no longer looking through the lens directly, and wearing the glasses made me REALLY nauseous. So, back to the store those glasses went.

As much as I liked those, I'm not TOO upset because today I picked up these fun frames from D&G. I am really loving them! The clear plastic frames in the front aren't too overpowering with my blunt bangs, and I like the contrasting arms a lot!

To me, glasses - like hair - are another accessory to have fun with. I choose to have a positive perspective and think of them as an opportunity, not a curse!

I hope you had an enjoyable, relaxing weekend!

Try It: Barbeque Chicken Pizza

Pizza for dinner is a really common occurrence in our house. I almost always have homemade pizza sauce and fresh mozzarella on hand, and this pizza crust can be mixed up in no time at all. 

One of our new favorite versions doesn't involve regular pizza sauce, but BBQ instead. I bake a few chicken breasts in the oven, cut them up and smother with barbecue sauce. I add a very thin layer of BBQ sauce to the crust, pile on the chicken with a smattering of red onions and top with a bit of gouda cheese. I'm telling you, this is a delicious combination! It's a great way to get the summer flavors of grilling if you are unfortunate enough not to own one (like myself). 

Try this! Better yet, make this for a dinner gathering. Your friends will love you for it!

Change is Good

Those who know me will tell you that I love to change my hair. It's a running joke with some friends of mine that my hair is different literally every time I see them (once every couple of months). It's not really a joke, though, because that really is how often I change it up! Hair is like another accessory to me, and I love to play. I never worry about absolutely hating a style; hair grows back, right?!

On a whim a couple of weeks ago, I decided to go to more of a bob style with blunt bangs. My last, quite short hairstyle was growing out a bit and I was liking the long pieces around my face. I thought bangs would be fun to show off the vibrant red (not really visible in these pictures) it currently is. And don't tell anyone, but thick bangs allow my unruly eyebrows (truly) a bit of a break from the tweezers and scissors! As important as eyebrows are, I can get a little lazy about maintaining them (oops).

I'm loving the cut right now, so I just may keep it for a while. That is, until I suddenly decide to change it again!

Love is Like Gravity

Happy Monday all!

How is your week going? Today I thought I would share the latest piece I finished. I put the final touches on this sweet little drawing last night while relaxing on the couch, trying to mentally prepare myself for another week of work. I have yet to fully adjust to working full time. The schedule of a grad student just didn't seem to suck the energy out of me like the life of an "adult" does, but I digress.

I really like the simplicity of this image, and the textured backdrop (which doesn't come through on the screen, really). My boy came up with the name for this one, "gravity", which I think is kind of great! Love really is like gravity, is it not?  But I think love is different in that it only grows over time. The bond between A. and I strengthens as each day, week and year passes.

I think this piece will make it onto my wall, and into the shop, in the very near future. It's a sweet little reminder of just how great love is!