Leaving On a Jet-Plane: The Most Uncreative Title to a Blog-Post Ever.

Post vacation BLAAAAAH'S have hit. Was in bed all day yesterday with the flu. Finally started feeling better at 11 pm so I got up and changed the sheets and did the dishes and then went back to bed. Really productive days like that help to boost my spirits. Lame.

I tried to get into my oil paints, but now I feel like I wrecked what I had. I can't stop staring at every painting, picture, plant, pattern without trying to find some sort of inspiration so that I can get it back on a path to something I like. It's just sitting there on the easel taunting me. Then people come over and see it and I get all defensive "I'm not done yet!"- as if they even care.

Guess that's the good thing about painting, or any other creative venture- it forces you to notice things around you much more than you had before... especially when you feel pressured to "fix" what you are working on. So fail=win.

Peace out North shore Mountains. Won't miss your snow.
What I realized on this trip: vegetarians get treated like royalty on planes. I've never actually pre-ordered a vegetarian meal because airlines do everything they can to avoid giving a meal on the flight. But 11 hours and no food just isn't gonna cut it, so my mom made sure that I was taken care of. Thoughtful. I got my food a good half hour before the rest of the meat-eating-chumps, so by the time they were tearing into their Sheppard's pie, I was proudly rubbing my belly and asking for tea.
We flew over Iceland. Funny that I've never been past Alberta in my own country, but I've been to the East coast of Spain. The whole 11 hour flight was sunny. Left Vancouver at 5pm on Saturday and arrived in Spain at 2pm (their time) Sunday. We chased the sun across Canada, the Atlantic and Spain. It was so weird to look at my watch at read 12:30 am and have no dark.
What I should have done was slam this thimble of free wine and try to sleep. Instead, I stayed up making friendship bracelets, for myself.
Finally by 3:30 am, I couldn't take it anymore. How the heck do you sleep on these things?!?! I've never been on a long flight. Such a rookie. I can't sleep with my legs down, so I ended up taking down the tray table and awkwardly resting my feet on that. Two hours later they were waking us up and serving lunch. I was a lost cause from that point on. I couldn't do anything but fixate on wanting to go to sleep.
Somewhere over France. Maybe I could paint this?
Monserrat ("Serrated Mountain" in Catalonia speak). It just protrudes from the rest of the land in the most surreal way. Later that week we took a tour to see the monastery that is cradled between these pillar-like rock formations. Intense.
The song that came on as we were circling the city to land. Not planned. I didn't even remember it being on the playlist. An IPOD miracle.

An hour bus ride, and about 8 tunnels through the mountains we arrived in Salou. I was so tired I nearly fell asleep face first in the mass of food I piled on my plate from the buffet. I don't know how people travel for business. I'm a total jet lag wuss.

This Week I...

Swam in the Mediterranean.

And in the Pacific Ocean.

Picnicked on the Beach in Spain.

And on the beach in Tsawwassen.

Mediterranean....

Pacific Ocean....

The water at Centennial beach was hot last night. We just happened to pick a night where high tide was after 8 pm. It was like a bath tub. Sometimes coming home from vacation is really hard. It's a huge bummer- especially when it's winter at home and you have to leave the sunshine, but last night I realized that not everyone is so lucky to go home to a beach. Our new place is about a block from the beach. I just wish that I didn't have to find a job and could be a beach bum all summer long.

Pour Some Sugar On Me

I'M HOME!!! Waiting for the 9 hour time difference jet lag to kick my butt. Have 2000 photos and video to load an edit when my mind is a little less foggy. HATING the weather here. C'mon Vancouver! It's summer, where's the sun? How am I supposed to keep up my leathery tan with all these clouds?

One of my girlfriends gave birth the the most gorgeous little boy at the end of May. The least I could do was bake them a cake. No?

They try to make you believe it's only for stagettes, but I believe it is at least equally, if not more, appropriate in this sort of situation.

My first cake decorating turned out really well. Very proud of this one, and lucky for me, they hadn't received a cake like this already. No one wants to be that person.

Chelsea Maurina Barcelona.

That's right. I'm off to Spain this eve. Nine days ago I got a call asking if I would be interested in a last minute trip to Italy. Yup. Then the fact that neither of us had an international licence meant we couldn't rent a car and would have to fork over $600 CAD to pay someone to drive us the 4 hrs to the Amalfi Coast.

So Spain it was. 9 days ago I had no clue anything would come along out of the ordinary. Now my bag is packed and sitting by the front door waiting to go to Spain for 14 days. Furthest I've been is the Dominican Republic for my wedding/honeymoon. Most people don't spontaneously go to Europe. Most people don't paint their bedroom the colour of neon pea soup. I can't explain these things, they just come to me and I say yes.

Some friends stopped by to help (watch) me pack. This girl has talent for telling stories. She can tell you about breaking a jar of pickles while stocking shelves in the grocery store and you walk way thinking it should be made into a major motion picture.
Look at Rob contorting with enjoyment. She lays it out there and it's always good. She could have her own MTV show like "The City" or "The Hills" but it could be called "The Suburbs" and it could follow her round as she breaks stuff at work and then tells us about it.
She could drive a dump truck around a Walmart parking lot and people would be riveted. The pressing need: figuring out what clothes to bring to the resort on the Mediterranean. I can pack for Vegas. I can pack for Mexico. I know whatever I bring will be great. Europe is a whole 'nother story.
I just wanna look cool so bad. I ended up emptying half of my closet into my suitcase. I figure I'll get a feel for it when I get there. My mom couldn't figure out how so many clothes could be well under the 50 lb limit until I pointed out to her that I dress like a floozy in the summer, hence, all my clothes are just scraps of fabric and don't weigh anything.

Then, instead of packing, I ate veggie dogs and drank white wine with my friends and made a bunch of headbands in hopes that I'll look like a cool gypsy in Spain. I also dressed up and acted like an angry man. Put a cumber bun on me and the testosterone flows like magma.
Made sure I packed my cat.
I blinded/confused him with the flash so that I could sedate him, and then I piled all my clothes on top. We're gonna have the best time touring Barcelona together.
When you're up til 3 am packing, it only makes sense to add a little puff paint detail to your luggage.
And a little beading to the zipper, in case some other genius happened to puff paint hearts on their suitcase- they won't mix theirs up with mine.
So I'm off! Gonna act like some pretentious artist as I sketch some of the architecture. I have no clue how to sketch buildings, but I know how to pretend that I do.

How Bazaar How Bazaar

Got my order from Amazon yesterday. Pops-in-law has a mailbox in the states. Got free shipping, and didn't have to pay coming back through the boarder. Win win win. Why is getting stuff in the mail so much fun? Just before we got married in the Dominican, I ordered an entire wardrobe of beachy clothes for the wedding and honeymoon through eBay. I really loved buying clothes in "lots" (eight summer dresses for $40 you say?). I got everything shipped to the P.O box in Point Roberts. Came home from the honeymoon and kinda swore off eBay because it was such a success that I didn't want to get addicted.

Scotty orders almost all his textbooks from Amazon. I got a big, thick environmental sciences textbook for $3 one time.

It's go-time. I went to the Kwantlen website and jotted down all the things I need to include in my portfolio and stuck it up on my wall. Now it stares at me every day.
Because I really wanna learn to draw waifs. I always sketch out ideas for clothing, but my models look lame. When I watched "September Issue" I was in awe of the creative director, Grace Coddington. That woman is a true genius. She sketched every outfit she saw in the designer showrooms. She did it so rapidly and her sketches were gorgeous! I'll be truthful... I just really wanna be a Coddington.
How cool will I be when I can draw sassy waifs like this?
Sticking on sheet music as clothing? Even better. It's not just entirely fashion figures, but also gets into the artsy stuff too. I really wanna steal this idea.
I want the one on the right on my bathroom wall. That veil detail is incroyable.

My mom scoped this one in Chapters. It was $40 : ( I went home and found it on Amazon for $9 : ) While I waited in the roasting hot sun in the boarder line-up I swooned and ooh'd and awe'd over its pages.
Doing it! Filing cabinets can be found by the dozens in thrift stores. I really need some drawers to put Scotty's clothes in (he said he's fine with living out of laundry baskets... I took up all the closet space- total hog)- me thinks 2 filing cabinet covered with some wicked wallpaper would do just the trick!
Who needs to buy the chair? We don't have a kitchen table. I really want to make some big floor pillows so we can eat off the coffee table. I have a huge weakness for brick. Every time I see the Humphrey's Brooklyn loft on Gossip Girl, I feel weak in the knees.
This may be my dream sitting room. That Moroccan style fireplace is way too much for me to handle.
And then this bedroom? It's settled: I want an entire house made of brick and plaster.
Dresses as artwork. Poke my eyes out. There is no end to the creativeness in this book. I need to step things up a bit. I want the professors to want to poke their eyes out when they see my portfolio next May. Just in case they do, I'll bring along a poking stick to my review.
Are you crying tears of blood yet? I am.
I would gladly become an alcoholic for this liquor cabinet.

Hermit the Frog

I love my time alone. Put me on house arrest, I dare ya. I would find so many things to entertain myself. Sometimes I have these fantasies about becoming the next Martha Stewart- except I wouldn't be pretentious, and my crafts would center around recycling old crap. When I make my stuff, I don't say "it's a good thing"- I yell, "I'm a crafts genius!"

Last month, I bought a pack of puff paints. Haven't worked with the stuff since grade 4. And even then, I intentionally blobbed the paint on so that I could pick at it when it dried. I've been trolling online stores for inspiration for stuff to paint on my tee's and tanks. During one particularly hermity day, I pulled out the puff paints and went at my sketch pad to copy this sweet wolf tee I found somewhere (I've clicked-and-dragged so much inspiration onto my desktop from urbanoutfitters, MODcloth, and TopShop).

Rough sketch done in front of the computer. Did it as fast as I could so that I could get outside in the sun.

Discovered these at my nieces 2nd birthday party. Kids stuff blows my mind. So you mean I can draw crap on a piece of paper and then iron it on to my clothes?

Crayola master piece: check. Tan started: check. Boring old tank top selected to be given a second life: check.

Lucky for me, I read the instructions just before I ironed this on. "Remember that image will be reversed when ironed onto garment"... in bold. Hungry like a wolf is already hard enough to find, let's not make it all a backward jumbled mess.

Sorry green tank, your day will come.

Ironed the image to the inside of the shirt. Needed white for the see-through-ness so I could puff paint the heck out of it.

Next time I'll hold that iron down longer. Clearly neglected the outer parts of the wolf.

Pretty good. A little too predictable. Needs something more.

And then while I was carrying it, the collar folded in on itself... so I just folded the entire collar in on itself so you couldn't see the mistake. Reminded me of my kindergarten days when my mind was blown by my teacher, Mrs. Core, who got us to paint one half of a butterfly on a card and then we folded it together and, bam!, there were two wings!

Final touch... the eyes glow. Glow in the dark puff paint!