Picnic in Central Park!

Yesterday was one of those absolutely perfect Spring Days, and Nik, Amina, and I took full advantage and packed up a picnic to take to Central Park. I made an Eggplant and Spinach Muffaletta (From Veganomicon, with olive relish, roasted red and yellow peppers in a fresh sourdough bread) and brought some fruit from the fruit stand. A yummy Avocado Bean salad and marinated Eggplant was also gobbled up, thanks to Amina. I forgot to take a picture of my plate. I was excited because I got to play my favorite card game in the world: Uno! Nik totally sucks at it. Ha!

Central Park is such a great people-watching place, and in the springtime it is especially beautiful with the blooming flowers surrounding you. It never gets old. And even though you know that there a million other people enjoying the park alongside you, it never really feels extremely overwhelmingly crowded.

After our picnic, we meandered around random paths, taking in the lack of traffic noises and enjoying all the fresh blooms and sights. All the Cherry Blossom trees are in full bloom! And we're talking MASSIVE trees here. So Beautiful.

People carved their names with their sweethearts on this tree, as high up as we could see. The higher up you go, the more serious it is, you know.



I loved these leaves. They felt fake! like thin foam core or something. So much detail in them though.



I always remark on how "cute" flowers are. Cute flowers always remind me of Alice in Wonderland. Best part of the story! These flowers most definitely fall into the cute category.



That girl in the rowboat had two shirtless boys rowing her around!


This has to have been the most pimped out bike I have ever seen. We were all mesmerized for a good 15 minutes by this Roller-dancing party we stumbled across. Girls with synchronized dance moves and coordinating outfits; Guys with some serious 12-packs moving in slowmotion around the "dance floor", senior citizens getting down with their bad selves on their rollerskates to the bumping beats. Pretty insane.

This is one of my favorite parts of Central Park; The mall area, with these enchanted looking trees surrounding you. I think I like it because it's hard to see the buildings surrounding the park, so you feel like you are in the middle of grand forest with happy people all around you.

Girl in the sunshine doodling the girl in the shadows

What the title says. This is the first time, in I can't even remember how long, where I did NOTHING on my lunch break. I'm always so busy running errands or getting supplies or just doing work; I never get to just sit in the sunshine and doodle to my heart's content. Not that there has been much sunshine anyways. But today! It's amazing the mood boost sitting in sun will give you.

I sat by the dog park so the squirrels wouldn't try to eat me.



oh, and i was prolly kidding about the gold leaf part. I have a queau of about 10 sketches that are ready to become paintings. I always change my mind once I get to them!

ahhh weekend! Free Regina Spektor show! Picnic in Central Park tomorrow! Muffaletta! These are the plans anyways. Also: repair bike; get dirt for plants; uh, clean? (yeah right.)

Apfel Kuchen

Apples mixed with cinnamon and sugar, baking, has to be one of the great smells of all time. Nik's mom sent us one of his grandmother's apple pie recipes (nik calls it a cake, but it is so not a cake; pie! there is no batter!) and I veganized it. So yum! It came out pretty too. I had bought some Granny Smith apples at the farmer's market a couple weekends ago, and they just, well, weren't very good apples. They weren't very juicy and they were SUPER waxy. I figured baking them would miraculously make them awesome, and I was right! I scrubbed the wax off first though. I really liked the crust on this; not the traditional shortening-laden crust that I am used to. Denser.

I just got back from seeing Parts and Labor play at Studio B. So good! so happy! I picked up their new 51 song (!!!) EP also and am pretty psyched to rock out to it tomorrow at work. Yacht was the headliner, but screw them. P&L are a bajillion times more talented and interesting, yet the kids who sing along to their laptop get to headline? Heck if I understand.

These last two sun-filled days (spent indoors at work) have me extremely hopeful that this coming weekend will be just as sun-filled (yay outside time!). Am I right or am I right?

Geisha gone wild

Dr. Sketchy's was this past Saturday! The Black Pearl was an awesome model and very pretty to boot. Also, those splits she held: man.

new planter photo shoot

it was a GORGEOUS day outside yesterday, so I took full advantage of the pretty light in the evening and went to the park to take nicer photos of my planters. people were giving me strange looks, but I didn't care. Nothing gets me down in the sunshine! I found the pretty piece of cedar at the farmer's market on friday and also got some wheatgrass (that miles LOVES, and hence why it looks a bit disheveled) for props.










In other news, I turned 28 today.

Chillin' Broccoli Planter!

New planter for my shop! I love broccoli. broccoli loves me. Also, notecards were added to the shop earlier today.



I'm excited for this weekend! This has been SUCH a busy and hectic week. I feel like I haven't breathed in five years. It's my birthday this sunday, so I'm just gonna take it easy and just have a fun weekend. Dance!

hugs and kisses.

Notecards!

hello! Today is a sluggish monday, after a rather lovely weekend. I hung out with Amina friday night at 'Snice and discussed the underlying meaning of The Babysitter's Club series. Quite intellectual, I'm telling you. :) Saturday, I got up early and rocked the gym and the farmer's market. It was SUCH a nice day out! When there hasn't been a really nice day in awhile, I'm always amazed at how instant the mood boost is. I had some work to do, so I moved my stuff to the kitchen table and basked in the sunshine while doing so. Mr. Miles joined me. I finally figured out a good solution for my broccoli planters and will be posting them in the next few days, after they are all painted and varnished and whatnot. Nik and I went to Monkeytown saturday night, and we had a great time. Awesome dinner (they changed their menu, so there is actual vegetarian with vegan options section now! that is the only thing that has prevented me from going in the past.) The setup is cool: 4 projectors on each wall, futons and tables around the perimeter, and a live band in the center. They played THX 1138. Also, some trippy videos at the end. Why don't more places do this?! I hear it happens in the west all the time; the movie theater/restaurant/bar combo. It would make a KILLING here, I think. Have I mentioned I'm going to Portland, OR in a few weeks? EXCITED! I wanna check out their movie theater/restaurant combo! I hear movies are only like $4?? Heck yeah!

I made it to the opening day of the Brooklyn Flea Market on sunday and bought a cuuuuuuute guinea pig card that I'm gonna frame and hang. I was, as you can imagine, pretty excited about this. There were a lot of cool vendors there, a lot I recognized from Etsy and lots that were new to me. It was like, half flea market, half craft fair.

I made these kickass veggie burgers and fries yesterday, but my camera batteries died and I was unable to capture the beauty forever. I'm telling you though, it was a fantastic lunch today. This was my first successful veggie burger, meaning, it actually didn't fall apart. hoo-ray.

Anyways, I made some notecards from my recipe card designs. Almost done, except for a redo on the Carrot one, that I'm gonna fix tomorrow. They will be in the shop soon!

Fun new things

I made an ACEO! This is the first time I have made one and they're kinda fun. I like the challenge of going super-small. Mini is always good in my book. And i like poppies lately, if you couldn't tell.



I also painted up some cards. I think I'm going to make a large assortment and sell them as a "buy all your cards for the whole year" kind of bundle. I mean, people hate buying cards right, so why not buy them all at once? I like the smores one. poor 'lil smores.