Summer Goals 2011

Inspired by Summer Goals posted by Danielle of Sometimes Sweet, I jumped on the planning bandwagon!

I only have a little over a month off during the summer, which is way different from a lot of teachers...BUT I plan to make the most of that break with the following to dos! Some of the to-dos will help me prepare for the next school year, therefore ultimately allowing me to settle back and not think about instruction for a little while! This is almost an impossible task, so I plan on tackling the work related to dos first, and then settling into a productive but relaxing and adventure filled break!

Here are my Summer 2011 Goals!

1. Make demonstration videos and outline my entire 2011-2012 Curriculum. Order all supplies for Fall 2011 School Year. The Curriculum outline will be hard if our schedule is not set, but I plan on at least mapping out the year with hopes that instead of the block schedule we have now, that I will have all classes across the entire year instead of in blocks. Either way, I am going to plan out exactly what happens that allows my students to progress from one skill to another. I am also planning on creating a block of time during the year that is devoted to TAB. I have already outlined what this will look like, but I will spend a couple of days creating rubrics and finalizing how this system will work.

2. Drive cross-country. I have not yet decided how this will happen but I know that this summer is the summer! I have wanted to do this for a while, but never really felt I had the time...but why not? I will either fly over to California and make my way back, or drive over and then fly back...not sure! I know that the things I want to see are: Redwood Forest, Austin Texas, Yosemite National Park, New Mexico, some hot springs, and as much as it sounds crazy, I really want to see deserted flat lands of sprawl and take photographs. I am really excited for this, and excited to hash out the plans for this in the coming weeks! Is there something that you know I really have to see?

3. Get a community garden plot and grow grow grow! I have been dragging my feet on this thing for a bit now, and I really need to lock down my growing space within the week. Living in Providence had the added benefit of backyards, and sometimes decks, and so I was able before to make raised beds or do container gardening right on my own little rented space. This year being in NYC prevents the challenge of land...so I will be locking that down soon. I already started my seedlings, without a place to put them once they get big! How irresponsible!

4.Baby I like it raw! So, a few spring/summers ago when I was rounding out my graduate degree at RISD, I was doing raw every other week...and boy did I like how it made me feel! I mostly used recipes from Raw Food Real World, and would fill my belly with smoothies in the morning, huge salads from my garden in the afternoon and get adventurous with cashew cheeses and raw soups in the evening. Summer is a great time to embrace a raw diet because there are so many options for fresh produce, and you naturally crave things like raw fruits and veggies during hot months. I plan to do the week on, week off raw diet again this summer. Maybe this will be the year I finally spring for a dehydrator, who knows!

5. Visit with friends! Carr's pond, perhaps a kickball game, picnics, girl dates, bike rides, doggie play dates...I will use the time I have to make sure I get out in the sun, jumping off rocks into cool water with my buddies. Can't wait!

6. Focus. I am going to start meditating and make sure I set aside time for this. I am reading a lot about meditation and I think summer break is a great time to slow down and try it out.

7. Get buff! Ha, well not really...but kind of! Without a job to rush off to be at in the morning, there is no excuse to not do my pushups, yoga and cardio each day. (okay okay so maybe a day off here and there), but I plan to make a schedule and stick with it...because when I make myself sweat and I work out my body, I feel so much better!

8. Paint & start my illustrations I started the preliminary work for a new series, and also have started some brainstorming for a book I want to draw. I will make certain to keep a regimented time inside the studio, and I am sure that my trip across country will help inform my work as well. I already try to log at least an hour a day making art (you know, the kind that isn't a demonstration piece for a kindergarten art project)...so I will increase this and get myself focused and in my studio. I haven't yet set a plan for the amount of work I want to create, but I have started the sketching and thinking part of this new series and I am really excited to have the time to focus on my own pieces!

9. I know this is completely wishful and perhaps insane, but I really want to travel out of the country. Considering that I already went to France this year, I will have to stick with something like Canada, Mexico or St. John...but at least if I don't get that done during my break, I need to set a date and get going to one of these places. I could hit up Mexico during my cross country drive, and I have never been to Montreal so I really want to check that out! My sister and her husband have gone to St. John a few times, and I would love to get away and camp on the beach there....ahhh to dream! This is a WANT goal, and it would rule if I can accomplish it, but it may be trying to cram in too much.

10. Sorry parents! Get tattooed! It has been a long time since I have gotten any new pieces, and baring my skin makes me realize all of the empty space I could put beautiful new work on! I have been wanting a few particular pieces for a while now, and so I am going to commit myself to at least one of those...and my best friend Missy was just talking to me last night about what our matching tattoos should be. We have some pretty funny ideas already, and I don't want to give anything away here yet, but I can say, "I'm the Block Island ferry, coming to take you to Newport!" (this is an inside joke and don't worry if it makes no sense...it never has made any sense to anyone but us!)

11. Create! Time to keep that sewing machine warm with work and make some new pieces. I want to make some practical pieces, and I want to finish this crazy design I came up with that is completely impractical but hopefully so awesome that it just doesn't matter!

All of this hype is making me count down the days...36 more instructional days...Summer break is almost here! YES!

Sunday's Song and Flashback

Okay, so here is a plug for a band I absolutely love. Brown Bird, who resides now in Providence... (where I just moved from and lived for a very long time...and yes, Providence still feels a little like home to me).

Brown Bird is such a talented, amazing band made up of very humble and sweet band members. For my 29th birthday, my then boyfriend threw me a surprise party in our apartment and Brown Bird played. It was the best surprise ever! (Well that and the fact that he also gave us two tickets to France to travel there on my February break...hello amazing!).

This is one of my favorite Brown Bird songs, By The Reins. Listen the the lyrics, I can certainly relate to them. So beautiful.

Recorded Version:

Live in Berlin:

Here are some photos from that night:

MoMa visit

Wednesday I headed into the city and met up with my sister to check out the Abstract Expressionist exhibit at MoMA.

One of my favorite sites was this man videotaping the painting. I pictured him sitting his family down and making them watch videotapes of paintings on a loop, sort of the equivalent to the horrors of watching family vacation slides.

After seeing the Abstract Expressionist pieces, we headed over to the music exhibit, Looking at Music 3.0.

I wish we had more time, and I will certainly have to go back to the music exhibit...zines and Le Tigre and the creation of the music video, so cool!

As the Museum was closing, we headed over to Cafe 79 and had dinner, which was awesome...and then we checked out the Design opening at the Czech Center. Days and nights like these make me feel so happy to live in NYC!

PS. I know the responsible teacher in me should not find this funny...but I love the little details, and seeing this at the Museum gave me a laugh.

Thankful Thursday V.7

"The essence of life is that it's challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally getting it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."
-Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart.

I know I am alive today because I woke up feeling strange, from a nightmare where I was being arrested for stealing a pen. Yes, somehow something funny that happened manifested itself into my brain and gave me an anxiety dream. I had to laugh at myself for this one!



I know I am alive today because later I spent/wasted the time from noon until 3:30PM at the Brooklyn DMV, pretending to distract myself from misery with Whole Living Magazine...and left sans license. (not "liscense" as my predictive text kept spelling out on my "smart"phone.)

I know I am alive today because when I tried to watch Modern Family after the DMV debacle to get a laugh, my computer kept stalling out and I was unable to stream video.

I know I am alive today because I took the train into Manhattan to go to Anthropologie to look around, and I walked to what I thought was 375 W. Broadway...I was at 375 something Broadway at least...and there was no Anthropologie there.

Without all of these little (or big depending on how you interpret each situation)...nuisances, I would have perhaps not have noticed the little things that happened today as acutely as I did.

First off, a BIG thing! Mark gave Missy the ring today! Now I can blog freely and openly about our adventures in covert Wedding dress shopping and planning out the ceremony!

I am thankful that my best friend has found a loving partner, and I am thankful for her happiness.

And now some little things, some of which may have gone unnoticed had the bad things not happened...

I am thankful for the sweet smell of tulips wafting through the air in the city.

I am thankful for a beautiful sister, inside and out, who will pick up the phone anytime even if she knows she is just going to hear me complain about the DMV and how incompetent they are.

I am thankful for past relationships blossoming into friendships, and for the ability to set aside anything that irks us in order to help one another out with advice and a friendly ear.

I am thankful for talented and hardworking people in my life, who I am consistently proud of and inspired by.

I am thankful for his wet nose on my hand in the subway, as I read wise words about accepting life, with all of its ups and downs. That little shared moment made all the more sweet by the pangs of today's mishaps.

I am thankful for both the ups and downs of life.

Czech Center Design Show: A Peek Inside

Wednesday I had the pleasure of hitting up the Czech Center NY Design Opening, New G(o)ods, which is an exhibition of the 2010 Czech National Awards for Student Design. It is showing at the center through May 26.

Here are some photos from the opening: