awwhhhhh, Saturday!

Weekends have a whole new meaning for me: The weekend. It has been a long looong time where Saturday and sunday meant days off. Last quarter I had school on saturdays. And it seems that as you grow older "weekends" become far and few between, or, they aren't always saturdays and sundays. When I was little Saturdays and sundays were my days off. No school. And cartoons on "One Saturday Morning" were all the rage. Although there is still homework to be taken care of, and house chores to be done, saturdays and sundays are sleep-in days and re-charge days and it feels so, so good.
Today went by quickly but I:
slept in.
made blueberry muffins.
washed dishes.
took a long shower.
blow dried my hair. (this is rare now that I have to wake up before 7 everyday ha ha)
picked out a nice outfit. (again, rare now that I am working with a 3 month old who spits up on everything I wear.)
walked to coffee with my husband.
Got a Free Large Mocha. = a nice treat. (Due to enough stamps on my Palios-regular-customer-card.)
and am writing a blog between researching easter egg traditions (for my next 3D design project) and reading about Gothic architecture.

awwwhhhhhhh, Saturday, I needed you! Thanks for the re-charge!

[not from this morning, but it might as well have been. tousled hair. comfy clothes. BIG cup of tea. Yep that was me today.]

Love,
Katie

My first 3D project

So this project is less interesting, and less worthy of a blog.... but it was my first 3D project... basically.... ever. (outside of any ceramics or what have you I did in elementary school, I can't think of any others) The assignment was about Modularity: creating a sculpture out of many of the same module out of balsa wood. We had to make a shape out of the wood and make atleast 20 replicas and put them all together to make a 3D sculpture. This was my finished result:




TADA!!! I know... pretty exciting, huh? ;) The coolest part about how all of the projects turned out (the balsa wood projects) was how they all reminded me of kid jungle gym models. All of them looked like little models to be made into great big metal structures like they have on the old-school playgrounds (the ones without all the plastic). oh art.... How I love thee...

3D Design : The lost Shoe

Two years ago (well, the summer we got married so... almost 2 years ago) we were driving together, getting on the freeway and heading into.....I think Elk Grove. We had been house sitting for some friends of ours down town and had packed up our car full of what I remember to be as laundry and things from staying at their place. We made it maybe a mile on the freeway to discover that something had just hit our car. "What was that???" Alarms went off in Wes' head (I'm sure there were alarms) and Wes said "My SHOES!" His brand new black, high-top, converse shoes, given to him by his parents, had flown off of the roof of our car. Yes, he did the whole set-your-cup-of-coffee-on-the-roof-of-the-car-and-drive-off-with-it type thing, only, it wasn't coffee. It was his brand new beloved shoes. We took the first exit we could. We drove back to the on-ramp and followed the same route until we thought we saw them. We pulled over (on the freeway) I got out of the car (on the freeway) and walked a while (on the freeway) searching for these shoes. First trip around we found one. We took the exit again, on-ramp again, and stopped a little bit sooner. No second shoe. We drove a little bit further, no second shoe. It was hard to accept that two shoes had flown off the car at the exact same time and landed so far apart. But accept, we did. And we left with only one shoe, and guilt over the gift that was lost because of pure mistake. For one reason or another we kept the shoe. For a long time it sat in the back of the jeep. I think all along we were thinking we would do something creative with it... maybe plant a flower in it or something. Somehow, it moved to Portland with us, and for the last year it has sat outside our backdoor. It is faded from the sun, and sopping wet from the rain (growing mold no doubt, I didn't look inside...) and an opportunity finally presented itself to fulfill it's new purpose: art. For the sake of art the shoe was resurrected and removed from it's spot on the back stairs.

Now, let me explain the art project. My second 3D-Design project was to find a story. A story of a lost object. I was to ask around for items that people had lost, find a story that I liked the best, and recreate that object using wire. The best part is that the assignment isn't complete until we give the sculpture of "the lost object" to the person. I should have kept it a surprise but I didn't. Wes knew I was recreating the lost shoe from the beginning but it was still a lot of fun. When the project was assigned I immediately started thinking about the objects that become useless with out it's partner. For a long while I was stuck on the idea of earrings, because darn-it, I hate losing one earring. But when I remembered the lonely shoe, I couldn't overlook it. So, I set my sights on creating the left foot and that I did:


The project was to explore the use of line in space and how it translates to the viewer. How much can you say about a volume when using something as minimal as a line? I used wire to construct the shoe, paper and tape for the black part, washers for the string holes, and an old shoelace. Pretty fun huh?

We are encouraged to keep in mind the placement of our sculptures. Is it best viewed on a pedestal? On a table? Hanging? With a red background? On the floor? While all of my classmates picked pedestals in the same area, I placed my shoes by the door. No one noticed they were there, and when I told the teacher she was shocked and exclaimed "perfect!!!" when she saw them. Shoes do not belong on a table. You kick them off at the door. This was my first piece of art that was experienced as art should be. It was unpredictable, and shocked people. It should be known that generally when you turn in an assignment that you worked late into the night on, it is viewed for 5-10 minutes and people make comments like "I'm glad you chose black." and "what is the meaning of _______?" And then, it is over. Your hard work was looked at for 10 minutes and then the teacher says "Great, thanks." This time, people were actually engaged in my work and as simple as it was.... wire, tape, paper and a shoe lace. It was a success, and proud I am. :)

Balance

Oh blog readers... it has been too long.... it's funny, I just checked the date of my last post and it was only 8 days ago that I last posted.... I guess that is a while, but I was thinking that it had been at least two weeks.... goes to show how busy I am. Still, it has been 2 mondays since Grandma Fay has had a blog to read and what is a blog if you can't deliver? Right? :)

I know you guys are equally busy, and understanding, but I wish I could pump these things out like we were this time last year. Busy is good though... busy means: I have a job, I am in school, I have a life, and with out this busy life I wouldn't have things to write about. Right?

So, I have a wopper for you. This week has been quite the week. I have cried twice since sunday and well, it's only tuesday. I have a history of crying about the 3rd week into a nanny job... and while I thought that I had put an end to that pattern with this job, that was proven false sunday when I grew teary eyed because of stress, and tonight I cried because I had to wash a pot.... then there was no stopping me. I sobbed and whined like a two year old (I might as well have thrown my food at Wes' face like a two year old would do)... it was quite the tantrum. Maybe I'm over exaggerating... ask Wes... but this is how I felt. I have been here before and generally I only do this when I am a) tired, b) hungry, or c) both. Tonight, I was "c." After my tantrum I have to come to a place where I can push past my embarrassment and admit that I was wrong. Anyway, my point here is that I have been stressed this week. And obviously, I don't respond well to stress. For the past three weeks (before this one) I was going strong. I was worried about being overwhelmed with this job mixed with school but I just kept telling myself "I can do this." "I will do this." And before I got the job, I wanted it so badly (because I cared about the family that much) that I figured I would drag myself through the stress of it all just to make it work, just to be a part of this family. So, this is the part where I have to drag myself through it. I know that I am having a moment of weakness and that I will get on top of things and feel better, I always do... But still, it's been hard. Not even hard in the way of like "I have so much on my to-do list how will I get it all done?" The stress I am feeling is a pulling of goals, the pressure I place on myself to please people- to make everyone happy... I forget about myself sometimes. Over the years I really have improved on this. I have learned to use the word "no." I have learned how to communicate with people so much better and I think that moving to Portland helped me with that as I was forced to meet new people and go "there." Anyway, I have improved but unfortunately, I still struggle. And what kills me is that I can't even recognize it sometimes. Wes has to point it out to me and be like "Katie, you are doing it again, you cannot over commit yourself!!!" Back to the point... my point isn't just that my stress comes from trying to please people. It also comes from my desire to serve this family. I so genuinely care for the family that I am now working with that I want to be their everything. I want to save them from the stress they were going through, I want to make lesson plans for there 2.5 yr. old, and research every single growth spurt little 3 mo. old baby is experiencing but... I can't.... because work cannot be my first priority... School is... I love school and love my art classes and every class is bringing me closer to my dream job but the desire to have a dream job today is hard to avoid. My goal now is to work on balance. It's a good thing that I actually care that much about my job, and it's a good thing that I have school right now but I am learning how to manage the two of them combined and still learning how to say "no" sometimes...

So thanks for listening... it feels so good to write it all out and clear my head... For a more fun little something... check out this next blog about my projects from 3D design.

Katie got a job!

Hello blog-reading friends,

It has been a a couple of weeks since I posted an update of some sort. And well if you haven't heard yet these past two weeks were pretty crazy. Two saturdays ago I replied to a job post on craigslist. Keep in mind I reply to these things all the time and don't always get a response back. So, I applied for the position, unsure of what the job entailed and if I would even have a chance. An hour later I got a phone call from a new agency and they had posted the ad and thought that I might make a great fit for the family. I met with the agency at 8 am the next morning. The morning after that I met the family, & fell in love. They needed a nanny quickly and said I would be starting this past week if I got the job and after a second interview, I. Got. The. Job. !!!! I was so prepared for them to say "no." But, last weekend they called me up and said that they would "love for me to be their nanny." ... and I started on monday. It was a very fast and unexpected couple of weeks. The family has a 2.5 yr. old girl named Daphne, and a 3 month old named Elouise. This is my first nanny job with an infant and I am loving it. The first week went very smoothly. I am excited to have some new kiddos in my life and to have a stable and consistent income once again. I will keep you posted on the adventures of nannying.

This past week I also went on a girls get-away with my home group ladies. It was one of those things that are hard to commit to, but then once you go you are glad you did. I'm so glad I ended up going. It is through these things that you start to get to know people better... we went and stayed in a little cottage in canon beach. Knowing nothing about canon beach I wasn't sure of what the weekend would entail. Turns out, Canon beach is MUCH like Carmel. Small and quaint with not too much more to do then walk the main street and window shop. Plus it even had all the cute little dogs in little sweaters. :) The beach was gorgeous, the weekend certainly recharged my batteries a bit. So, that was nice. For this week, I have several homework projects arising. School has taken off to a great start. I never realized how much I love sculptures and installations.... its like ~NO WONDER I love walking through Anthropologie!!!! I mean, I have always known that I love Anthropologie for the artistic displays but it's just a little reminder of just how artistic they are. Anthropologie is more than a shopping experience.... it's like walking through an art museum, only you can touch everything and even purchase things if you want to. ha ha anyway... here are some of the artists I learned of and have been inspired by this week...

Deborah Butterfield:

This artist is known for making horse sculptures. They are seen outdoors and indoors and generally look like they are made from wood or twigs....when actuality they are made out of steel.



Patrick Dougherty:

He makes sculptures entirely out of twigs and debri from outside. They are also always done on a large scale to be walked around or walked through. So pretty... imagine encountering one of these out in the middle of nature...




I will share more later... but this is all for today. Love you,
Katie

TWO Babies were born!

A congratulations is in order:

Congratulations to Courtney and Carlos. For those of you who haven't heard yet my sister-in-law and her husband have had their twin girls. And the best part is: Everyone is healthy!!! Both babies were born at healthy premature weights of about 5 lbs. On January 3 Gabriella and Sophia were born. Wes and I officially met them through skype the other night and oh what beautiful little girls they are. I wish I had pictures to share but they are only on my cell phone at this point.

Okay so, before watching this video it is important to know these things:
-We were camping at Beverly Beach the same day Courtney and Carlos were to find out the gender of their twins.
-So, Wes and I spend two hours walking the beach, the only place we had reception, waiting for a phone call to tell us the news.
-finally, we receive a text message saying it's boys.
-then, this video is made.
-meanwhile, Wes calls Carlos to see if it was for real. And sure enough it wasn't and now girls are in our lives. yay!
[sorry camera was sideways, but its pretty funny either way]




love,

Katie
PS: I get to have breakfast with one of my bestfriends [marisa collier] and her boyfriend tomorrow morning. in portland. :D

A Recipe To Be Loved By All...

an amazing recipe. simple & amazing. I saw this recipe a while back in Martha Stewart Living....or it may have been Real Simple. Either way I stored it in my brain and we finally made it this past weekend.


To be honest I couldn't really remember measurements or anything so you have to be willing to get a little loosy-goosey with your cooking (a pinch of this, a handful of that). After cooking it I can give you estimates now but I'm just saying forgive me if the recipe doesn't have a perfect formula.

So here it is:
Oven-Roasted Red potatoes & carrots with, Parmesan-Dijon Chicken.
[we obviously used our "special" chicken, so you will have to cook your normal chicken how you would normally cook skinless, boneless chicken. I will just be sharing with you the yummy dressings]

[and, I know our chicken looks crazy but it just takes searing in a pan for 7 minutes and therefore it gets a little crispy...and hot and delicious.Yours won't look like this, since you will probably be cooking yours in the oven.]

So here is the recipe:

For Carrots and Potatoes, you will need:

-a bundle of carrots with stems left on, the skinnier the better so they can cook fast enough in the oven.

-baby red potatoes, enough to feed the number of people you are serving. I generally estimate about 8 potatoes per person
-olive oil
-rosemary
-salt and pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Rinse potatoes and half them. Quarter them if need be. Just remember they can't be too big or else they will take a long time. Put the potatoes in a bowl and toss them with about 2 tbsp or so of olive oil. (just enough to lightly flavor and coat the potatoes) sprinkle with salt and pepper and a couple pinches of rosemary.
on a non-stick cookie sheet pour potatoes along one side. (leaving the other side for the carrots). Cook in the oven for 15 minutes while you prepare the carrots.

Carrots: trim stems so that only a little green is left to make them pretty. rinse carrots and peel them. Place them in the same bowl you used for potatoes and drizzle lightly with olive oil and salt and pepper. Once potatoes cook for 15 minutes take out the pan and place the carrots along the opposite side. Put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes. Total, the potatoes and carrots cook for about 30-45 minutes. I check them at 15 min. intervals to make sure things are still going smoothly. The potatoes will be ready when they are soft in the middle and skins are slightly browned and wrinkled. Carrots begin to caramelize and can be cut into with a fork.

Chicken: This is a recipe that Wes and I have sort of adapted to on our own and we looooove it.
You will need:

-a tbsp of dijon mustard per chicken cutlet.
-2tbsp butter
-2 tbsp red onions
-rosemary
-1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
-1/2 cup bread crumbs (or enough to coat each chicken cutlet)

Directions:
1. melt butter in dish big enough for dipping the chicken into (I use a pie plate).
2. mix your mustard (all that you need) into the butter and stir them together.
3. combine cheese, bread crumbs, rosemary in another dish.
4. coat chicken in mustard mixture, then dip in bread crumbs, then place in oven ready dish. sprinkle each chicken cutlet with a little onions and press into chicken to secure them. Cook chicken as you normally would.
*the mustard in this recipe gives the chicken great moisture. SO DELICIOUS! it's our go to chicken recipe and we don't even add the parmesan usually.


Let me know if you ever try this.. the potatoes and carrots are so perfect cooked this way. Enjoy!

School Starts...

Tomorrow. baaaah! no, no, noooooo! I'm not ready! I want another week! But that unfortunately is not going to happen. This quarter I am taking:

-Gothic Art History
-3D Design
- Marriage and Intimacy (I have to pick 4 "Capstone" courses basically they are upperdivision general ed requirements that force you take classes outside of your major. I chose Family Studies and thus a class called Marriage and Intimacy)
-and hopefully Art in Elementary School. I was waitlisted so it's sort of a toss up between this or LifeDrawing. I guess I will find out tomorrow! :)

So, with the start of a new quarter I figured it was probably a good time to finally get up all my paintings from last quarter. I know there is at least a couple of you who want to see them still. So here they are.... I wish I were more proud of them than I am but with math and all the other time consuming classes I was taking, painting sort of fell at the end of my list of priorities. All of them are done with Acrylic and all of them are 24" x 18"

The first 3 are a set. I painted three different angles of an orange.




This was the last piece I did and I did it in about two hours while I was sick so, that explains the poor shadows etc...

This is the favorite one I did. I created a collage on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper and then scaled it up to size.

We were required to do one copy. Meaning that we find an artist that we like and copy one of their paintings with a graph and everything... This is The Bath by Mary Cassatte.
Again, one of my final pieces done while I was sick...

And this was one of the first ones I did. My teacher and I call this my experimentation. I really struggled this quarter with the idea of content... what content makes a good painting? Who decides this? How do I decide what I want to paint? This was me really experiementing and getting out some artistic frustration if you will. :)
My Final Project for 2D Design: We had to take our abstract image of a vegetable that we created (I chose an artichoke) and then apply different color harmonies to the same image. On the left (orange and green) is the split complimentary color scheme, middle is the double-split complimentary color scheme, and on the right is a complimentary color scheme. Painted with Acrylic.

I look forward to sharing with you the knowledge I gain this next quarter.
Love,
Katie

Happy New Year!

2010. I had to write this date for the first time today and it felt very strange. A whole decade of my life has passed. If you frequent the Youngren's blog like I do you will see that Erin posted a blog about what she was doing 10 years ago. (For those of you who don't know, The Youngren's are wedding photographers and they did Bekah & Scott's wedding. Since then I've been basically a big fan.) ;) And this got me thinking about where I was 10 years ago. I know I am young and that I have a very little life to begin with but ten years ago I was 12. And this makes me feel even younger. ha ha But Its amazing to me what a hunk of time 10 years is and just how much can happen and take place in that amount of time. When I was 12 I was extremely happy, observant and thankful for the life that I had. However this was also the beginning of jr. high and I was incredibly insecure. So many good things came into my life in highschool that formed me to be the person I am today. I am thankful for the way I was raised and I am thankful for the church youth group with all of its successes, trials, and tribulations all of which contribute to my story. For 8 of the past 10 years I have known Wes. For 5 of the past 10 years I dated Wes. For 1.5 of the past 10 years I have been married to Wes. I wonder what the next 10 years of my life will look like.... It will be a big 10 years that's for sure. I am excited to see what it will bring. Thank you for every one of you, because if you are reading this it likely means that you care about me/Wes and if you care about us enough to read about us you probably have your fingerprints in our stories too. So, Happy New Year to you!

With Love,
Katie