Happy Easter Eggs & Bunny Ears (#ced2010)
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Racy Stories Rock: Reading “Rock Chick Rescue” (ced#2010)
Reading "Rock Chick Rescue" in bed
I decided that my Creative Every Day Challenge today (other than being creative at work which doesn’t necessarily count for CED2010, or creating a colorful salad for dinner, or taking a few mobile photos while walking home today sans Emotikin) is going to be reading my new favorite book, Rock Chick Rescue by my favorite sexy mystery-romance writer friend, Kristen Ashley. The green cover just happens to be in keeping with my green-week theme.
This is the second in Kristen’s Rock Chick series, which my bookgroup read last summer and then met at The Hornet on 76 Broadway to discuss it (because much of the book takes place in the Baker District and downtown Denver). Being a Denver native, I love her crowd of colorful characters you wish you could party with (but you might be too shy), or meet at the coffee shop and live vicariously through their raucous hot escapades while sipping a latte and pretending to read. Her version of a bookstore/coffee shop, Fortnums, makes me wish our Starbucks could be like that! Well, not counting the crazy crime scenes.
Last night I devoured the first 45 pages over a quiet solo dinner. Then devoured more til midnight, reading in bed. Tonight, I need to pry the book out of Emotikin’s hands (big Emotikin and Tattoo Emotikin were fighting over who got to read it during the photo shoot) so I can find out what happens next with Jet and Eddie.
Thanks a LOT Kristen!
Getting to the good stuff in "Rock Chick Rescue"
Read Kristen’s website and blog about her books series
and media attention in the UK, where she lives & writes
(and makes us who know & love her proud).
A Saturday To Myself is Like a Blank Canvas (#ced2010)
A day all to myself, in the house with nobody but me and the dogs…ahhhh, luxurious. Nap…ahhhhh. Really vivid dreams…aaahhh. A stack of blank canvases I’ve had for two years was calling to me. And Emotikin wanted to play, too. First, a blank-canvas photo shoot to get our creative juices flowing (for our Creative Every Day Challenge).
Blank canvas Saturday
- Does this shadow make my gut look big?
- Ta da!!! Seven hours later! My first Van Gogh-y canvas ever.
I forgot to eat—except a cupcake Wil made for me left crusty by two days on the counter, unclaimed and unexplained. While painting, I listened to three of the CDs from “Mother Night: Myths, Stories & Teachings for Learning to See in the Dark” —a 6-CD audio series by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés just released by Sounds True (where I work in marketing & publicity). I didn’t listen to the CDs in order. I started with session six, “Mining the Mother Lode: How to Bring Diamonds from the Darkness (for Artists and People Who Want to Create).” Time flies when you’re immersed in deep teachings, fairytales, and the flow of creating. Happy Saturday to me!!! Aaaaahhhh…
Here is a podcast of Dr. Estés talking about Mother Night just before it launched as an online event series last October.
Emotikin with a real Van Gogh at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris
The Great Garden Gnome Rescue
A story sans words…
- Did the Gnome really need rescuing?
The Snow Day-After
Yesterday’s storm, which only began about three in the afternoon, dumped almost 9 inches in our backyard before midnight. This morning’s picnic table begged for a measurement. Yesterday, knee deep. Today, armpit deep.
Armpit deep the morning after the spring storm
How deep was it really? Armpit deep...
Still, that’s pretty deep, even for these Emotikin. It was too cold to play this early in the morning, and the sun had stayed asleep behind the clouds. The Emotikin decided to crawl back in bed and watch Kung Fu episodes, Season 2, for the whole day. Too bad Terry didn’t invite them to Starbucks with him.
I got home from work about 5:30, still an hour before dark. I couldn’t wait to build a snowman, and the dogs couldn’t wait to find a tennis ball under the snow. While they kept looking, I rolled snow. The Emotikin gave me directions, being quite know-it-all about how best to pack and roll the crusty snow. While I rolled, packed, & molded snow into a play pal, the Emotikin refused to put on mittens, and Bella Luna went inside, pouting, like sisters sometimes do.
Emotikin scaled the ice to afix a nose.
Big Emotikin kept Bella’s scarf and decorated our emerging friend with lava rock stones for eyes and a carrot (one of two that I bought at King Soopers on my way home from work just for this purpose.) I heard myself singing in my head, “And a carrot nose, and two eyes made out of coal…”
It wasn’t a perfectly pretty Frosty the Snowman; he lacked a scarf, a magic hat, a corncob pipe, and a better rounded belly…not to mention those great rubber boots for dancing around town. But since we’re expecting more sun tomorrow, Emotikin and I tacitly agreed that Frosty was good enough for a photoshoot–at least this time. Really, we just wanted to play.
- Playing on the birdhouse
Posing on a mountain of snow
The sun was dropping fast on the other side of the house. The backyard was becoming too cold. What else could we do? The front yard! Let’s go find Gnome!
Tune in to the next posting for the Great Garden Gnome Rescue!
Spring snow! Soggy dogs!
Knee deep!
Sweater weather on the way to work, mitten weather on the way home. I couldn’t wait to take the Emotikin out in the backyard to measure the snow. It was emoti-knee deep on the picnic table at six o’clock. And that was less than 3 hours of snow.
Catching snowflakes on one's tongue!
what ARE you?
Abby and Mia love the snow. I’m so glad I cleaned the kitchen floors on Sunday. Murphy’s Law of Mopping is not a myth.
Mia, come here
"Wipe your feet please." "But I want to go back outside."
Spring Break
Today was the day I thought was the equinox, where at 10am Mtn time, Spring would begin with a day equally balanced. I celebrated with Terry over our first lunchtime picnic of the year, 65 degrees of sun warming bare feet, shoes kicked off, laying back on the Mexican blankets (damp from melted weekend snow). We ate peanut butter & honey on thick white bread from Heidi’s Deli—drenched so it felt like eating honeycomb—and then PB&strawberryJam. It was the 2nd year we’ve been lunching in the old Louisville cemetary, surrounded by ghosts of couples from the 1800’s who danced, lived, ate and died together. Welcome to spring!
No emotikins were present, unfortunately. But if they were, you would have seen a bright sunny day, brown grass trying to be green, blue sky knowing it is turquoise, and a Red Delicious looking better than it tastes. (I think I will start a “Photos Not Taken” page with only word-pictures instead.)
Three years ago, I celebrated spring break with a sister’s vacation—a week in South Beach with Jenéne, a week before I knew I was going to get a new job at Sounds True. Here’s to Not Knowing, to wondering what was next, where I’d choose to be, and trusting that the Universe knew and I didn’t have to…yet. Here’s to the balance of days, light & dark, longer days on the way. (Tonight, Jenéne reminded me that the Spring Equinox was actually Saturday.)
Hello World!
Emotikin likes to travel — to big cities, the beach, the mountains, the river, museums–somedays the front yard is just right for playing with Gnome, building snowmen or drawing with sidewalk chalk.
Join us in our adventures around the globe and around our town of Denver, Colorado.
Emotikin World 