architheque

National landmarks
First you have to park. Then you have to pay. Then you have to stand around with a lot of other fat Americans and their stupid children and their mewling old folk. Do so.

I lived a childhood with parents who were too groovy to do those square tourist things (Gen X had not yet invented irony), and so I never knew just how important Mount Rushmore is. Or the mile-high statue of Crazy Horse carved into the other side of the hills. Or Devil’s Tower, in a hideous corner of Wyoming. Well, my son and I experienced those three magnificent places in 24 hours (with a stint at a Flintstones theme park along the way), and still had time to stop and burgle some doubtless-protected wildflowers for the water bottle in my lousy VW cupholder.

There’s a reason we protect certain places, a reason the Parks Service takes the trouble to put up bathrooms and water fountains and collect your toll: because these places are treasures, every one, and if you’re within an hour of one, you must really stop and see it. We’ve been to national parks up and down the Sierra Nevada; we’ve been to Niagara Falls. We’ve seen Arches in Utah, and Zion National Park. We’ve roamed the gilded halls of Breakers (the Vanderbilt family home) in Newport, R.I. We’ve been everywhere, man.

Plus, the Park Service could really use the dough.

-Rebecca Schoenkopf

My thoughts exactly. If there’s something amazing within a few hours drive of you, why not go see it this summer? The park service really could use the dough, and we all need to feel awe (and perspective!) every once in a while.

Buy yourself some flowers this weekend, okay?

I’ve never before seen a Christmas cactus put out a single bloom, but there you go. Even one is something to be thankful for.

(BTW: After you come to the conclusion that IKEA’s ceramic and glass 365 food storage dishes kinda stink (especially when the seal comes off the glass lid and refuses to go back on), you’ll realize they make great planters!)

Summer is coming.  Are you ready?

So I was at the laundromat this weekend, taking the very good advice of another patron to hang up my shirts right out of the dryer, even if it did mean awkwardness in the car. I’m humming and hanging and squinting under the fluorescents, when I notice the above.

Does all my clothing being blue, green, or black mean that I’m a smart lady who knows what she looks good in, that I’m too obsessed with my favorite color, or that I’m in a serious style rut? If I’m allowed to vote in my own election, I pick the first one! I take all kinds of colors into the fitting room. The blues, greens, and blacks are all that ever come back out. Can’t help it; I look fine in a good blue.

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Design*Sponge featured a design guide for home sweet home today.  I would have added a lot more for Durham, even though it’s obviously not Raleigh.  But still, Askew’s and Lilly’s!  Way to go!

Hope there’s sunlight on your face this weekend…and if you’re geographically lucky, the inimitable scent of fresh, salty air under your nose.

I’m off on what Bridget Jones would call a mini-break…it’s much needed and I can’t wait.

A bright yellow box from Sarajevo in the mail!

Seriously, is this box not the color of a smile on a rainy day?

And it has deer on it. Deer are so totally in these days.

Happiness is also a friend whom you’ve never met, but who you know is absolutely positively a real friend. Sometimes (have you noticed?) internet friends can become more dear than people you meet every day. This dear friend is Hajra. She is my alter-ego in Bosnia, although that’s not fair to say since she’s much more talented than I am at just about everything in the world. She’s an über good illustrator and cartoonist by night and an architecture competition genius by day (and night and day and night <- joke for former architecture students, ha!).

Happiness is a good friend who will buy you something you love (that only can be had in Spain) when they’re passing through Barcelona themselves.  And happiness is getting a care package with a fresh new notebook, warm socks, and said Spanish object of adoration.

Thus concludes my happy dance for the day.   Hip hip hooray!  Go, Hajra!

A personal pitfall of mine is that I am impatient. I want my finances to be in a certain place, I want my house to look a certain way, I want my life to be comprised of certain activities, and I want to be a certain person – and I get frustrated that I can’t make all these things happen immediately.

Just because I have a clear vision doesn’t mean I get to move to the head of the line. I’ve been working lately on being satisfied with being en route, and being more forgiving with myself that I’m not “there” yet, wherever “there” might be.

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.

When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; we do not criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place, and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.

The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change: Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.

A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing . . . a flower in the process of expressing its potential.

-Tim Gallwey

This has lovely reverberations with regard to your career in the design field (we don’t all get to be starchitects or designers with our own tv show by age 29) , and the shaping of your belongings and routines to reflect your evolving philosophies. Becoming the architect I want to be is slow going. So is giving up all the habits I have that don’t gel with my sustainable leanings (I confess! I bought food packaged in styrofoam yesterday!).

But it’s okay. Really.

image by Amehare

Apparently, it’s not my month for following the rules. I just got dinged on Freecycle for making a request for used glass jars that people might have headed for the recycling bin. Turns out you can only ask for one thing on your first wanted post (woe, I asked for multiple jars), and they would have rejected me anyway because I haven’t offered anything (I only joined at the begining of the month).

My ba humbug for the day. Thing is, now I feel less inclined to give something away there. Like maybe I’ll give it away on Craigslist instead. Spiteful, I know. Shame on me.

Might just be one of those months for me. Hopefully Feburary will be better. I’m trying to do some housekeeping in my life at the moment, getting some serious tasks done that are long overdue. Finances, taxes, living conditions, professional situation, website, and portfolio all are coming before the firing squad for a little mix-up. I probably won’t post as much, even though I have lots of ideas for posts (one currently saved draft is titled “The Dresser From Hell”…it’s exciting!). Rest assured I’m still reading all of your (ya’lls?) blogs though. Brightens the day.

image by _felix

I’m winging my way home tomorrow. Not sure if I’ll be posting whilst away – I haven’t packed yet, so there’s no telling if there’s room for the laptop or not. In case I end up MIA for the next nine days: Happy holidays to you!

How could I not pass this on? A website to locate non-corporate cafes, book stores, and movie theaters.

‘In An Analysis of the Potential Economic Impact of Austin Unchained (Nov. 15, 2003), Civic Economics reports: “For every $100 in consumer spending at Borders, the total local economic impact is only $13. The same amount spent with BookPeople (an independently owned bookstore) and Waterloo (an independently owned music store) yields more than three times the local economic impact.”‘

I’m totally for keeping it local when possible.