When I don’t really know what to wear or it seems like nothing looks right I reach for my trusty black shirt with the flattering neckline. Well today when I pulled on this old favorite of mine, there were a few dark stains! How do you get dark stains on a black tshirt? I have no idea. All I know is I better find myself a new trusty black tshirt, or there are going to be some bad mornings in our house.

Sunday of this weekend was great. I got to play tourist with a friend from Boston. We met for dim sum at a New Green Bo, then we wandered Chinatown catching a bit of lion dancing. We toured the Tenement Museum and loaded up on treats at Economy candy. My favorite part of the day was touring an installation by artist Mike Nelson called A Psychic Vacuum. Nelson takes an abandoned warehouse and turns it into a maze of found objects.

Accessed through a small door on Delancey Street, the work draws visitors into a parallel universe by way of a series of deeply believable and disquieting architectural spaces, confusing the real with the fictionally derelict. Entering Nelson’s work is an active, and sometimes anxious, experience in which viewers move through an elaborate labyrinth of rooms often concealed within rooms, surrendering their bearings to experience the artist’s three-dimensional narrative.

If you have the chance, go. We ended the night at Schiller’s Liquor Bar. It was basically a vacation without having to leave town.

Ever so slowly M&I are inching towards getting a retreat upstate together. We are dangerously close to getting a building permit, we have ReadyMade DIYM (Do It Yourself Modular) plans, and we have a composting toilet all picked out and ready to purchase. Before you know it we will have a place to sleep and… I don’t have to spell out what a toilet is for, do I? We are borrowing a generator which can provide some ability to recharge power tools and we can rough it for two days without running water. I am getting excited. The more time we are able to spend up there, the more time we are able to start cleaning. I promise to post some pictures so you can see what we are up against.

I need a vacation. A Saturday afternoon in front of the TV just ain’t gonna cut it anymore. I need a vacation. Full stop. The problem here is I am taking such a large vacation in November that I can’t take any time other than that pretty much from now until May. Is it going to be worth it? I think so. We are going to New Zealand and Australia for three weeks. I just hope I can make it that long.

I love color. One of the hardest things for me to do is choose an item that comes in more than one color. They look so good together. Will I like the green one or the red one when I get home? Maybe it is the orange one that will be may favorite. Get me in front of a yarn display and I will want to take home one of each… what am I going to do with only one of each? Excellent question. Striped scarf? Today on craftzine I was reading about a tutorial on color picking. I know that for some people choosing the color palette is the hard part, not necessarily choosing which of the colors they want to work with. Since I am a designer and I have to choose color palettes on a regular basis I am know of a few other tools that are mighty helpful when choosing colors. If you have a picture you like, you can use a color palette generator such as this one or this one to pull out the colors for you. I also like to go to kuler to check out palettes that other people have posted. It is a great way to find something you like. You can always take the swatches with you and find good matches in whatever medium you are going to be crafting. Happy color hunting!!

When I was a kid I enjoyed doing crafts like hook-a-rug and cross stitch. They were the perfect follow the instructions kind of thing that would keep the part of my mind busy that likes to wander and get me in trouble. Today on Craftzine I ran across a link to a recycled Tshirt hook-a-rug. I love it! We all have tshirts that need to be retired and how many rags do we really need? This one in white it quite nice, although I am thinking of all the lovely colorful shirts I have. Best part is you can throw it in the wash!

I know, I know. I am such a slacker. Thanks to anyone who keeps checking. I am going to try and post more than once a week now that the busy part of summer is past. Can you believe it is almost fall already!? Where did the time go!

M&I spent out second weekend outdoors. This past weekend we decided to check out the situation at our property upstate. We recently had some landscaping work done and we wanted to check it out as well as take a look at what was lurking in our storage locker. The original plan was to camp on the property. In a panic I decided I at least wanted access to a shower and plumbing so I booked a site for us at a local camp ground. Although the weather was hot and humid we had a great time. Since we didn’t have a huge agenda we decided to take it easy. After picking a few more items from the locker and getting a few camping items we set up our tent and got settled. We have a few places we tend towards while upstate and decided it would be a nice change of pace to try something new. We decided to try a place called the Bywater Bistro in Rosendale. It was fantastic! Good beers on tap, wonderful food (half portions available) and great atmosphere. Since it was raining when we got back to the campsite, we didn’t get to have a campfire, but there is always next time.

Recently a B&B went in right next to our property upstate. Normally I don’t dislike B&Bs, but this one cleared all the trees on the piece of property and the building is an absolute monstrosity. They even built a walking path on the property that is about 1 inch from the property line between us and them. People have suggested I put up the ugliest cheapest fence I can find to make sure people understand they aren’t supposed to wander off this path. On the one hand, this isn’t a bad idea. The problem is that we are planning on putting a house in an area that would make it so that we have to look at the fence as well. Besides, I don’t want to pay for something ugly. Today I saw this fence on Apartment Therapy and thought it was really nice looking and could be very cheap. I mean we have a ton a branches to choose from. It should be easy to put something along these lines together for very little. Then we can have our privacy and something nice to look at.

When I was a kid we spent two weeks every summer upstate NY hiking and fishing and roasting marshmallows. This past weekend M&I finally made the trip up and had a great time. It was so nice to get out of the city for the weekend. The fresh air, the quiet, all the stars. Just amazing. And then there was the flood of memories. We took the same hike we used to take when I was young, we played chip and putt and we took some pictures of old barns. There is now indoor plumbing and the ceiling is 2 feet higher. There are a few more buildings and the yard isn’t over run with weeds as tall as us. The apple tree outside lost its swing in a storm and although Grandpa swears it is larger than it was 20 years ago, it seems a whole lot smaller. It wasn’t cold enough most mornings for Grandpa to start a fire in the pot belly stove, but he did it once to keep us happy. I could use a getaway like that more often.