#80: happy birthday to the mister + the sister.

(^^would you just look at that face! oh it kills me. )


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

ERIC (my hubs)
+
CHALICE (my baby sis)

you wanna get her something but you just can't think of the perfect gift? help her get to + be able to stay in Uganda! She's almost to her goal of raising the entire amount. (entire amount means she stays for the whole 6 months. if she dosen't reach that, she's coming home early. that's no good!)


If anyone should go + stay in Uganda to love on babies who need it, it's Chalice. Wish her a happy birthday + then make it happy by giving her exactly what I know she wants more than anything else !

(and yes i'm shamelessly plugging my sister because I believe in her mission, her drive + her capabilities. she will transform lives. i have no doubt.)

if you'd like to be her launching pad, contact her here for more info on how to support her.

on a designer's role:

"like a small voice that gets attention in a crowded train station, we know that the way to get someone's attention is not by shouting but by making deep and lasting connections. we know what it takes to make an idea resonate in a world weary of too much information, too many frusterations and far too many people wasting our time."

Howard Belk

#79 happy when i get to be carefree again

when your a design student you just don't get too much creative freedom.there's a whole lot of problem solving, aligning, balancing + calculated adjustments but not a lot of glue under my fingernails or snippets of paper littering the ground around me.(like in the old days when the dining room table was perpetually piled high with paper and magazines and buckets of art supplies.)

that's why i'm grateful whenever i can be creatively messy + free again.

i helped eric do the above project for an art eduation class he took last semester. he had to make a lesson plan + then produce the art that he would expect from his middle school student. so he lesson planned it and i promptly reverted back to being a 13 year old. btw, one of the perks of marriage is that you become one so if i do a portion of his project it's just like he did it. see, EVERYONE should get married. there's just all sorts of fantastic loop holes like this ;)

i actually threw this project away. i have a problem with getting rid of things. (i swear nothing stays in my house for more than sixth months.) but just had to photograph and share it with you.

happy tuesday evening!

#79 good layouts + gorgeous photographs

 I wish i knew exactly how to channel my enthusiasm whenever I crack open the cover of a particularly promising magazine + find beautiful, gasp-worthy spreads inside. I haven't found an outlet yet. help me. do i rip it out and frame it for a bit? do i call a friend? do i scan it in to my computer and quickly email the ones I know will gush like me? this time, I slowly flipped through the pages --back and forth and then back and then forth in no linear way, just soaking it up. I shared my magical floppy book with both my husband and his brother, neither of which looked like might cry (the way i felt.) but, it felt good and incredibly fitting to simply share.

needless to say, this magazine won't be hitting the recycle bin anytime soon. 

(p.s. if you happen to pass october 2011 issue of vogue at a newstand by you, please take a minute to crack the cover. and if you feel the need to rip pages from something dosen't belong to you, know that i've been in your shoes and you're not crazy. you just like good layouts and gorgeous photographs. and then buy the thing and be at a complete loss for what to do next.)

#78 i like brother dynamic

saturday night with the boyz.  

(eric & bryan bushaw, everybody)

had a lot of sister dynamic growing up.

not a ton of brother dynamic. 

i like watching these brothers together.

#77: thankful that I matter (& that I don't.)

sleepy shots taken during a gas station stop on a car trip from georgia to colorado. 

eric is such a worker and a helper i will always marvel.

It's the end of Monday and I'm happy for a long day of solid work, a 3 block walk in the hazy afternoon sunshine to 'Sunflower Market' to meet my boy, a sample of sliced lunch meat before buying a whole bundle and a simmering evening with sausage, fleetwood mac, and a little bit of phil collins for good measure. I'm thankful for a short and sleepy pillow chat before Eric was gone for the night. Now I'm up letting my mind wander down from it's place high in the clamour of the day. Usually after Eric goes to sleep--when his breath becomes rhythmic and his body is still and low--- I slip out from under the covers and go find something to do.


I am thinking tonight about how much I change my mind about myself. Do you know this feeling? If I'm feeling good, it's because hey,  I am good. I've always felt good and I always will. How could I ever doubt it? I'm going good places, meeting lovely people and becoming the person I always thought I would be. All is well if not completely perfect. And it's funny how all it takes it one awkward moment, one bad conversation or exhaustion during a hot day at work and I'm so unhappy with who I am, where I am and where I'm going. 

Simply put, this is where I return: I was created within my spot in the world.  I am loved by the source of love. I am achingly valuable simply by existing. It is poignant to feel alone and miserable. It is a blessing to feel otherwise. In the bliss and sweat of it all there is sacredness and truth.

But ultimately, and most wonderful of all,  I am not/don't have to be the center of my existance. I needn't go up and down with myself all day long wondering who I am in the midst of it. (I can, but I'd only become dizzy and maybe a little sick.) There is something so much bigger and better that demands my attention.

The answer is not to figure out myself. The answer is to shift my focus (completely. entirely. utterly. and only by grace.)

"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" Matthew 25:40

# 76 : a yearly reminder

'Cyclical' | oil on canvas. my final project for Color Theory during sophomore year

I've always mildly hated the dawn of September. It's an awful ending to something glorious and downright dreamy; a stone wall smack in the middle of a beautiful, down hill bicycle ride. It's the big sigh at the end of a long, drawn out laugh that leaves you slightly depleted solely because of the new absence and, realizing that the lighthearted moment is gone, you dutifully get back to washing dishes. The flipping of the calender usually displays a jar of pencils or an obnoxiously yellow school bus or something equally as depressing and unsurprising (the dreaded apple with a ruler propped nearby). Although I will say, in defense of calenders, that my Andy Warholone is currently displaying some technicolor high heels which is immensely satisfying and subtlety thrilling. I'm not one of those people who loves school supplies. ( In fact, I try really hard not to buy them. ever. Just use the ends of old notebooks and pens I find in the car & try my best to pretend like I won't have to do that much class work at all, really.)

However, the 9th month of every year will always hold a huge amount of poignancy for me because I was born on it's very last day. On that same day each year I grow that much older and sink 365 days deeper into this gritty story of life.

So despite tight schedules, routine, empty sheets of paper waiting to be filled, sitting for hours at a time, homework in the late evenings and bitter early mornings, i love September. It's my reminder that time never rewinds, that I am always and unavoidably moving forward and that my adventure is ever so slowly wrapping up and I'd better make the most of it.